Page 56 of Pieces of Her (Andrea Oliver 1)

“Madam?” The bartender had appeared with a light.

“Thank you.” Rather than cup her hands to his, Jane leaned toward the match. She inhaled deeply, her eyes closed like a cat enjoying a sunbeam. When she found Laura watching, she laughed out puffs of smoke. “Sorry, I’ve been in Europe for three months. It’s good to have an American cigarette.”

“I thought all of you young expats enjoyed smoking Gauloises and arguing about Camus and the tragedy of the human condition?”

“If only.” Jane coughed out another cloud of dark smoke.

Laura felt a sudden maternal rush toward the girl. She wanted to snatch the cigarette from her hand, but she knew the gesture would be pointless. At twenty-three, Laura had been desperate for the years to come more quickly, to firmly step into her adulthood, to establish herself, to become someone. She had not yet felt the desire to claw back time as you would a piece of wet muslin clinging to your face; that one day her back might ache as she climbed the stairs, that her stomach could sag from childbirth, that her spine might become misshapen from a cancerous tumor.

“Disagree with him.” Jane held the cigarette between her thumb and forefinger, the same way as her brother. “That’s my advice to you on Father. He can’t stomach people contradicting him.”

“I’ve staked my reputation on contradicting him.”

“I hope you’re prepared for battle.” She indicated the conference buzzing outside the barroom door. “Was it Jonah or Daniel who was in the lion’s den?”

“Jonah was in the belly of a whale. Daniel was in the lions’ den.”

“Yes, of course. God sent an angel to close the lions’ mouths.”

“Is your father really that bad?” Laura realized too late the pointedness of her question. All three Queller children had found their own particular way to live in their father’s shadow.

Jane said, “I’m sure you can hold your own against the Mighty Martin. You weren’t invited here on a whim. Just keep in mind that once he’s locked onto something, he won’t back down. All or none is the Queller way.” She didn’t seem to expect a reply. Her eyes kept finding the mirror behind the bar as she scanned the empty room. Here was the octopus from the lobby, the one who was desperately in search of something, anything, that would render her whole.

Laura asked, “You’re Martin’s youngest?”

“Yes, then Andrew, then there’s our older brother, Jasper. He’s given up glory in the Air Force to join the family business.”

“Economic advisory?”

“Oh, God, no. The money-making side. We’re all terribly proud of him.”

Laura disregarded the sarcasm. She knew full well the details of Jasper Queller’s ascendancy. “Was that you just now on the piano?”

Jane offered a self-deprecating eye-roll. “Grieg seemed too aphoristic.”

“I saw you play once.” The shock of truthfulness brought an image to Laura’s mind: Jinx Queller at the piano, the entire audience held rapt as her hands floated across the keyboard. Squaring that remarkably confident performer with the anxious young girl beside her—the nails bitten to the quick, the furtive glances at the mirror—was an unwieldy task.

Laura asked, “You don’t go by Jinx anymore?”

Another eye-roll. “An unfortunate cross I bore from my childhood.”

Laura knew from Andrew that Jane abhorred the family nickname. It felt wrong to know so much about the girl when she knew nothing of Laura, but this was how the game had to be played. “Jane suits you more, I think.”

“I like to think so.” She silently tapped ash off of her cigarette. The fact that Laura had seen her perform was clearly bothersome. Had Jane been rendered in paint, lines of anxiety would have radiated from her body. She finally asked, “Where did you see me play?”

“The Hollywood Bowl.”

“Last year?”

“Eighty-four.” Laura worked to keep the melancholy out of her tone. The concert had been a last-minute invitation from her husband. They had eaten dinner at their favorite Italian restaurant. Laura had drunk too much chianti. She could remember leaning into her husband as they walked to the parking lot. The feel of his hand on her waist. The smell of his cologne.

Jane said, “That was part of the Jazz Bowl before the Olympics. I sat in with the Richie Reedie Orchestra. There was a Harry James tribute and”—she squinted her eyes in memory—“I fell out of time during ‘Two O’Clock Jump.’ Thank God the horns came in early.”

Laura hadn’t noticed any slips, just that the crowd had been on its feet by the end. “Do you only remember your performances by their mistakes?”

She shook her head, but there was more to the story. Jane Queller had been a world-class pianist. She had sacrificed her youth to music. She had given up classical for jazz, then jazz for studio work. Between them all, she had performed in some of the most venerated halls and venues.

And then she had walked away.