Chapter 38

Actually something good came out of the whole brouhaha, although at first I didn't recognize it. Camilla and I were sitting around the suite chatting with Asmedogh, explaining to him what had happened and why it was important in our affairs—well, mine anyway—when Marilyn called again mid-afternoon and said she was on her way back up. Asmedogh went back to his room with the cats, and in a couple of minutes Marilyn let herself back in. This time she had a smile on her face.

"I think we're going to make a silk purse out of this sow's ear," she said. "I got hold of the 'paper's entertainment editor who was all apologies, they'll correct it on page one of the section tomorrow, but it just got lots better than that."

"Oh?" Camilla encouraged her.

"Yep. The reviewer, James Adler, just phoned to make his apologies personally. He was mortified, he all but groveled, blah, blah, blah. But, and here's the good part, he wants to make it up to Nick. He'd like a one-on-one for a feature piece in Wednesday's edition!"

"Wonderful!" Camilla exclaimed. "Dear, not only do you not get fired, remind me to give you a raise!"

Marilyn laughed. "That's either four or five raises you owe me, Cam. Someday I may call you on all of them and I'll be making more than you are."

I wasn't nearly so thrilled. "Hey, wait a minute," I interrupted. "You mean 'one-on-one' like an interview? With me?"

"Give the man first prize!" Marilyn said in an amused tone. "Yes, Nick, with your very own self. You couldn't buy better publicity."

I was right back to that out-of-my-depth feeling. "Marilyn, I've never done an interview. I wouldn't have any idea what to say; I'd just make a fool of myself. Tell him thanks, but—"

This time it was Camilla's turn to reach over and put her finger on my mouth to stop me. "Hush, darling," she told me. "Marilyn's right, it's wonderful exposure for you. And you can definitely use it. Yes, you sing like a dream, but right now there aren't many people who know you do. You need to get the word out, and this is a great way for it." She turned to Marilyn. "He'll do it, of course. When?"

"Adler would like tomorrow about eleven ay-em, but that's not locked in stone."

"Eleven's good," she said.

"Camilla, I have no idea at all what to say," I continued to protest.

"Of course not, that's his job," she told me. "He asks the questions, all you do is answer. Doesn't even matter if you fumble a little, he's going to be softballing. Then he turns it into a lovely article and introduces you to the world."

I still looked at her pretty dubiously.

"Look, honey, I'll be right there with you, and I've done scads of interviews, I'll help you along."

Now it was Marilyn's turn to look doubtful. "Cam, sweetie, are you sure about that?" she asked. "I mean, so far we've skated right by on you and Nick, but if you're there with him it's going to kind of rub the whole situation in, and Adler's bound to pick it up and print something."

"And? We haven't exactly been in hiding, and I couldn't care less. Do you, Nicky?"

This much at least I understood. "I'm with the woman I love"—Marilyn's eyebrows went sky-high at that one, she hadn't heard either of us say it before—"she's the most beautiful wo­man in the world, she's the best soprano in the world on top of it, and you think I might want to keep it a deep, dark secret? Hell, I'm willing to hire skywriters."

Camilla leaned over and gave me a quick kiss, in deference to our guest, but an enthusiastic one nonetheless. "There's your answer, dear. Now get out the Farley and tell me about Adler."

"The what?" I asked, baffled, as Marilyn fumbled in the huge purse she always seemed to have with her.

"Farley file," she explained as she pulled out one of those electronic tablet things. "It's like what politicians keep on people they've met. Cam meets people everywhere, and she can't possibly remember them all. But they remember her because she's so famous and pretty and all, and it hurts their feelings if she treats them like strangers."

"Marilyn keeps track of them for me," Camilla added. "If she's not around I'll tell her later, and she'll make notes. It can be awfully helpful."

Later on I looked it up. The idea was apparently devised by James Farley, who was President Franklin Roosevelt's campaign manager back in the 1930s. People used to be terribly impressed at the President's apparent prodigious memory of long-ago meetings, not knowing Roosevelt had been briefed ahead of time from Farley's detailed files.

"OK," Marilyn was saying, "you met him twice last year during Butterfly. He gave you a super write-up, you were the new Callas"—Maria Callas, legendary soprano of the mid-20th century—"but prettier and with a lovelier voice. You thanked him and chatted a bit; you called him Jimmy. He seemed like an OK guy, somewhere in his late forties or early fifties. He has some clout around the country, too, which makes it even better."

"Jimmy," Camilla said to herself, setting the memory. "Great Butterfly, thank you again. Got it. We'll do it here. Say I'll be here too, but remind him that this one's about Nick, not me."

She and I, with Asmedogh frequently joining us, spent the rest of Sunday pretty much vegging out in the suite. We didn't even do warm-ups. "Always a full day of rest after a performance," she said. "Give the voice a break, it needs it." That had certainly not been my habit before; in fact, in repertory houses I'd often done several days on stage in a row. But that, I realized, had been in the much less demanding comprimario roles. Singing leads, I'd finally recognized after my emotional high had at last worn off the night before, took a lot more out of you.

But I was up at my usual 7:00 a.m. the next morning, and edgy about the interview to come. I still had no idea what I was going to say, and it made me acutely uncomfortable. At least Camilla would be there to keep me from looking like an utter imbecile, I reassured myself. To ease my nerves I sat down at the piano and went through my warm-up routine, finishing up, as she'd once suggested, with the lullaby with which Schubert ended his Die Schöne Müllerin song cycle. I was pleased with myself; at least this part of the day had gone well, my voice just purred out.

Once again Camilla didn't stir the whole time. She hadn't been entirely asleep, though; when she finally emerged from the bedroom, already dressed in a cute little frock that showed her bare shoulders and just a tasteful amount of cleavage, she gave me an extra big good morning kiss. "That's for the lullaby, dear," she told me. "It was absolutely gorgeous, you really ought to try the whole cycle when you start doing concerts."

Concerts? I'd never even thought about it. There was a lot of new stuff I was going to have to begin thinking about if all this went the way it seemed to be going so far.

Marilyn brought Adler in promptly at 11:00, and for the first time since Camilla and I had been together I was the first one greeted. "Mr. Volker," he said, walking over with his hand extended. "It's a true pleasure to meet you, and let me please offer you my profoundest apologies. Either the correction slip wasn't in my program or it just fell out, but either way it was inexcusably unprofessional of me. I can only plead that I was on deadline and had to rush, but even so—"

He looked like he'd go on indefinitely if I didn't cut him short, so I just said "It's quite all right, I understand completely" and shook his hand. Only then did he turn to Camilla, which I considered true restraint since in his shoes I wouldn't have been able to keep my eyes off her.

"Ms. St. John," he said, "and what a pleasure to see you again."