It was during the viewing of Rebecca in the South Side Plaza that she was struck by the film’s score. Racing home, she found herself at her piano, and the ideas in the form of notes came flooding out of her. Becoming a composer had never been something she’d ever considered. She’d been content to play the works of others—with increasing difficulty—but her own work, her own voice, had eluded her.
She drove to Albuquerque and found a music store and bought them out of blank music paper. Sitting at her Steinway, she began to piece together her first and then her second composition. In the next four years, Nora would create twenty-eight pieces of music for the piano.
On June 22, 1944, she woke to find that Luke had made her a plate of Spanish eggs—her favorite. While he made her breakfast every morning, to have it delivered was something out of the ordinary. “What have I done to deserve this?”
“It’s your birthday.”
She groaned. “Thirty-four. I’d hoped you’d forgotten.”
“Sadly, no.” He slid in the bed beside her and arranged her hair, an intimate act that she loved. “We’ve done well, haven’t we?”
She laughed, snorted almost, arranging the tray in front of her and admiring the flower he’d placed there. “What on earth has gotten into you today?”
“I’m just asking.” He sank into the pillow next to her, watching her. “We’ve been happy, haven’t we? Despite the hand we were dealt.”
She picked up her knife and fork and began cutting into her poached eggs. “Yes. We’ve been very happy.” She smiled. “I couldn’t be happier.”
His face looked grim, and there were tears in his eyes.
She reached over and touched his face. “What is it?”
He shook his head, studying her face for a long time. “It’s nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Well, I can’t eat with you doing that.” She laughed and held out her hand, placing it over his eyes.
After she ate, she agreed to accompany Luke to his gallery. She’d had other things to do. She’d requested the score from Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann and it had taken months to get it from a store in Montreal, but Nora had gotten a note that it had arrived. She’d planned to get it as soon as the store opened, but Luke had been insistent that they spend the day together.
He was busy hanging a painting when she looked out the window to the square and noticed the marquee for the newest picture, Going My Way. It was a musical starring Bing Crosby, and Nora was dying to see it.
“I’m going to go get tickets for tonight,” she called to Luke as she fumbled with her purse. After she got the tickets, she’d swing around to the music store to get the score. She’d be back in a minute.
She thought she heard him yelling something to her. Something like “Don’t go,” but that was ridiculous. Nora was smiling, walking toward the theater, admiring Bing Crosby’s name in letters when the truck hit her with such force that it sent her flying ten feet into the park. One minute Bing Crosby’s name was there; the next it wasn’t.
She heard his voice and saw his face. “Just stay put. Don’t try to stand.”
Nora put her hand to her head. “The pain.” She could see that a truck had struck a statue. The crushed hood was smoking from the impact. How funny was it that she hadn’t heard it? She hadn’t even seen that accident and yet she’d been in the square.
He pulled her toward him. “It’s okay.”
“Funny,” she said, deflating like a balloon in his arms. “It doesn’t feel okay.”
“You’re okay.” He rocked her back and forth on the ground. “You’re okay.” He continued rocking her, long after she’d stopped talking. Long after she’d stopped breathing. Long after she’d begun to turn cold.
24
Helen Lambert
Washington, DC, June 14, 2012
I’d landed at Dulles Airport in the afternoon and although I was playing it cool with Mickey, I knew I would be calling Luke as soon as I got back to my apartment. I’d hidden the blood vial in my makeup bag, and it had gone through security without a hitch. Now I rolled it up in a gym sock for safekeeping and locked it in my safe.
I was reeling, both from going back to Paris, which had ripped open many of the raw wounds I had from Juliet, and from learning about Nora’s death—reliving my death, rather. While I couldn’t admit to Luke that I’d gone to Paris, Nora’s story answered a lot of questions I had about my own life, mainly my failure to have a child.
I set my suitcase down in my foyer, remembering to take off the tag declaring it had come from Charles de Gaulle Airport to keep up the ruse that I had been in London. I hit Luke’s number on my speed dial. The conversation was short.
“Can you come over?”
“When?”
“Now?”
“Yeah.”
I’d had a chance to shower from my flight. My nose hadn’t started bleeding, and I didn’t think it would anymore. With each story, I felt I was building strength from each of my lives. This was different from what had happened to Nora when she’d bled so profusely. Pouring a glass of wine, I was halfway through it when I heard a knock at my door.
Nora’s story was such a fresh wound to me that when I saw him I started crying—sobbing really. The poor man hadn’t even gotten through my doorway and I was already a mess. He held me in the foyer telling me he was sorry. He was different from Juliet’s and Nora’s Varner, but he’d only changed for the times—from the formal coat and beard of Juliet’s Varnier, to the cardigan and wavy hair of Nora’s Varner, to the current leather-jacket-and-jeans version with shorter, spikier hair. I hadn’t realized how many times he’d had to do this before with me, the dizzied explaining and piecing together of who I was and who he was in relation to me. It occurred to me that this must be maddening to him, but he just held me. It was the silence and the feel of him breathing that was the most romantic thing about it. And then I untangled myself enough to kiss him.
Something in my kiss caused his eyes to search my face. “Nora?”
“I’m so sorry, Luke.” I nodded. Now I understood why Nora had been so special to him. They’d had a full life together.
It was as though we were both starved, barely making it out of the foyer. Me, pulling off his jacket in the hallway and peeling off my sweater like an unwanted shell. I knew his body from my dreams—I knew his body through Nora’s eyes, which was a little strange because both were me and not me at the same time. I recalled feeling a pang of jealousy toward Nora in my dreams. I wasn’t Nora or Juliet exactly, having both their memories but also a lifetime of my own different experiences… lovers… a husband. I was different. And he was different with me, too.
Hours later, we were eating Thai takeout sitting on the floor of my living room, using my coffee table and red plastic disposable plates. I stretched out my legs and scooped up a spicy eggplant bit. “Why did you not tell Nora what would happen on her birthday?”
He leaned against the sofa. “I couldn’t do that to her. She just wanted a normal life. You know the disappointments she suffered… Billy… Clint…”