"When I buy Chamberpot a thesaurus, I'll pick one up for you, too."

Marty shrugged. "It's up to you. My immediate concern is for perfect salmon." She pulled the sizzling steaks from the oven. "These are gonna be great." The phone rang. "Shall I get it?"

"It's okay. I'll be right back." Helen steered herself into the living room and picked up the phone. She didn't have to check caller ID. She knew who was on the other end. "h.e.l.lo."

"Are you ready to talk to me?"

Only twenty-four hours had pa.s.sed and already Helen missed Cory's voice with a pa.s.sion. There it was again: that brain-dead speechlessness Helen had felt with their first telephone conversation. Wishing to be near Cory, who awaited an answer, Helen sighed deeply. "What is it about you, Coryell Chamberlain?" she finally managed to say. "I can't resist you."

"I think it's my swordtails."

Helen laughed. "I think it's more than that."

"We need to talk."

"I miss you," she admitted. "I'm angry, but I love you, baby. Compromise, huh?"

"Or concede, give and take, a settlement-"

"Okay, smart-a.s.s. Come over tomorrow. We'll talk."

"I love you, too. Good night, Helen."

When Helen entered the kitchen again, Marty set down her gla.s.s of Chardonnay and laughed loudly. "Gotcha."

"What?" Helen asked, trying to conceal her smile.

"You're doing that Carter thing again. A compromise, maybe?"

Helen bit her lip and shrugged. "Maybe."

"Yep. Really made her suffer, didn't you?"

Helen felt her dimples go their deepest ever. "Eat your dinner."

As it turned out, Cory's idea of a compromise wasn't much at all. She agreed to live with Helen but wouldn't display their relationship in public, and, of course, she wouldn't do the show. Back to square one.

"I don't like it," Helen said. "You'll be guilty by a.s.sociation. If I'm the subject of gossip, I'd prefer it was legitimate."

"I think the important thing is that we're together." Cory squeezed her hand.

Helen sulked while she glanced over Cory's face. She liked her features. Her slight overbite gave her mouth a very desirable look. Not so much as a freckle marred her complexion, and she wore makeup only for performances. She was almost always fresh and natural.

She fooled with Cory's wispy bangs. She smiled at her eyebrows. They were always ragged and erratic, never to lay normally. They were cute, Helen thought.

She looked down to Cory's hand. The touch she adored. Cory reached to Helen's chin and raised it. She always wanted to see Helen's eyes when they talked. Only in the music room, when she had said no, had Cory not been able to look directly at her.

"If someone asks if we're lovers, will you deny it?" Helen asked.

"I would be denying you. No. I would say the truth."

Helen huffed. "That's what I don't understand!"

"Boston. It's that simple. There's a better chance of me staying with the orchestra if I don't do the concert."

Cory's eyes stole Helen's heart every time she looked at her, as they did at that moment. Helen relented. Cory would have Boston and the girl; Helen would have the show and the girl, but only in the privacy of their own home. Home. They still hadn't settled on the issue of whether or not Helen would move to Boston. There was time. Either way, she agreed to Cory's terms. Society had won.

Helen tried not to, but she took the compromise personally. She moved back in with Cory, but feeling more an embarra.s.sment to her than her lover, Helen picked random fights.

"I'll be home next week to take you to the doctor," Cory said during a practice break. "Have you been getting more feeling in your foot?" Helen continued to polish her nails and nodded yes. "I look forward to walking with you."

Helen looked up from the table. She said nothing and then continued to apply a second coat of polish, as though she'd never heard Cory. Cory grabbed Helen's hand to stop her. Helen pulled away.

"I'm talking to you, not to the fish."

"I don't think you should come to my appointment. I could need support and you may have to touch me in public."

"Oh for G.o.d's sake, Helen. Don't do this to me."

"What the h.e.l.l are you so afraid of?" She stabbed the nailbrush back into the bottle and twisted it closed.

"We've been over all this!" Cory raised the volume of her voice to match Helen's.

"What's the worst thing anyone could do to you?"

"Take away the one pa.s.sion I've spent my entire life nurturing."

"I'm number two on your list?"

"That's not what I meant."

"What did you mean when you said you would do a show like ours if you had someone to show off to the world? Well, here I am, baby, and all you really want is to show off with your piano and baton. Period." Helen wheeled toward the bedroom. Cory followed, but stopped at the doorway and faced Helen.

"And what makes you so self-righteous? The world won't magically open their arms to us. They don't like what we do."

"Chamberlain, one day you'll wake up and the only thing you'll have is your d.a.m.n piano."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's the truth, Cory. You're pushing me away."

"You're pulling away. If you can't handle things the way they are-"

"Now look who's threatening."

"I've had it with you." Cory threw her arms out to her sides. "Take me as I am or don't. You've pulled this c.r.a.p att.i.tude for two weeks and I don't want to hear it anymore."

Helen followed Cory into the bedroom. She wanted to break the Chamberlain emotional barrier. Anger wasn't enough. She wanted to burst into Cory's brain, and then scratch and claw until Cory realized there was more to life than the almighty concerto. There was Helen, who wouldn't play second for want of an orchestra.

For want of an orchestra, the girl was lost.

Cory sobbed and wiped her cheeks of tears. "Do you think this is easy for me? Why can't I make you understand-"

"Marty isn't afraid."

"She's not the issue. Screw her."

Helen didn't think. She blurted, "Maybe I do."

You idiot, the sensible part of Helen said.

If there was ever a moment in her life when she wished she could retract her words, it was then. The sentence was simple, yet volatile enough to hasten the death of any relationship, but it was a lie.

Cory looked up and the disappointment in her eyes nearly killed Helen. "Well, I hope it's as good for her as it was for me." She stormed out of the room.

"What do you mean by 'was'?" Helen yelled down the hall and Cory charged back into the room.

"You won't let me near you anymore." She mimicked Helen. "'It's uncomfortable.' 'I don't feel very feminine.'" Cory shook her head. "Fine. If Marty Jamison makes you feel-"

"I didn't mean it, Cory!"

"Whatever the case, there'll be no damage control. Obviously, I don't make you happy."

Cory left the room. Helen needed to find one of Einstein's wormholes and climb through it, to go back in time. Only two minutes, that's all she wanted, but there was no means of escape. All she had to work with was the present.

"Cory, I'm not sleeping with Marty," she repeated when they met in the kitchen.

"Look. We aren't working out and I'll take the responsibility. Maybe it's best that I'm leaving in the morning."

Helen took a breath and her voice quivered. "This is really happening, isn't it?"

"I can't be what you want. Go back to your apartment. We shouldn't do this to each other any longer."

"I love you."

"You love my image."

"What?" Helen's blood boiled. "You love your image. I don't give a rat's a.s.s if you can play-"

"I've worked long and hard for what I have," Cory yelled. "If you can't respect that, then to h.e.l.l with you."

Helen abruptly leaned forward. "I'd like to slap you, but I can't get out of this frigging chair." She banged its side with her left hand. Cory walked over and knelt beside her.

"Take your best shot."

In a split second, Helen ended their argument with a strong blow to Cory's cheek. Cory never flinched, but heavy tears rolled from her eyes. Deafening quiet surrounded Helen-who sat frozen in her wheelchair. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, it would be a different time. Not real...a dream...I didn't hit her. She opened her eyes only to witness red marks where her hand had connected with Cory's cheek.

"Oh, baby." She reached toward the swelling cheek. "I'm...please forgive me. Oh G.o.d, Cory. I'm so sorry that happened. Please-"

Cory leaned away from Helen's hand. "We've said enough, Helen." She rose to her feet. "I'll stay with Liz tonight. Please be gone when I return." She walked out of the room, grabbing the suitcases that she packed for her trip.

"What about us?" Helen asked, on the verge of tears.

"It doesn't exist." She opened the door. "Good-bye, Helen." There was no pause, no turning for a final look at Helen. She closed the door, not with a bang, and barely with a whimper.

Helen waited, expecting Cory to walk back in. She looked at the handle and watched for it to turn. Then she fumed. The nerve of Cory to group her with past lovers.

"I don't love your image," she yelled at the door. "I don't need your image, and I certainly don't need your insecurities."

Still she waited, but as quickly as Cory had entered Helen's life, now she was gone. There was never a middle moment for them.

"Good-bye," Helen finally said over the soft gurgle of aquarium bubbles and silent fall of her tears.

It took only a few hours for Stacey to transfer Helen's belongings back to her apartment. Some clothing, her father's war memorabilia, and her computer system. She had planned to wait until she was out of the wheelchair before she moved in with Cory totally. At least waiting had been smart.

Helen read the papers and so kept up with Cory's concert dates. Her reviews were terrible. Cory was labeled a second-rate talent by one critic, while another insinuated that she didn't know a C scale from a fish scale.

Was someone feeding the fish? Helen wondered.

As if that review wasn't bad enough, yet another made a comment that probably stabbed deeply. "...wouldn't recognize Chopin from a dish pan."

Cory ended one performance early, due to illness. Another review mentioned that she had been going through some personal problems.

Eventually, her final concert date was canceled.

Helen called and got her machine. "Are you okay? Please call me if you want to talk." But there was no return call after two days and she worried. What had "due to illness" meant? She called Liz.

"Cory's going through a bad time," Liz told her. "She's visiting a friend in Baltimore, trying to sort out the jumble."

A friend. Elinor. An ex-lover.

"Watch out for flying piano benches, baby. Flying hands," she said to the photo that Stacey had given her.

"Let Cory do what she has to," Carolyn said. "Take your own s.p.a.ce and worry about Helen Townsend. Let go of control."

"I'm not trying to control her."

"But you're trying to do things when you should be healing yourself. Think of what you need more than Cory-to get healthy."

"You sound like Teresa."

"We think along the same lines. Don't burden yourself. You love each other. Remember that. And no matter where she is, she's loving you."