Free Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia Page B

promissory about their conversations. Oh, maybe the first few times they spoke, Hastings thought they were taking tiny steps toward a new future. Over time it became clear that both Harold Hastings and his wife were settled and set, that neither of them had any desire to move or to change, but that both of them were lonely, and they knew each other well—too well to live together in the same place, but well enough to be able to pick up the phone any time of day and talk.
    Hastings dials Jess’s number. As it rings, he pictures her tromping in from the vegetable garden she keeps outside the kitchen door, wriggling her feet out of large green wellies and tucking unruly strands of frizzy white hair behind her ears as she lifts the receiver from the cradle.
    “Jess,” he says, and she laughs.
    “Knew it was you.”
    “How’d you know?”
    “Who else would it be?” He can hear her smile, shrug.
    There’s a long pause. Hastings unbuttons his collar and pulls his bow tie loose.
    “So why are you calling?” Jess asks. “Something worrying you?”
    How did she do this? She used to know everything without having to be told, but they’d been sharing the same bed at the time, which made it that much harder to keep secrets. How could she tell
now,
in another life and another country, all the way on the other side of the ocean?
    “It’s Statewide,” he says. “Another Statewide.”
    “And how do you think it’s going so far?”
    “So far, so good. Except—well, one thing. No, two things. You remember Doug Kirk?”
    “Isn’t he in charge?”
    It’s been over two weeks and Hastings still can’t believe the phone call he received from Helen Stoller, Doug’s secretary, on behalf of the incapacitated president of the Association for School Music. Kirk has been the head of ASM for years. Hastings always held him in high regard, not least because he brought a bottle of excellent Scotch with him every November and wasn’t stingy about sharing it. Every Statewide Saturday night, right after the banquet, Kirk—who bore an alarming resemblance to a mustachioed Kirk Douglas—would plunk two tumblers down on the concierge desk. They drank to Statewide. They drank to the Bellweather.
    This year, that toast isn’t going to happen. This year, instead of striding around the Bellweather like the captain of a galleon (the only captain Hastings would even consider being first mate to), Doug Kirk is in a coma.
    “It was a coronary,” Helen had told him, her voice quavering. “And now he’s in a coma. They don’t know what brought it on, he was always so careful about his heart. Went to the doctor regularly, I booked all his appointments . . .”
    “Helen. Helen, slow down—”
    “What am I going to
do,
Mr. Hastings?” He had never actually met Helen Stoller, but she’d been Kirk’s secretary for as long as he could remember. In Hastings’s mind, she looked a great deal like his own mother.
    “I’m sure there are other—” But there were no others like Kirk. Hastings felt a sudden terror of everything ending. “Please, Helen. This isn’t what Kirk would want. I’m certain he will be fine, and I’m certain you’ll be able to find a substitute for this year.”
    Helen Stoller sighed. “Anyway,” she said, “that’s up to the advisory council. I was just calling to tell you—to tell you. I knew you’d want to know.” She sighed again. “I’ll be in touch once we know more.”
    Helen was in touch, two days later, with the news that Kirk’s condition was unchanged but stable, and a Dr. Viola Fabian would be heading the festival this year. Something about the way Helen said her name—
Vi
ola
Fa
bian,
Doc
tor Fabian—made Hastings’s skin crawl. Helen, who looked like Hastings’s mother, wasn’t at all happy that this Viola Fabian would be serving in Kirk’s stead. And the fact that Fabian hasn’t introduced herself to Hastings yet has done nothing to change his first, albeit secondhand, impression