Chapter One
The Downbeat Wife
A future without her
“You'd stay on as honorary founder,” Gordon says.
I'm still standing on the podium.
Around me, musicians lower their instruments. We'd finished playing. Apparently, my husband has decided to finish my career while everyone's still here.
“Doing what?”
“Representing us. Supporting the work without having to oversee every detail. You'd finally have room to enjoy what we've built.”
I've enjoyed it quite a lot from up here.
I set my pencil beside the score. “I'd like to hear the rest.”
Gordon comes farther into the rehearsal room at Mercer Hall. He doesn't need to raise his voice. People have stopped packing up to listen.
“Our reputation is strong enough to take this beyond Richmond. A proper commercial operation, with the freedom to book a national tour. My company would manage it under an agreement with the orchestra. We'd choose programs for those audiences and build something we can sell beyond our own subscribers.”
He looks at Audrey Penn, my assistant conductor.
“Audrey would lead the touring ensemble. A fresh face, with the energy to take this on. Helen would have the recognition she deserves.”
Audrey sits a little straighter. Nobody looks surprised by that part except me.
Perhaps I'm being unfair. I'm too busy being furious to take a reliable count.
“Who makes the artistic decisions?” I ask. “The programs, the conductors, the music we commission?”
“The company has to have final responsibility. We can't promise a presenter something and then reopen it in rehearsal. You'd advise us, of course.”
“Then you're offering me a job where you can disregard my advice.”
Audrey looks down at the score on her lap. Simon Ransome stays in his chair beside the podium, watching Gordon.
He's been listening to a reading of the piece we've already commissioned from him. It's early work, the sort where a good idea can still sound dreadful before the players find it. He's been willing to hear that happen. I like that about him.
Right now, I'd like him to stop looking so interested in my retirement.
Gordon opens a hand toward the musicians. “We've spent years asking people to give us money. I've done it because I believe in what we make. But we're popular, Helen. We have an audience. At some point, success should mean we can earn more from it.”
“You can say you want to make money. Nobody's going to wash your mouth out.”
A laugh comes from behind Audrey. Gordon smiles with them.
“I do want to make money. For all of us. I want our work to go somewhere.”
He has put years into this. I won't pretend otherwise. When we met in our twenties, I could hear the orchestra I wanted. Gordon could persuade people to help us build it.
He found the money to pay these musicians; I heard something in their playing worth paying for.
I thought we both liked the result.
“Then bring me a growth proposal,” I say. “This one removes me from the decisions.”
“It changes your part in them. Simon, tell her what this could mean for a composer.”
Simon leans forward, his expression bright with anticipation. There's gray in his sandy hair, above the short beard.
“I'd like a piece to have a life beyond its first performance,” he says. “I'd like people who don't already know my name to hear it. You're premiering a piece I care about, Helen. The commercial launch would be a different piece, for a wider audience. I want both.”
He turns toward the musicians.
“The musicians who made this possible will be part of it. Gordon's been clear about that. You won't do the work of building an orchestra and then watch the opportunity go to strangers.”
A player near the back puts an instrument case down again.
“More work, then? Something we can actually plan around?”
“That's what we're building,” Gordon says. “A touring business, not the occasional invitation we have to squeeze into everything else. I want you to think about what you'd need to make room for it.”
I look at Simon. “And the person conducting them?”
Audrey gets to her feet before he answers.
“I can conduct them, Helen. Why does giving me a program mean we're losing something?”
“It doesn't. Removing my authority does. Those aren't the same decision.”
She closes the score. “They seem to become the same decision whenever the program gets big enough to matter.”
That stings. I want to snap back that she has no idea what goes into getting a program that far.
Of course she has an idea. She's my assistant. She does some of the work.
“Audrey, I don't object to you wanting more. I object to being told my work is over because you've been offered it.”
“Your contribution would be recognized publicly,” Gordon says. “We'd make that central to the launch.”
“You'd thank me for getting everyone this far, then turn to somebody else. You're telling me in front of the people I work with that I should be grateful to stop.”
Someone unfastens a case behind me. The click is horribly distinct.
I want this conversation somewhere else. At home, with my husband, where I can be angry without an audience.
Gordon keeps his attention on Simon.
“Would you turn down that reach because you weren't in charge of every decision?”
“No,” Simon says. “I wouldn't.”
“Then perhaps you can help Helen see beyond the title.”
Simon looks up at me, serious.
“I don't think you're finished. I wouldn't be sitting here working with you if I did. But you can't make a venture this size depend on whether you'd choose every program yourself.”
“I choose programs I don't conduct. I work with composers who don't agree with me. Including you.”
“I've noticed.”
There's a little warmth in it. I almost smile. Then Gordon moves beside his chair, pleased.
“We need to stop treating change as a personal attack,” he says. “You hear something different in a piece and ask everyone to try it. That's all I'm asking.”
“You're asking me to agree to being replaced. A rehearsal doesn't cost someone their job.”
He looks past me at the players. I turn enough to see them too. A few are waiting for him to answer. Others are watching me.
They want more work. They ought to have it. I can't ask them to look less interested just because I'm hurt.
“We're a nonprofit orchestra,” I say. “The board has to decide whether this agreement serves it. You and I don't get to hand it over because we founded it. Present it as your proposal. Don't present it as ours.”
His voice drops. “I'd hoped you could stand beside me on this.”
There he is. My husband, looking at me. Not the room.
I want to stand beside him. I want us to argue over the parts we haven't solved and go home still pleased to be married. I wasn't prepared to choose between that and my work, with everyone listening.
“I won't endorse it,” I say. “I'm willing to help us reach more people. I'm not willing to become an honorary version of myself.”
Audrey picks up her things. She doesn't look at me.
Gordon lets the silence last, then turns back to the musicians.
“This deserves proper consideration. Anyone who wants to talk about the opportunity, come and see me.”
He doesn't ask my permission to continue. He's still our chief executive.
As the players start to leave, someone stops beside him. Then someone else. Simon stands and joins them.
I stay at the podium with the piece we're supposed to make together.
* * *
By the time I leave Mercer Hall, I'm late getting home.
I've spent too long over a passage I could normally hear without trying. I leave the score in my office. Simon's piece deserves better than what I'm managing tonight.
Outside, I walk with my shoulders tight. I'm hungry. I'm angry enough that I don't particularly want to sit across from Gordon and eat.
He's my husband. We can have a horrible afternoon and still have dinner.
Linden Table is on my route. Through its window, people sit over their meals, leaning close enough to hear each other. I glance inside as I pass.
Gordon is there.
I stop before I see who he's with. For a moment, I'm simply surprised. He's sitting near the window, facing partly toward me.
Audrey sits opposite him.
Of course. He invited people to talk about the tour. She's the conductor he wants for it.
I can go in. I'm already thinking about what I'll say, something civil enough to get us through this in a restaurant.
Then Audrey reaches across the table.
Gordon takes her hand.
He doesn't give it a quick squeeze and let go. He turns it in his, settling their joined hands between them. Audrey says something I can't hear. He bends toward her, smiling.
I know that smile.
For a moment, I can't get enough air. On the sidewalk, with their joined hands in front of me, I'm sick with recognition.
He's listening to her. His thumb moves slowly over her hand.
Oh, Gordon.
I'd take a stupid explanation right now. I'd let him embarrass us both with it.
I move aside as people approach the entrance. None of them stops. Inside, Gordon keeps looking at Audrey.
I've spent the afternoon insisting that she can have a future without taking mine. I've been fair to her. I've been careful about her talent, even when I wanted to tell them both to go to hell.
Now I'm hurt enough to hate having been fair.
She puts her other hand over his. He leaves it there.
I want to knock on the glass. Let them see me. Make him explain why he's holding my assistant's hand while I'm on my way to our home.
I don't move toward the window.
How long has this been happening?
He's offered her the podium. He's asked me to stand beside him while he does it.
Audrey laughs at something he says. Gordon is still holding her hand.