NOTE: So this is getting downright hysterical: FanFiction's system continues to delete the name 'Maeve' when typed all in capital letters! I again apologize for the lack of impact Chapter 3 packed and then again for my apology posted with chapter 4. Sheesh.
Several of you dear readers have asked when will the story be finished/when will more chapters be posted. I'm thrilled to report that the story is largely finished. My intent is to post a section of chapters on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, as I'm able to edit. This is my most ambitious story to date, and I've learned that I'm utterly unable to complete a story in under 20 chapters. Even 30.
Thank you, thank you to all who are reading and commenting. Every word is appreciated more than you will ever know. ~ D
Chapter 7
Following a few moments of awkward greetings and Jameson Street's considerable surprise that Perry and Della had already met her mother, everyone moved into the parlor. Eve Wyman settled herself comfortably on a large deep red velvet sofa next to Henny Vander Velde, seemingly oblivious to the deafening silence of the others. Carter Street remained standing near the doorway, Jameson Street dropped heavily into a stretcher base wing arm chair covered in the same red velvet as the couch, and Della seated herself on the piano bench, her back to the monstrous, ornately carved Victorian instrument. After a moment of consideration, Perry crossed the room and joined her on the bench. She stiffened slightly, and refused to look at him. He felt a pang of regret that she remained uncomfortable with his nearness, a regret that devolved into annoyance when she shifted her body away from him further.
"My goodness, Carter," Eve Wyman said brightly. "I hardly recognized you. You were just a scrawny little boy when I left."
"I was almost fourteen," Carter disagreed irritably. "Hardly a little boy."
"What a surprise to see you again, Mrs. Wyman," Perry announced. "You made good time getting here." While he hadn't explicitly requested that Paul Drake shadow Eve Wyman, following their conversation that morning he fully expected the detective to do so. Her appearance at this specific time added to the suspicion in which he already held her. And he couldn't wait to hear Paul's explanation.
"What are you doing here, Evie?" Jameson Street demanded.
Eve Wyman faced her former husband. "I heard about Katherine," she said, holding out her hand. "I'm sorry, Jameson."
"How did you hear about Grandmother?" It was Carter now who demanded an answer.
Eve recoiled slightly, her outstretched hand beginning to shake. "I still have friends in town," she said defensively. "One of them called me late last night."
"And who would that be?" Jameson demanded. "Your father is gone, Mae is in California…oh my God, was it her?"
Eve dropped her hand to her lap and raised defiant eyes to his. "Yes, it was her. She is, after all, my stepmother – the only mother I ever knew."
"You mean to say you kept in touch with your stepmother but couldn't be bothered to communicate with your husband or daughter all these years? What does Bitty want? What do you want, Evie?"
"I don't want anything, Jameson. Bitty called and since I had business in Chicago anyway, I took a detour to deliver my condolences in person. I had hoped maybe you would accept them in the manner in which they are offered."
Della had been frowning during the conversation between her parents and her expression suddenly cleared. "Grandma Bitty? You still talk to her…" her voice trailed off into silence, a little frown forming between her eyes.
Jameson Street sat forward in the wing chair and grabbed for his ex-wife's arm. "I think you should leave now."
"I second that," Carter jumped into the fray.
"Here, here," Della chimed in.
Eve Wyman struggled against wiry fingers that dug into her arm. "You're hurting me, Jameson."
Perry rose from the piano bench and crossed the room to place his hand on the older man's arm. "I'm suspicious of her presence here, too, Mr. Street, but I don't think manhandling her will get us anywhere."
"Why Perry, what have I done to make you suspicious of me?" She widened her eyes and swept long, artificial lashes upward innocently.
"I have a whole list in my purse," Della spoke up. "Perry dictated it on the plane."
Perry nearly choked on a guffaw. Jameson Street let go of Eve Wyman's arm abruptly.
"All this hostility," Eve Wyman began tremulously, "and I haven't done anything to deserve it."
Perry returned to the piano bench and purposely sat close to Della. If she was so inclined to move away from him again she would fall off the bench. "You must admit your appearance first in Los Angeles and now here at this particular time is a startling coincidence. When exactly did you say your stepmother called?"
Eve Wyman allowed a tear to travel down her cheek before flicking it away with a finger. "You know I arrived in Los Angeles after seeing your picture with Della in the newspaper two days ago," she explained in a hurt voice. "Bitty called late last night and told me about Katherine."
"Was that the first time your stepmother called? And how did she know where to call you?"
"Really Perry, must I be cross-examined?"
"I'm merely trying to get at your motives, Mrs. Wyman. Last night your appearance was a great surprise. Tonight your appearance is more than a little suspicious, especially since you must have chartered a flight out of Los Angeles. No commercial flight could have gotten you here so quickly."
"So what if I chartered a flight?" Eve Wyman demanded. "I told you I had business in Chicago…"
"You didn't mention any business in Chicago last night at dinner," Perry pointed out.
"It – it just c-came up," Della's mother stammered slightly. She adjusted the jacket of her beige suit in a transparent delay tactic. "I'm quite offended by the reception I've been given when all I wanted was to console my ex-husband in the passing of his mother."
"What kind of reception did you expect for God's sake, Evie? A marching band or a ticker tape parade?" Jameson Street jumped to his feet and joined his son in the doorway, his back to the room. "You abandoned me and your daughter without an explanation, without saying good-bye…and you never sent so much as a post card in all these years."
Eve Wyman buried her face in her hands and let out a sob. "I know what I did! And you know what you did. I had to leave…you of all people should understand why I left, and – and what it was like living here."
Della stared hard at her mother. She did. She understood perfectly how it was living here.
"I most certainly do know what it was like," Jameson Street countered. "There was no alternative."
"I came back once."
Jameson Street turned slowly to face his former wife. "You came back?"
She nodded vigorously. "Yes. I remember it was raining and I stood outside, looking into the parlor. You were holding a little boy, and had your arm around a blonde woman. Della must have been about seven and was playing the piano. Everyone was smiling and having a lovely time. You had forgotten about me, married again, and had another baby. You were a real family. Bitty told me, but I had to see for myself. And Della," she removed her hands to look imploringly at her daughter, "you were so pretty and looked so happy. I realized you were better off without me, so I left."
Della faced her mother with a scornful expression. "I've seen the movie Stella Dallas, Mrs. Wyman" she said icily. "I cried during the scene where she stands in the rain watching her daughter through the window. You never came back. You never saw anything like what you describe, because nothing like that ever took place in this house." She stood quickly and looked down at Perry, weaving slightly. "I'd like to leave now."
Eve Wyman hid behind her hands again. Muffled sobs could be heard as she couldn't or wouldn't challenge what her daughter had said.
Perry stood and took Della's elbow to steady her. "I think Della and I have had enough for one day. If you'll excuse us, we'll be going now."
"Just where do you think you're going? Della is staying right here, in her room." Jameson Street crossed his arms over his chest and blocked the doorway. "My daughter will not go to a motel with a man."
"Your daughter will go wherever and with whomever she darn well wants to," Della said with clipped, precise diction, her posture unyielding.
Henny Vander Velde, who had been silent up to that point, stood and smoothed down her skirt. "It's late, Della," she said soothingly. "It makes sense for you to stay here. You'll need to be here early to begin receiving condolence calls."
Perry could tell that Della was perilously close to tears again, the events of the past couple of days threatening to overwhelm her, not to mention the tiring flight and the multitude of surprises that had awaited her arrival. She needed food and plenty of sleep, and she needed both soon.
"Henny is right," Carter spoke up. "We have funeral arrangements to make and the wake to plan. I agree with Father. Della stays here. Mr. Mason can go on to the motel."
"No!" Della nearly shouted, beginning to lose her grip on civility. "If he goes, I go."
"The only thing worse than allowing you to stay at a motel with a man is allowing that man to sleep under the same roof as your family," Jameson Street stated harshly. "Your grandmother wouldn't have stood for it in this house, and neither will I."
"Jameson," Henny said cajolingly, "you have seven bedrooms in this house. Mr. Mason appears to be an upstanding, rational man. He can stay in the blue room. It's the furthest from Della's bedroom."
"What about me?" Eve Wyman asked in a small voice.
"What about you?" Jameson Street shot back, not bothering to look at her.
"Are you going to throw me out? You'll let a strange man stay but you'll toss your wife out into the night? Must I stay in a hotel?"
Jameson exchanged glances with Carter, who shook his head slightly. He closed his eyes wearily as he fought with making a decision. "You can stay tonight. But tomorrow I expect you to find other accommodations. Since you're still so close to Bitty perhaps you can stay with her."
"Thank you, Jameson. I appreciate your hospitality," Eve Wyman said meekly with only a hint of sarcasm.
"Carter, you and Mr. Mason gather the luggage and take it to everyone's respective bedrooms. Henny, is there anything in the house to eat? None of us has had dinner."
Henny smiled approvingly at Jameson Street. "As a matter of fact, I ordered sandwiches and salads from Judy's. It will only take a few minutes to get everything laid out."
"I'll help you," Eve Wyman offered, getting to her feet. All trace of tears had disappeared and she was smiling and composed.
"I appreciate your offer, Mrs. Wyman, but I can manage," Henny said graciously.
"Nonsense." Eve glided past the younger woman. "It's the least I can do."
Della took one step to follow the other two women, but Perry pulled her back gently. "Why don't you sit down, Della. You look pale."
Della sank back down to the piano bench without protest and looked up at him gratefully. "I think I will," she said with a shaky little laugh. "I'm feeling a bit woozy."
Perry placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. "You need something to eat. I'll run the luggage upstairs and be right back. We'll have a sandwich, and then you, young lady, are going to bed."
"Notice I'm not arguing."
Perry smiled. "Good girl."
When he returned from carting their luggage from the car to the upstairs bedrooms Carter indicated, Perry found Della still on the piano bench, facing the piano, head down, idly plunking the keys. He lowered himself next to her.
"This is the biggest, ugliest piano I've ever seen," he declared, searching for a subject that he hoped wouldn't be fodder for an argument.
Della didn't look up. "So far you don't like very much about my home or my home town."
"I was under the impression that you don't either."
Her fingers continued to play a familiar musical phrase over and over. "I hate this piano."
"Hate is a rather strong word for this poor, sad, ugly piano." He flexed the fingers on his right hand and tapped a key.
"Lessons twice a week, two hours of practice a day, endless recitals in uncomfortable starched organdy dresses and Mary Jane's that gave me blisters…and the music! The music was mostly awful."
Perry now had both hands on the keyboard and was effortlessly playing the base line to her treble. Della wiggled her hips and scooted closer to the piano. Soon all four of their hands were moving across the keys, Perry keeping a steady rhythm while Della expertly played the melody line of the popular duet, improvising runs and variations, spurring him to pick up the pace. The piano was slightly out of tune but neither of them cared as smiles hatched into full blown grins and their hands flew over the keyboard.
Della began to giggle, her fingers working the melody for all it was worth, her eyes shining. Perry was astonished by her talent, by how she countered every move he made easily and immediately. Finally he could no longer keep up with her ever-increasingly complicated melody and his fingers became tangled together in a crash of discordant keys.
Della leaned against him, collapsing with girlish giggles. Perry circled her shoulders with his arm and hugged her to him.
"That little kiss you stole held all my heart and soul," Della quoted the song's lyric, suddenly serious.
"You had my heart and soul long before I ever kissed you."
She touched his cheek gently with her fingertips. "I didn't know you played the piano."
"Right back at you, kid. But I don't play the piano per se. I only play the base line of Heart and Soul. Are you going to tell me why you hate this piano yet you play it so wonderfully?" His sister-in-law Valerie taught piano and she couldn't play Heart and Soul as well as Della. It was Val who had taught him the base line years ago.
"Proper young ladies play the piano. I took lessons for ten years."
Perry turned and took her face in his hands. "Della, why have you never mentioned you play the piano in all the years we've known each other? Especially after you met Valerie and found out she teaches piano? Is it so difficult for you to talk to me?"
"I don't talk about it because…because I don't want to. I didn't want to play the piano. And I certainly didn't want to play the kind of music Grandmother selected. If I had to play the piano I wanted to play Porter and Gershwin and Richard Rodgers, but instead I had to learn Scarlatti, Dvorak and Wagner." She shuddered. "Do you remember what you did the summer you were twelve?"
Perry shrugged. "I suppose I played baseball, rode my bike, went fishing with Harvey."
She pulled away from him and turned back to the piano. "This is what I did when I was twelve." Her fingers gently roamed over the keys and Perry quickly recognized the adagio of Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata, one of his mother's favorite pieces of music. Della played from memory, eyes closed, never missing a note Perry could detect, her fingering confident and sure, and he sat silently in awe of her skill. As the last note faded, she withdrew her hands from the piano and placed them in her lap.
"I spent my entire summer inside this house, sitting at this piano," she said, her voice cracking, "learning that. I haven't touched a piano since I was nineteen years old and I played it perfectly. Do you know why?" She didn't wait for him to respond but rushed on. "Because I made a mistake in the spring recital, that's why. I missed two notes in Chopin's Nocturne in E Flat Major and I wasn't allowed to attend my best friend's thirteenth birthday party, couldn't see my little brother for days on end, and couldn't spend time with my friends until the Pathetique was perfect. I simply couldn't embarrass my grandmother at the fall recital."
"Della – "
She shook her head. "Don't say anything, Perry. I don't want to talk about the piano. And I don't ever want to play again. It isn't fun. She didn't allow it to be fun. She didn't allow anything to be fun. I wanted to tap dance, but she said ballet was more suitable for a lady and proceeded to drag me to Miss Roseanne's ballet studio three times a week where I danced to much of the same music she forced me to play on the piano."
"I thought Heart and Soul was fun."
She leaned back against him once again. "It was fun," she admitted. "But it was our first and last performance."
"It really is a shame you don't play. You are very good."
"I'm no Donna Loring. I have the mechanics, but I don't have the heart. I don't enjoy it, and it comes through in my playing. Can we not talk about it anymore?"
His arms slid around her waist and held her close. "I'm not a musical expert and I am admittedly prejudiced, but I think you play beautifully. Maybe you should think about –"
She tore his arms from around her waist and flung herself off the piano bench. "I'm through playing and I'm definitely through talking about it. If you're going to obsess about my piano playing maybe you should go to the motel by yourself."
Perry slowly stood and stretched to his full height. "Go eat something," he told her in a tightly controlled voice. "I'm going to call Paul Drake and find out how the hell your mother got here so quickly and why our esteemed colleague didn't call to warn us. I suspect may she have known about your grandmother before we did."