KEYS

Chapter 25: The New Talent

Kelly Martin was a well-mannered and sophisticated woman who recently graduated from a local music academy in San Francisco. She had a meeting scheduled at nine o clock on this very morning with a man named James at a restaurant in Lombard Street. Kelly followed her normal morning routines of finishing a cup of coffee and a smoke, or as she preferred to call it, a smoffee. Today was quite a special day for Kelly. She had been working for weeks, but finally finished and emailed one of the songs she wrote by herself to James who wanted to meet up with her right away to discuss business related matters. Kelly never thought of herself as someone to attract much attention from groups of people around her and remained a down to earth woman who always sticks to the rules and occasionally when she had a few glasses of wine, loosen up a little. She was sitting in front of her mirror combing her shoulder length brown hair while taking deep breaths to calm her nerves. She had been nervous for the last three days now. 'What if James decides to change something in her music, or what if he decides that it is no longer good enough and he wishes to move on to the next talented musician.' She thought to herself regularly whether it be on the couch, in the shower or in bed. She smeared her lips with thick red lipstick and tightened her blouse around her hip. She stared at herself in the mirror of quite a few minutes and smiled. She got to her living room and started boiling the kettle for her every morning smoffee habit. She leaned over on her elbows and stared at the moving traffic passing by her house from her balcony. It had quite an amazing view of San Francisco which was mostly thousands of lights shining like a Christmas tree at night. She killed her cigarette and headed inside once again to start her day. She grabbed her purse and house keys and headed out the front door of her apartment. Everywhere Kelly went, men would with no doubt turn their heads to take a second look at her. She had quite a well-built figure and a naturally beautiful face. She turned into Lombard Street and saw the lights coming from the restaurant where she is supposed to meet James in the next twenty minutes. She casually strolled over across the street towards the restaurant.

"Good day ma'am. Welcome to Del Partior, table for one?" Said a friendly waiter and held out a menu in his left hand.

"Actually I am here to meet up with a man named James Holder." Kelly said politely and stared at the objects and people surrounding her.

"Oh yes right this way ma'am." Said the waiter and lead her to a table located in the centre of the restaurant.

"Good morning Miss Martin." Said Mr Holder and shook Kelly's hand as she approached him.

"Good morning Mr Holder, thank you so much for seeing me today, it really means a lot." Kelly said and sat down across from Mr Holder.

"Would you like anything to drink ma'am?" The waiter asked politely.

"Yes, I know it is a bit early, but a martini please kind sir." Said Kelly innocently and turned her attention to Mr Holder who already had a half empty glass of whiskey in front of him.

"So Miss Martin, let us cut to the chase, the song you emailed me was absolutely beautiful and I would really love for you to have the change of signing a record deal with me and record in my studio. You should however know that for the first few months you will not be able to make as much money as you hoped for." Mr Holder said as he observed Kelly fiddling with the table cloth and looking quite nervous.

"Yes I am fully aware of that Mr Holder. I know that not many people find piano music as interesting as some of the other instruments."

"On the contrary, I had a client a few months back that was a brilliant piano player and for some strange reason, people could not get enough of his music, even people who could not stand the piano fell in love with his music. A very talented young man he was, Ross Victor, I am sure you are familiar with his work?"

"Oh most definitely sir, to be honest I always tried to match my standard with his." Kelly said in a shy tone of voice. Right at the front of the restaurant was an open section where a man wearing a jacket and a large hat was busy playing a piano. It became clear to Kelly that her career would most likely start in a restaurant and that she would have to work hard to be one of the top piano players in her field.

"So Mr Holder, I have to ask you this, whatever happened to Ross? I do not see any posters being put up for one of his performances anymore." Kelly said curiously.

"Miss Martin, he died of a heart attack a while back, but there never really was a funeral or anything. We just assumed that they cremated his body because he had no relatives we could contact to arrange anything and none of us saw his body. After we heard the news, no one informed us of any Ross related news." The waiter appeared a few moments after and placed a crystal martini glass in front of Kelly with a bright green olive lying in the centre.

"Would you like to order some food so long?" The waiter asked the both of them.

"No thank you I am good for now." Said Mr Holder politely and lifted his glass of whiskey.

"So am I thank you." Kelly replied. She took a sip of her martini and clicked her tongue.

"Del Partior's martini's a really sour right. So Miss Martin I have the contract here, so if you are done reading through it and you are satisfied, we can close the deal." Kelly took the contract from Mr Holder and carefully read through it. As she read through each paragraph she listened to the piano player's music and became quite in touch with her thoughts and plans about the future. She also thought that the manner in which the pianist was playing at this very moment was quite beautiful and mesmerising. She took her eyes off the contract and stared at Mr Holder.

"Wow, I am only noticing now how great this pianist is." She said and indicated to the man playing piano.

"He is rather brilliant if I do say so myself. Your career would have probably started off the same way as his which is in a restaurant." Said Mr Holder and took a sip of his whiskey. Kelly turned her attention to the contract once again and finished reading the last few paragraphs while sipping her martini till it nearly reached the bottom of the glass.

"All done Mr Holder, and I am completely satisfied with every rule and regulation." Kelly said with a confident smile and began to sway slightly along with the rhythm of the piano music.

"That is absolutely great news." Mr Holder smiled and handed Kelly his pen. She gracefully took it from him and signed the contract.

"Here is to a wonderful new beginning in the career of music." Said Mr Holder and held his glass of whiskey out to Kelly. She gently picked up her glass and toasted. She was still swaying with each note and took a large sip of her martini. Mr Holder suddenly jumped up nearly knocking the table over in the process and rushed to Kelly's side. The olive in her martini logged itself deep in her throat chocking her severely and her face turned blue. The piano player was busy playing faster and more intense as the waiters rushed to the table to assist Mr Holder in trying to save Kelly's life. The piano music started to slow down as Kelly stopped breathing. Everyone around her were doing all they could to get the olive out of her throat until eventually the piano player stopped playing and she coughed up the olive.

"Miss Martin are you okay?" Mr Holder shouted and lifted her head off the ground.

"Yes, I am fine, sorry sir I did not think straight and took too big of a sip. For a minute there I did not have much control over what I was doing." She tilted her head left and took a deep breath. As she got to her feet she noticed that the room became awkwardly quiet and behind all the staff surrounding her she saw that the chair behind the piano, that was once occupied by what she believed to be a brilliant piano player, was empty.