The Billionaires Pianist

Chapter 5

I set my glass down, resisting the urge to c***k it in half and use the stem as a baton. Instead, I glide a hand over the nearest flat surface—marble, of course—and tap out the first four notes of the nocturne with my index finger. It’s a nervous habit, and the only one I’ve allowed myself to keep.

The conversation meanders back to safer topics—real estate, the upcoming charity auction, which of the mayoral candidates might finally c***k down on the unwashed masses downtown. The men compare wristwatches; the women, Pilates studios. Someone introduces a new arrival, a lithe blonde in a saffron sheath, whose smile is so wide it threatens to bisect her face. She is Victoria, and she needs no last name.

There is a brief, almost reverent pause as Victoria enters the circle. She air-kisses Margo, then me, and her eyes linger just a shade too long. “So this is the famous Mrs. Sterling,” she says. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“All of it untrue, I hope,” I say, and the group titters, not with amusement, but with the relief of someone watching a magician swallow a sword and not die onstage.

Victoria’s gaze sharpens. “Julian always said you were quick. I see he wasn’t exaggerating.” She turns to Margo, and in a voice not even trying to be subtle, says, “It’s so quaint, isn’t it, marrying an artist? You can tell he’s trying to be different from the rest of us.”

The group nods as one. I feel my smile start to ache.

“I suppose it keeps the bloodlines interesting,” adds the man with the expensive cufflinks.

Someone else chimes in: “Oh, but she was quite promising once, wasn’t she? I read about her in The Times, years ago. A prodigy.”

“Weren’t we all,” says Margo, and the laughter this time has real teeth.

If Chopin’s nocturne was once a sanctuary, it is now a bunker, and I retreat into it, letting the melody override the static of humiliation. I scan the room for an exit strategy but instead catch the eye of Eleanor, who is watching me with the predatory calm of a heron above a koi pond.

The dinner bell chimes, a sound so antique and delicate it seems absurd in a room with six figures’ worth of modern art. The crowd migrates to the dining room, a cathedral of linen and silver. I am seated midway down the table, sandwiched between Margo and a septuagenarian who once chaired the Metropolitan Opera board. The place settings are more elaborate than most weddings; the menu, a love letter to the cardiovascular ward.

The meal passes in a blur of forced politeness and veiled insults, each course a new opportunity for someone to remind me of my diminished status. I sip my soup, nod through the salad, and by the entrée am rehearsing comebacks in four-part harmony. My hands, hidden in my lap, play silent scales against my knees.

“I hope the city hasn’t ruined you for good food, Isabella,” says the opera man. “You grew up in—where was it—Jersey?”

I smile. “That’s right. My parents still live there. We had a potato farm, briefly.”

The table laughs, but I sense their discomfort at my lack of shame.

Eleanor, at the head of the table, dings her glass with a knife. The entire room hushes. “I think we should toast,” she announces, “to the extraordinary accomplishments of our dear Isabella. Not everyone can walk away from the concert stage and thrive in our little jungle.”

There is a smattering of applause. I raise my glass, uncertain whether to drink or throw it.

“To thriving,” I say, voice steady. “However one defines it.”

The rest of the meal is a descent into farce. Every question is a trap; every anecdote, a reminder that I am tolerated, not accepted. I survive dessert by imagining I am in a master class, the audience full of critics whose applause means nothing.

As the plates are cleared and coffee is poured, I find myself staring into the abyss of a demitasse, wondering if Chopin ever had to endure such evenings. I imagine he would have burned the place down, or at least slipped arsenic into the petit fours.

Under the table, my left hand clenches so tight I nearly snap a nail. The other guests are already shifting in their seats, angling for the next round of schadenfreude. I know what’s coming, and I am bracing for impact.

The only question is how loud the next movement will be.