Son of Stone

40

Kelli Keane sat at the bar at the Brasserie and toyed with her lunch. She had spotted Peter Barrington the moment he entered the restaurant, and he had made it obvious that he was waiting for someone. Kelli was delighted with the coincidence that she and Peter had chosen the same restaurant. She had been working too hard at this, she thought, and she deserved a break.

When the girl arrived Kelli saw how Peter hurried to meet her. This was obviously a first date, and he had probably met the girl at school. She was a pretty thing and fashionably dressed for a high school girl. This was the first time Kelli had had an opportunity to stare unblinkingly at Peter and take his measure. He seemed exceptionally mature for an eighteen-year-old, and she knew a lot about the subspecies, having started to date eighteen-year-olds when she was thirteen, and having lost her virginity to the second one, at thirteen and a half. She had had an abortion at sixteen, as the result of carelessness with yet another eighteen-year-old, and she had turned her attention then to twenty-one-year-olds, who seemed to have a greater appreciation of the pitfalls of the menstrual cycle.

Peter did not have the native slovenliness of the current crop of eighteen-year-olds, nor did he seem to need the appearance of stubble or a patchy beard to build his confidence. She was willing to bet that his room was very neatly kept.

The headwaiter drifted by and Kelli snagged him. “Hey, Geoffrey,” she said.

“Kelli, how you doing? You want a table?”

“No, I’m fine at the bar. Tell you what I do want, though: see those two kids over there in the booth?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s a hundred in it if you can find out the girl’s name and where she lives.”

“Would you like to pay now or later?” he asked.

“Payment is on delivery,” she said.

Bruce ambled over to where the young couple sat. “Good day, folks,” he said. “Is this your first visit to the Brasserie?”

Both shook their heads.

“Well, we’re very happy to have you as regulars. I’m Bruce, your maitre d’.” He offered his hand to the boy, who shook it and replied, “Peter Barrington.”

He turned to the girl. “And you?”

“Hattie Patrick,” she replied, shaking his hand.

“I’m very pleased to meet you both. Do you live in the neighborhood?”

“I’m at Sixty-third and Park,” the girl said, “and Peter lives in Turtle Bay.”

“Great. I hope we’ll see both of you often.” He strolled away, spoke to a couple of other diners for cover, then went back to the bar.

“Hattie Patrick,” he said, “Sixty-third and Park.”

Kelli slipped him the hundred. “Bruce, you’re a dear, and very clever, too.”

He was nice,” Hattie said to Peter.

“Yes, he was. Maybe we’ll become regulars, like he said.”

“Are you a regular anywhere else?” she asked.

“Only at the Knickerbocker cafeteria,” Peter replied. “My dad hangs out at Elaine’s.”

“I’ve never been. Will you take me sometime?”

“Sure, I’d love to take you. We could ask my friend Ben along, but he’s headed back to Choate Monday.”

“Who are your friends at school?” Hattie asked.

“Just you. I haven’t been there long enough to make other friends.”

“I’m confused about something,” she said.

“What?”

“You did say you graduated from your last school in December.”

“That’s right.”

“How did that happen?”

“Well, I took a lot of courses and got ahead of the curriculum.”

“While shooting a movie at the same time?”

“Yeah, we only worked a couple of hours a day on the movie.”

“Are you just taking film courses at Knickerbocker?”

“I’m taking college-level French and American history, too.”

“Are you going to college in the fall?”

“Ben and I have both applied to the Yale School of Drama.”

“You want to be an actor?”

“I want to learn about acting. They have a directing program, too, and Ben wants to produce, and they have a program for that, even an MBA. When we get out of school we want to be partners in the making of films.”

“That sounds very ambitious,” she said. “I wish I had that kind of inner direction. I seem to just wander along, doing whatever seems like a good idea at the time.”

“Studying musical composition seems to be a very directed choice,” Peter said.

“I suppose so. That was a delicious lunch.”

“Mine, too. Shall we go to my house?”

“Sure.”

Peter paid the check, and they walked over to Turtle Bay. He let them into the house and hung up their coats, then they went into the living room where the old Steinway grand was.

Hattie sat down and riffed through a few chords. “Have you decided what the titles are going to be like yet?” she asked.

“I have a lot of shots of the school campus and the James River. I thought I might string together some of them under the titles.”

“Good, that’s what I was thinking,” she said. She began to play. “I thought I would begin with a slow passage, sort of pastoral in nature, like this.” She played a few measures. “Then I’ll establish a simple theme that will return at various points in the film.” She played the theme, then another minute or two of music, then stopped. “This is where it says, ‘Directed by Peter Barrington,’” she said. “Then the music stops for a while. I think the score should be kind of spare. I hated it in a lot of old movies when the music was there all the time. I don’t think a film needs music all the way through; it should be saved for when it’s needed to augment the film, maybe heighten the drama. Listen to this: it’s when the two boys are actually mixing the poison that they’re going to give to the master.” She played a spikier, more staccato passage.

“That’s perfect,” Peter said, in awe of what he was hearing. “I’d be happy for the whole score to be just your piano.”

“There are a few places where we could add a cello and a flute,” she said, “and I’d like a double bass in the more dramatic passages. There are kids at school who could play those parts.”

“Whatever you say. Play me the theme again.”

She began the passage, and Peter was swept into it. He closed his eyes and listened.