Chapter 61 - The Future They Had Already Priced
Camille called at nine the next morning.
By then, I had listened to Rossi’s three wedding recordings twice, rejected all of them, and taught a class in which Mateo insisted that balancing on one foot should count as enough exercise for a day.
I had been tempted to agree.
The proposed sale concerned future receipts from specified Elena Rostova recordings, archive licenses, and related contractual income.
It did not automatically transfer ownership of the underlying work.
It did not automatically include every amount allocated to me.
But the schedule failed to distinguish those things clearly.
Of course it did.
“What happens if it closes?” I asked.
“The purchaser may begin receiving payments that would otherwise pass through the current arrangements. We need to establish what Vivienne’s company actually has authority to assign.”
“And whether they’re selling my portion.”
“Yes.”
I sat on the office stool.
Through the wall, Nadia was telling the children that a difficult movement did not become easier when they glared at it.
I listened for a moment.
Then I asked Camille what she needed from me.
“No direct contact with the purchaser. Preserve your records. And tell me whether you remember any commercial filming at the old studio.”
The question surprised me.
“Some visitors brought cameras.”
“Do you remember a formal recording?”
I thought of cables.
A hot lamp.
My father carrying a wooden platform through the door sideways.
Then nothing clear enough to call a memory.
“Possibly.”
“That’s enough for now.”
The buyer was a separate investment vehicle using Evermere Arts Finance as an adviser. Its proposed acquisition included an archive package described as commercially available and substantially cleared.
One item carried a title I had never seen.
Elena Rostova: The American Return.
I read it from the schedule.
“My mother never returned to a major stage here.”
“Not necessarily a stage production,” Camille said. “The description may concern filmed material.”
“They made a return for her on paper.”
“We need the source.”
At noon, Bellweather confirmed that it had received instructions to prepare a new payment route if the transaction completed.
It had not implemented the route.
The disputed beneficiary amounts remained subject to the existing protections.
I wrote that down before fear could turn the proposed sale into something already finished.
Had not implemented.
Remained protected.
There were still places to act.
At rehearsal, Beth saw me checking my phone.
“Do you need to leave?”
“No.”
“Then leave it in the office.”
I almost argued.
Instead, I put it away.
The next run was terrible.
Not artistically doomed.
Terrible in the ordinary way.
I entered early, another dancer missed a change, and the chair caught against a loose section of floor covering.
We stopped.
The stage manager fixed the floor.
Beth counted the transition.
Rossi complained that nobody respected silence while speaking continuously through ours.
I began laughing.
Soon the others did too.
For several minutes, the piece belonged to the people making it.
Not to any schedule.
Not to my mother’s name.
When we finished, Duval was waiting in the corridor.
His counsel had received Camille’s inquiry.
“I didn’t approve that archive title,” he said.
“Did your development proposal use it?”
“Yes.”
The admission landed between us.
“Then find out who supplied it.”
“I will.”
“You’ve said that before.”
He accepted the rebuke.
“I have. This time I’m asking the development team for the original materials and the transmission record today.”
Specific.
Better.
That evening, Alexander came home later than planned.
He looked tired enough that I knew his own day had not reorganized itself around mine.
We ate reheated food.
Then I told him about the proposed archive film.
He listened without reaching for his telephone.
“What do you remember?”
“A lamp. A platform. My father being annoyed about the doorway.”
“Does Julia have photographs?”
“Perhaps.”
“Would asking her help?”
“Yes.”
I called.
Julia did not answer immediately.
When she returned the call, she was on a train.
“I remember a box marked rehearsal video,” she said. “Your father said it wasn’t a finished performance.”
“Did he keep it?”
“I don’t know. He gave one copy to somebody.”
“Who?”
“A woman who danced with your mother. I’ll look for the note when I get home.”
I thanked her and let the call end.
No demand that she search her entire apartment before midnight.
An hour later, Duval’s counsel sent Camille the original archive description.
It included a production still.
My mother stood near the portable platform.
A younger woman stood beside her.
And at the edge of the frame was a child holding a cardboard house with three windows.
Me.
May you like
The film they proposed selling did not only contain my mother.
It contained a day from my life I could scarcely remember.
