And for whatever reason, he'd taken that failure personally. It hadn't stopped him from playing individual songs for individual people, but it _had_ scared him away from any attempt to market his work to the masses. Probably also why he kept moving from area to area, bar to bar. If and when the brunette came back with even deeper troubles, he didn't want to be there to see it. Or maybe he just didn't want to be there to offer her more false hope.
Weldon Sommers, in other words, was well on his way to turning himself into a modern version of one of the classical Greek tragic figures he undoubtedly read all about in those lonely off-hours of his.
But at the moment, that didn't matter. All that mattered was the timing of the two events. And I could only hope that this mysterious failure had happened just before he'd withdrawn his music from that fifth publisher. Reading his history, Weldon had struck me as the impulsive type who generally let stimulus flow into response with very little delay.
Which was the needle point on which this whole gamble was balanced. Sometime in the next four weeks, he would suddenly change his mind again and send out the composition that would end up changing his life forever. If the woman who would inspire that song had already walked into and out of his life, I was drinking bad beer for nothing.
Lifting my glass, I took another sip. Across the room, the door opened --
And there she was.
I caught my breath, nearly choking on that last swallow of beer. She was a far cry from the holos I'd studied before I'd left: her blond hair falling flat and listless across her shoulders, her once radiant face turned weary and hopeless, her young, athletic body slumped with fatigue inside the confines of a plain and ill-fitting blue dress and brown jacket. She'd been through the mulcher and then some.
But it was her, all right. Amanda Lowell, daughter of Sir Charles Anthony Lowell, ninety-seventh richest man in the world. The woman who I'd gambled would be the inspirational spark that would send Weldon Sommers's career into the musical stratosphere.
The woman I'd come two hundred years into the past to find.
A pair of hard-eyed men crowded in right behind her, catching the door before it could swing completely shut. Once, I suspected, the genteel Miss Lowell would have flinched to have men like that even in the same room with her. Now, she didn't even seem to notice as they pushed past her in their rush to get to an unoccupied table between the door and the far corner of the bar. One of them said something as they passed; shaking her head, she started across the room.
I watched her as she made her way between the tables toward the bar. Her blank eyes stayed fixed straight ahead, not even acknowledging the presence of the people she was brushing past. I saw a couple of men glance at her, then glance just as casually away again. The brunette hadn't been the only hopeless-looking single woman in tonight, and there was nothing else in Amanda's appearance that anyone here would notice, let alone care about.
No one except Weldon Sommers.
I hoped.
Slowly, I lowered my glass to the table, afraid to move quickly lest I distract his attention. Had he seen her? Surely he had. Had he noticed her face, then, her dully terrified state of mind? Again, how could he have missed it?
But the music hadn't changed from the emotionally vacant barroom drivel. Amanda found an empty stool and slumped down onto it; and still the music didn't change. The bartender stepped up to her, nodded at her inaudible request, and turned to the bottles stacked behind him. Over by the door, one of the hard-eyed men grabbed a passing waitress's arm and jabbed a finger imperiously toward the bar.
And still the music didn't change.
I squeezed my glass hard, afraid to even look at Weldon, a horrible thought crawling like a spiny lizard through my gut. Had my mild attempts at encouragement actually had the opposite effect? Could the revived memory of whatever that dark incident was in his past have temporarily shied him away from his private crusade to lift the downtrodden and comfort the brokenhearted?
Because if I had, I had very possibly just altered history. _No pushing, no suggesting, no altering._...
And then, as the sweat began to collect on my forehead, the music finally changed.
It began slowly, just as it had earlier with the brunette. The major chords he'd been playing softened, flattened, and folded into their minor counterparts. The music modulated once, then twice, as Weldon searched for just the right key to fit the forlorn woman at the bar. The phrasing began to stretch out, the harmonies deepening and stretching and reaching.
And slowly, subtly, it transformed itself into the soft melody I'd been praying to hear ever since I arrived in this time period. A piece simply called, "For Love of Amanda."
I took a deep breath. This was it: the turning point in Weldon's life.
And, if I did my job right, it would be Amanda's redemption as well.
Across the room, the bartender handed Amanda her drink. Lost in her own misery, distracted perhaps by the buzz of conversation around her, she hadn't yet noticed the melody drifting through the smoke toward her.
But she would soon; and when she did, I decided, it might be better if I wasn't here. Leaving my glass where it was, I slid my legs out from under the table and headed toward the restrooms.
I went inside and let myself into one of the stalls, wishing I had a better idea of how long I should stay in here. All the biographies said was that "For Love of Amanda" had been inspired by a woman who'd come into the bar where Weldon was playing. I didn't know if she was going to go over and talk to him, or for how long; whether she would tell him her name or whether the song's title was just a wild coincidence.
All I knew was that the final, published song was six and a half minutes long. For no particular reason, I decided to give them seven. Pacing as best I could in the confined space, I counted out the minutes, sweating the whole time. The waiting, as always, was the worst part.
I'd wondered earlier if Amanda would go over to talk to him. In fact, she'd done me one better: I emerged from the restroom to find her seated at the table I'd just left. From my angle I couldn't tell whether they were talking or whether she'd just moved closer so she could hear the music better, but I was guessing the former.
Perfect.
And meanwhile, the familiar song continued its inexorable path through the oblivious room. _Like a handmade silk glove_, Amanda's own phrase echoed through my mind.
I paused just outside the restroom door, pretending to adjust my belt, looking surreptitiously around the room. The two hard-eyed men who'd come in behind Amanda were still seated where I'd last seen them, now with half-full beer bottles in their hands. They were definitely eyeing Amanda as they muttered together, but neither looked interested in making any kind of move on her.
But then, they hardly needed to leave the comfort of their table for that. There was no way for her to leave without walking directly past them.
While at this end of the room we had Weldon, apparently smitten enough with this woman he'd just met to compose a song for her on the spot. A song, moreover, that would be deathless enough to endure for the next two hundred years.