Lake News Page 4

  “I mean, playing for the Cardinal. He’s an important guy. Don’t you get a little shaky playing for him?”

  She chuckled. “Oh, no. He’s heard me play too many times for that.”

  “Huh. That’s right. I did hear that he likes music.”

  “He doesn’t just like it. He’s good at it.”

  “Sings? Plays instruments?”

  “Both.”

  “A Renaissance man, then?”

  Wondering if he was being sarcastic, Lily stopped at the bottom of the stairs to search his face. “Actually, yes.”

  He smiled and held up his hands. “No offense meant. I’m as much a fan as the next guy. He fascinates me. I’ve never met a man of the cloth quite like him. He inspires piety.”

  Lily relaxed some. “Yes.”

  Terry narrowed an eye. “Half the women I know are in love with him. He’s a virile guy.”

  Lily was embarrassed even thinking about Fran Rossetti that way.

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed?” he asked.

  “In fact, I haven’t. He’s a priest.”

  “And you’re not even a little bit in love with him?”

  “Of course I am. I love him as a person. He’s insightful and supportive. He hears and listens and responds.”

  “Sounds like you know him well.”

  She was proud to admit it. “We have a history. I met him when he was Father Fran, just about to be appointed Bishop of Albany.”

  “No kidding?”

  Something about his nonchalance was a bit much. It reminded her that he was a reporter. She nodded and checked her watch. “I have to get back to work.”

  “How late do you play tonight?” he asked, walking beside her.

  “Ten-thirty.”

  “Without dinner?”

  “I ate before.”

  “Can I buy you a snack when you get off?”

  He had offered something similar when he called her apartment. At the time, she had thought it an attempt to make the idea of an interview more palatable. Now, with him standing there in person—the right height for her, the right age, and maritally free, Mitch Rellejik had said—it almost felt like something else. Almost—but there was still that mustache, which was alternately dashing and hard. And there was an intensity in his eyes that didn’t hit her right.

  She wasn’t that desperate for a date.

  At the dining room entrance now, she smiled and shook her head. “Thanks, anyway,” she said and went on inside.

  Back at the piano, she began playing the kind of music that this later crowd would enjoy. She sang “Almost Paradise,” “Candle in the Wind,” and “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” She did some Carly Simon, some James Taylor, some Harry Connick, Jr. She loved every song she played. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to perform with feeling, but the feeling came easily with these songs. They were her generation’s favorites.

  Playing without effort, swinging her hair back from her face and leaning forward to sing into the mike, she blotted out the audience and let her heart take over. Singing had always been her salvation, the only time when she was naturally free of a stutter. Though time and training had freed her to speak, singing remained special. She might not have been able to make it on Broadway, but when she was lost in a song this way, she could just as well have been there. The feeling of pleasure, of success, of escape was the same.

  Halfway through the second set, the Frisches came over to thank her for helping make their anniversary special. A short time after they left, another patron, Peter Swift, sat beside her on the piano bench and sang harmony. He had a beautiful voice and often joined Lily in a song or two when he and his wife ate at the club. The spontaneity of it never failed to please the crowd. Soon after Peter returned to his table, the Cardinal took his place. She was playing “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miz at the time. He played along in the lower registers through the end of it, then joined right in with the more throbbing chords of “Red and Black.” When it was done, he gave her hand a squeeze, rejoined his waiting guests, and left the dining room.

  All told, it was a good show. Lily was tired but satisfied when she finally closed the piano lid. A handful of guests lingered over second or third cups of coffee, but the rest of the tables had been cleaned and reset. Half of the wait staff had left. The chef, George Mendes, who had trained in New York and was just Lily’s age, had changed from his whites into jeans and was waiting for her in the office.

  He held out a bag. “You like risotto. Tonight’s was great.”

  She was touched that he remembered. He hadn’t been at the club for long, and she was only one of many who raved about his food. “Thanks,” she said with feeling and took the bag. “This’ll be tomorrow’s dinner. Are you walking home?” He lived in her direction.

  “Not yet. I have to run a few menu changes past Dan. He’s upstairs.”

  The third floor of the brownstone held private dining rooms, the fourth held overnight accommodations. Lily knew from experience that Dan could be a while, and she was too tired to wait.

  “Then I’m off,” she said, and called over her shoulder as she left, “Thanks again for the risotto.”

  She was thinking that if George had been straight, she could be seriously interested in him, when she reached the street and found Terry Sullivan leaning against the wide stone stoop. He looked innocent enough in the gaslight’s glow, but a part of her was starting to feel harassed. She had refused him three times. He was annoyingly dogged.

  She went quickly down the steps and hit the sidewalk in something just shy of a trot, in the hope that he might take the hint.

  “Hey, hey.” He fell into step with her. “Where’re you running to?”

  “Home.”

  “Mind if I walk along?”

  “That depends. I haven’t changed my mind about your interview.”

  “But it doesn’t make sense. The publicity would be great for you.”

  Lily might have agreed several years before, but she had been struggling then. Now, between teaching and the club, she received two fixed monthly paychecks. Add what she earned playing at private functions, and she was content. She didn’t need more work, hence didn’t need publicity.

  “Is it me?” Terry asked. “Does something about me offend you?”

  “Of course not,” she said, because it wasn’t her way to hurt people. “I’m just… private.”

  “It’s the public you I’m interested in—the one who rubs hips, so to speak, with people like Cardinal Rossetti.” He made a whistling sound. “That was amazing, the two of you playing tonight.” He took a long breath. “I really want to do this interview.”

  They reached a corner. She shook her head, waiting only until the traffic cleared before trotting across the street.

  He kept pace. “Are you sure it isn’t me? Would you talk to one of my colleagues?”

  “No.”

  “Ah. You hate the press. You’re afraid someone will misuse your words. But I’m a good guy, Lily. How can I not be, especially with you? I’m Catholic, and you’re Cardinal Rossetti’s pal. Would I dare do anything bad, knowing it’d get back to him, knowing I might risk eternal damnation if it did?”

  Lily didn’t believe in eternal damnation, but if Terry Sullivan did, that helped. She slowed down a notch.

  “I feel like I should know everything about the guy,” Terry said conversationally. “I mean, my paper’s covered him from head to toe, and the Post is good.” He looked at her, earnest now. His voice was lower, almost confidential. “Listen. The Fourth Estate has taken a lot of flak lately. Some of it’s deserved. Most isn’t. It’s like everything else. There may be a few bad apples, but that doesn’t mean we’re all rotten, and since I’ve already confessed my fear of eternal damnation…”

  She had to give him credit for being upfront.

  “What’s so fascinating,” he went on, seeming caught up in it, “is the way the Cardinal is so normal. I mean, there he was, sitting beside you, pl
aying the piano. I half expected him to start belting out the words.”

  Lily smiled. She couldn’t help herself. “Oh, he’s done that too.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  She shook her head.

  “In public?”

  “In private, in small groups. He used to do it more, before all this.”

  “You mean, before he was named Cardinal?”

  She nodded again.

  “So you met him in Albany. What was he like then?” He sounded genuinely intrigued, not at all grilling as a reporter would be, but more personally involved—and Lily was a sucker for fans of her friend.

  “Warm,” she said. “Vibrant. But I actually met him in Manhattan.”

  “What was he doing there?”

  “Visiting the Cardinal there. They both went to a reception at the mayor’s house. I was playing.”

  “You played at the mayor’s house? I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t be. I was a Broadway wannabe and taught piano to pay the bills. His kids took lessons. That’s how he knew me.”

  “A Broadway wannabe,” Terry said, still sounding impressed. “No more?”

  She shook her head.

  “Were you in anything?”

  “A few ensembles. Nothing major.”

  “Do you dance, too?”

  “Not well enough.”

  “Ah. I understand.” He let her off the hook. “So you met Cardinal Rossetti in the city and followed him to Albany?”

  She didn’t answer. After another minute of walking, she felt him looking at her. When she met his eye, he said, “Why the frown?”

  “This feels like an interview.”

  “It’s not. It’s just me, interested in you.”

  If she was frowning now, it was in skepticism.

  “I’ve never met a religious groupie before,” he teased.

  She sighed. “I’m not a religious groupie. I didn’t follow Cardinal Rosetti to Albany. I followed the mayor there.” She caught herself. “Ooops. That came out wrong.” She felt a tiny tightness at the back of her tongue and focused on relaxing it. With a single, slow, calming breath, it dissolved. Flawlessly, she explained, “My relationship was with his kids. They loved me, and they’d been shaken by the divorce. When he was elected governor, he had to move to Albany, and the kids went with him. He figured that if I kept teaching them, it would be one thing that didn’t change in their lives. When a position opened up in a private school there, the timing seemed right.”

  “So you gave up on Broadway?”

  “It gave up on me,” she said and slid him a wary look. “You’re smooth.”

  He tipped his head. “How?”

  “Getting me to talk after I said I wouldn’t.”

  “This is what’s called a social conversation.” He held up his hands. “No pen, no paper. Strictly off-the-cuff. Like I say, the Cardinal intrigues me. So—he was the Bishop of Albany when you moved there?”

  Social conversation or not, Lily didn’t want to talk about herself or the Cardinal to Terry. But he did look intrigued. And Mitch Rellejik had vouched for him. And the question was innocent enough.

  So she said, “He was.”

  “And that’s where you really got to know him?”

  She nodded.

  “Did you ever dream he’d be a Cardinal one day?”

  She shook her head. “But I’m not surprised. Father Fran gets it.”

  “Gets it?”

  “Understands people.”

  “You saw that?”

  They had reached another corner and were waiting to cross. Traffic leaving the city sped by in a blur of lights and chrome. “He understood me,” she said. “I’ve been grappling with things. He’s been—” How to describe Fran Rossetti in a word? Friend? Adviser? Therapist? “He’s been a comfort.”

  “So you followed him to Boston?”

  Her eyes flew to his. Here was the reporter again, more prodding than casual.

  Terry winced. “Sorry. Nothing untoward meant. Asking questions is a habit. I was always doing it as a kid, so I went into journalism. No other field would have me. It’s the tone. Hard to turn off, but I’ll try.”

  He sounded so sincere that Lily relented. “I followed him to Boston only in the sense that I moved here soon after he did.”

  Terry didn’t say anything. When the light changed, they crossed the street and walked on.

  Still feeling guilty for overreacting, she volunteered, “Father Fran told me about the Essex Club. It was a step up from the club I played at in Albany, and Dan’s regular had just given notice. When I found a teaching position here, it was like it was meant to be.”

  Terry looked thoughtful, walking with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the brownstones ahead. “Neat club, the Essex. Isn’t it pricey for a Cardinal?”

  “Not when his nephew owns the place,” she said.

  “Is that kosher?”

  “Usually the people he’s with pick up the tab. Big donors to the church.”

  “Is that kosher?”

  “Why not?”

  “Bribery. Favor seeking.”

  “From a Cardinal? What does a Cardinal have to sell?”

  “Political clout. A good word to the gov, or the prez.” He wiggled his brows. “Maybe a kiss.”

  She leveled him a look. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m kid-ding,” he chided.

  She wasn’t sure she liked the joke, but then, she tended to take things too literally. At least, that was what the last guy she dated had said when they called it quits. Actually, he had used the word “dour,” and though she didn’t believe she was that bad, she made an effort now to go to the other extreme. “A kiss?” she kidded back. “Why not a weekend? Auctioned off for charity.”

  Terry laughed. “Warmin’ up, Lily Blake. It’d bring in a bundle for his favorite cause. I’m telling you, dozens of women would bid.”

  She smiled. “Can you imagine some woman telling a friend, ‘The Cardinal and I are having an affair’?”

  “A passionate affair?” Terry asked in the voice of that startled friend.

  Lily played along. “What other kind is there? Forget the auction. We’ve been doing it for years.”

  He put back his head and laughed.

  She laughed, too, then said, “Cute. But not Father Fran. If anyone gets anything from those dinners, it’s the church. This is it,” she said, coming to a stop in front of her building. She turned to him, thinking that the laughter had been nice.

  “You’re an interesting person,” he said, grinning. “Think you could fit me in between dates with the Cardinal?”

  She grinned back. “I don’t know. He takes a lot of my time.” She made a pretense of mental calculation. “I could probably fit you in some time next week. I’ll have to check.” As she moved past him, she tossed him a dry “You have my number.”

  She went into the building without looking back and slipped into the elevator feeling buoyed. She didn’t know if she liked Terry Sullivan, didn’t know if they had another thing in common besides admiration for the Cardinal. She hadn’t felt an instant attraction to the reporter, but things like physical attraction sometimes took time. She did know that she wasn’t interested in Peter Oliver, Tony Cohn wasn’t interested in her, and she wasn’t getting any younger.

  She had never dated a reporter before. If nothing else, it might make for an educational dinner or two.

  She never dreamed that the education would come so soon, and at her own expense.

  CHAPTER 3

  Since Lily worked nights and rarely had an early class, she usually took her time waking up. This morning the phone jolted her out of bed at eight. Her first thought was that something was wrong back home.

  “Hello?” she asked, frightened.

  “Lily Blake, please,” said a man she didn’t know. His voice was all business. Poppy’s doctor? Her mother’s doctor?

  “Speaking.”

  “This is George Fox. I’m wit
h the Cape Sentinel. I wonder if you would comment on your relationship with Cardinal Rossetti.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your relationship with Cardinal Rossetti. Can you tell me about it?”

  She didn’t understand. The newspapers had already covered almost everything about the Cardinal that there was to cover. She was irrelevant, only one of many of his friends, and the one least equipped to talk with the press. “You’ll have to call the archdiocese. They’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  “Are you having an affair with the Cardinal?”

  “A what?” When he repeated his question, she cried, “Good God, no.” It was a prank call, but not a blind one, since she did know the Cardinal. Cautious, curious, she said, “This number is unlisted. How did you get it?” Terry Sullivan was the only reporter she knew, and yes, he had her number. She didn’t want to think he was passing it around.

  “Were you having an affair with Cardinal Rossetti in Albany?” the reporter asked just as her call waiting beeped. She was unsettled enough by his question to switch right to the second call.

  “Yes?”

  “Lily Blake?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Paul Rizzo, Cityside.” Cityside was a renegade daily that had come from nowhere to rival Boston’s mainstream press. “I’m looking for a comment on the Post story.”

  Her heart was pumping faster. “What story?”

  “The one saying that you and the Cardinal are sexually involved.”

  She hung up. On both calls. After waiting a minute for the dial tone to return, she lifted the receiver and dropped it in the bedding. She didn’t believe there was any story in the Post—how could there be one, with no substance?—but after two calls, she had to see for herself. Slipping on a coat over her nightshirt, she took the elevator to the first floor and had barely started for the outer lobby where the daily papers were left when she saw someone waiting. He had a tape recorder hanging from his shoulder and a microphone in his hand. At the sight of her, he came to life.

  She slipped back into the elevator seconds before the door closed, and quickly pressed her floor. For good measure, to hide her destination, she pressed every floor above her own on the panel. As soon as she was in her apartment again, she linked her laptop to the phone line and accessed the Post on-line.