"Oh, just a couple of months."

"Is it serious?"

"In this business?" Tess laughed. "It better not be."

"Why not?"

"With his schedule on the road, plus me gone all over America singing a hundred and fifty concerts a year? Plus I'm cutting this new album right now that's taking an enormous amount of time, and doing promotions whenever and wherever the label thinks I should… well, anyway, I've seen Burt exactly four times. And a couple of those times I had to argue with Jack because he thought I should go home and get some sleep instead of going to hear Burt's band at the Stockyard after I finished in the studio at ten P.M."

"What's the Stockyard?"

"A restaurant and club we go to."

"And who's Jack again?"

"Jack Greaves… my record producer."

"Oh, that's right." Tess watched the gleam of hope fade from her mother's eyes and knew Mary really did not see. She would never accept the fact that her youngest daughter had chosen a career over marriage and children. To a consummate mother like Mary McPhail that was tantamount to squandering your life.

"Which reminds me-I really should call Jack. He's laying down some harmony tracks on one of my new songs and I need to talk to him about it. It'll just take me a minute."

She called, using her credit card, from the wall phone at the end of the kitchen cabinets and reached Jack at Wild-wood Studio, where she knew he'd be working.

"Hi, Jack!"

"Mac! Good to hear from you. You at your mother's?"

"Yes, sir. Got here safe and sound."

"How's she doing?"

"Middling."

"Well, now, you tell her I hope it all goes well for her."

"Thanks, I will. Hey, I listened to 'Tarnished Gold' all the way down, and the harmony on the word 'mistaken' still bothers me. I think it's got to be an E-flat instead of an E. When it becomes a minor it gets an edge that puts added pathos on the word itself." She sang the phrase, gesturing with her hand as if directing the quartet of canisters on the kitchen cupboard to sing along.