Ciji Ware Read Online Free PDF

try it out.”
    Corlis and Lani headed for the back courtyard to confer on canapés and the merits of various champagnes. Meanwhile, Daphne sat down on a round, pale blue, velvet-covered stool next to the antique instrument. She hiked up her black gored traveling skirt and drew the harp between her legs, briefly considering the sensuousness of such a motion while she nestled the sound box gently against the top of her breast and her right shoulder. Compared to her massive concert harp, this one felt almost cozy. She strummed the opening chords of the teatime favorite “Greensleeves,” then halted abruptly. Resting the palms of her hands to quiet the vibrating strings, she headed a sigh. The harp was, indeed, in tune. That wasn’t the problem. The trouble was, she honestly didn’t think she could stand to play that boring old chestnut one more time.
    A Bach cantata?
    The mere thought of a classical piece of music reminded her of the concert taking place without her at Lincoln Center and the memory of Rafe Oberlin angrily gesturing for her to leave his office. Suddenly, she experienced an avalanche of anxiety she had previously managed to keep in check. She forced herself to take a cleansing breath to fight a deepening sense of depression. Then she sat bolt upright on the stool and tilted her chin skyward. She lifted her fingers from the strings and brought them down again, stroking the notes of a blues favorite, “Georgia on My Mind,” to calm her nerves. The music resonated from the harp and filled her chest in mellow waves as she began to sing in her husky lower register.
    “Geor-gia … Geor-gia … the who-ole da-ay long … ”
    Man, she thought, did it improve her outlook to sing like this and pull funky jazz chords from an antique harp. It was during moments like these that she realized how thoroughly bored she’d become with most popular classical music. She was also tired of her “angelic harp persona” and the halo of shoulder-length curly blond hair that served to reinforce it. Occasionally, she imagined herself playing her gilded instrument while wearing a leather miniskirt and a chain bustier like Madonna in her bad-girl days—just for the shock value. When she’d once told King about her musical daydream, he’d laughed and challenged her, saying “Why don’t you try it sometime?”
    She never would, of course. It was just a fantasy she conjured on days when she wearied of playing too many crowd-pleasers. Even so, her brother’s words echoed in her head as she launched into the second chorus of the sultry tune.
    She heard a door open, and footsteps. Then a tall figure loomed in the wide entrance dividing the hotel’s foyer from the double parlors. The thirtysomething man wore a forest-green polo shirt under a khaki vest studded with half a dozen bulging pockets, along with khaki slacks, leather hiking boots, and two professional-looking cameras slung around his neck. He was holding a collapsed tripod in one hand and had just deposited a duffel bag at his feet, as if he had appeared straight out of an L.L. Bean catalogue. His features wore a look of expectancy. He smiled slightly and nodded encouragement for her to keep playing as he settled himself comfortably against the doorjamb.
    She felt like smiling at the stranger and did, thereby gaining a closer look at his handsome, strongly defined nose, chiseled cheekbones, and a chin that suggested one of those brooding models with a five o’clock shadow in the Calvin Klein ads—except that the friendly intruder appeared to be in a very good mood. For some reason, she wasn’t embarrassed to be discovered singing a provocative blues number at the top of her lungs. She returned her gaze to the harp’s strings and her full attention to the tune’s mesmerizing cadences and slow, languid rhythms.
    Like Lot’s wife, she couldn’t resist another surreptitious peek at the visitor. However, at that instant, her vision unaccountably began to gray around