Cut and Run Read Free Page B

applauded J.J.?
    J.J. existed. She was an aberration, perhaps, but she did exist. She had even taken over an entire bedroom in Juliana’s sprawling, elegant apartment. It was decorated twenties-style, and the closet and drawers brimmed with vintage clothes and jewelry from between the two World Wars. J.J. fare. Juliana seldom was seen in anything but the latest designs from the collections of top designers.
    Stepping out of the shower, Juliana wrapped herself in a giant soft white bathsheet and towel-dried her hair. In the mirror, she looked like herself again—blond-haired, paleskinned, every bit the world-famous concert pianist. But her mind hummed with the chords of Duke Ellington, Earl Hines, and Eubie Blake. Her autumn European tour—she hadn’t stepped foot in New Zealand—was to have driven J.J. Pepper from her system, exorcised her, because J.J. was not a part of her but something that had possessed her.
    At least that was what she’d told herself. But twenty-four hours back from Paris and still suffering jet lag, she was dressed in a thirties green satin dress and off to the Aquarian. She’d expected, hoped, dreaded Len would tell her to get lost. He hadn’t. He’d told her to play. And, by God, had she!
    She’d had a good time.
    A hell of a good time.
    J.J. Pepper was back, and Juliana Fall didn’t know what to do about her. Tell Len the truth? Tell herself the truth? That she, Juliana Fall, was the pink-haired, free-spirited, jazz-playing J.J. Pepper?
    She went into her own bedroom and put on a simple white Calvin Klein shirt, a straight black wool skirt, and a raspberry wool jacket. J.J.’s raspberry boots would have matched the outfit, but she chose instead her black Italian boots and passed over the raccoon coat for her black cashmere. She was having dinner tonight with Shuji, and if there was one thing Eric Shuji Shizumi would never understand, it was J.J. Pepper. Shuji was a phenomenal pianist, a wild, intense, impatient genius who exhausted audiences with his thrilling performances. He was forty-eight, and in his long career, he’d taken on only one student: Juliana Fall.
    â€œAnd if he finds out about J.J.,” she said aloud as she waited for the elevator, “he’ll lop off your head with one of his authentic Japanese short swords.”
    He’d threatened to do the same for transgressions far less serious than playing jazz incognito in a SoHo nightclub.
    Halfway to the lobby, she remembered she was still wearing J.J.’s gaudy rhinestone ring, which she snatched off, dropped into her handbag, and tried to forget.
    Â 
    The Dutchman had walked across Central Park, ignoring the falling temperature and the lightly falling snow. Children on the plastic things they now used for sleds laughed as they passed him; he ignored them, too. He crossed Fifth Avenue and continued along East Seventy-ninth to Madison and up several more blocks, until he came to a little bake shop with white-trimmed windowpanes. Inside, the display of Dutch wooden shoes filled with chocolates and tiny gifts made it look as if St. Nicholas had already been there. Sint Nicolaas. Hendrik hadn’t thought of him in years.
    Catharina’s Bake Shop the sign read in simple delft-blue letters. The Dutchman lingered in front of the window. Small round tables covered with delft-blue cloths were crowded with customers, laughing, happy customers indulging themselves with hot chocolate, silver pots of coffee, china pots of tea, fat cream puffs, perfect tarts and trays of scones, tiny sandwiches, assorted jams and cheeses. Glass cases were stocked with good things to take home, and smiling white-aproned waitresses bustled among the customers.
    For the first time in more than forty years, Hendrik de Geer felt himself swelling with nostalgia. He had to blink away hot tears—him! A couple hurried past him, and when they opened the door, he heard the tinkle of a little bell and