Chapter Twenty-Seven
BLAIR WAS downing the last few bites of her lightning-fast lunch when the door to the choir room opened and Callum walked in with their special guest: a slender brunette in a pencil skirt.
“You must be Blair.” She extended a hand. “I’m Keira McLane, with Channel Six.”
“The face behind the emails.” Blair shook her hand. “It’s wonderful to meet you in person.”
“Thank you again for all the work you guys did for my grandma.” Keira set her bag down next to the piano, and the heavyset older man behind her put down his camera equipment. “She can’t stop raving about how sweet and helpful your kids are.”
Warmth bloomed at the compliment. “They’re great kids. I’m just the one who’s lucky enough to get to work with them.”
Keira indicated her cameraman. “This is Seth, my partner in crime.”
“Just pretend I’m not here.” Seth gave a friendly wave and started setting up his tripod. He and Callum talked quietly, Seth gesturing toward chairs and Callum moving them to set up a little conversation area in the crook of the piano.
“Wow, this room hasn’t changed as much as I thought it would have.” Keira strolled around the choir room. “It’s like traveling back in time.”
“I think all the directors since Vic left have been afraid to make too many changes.” Blair pulled out her phone to check her makeup.
“I can’t tell you how excited I am about this story,” Keira said. “I love local history. I’ll cover the city council meetings and the gourd festival and whatever else the station has for me, but my real passion is uncovering hidden stories of the past.”
Callum gestured toward the chairs he’d set up. “This okay, Keira?”
“Perfect.” Keira settled into the chair across from Blair and Callum. “We’ll talk for half an hour or so, but most of this will wind up on the proverbial cutting floor. Final story is only going to be about three minutes. You know how it goes.”
Blair glanced toward Callum to find him grinning back at her. Had he ever been interviewed on television? Doubtless he had. That must be why he seemed so comfortable.
After handing out microphones and making sure all the technology was in working order, Keira crossed her legs at the ankles and glanced down at her notes. “Okay, Callum, I think most of your biographical information is on your website. Anything to update?”
“Nothing professional, no. But I did lose a loved one to suicide five years ago. I think that’s part of why Iris Wallingford’s story is so compelling to me.” His jaw flexed.
Blair’s heart squeezed. She reached over and placed her hand on top of his. He covered it with his own and flicked an appreciative glance her way.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Callum.” Keira’s brown eyes shimmered with compassion. “But thank you for answering my first question without me even having to ask it. I wondered what drew the two of you to find out more about Iris.”
“It all started with a piece of music we found.” Blair withdrew her hand and glanced toward Callum. “Did you think to pull that out? I sure didn’t.”
Callum grinned. “Put it on the piano before I went to meet Keira.”
“Excellent.” Blair turned back toward Keira, trying to ignore the huge camera behind the reporter. “Anyway, we found a handwritten, unfinished piece of music in the choral library. It was tucked into a box for another piece.”
“The piece is brilliant,” Callum put in. “We immediately became obsessed with it.”
“You more than me,” Blair said around a laugh. “But I remembered hearing rumors that Iris Wallingford wrote music, so when we found this, we got curious.”
Keira leaned forward. “Could we hear it?”
“The whole world should hear it.” Callum walked to the piano.
Blair followed. When she was settled at the bench, Callum cued her with a glance.
The music was just as moving as before, but it tugged at Blair’s heart in a way it hadn’t when they played it the first time.
Iris was no longer a stranger, and through the music Blair heard the heart of a talented teenage girl.
Next to her, Callum sang the text in that beautiful rich baritone of his. When she’d played through this piece before, they’d barely known each other and didn’t like much of what they did know. Now they’d kissed. More than once. Something shimmered between them now.
“That’s beautiful,” Keira said when they reached the end of what Iris had written.
“I’m not anywhere near the musician you two are, but it’s gorgeous.
I can see why you were inspired to try to find out more about who wrote it.
” She scrolled through her phone. “Oh, I wanted to be sure to ask this. Grandma said Iris was dating Mr. Nelson back in high school. Did the two of you know about that?”
“That’s one of the more interesting things we discovered. We found a picture of the two of them together in the yearbook.” Blair scooted to the choir office, grabbed the yearbook off her desk, and brought it in. She laid the book open on top of the piano. “See? Right there.”
“Huh.” Keira studied the photo. “Mr. Nelson never mentioned dating the girl who died, at least not that I remember.” Her phone buzzed as they sat back down, and she glanced at it.
“Okay, wow. Jeff just sent me an article from 1970 about Victor Nelson being accepted to the Whitehall Conservatory of Music in Chicago.”
Callum’s eyebrows shot up. “Vic went to Whitehall?”
“That’s . . . no, that’s not right.” Blair frowned. “The diplomas on his wall were from UI-Chicago and UIUC, I think.”
Keira tapped her phone. “Yeah, his bio says he graduated with a double major in composition and choral music education from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and he has a master’s in choral conducting from UIUC. No mention of Whitehall.”
“If I’d gone to Whitehall, I’d sure mention it in my bio,” Blair said. “It’s like the Juilliard of the Midwest.”
“Does it say anything about his composition teachers?” Callum asked. “I can’t remember off the top of my head who he studied with.”
Keira rattled off a couple of names, neither of which meant anything to Blair.
Callum perked up. “The second one sounds familiar.”
Keira once again consulted her phone. “Okay, I googled the name, and that professor was at Whitehall. So it’s possible Mr. Nelson attended there but never graduated. Any ideas why that might be?”
The door to the choir room opened, and Dad poked his head in. “Blair? Are you—Oh, I’m sorry.” He glanced at the reporters and cameraman. “Didn’t realize I was interrupting. I needed to drop something off. Is this a bad time?”
“Kinda.” Blair grinned an apology. “We’re just being interviewed about the piece we found in the choir library. Turns out Iris Wallingford did write it, if Peggy Sue Weldon’s memory serves.”
“Funny you mention Iris, because Bob Porter from the alumni association had some information for me. Nothing that needs to be on camera, probably, but it might help.”
“Well, pull up a chair.” Keira stood and shook Dad’s hand. “Mike, nice to see you again.”
“How’s that new Journey treating you?” he asked with a grin.
“Runs like a dream,” Keira replied.
Dad turned toward Callum. “And you must be the new choral director.”
Callum stood and extended a hand. “Yes, sir. Callum Knight. Pleased to meet you.”
“Likewise. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Callum’s eyes flicked toward Blair. “Uh-oh. That could go any number of directions.”
Blair made a face. “It’s all good things. Well. Okay. Mostly good things.”
Dad strolled over to the far end of the risers. “Just pick up where you left off.”
“We just discovered Vic Nelson was accepted to the Whitehall Conservatory in Chicago and apparently studied under one of their composition teachers, but none of his degrees are from there,” Keira said. “We’re trying to figure out what happened.”
Dad took off his glasses and polished them on his navy-blue Emerson Dodge polo shirt.
“Well, Bob said he and Vic Nelson were both drafted that year. Bob’s birthday was called second, and he told me Vic’s birthday was also drawn pretty early in the draft.
But I don’t think Vic ever served—he certainly never said anything if he did—so he’d have to have had some type of deferment or exemption.
A physical ailment, conscientious objector status . . .”
“Or college.” Keira’s lips curved.
Blair frowned. “But deferment wouldn’t have been dependent on where he went to college, right? So that still wouldn’t explain him not going to Whitehall.”
“Money, maybe?” Keira asked.
Callum leaned forward. “You’d think that might be the case, but with Whitehall it’s the opposite.
There are a couple of very exclusive music schools—Curtis in Philadelphia being the main one—that are tuition-free.
At least, Whitehall was tuition-free when I applied there.
Maybe it was different back in the seventies. ”
Blair glanced toward Callum. “You applied to Whitehall?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, but I didn’t get in. Just like a lot of people.”
“Like me.” She waved a hand with a self-deprecating grin. “I didn’t expect to, though. It was a total lark. Went to UIUC instead.”
Callum grinned. “And I went to Michigan.”
She studied him, the green in his eyes catching the light.
What would it have been like if they’d both wound up in Chicago?
If there were no Derek for her, no Rayne for him.
Would they have escaped some of the scars they carried with them all these years later?
Or would they have simply received different ones?
Perhaps even at the hands of each other?
God knew. His best for both of them hadn’t been Whitehall. And for whatever reason, he’d allowed the pain of Derek and Rayne to penetrate their lives and bruise their hearts.
But maybe he was working some good out of it after all.
Dad turned. “Blair, didn’t you ask Mr. Nelson for a recommendation letter when you applied to Whitehall?”