The Metropolis Case_ A Novel - Matthew Gallaway [132]
“Why don’t you move?” asked the other one, as if the answer—money—weren’t obvious.
“I like to walk to work.”
“And what’s work?” retorted the first guy, again with the sneer.
“I’m a dispatcher for an uptown car service.” Maria decided to play her trump card, mostly for the benefit of the Juilliard alums, because even if their husbands were ignorant, they had heard Maria sing and—as Anna had said—knew that she was on the cusp of something they were not. “It’s not interesting,” she admitted, “but it gives me time to work on my voice.”
“You sounded spectacular at the ceremony,” commented one of the women, genuinely enough for Maria to appreciate why Linda had remained friends with her, even if her husband was—to use one of her grandmother’s favorite expressions—a horse’s ass. “Brahms has always been—”
“I’m curious,” the husband interjected over his wife, “how would someone like you get from Washington Heights to—I don’t know—the Metropolitan Opera?”
“The subway?” Maria answered, which made everyone—including her inquisitor—laugh. Although Maria knew very well the many different routes a singer could take from anonymity to the stage, she was not about to justify the implication that her life would be a failure if she did not make the ascent, even if in a sizable corner of her heart she believed it herself. “I don’t really think about the practical side of things,” she mused. “As Anna has always said”—and Maria nodded toward her mentor, who during this entire conversation seemed to be watching a movie screen in the distance—“when a voice is ready, the rest takes care of itself.”
“Sounds very Zen,” said the husband, as he raised his glass. “Sharon’s always dragging me to the opera—right, honey?—and it’s always better when we know someone up there on the stage.”
Maria could have responded to this in many different ways, but she decided to follow Anna’s example and simply smile and nod toward the dance floor, where Linda and Jay now appeared for the first dance.
“We’re surrounded by dolts,” Maria said to Anna after the other couples at the table left for the dance floor.
Anna nodded. “Try not to be too judgmental. I hate to tell you this, but in your career, you’ll find yourself surrounded by more of these civilians, and believe it or not, you will look back at this time with nostalgia.”
MARIA WENT TO the bar and was approached by a man—taller than she was and not exactly thin—with short black hair and impassive blue eyes. She met his gaze and did not turn away when he stated her name.
She raised an eyebrow. “Do I know you?”
“It’s been a while.” He rubbed a hand over a short beard in a gesture that made him seem a little nervous and on the whole less attractive to her.
There was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t figure it out. “Uh—sorry.”
“Martin Vallence …”
“Martin Vallence,” she repeated. “Why do I know that name?”
“Pittsburgh,” he said in a flat, ambivalent tone that rekindled her interest in him. “Three rivers, Castle Shannon, Terry Bradshaw, the Thunderbolt, Evonne Goolagong, Cedar Village—”
Then she knew. He was the son of the boss, the kid who lived down the street from Kathy Warren. “My God—Martin Vallence!” she cried, genuinely astounded at the unexpected sight of someone from such a distant—and difficult—period of her life.
“You remember?”
“Well, yeah—did you think I was acting?”
“No—well, maybe,” he added, somewhat too pensively to be funny. “I figure if you can sing you can act, right?”
“In theory, but no, I remember you from your father’s company.” She resisted the temptation to add how much she had hated working there during her summers. “So, Martin Vallence, what brings you to the Pierre?”
He did not exactly return her smile. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“Okay—I’ll go first,” Maria offered. “I went to music school with Linda—we were roommates for four