‘Thank you, Ronan.’
He stepped aside to let me pass, and the dogs growled but this time, only for show.
I hesitated in the hallway. I’d been so focused on getting in, but that was only half the problem. Yes, I was in Marcie’s house, but would my words have any effect? I turned to Ronan, who nodded towards the lounge.
‘She’s in a good mood.’ He leant forward and whispered. ‘She had a late-night visitor, if you catch my drift.’ He winked in case I hadn’t. Then he froze. ‘Shit. Don’t tell anyone. I’ll get fired and I’m already on thin ice.’
‘You can trust me,’ I said, and sent a silent thank you to Marcie’s secret Romeo who might just have tipped the balance in my favour.
Ronan waved me to the living room. ‘Go through. You’ll soon know if she wants to talk to you.’
I walked to the doorway and stopped. Marcie had been shopping since I’d last been here because slap bang in the middle of the room stood a mahogany grand piano, exactly like the one I’d played for her at the Steinway shop. It had looked huge on the shop floor, but in Marcie’s high-ceilinged drawing room, it looked normal-sized.
And sitting behind it, her bowed head peeking above the lifted lid, was the woman herself.
I took a step forward and she looked up. She had a yellow pencil tucked behind one ear, but it didn’t distract from her heavily made-up eyes, which were boring into me with a ferocity that made my knees shake.
My mind suddenly went blank.
Why was I here again? Oh yes, to suggest the chicken not lamb.
Oh God. This was crazy. Maybe I should just turn around and scarper.
‘You’ve got a lot of nerve turning up, young lady.’
My courage faltered, but I stood straighter. Never show weakness. Never let them see they intimidate you. Sometimes, those mantras were worth living by.
‘I know what you did to Jessica Honey,’ I began.
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Whatdid you just say?’
‘She told me that you blacklisted her band ten years ago. Out of petty jealousy.’
Marcie stood, the piano stool screeching against the wood floor. ‘How dare you!’
Shit. Was I making a mistake?
I breathed deeply. No, it wasn’t a misstep. I was here to drop some truth bombs. That were long overdue.
‘You have to own what you did, Marcie. You can’t let your peace of mind rest in someone else’s hands. If Jessica hasn’t forgiven you after ten years, then you have to accept she never will. Learn from your mistakes. Find another young musician to take under your wing, if you have to, but for God’s sake, let it go.’
She walked around the piano till she was a couple of feet from me. She still looked mad, but she’d dialled down from nuclear meltdown angry to plain ol’ white-hot fury.
‘Take back the word “petty”.’
My whole speech and she was stuck on that?
Perhaps she was allowed a little appeasement. If not for her current behaviour then for herStarsalbum. Every track on that record was gold.
‘Okay, I take back “petty”. But you were jealous of a meaningless girl. You were the most talented musician on the planet.’ Appeasement had steadily morphed into sycophancy, but this was Marcie effing Tyler. She’d taughtGodto write songs.
‘He was the love of my life.’
‘Benedict Bailey?’
She nodded, and a little more anger melted away. ‘I knew I would fall in love with him from the way he held a guitar.’
That was possibly the most romantic thing I’d ever heard.
