Jack Purcell has collected and discarded lovers at a dizzying pace, but he has stayed with Nella Duval for a nearly a year now. . .
The lobby is nearly empty at 4:30 a.m., the complimentary coffee not yet brewed. Nella Duval returns her key card to a remarkably perky reception clerk while a night worker vacuums around her. She holds onto her cello as she watches the doorman store her roller bag in a waiting taxi’s trunk. The bag isn’t valuable like her cello, but it is important. The silvery box Jack gave her last night is protectively tucked inside it.
This is your dream, she reminds herself: to live a solo musician’s life. She chose this—rising at dawn, short stays in soulless hotel rooms, weekends on the road. But last night, she was a guest artist with the Symphony— Fauré’s Élégie for Cello and Orchestra.
Pablo Casals once played the Élégie with Fauré conducting. Jacqueline du Pré’s mournful cadences are legendary. Sometimes Nella listens to du Pré, wondering if she can ever match her. Maybe not, but that’s not the goal. You have to be yourself.
“Don’t be afraid to be strong,” Jack had whispered before they stepped onstage. She felt the bow’s power as she played. Then, there it was—spontaneous applause and multiple curtain calls. Jack’s eyes blazed when he presented his soloist to the audience.
Naturally, the critics will rave about Jack—they always rave about Jack. But this time, she believes, they will praise her own performance. She was impressive last night. She is rising.
Downstairs, the doorman whistles for a taxi and stores her roller bag in the trunk. She rests her cello’s fiberglass case against the seat beside her: “South Station, please.” Boston’s streets are snow-covered and nearly empty so early Saturday morning. With luck, she’ll have time to buy coffee before boarding the New York train: vanilla latte, two shots of espresso.
Her mother and sister ask why she lives like this. For them, family, children, weddings, recipes, church suppers—these are the balm of life. “I worry about you,” her sister says, “living in that tiny apartment and working all the time.” Her mother natters on about grandchildren and finding a good man before it’s too late. “Nella, honey, you’re already thirty-two. Aren’t you lonely?”
Is she lonely? Not all the time. Not since the thing with Jack began. Yesterday, they made love in the afternoon. After the concert, they dined with friends. He walked her to her hotel and came up to her room, just to talk. He seemed reluctant to go, though it was well past midnight.
It was supposed to be a romantic fling. She knew he was married before the sex began. She had pictured a whirlwind affair with the famous conductor—a small sin to reminisce about later, a story to tell in old age. But despite her savvy advice to herself, she may be falling in love. Not wise, not what she intended, likely a bad mistake. Her sister Maggie has warned her: “This rich white guy is going to leave you crying, baby.”
That’s a risk, but to end it now? Just when it seems so wonderful?
Last night, they laughed about the weather, stamping their feet to shake off the snow. They stood side-by-side looking out the hotel window where cyclones of white hid the advertised harbor view.
“It’s like a scene from Dr. Zhivago,” she had said. Jack had never seen the classic movie she loved as a teen. He compared it to The Gold Rush—Charlie Chaplin trapped in a cabin in a blizzard, so hungry he tried to cook and eat his shoe.
“A surprise,” he said, pulling a flat silvery package from his coat: “I’ll be in New York on Christmas Eve. You can open it then.”
“How did you manage that?” she had asked. Mistresses don’t expect holiday visits.
A funny grimace, no real answer: “I have to leave early Christmas morning—I can’t disappoint Harry. But I can stay the night, and we can toast the season . . . You want to, don’t you?”
Of course, she wanted to.
Now she sits at a metal cafe table, sipping her latte, waiting for her track to be posted on the “Departures” board. South Station is festive, decorated with white lights and green boughs for the holidays. She might get a tree this year, an extremely small one. She’ll have to figure out where to put it in her cramped Manhattan apartment. Should she let herself daydream about seeing Jack in nine days? Can she stop herself?