The Paris Mysteries (Confessions #3)(34)

Harry pulled on a vintage I HEART NEW YORK T-shirt over the jeans. He jerked open his closet doors and grabbed a jacket, an iridescent coat of many colors. He put it on; it was an interesting look, both gaudy and very cool, and the colors reminded me totally of Harry’s shimmery paintings.

But I was still in the dark.

“What, Harry? What went out of control?”

“Everything,” he said.

“Say something that has a fact in it somewhere.”

He laughed. “I told you. I’m going to perform live. Tonight. How’s my hair? Do you like it doing its own thing?” He roughed it up with both hands. “Or do you think this makes me look older?”

He grabbed a fistful of his longish curly hair and held it in a bunch at the back of his neck.

“Harry. Look at me,” I said. “You’re performing where tonight?”

He slowly and nicely said, “The Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy. Oh, man, Tandy. I’m opening for Adele.”

Oh. Wow. I was getting it. I was finally getting it. This wasn’t like playing a gig in a bar, or in a small club. This was the BIG time. Huge.

Bercy, as it’s called, is a gigantic sports arena that can hold almost seventeen thousand people. I’d seen videos of rock stars giving concerts there to adoring, out-of-their-minds crowds.

Harry was going to be at the center of that.

I screamed. Harry screamed. We grabbed each other and danced around the room. I wished C.P. was here to scream and dance with us. She would have been so proud of Harry. She would have pierced our eardrums with her screaming. But even without C.P.’s shrill vocal contribution, Harry and I made enough ruckus to bring Jacob into the room in a hurry.

I saw his face. It was like, “What now?”

Poor guy, but he was funny without meaning to be. Harry and I laughed until we were rolling on the floor.

“What’s the joke?” our uncle asked.

We told him Harry’s news, and after Jacob shouted, “This is tremendous news, Harry!” he joined us in dancing around.

Oh my God. My brother was going to be onstage in one of the most important venues on the continent.

My shy, overlooked brother, Harry.





Hugo, Jacob, and I were right there at the vast, magnificent arena known as Bercy, sitting under the pinpointed glare of lights and surrounded by the seventeen thousand people who were flowing into the enormous stadium. Our best-in-the-house seats were midway up the lower tier, where we could see directly onto the stage.

With a cracking sound, spotlights flashed on and hit the stage, followed by a feedback squeal, and then a booming, echoing voice came over the sound system. The voice thanked and welcomed the crowd and spoke of Adele in glowing terms, whipping up the crowd, which was already high on anticipation and in a near frenzy.

Then the faceless voice blared, “It is our pleasure to introduce the pianist Harrison Angel playing his homage to Montmartre.”

Harrison Angel. My brother.

To modest applause, Harry trotted up a short flight of steps onto the floating stage in the center of the stadium floor. He seated himself between his piano and organ.

To be honest, my heart clutched for Harry. He was unknown, a warm-up act for a superstar. Sitting alone on the stage in his iridescent jacket, well, Harry looked very small. Like a dragonfly under a microscope.

Then he put his fingers on the keys.

I held my breath as his amazing and uplifting first notes were overwhelmed and smothered by the sound of shuffling feet and laughter and talking that came together as one circular, three-dimensional rolling rumble.

But sometime during the first stanza, a shushing sound replaced the noises of the crowd, as though people were saying Shhh, I want to hear. The whisper gained strength and lapped the stadium, and by the time Harry’s third burst of arpeggios danced out over the audience, his music had captivated all the hearts and souls at Bercy.

I’d only heard “Montmartre” once before, and I’d been dazzled by its beauty. Now the sound was ginormous but still retained its delicacy and touching emotion. I saw rapt faces all around, tier upon tier, and when the last notes of the Fender Rhodes sounded and faded, there was silence, followed by shouts of “Encore!” and the phenomenal rhythmic cracking of applause.

Beside me, Hugo was shouting, “Holy moly, Harry. Is that you?”

Harry played another tune, a composition he’d written as we crossed the Atlantic weeks ago on the Queen Mary 2. His piece “The Atlantic” surged and then climaxed in a crescendo, a swelling wave that seemed to travel up and down the length of the stadium.

The crowd went mad.

And then, as the applause ebbed, Adele came out onstage, and the crowd went crazy all over again. Harry stood, and Adele put her arm around him, and when she could finally be heard, she said, “Harrison Angel, my friends. This young man is sixteen. Harry, we cannot wait to hear what you will do next.”

More applause, epic rounds and rounds of it.

Before Adele finished her set, Michael Pogue arrived and gathered up our small party. We were ushered to a limo and whisked to an unmarked industrial building with a heavily guarded back door. We were cleared through in an instant and entered a long hallway throbbing with music.

We were in a nightclub—Hugo, too!

And there was Harry, standing by the bar, surrounded by a thick mob that included the men I had seen in the mix room at the Smart Blue Door.