Unfinished Symphony

  I shook my head.

  "Um . I . I just . . ."

  "You look upset," she said. "Please," she added pointing to the seat by the table. "Rest a moment and tell me what troubles you."

  "I'm lost," 1 said. "I'm new here and I don't remember how to get back to my apartment complex."

  "Which complex, my dear?" she asked, her smile soft and friendly. She looked to be about fifty and not much more than five feet tall.

  "The Egyptian Gardens," I said.

  "You're not very lost. Just go down two streets, make a left and you'll run into it after about ten minutes. I think there's more troubling you though, isn't there?"

  I nodded and gazed around her shop.

  "I have a friend in New York City who has a crystal shop and who does astrological readings for people. Her name's Holly."

  "That's interesting," Madam Marlene said, and a knowing twinkle came into her eyes. "You really came in here because you wanted to know something, yes?" she pursued, her head tilted slightly and her eyes even more luminous as the dim overhead light caught them in its warm glow.

  I thought a moment and then nodded.

  "I wanted to know if someone I loved would ever return to me," I said.

  She nodded as if she had always known I would show up on her doorstep.

  "Sit down. Please," she said.

  "I just left my apartment quickly," I said. "I don't have any money on me."

  "Oh, that's all right," she said. "You can send me something later." She sat at her table, motioning for me to sit down across from her. She reached out immediately and took my right hand into her hands and held it, closing her eyes. Then she nodded to herself and looked down at my open palm.

  "You have already been on quite a rugged road," she said, "with many twists and turns. Your life has more valleys than most, but I see some very high places too. I see you have lost loved ones, yes?"

  "Yes."

  "Yet you have strong energy. What is your name?"

  "Melody."

  "I see music in you, yes. This person, this loved one who is lost has been lost for a while."

  "Yes," I said.

  She looked at my hand again and then she reached out to touch the locket Billy Maxwell had given me. She turned it in her fingers a moment.

  "Lapis lazuli. Someone you like very much and someone who likes you very much gave it to you." "That's right," I said.

  "You are like a comet, something beautiful and full of energy floating through space, searching . . . searching for a home, your real home."

  "I am," I said, excited that she seemed to know so much about me.

  "Someone you're searching for is coming," she said, closing her eyes again. Seconds later she opened them, and this time there was no smile on her lips. "Where you are looking for love, there is no love. You will have to change direction. But don't worry. Your energy is too strong to be defeated. Do not be afraid to turn toward the darkness, for often what we think is sunlight is merely the reflection coming from our own glow. Do not look for love in the usual places," she concluded and sat back as if reading my palm, feeling my energy and predicting my life had exhausted her.

  "Thank you," I said standing, uncertain if I'd be able to follow her advice.

  "Oh, it's my pleasure. It's always a pleasure to read a heart as big as yours. Here," she said opening a drawer in the desk to pluck out a business card. "This has my address. I usually get twenty dollars, but you can send me fifteen."

  "Thank you," I said, taking the card from her wrinkled hand.

  "Your locket will bring you much luck on your journey. Keep it with you always," she called as I went to the door.

  "I will. Bye."

  I stepped out, feeling revived, calmer. It would take time to understand all she had said, but I would think about it. Since I had been with Holly and Billy I paid more attention to these things and I wasn't so quick to laugh at anyone or anything that seemed new and different to me. I was leaving myself open to new ideas and experiences. But there were still some things I could definitely do without.

  Dreading facing Richard again, I headed back to the apartment, following the directions Madam Marlene had given me. A little over half an hour later, I turned into the main gate and with great trepidation, made my way to our building and then to the elevator. When I stepped out and walked to the apartment door, I paused. I had to tell Mommy what he had tried to do, I decided. Maybe now, maybe finally, she would see him for what he truly was.

  I opened the door and entered, surprised to find them both sitting in the living room. Mommy looked like she had been crying all afternoon. Her eyes were bloodshot; her face streaked with makeup that had run. Richard sat there looking calm, his legs crossed, a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He gazed up at me with a confident smirk that put a chill in my heart.

  "So you decided to come back," Richard said. "What did you do, Melody? Run away afterward?"

  "Yes," I said defiantly gazing back at Richard as I spoke. "I did. I was too scared to stay here. I was afraid he would come back and try again."

  "Ha!" Richard said and crushed his cigarette in the ashtray. "Listen to that."

  "Melody, how could you?" Mommy asked.

  "How could I what?" I looked from her to him and then back to her, realizing he had told her some lie. "It was him, Mommy. And I don't care if I called you Mommy," I added quickly for his benefit. "He attacked me in the bedroom. He came into the bathroom while I was taking a shower and he--"

  "Liar. She's just like I said," Richard

  interrupted. "Conniving, sly. Tell the truth for once, will you."

  "The truth?"

  "I was sitting here, right where I am now, relaxing, planning on making some important calls, when all of a sudden, she comes out of the bathroom after taking a shower and parades naked right in front of me," he told Mommy. "She walked right up to me as if she were fully dressed and smiled. Go on, tell her," he challenged me.

  "No," I said, shaking my head. "That's not what happened, Mommy. He took all my clothes out of the bathroom and when I came out and went to the bedroom, he was waiting for me and he was naked!"

  "Did you ever hear such a story, Gina? Look, Melody, you've been trying to compete with Gina ever since you arrived. You made a spectacle of yourself down at the pool and then you tried to steal the limelight at the party. I get you a job, but it's not good enough for you. Oh no. You'd rather we support you, too."

  "Mommy, listen . . he was there, in the bedroom, waiting for me. He told me he was going to educate me. He--"

  "Educate you? This story gets more and more stupid every time she opens her mouth. Listen, sweetheart, you're going to have to do better than that if you want to make it in Hollywood."

  "I don't want to make it in Hollywood! And neither do you, Mommy. You have to come home. You have to leave this place," I cried.

  "See?" Richard Marlin said jabbing his finger at me. "That's been her plan all along . . to mess things up for you so you would leave. She's jealous of her own mother. I've seen it a hundred times, and especially out here. Now she says she doesn't care if she calls you Mommy. She'll do it deliberately in front of people and make you the laughingstock of the whole industry. She's already made us a mountain of trouble because of what she did at Live Wire."

  "Mommy . ." I said, turning to her. She shook her head at me.

  "I'm very disappointed in you, Melody. I really don't know what to say."

  "Say you believe me. Say you know he's lying and that he's a phony who can't do anything for you out here, that all he's doing is getting you silly little jobs or selling you to sex merchants," I begged.

  Richard sat back looking very satisfied. Mommy bit down on her lower lip and looked away.

  "Mommy--"

  "Keep it up; keep it up. Keep calling her Mommy," Richard chanted like a cheerleader at a football game.

  "Maybe Richard's right, Melody. Maybe it's better for all of us if you go back. This isn't working out."
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  "You believe him, Mommy?" I choked, barely able to whisper the words.

  She didn't reply. I saw the grin on Richard's face and I glared back at him hatefully. He looked so confident and Mommy looked so weak and under his control. My frustration and pride overflowed.

  "Maybe you deserve him then," I said and fled to my bedroom to pack my bags.

  Twenty minutes later, after the phone had rung, I heard Richard yelling, blaming Mommy for not getting yet another part. Then I heard him leave the apartment. Minutes later, Mommy came to my bedroom. She wore her sunglasses again and she looked very pale and unhappy.

  "I guess you heard," she said. "I didn't get a call back from today's audition. Richard says it's because I'm too distracted these days."

  "Maybe it's because you're not meant to be an actress, Mommy," I said and closed my bag.

  "No, I can do it. I know I can. It's just taking a little longer than we expected, that's all."

  "I didn't do what he said I did, Mommy. It was the other way around. I swear it."

  "It doesn't matter, Melody. Richard's right. You don't belong here. I don't know what I was thinking when I agreed to let you stay."

  "You were thinking like my mother," I told her. "You were thinking about doing the right thing."

  She smiled.

  "You were always the dreamer."

  "Me?" I started to laugh. "Look around you, Mommy. Look where you are. This place grows dreams like . . . like we grew weeds back in Sewell."

  "I meant you were a dreamer because you saw more in me than there is. I'm sorry, honey. I'm not the mother you want me to be."

  I nodded. Maybe, finally, she was speaking the truth. I sat on the bed and stared into my lap.

  "What are you going to do? Do you have any money?" Mommy asked.

  "Yes, I have most of my money. I didn't tell Richard the truth. He would have taken it all. I have my return ticket, too.I'll go to the airport and get myself on the first flight I can," I added.

  "And go back to Provincetown?"

  "Yes."

  "Good.I'll be happier knowing you're safe, and you'll be safe there," she said.

  "You mean then your conscience won't bother you, don't you, Mommy?" I shot back at her.

  She started to get angry and then her shoulders sank and she nodded.

  "Yes," she admitted. "I guess it's time for the lies between us to stop."

  I stared at her, trying to blink away my disbelief.

  "Chester was always a better father to you than I was a mother," she said and then she laughed. "And the funny thing was he wasn't your real father. Though that didn't bother him at all."

  "Mommy," I said sucking in my breath, "when you left me in Provincetown and I discovered the truth about you and my stepdaddy, I started to think that Kenneth was my real father. I just knew you had to be lying about Grandpa Samuel. Please, please, tell me the truth."

  She looked at me for a long moment and I thought she was just going to shake her head and walk away, but she came farther into the room instead.

  "I hated them," she said, "as you know. When Judge Childs told me he was my real father and therefore Kenneth and I were half-brother and halfsister, I felt as if he had reached his hand into my chest and ripped out my heart. I felt so betrayed, Melody. You can't imagine. Here were all these high and mighty people always making me feel like someone inferior because my mother had me out of wedlock and Olivia had to take me in like some wayward orphan. They never stopped reminding me how grateful I should be, how lucky I was.

  "And all the while . . . the lot of them were no better, and in fact, much worse. They were deceitful, greedy people, liars and charlatans, so I decided I would get back at them. When they realized I was pregnant, Olivia was ready to pounce, to point her finger at me and shout, `See, see, this proves how low-down and no good she is, how she's nothing more than a tramp.'

  "But I fooled her, I fooled the whole lot of them when I turned the tide and accused Samuel of being the father of my unborn baby. Olivia," Mommy smiled at the memory, "almost died of

  embarrassment. She was sick and in her room for days. I told her I would expose the whole sinful lot of them. I would shout it in the streets.

  "Chester . . Chester always loved me. He was quick to take my side, especially when I went to him and cried on his shoulder. He promised to look after me, no matter what. I played them all against each other. Chester and Jacob fought. Olivia pulled her tail between her legs and crawled into a hole. I felt sorry for Samuel, but he was someone to pity anyway, letting her bulldoze him all the time, pretending he didn't know she was really in love with Nelson Childs, who had an affair with her sister, my mother. They were hideously cruel to her. They put her away in that institution and made me ashamed of my own mother.

  "Nothing I did to them equaled what they had done to me, Melody. I regret nothing except ... except what I had to do to you. I'm sorry, but I know you're going to be all right."

  "Not until I know the whole truth, Mommy. I want to know who my real father is. You've got to tell me."

  She nodded and turned her back to me as she turned her gaze to the window.

  "I was wild. I wanted so much to hurt them all, to keep hurting them, embarrassing them. I drank, hung out with older friends, flirted with everyone. And then one night, after I had been out drinking, I decided to walk home. It was a warm night, full of stars. I remember getting dizzy every time I looked up at the sky.

  "Suddenly, he was there in his car beside me. I turned and he rolled down his window and asked me why I was walking alone so late at night. He sounded so protective, so concerned. He said he would drive me home so I got into his car, only he didn't drive me home. He drove me to a beach road and he talked about his unhappy life, how he was married to a beautiful woman and making a lot of money, but how he was still dissatisfied. His life was missing something, some excitement, and he said whenever he saw me, no matter where I was or what I was doing, he was filled with that once-in-a-lifetime excitement."

  Mommy turned to me.

  "You have to understand how it was for me, Melody. No man had ever spoken to me like that. I was swept off my feet and this man . .. he was successful and well-to-do and he was telling me I was more important to him. How could I resist?

  "I made love with him and it was special. We met often, secretly and then I became pregnant with you and it all went out of control. It wouldn't have done me any good to reveal his identity. He wouldn't leave his family for me, and when Olivia attacked me, I made my decision to get my revenge. I never told anyone the truth, not Chester, not Kenneth, no one."

  I held my breath until I could hold it no more. "Who was he, Mommy? Is he still in Provincetown?"

  "Yes, honey, he is," she said. "His name is Teddy Jackson. They call him T.J.," she said.

  I know my heart stopped beating for a moment. I know my blood drained from my face. I felt the room spin. Mommy grasped my hand. I closed my eyes and battled for a breath.

  "Are you all right?"

  I didn't reply. I waited until my heart started beating again, swallowed and nodded.

  "His son," I said, "Adam Jackson, tried to be my boyfriend when I first arrived."

  "Oh no. Did you want to be his girlfriend?"

  "No, I hated him. He's arrogant."

  "Good," she said. "For a moment I thought I did to you what Judge Childs had done to Kenneth and me."

  "I think I had a feeling about Mr. Jackson, Mommy."

  "He's spoken to you?"

  "From time to time, and whenever he has, he's been very nice."

  "He'll never come forward and admit it, honey. He has a family, a position in the community--"

  "I don't care. I just wanted to know who he was," I said. "Thank you for that, Mommy."

  I stood up. Madam Marlene had been right when she read my palm. I was looking for love in the wrong place.

  "Maybe you shouldn't go yet, Melody. Maybe you should stay another day."

  "No. I don't bel
ong here, Mommy, and Cary needs me. He needs me far more than you do," I said.

  My mother stared at me as if I was a stranger and then she nodded.

  The lies would end between us and like two people who had finally lifted the masks from their faces, we finally saw each other for who we truly were.

  And we both knew we would have to live with that forever. For better or worse.

  11

  Home Again, Home Again

  .

  I decided to leave without any other good-byes.

  I felt confident that Mommy would make up a story to tell to Mel Jensen arid the others. Lying came as naturally as breathing to her now. Maybe it always had. I took a cab to the airport and arranged to fly what they called the red-eye from Los Angeles to Boston. For a while I flirted with the idea of returning to New York to visit with Holly and Billy, but the summer was drawing to a rapid end. I still had my last year of high school to complete, and I was tired of throwing myself into other people's lives.

  It was time to grow up anyway I told myself, to put my childhood beliefs back into my box of fantasies and close the lid forever on my past, on my hope of having a real mother and a real father. I was truly an orphan. The only man who had wanted to be my father was dead, and the man who really was my father had kept it a secret and was happy that he had escaped responsibility.

  In a real sense, my mother had died twice: first, when she and Richard Marlin had invented their deception and sent a dead stranger back in my mother's coffin; and now, when I had found her and had failed to revive any real mother--daughter feelings in her. She was truly a stranger to me. I shed no tears walking away from her and I could hear her sigh of relief as she closed the door behind me. Her ordeal was over. She could go back to living the life, and the lie, she always wanted.

  On the flight back to Boston, there wasn't anyone in the seat beside me on the plane, and for that I was grateful. I was in no mood to make

  conversation, and after my near tragic experience with that man in New York who had tricked me into taking his drug-laden briefcase, I was wary of strangers anyway. I simply closed my eyes and welcomed the drowsiness. I slept for most of the trip.

  When I arrived in Boston, I made my way to the bus stop and bought a ticket to Provincetown. It was late morning by the time the bus headed out on the highway. I didn't leave enough time to get breakfast, but I had little appetite anyway. I felt numb, beaten, drained of any resistance and energy. The monsters in the shadows were too big and too powerful and there were far too many. It was better to retreat and to accept and be what fate seemed determined to have me be.