Mallory's Melody

Chapter 33

"I DON'T UNDERSTAND," Mallory said.

Her voice was like rain to the parched deserts of William's hope. It resuscitated the deprived soil and turned dead, drooping weeds into exuberant, vibrant flowers. He hadn't realised how much he'd been craving her voice until he heard it now, a graceful cadence that asserted her musical prowess.

"It's always been your dream, hasn't it?" William leaned against the edge of his desk. "To be a Starlight star?"

The gap of silence Mallory left after his question challenged William's belief in her dogged tenacity to be a Starlight Star. He'd seen her passion, that repressed, unarticulated desire that expressed itself in her music whenever she played the violin. He'd seen that she truly wanted what he was offering her now. And like most people who grasped at a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when it came by knocking on their door, Mallory would definitely not miss this chance. But her deafening silence was saying otherwise.

"You're not saying anything," William remarked, pushing himself off his desk and wandering around his office. Anxiety was trying to break through the surface, but William pushed it back, knowing Mallory Trent wouldn't be so stupid as to refuse him. "Are you having some form of internal conflict?"

Michael groaned the moment William said that abominable word, 'conflict'. He knocked his head on the desk in utter desolation, as though the utterance of that one word had stripped away all their shots at success.

William averted his attention to Mallory, who was now finally breaking the silence

"Of course, I want to be a star, sir. I'm just kind of confused." She paused. "I thought Diana Gilbert was the Starlight star, already?"

He'd seen this coming.

William nudged his head at Michael. Michael got the cue and slipped into the next room to prepare their golden ticket to heaven.

"She stepped down," William said. He searched through his drawers for a cigarette. Finding it, he lit it with a lighter and then blew into it, a whiff of grey mist blurring his sight.

Mallory sighed. "I'm sorry sir, but you're not making sense."

William choked on smoke. It wasn't every day someone of his calibre was told that they were being insensible. And that Mallory outrightly said that rankled him to his core. But he regained his composure and pressed her harder. "Oh," William said, placing an exaggerated edge of disappointment on his tone. "Maybe I wasn't being clear enough, then. Diana came up to my office today to step down. She didn't think she was ready to take on the responsibilities of being a Starlight star. If you're in doubt, I could put her on the phone right now. Would you prefer that?"

"That's what he said," Mallory spoke. Then it dawned on William that Mallory didn't say that in response to him. With how intentionally hushed her tone was, he guessed she was speaking to someone else in the background. He wished he could grow mega ears to listen in on their conversation so that he could hear if anyone was saying anything to dissuade her from taking his offer so that he could break through the boundaries of communication and stretch a hand through the phone to give that moronic person a wide-palmed slap.

But luckily Mallory came back to him. "Yes sir, I would like to speak with Diana."

"Hang on." William smiled. "She'll be right over."

He placed her on mute.

"Stay put, girl!" Michael yelled from the other room. By the sounds of the tussling and haggling, Michael was having a hard time in there with Diana. He'd known she'd be an issue, Diana Gilbert and her stubborn ways. Maybe he'd been illogical to send Michael to handle her alone, his gentle nature being insufficient to subdue Diana's ferocity. William was about to go in there to handle things himself when Michael emerged from it, his shirts wrinkled and face sheeny with sweat.