Songs without Words Read Free Page A

excellent.”
    Mary again , Harper thought dejectedly. No escaping her around here. Well, she was a campus celebrity. That was the reason Harper had chosen her for the project, after all. Harper’s film biography of Mary had earned her not only an “A” in Lerner’s class, but also two cable TV broadcasts. Lerner, she remembered, had been impressed with the way she had captured the “artist’s inner spark.” Harper had been thrilled with the success of that attempt, contributing it in large part to Mary herself—dynamic, voluble and photogenic, not to mention exacting. It was Mary’s insistence on excellence, after all, that had motivated Harper to work so hard on perfecting every detail. The fact that the video had turned out so well had convinced Harper to continue the hobby. It fit perfectly with her lifelong admiration for women in the arts.
    “Thank you,” she said to Preston. “That was my first one. It started as a class assignment.”
    “Oh, well, then, even more impressive,” Preston said. “It managed to isolate her particular, distinguishing style, which seems to me essentially feminine, like Georgia O’Keeffe’s, not derived from the male tradition at all. And that’s what makes her interesting.”
    Harper, hearing his description, thought that he was exactly right and was impressed with his assessment. That wasn’t the sort of summation that Harper could ever make herself.
    “Yes,” she said, “you’re right. That is what makes her interesting. I guess that’s what appeals to me about all of these artists, the feminine perspective.”
    “That’s an extremely valid criteria, Harper. It’s such a shame, isn’t it, all of the talent lost to history over the centuries because of the suppression or neglect of female artists. So anything we can do to promote that talent, or to rediscover those earlier talents, is important. Like that piece the symphony did last season by Mendelssohn’s sister, a piece of music to rival anything her brother wrote. What was her name?”
    “Fanny,” Harper said. “Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel.”
    “That’s the sort of thing I mean. If we can find them, let’s flush out these extraordinary women and let them have their day in the sun.”
    “Preston, what a feminist you are!”
“My wife and daughters insist on it.”
    She laughed. “Good for them!”
    “See you in September,” Preston said, turning down his path.
    Harper, turning the other way toward her car, recognized the title from an old song. She hummed the tune to herself as she walked through the parking lot. The song’s suggestion of a summer love prompted her to walk just a little faster. The summer had begun and there wasn’t a moment to waste.

Chapter 2

    SUMMER, EIGHT YEARS AGO

    Harper tucked a bulging folder of sheet music into her backpack and slung it over one shoulder, then locked her office. Summer school was in session, so the campus was only sparsely populated and the library was quiet, occupied by a few well-behaved students and a skeleton staff. As she crossed the main floor on her way out, she noticed Mary Tillotson at one of the computers, squinting at the monitor and looking frustrated. Pleased to see her, Harper detoured to the computer corral for a chat.
    Mary, a literature professor and successful artist, was older than Harper, around fifty, she guessed. Her brown hair was just beginning to lighten with the first hint of gray. She was attractive, aging well, with a willowy figure and a thin face that frequently held an expression of delight, as if she found everything going on around her pleasantly interesting. Her light eyes sparkled with intelligence and intensity. Mary was the real thing, a successful artist living an artist’s life. She used to be a teacher at Morrison and did still teach from time to time, not out of financial necessity, Harper assumed, although even artists who had “made it” didn’t always make it that way. Harper regarded her as she did all