Page 17 of All The Wrong Notes

“You look lovely,” was all he said, but his expression spoke a great deal more. “Shall we?” He held the door open for her and guided her from her office to the parking lot.

“Is Rey driving again?” Elise asked as they neared the corner of the building.

“I allow my slaves half an hour off a year.” He uttered this so matter-of-factly and with such a straight face, Elise gaped at him for a moment.

“Will Pemberton has a sense of humour! You hide it well.” Her laughter filled the evening air.

“Rey has fairly regular hours. He keeps things humming at the house when I’m away or overwhelmed with meetings. Everything from watering the plants to hiring people to fix the leaky roof, to dealing with the press for personal matters. Yeah, it happens, but seldom, thank goodness. If he were at the office, he’d be my executive assistant. And, yes, he picks me up from the airport and drives when I’ve got too much to do or haven’t slept in 36 hours. I pay him well.”

Rey had also called Will by his first name, something that wasn’t lost on Elise. From the bit she saw of their interactions the other night, the two men were as likely to grab a beer together as act out their roles as boss and employee.

Will pulled a fob from his pocket and touched a button. A vehicle in the lot flashed its lights.

In the last minutes of daylight, Elise got a proper look at the car. Another one of her preconceived notions fell away. She should have known he’d drive one of the newest electric vehicles on the market. She had half expected it to be a 1970s-gold flashy thing, shouting LOOK AT ME, or a Maserati SUV or some other such attention-grabbing vehicle, not the elegant and understated sedan in front of her. But then, elegant and understated did seem to sum up what she was learning about Will.

Elise sat in the front seat this time, as he drove them not back downtown, but further north, and then towards Avenue Road.

“Is Italian alright?” Will asked. “There’s a small place I like. Most of their business is take-out, but the food is excellent, and they have a quiet and very pleasant dining area. I’ve requested a large table, so we can do our planning after we eat, maybe over coffee and dessert. Does that suit?”

It did. Very well.

The food was delicious, as promised, and the dining room, while not empty, had enough spare tables that they could work as long as needed without taking up precious space. When the plates and wine glasses had been cleared away and replaced with two large cappuccinos (regular for Will, decaf for Elise) and a selection of biscotti, Will reached into his briefcase and pulled out a notepad and a couple of pens.

“I’ve got my music catalogues online,” he explained, “but I like taking notes longhand. Now, let’s talk music.”

By the time they left the restaurant, they had come up with a list of about thirty songs which both knew to some degree or another, dating from the 1920s to the ‘50s. They planned to choose fifteen favourites each and see where they overlapped, and then put a concert program together. The prospect of spending hours singing to Will’s piano was quite a delightful one, and it filled her dreams.

They arranged to meet for their first proper rehearsal on Sunday.

Once again, Will offered to pick her up and drive her to his house. Elise had a small electronic keyboard that lived in her bedroom closet, but it was nothing like the full-size one at the cottage, and certainly not big enough for the music they wanted to play. Four octaves were fine for playing basic chords under a melody, or a simple accompaniment, but not for a performance. And so, Will’s house was the logical place to go.

Elise had protested. She was perfectly capable of taking the city bus, she assured him, and could walk a few blocks, if need be. She had no instrument to carry, after all, and only a few sheets of music which fit nicely into a backpack.

“We’re not so convenient to transit,” he tried again. “Let me get you this once, and you’ll understand.” When he refused to give her his address, she had no choice but to accept, on the condition that Janet knew where she was. Safety first, after all.

His silent car wove through the city streets, along to Bayview Avenue, and north, until he turned right at a set of lights a short distance past Lawrence Avenue.

“Oh,” Elise breathed. “The Bridle Path. I should have guessed.”

Her eyes widened as they drove down the unassuming street that boasted some of the most expensive homes in the city, if not the country. One could buy a tropical island for less than some of these houses; Elise had recently seen a castle in England—and a nice one at that—for less than the listing price of one of these homes. Palatial mansions on lots the size of villages peeked through the surrounding veils of trees and tall perimeter walls. One need not worry about too much noise from the neighbours, unless it was broadcast.

Will, for his part, shrugged. “My father grew up with nothing. When his hard work allowed him to afford one of these, he bought it. He thought my mother deserved a nice house. It is the smallest on the street.”

Right. So only fifty times larger than a typical home, rather than a hundred.

Will turned into a driveway and pressed something on a keypad on his dashboard. The large wrought iron gates swung open and he drove through. “It can be a bit tricky to get here by transit. There is a bus, but…” he shrugged again.

Elise gaped. She could accept the rides.

In a moment, she was standing before the largest house she had ever seen. It made the cottage look like, well, a cottage. The French Provincial facade was fronted by a small garden with gracefully curved low hedges and a few fruit trees, their branches now bare, but which must be beautiful in the spring. On either side of the main entrance, two wings disappeared into more trees, and the driveway snaked its way around the house to the left. Elise didn’t have time to wipe the drool off her face before Will led her up the stone steps to the front door.

“This… you live here?”

Another shrug.

“With your parents?” A thirty-one-year-old man, still living at home was… unusual. But then, so was this house.

“Hmmm. Sort of. It was my parents’ house, as I said. My father handed most of the business over to me five years ago. He’s still involved, but he’s stepping back more and more each year. They wanted to downsize.”

---