Late in the Season by Felice Picano Page B

quickly leaned forward to kiss her cheek. She sensed it coming and turned her head, taking the kiss on her lips, as one of his hands touched her left ear with the merest brush of a finger. A softness of lips, a tiny caress, and nearness. Then he was gone.

Chapter Nine

    The phone was ringing again: for the third time that morning. How was he going to get any work done? He’d been at the piano all morning, trying to work out the big chorus, a triple madrigal, that would be sung when all three of Fiammetta’s suitors began their first journey in search of the falcon. But he just couldn’t get past one point in the piece; he didn’t know why. Barry’s lyrics were fine—the interweaving seemed right—why then couldn’t he make it come out sounding medieval? It always ended up vaguely French, vaguely like Gounod. He could already picture the looks on Saul’s and Amadea’s faces when he played the chorus for them; she would be kind, but afterward Amadea would sweetly ask him to look it over again. Saul would run his big fingers through his thinning long hair, and drop his head, unable to say anything, but secretly fuming, or despairing that he’d ever allowed the others to talk him into anything as monstrous as a medieval musical. Maybe Jonathan ought to set this chorus aside altogether. Come back to it when the rest of the score was done.
    And the phone didn’t stop. He’d had to take the first two calls this morning. Daniel, reporting in at 9:00 a.m. It was teatime in London, and Dan was off to tea with Lord and Lady Someone-or-other, connected with the network. Then he would be off to dinner with Ricky and Andre who’d moved to England a year ago. Then off, afterward, to bars. “The sleazy ones,” Dan hoped, “in South London. With motorcycle boys.” What had Jonathan been up to? Dan managed to ask in the last moments of their ten-minute transatlantic call. “Nothing. Composing. I had dinner with the Locke girl last night. Lady Bracknell’s ward. Over at her house. She was alone too.” Dan had replied, “You poor dear! You are having it bad there, aren’t you? Why not close up the house and go back to the city?” “Because I’m working,” Jonathan had said. Then the international operator interrupted, and it was love and kisses, good-bye, ta!
    Working. Trying to work. He’d been stuck since the night of the storm, if he really admitted it. Yesterday was almost a total loss. He’d awakened late, found he couldn’t concentrate at all, went for a walk on the beach, sat down with Stevie on her blanket, then—after she’d left the beach—had tried to work later on, but again couldn’t concentrate. Thus the recourse to the piano. He’d spent most of last night playing out the score up to this point. That hadn’t been wasteful. He’d found some nice new figurations for Fiammetta’s first song, incorporating his ideas of temperament à la Stevie Locke. He’d played a bit more with Gentile’s prayer. That was now done, quite moving, he thought. Why was this damn chorus holding him up?
    The phone rang and rang. Then stopped.
    The second phone call of the day had been from his long-time collaborator Barry Meade. Business, Barry reported. Jonathan knew better. It was check-up time. Barry was getting worried. He’d been worried right from the beginning on Lady and the Falcon :anxious from their first meeting over the scenario. Jonathan understood why. Successful as Little Rock had been, Barry felt this was the show that would make him or break him. He’d never really wanted to write musicals in the first place. Barry was a poet. He was uncomfortable among show people: uncomfortable to the point of distress around anyone, it seemed, except Amadea and Saul, Daniel and Jonathan, and a few others. He belonged in some small upstate New York college, teaching English literature and writing his lovely poetry. Not out here in the public eye, writing the book and lyrics to all-star, million-dollar musicals