Invisible, as Music Read online

  Ryn sighed. “I suppose you’re right.”

  She got up and opened the refrigerator. “Chicken and rice leftovers for dinner?”

  Henrietta didn’t answer.

  “Hank?”

  “Yes?” Henrietta’s head snapped up.

  “Chicken and rice?”

  “That sounds fine.”

  But something in Henrietta’s voice didn’t sound fine.

  Henrietta went back into the bathroom to fuss with her hair a bit more, wetting the brush to make an unruly lick of hair lie flat. Why did it have to have a mind of its own today? She hadn’t time enough to shower and wash it to make it behave.

  “This is a mistake,” she grumbled to the mirror.

  “Ready, Hank?”

  The girl had talked her into attending Mass at the campus chapel today, rather than going to St. Rita’s as she’d been doing her entire life.

  “It’s really nice there,” Meryn had wheedled. “And I’d like you to meet some people.”

  Henrietta had grudgingly agreed, but now wished she hadn’t. She gave her suit jacket an extra tug and went out to the living room where Meryn had her coat ready for her.

  “I think we should take my station wagon,” Henrietta said. “In case I need my chair.”

  It grated on her to have to use her wheelchair, but she knew this chapel was in the middle of the campus. She’d been there only one time, and she remembered it being quite a distance from any of the parking lots.

  She held out the keys.

  “I can drive?” Meryn asked, her face lighting up.

  “You know the campus better than I do.”

  The girl took the keys and hurried out to the garage. Henrietta checked her purse to make sure she had some tissues and cough drops. Sometimes, when she got winded, her throat got so dry it set off coughing spells.

  She looked up at a loud thump from the general direction of the garage. The thump was followed by a series of crashing noises. She made her way to the garage where the Town & Country was idling and the girl was scrambling about, picking up plastic flower pots and wicker baskets which were rolling all over the floor. The set of shelves that normally stood in front of the car was leaning precariously.

  Henrietta watched with a bemused smile. “Those hand controls are tricky, aren’t they?”

  Meryn’s face was very red. “Yeah. You make it look easy.”

  She stood the shelves back on all four feet, and hastily restacked all the pots and baskets on them.

  Henrietta got into the passenger seat.

  “You still want me to drive?” Meryn asked as she slid behind the wheel.

  “With the foot pedals, if you please.”

  Meryn gave an embarrassed half-laugh. “Foot pedals. Got it.”

  She drove them to the parking lot nearest to the college chapel. The lot was only half-full.

  “What do you think?” Meryn asked as she pulled into a space. “Do you want your chair?”

  Henrietta got out of the car and eyed the bronze cross she could see on the chapel’s roof, probably a good quarter mile away. “Let me try walking it.”

  “There are benches. If you need the wheelchair, I’ll come and get it.”

  Together, they walked the paved paths that meandered among the campus buildings.

  “Where is your office?” Henrietta asked.

  Ryn pointed. “Rayburn Hall.”

  Henrietta nodded. “That building housed the English and language departments when I was here.”

  Ryn stopped abruptly. “You went to school here?”

  “Only a few classes. When I got home, my parents hired some of the instructors to tutor me. I finished my high school and then college degrees.” She surveyed the campus. “I would have attended more classes here, but I couldn’t get to the upper floors.”

  “There are elevators,” Ryn said.

  “There weren’t in the late forties,” Henrietta said drolly. “So I got a college education in a somewhat unorthodox fashion.”

  “How did I not know this?” Ryn asked.

  “You never asked.” Henrietta resumed walking.

  Ryn hurried to catch up. “Has it changed much?”

  “There are some new buildings. And the trees are much bigger than they were the last time I was here,” Henrietta remarked.

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Twenty years ago, this December second.”

  Meryn looked at her. “How do you remember that date so precisely?”

  Henrietta didn’t answer immediately. She was slightly winded and paused to catch her breath. “Because my father’s funeral was held in this chapel.”

  She walked on, leaving Meryn to follow silently.

  When they entered the chapel, the click of her crutches echoed a little, causing a few people to turn and see who it was. Meryn waved to a few young nuns sitting in a pew near the front.

  “Let’s sit with them,” Meryn whispered.

  Henrietta started to protest, but the nuns gestured and scooted down to make room for them.

  As Henrietta followed Meryn and sat, the nuns whispered greetings to them.

  “This is my friend, Henrietta,” she whispered back.

  They smiled and nodded in Henrietta’s direction. A trio of guitar players began a song just then, cutting off any further conversation, which was a good thing, because Henrietta’s throat was suddenly tight.

  She couldn’t recall any of her other companions ever referring to her as a friend. And, she realized, it had been mutual.

  The hymn they played was unfamiliar to Henrietta, but the young people all seemed to know it. Meryn’s clear voice rang out. Henrietta had almost forgotten how musical the girl was. She hasn’t played her guitar for weeks.

  The rest of the congregation stood for the processional, but Meryn placed a hand on Henrietta’s knee and remained seated beside her.

  This Mass was certainly more informal than she was accustomed to at St. Rita’s—two young people, one male, one female—served as acolytes. At the sign of peace, she was flustered when the people around her actually offered a hand to shake or placed a warm hand on her shoulder to wish her peace. Meryn smiled and wrapped an arm around her for a second, giving her a squeeze before letting go.

  The Communion bread was not the thin wafers Henrietta was accustomed to having placed on her tongue, but a flat loaf of actual brown bread, blessed and broken into pieces to be offered when the congregants walked up to the altar. Henrietta saw the others holding out their palms for the bread. It was a little more awkward for her, as she had to brace herself and let go of one crutch, but then she followed the nuns as they shuffled sideways to where the acolytes held chalices with blessed wine.

  Back in the pew, as the priest finished distributing Communion and then cleaned up, Henrietta recalled her father’s funeral Mass. The space had changed but little. New tapestries and banners, but she supposed they switched those out seasonally. She bit her lip and, a moment later, felt Meryn’s hand settle on her arm for a few seconds.

  When Mass was over, Meryn completed the introductions.

  “We were planning to have a brunch,” said the dark-haired nun, Roberta. “Won’t you both join us? Nothing formal. Please come.”

  Meryn turned to Henrietta quizzically.

  “If you wish,” Henrietta heard herself say. What is wrong with me?

  Meryn grinned and said, “We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  When they were out of earshot, Meryn asked, “How are you? Do you need your wheelchair?”

  “I’m fine. Let’s walk.” Henrietta’s mind was whirling as they returned to the car. “So you’re friends with nuns?”

  Meryn laughed. “Yeah. Surprised me, too. They’re pretty cool. The three in habits are junior nuns, completing their education degrees. Tamara, the one not in a habit, will probably be joining their order next fall.”

  Henrietta wasn’t sure how to ask what was running through her mind. “And are you…?”

>   Meryn burst out laughing. “Hell, no. Sorry, I mean, no. I like them. They’re really nice, but I have no desire to enter a convent.”

  For some reason, that released a small knot of fear that had started to tighten in Henrietta’s chest.

  When Meryn parked on the curb in front of a small house on a quiet street, Henrietta frowned out the car window at the porch steps. Seven steps.

  “Shoot,” Meryn said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even remember those. Do you want to leave?”

  Before Henrietta could answer, a tall young woman emerged from the front door and came out to them.

  Henrietta stared up at her. “Aren’t you—?”

  “Franny,” she said with a grin, squatting so she was at eye-level with the car. She looked down at her jeans and sweatshirt. “Got out of uniform as soon as I could.” She pointed down the driveway. “The back door only has two steps into the kitchen. If that would be easier, pull into the driveway. We parked down the block to leave it for you.”

  “Thank you,” Henrietta said, taken aback by such unexpected thoughtfulness.

  Meryn maneuvered the station wagon into the drive, leaving extra room for Henrietta to swing the door completely open. With the use of a sturdy handrail, Henrietta made her way up the two steps and into the kitchen, where a chair was waiting for her at the table.

  “Coffee?” asked one of the blonde ones.

  “Yes. Please.” Henrietta leaned her crutches in the corner where they would be out of the way.

  “I’m Tamara,” said the young woman as she set a large mug on the table.

  “Henrietta.”

  The kitchen was a beehive of activity, with the one called Roberta mixing up waffle batter while Franny cracked a dozen eggs into a bowl to scramble.

  “Here,” said the plump blonde, setting a bowl of apples on the table and handing Henrietta and Meryn each a peeler and a section of newspaper. “If you two will peel these, I’ll make an apple strudel.”

  “Anything for your strudel, Steph,” Meryn said fervently.

  Stephanie laughed. “I grew up on this. My grandmother’s recipe.”

  “God bless Grandma Messner,” said Roberta. The others intoned their agreement with a murmured “Amen” and continued their work.

  Henrietta peeled her apples, listening to the banter and the laughter. None of the gatherings she attended with her friends was anything like this. Apparently, something was happening later in the day that involved bison and horses. She realized Meryn was grinning at her.

  “You have no idea what they’re talking about, do you?” Meryn asked, reaching for another apple. “It’s the football game today. The Buffalo Bills are playing the Colts.”

  “Oh.”

  Roberta cradled her bowl and stirred the batter. “Ryn tells us you’re an artist.”

  Henrietta flushed as everyone turned to look at her. She nodded.

  “She’s not just a hobby artist,” Meryn said. “Her work is in galleries all over the state. You should see her paintings. They’re beautiful.”

  “We’d love to see them,” said Franny.

  “Maybe we can have you all over sometime,” Meryn said with a hopeful glance.

  “That… that would be lovely.” Henrietta heard the words and nearly looked around to see who had spoken them.

  A couple of hours later, Henrietta stretched out on the sofa at home, exhausted but surprisingly happy. She pulled the throw off the back of the couch.

  “Thank you.” Meryn stood over her and helped position the throw over her legs.

  “What are you thanking me for?”

  The silly girl stood smiling down at her. “For being part of my circle of friends. For letting them get to know you a little. For not yelling at me when I drove your car into the wall.”

  Henrietta couldn’t help chuckling as Meryn went back to her room, singing one of the hymns from church.

  Chapter 9

  A steady patter of rain hit the office window, and the murky November sky made it feel much later than three o’clock. Ryn adjusted her desk lamp as she bent over one of her old notebooks from school, searching for a specific passage. Finding it, she kept her place on the page with a finger while she jotted down the information on a new pad of paper. When she’d been handed the course material for her freshman seminar class, she’d almost fallen asleep trying to get through it.

  “Who wrote this stuff?” she’d asked Beverly, and Beverly’s wry expression had told her everything she needed to know.

  This was probably the last real work Geary had done. He’d been teaching from the same old, tired material for years without refreshing it or looking for ways to make it more interesting. “It’s history; it doesn’t change,” she’d heard him say a dozen times. Presumably, he put more effort into the upper level courses he and Talbert taught.

  Here, she was digging through her old notes on George Washington as a teenager, when at age sixteen, he was surveying the western reaches of the Virginia colony. The same age she’d been when she first learned of it. This was the kind of detail that had made history come alive for her, and she hoped she could pass some of that along.

  She stiffened at the familiar sharp rap on the door. For a moment, she debated ignoring it, but she was sure he’d seen the light glowing through the pebbled glass.

  “Come.”

  The door opened and Geary assumed his typical posture, leaning against the frame. “I’ll need your notes.”

  Ryn turned back to her desk. “What notes?”

  “The syllabus you made on that woman course,” he drawled. “Your lecture notes. I need your material.”

  She bit her lip and continued to write—though her hand was clutching the pencil so hard it shook, making the squiggles nearly illegible. “I don’t have any material.”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw him straighten. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” she said, careful to keep her tone calm and neutral, “that I wrote a proposal. That’s all.”

  He stepped into the office, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. “Beverly told Jerry you had almost the entire course put together. I need it. Now.”

  So that’s why he did it. Not only could he take credit for an idea that wasn’t his, but he thought he could teach it without doing any work.

  Ryn kept her head down, but all of her focus was on his movements in her peripheral vision, her entire body tensed, ready to react if he made a move toward her. She had a very sudden certainty that looking him in the eye would provoke an attack—like making eye contact with an aggressive dog.

  “Dr. Talbert misunderstood.” She wasn’t going to sell Beverly out. “I told Beverly I was going to work on putting the course together once it was approved. Since it got handed to you, that’s now your job.”

  Her eyes flicked to the side just enough to see his clenched fists.

  “But I don’t— I don’t have—” Geary stammered, and Ryn could hear the panic in his voice.

  “The new semester starts in just a couple of months,” she couldn’t help saying. “If I were you, I’d get started.”

  For a few awful seconds, she was sure he was going to hit her, but he turned on his heel, slamming the door behind him so hard that the glass rattled.

  She waited, frozen over her papers, until she heard another door slam farther down the corridor. Slowly, she exhaled and sat back. Her hands were still trembling, but whether it was from the fury that was nearly choking her, or the fight part of the fight-or-flight response that had kicked into high gear, she wasn’t sure.

  She got up and went to the door, opening it to see if the corridor was really empty. A couple of her students walked by and said hi. She nodded to them and closed the door again. Pulling open her desk’s file drawer, she quickly pulled out several manila folders stuffed with her lecture ideas for the women-and-history class, her syllabus, the weekly lecture outline she had prepared, and transferred them all to her backpack. She might not be able to stop him from tak
ing credit for her idea, and she couldn’t stop Talbert from giving her course to that jerk, but she’d be damned if she was going to just give him all of her work to make the class a success.

  Zipping the pack shut, she looked at the George Washington notes lying on the desk but gave up getting any more work done today. She tugged on her rain jacket and shrugged the backpack straps into position. She didn’t even tell Beverly good-bye.

  Her hood kept most of the rain off her face, but she wished that she’d driven as she trudged through the campus. Keeping her head bowed against the rain, her vision was blocked by her hood, so she didn’t immediately see the car that slowed to roll at her pace.

  “Hey.”

  She lifted the edge of her hood. Tamara sat behind the wheel of a rusty seventy-something Datsun.

  “Can I give you a lift?”

  “I’m soaked,” Ryn said. “I’ll get your seat all wet.”

  Tam laughed. “Nothing can hurt this vinyl. Get in.”

  Ryn hesitated. She wasn’t fit company for anyone at the moment, but this cold rain was miserable. She slipped the straps off her shoulders and got in, tucking the backpack between her feet.

  “Thanks.”

  “What in the world are you doing walking in this?” Tamara asked, reaching over to crank up the heat.

  Ryn slid her hood back. “I usually like to walk, but I should have paid more attention to the weather forecast.”

  Tamara put the Datsun in gear. “You said you live out by the country club?”

  “Yes.”

  They drove through the village streets, the slap of the wipers the only sound. Overhead, trees stretched their naked branches to the leaden sky.

  “What’s wrong?” Tamara asked.

  Ryn blinked hard, willing herself not to cry. She hated it when she got so angry that she blubbered instead of hitting something. “Argument with a colleague,” she said curtly.

  She felt a warm hand smother her cold one.

  “Want to talk?” Tam asked.

  Ryn stared down at Tamara’s hand. Of its own volition, hers flipped over to clasp Tam’s, palm to palm. Their fingers intertwined, and the tears came anyhow.