The Stanislaskis: Taming Natasha

It already had Freddie’s stamp on it. The dolls lining the shelves with books jumbled beneath them, the fuzzy, pink elephant slippers beside her oldest and most favored sneakers. The room had that little-girl scent of shampoo and crayons. A night-light in the shape of a unicorn assured that she wouldn’t wake up in the dark and be afraid.

He stayed a moment longer, finding himself as soothed by the light as she. Quietly he stepped out, leaving her door open a few inches.

Downstairs he found Vera carrying a tray of coffee. The Mexican housekeeper was wide from shoulders to hips, and gave the impression of a small, compact freight train when she moved from room to room. Since Freddie’s birth, she had proven not only efficient but indispensable. Spence knew it was often possible to insure an employee’s loyalty with a paycheck, but not her love. From the moment Freddie had come home in her silk-trimmed blanket, Vera had been in love.

She cast an eye up the stairs now, and her lined face folded into a smile. “She had one big day, huh?”

“Yes, and one she fought ending to the last gasp. Vera, you didn’t have to bother.”

She shrugged her shoulders while she carried the coffee into his office. “You said you have to work tonight.”

“Yes, for a little while.”

“So I make you coffee before I go in and put my feet up to watch TV.” She arranged the tray on his desk, fussing a bit while she talked. “My baby, she’s happy with school and her new friends.” She didn’t add that she had wept into her apron when Freddie had stepped onto the bus. “With the house empty all day, I have plenty of time to get my work done. You don’t stay up too late, Dr. Kimball.”

“No.” It was a polite lie. He knew he was too restless for sleep. “Thank you, Vera.”

“¡De nada!” She patted her iron-gray hair. “I wanted to tell you that I like this place very much. I was afraid to leave New York, but now I’m happy.”

“We couldn’t manage without you.”

“Sí.” She took this as her due. For seven years she had worked for the señor, and basked in the prestige of being housekeeper for an important man—a respected musician, a doctor of music and a college professor. Since the birth of his daughter she had been so in love with her baby that she would have worked for Spence, whatever his station.

She had grumbled about moving from the beautiful high-rise in New York, to the rambling house in the small town, but Vera was shrewd enough to know that the señor had been thinking of Freddie. Freddie had come home from school only hours before, laughing, excited, with the names of new best friends tumbling from her lips. SoVera was content.

“You are a good father, Dr. Kimball.”

Spence glanced over before he sat down behind his desk. He was well aware that there had been a time Vera had considered him a very poor one.

“I’m learning.”

“Sí.” Casually she adjusted a book on the shelf. “In this big house you won’t have to worry about disturbing Freddie’s sleep if you play your piano at night.”

He looked over again, knowing she was encouraging him in her way to concentrate on his music. “No, it shouldn’t disturb her. Good night, Vera.”

After a quick glance around to be certain there was nothing more for her to tidy, she left him.

Alone, Spence poured the coffee, then studied the papers on his desk. Freddie’s school forms were stacked next to his own work. He had a great deal of preparation ahead of him, before his classes began the following week.

He looked forward to it, even as he tried not to regret that the music that had once played so effortlessly inside his head was still silent.

CHAPTER THREE

Natasha scooped the barrette through the hair above her ear and hoped it would stay fixed for more than five minutes. She studied her reflection in the narrow mirror over the sink in the back of the shop before she decided to add a touch of lipstick. It didn’t matter that it had been a long and hectic day or that her feet were all but crying with fatigue. Tonight was her treat to herself, her reward for a job well done.

Every semester she signed up for one course at the college. She chose whatever seemed most fun, most intriguing or most unusual. Renaissance Poetry one year, Automotive Maintenance another. This term, two evenings a week, she would be taking Music History. Tonight she would begin an exploration of a new topic. Everything she learned she would store for her own pleasure, as other women stored diamonds and emeralds. It didn’t have to be useful. In Natasha’s opinion a glittery necklace wasn’t particularly useful, either. It was simply exciting to own.

She had her notebook, her pens and pencils and a flood of enthusiasm. To prepare herself, she had raided the library and pored over related books for the last two weeks. Pride wouldn’t allow her to go into class ignorant. Curiosity made her wonder if her instructor could take the dry, distant facts and add excitement.

There was little doubt that this particular instructor was adding dashes of excitement in other quarters. Annie had teased her just that morning about the new professor everyone was talking about. Dr. Spencer B. Kimball.

The name sounded very distinguished to Natasha, quite unlike the description of a hunk that Annie had passed along. Annie’s information came from her cousin’s daughter, who was majoring in Elementary Education with a minor in Music. A sun-god, Annie had relayed and made Natasha laugh.

A very gifted sun-god, Natasha mused while she turned off lights in the shop. She knew Kimball’s work well, or the work he had composed before he had suddenly and inexplicably stopped writing music. Why, she had even danced to his Prelude in D Minor when she had been with the corps de ballet in New York.

A million years ago, she thought as she stepped onto the street. Now she would be able to meet the genius, listen to his views and perhaps find new meanings in many of the classics she already loved.

He was probably the temperamental artiste type, she decided, pleased with the way the evening breeze lifted her hair and cooled her neck. Or a pale eccentric with one earring. It didn’t matter. She intended to work hard. Each course she took was a matter of pride to her. It still stung to remember how little she had known when she’d been eighteen. How little she had cared to know, Natasha admitted, other than dance. She had of her own choice closed herself off from so many worlds in order to focus everything on one. When that had been taken away, she had been as lost as a child set adrift on the Atlantic.

She had found her way to shore, just as her family had once found its way across the wilds of the Ukraine to the jungles of Manhattan. She liked herself better—the independent, ambitious American woman she had become. As she was now, she could walk into the big, beautiful old building on campus with as much pride as any freshman student.

There were footsteps echoing in the corridors, distant, dislocated. There was a hushed reverence that Natasha always associated with churches and universities. In a way there was religion here—the belief in learning.

She felt somewhat reverent herself as she made her way to her class. As a child of five in her small farming village, she had never even imagined such a building, or the books and beauty it contained.

Several students were already waiting. A mixed bag, she noted, ranging from college to middle age. All of them seemed to buzz with that excitement of beginning. She saw by the clock that it was two minutes shy of eight. She’d expected Kimball to be there, busily shuffling his papers, peering at them behind glasses, his hair a little wild and streaming to his shoulders.

Absently she smiled at a young man in horn-rims, who was staring at her as if he’d just woken from a dream. Ready to begin, she sat down, then looked up when the same man clumsily maneuvered himself into the desk beside her.

“Hello.”

He looked as though she’d struck him with a bat rather than offered a casual greeting. He pushed his glasses nervously up his nose. “Hello. I’m—I’m…Terry Maynard,” he finished on a burst as his name apparently came to him at last.

“Natasha.” She smiled again. He was on the sunny side of twenty-five and harmless as a puppy.

“I haven’t, ah, seen you on campus before.”

“No.” Though at twenty-seven it amused her to be taken for a coed, she kept her voice sober. “I’m only taking this one class. For fun.”

“For fun?” Terry appeared to take music very seriously. “Do you know who Dr. Kimball is?” His obvious awe made him almost whisper the name.

“I’ve heard of him. You’re a Music major?”

“Yes. I hope to, well one day, I hope to play with the New York Symphony.” His blunt fingers reached nervously to adjust his glasses. “I’m a violinist.”

She smiled again and made his Adam’s apple bob. “That’s wonderful. I’m sure you’re very good.”

“What do you play?”

“Five card draw.” Then she laughed and settled back in her chair. “I’m sorry. I don’t play an instrument. But I love to listen to music and thought I’d enjoy the class.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “If it ever starts, that is. Apparently our esteemed professor is late.”

At that moment the esteemed professor was rushing down the corridors, cursing himself for ever agreeing to take on this night class. By the time he had helped Freddie with her homework—how many animals can you find in this picture?—convinced her that brussels sprouts were cute instead of yucky, and changed his shirt because her affectionate hug had transferred some mysterious, sticky substance to his sleeve, he had wanted nothing more than a good book and a warm brandy.

Instead he was going to have to face a roomful of eager faces, all waiting to learn what Beethoven had worn when he’d composed his Ninth Symphony.

In the foulest of moods, he walked into class. “Good evening. I’m Dr. Kimball.” The murmurs and rattles quieted. “I must apologize for being late. If you’ll all take a seat, we’ll dive right in.”

As he spoke he scanned the room. And found himself staring into Natasha’s astonished face.