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"It looks almost new, murmured Marco as he stepped up to the Stein way. "I
hope it's not too stiff. He
sat at the piano and ran his fingers across the keys. "Good sound. Not too
stiff. He looked up. "Could
we do just a bit of the Schubert? And then the second Poulenc piece?"
I stepped up on the dais.
We practiced for only about ten minutes. I had a hefty amount to sing later.
Marco and I got something to drink from one of the bars set up around the
Crystal Room. Actually, I
had plain soda. He had a red wine of some sort. I wouldn't have anything until
after I sang. The Claytons
had four real bars with real bartenders and real fermented liquors and wines,
not imitation formulated
alkie. The bottles at each bar cost more than I made in a year, perhaps two,
or even three. Even though I
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sang at soirees five to ten times a year, I still felt slightly out of place.
It was sobering to sip a glass of
wine, good as it was, that cost more than I made in a full day of teaching. So
I didn't, until after I sang.
I laughed at myself. I enjoyed good wine as much as anyone. I only had the
sobering thoughts after I left
the ball, without either glass slipper, and returned to my more than modest
conapt.
So Marco and I sat and talked. We didn't talk about music, but about
everything from the way the ebol4
epidemic had come and started to go in less than two weeks to why Dr. Hinckle
was close to useless as
a university president, at least from the viewpoint of the faculty. Or the
adjunct faculty, since both of us
were mere adjuncts. As we talked, more and more elegantly clad couples slipped
down the ramp and
into the room. Marco slipped away to the Stein way and began to play. Even
though there were more
than a hundred people there by six forty-five, not one had joined us. I
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wondered, not for the first time at
a soiree, if I wore an invisible sign that proclaimed: "Hired Singer. I was
to do what amounted to two
sets. I would begin with a series of art songs. Then I was to take a half-hour
break before doing the
Golden Age vocals. At seven o'clock, Marco nodded in my direction, and I
walked to the dais and the
piano.
After beginning with the easier Moore songs, I did a series of short Wolf
pieces, followed by the
Poulenc, and then by Schubert's "Gretchen an spinnrade. Along the way, I got
some applause, and
surprisingly, relative quiet. Then I did the Schumann "Frauen liebe und
Leben, before finishing up the first
half with the Evans piece, "Lives of Quiet Desperation.
I don't do many modern art songs for one reason. There aren't many. I had to
search to find even the
Evans piece.
We got more applause. I hoped it wasn't from relief. Marco announced that he
would be playing for half
an hour, and that I would be back singing Golden Age popular vocals right
after that.
I slipped back to the table in the corner, stopping by the nearest bar to get
more plain soda, before
reseating myself.
A tall man approached and inclined his head. "Professor Cornett, I'm Dorn
Clayton, Roberta's father. I
won't intrude much, because I know you have more to sing, but I wanted to tell
you how much I enjoyed
the art song.
"Thank you. I meant it. Usually, I got polite thanks, and words about how
important culture was.
"That was beautiful, especially the Schumann. I've always felt that Schumann
was as great a composer as
Mozart or Beethoven, but because symphonies are more popular, the art song
composers are
denigrated.
I wasn't certain I'd go that far. So I answered, "I love his songs.
He laughed. "Perhaps I overstated my case. He smiled. "I did prevail upon
Roberta, and I'm very glad
that I did.
"She is lovely.
"Very lovely, very bright, and hasn't the faintest idea of what is truly
beautiful music. Like most of her
generation.
What do you say to that? "She agreed to your choice. She must respect it.
He laughed, self-deprecatingly. "That was her concession to me. She's very
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astute, and very good at
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