The Eros Variations: First Movement, Chapter 1

Spring had finally come to Chicago. A gentle breeze from Lake Michigan toyed with the paper in the courthouse square, while the sun warmed the pigeons as they dozed in soft, gray balls on the ledges or strutted about the pavement, begging handouts. In the concrete and asphalt absence of flowers, the reds and pinks and yellows and blues of the women's dresses and the men's ties burst from within their topcoats. Heads were bared, frowns thawed, and lovers threw caution aside with their coats and actually strolled without destination, ungloved hand in ungloved hand.

Kelden Scott emerged from the courthouse, descended the steps into the warm golden glow, and stood, untouched by breeze or sun. A bit of winter clung to him as he stared with glittering brown-black eyes behind black-rimmed glasses at something before him unseen by anyone else, his hands thrust into the pockets of the black topcoat that hid his long, lean body.

Moments later, another man appeared, called out "Kel!" and hurried down the stairs, his shoes rattling a tap-dance flurry on the worn marble. "What's the rush?" he asked as he caught up with him. "I thought we might have lunch together."

"With what money, Jerry?" Kelden snapped in his slightly husky baritone. He was almost six and a half feet tall, taller than Jerry Middendorf by more than a foot. It was an almost ludicrous difference that they'd both laughed about in the past. Kelden, however, wasn't laughing as he looked down at him now. "Did you plan to negotiate me into bankruptcy?"

"You're not exactly broke, Kel--"

"No, you left me enough to pay your fee!"

"--and it won't take long for you to get back on your feet. You did just fine two years ago."

"I don't have any more rich, dying relatives. What the hell possessed you to offer Beth the same deal Vicki got? We never even discussed that!"

"We didn't have time! Belmont had you by the balls as soon as you admitted to that affair. You can be thankful Katharine was just as surprised as you were and that Beth grabbed the offer before she could advise against it."

"But damn it, Jerry, I only slept with the woman a couple times! Beth was screwing half her office regularly even before we were married!"

"Maybe, but--"

"Maybe! Jerry, you know damned well she was!"

"--but you had no concrete evidence of that, and she was careful not to admit anything in court. You, on the other hand, lost your cool. You did the same thing with Vicki two years ago. Hell, I'm the one should be pissed at you! I don't like losing, and especially not to Katherine Belmont. Damn it, Kel, you're helping her build her own reputation at my expense! It's just a damned good thing you didn't have any children. With either of them." He glanced at his watch. "Look. I gotta run. Just mail me my check. And do us both a favour--next time you get divorced, don't come to me."

Kelden watched without expression as Jerry walked away. Then he spotted his new ex-wife and her lawyer at the other end of the courthouse square. He started toward them, wanting to say something vicious to Beth, but a quick frown from Ms. Belmont warned him away. It was just as well; they'd already said enough to each other in the past weeks at a volume sufficient to entertain most of their neighborhood. No sense giving downtown Chicago a free show, too. He watched with dispassionate eyes as the woman for whom he'd once declared undying passion vanished in the crowd.

She wasn't there when he showed up later, slightly drunk, at their brownstone--no, it was her brownstone now; her furniture, her money, her bed. Especially her bed; she'd claimed that long ago in her own special way. Of the flotsam left to him, his bassoon was the most precious; he carried that out cradled protectively in his arms and slid it with tender care into the passenger's side of the little Mitsubishi Eclipse that had been in his name only. Then he went back up to the bedroom to pack his clothes. He stared at the rumpled bed, and his hands began to tremble. He strode to the kitchen and rummaged through the cabinets until he found half a bottle of tequila, one of the few types of liquor she loved but he couldn't tolerate. He took a deep breath, drank it all without pausing, and then returned to the bedroom to finish packing while he waited for the reaction. It took longer than he expected, and when the eruption finally came, it was so sudden that he almost missed his target. But after he'd rinsed his mouth and closed the last of his suitcases, he was able to examine the newly soiled sheets with a certain artistic satisfaction.

His triumph had its price. The tequila had stayed with him long enough for some to be absorbed into his system, and he stumbled as he brought the last of his possessions to the car. He was also hit with dry heaves just as he shut the trunk, and had to sit on the curb until they passed. Then, against whatever better judgment he might have had left, he crawled into his Eclipse and began the drive to his parents' house.

It took him twice as long as usual to drive through the northern suburbs to Winnetka. He already had one DUI against him; another would be the capping glory to an already marvelous day. He had a bad scare just before he entered Evanston, when he spotted the rear of a patrol car two blocks ahead of him. H pulled over and waited for his trembling to subside, then suffered another bout of dry vomiting. But he finally arrived without incident at the large, immaculate English Tudor in which Dr. Alistair and Mrs. Jonelle Scott had raised Kelden and his older sister.

By the time Kelden stopped at the head of the long, curved drive, the digital clock on the dash read 2:03 a.m. He was sober enough to slip into the house with a minimum of noise, but his efforts were useless. His father was standing, book in hand, in the library door. The two of them stared at each other in silence. Then Dr. Scott nodded to his son, crossed the foyer, and climbed the stairs. Kelden watched, swaying slightly, as his father's robed back rose above him with military carriage and precision. Then he, too, mounted the stairs and turned the opposite way down the long hall to his own former room.

Kelden slept late the next morning. When he finally came downstairs, the house was empty. He drank coffee slowly in the silent, sun-washed breakfast nook; he read the morning Tribune in the silent, cool-shadowed library; he showered and dressed and brought his belongings from the car into the silent, silent house. He could've filled it with music from the dozen or so stereo speakers hidden throughout the rooms, but the silence was too pleasant. He called his parents' part-time housekeeper/cook and told her not to come in that day, then basked in solitude until Colleen breezed in on her lunch hour to see how he was doing.

He remained as stubbornly silent as the house, resenting his sister's intrusion, while she talked about the remodeling and expansion at her boutique. But then she glanced sharply at him, mashed out her cigarette, and commented, "So--you've quit your job."

Kelden was startled. "How did you know?"

"I called yesterday afternoon to see how it went, and they said you no longer worked there. Why?"

He shrugged. "It seemed the right thing to do."

"Try again."

Kelden glared at her. "All right. Because Beth works there. Satisfied?"

"No. Beth's a claims adjuster in home and auto. You're a programmer-analyst in life and health. You're in different buildings; it was pure luck the two of you ever met to begin with. Did you do something to her?"

Kelden thought of the bed, and grimaced. "Nothing serious."

"Then why? You know Mother and Father will want to know."

"I'm a big boy now, Colleen. I don't have to explain to them every time I wipe my nose."

"If you insist. Still, I don't think it makes a lot of sense to quit a good position just because your ex-wife works nearby in a place you'll never see. Hell, I see Robert every day, but he's not about to run me off from my boutique." The hall clock chimed the last quarter-hour. Colleen shoved her teacup and salad bowl aside. "Gotta run. Come to my place for dinner tomorrow. No, Saturday." She grabbed her purse and dashed from the dining room before Kelden could either accept or decline.

"Give my love to Robert," he called as the front door clicked shut.

Kelden washed up, and then went out to the pool. The pool hadn?t been cleaned yet for the summer, so Kelden simply stripped and lay down on the deck. He tanned easily and kept it most of the year. His oncologist father had lectured him several times about the dangers of skin cancer, but Kelden preferred to take his chances. The pool was carefully screened from the neighbors and the house would remain empty for some hours yet, so he felt no qualms about sunbathing in the nude, but he did bring out and set an alarm. It woke him out of a sound sleep in time to dress, start dinner, and practice nearly an hour in the conservatory before his mother came in, a little past five.

He finished the Hindemith Sonata he was working on, then packed his bassoon away; his mother shared Beth's aversion to the instrument. He met her in the foyer outside the library, he with the case in his hand, she with a Manhattan, and they exchanged brief, ritual cheek-kisses. She was an arresting woman, tall and regal with coal-black silver-frosted hair and ice-blue eyes, the former aided by a hairdresser and the latter by contact lenses. Kelden had inherited his delicate, sharply chiseled features and willowy frame from her; his eyes, the curl in his hair, and his dark, ruddy complexion had come from his father; his height and hair colour were gifts from both. The only things Jonelle Scott had passed on to her daughter were her generous figure and her porcelain skin. Colleen's height and hair colour were, again, a shared trait; everything else--her large bones, brown-black eyes, and strong, blunt features--were a legacy from Dr. Alistair Scott. Throughout their lives, Kelden had been considered the more beautiful of the two, an opinion that both he and Colleen had, at times, resented.

"How did it go today, Mother?" asked Kelden.

"Quite successful, dear, thank you." Jonelle Hamilton Scott had left Edinburgh for New York with her family at the age of seven, but throughout the last half-century she'd carefully retained and cultivated a light, soft, musical Scottish burr. "I closed on the old Mehlenberg estate for two and a half million, which convinced the Honeggers to list with us. Ernst insisted I handle their property personally."

"Congratulations, Mother. I'm sure the agency is proud of you." He started up the stairs.

"Thank you, dear. Was Delia here today?"

"No, I gave her the day off. I'm fixing beef brisket, twice-baked potatoes, and creamed peas."

"How nice. By the way, how's your job going?"

Something in her tone stopped his climb. He turned and studied the secrets in his mother's eyes. Then he said, "You know very well I quit yesterday, Mother."

She nodded. "Colleen called here when she couldn't get you yesterday. She was worried."

"I saw her today, Mother, and set her mind at ease."

"Then set mine at ease, Kelden." She stepped forward and laid her free hand on the end of the banister. "Tell me you have something just as good lined up."

"I have something just as good lined up." He turned and walked away from her eyes, suddenly understanding that the holiday he had hoped to take was over, and that he couldn't stay beyond tonight.

Dr. Alistair Scott had returned home by the time Kelden had mastered his anger and frustration and descended once more. The elder Scott met the younger in the center of the library with a powerful handshake that belied the surgeon's delicate touch. His curly black hair had long since turned silver-white, and deep creases and fine lines slashed his square, violently handsome face, but he made no voluntary concession to age. He was an inch shorter than his son, but so erect did he carry himself that he was occasionally mistaken for the taller of the two. He was a fanatic devotee of the racquetball courts and morning calisthenics, tolerating no trace of flab. His voice was deep and resonant, and as smooth as his son's was rough; he could use it equally well to soothe the family of a patient all but consumed by cancer or overwhelm an opponent in an argument. He'd married Jonelle Hamilton on one of her frequent visits back to Scotland, but, unlike his wife, he'd ruthlessly buried his Glasgow accent within three years of arriving in America.

He offered Kelden a drink. Kelden, looking steadily at him, refused politely. Dr. Scott nodded (did one corner of his mouth barely twitch with the echo of a sardonic smile?) and resumed his chair, his vodka and tonic, and his pipe, the one flaw in his meticulously forged armour. Once, when he was lecturing his son on the dangers of skin cancer, Kelden had ventured to remind him of mouth cancer. The error was never repeated.

"So, Kelden," murmured the doctor, "sit down. Tell me how it went."

Kelden remained standing. "Thank you, sir, but I have dinner to fix."

"Nonsense. Leave that for your mother. Jonelle," he called, and the cut glass decanters on the sideboard rang in painful sympathy.

"Yes?" she replied from the doorway that connected the library and the dining room.

"I believe Kelden has begun something in the kitchen--"

"You really don't--" protested Kelden.

"It's under control. Thank you for your help, dear." Mrs. Scott vanished, her manner barricading the doorway with a finality that would permit none to pass until she willed otherwise. Kelden had no choice but to seat himself across from his father.

"I believe," said Dr. Scott, "we were discussing yesterday's events?"

"Yes, well, there's not a lot to say, really. I came, I saw, I was conquered. Actually, 'raped' might be a better term."

"It went poorly, then?"

"My entire worldly possessions now fit in the trunk of my car. And the passenger's seat."

"That hardly seems a fair settlement."

"She got everything in exchange for no alimony."

"Ah. I see."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, I seem to recall the same thing happening with Victoria. You had made several foolish blunders, I believe--no prenuptial agreement, no separate property, and an affair that you blurted out in court. May I assume that history repeated itself?"

"Not quite. The cars were separate property this time."

Dr. Scott sighed. "Kelden, once is inexperience. Twice is stupidity. Didn't Jerry Middendorf give you any advice after that first fiasco?"

"Of course he did. He said the same as you."

Dr. Scott's lips thinned in a brief smile. "You?ve made a habit of ignoring my advice. I've come to expect that. But your lawyer?"

"Prenuptial agreements and separate property are fine for Colleen. I don't do things that way."

"You don't do things that way." Dr. Scott steepled his fingers, touching his chin with their tips.

"There's something wrong with that?"

"Oh, not at all-unless you plan on living in the real world."

Kelden spread his hands, knowing that any answer he made would be futile. His father allowed another anemic smile to visit his face in honour of his victory, sipped from his glass, drew on his pipe, and resumed the attack-Zeus launching his thunderbolts from a cherry-scented cloud. "Correct me if I'm mistaken, but isn't the pursuance of a career also part of the real world?"

"People switch careers all the time in the real world, Father."

"Usually not so abruptly, without something to switch to. You do have something to switch to, I presume?"

Kelden briefly considered an affirmative answer, but that would only delay the inevitable. "No."

Dr. Scott stared at Kelden, momentarily disarmed by his bluntness, and then asked, simply, "Why?"

"I doubt, Father, that you would understand."

"Try me. I'm not as naive as all that."

Kelden shrugged. "I need a change. I need to get away, to start life somewhere where my past is my past and as untouchable as yesterday."

"Perhaps you should be a poet."

"Thank you. Perhaps I will."

"I take it, then, that you are leaving not only your career, but also this area?"

"Yes." Until this moment, he hadn't even thought of that, but it suddenly became very attractive.

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"For God's sake, Kelden! You're 28 years old! Isn't this a little early for a mid-life crisis?"

"Is that all you think it is, Father?"

"It certainly looks like it!"

"Then call it an early mid-life crisis, if that makes you feel better."

"What would make me feel better is knowing that you had at least some hint of an intelligent plan in all this. For instance, where are you going?"

"I have no idea. I understand New Zealand is very nice this time of year."

"Be serious for just one moment, if that won't put too great a strain on you!"

"All right, then, I have no plan."

"I thought not." Dr. Scott peered at his son through veils of fragrant blue. Kelden stared back, feeling surprisingly calm. They locked eyes, neither realizing how much he looked like the other in that long, wordless moment. Then Dr. Scott released one last sigh of smoke and knocked his pipe out in the ashtray. "What will you live on?" he asked quietly.

"Jerry got them to agree that my unused vacation time would be wholly mine, along with my last paycheck, even though I earned both while we were still married. And the paycheck will include a nice bonus that Beth didn't know about. And I'll have a check from the orchestra for the rehearsals and this last concert coming up."

"What about the orchestra?"

"I'll probably have to quit, depending on where I move. I'll try to stick it out until after the concert."

"That rather sinks your chances for the Chicago Symphony."

"As I recall, that was more your dream than mine."

"So it was." He drained his glass. "And your dreams, Kelden? What about yours?"

Kelden was startled. My dreams? he thought. Since when are you interested in my dreams? But aloud he only said, "That's what I'm leaving to find out, Father."

They stared at one another again, and then Dr. Scott nodded and asked, "When are you leaving?"

"Tomorrow. Before noon."

"With no destination in mind?" He shook his head. "I wish you luck, Kelden."

"Thank you, sir."

"I have surgery early tomorrow."

"I understand."

"Dinner is ready," announced the soft burr from the dining room door.

Kelden's farewell dinner was delicious--potato skin appetizers with cheese and bacon, steak Dianne with duchess potatoes, and buttered snow peas, mushrooms, and pearl onions. Kelden ate in silence, ignoring the murmured conversation at the other end of the table. Despite the careless attitude he'd affected with his father, he was nervous and a little frightened by his immediate future. His original dinner hadn't included dessert, so there was nothing for his mother to change. She offered a little French vanilla ice cream with blackberries, which he politely declined, excusing himself while his parents drank their coffee and cognac and smoked, the doctor his pipe and Mrs. Scott a long, slim, European cigarette. He borrowed maps of the state and country from the library and retired to his room.

He spent the evening mulling over the maps. The family had taken two vacations a year when he and Colleen were young, each at least two weeks long. One was always to Edinburgh and Glasgow and the tiny villages in the Scottish hills and valleys among which their relatives were liberally scattered; the other covered an enormous and varied territory in Europe, Africa, and the North American continent. He had extensive memories on which to draw, and spent a long time motionless on his bed, staring at the ceiling, projecting on it every detail he could recall about the places they'd been. And when his memory became vague, he burrowed under his bed and in his closet until he found his old scrapbooks and photo albums.

He had begun, during dinner, by seriously considering Scotland. He loved both the land and the people, and was certain, with the help of a grandfather or a great-uncle or a second cousin, to find a very nice job. But then he'd looked down the table and remembered that grandfathers and great-uncles and second cousins would be in communication with the States and that he was actually more removed from his family in Chicago than he would be across the Atlantic. Besides, he would have to sell his car to afford passage. So he reluctantly laid aside the trans-Atlantic scrapbooks.

California was next, followed by New York and parts of Canada. But each had something that lowered its desirability, and the same could be said about New Mexico and the Dakotas and Louisiana and Vermont and everywhere in between. Each was superficially different, but as he rejected first one and then another, Kelden began to see the one common thread that did, after all, tie them all together: his parents had been there with him.

Kelden was beginning to feel twinges of real panic. Much as he wanted to leave this life and these painful memories behind, he had no desire to suddenly descend upon a city or town he'd never before seen, possibly starving before discovering that there were no jobs for him--or, worse yet, returning in defeat to his parents' condescending sympathy. But what alternative did he have? Every place with which he was even slightly familiar would be haunted by his mother's imposing presence and his father's commanding voice. Where, in all the country--in the entire world--had he ever made his own, except that lost brownstone in Chicago?

And suddenly he had an answer. There was, after all, one place where he'd established himself alone, where Alistair and Jonelle Scott had been but occasional visitors; where Beth and Vicki hadn't even been names; where he was certain to find an excellent job in his field, and where he could even pursue his music. He gathered the maps and scrapbooks and photo albums and put them away. He then repacked his suitcases and his brown paper sacks and quietly set everything just outside his bedroom door.

It took some time to fall asleep, and then he dreamed of Beth. It was a dream of the early months of their marriage, while they were still acting like teenagers, before he learned of her marathon of infidelity. He struggled, fighting a part of him that wanted to cling to the dream. When the alarm finally jolted him awake, he was exhausted, hungry for her, somewhat disoriented, and altogether miserable.

He sat on the edge of his bed for some time before stumbling to the shower. He'd chosen not to shave the day before, mostly from laziness, and the stubble was already heavy and dark. But he couldn't face a razor this morning and decided he could live with the blossoming beard for one more day. Then he dressed and began carrying his belongings back out to the car.

He was alone again in the house, but not forgotten; he found the note on the kitchen counter as he gulped his coffee and microwaved croissant. "Kelden," he read aloud, "best of luck. Write us ASAP, please. Love." It was unsigned, but he knew his mother's handwriting. He carefully wiped up the crumbs and washed his cup, then, on the back of her note, he scrawled, "Will send address within a week. Apologies to Colleen for missing dinner. K." and left it under one of the decanters in the library. This done, he closed and locked the front door, folded himself into his Eclipse, slipped Le??an?k's "Sinfonietta" into the compact disc player, and roared away in a cloud of brass, south into Chicago and beyond.