Tallis' Third Tune

by Ellen L. Ekstrom

  A tall, striking brunette was standing over us, glaring.

  I moved away, self-conscious, brushing back my hair as I always did when nervous, but now I was in my little apartment a few blocks away, facing a mirror and brushing my hair slowly, nervously, as if waiting – and I knew I was waiting.

  I was also hoping…

  The familiar knock on the door.

  I set aside the brush and switched off the bathroom light, padded barefoot to the living room to turn off the overhead and switch on a lamp so that the light was soft and diffused, and then glanced at my appearance in the mirror one last time before opening the door and smiling up at Quinn.

  “Hello,” he greeted, holding up cartons of Chinese takeaway. “I’m not drunk, just hungry.”

  “Chicken chow mein and cashew beef, mmmm! You remembered,” I said, recognizing the scents.

  “Nice place,” Quinn said, following me into the kitchen and setting the cartons on the dinette table, gently shoving to one side the fashion magazines, sketchbooks, watercolors and pencils. “Hey! I remember this sketch – wasn’t this for the Scottish Play?”

  I turned to see what had caught his attention and smiled, for he was tapping a design for Hamlet.

  “This is for the Danish Play, it’s a new rendition of something I had in mind then.”

  “You were always drawing.”

  “Along with the book store job, I work as a costume designer. Now I actually get paid for it; I’m doing work for a ballet company and a repertory theater.”

  “Good to know some things haven’t changed,” Quinn remarked and closed the book reverently, using the same care with a pencil case and bundle of paintbrushes that he moved to make space on the table.

  “Let’s eat in there,” I suggested, pointing with a serving spoon towards the living room. “That way I don’t have to move my work – and you don’t spill Coca Cola on a drawing.”

  “You remember that!” Quinn laughed.

  “It was an interesting lesson in chiaroscuro – I used the stain to make a shadow on the figure.”

  Everything was set on the coffee table and Quinn pulled out one of the bean bag chairs and plopped himself down, watching intently as I served up portions, as if late night suppers together were a weekly event.

  “Does your girlfriend know you’re here?” I quipped, half-seriously, sitting on the carpet beside him.

  “Girlfriend? Oh her. Her dad sings with mine in the opera. She was in town visiting from school, so my father…”

  He didn’t need to finish the sentence.

  “I guess there’s somebody - ?” Quinn hinted.

  I shook my head. “Not any more.”

  “Well – mangia!” I said.

  Quinn handed off a fork while he took the chopsticks and we both dug into the carton of chow mein at the same time. “It’s been so long,” he murmured, digging.

  “Since you had dinner with a beautiful girl?” I jested.

  “Well that, and being with a friend.”

  “From what I heard, you weren’t wasting any time making friends.”

  “Depends on what you mean by ‘friends.’”

  “The Pink Section of the Chronicle had some pretty interesting stories about your dating models and actresses and driving the company directors crazy with your coming in late and hung over, or not showing up at all – real diva stuff. Local boy makes good and goes really, really bad sort of storyline,” I recounted and that brought a guffaw out of Quinn, who knocked back his glass of wine. “I didn’t believe it, because I think I know you pretty well.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t!” he laughed now.

  “But is it true about the wild parties?” I ventured.

  Quinn gave me a sideways glance and shook his head. “Where did you hear that? More newspaper crap?”

  “Actually, I heard those stories from some of your high school orchestra and jazz band mates.”

  “First, whoever they are, they’re not my friends. Second, I went to one party in London and The Who showed up for all of five minutes. They weren’t there long enough to break up a toothpick let alone a Stratocaster.”

  “So you weren’t caught making out with Princess Anne in the bathtub at the Savoy, and you didn’t try to flush a photographer’s head down the toilet?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “And you didn’t trash a hotel room coming down off of LSD.”

  “And there weren’t orgies of any kind.”

  “I wasn’t going to mention the orgies…”

  We both started laughing and Quinn leaned in, feeding me chow mein. “I’m amazed at all the reasons people come up with to explain to themselves why I left the orchestra and disappointed them,” he sighed. “Why it concerns them, I don’t know.”

  “You’d tell me, right?”

  He set down the carton and chopsticks, glanced at the poster of Florence hanging on the wall. “Such a beautiful city. I wish I could have been there with you,” Quinn murmured and sighed again. “Rumors started. Ugly stuff and business – I don’t want to go into right now, but it didn’t help when my father showed up in London on the pretext of publicity for the university and the opera company. He followed us to several venues and started coming backstage and making demands, arguing with the wrong people. He said he was there to do damage control, for what, I sure as hell didn’t know. Wasn’t long after that the director asked me to leave. I guess they made up things and fed it to the press to make it look like it was my behavior that got me fired when in reality I hadn’t done anything at all except behave and be professional: show up for rehearsals, performances, always on time, and extra practice.”

  “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  He waved it off and poured more wine into our glasses. “I’m glad someone knows the truth.”

  Silence replaced nervous banter and discussions about family life, catching each other up. Our conversation wandered from the mundane to questions unasked and unanswered – yet the only question not broached where it concerned us was “Why?”

  When there was nothing left to say, we looked at one another for the longest time, noticing similarities and differences in the boy and the girl we were drawn to seven years earlier, the man and woman we were now.

  I wanted him to take me in his arms and kiss me, seduce me, suggest that we move to the bedroom.

  He read my mind.

  Quinn drew me into his arms and held me close. I felt that same sweet excitement and anticipation as before when we first kissed. The spark was still there, three years after the painful farewell.

  Dennis had always said it was meant to be…

  Still warm and soft, still gentle.

  I melted with every kiss and touch and when he pulled me off the sofa and led me towards the bedroom. I was glad that there would be no parents coming upstairs or telephone ringing, no family crisis.

  There was no fear.

  There was complete love.

  Chapter 6

  I was deliciously drowsy and warm, tucked under the blankets and quilts and wrapped completely in Quinn’s arms. How good it was to inhale his familiar scent – one that I had not forgotten – and to listen to the steady rise and fall of his breathing, his heartbeat. Sleep was beginning to overwhelm me when Quinn slid out of bed. I supposed at first that he was going to dress rapidly and leave, make an excuse that it was a work night and slip away, but moments later I heard the toilet flush and then the scuff of footsteps and a light going on in the living room. The strains of the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis drifted into the bedroom and I smiled. Moments later, Quinn was beside me again.

  “This is how it’s supposed to be, Faery Princess,” he whispered as he took me in his arms.

  How disappointed I was to find things differently when I woke in the Curiosity Shop.

  Lifting my head from the pillow I’d made of a sweater, I looked around, frowning. But once again I felt rested, a heaviness lifted.

  The Proprietress was standing over me, arm
s folded across her breasts, staring over her glasses. She thrust a handkerchief at me.

  “Who would have thought that you drool?” she sighed. “Come on, then. I don’t need to tell you.”

  I was at the counter and the lapis book was brought from the display case and set before me, the key offered. I unlocked the cover and The Proprietress placed another gold star, then another, and yet another on separate pages. Each star was consecutively larger than the first, until the very last filled the handmade paper page to which it had been affixed.

  “You’ve made some progress, Alice,” she said with a rare smile. “Go along.”

  I spun the rack and chose a timetable. What I saw there I didn’t like, but even so, I nodded and taking my things, set off for the train station.

  I was again on the train for Berkeley – the same compartment and the same conductor who looked like Jack Lemmon, who now whistled the theme from “Since I Fell for You” as he entered the compartment.

  Surrendering my ticket book, and hoping for at least a ‘D’ ride, I asked how he was getting on. He stopped whistling and held up the ticket to the light for closer inspection.

  “What’s the matter?” I wanted to know and reached for the ticket. He held it away from me, clucking his tongue. “Dear, oh dear!” he sighed. “This is regrettable – something isn’t right here.”

  The conductor twisted about and punched a button on the wall so that an alarm wailed – an irritating buzz that wasn’t shut off until I whacked the radio clock alarm on my nightstand. I was going to pull the covers over my head when I noticed Quinn, who had turned over in bed and threw an arm over me.

  “Hi,” he greeted sleepily and with a kiss.

  “Hi. Did you sleep well?”

  “The best in years, truth be told.”

  Quinn pushed the pillows up against the headboard and brought me with him when he sat up. We nestled as the sun rose.

  “Do you want to stay for breakfast? One thing you don’t know about me is that I can cook. Well, at least breakfast.”

  “I wish I could,” he said, planting a kiss on my brow. “I have a nine-thirty audition in the city – the Symphony. Wish me luck?”

  “Here’s something for luck,” I whispered. The kiss led to lovemaking that was unrestrained, gentle and passionate. He laid in my arms after, relaxed and soon I could hear that he had fallen back to sleep. I was ready to join him when Quinn groaned as the alarm went off again and laughing, said, “No! It’s not fair!”

  I was going to ask him what he meant when he slid out of bed, shuffling to the bathroom. “Can I use your shower?” he called over his shoulder.

  “Of course.”

  I was starting a pot of coffee when he came into the kitchen and nuzzled my bare neck with his five o’clock shadow and started me giggling. I turned around and held that exquisitely handsome face in my hands.

  “Are we going to make this a habit?” I asked.

  Why play games, I thought?

  He didn’t hesitate with his response, and I didn’t notice a change in expression or his eyes.

  “Let’s get together and talk about that, Alice. There are some things I need you to know about – my life is one pile of shit right now and we need an understanding – I don’t want to hurt you again.”

  “Okay,” I said nervously.

  “Let’s talk tomorrow, okay?”

  “It’s a date.”

  He was gone a few minutes later, singing Stairway to Heaven of all things, something I’d never heard him sing, and after a dozen kisses that might have led to other things if we’d both had the time. Still, something in his voice and manner wasn’t right, and it was while I showered and remembered our lovemaking that I knew he would never hurt me again. The anxiety left as I drank my cup of coffee and prepared for a Friday at work, glad that it was Friday and I only had twenty-four hours or a bit more to wait until we saw each other again.

  Standing in front of the mirror while combing out my hair, I kept squeezing my eyes shut, hoping I’d be propelled to the Shop so I could share my good fortune with Dennis, Joan of Arc or Richard the Third, to tell them it was the strangest and most wonderful thing – how one word could change a course of events…

  The doorbell rang again and I skidded across the floor to answer it, my heart pounding.

  “One kiss, Mr. Radcliffe…”

  I suddenly felt ill, fear and terror rising in the pit of stomach, my entire being. Adam, a tenor in the college choir and the briefest and most frightening of my sexual encounters, was on the doorstep.

  “Hello, Alice.”

  His stance was angry: feet far apart, arms crossed against himself defensively. Without another word he shoved his way into the apartment and started looking around.

  “I saw him leave!” Adam growled.

  “We’re not together anymore,” I said quietly, closing the robe around me and pushing the collar up so he wouldn’t see the love bites on my throat and chest.

  “Who is he?”

  “I said – we’re not together anymore.”

  “Who is he?”

  Adam had taken me by the shoulders and gripped so tightly I knew there’d be bruises by midday.

  “What did you do? Stake out the apartment all night? Let go, Adam.”

  “I think I have the right!”

  “No, you don’t. Let go of me, now.”

  “You’re a slut! He stayed here all night, didn’t he?”

  “Let go, I said!”

  It was then he struck me and I reeled back into the coffee table, into the cartons of Chinese takeaway, nearly falling, but breaking that fall by grabbing the record player. The needle skidded across the Vaughan Williams album.

  “See what you’ve done!” I screamed at him.

  “So what? You can buy another one. It’s a boring, dull song – don’t know why you won’t listen to my music. Why don’t you listen to my music instead of that classical shit, that upper class shit?”

  “Learn something other than ‘50s pop and lounge music and maybe I would, but that won’t happen in a month of Sundays.”

  “It’s not good enough? I’m not good enough?”

  “Get out!”

  “Who is he, Alice?”

  “Leave, or I’m calling the police!”

  “Fine. But I don’t believe for one moment that you want this.”

  “I do – I want it bad. But not with you.”

  I was shoved away and I blocked my fall with the coat rack and clung to it, a weapon to be used.

  “Let me give you something to remember me by.”

  Adam looked around and from the bookshelf picked up the snow globe Quinn had given me. He hefted it as if to throw, and I caught his arm and wrestled the globe out of his hand. In doing so, I was struck in the face by the globe’s base. I felt a trickle of blood on my cheek and without another word ran to the bedroom and locked the door.

  It seemed like an eternity in that short interval when I stood in the room and didn’t move, ignoring the throbbing pain, the blood trickling down my cheek, and Adam’s pounding at the door. I stared at the bed, rumpled and still warm, the impression of Quinn’s head on one of the pillows.

  The telephone rang. I grabbed it, waiting a moment, and then, “Hello!”

  “Alice? Are you alright?” The apartment house superintendent was on the phone, his voice sleepy and concerned. “What’s going on down there?”

  “I’m not okay,” I sobbed. “Would you call the police? Now?”

  A moment later, I unlocked the bedroom door and entered the Curiosity Shop. The Proprietress was placing a gold star in the book. For the first time I received a sympathetic glance from her and that look followed me to the corner. As if nothing had happened, I began what would become my usual my routine: I took notebooks and sketchbooks out of the book bag and set them on the table according to subject, opened up and switched on the laptop, took a sip from the coffee mug while I waited for the boot up and stared at the home screen. Then I re
ad my work from the time before, and eventually would begin typing. Today however, I caught my reflection on the window and placed a finger on my left cheek and was surprised not to see or feel a scar.

  Customers now came and went, and they acknowledged me, nodding deferentially, or smiling, asking how it was going and if I was settling in.

  I was surprised when Joan of Arc handed me a bouquet of freesias and white lilies and said, “Well done!”

  She extended a hand covered by a gauntlet and held the rosa alba I still wore around my neck. “The white rose. A symbol of pure love. I wonder if he knew that?” she mused, and winking added, “He certainly felt that!”

  “Alice was fortunate.”

  Athena had entered the Shop and handed me the snowy owl so that she could take my face in her hands and study it. I trembled under her scrutiny but held her gray-eyed gaze unwavering. The goddess nodded with approval. “Well done, indeed!”

  “We’ll see,” sniffed the Proprietress as she tucked the book back into the display case. She opened up a ledger – the first I’d seen her do this – and made an entry with a gold pen that had a tiny, revolving cylinder on the end of it like an eraser. She wrote quickly, and then clucking her tongue, the entry was erased; bright streams of light shooting out in all directions as the entry was wiped away cleanly.

  One pale blue spark reached my corner. I watched it bob and sway, dance with every movement until it was my bracelet catching the sunlight as I reached for the kaleidoscope Quinn was handing me as I sat outside Peet’s Coffees and Teas on Walnut Square.

  “I found this yesterday – thought you might want it.”

  “So that’s where it went to,” I laughed. “What else of mine have you got?”

  Quinn kissed me, touched my face gently. “Your heart, I hope!” Now he frowned and touched the scratch on my face where the globe had struck it the morning before, the tiny welt and bruise. “What’s this?”

  “Tripped in the bathroom, that’s all.”

  “Poor you!” he whispered, and kissed it. The warmth of his lips was a salve.

  He sat down and stirred what looked like a snowfall of sugar in his coffee, turning the bowl of the cup as he always did before drinking, waiting for it to cool, and in this instance, perhaps, wanting to gather his thoughts.