Love Lyrics Page 4

  She shook her head. She couldn’t. For better or worse, the fire in her belly still raged. Her eyes swung back to the phone. Zachary, despite all his efforts to understand — and he had made an effort — had still, in the end, equated her need for a career in the theater to a failure of love. Ashley rubbed her aching eyes. Was it a failure? Was it peculiar for a woman to thrive on her work the way she did, particularly when it meant losing a man she loved so much that his absence caused a chronic ache in her heart?

  She was so tired, she couldn’t think about it anymore. If only Zachary hadn’t come back into her life; if only this yearning for him had ended as it should have; if only . . . she reached over with an impatient flick of her fingers and switched out the light, knowing, all too well, that sleep was still a long way off.

  Zachary stared in frustration at the beeping phone in his hand. Who in hell could she be talking to at this hour? Probably Matthew. Ashley had laughed about the state of near-mania that overtook them as the first rehearsal date drew closer and closer. As he sat there, his hand still resting on the telephone, Zachary began to remember a great many things: the canceled dates and the all-night sessions because one or two of the songs were bombing and had to be replaced, Ashley’s fury over the conductor’s refusal to bring down the sound of the orchestra for one of the singers whose voice couldn’t carry over it. Zach couldn’t understand the paranoia that engulfed all of them at the least hint of crisis. It was all so . . . dramatic. He took his hand away.

  What had he been thinking of anyway, to try to call her at this hour? He rubbed his hand over his forehead. At least that one was easy to answer. From the moment he’d seen her enter the 21 Club, his mind had been possessed with the desire, no, more than desire, the need to hold her, to feel her closeness, her special warmth. There’d been no way to foresee the effect it would have on him to sit next to her again, to have her perfume teasing his nostrils, to see the familiar way her lovely hazel-green eyes widened when she was listening and narrowed, ever so slightly, when she was thinking. She still wore her reddish-brown hair long, only now it was feathered around her face, accenting even further her considerable beauty. It had been downright painful, seeing her slim hand resting on the table, her fingers so close to his. So difficult to keep his hand from creeping over to cover hers. He felt as though someone had taken a giant eraser to the past three years.

  He jumped up impatiently. Fantasy. Pure fantasy. He’d already made an ass of himself by telling her how he still felt about her, and she hadn’t even replied. That should tell him all he needed to know.

  He went to the small refrigerator in the comer of the room and took out a beer. He thought he was through with sleepless nights, yet here he was again, pacing the room and watching the minutes trail by like tiny creatures with lead shoes. Hell and damnation, how could a grown man of supposed intelligence let himself get so out of control? That settled it. He would fly back to Boston in the morning. There was no way he would subject himself to this torture again. Joe Sanders could do the hobnobbing with the “exciting” theater people. He was going back home, where life was sane and relatively safe.

  And boring.

  The thought bobbed to the surface and was quickly banished.

  Chapter Three

  By the time Ashley and Matthew had finished the morning meeting, her head was throbbing. The music director was anxious to line up the best available musicians in Boston as quickly as possible for their out-of-town tryout and wanted to know the instrumentation needed for all the music. This gave her an immediate problem. There were those three important songs to be done, and she still couldn’t come up with a single funny idea, let alone in rhyme.

  But the bit of information that had given her the headache was that Zachary had returned to Boston.

  They walked outside into the blinding sunlight, shivering as the cold air hit them with the cruel dichotomy of winter. “I’m starved. Where shall we go for lunch?” Matt turned up the collar of his jacket. He never remembered to wear a topcoat.

  Ashley winced at the impact of the light. “I just want to go home. I feel like I’ve got a headful of crazed drummers.”

  “Yeah, no doubt. It’s called ‘Jordan aftershock.’”

  “Matt . . .”

  “Okay, sorry. In fact, I’d like to apologize for my crummy manners last night. It makes me so mad to see how wobbly kneed you still get when that guy is around that my usual charm deserts me.” He shrugged, a gesture of helplessness. “It brings back terrible memories of what a basket case you were after . . . well, after.”

  “I know.” She put her hand on his arm, grateful for his dogged loyalty and unquestioning friendship. “But it really isn’t Zach’s fault, you know. He was a perfect gentleman through the whole thing. It was obviously pretty hard on him, too.”

  “I’m sure, and why not? He lost the classiest broad in these here parts. He was too much of a gentleman. He should’ve tossed you over his shoulder and carried you off into the sunset.”

  “That only happens in Hollywood westerns. Besides, if he’d done that, you’d have needed a new collaborator.”

  “I doubt it. You’d’ve stolen his horse and ridden back into town just in time to go to work on the next production.”

  “Yes. And there, my friend, lies the rub.”

  “Well, the evening had one productive element.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Now don’t nay-say so quickly. Let’s both go to your place. I want to play you a tune.”

  Ashley started to protest, then, with a shrug, stepped into the cab that Matt had hailed.

  When they reached her building, the doorman met her with a smile. “Miss Grainger, I hope you don’t mind, I put something in your living room . . . a delivery.”

  “Oh? I wasn’t expecting anything.”

  His smile broadened. “Well, it’s the sort of thing that isn’t usually expected.”

  “You’re not going to tell me, are you. What is this, a conspiracy?”

  “No. Just a nice surprise.”

  Her curiosity piqued, she hurried through the door and into the elevator, with Matt close on her heels.

  When they passed through her foyer, Ashley gasped. “Oh, how beautiful!”

  Matt stepped into the large, rectangular living room, looking around and shaking his head. “What is this. Ashley? Have you lost faith in your penmanship and gone into the nursery business?”

  There were vases everywhere, containing forced bulbs of hyacinth, daffodils, iris, crocus, tulips. “But who . . .?” She walked around the room, her spirits lifting as the visual taste of springtime infiltrated her senses. “It must be Joe Sanders.”

  “Should be a card somewhere. Although an extravaganza of this magnitude might be accompanied by a homing pigeon with a note in its beak. Have you looked on your balcony?”

  “Oh, there . . . see? On the piano.” She crossed to the gleaming Steinway grand that dominated the decor and picked up an envelope balanced against a pot of freesia. Ripping it open, she pulled out the card and read aloud, “Ashley . . . I wish you endless springs — ” Her voice stuck in her throat, and she read the rest of the message silently: . . . and how I wish I could have shared them with you. Zachary. She sank into the pale pink chair next to the piano, clutching the note in trembling fingers.

  “Not Sanders, I gather.”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think Boston Yankees were prone to this sort of extravagance.”

  “They aren’t. Usually.”

  “Not to intrude, but why the spring bulb show, why not roses?”

  “I told him my favorite time of year was springtime; that even in New York City, just seeing the first crocuses pop up was enough to renew my spirits. I’d often dreamed of having a house in the countryside, with so many bulbs planted that every spring there’d be flowers as far as the eye could see. We . . .�
� She stopped. She couldn’t share the rest of the daydreams with anyone else. The two of them cuddled in front of a roaring fire, planning the home they would someday share, making long lists of bulbs they would plant as far as the eye could see. . . .

  Matt sat on the arm of the chair, his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, babe. It still hurts, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s too bad it went bad. Zachary is a damned nice man.”

  She stared up at him in surprise. “I thought you disliked him!”

  “No. I disliked what the relationship was doing to you.” He stood up, running his fingers through his hair. Matt wasn’t very comfortable with emotional situations, so he gravitated to the position of his utmost comfort, the piano bench. “Why don’t I limber up the fingers while you place the call?”

  “How did you know I was going to call him?”

  “We’ve worked together a long time, babe. And you wear your feelings on your face.”

  She nodded, knowing he was right. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Take your time. I’ll call the deli and have them send up some sandwiches.”

  “Okay. Make mine pastrami on dark rye.” She almost ran to the bedroom, her stomach doing a series of half-gainers. If his work habits hadn’t changed, he’d have gone straight from the plane to his office. But suppose he was out for lunch? Suppose he was with a client? Suppose . . . She picked up the phone and placed the call before all the ‘supposes’ could dissuade her.

  “Jordan, Purnell and Ware. Good afternoon.”

  “Good — ” Ashley cleared her throat. “Good afternoon. Is Mr. Jordan in?”

  “May I tell him who’s calling?”

  “Ashley Grainger.”

  “Just a moment, please.”

  How was it possible for the second hand on her bedside clock to move so short a distance in what surely had to be five minutes?

  “Ashley?”

  As soon as she heard his voice, her entire body became one giant container of misgivings. What should she say? Her mouth opened, closed, opened again, and, miraculously, something came out.

  “Thank you.” It was the best she could do.

  “You’re welcome. I hope they brighten up your home.”

  “They brighten up my life.”

  There was a moment of silence. What was he thinking? Why was the slightest pause so excruciating?

  “I’m glad. Things got a little tense last night, and I hated to leave it like that. I wanted to call you, but I didn’t know what to say, so I took a hint from the commercials and said it with flowers.”

  “I love the flowers.” She swallowed. How much truth could both of them stand? “But I wish you had stayed.”

  “Ashley, one look at you completely undid me, so I took the coward’s way out and ran. My stalwart ancestors would be appalled.”

  She smiled, glad to hear the first touch of the wonderful humor that was so much a part of him. “You were just following my example. You said something I’d wanted to hear for three years, and it struck me dumb.”

  “What a pair.”

  “Yes.”

  There were, she was amazed to notice, tears running down her cheeks. What a pair, indeed. A perfectly matched set, in so many ways. No wonder she still felt halved.

  “Ashley, I know you’re about to enter a hectic period, but I’d like — ” her heart stopped, waiting for the rest of the sentence “ — I’d like to talk to you.” There was a little throat clearing on his end of the line, too. “Obviously we can’t be around each other without, well, remembering.”

  Her head bobbed up and down. “Obviously.”

  “It seems only sensible to attempt to make it easier on ourselves.”

  “Yes.” They’d need a magician to accomplish that.

  “I’d like to have dinner with you. . . .”

  “I’d like that, too.” The most flagrant of understatements.

  “When?”

  Her mind unreeled a scroll of the insane schedule of the coming week. “I’ll make time. Whenever you say.”

  “Why don’t I come down in about a week? That would at least get you through the first rehearsals.”

  “I’m sure that’s wise.” Wise, yes. But a week was such a very long time!

  “How about a week from Friday night?”

  So far away. “All right. What time?”

  “Seven-thirty? Let’s go to the Veau d’Or.”

  “Oh, yes.” They’d both loved that small, cramped, noisy restaurant with its happy atmosphere and delicious food.

  “This may well break a record.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It may be the longest nine days in recorded history.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t the only one having trouble with unruly emotions! “Without doubt.”

  “I’ll see you.”

  How wonderful. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  When Zachary replaced the phone in its cradle, he leaned back in his leather chair and stared out the picture window at a jet airplane, miniaturized by distance, making its descent over the blue harbor into Logan airport. He wished he were there now, waiting to board the shuttle to New York. His gaze shifted to the brightly canopied buildings of the Quincy Marketplace, alive with noonday shoppers and restaurant goers, rushing or strolling across the cobblestone and brick walks. As he sat there, he realized that the morning’s frown had been replaced by a wide grin.

  He’d hesitated so over sending the flowers, skeptical about opening a door that had been firmly closed three whole years ago. Just being in Ashley’s presence a few short hours had wrought a miracle of sorts, an instant time crunch that eliminated those intervening years, resurrecting in full degree the rampant yearning that had once been his constant companion. He was probably nuts to hazard even one dinner with her. Obviously his resistance to her was nil. If he listened to his sensible side, he’d call her back, break the date and flatly refuse to handle this particular venture for Joe Sanders. There were good lawyers in New York who knew a lot more than he about the theater.

  The momentary lapse into good sense was quickly lost in the still-resonating memory of Ashley’s soft voice.

  Whistling softly under his breath, he pressed a button on the intercom and said, “Janet. Would you bring in the Thompson folder, please?”

  “Be right there.”

  “Thanks.” With the silly grin still glued in place, he returned his attention to the papers on his desk.

  Ashley all but danced back into the living room, humming a tune from their last musical. All of the recollections of unsolvable problems that had so diligently marched through her mind the night before had faded away.

  Matt looked up and watched her approach with raised eyebrows. “Uh-oh.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Has the premature spring heralded by all these blossoms infused your eyeballs with sunshine, or is that gleam powered by flowerescent bulbs?”

  “Oh, Lord, that’s corny.” Her eyes had a newly acquired twinkle as she said, “You told me to ‘lighten up,’ and I’m just following orders.”

  He grimaced. “Stop! I surrender!” He ran his fingers over the keys in an extended glissando. “When is he coming?”

  “A week from Friday.”

  “Then you’d better work your little fanny off between now and then.” He stopped, and a worried frown creased his forehead. “Ashley, be careful.”

  “I will, I promise. He just thinks that because we’re going to be seeing each other, we should try to remove some of the tension.”

  “Humph. Fat chance.” His mercurial mood swung again, and the frown disappeared. “At least, now that you’ve got a smile on your face, maybe you’ll respond to this marvelous idea.”

  “Let’s hear it.
”

  “Remember when I somewhat callously mocked Zachary’s line about ‘the money’s in the bank when the money’s in the bank?’“

  “Yes, and you were callous.”

  “Agreed. But creativity hath o’ercome callousity, and so — ” he held up his hand eloquently “ — bear the ‘money’ line in mind whilst I play this catchy tune.” His fingers began to move on the keys. “Remember the scene where our about-to-be-star, Christo, is mulling over the wisdom of signing the contract that offers nothing more substantial than vague promises?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he shows it to his mentor, Uncle Hermie?”

  “Still with you.” The dialogue was suspended while she listened to the tune. Her eyes widened in delight. “Of course, it’s brilliant!”

  “Yes, it is. So glad you can hear it.”

  Ashley sat down in the pink chair, her “working” chair, and took the clipboard and pencil Matt handed her from the piano. She listened while he played the tune over and over, then she started to write like mad. “Okay. Hermie has a lead-in verse that talks about the pitfalls in the contract and how they’ve both worked so hard to get where they are and how Christo shouldn’t sign anything without lots of dollar signs. . . .”

  “Yeah . . . yeah . . .” Matt leaned forward, his eyes on Ashley, his hands still playing the melody line.

  From there on, the song almost wrote itself. Ashley sang the lyrics as they appeared on the paper, and Matt adjusted notes to fit. The chorus and the repeat were done within twenty minutes. The bridge all but sprang out of the blossom-scented air, and they were soon winding up the last chorus.

  So don’t count your chickens until they’re hatched And don’t call your socks a pair until they’re matched, Never sign a check if the check is blank, and Don’t count your money . . . Don’t count your money . . . Don’t count your money till the money’s in the bank!

  “Yeah!” They jumped up at the conclusion and hugged each other, dancing around the flower-bedecked room.