Kate and Julian's Playlist
Like Julian Ashford, I was raised on a steady diet of opera and Chopin, Bach and ballet. Even jazz was considered newfangled and faintly vulgar. I can still remember my father teaching me the basic box step with Strauss scratching in the background, and standing with my mother in the winter air outside the opera house when a bomb threat was called in during a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor. (Comment all you like on the appropriateness of the subject matter for an eight-year-old; at five I was entertaining dinner guests with dramatic re-enactments of Desdemona's death scene.) We were the house that the twentieth century forgot, until my sister and I reached our teenage years, found the radio dial, and startled the kitchen with Duran Duran.
When Julian first appeared in my head in 2007, I knew at once that he played the piano. Two years later, when I was ready to begin drafting Overseas, I knew exactly what music he would love, and exactly how he would share it with Kate; moreover, I knew that music itself was an essential part of their emotional vocabulary, a way of bridging the cultural divide between them, of reaching like a handshake between the two centuries and expressing what language couldn't convey.
I hope you'll enjoy this tour through the music of Overseas. —BW
Hover cursor over playlist above to call up menu. Click track below to read related book passage.
1. Chopin: Nocturne #15 in B Flat Minor, Op. 55/1, CT 11
2. Mozart: Clarinet Concerto in A, K. 222
3. Chopin: Nocturne #2 in E Flat, Op. 9/2 /2, CT 109
4. Beethoven: Piano Sonata #23 In F Minor, Op. 57 "Appassionata"
5. Bizet: Les pecheurs de perles, Act I: "Au fond du temple saint"
6. Joplin: Maple Leaf Rag
7. Ayer/Grey: "If You Were The Only Girl In The World"
8. Strauss: An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314 (The Blue Danube)
9. Verdi: La Traviata, Act I: "Libiamo ne'lieti calici"
10. Chopin: Nocturne #7 in C Sharp Minor, Op. 27/1, CT 114
Chapter 3. Arriving at Julian's house
(Chopin: Nocturne #15 in B Flat Minor, Op. 55/1, CT 11)
Julian's townhouse wasn't quite what I was expecting. In the ruthless arithmetic of Manhattan real estate, you bought the finest you could possibly afford; the hierarchy of property aligned neatly with the hierarchy of wealth. A legendary Wall Street investor should inhabit the pinnacle of all: a wide pearl-white mansion just off Fifth Avenue, perhaps, with a ballroom inside and a service entrance below; or else a cavernous floor or two atop some monumental Park Avenue apartment building.
When Julian first appeared in my head in 2007, I knew at once that he played the piano. Two years later, when I was ready to begin drafting Overseas, I knew exactly what music he would love, and exactly how he would share it with Kate; moreover, I knew that music itself was an essential part of their emotional vocabulary, a way of bridging the cultural divide between them, of reaching like a handshake between the two centuries and expressing what language couldn't convey.
I hope you'll enjoy this tour through the music of Overseas. —BW
Hover cursor over playlist above to call up menu. Click track below to read related book passage.
1. Chopin: Nocturne #15 in B Flat Minor, Op. 55/1, CT 11
2. Mozart: Clarinet Concerto in A, K. 222
3. Chopin: Nocturne #2 in E Flat, Op. 9/2 /2, CT 109
4. Beethoven: Piano Sonata #23 In F Minor, Op. 57 "Appassionata"
5. Bizet: Les pecheurs de perles, Act I: "Au fond du temple saint"
6. Joplin: Maple Leaf Rag
7. Ayer/Grey: "If You Were The Only Girl In The World"
8. Strauss: An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314 (The Blue Danube)
9. Verdi: La Traviata, Act I: "Libiamo ne'lieti calici"
10. Chopin: Nocturne #7 in C Sharp Minor, Op. 27/1, CT 114
☆ ♫ ☆
Chapter 3. Arriving at Julian's house
(Chopin: Nocturne #15 in B Flat Minor, Op. 55/1, CT 11)
Julian's townhouse wasn't quite what I was expecting. In the ruthless arithmetic of Manhattan real estate, you bought the finest you could possibly afford; the hierarchy of property aligned neatly with the hierarchy of wealth. A legendary Wall Street investor should inhabit the pinnacle of all: a wide pearl-white mansion just off Fifth Avenue, perhaps, with a ballroom inside and a service entrance below; or else a cavernous floor or two atop some monumental Park Avenue apartment building.
This house was neither. It stood midway between Madison and Park, on a quiet street lined with trees, subdued and anonymous. It looked exactly like its neighbors on either side: twenty-odd feet wide; plain elegant Greek Revival lines; faced half with limestone, half with brick; entrance raised a few steps from street level. The number 52 was carved into the lintel above the front door.
I raised my hand to press the doorbell and paused. I thought I could hear the sound of piano drifting through the walls, something lilting and complex and faintly melancholy. Chopin? I closed my eyes. When I was young, my father had played a lot of Chopin on the old turntable he'd refused to give up. I hadn't heard it in years; I couldn't even name the piece, but the notes were as familiar to me as my own childhood bedroom.
A dark-clad figure approached, shuffling down the sidewalk. I shook off my reverie and pressed my finger against the doorbell. The music cut off. [Back to Top]
Chapter 9. A curious incident on Park Avenue
(Mozart: Clarinet Concerto in A, K. 222)
We didn't say anything more. The parking attendant at the garage retrieved the car, and Julian set me inside absently, almost as though he'd forgotten who I was and why I was there. As soon as we pulled out, he reached over with one hand to pull an iPod out of the center console. He plugged it deftly into the port on the dashboard and clicked through the menus until he reached some music. Mozart, from the sound of it.
"So," I said, clearing my throat. "Where to?"
He rubbed his forehead. "I've spoilt the evening, haven't I?
"Not totally, but it's only eight o'clock. You still have plenty of time to rip it to shreds."
He tapped his finger on the steering wheel and turned right on Park. "Perhaps I should just take you home." He sounded saddened, not angry; it gave me hope.
"Whoa. Wait. Stop. What happened, Julian? It's like...it's like Christmas all over again! And I swear I won't let you get away with it this time. What's wrong?"
"Christ, Kate," he burst out, pounding the steering wheel, "you don't know anything about me. I shouldn't have...I'm the most selfish bastard alive, aren't I?"
"Stop it! What does that even mean? Julian. Julian, will you listen to me a moment? Pull the car over."
"No. I'm taking you home."
"You're not. I won't leave."
"I don't want you to stay."
"Yes, you do. You need me to stay. Julian," I said, more softly, "you promised. The other night, you promised me you cared. So prove it. Don't let me down, here."
That penetrated. He drove silently down Park, toward midtown. I remained quiet too, not wanting to disturb the truce too soon, letting him work things through in his mind, talk himself off the ledge. Mozart's clarinets wandered nimbly in the stillness between us. Outside the tinted windows of the Maserati, as we waited for the light to change, a forty-something couple propelled a sport-wheeled twin stroller across Fifty-ninth Street, arguing, gesticulating. [Back to Top]
Chapter 9. Inside Julian's Manhattan townhouse
(Chopin: Nocturne #2 in E Flat, Op. 9/2 /2, CT 109; Beethoven: Piano Sonata #23 In F Minor, Op. 57 "Appassionata")
I skipped up the stairs, turned right at the landing, and found my way down the darkened hall to the room at the front. I was half-expecting it might be his bedroom, but in fact it was more like a study, or perhaps a music room, with a low comfortable English-armed sofa at one end and a grand piano filling the space near the windows. I turned on a lamp and went to the wide window overlooking the street below. What time was it? Not too late, ten-thirty maybe, but it seemed later: the streetlamps cast lurid yellow-orange pools of light on the deserted sidewalk, and the rapid pulse of traffic had settled into the occasional passing taxi and black sedan. I felt a surge of gratitude, to be where I stood, in this tranquil room, with Julian's presence a comforting certainty somewhere nearby.
"Found your way, all right?" came his voice behind me, as though I'd summoned him with my thoughts.
"Mmm, yes," I said, without turning. "I love the room. Very homelike."
I heard his footsteps behind me, creaking the floorboards, and then a glass of red wine appeared in front of me. The warmth of his body hovered over my skin. "Thank you," I said, taking it, and held the glass in my hand for a second or two before lifting it to my lips. "Wow. Delicious."
"What would you like me to play?"
"I don't know. I loved that Chopin you were playing, when I came here at Christmas."
He chuckled, close to my ear. "You seem to be under the misapprehension that I'm some sort of expert musician."
"Aren't you? You're good at everything else."
"I'm passable, but nothing like an expert."
I turned to find his face inches from mine, looking down at me with amusement. "Don't punk out on me, Laurence," I warned.
He smiled and took a drink of wine. "Right-ho. You've asked for it. Have a seat," he said, nodding at the sofa. I went over obediently and sank into the cushion, curling my legs beneath me, wineglass in hand. [Back to Top]
Chapter 16. Kate drives to Newport
(Bizet: Les pecheurs de perles, Act I: "Au fond du temple saint")
The drive to Newport took less than an hour, past the reedy green Connecticut shoreline and right up along the coast of Rhode Island, where the Long Island Sound opened up into the broad Atlantic Ocean. A beautiful day: the midday sun glittered brilliantly on the fidgety water, and a chaste blue sky set off the extraordinary whites of the sails plying the harbor. I found myself wishing Julian were here with me, that we were coming up for some romantic weekend at one of the old hotels in town.
I felt my mood lifting as I followed the GPS instructions, weaving my way down the narrow streets with something like euphoria at the prospect of doing something more productive than shopping or twiddling my thumbs in Julian's library all day.
The surge of exhilaration carried me right along the main commercial street in town. I found a parking space readily--it was only a Thursday, and Newport was nothing if not a weekend town--and walked the half-block or so to the shop in a quick swinging stride. THE PEARL FISHER, read the oval wooden signboard, in carved faux-antique letters painted with gold, and underneath it, BOOKS BOUGHT AND SOLD. [Back to Top]
Chapter 18. Summer in Connecticut
(Joplin: Maple Leaf Rag; Ayer/Grey: "If You Were The Only Girl In The World"; Strauss: An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314 The Blue Danube)
The summer was passing by in a haze of wonder: days spent swimming and sunbathing at the beaches, sailing Julian's nimble cutter on Long Island Sound, prowling the shops and sights of the nearby towns. We might go running or sculling on the river first thing, before the air grew too hot, and then Julian would disappear into the library for a couple of hours to conference with his lawyers or his traders; after that, the time was ours. We'd find somewhere to go, something to do. Mini golf, once, at which Captain the so-called Honorable Julian Ashford had played a shockingly dirty game: distracting my swing, knocking my ball with his own like it was a croquet match, and then making the critical mistake of trying to kiss his way out of trouble afterward.
Of course, there were other days: the days he left at dawn to drive into Manhattan, once or perhaps twice a week. I kept myself determinedly occupied then. I went to work in the garden, I read book after book, I sent cheerfully reassuring e-mails to my puzzled friends and family (Just taking the summer off! It's amazing! Country air! Beach!) and posted smiling photos on my long-dormant Facebook page. I baked my own bread, traded my own modest portfolio, ran errands. Each month, when I mailed off the rent check to my roommate, I marveled at the barefoot fullness of my life: at how, without accomplishing anything newsworthy, without going farther afield than Newport, I felt more charged with connection to the surrounding world than I ever had in those cyclonic years on Wall Street.
And yet no matter what I did, however much I managed to amuse and occupy and even enjoy myself, I missed Julian. It was like having some essential organ in my body absent itself without warning. We e-mailed, of course, and he always called me at least once or twice, between meetings, but it did little to fill the gap. I tried not to count the minutes until eight o'clock--the earliest possible hour I could expect him--or to hang around the front door, waiting for the sound of his car in the driveway. But I knew when he arrived, all the same. I could feel him, his sunshine entering the house, and all the dull ache of missing him was cured, all our dissected parts safely reassembled. "There you are, beloved," he'd smile, reaching for me, and I'd step into his embrace to be hoisted in the air, or kissed breathless, or waltzed around the room.
And the evenings! Sometimes we went out to dinner or the movies, but mostly we stayed in. Julian might play the piano, Chopin or Beethoven or Mozart, which I loved, but also ragtime and old music hall songs with raunchy lyrics, made all the more hilarious because Julian--as he'd warned me--had no singing voice at all. Some nights he downloaded old recordings on his iPod and showed me how to waltz, to polka, to do the turkey trot and the bunny hop and the grizzly bear until we collapsed, laughing, on the living room floor. [Back to Top]
Chapter 21. Opening night at the Metropolitan Opera
(Verdi: La Traviata, Act I: "Libiamo ne'lieti calici")
"Are you all right?" Julian asked suddenly, looking at my face.
"Just nervous." I laughed. "I can't seem to get used to this stuff."
"It should be easier tonight, love. Even you've been looking forward to this one." The car eased around the corner of Fifth Avenue and onto the Sixty-sixth Street park transept, heading for Lincoln Center.
"I know. I should feel lucky. And you, the opera lover! Right up your alley."
"It's not a proper opera on opening night anymore," he said. "A bit of Traviata, a bit of Manon. Final scene of Capriccio. It's become an event now."
"Isn't that the point? For us, I mean?"
"Yes." He sighed dramatically. "But I grieve for the art." [Back to Top]
Chapter 22. Back in Julian's townhouse
(Chopin: Nocturne #7 in C Sharp Minor, Op. 27/1, CT 114)
I found him in the piano room, seated in darkness on the bench before the instrument, his elbows propped on the closed keyboard and his head in his hands. He didn't even look up when I entered.
He'd slipped his undershirt back on; his tuxedo pants had never, strictly speaking, made it off. I could see, in the faint light from the hall, the way his broad white-clad shoulders tapered down to his lean waist, disappearing into the blackness of his trousers: that mesmerizing physical beauty of his, which he carried off so gracefully, so unconsciously.
The heavy silence in the room pressed into my flesh, an unbearable weight, until at last I padded over the knotted floorboards to stand behind him. Gently I placed my hands on his shoulders. "Will you play for me?" I asked, soft as a whisper.
"Kate, I..."
"Please?" I urged.
My hands rose and fell under the heave of his sigh. "What would you like to hear?"
I hesitated. "The C-sharp minor. The nocturne."
Silently he drew up the keyboard cover and rested his fingers on the keys. [Back to Top]
I raised my hand to press the doorbell and paused. I thought I could hear the sound of piano drifting through the walls, something lilting and complex and faintly melancholy. Chopin? I closed my eyes. When I was young, my father had played a lot of Chopin on the old turntable he'd refused to give up. I hadn't heard it in years; I couldn't even name the piece, but the notes were as familiar to me as my own childhood bedroom.
A dark-clad figure approached, shuffling down the sidewalk. I shook off my reverie and pressed my finger against the doorbell. The music cut off. [Back to Top]
☆ ♫ ☆
Chapter 9. A curious incident on Park Avenue
(Mozart: Clarinet Concerto in A, K. 222)
We didn't say anything more. The parking attendant at the garage retrieved the car, and Julian set me inside absently, almost as though he'd forgotten who I was and why I was there. As soon as we pulled out, he reached over with one hand to pull an iPod out of the center console. He plugged it deftly into the port on the dashboard and clicked through the menus until he reached some music. Mozart, from the sound of it.
"So," I said, clearing my throat. "Where to?"
He rubbed his forehead. "I've spoilt the evening, haven't I?
"Not totally, but it's only eight o'clock. You still have plenty of time to rip it to shreds."
He tapped his finger on the steering wheel and turned right on Park. "Perhaps I should just take you home." He sounded saddened, not angry; it gave me hope.
"Whoa. Wait. Stop. What happened, Julian? It's like...it's like Christmas all over again! And I swear I won't let you get away with it this time. What's wrong?"
"Christ, Kate," he burst out, pounding the steering wheel, "you don't know anything about me. I shouldn't have...I'm the most selfish bastard alive, aren't I?"
"Stop it! What does that even mean? Julian. Julian, will you listen to me a moment? Pull the car over."
"No. I'm taking you home."
"You're not. I won't leave."
"I don't want you to stay."
"Yes, you do. You need me to stay. Julian," I said, more softly, "you promised. The other night, you promised me you cared. So prove it. Don't let me down, here."
That penetrated. He drove silently down Park, toward midtown. I remained quiet too, not wanting to disturb the truce too soon, letting him work things through in his mind, talk himself off the ledge. Mozart's clarinets wandered nimbly in the stillness between us. Outside the tinted windows of the Maserati, as we waited for the light to change, a forty-something couple propelled a sport-wheeled twin stroller across Fifty-ninth Street, arguing, gesticulating. [Back to Top]
☆ ♫ ☆
Chapter 9. Inside Julian's Manhattan townhouse
(Chopin: Nocturne #2 in E Flat, Op. 9/2 /2, CT 109; Beethoven: Piano Sonata #23 In F Minor, Op. 57 "Appassionata")
I skipped up the stairs, turned right at the landing, and found my way down the darkened hall to the room at the front. I was half-expecting it might be his bedroom, but in fact it was more like a study, or perhaps a music room, with a low comfortable English-armed sofa at one end and a grand piano filling the space near the windows. I turned on a lamp and went to the wide window overlooking the street below. What time was it? Not too late, ten-thirty maybe, but it seemed later: the streetlamps cast lurid yellow-orange pools of light on the deserted sidewalk, and the rapid pulse of traffic had settled into the occasional passing taxi and black sedan. I felt a surge of gratitude, to be where I stood, in this tranquil room, with Julian's presence a comforting certainty somewhere nearby.
"Found your way, all right?" came his voice behind me, as though I'd summoned him with my thoughts.
"Mmm, yes," I said, without turning. "I love the room. Very homelike."
I heard his footsteps behind me, creaking the floorboards, and then a glass of red wine appeared in front of me. The warmth of his body hovered over my skin. "Thank you," I said, taking it, and held the glass in my hand for a second or two before lifting it to my lips. "Wow. Delicious."
"What would you like me to play?"
"I don't know. I loved that Chopin you were playing, when I came here at Christmas."
He chuckled, close to my ear. "You seem to be under the misapprehension that I'm some sort of expert musician."
"Aren't you? You're good at everything else."
"I'm passable, but nothing like an expert."
I turned to find his face inches from mine, looking down at me with amusement. "Don't punk out on me, Laurence," I warned.
He smiled and took a drink of wine. "Right-ho. You've asked for it. Have a seat," he said, nodding at the sofa. I went over obediently and sank into the cushion, curling my legs beneath me, wineglass in hand. [Back to Top]
☆ ♫ ☆
Chapter 16. Kate drives to Newport
(Bizet: Les pecheurs de perles, Act I: "Au fond du temple saint")
The drive to Newport took less than an hour, past the reedy green Connecticut shoreline and right up along the coast of Rhode Island, where the Long Island Sound opened up into the broad Atlantic Ocean. A beautiful day: the midday sun glittered brilliantly on the fidgety water, and a chaste blue sky set off the extraordinary whites of the sails plying the harbor. I found myself wishing Julian were here with me, that we were coming up for some romantic weekend at one of the old hotels in town.
I felt my mood lifting as I followed the GPS instructions, weaving my way down the narrow streets with something like euphoria at the prospect of doing something more productive than shopping or twiddling my thumbs in Julian's library all day.
The surge of exhilaration carried me right along the main commercial street in town. I found a parking space readily--it was only a Thursday, and Newport was nothing if not a weekend town--and walked the half-block or so to the shop in a quick swinging stride. THE PEARL FISHER, read the oval wooden signboard, in carved faux-antique letters painted with gold, and underneath it, BOOKS BOUGHT AND SOLD. [Back to Top]
☆ ♫ ☆
Chapter 18. Summer in Connecticut
(Joplin: Maple Leaf Rag; Ayer/Grey: "If You Were The Only Girl In The World"; Strauss: An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314 The Blue Danube)
The summer was passing by in a haze of wonder: days spent swimming and sunbathing at the beaches, sailing Julian's nimble cutter on Long Island Sound, prowling the shops and sights of the nearby towns. We might go running or sculling on the river first thing, before the air grew too hot, and then Julian would disappear into the library for a couple of hours to conference with his lawyers or his traders; after that, the time was ours. We'd find somewhere to go, something to do. Mini golf, once, at which Captain the so-called Honorable Julian Ashford had played a shockingly dirty game: distracting my swing, knocking my ball with his own like it was a croquet match, and then making the critical mistake of trying to kiss his way out of trouble afterward.
Of course, there were other days: the days he left at dawn to drive into Manhattan, once or perhaps twice a week. I kept myself determinedly occupied then. I went to work in the garden, I read book after book, I sent cheerfully reassuring e-mails to my puzzled friends and family (Just taking the summer off! It's amazing! Country air! Beach!) and posted smiling photos on my long-dormant Facebook page. I baked my own bread, traded my own modest portfolio, ran errands. Each month, when I mailed off the rent check to my roommate, I marveled at the barefoot fullness of my life: at how, without accomplishing anything newsworthy, without going farther afield than Newport, I felt more charged with connection to the surrounding world than I ever had in those cyclonic years on Wall Street.
And yet no matter what I did, however much I managed to amuse and occupy and even enjoy myself, I missed Julian. It was like having some essential organ in my body absent itself without warning. We e-mailed, of course, and he always called me at least once or twice, between meetings, but it did little to fill the gap. I tried not to count the minutes until eight o'clock--the earliest possible hour I could expect him--or to hang around the front door, waiting for the sound of his car in the driveway. But I knew when he arrived, all the same. I could feel him, his sunshine entering the house, and all the dull ache of missing him was cured, all our dissected parts safely reassembled. "There you are, beloved," he'd smile, reaching for me, and I'd step into his embrace to be hoisted in the air, or kissed breathless, or waltzed around the room.
And the evenings! Sometimes we went out to dinner or the movies, but mostly we stayed in. Julian might play the piano, Chopin or Beethoven or Mozart, which I loved, but also ragtime and old music hall songs with raunchy lyrics, made all the more hilarious because Julian--as he'd warned me--had no singing voice at all. Some nights he downloaded old recordings on his iPod and showed me how to waltz, to polka, to do the turkey trot and the bunny hop and the grizzly bear until we collapsed, laughing, on the living room floor. [Back to Top]
☆ ♫ ☆
Chapter 21. Opening night at the Metropolitan Opera
(Verdi: La Traviata, Act I: "Libiamo ne'lieti calici")
"Are you all right?" Julian asked suddenly, looking at my face.
"Just nervous." I laughed. "I can't seem to get used to this stuff."
"It should be easier tonight, love. Even you've been looking forward to this one." The car eased around the corner of Fifth Avenue and onto the Sixty-sixth Street park transept, heading for Lincoln Center.
"I know. I should feel lucky. And you, the opera lover! Right up your alley."
"It's not a proper opera on opening night anymore," he said. "A bit of Traviata, a bit of Manon. Final scene of Capriccio. It's become an event now."
"Isn't that the point? For us, I mean?"
"Yes." He sighed dramatically. "But I grieve for the art." [Back to Top]
☆ ♫ ☆
Chapter 22. Back in Julian's townhouse
(Chopin: Nocturne #7 in C Sharp Minor, Op. 27/1, CT 114)
I found him in the piano room, seated in darkness on the bench before the instrument, his elbows propped on the closed keyboard and his head in his hands. He didn't even look up when I entered.
He'd slipped his undershirt back on; his tuxedo pants had never, strictly speaking, made it off. I could see, in the faint light from the hall, the way his broad white-clad shoulders tapered down to his lean waist, disappearing into the blackness of his trousers: that mesmerizing physical beauty of his, which he carried off so gracefully, so unconsciously.
The heavy silence in the room pressed into my flesh, an unbearable weight, until at last I padded over the knotted floorboards to stand behind him. Gently I placed my hands on his shoulders. "Will you play for me?" I asked, soft as a whisper.
"Kate, I..."
"Please?" I urged.
My hands rose and fell under the heave of his sigh. "What would you like to hear?"
I hesitated. "The C-sharp minor. The nocturne."
Silently he drew up the keyboard cover and rested his fingers on the keys. [Back to Top]
