"And what, you haven't got a home to go to?"
I shrugged. "Like you, I've got a lot of time on my hands."
He played for another minute without speaking. I listened to the music, searching it for clues as to what he was thinking or feeling. But all I could hear was more of the neutral barroom filler. "There's no point in trying to sell any of this stuff," he said at last. "So if you were going to ask, don't."
"I wasn't going to," I assured him, choosing my words carefully. "Though I don't see why you're so adamant about it. Music is all about connecting with people's hearts and minds, after all. Yours seems to do that in spades."
"Yes, well, that's the problem, isn't it?" he said bitterly. "It's a little _too_ personal."
"What's wrong with being personal?" I asked. "How many other composers can say their music fits even a single person like a handmade silk glove?"
He threw me a frown. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Silently, I cursed myself. "Nothing," I said. "Just something a friend once said about your music." She wasn't exactly a friend, of course, but he didn't need to know that. "She's a fan of yours, too."
"Then she doesn't know a thing about music," he declared bluntly, the notes flowing out of his fingers taking on a harsh, discordant flavor. Here and there, I noticed, heads were starting to turn in our direction. "I can only write for one person at a time. Period."
"Okay, fine," I said hastily. "I didn't mean to step on your toes. Sorry."
He glowered at the piano, but I could hear the harshness starting to smooth out. "I tried to sell a few pieces once," he said, the music taking on a wistful tone. "I thought maybe I could help people. Like..."
"Like you helped that brunette?"
He snorted. "Yeah. Only no one wanted it. They all said it was ... none of them wanted it."
I nodded, taking a sip of my beer. That wasn't strictly true, I knew. One of the five publishers he'd sent music to in the past three years had expressed some definite interest.
But then Weldon had suddenly withdrawn it from consideration. None of the biographies I'd read had given any explanation as to why he'd done that. "Maybe they were just feeling too good that day," I suggested. "Your specialty seems to be encouraging people who are down in the dumps."
The music drifted from wistful into a darker melancholy. "You think I helped her," he said, his voice almost too soft to hear. "You think she went back to her husband all ready to work out their problems and start over again."
He shook his head. "No. She's all fired up now, but it won't last. Chances are she'll be right back here Monday night."
"You're not responsible for solving all the problems of the world," I reminded him quietly. "Besides, who's to say when a temporary fix will grow into something more permanent? You never know about these things."
"Sure," he said, in a tone that said he didn't believe it for a minute. "I know."
I looked down into my glass, tipping it and watching the remnants of the foam slide up and down the sides. So that was it, or at least part of it. Somewhere along the line, one of his musical helping hands had gone awry. Had made matters worse, probably, though I could only guess how that might have happened.
And for whatever reason, he'd taken that failure personally. It hadn't stopped him from playing individual songs for individual people, but it _had_ scared him away from any attempt to market his work to the masses. Probably also why he kept moving from area to area, bar to bar. If and when the brunette came back with even deeper troubles, he didn't want to be there to see it. Or maybe he just didn't want to be there to offer her more false hope.
Weldon Sommers, in other words, was well on his way to turning himself into a modern version of one of the classical Greek tragic figures he undoubtedly read all about in those lonely off-hours of his.
But at the moment, that didn't matter. All that mattered was the timing of the two events. And I could only hope that this mysterious failure had happened just before he'd withdrawn his music from that fifth publisher. Reading his history, Weldon had struck me as the impulsive type who generally let stimulus flow into response with very little delay.
Which was the needle point on which this whole gamble was balanced. Sometime in the next four weeks, he would suddenly change his mind again and send out the composition that would end up changing his life forever. If the woman who would inspire that song had already walked into and out of his life, I was drinking bad beer for nothing.
Lifting my glass, I took another sip. Across the room, the door opened --
And there she was.
I caught my breath, nearly choking on that last swallow of beer. She was a far cry from the holos I'd studied before I'd left: her blond hair falling flat and listless across her shoulders, her once radiant face turned weary and hopeless, her young, athletic body slumped with fatigue inside the confines of a plain and ill-fitting blue dress and brown jacket. She'd been through the mulcher and then some.
But it was her, all right. Amanda Lowell, daughter of Sir Charles Anthony Lowell, ninety-seventh richest man in the world. The woman who I'd gambled would be the inspirational spark that would send Weldon Sommers's career into the musical stratosphere.
The woman I'd come two hundred years into the past to find.
A pair of hard-eyed men crowded in right behind her, catching the door before it could swing completely shut. Once, I suspected, the genteel Miss Lowell would have flinched to have men like that even in the same room with her. Now, she didn't even seem to notice as they pushed past her in their rush to get to an unoccupied table between the door and the far corner of the bar. One of them said something as they passed; shaking her head, she started across the room.
I watched her as she made her way between the tables toward the bar. Her blank eyes stayed fixed straight ahead, not even acknowledging the presence of the people she was brushing past. I saw a couple of men glance at her, then glance just as casually away again. The brunette hadn't been the only hopeless-looking single woman in tonight, and there was nothing else in Amanda's appearance that anyone here would notice, let alone care about.
No one except Weldon Sommers.
I hoped.
Slowly, I lowered my glass to the table, afraid to move quickly lest I distract his attention. Had he seen her? Surely he had. Had he noticed her face, then, her dully terrified state of mind? Again, how could he have missed it?
But the music hadn't changed from the emotionally vacant barroom drivel. Amanda found an empty stool and slumped down onto it; and still the music didn't change. The bartender stepped up to her, nodded at her inaudible request, and turned to the bottles stacked behind him. Over by the door, one of the hard-eyed men grabbed a passing waitress's arm and jabbed a finger imperiously toward the bar.
And still the music didn't change.
I squeezed my glass hard, afraid to even look at Weldon, a horrible thought crawling like a spiny lizard through my gut. Had my mild attempts at encouragement actually had the opposite effect? Could the revived memory of whatever that dark incident was in his past have temporarily shied him away from his private crusade to lift the downtrodden and comfort the brokenhearted?
Because if I had, I had very possibly just altered history. _No pushing, no suggesting, no altering._...
And then, as the sweat began to collect on my forehead, the music finally changed.
It began slowly, just as it had earlier with the brunette. The major chords he'd been playing softened, flattened, and folded into their minor counterparts. The music modulated once, then twice, as Weldon searched for just the right key to fit the forlorn woman at the bar. The phrasing began to stretch out, the harmonies deepening and stretching and reaching.
And slowly, subtly, it transformed itself into the soft melody I'd been praying to hear ever since I arrived in this time period. A piece simply called, "For Love of Amanda."
I took a deep breath. This was it: the turning point in Weldon's life.
And, if I did my job right, it would be Amanda's redemption as well.
Across the room, the bartender handed Amanda her drink. Lost in her own misery, distracted perhaps by the buzz of conversation around her, she hadn't yet noticed the melody drifting through the smoke toward her.
But she would soon; and when she did, I decided, it might be better if I wasn't here. Leaving my glass where it was, I slid my legs out from under the table and headed toward the restrooms.
I went inside and let myself into one of the stalls, wishing I had a better idea of how long I should stay in here. All the biographies said was that "For Love of Amanda" had been inspired by a woman who'd come into the bar where Weldon was playing. I didn't know if she was going to go over and talk to him, or for how long; whether she would tell him her name or whether the song's title was just a wild coincidence.
All I knew was that the final, published song was six and a half minutes long. For no particular reason, I decided to give them seven. Pacing as best I could in the confined space, I counted out the minutes, sweating the whole time. The waiting, as always, was the worst part.
I'd wondered earlier if Amanda would go over to talk to him. In fact, she'd done me one better: I emerged from the restroom to find her seated at the table I'd just left. From my angle I couldn't tell whether they were talking or whether she'd just moved closer so she could hear the music better, but I was guessing the former.
Perfect.