At the end of the hall there was a short staircase, which led to the loft she’d glimpsed from below.
“The builders customized this for me,” he commented as they ascended. “There are a number of artists in the complex, and they use the addition as a studio.” He smiled over his shoulder at her. “I use it as a playroom.”
Jennifer paused on the threshold of an immense circular room with a cathedral ceiling. Brightly colored, hand-woven rugs were scattered on the polished oak floor, which gleamed with a rich luster. The room contained an impressive grand piano and three complicated-looking telescopes, their noses trained outward, poking through full-length, concealing drapes. There was also a plush couch set in a nook, with a companion coffee table covered with books and magazines. At the far end of the room stood a draftsman’s table with an arc lamp anchored to shine on its inclined surface.
Jennifer walked over to the piano, running her hand over the beautiful cherry wood. “However did you get this up here?” she asked.
“There’s a deck off the back, and the movers hoisted it to that level, and then pulled it in through the sliding glass doors.”
Money could accomplish anything. She sifted through the stacks of sheet music which sat on a brass stand next to the instrument.
“I presume you play,” she said.
Lee nodded. “One of the teachers at the Indian school taught me, and later I took lessons on my own.” He pulled out the bench and sat on it, spreading his fingers over the keys. “She noticed the size of my hands when I was in her music class.” He indicated an octave, and Jennifer could see that his fingers stretched two or three keys beyond that. “The reach makes it much easier to play.” He winked. “Good for catching footballs, too.” He leaned back and flexed his arms elaborately, like Victor Borge. “What would you like to hear?”
Jennifer had no idea. “Anything.”
“Just what I like,” Lee said. “A woman of universal tastes, easily pleased.” He began with Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” playing with the ease of long practice. He moved into a Chopin polonaise and then to a series of Strauss waltzes.
Jennifer listened, enraptured.
Lee paused. “Enough of the highbrow stuff,” he said. “You like Gershwin?”
She smiled. “I love Gershwin.”
He picked up the score from the movie Manhattan, which was lying on top of the piano. “Gershwin it is.” Jennifer folded her arms on the cabinet and leaned forward to study the musician as he played, “S’Wonderful,” “Rhapsody in Blue,” “Embraceable You,” and “Someone to Watch Over Me” in a medley, gliding from one to the other effortlessly. He was absorbed, displaying the same concentration he showed on the football field. Jennifer loved him so much in that moment that she didn’t trust herself to speak.
He stopped, and she applauded, burlesquing her reaction to cover her emotion.
He bowed from the waist. “I like the old tunes,” he said. “Sometimes I play up here for hours. It’s very relaxing.”
“It must be.” He certainly covered the waterfront in terms of variety. From Buddy Holly to Bruce Springsteen to Beethoven and Gershwin was quite a spread. “I’d like to hear more,” she added.
He seemed pleased. “Sure.” By heart, without music, he played a haunting rendition of “Stardust,” singing along in a clear, ringing baritone, and then switched to “Deep Purple.” He finished with the theme from Casablanca, and Jennifer watched as the last notes of “As Time Goes By” faded into silence. Lee sat looking at his hands, clenched in his lap.
“If I had closed my eyes, I would have thought you were Dooley Wilson,” Jennifer said lightly.
Lee looked up abruptly, as if roused from some reverie. “Oh, yes, thank you.” He was silent a moment longer, and then said, “I shouldn’t play that, it always gets me down.”
“Why?”
“Oh, you know, the movie, Bogart and Bergman, so in love, but so wrong for each other, caught in such an impossible situation. Sad, don’t you think?”
Jennifer turned away, not wanting him to see the impact of his remark on her face. “Yes, very sad,” she commented neutrally.
He got up and moved to a switch on the wall. “And now for the piece de resistance,” he said. He touched the button, and all the drapes pulled back from the windows at once, revealing floor to ceiling glass completely around the room. The loft was actually on the roof of the townhouse, so the night sky surrounded them in all directions. Jennifer felt bathed in stars.
He waited for her reaction. When none came, he said, “Well?”
“I’m speechless.”
“An historic occasion,” he said dryly.
Jennifer spun around in a circle, observing the heavens from every direction. “I never knew there were so many stars.”
“You can see them better here because you’re high up and there’s no light competing with them, like from malls and parking lots.” He paused. “In Montana, on the Northern plains where I lived, on a summer night the stars would press in on you, so close, and so many...” He stopped. “Did you ever see one of those glass paperweights kids have, when you turn it upside down, it looks like a snowfall?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the only way I can describe the experience is that you feel like you’re in one of those domes, with the stars surrounding you instead of the snow.”
Jennifer felt her throat constrict with sympathy at his tone. She had never realized before that he was very homesick.
“I’m sure it’s beautiful,” she said.
He went to the biggest telescope and crooked his finger at her, squinting into the eyepiece. “Come here and look at this,” he said.
Jennifer did as she was bid, bending to gaze through the lens. Lee stood directly behind her, talking into her ear, his hands on her shoulders. She was acutely conscious of the warmth of his fingers on her bare skin above the neckline of the dress, the closeness of his lips as he spoke.
“Do you see that over there?” he asked. “That’s not a star, it’s the planet Venus. Notice how it doesn’t twinkle, but seems to shine with a steady light. That’s how you can tell the difference. And look at the Big Dipper,” he added, swinging the scope to a different angle, pointing out various stars and constellations. She recognized some of the names from long-ago, half-forgotten science classes: Arcturus and Betelgeuse, Cassiopeia and Sirius and Orion. He knew them all, and their locations, how they shifted position in the sky through the year. The scope was on rollers, and he moved it about with them as he spoke, to give her a better view of what he was describing. Jennifer caught his enthusiasm and studied everything carefully, intrigued.
“Now this one,” he said, leading her to another scope, “is more powerful, a high-intensity scope. If you look directly at the sun through one of these, you’ll go blind. I have a special filter to use, but even then you have to be careful because sometimes the filters burn through, and...” he trailed off, leaving the sentence unfinished. Then he said, “I’m sorry. I’m showing off and I’m boring you.”
Jennifer looked up at him, saw the concerned face, the intent, expressive eyes, and said, “You could never bore me.” It was out before she could stop it.
She saw him draw a breath and lean toward her. Aware that she had made a mistake, she walked away, out of reach. “What’s in there?” she asked, pointing to a cedar chest behind the piano, changing the subject.
For a minute he didn’t answer, and she feared that he wouldn’t allow her to evade him. But then his voice came, low, intimate. “I’ll show you.”
He lifted the lid, and brought out a leather shirt, encrusted with elaborate beadwork, and several other items of clothing, obviously old and handmade.
“These belonged to my great-grandfather,” he said. “I wish I could wear them, but they’re too small for me.”