The following morning, I worked from home, as I often did when I was dealing with out-of-state clients. I checked my email as I was waiting for my lunch to arrive. I was somewhat surprised that I hadn’t heard back from Ken Feirman yet, especially as the longer the current situation dragged out, the more potentially damaging it could become to his client’s reputation. I was contemplating a phone call to Ken when I got a knock at the door. Presuming the knock to be the delivery man with the broccoli chicken I’d ordered, I opened the door. And it was him. I stepped back out of shock.
“I don’t usually get that sort of reaction, Ms. Husch,” Dalton said. “Do I look so terrible?”
I paused to regard him, and really my reaction was just the surprise more than anything, but it was highly irregular, him showing up like that. I did look at him, though, and quite unlike Ivy McKinnes, Dalton had the look of an extraordinary man. He was taller than I’d imagined, and he looked like he’d just stepped out of a Brooks Brothers catalogue—and, having finished the photo shoot for the day, he’d tousled his hair, thrown off his tie, untucked his shirt, and gone off for a good night out. And he may well have done that. He had a half-empty bottle of scotch in his left hand and an empty glass in his right, and his eyes told me where the missing scotch had gone. Even so, there was no malice in his eyes. There was a quiet sense of defeat and sadness in his countenance, but even as he swayed ever so slightly while standing there, his posture was erect—even noticeably commanding. There was a strange clash unfolding in his bearing, as though his mind were somewhat sad and defeated, while such a prospect was so utterly foreign to him that his body didn’t even know how to express it. He swayed foot to foot for those few seconds, not like a drunkard, but as a medalist on a podium, and not for a moment did the sly smile leave his lips as he awaited my response, which didn’t come.
“I trust you know who I am, Ms. Husch?”
“I do indeed. You simply startled me, Mr. Jennings-Milner. I was expecting some delivery, you know, it is lunchtime.”
“Please, call me Dalton.”
I didn’t quite know what to say to him. I was flustered by his surprise appearance, and I remember uttering a few ums and ahs while contemplating whether I might have an untidy situation on my hands, before finally I said, “What can I do for you exactly?”
“I understand my downstairs neighbor hired you to be her attorney.”
“Yes, she did.”
He nodded. “My attorney, Ken Feirman just made me aware.”
“Does Mr. Feirman know you’re here?”
“I’m sure he doesn’t,” Dalton said, still smiling. “Nor would he be happy about it, I’ll bet. But I’ve always had a fundamental distrust of lawyers.”
“I see,” I said.
“Ironically, though, I’ve always trusted my neighbors, which…obviously a mistake.” He tipped the bottle of scotch comically and smiled again before looking at me seriously and saying, “I figure you’re both a lawyer and a neighbor, so I thought I might drop by and have a word—see where you stood.”
“Well, I would say, given the circumstances, Mr. Jennings-Milner, that would be inappropriate—as both a lawyer and a former neighbor.”
“Please, Ms. Husch. Dalton.”
“Yes, very well, but as I said.”
“I’m sorry,” he said nodding. “I just I hoped I could set the record straight—as a neighbor, of course. I didn’t intend to discuss anything inappropriate.”
He stood there for a moment waiting for an opening. As he looked into my eyes, my head grew quite warm. My heart began to beat faster, and I couldn’t understand why, but I had the strong urge to hear Dalton out.
“Again,” I said. “I don’t think—”
And at that moment, the delivery man stepped around the corner from the elevator, and seeing the open door without any visible number, he said quite generally to the both of us, “32E? Hirsch.”
“Yes, here,” I said, fumbling through my pockets for the tip money I’d left on the kitchen counter.
As the deliveryman thrust the bag into my hands, Dalton tucked the bottle of scotch under his arm, and almost as though it were a reflex, he took thirty dollars from his pants pocket and handed it to the fellow, who took it, even as I said, “That’s quite unnecessary.” But before I could rectify the situation, the man had already disappeared again—around the corner to the elevator and gone.
“I already paid by card,” I said.
“His lucky day,” Dalton said.
Perhaps it was the sight of him there, sad and drunk—or perhaps it was the contempt I held for that girl, turning this man’s entire world on end with her utter carelessness for the dignity of other people—perhaps it was both those things that made it difficult to turn him away. I felt a nervous tension in my chest with each passing second, and as I stood there, trying to think of the gentlest possible way of getting Dalton to leave, he suddenly looked over my shoulder and said, “Is that a grand piano in your living room? In Manhattan?”
I must have turned around out of reflex, because I certainly knew the answer without having to turn around to look.
“You must play then?” he said. “Let me guess...Bach and...Vivaldi?”
“What about them?” I asked, turning back to face him.
“Your two favorite composers.”
“Well, I can’t say I don’t have love for both of them, but if I had to pick just two, for the piano mind you, I would have to say Debussy and Chopin.”
“I should start playing again,” Dalton said, nodding. “I gave it up in college, and what a mistake. I was never that good, but, well, I do miss playing. Do you mind?” he gestured toward the piano with the bottle.
“Mind what exactly?” I said.
“May I have a quick look at it?”
I hesitated for a moment. “At the piano?”
“Yes,” he said. “I can’t believe you’ve got a piano up here.”
I looked over his shoulders into the hallway and realized that the longer he stood there, the more likely it was that we’d be seen by someone other than the delivery man—someone who knew me and would likely recognize Dalton as well.
“I certainly didn’t carry the piano up the stairs, if that’s what you mean,” I said, and quite reluctantly, I turned and stepped inside.
“How did they even fit it in the freight elevator?” he said, following me. “And around the corners?”
“It’s only a baby grand, and they took off the legs. The movers were actually quite clever.”
“They’d have to be,” he said, looking on the instrument with admiration.
I suddenly realized that my feeling of apprehension had mostly dissipated now that the door was shut behind us and there was no longer the possibility of a neighbor happening upon us conversing in the hallway. Dalton, meanwhile, circled the piano, observing it from several different angles. I watched as he approached the keyboard, still with the glass in one hand, and the bottle in the other.
“If you have any designs of setting that bottle down on my Steinway, Mr. J—”
He laughed. “Please, Ms. Husch. Call me Dalton. And, I’m just wondering if you think me such a philistine as to set a glass on this work of art you’ve obviously taken great care to bring into your home.” He set the bottle down on the wooden floor beside the ventilation unit and the scotch glass on the table behind us.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m a bit protective of it.”
“I can see why,” he said. “It’s beautiful. Must have cost a fortune.”
“No, actually, it was free.”
“You’re joking.”
“No. I mean, the movers weren’t cheap, but the piano itself was free.”
“Who gives away a Steinway?”
“Well, the previous owner was a piano teacher, and her children didn’t know what to do with it when she passed, and the truth is that it’s just an old form of entertainment nobody wants anymore. People all have televisions and computers to keep them occupied, and a piano takes up far too much space for the city. The only thing I had to give for that piano was my word that I would play it and take care of it as their mother had stipulated when they arranged her estate.”
He looked at me and smiled, and then he gestured. “Might I hear it?”
“I’m not sure that would be appropriate given the circumstances.”
“I’d play something,” he said, gesturing toward the keyboard again, “but I’ve forgotten mostly everything—and, well, I’m not in the best state. I wouldn’t want to—”
“No, I understand,” I said, happy that he was still sober enough to refrain from touching the keys.
“I could really use some music in my life right now, Myra, and I can tell you’re passionate about music,” he said, gesturing to the piano again. “Please. I love Debussy as well.”
I hesitated for a moment before finally giving in. “Very well,” I said, nodding as I sat.
He picked up the bottle again, sat down at the kitchen table, poured a little scotch, and corked the bottle. I turned to address the piano, and after a deep breath, I began to play. With Dalton seated behind me like that, I had no idea what he was thinking as he listened. As I played, though, I became aware of just how long it had been since I’d played for even an audience of one. I was nervous, and not only because I was playing for someone. It began to dawn on me that it was by far the least professional thing I had ever done in my thirty-four-year legal career, and he’d charmed me into it in less than five minutes. As I continued playing, I debated whether it had been conscious on his part or whether he was just unconsciously that manipulative. And then I forgot about Dalton altogether. I got lost in the music, and I felt an entirely different energy pulsing through me than when I played for myself, an almost indescribable warmth in my chest. I felt truly alive in a way I hadn’t in years, and it stayed with me from that moment—minutes—all the way through to the final note, and I paused when I finished and took a deep breath.
