by Cee, DW
Her frown heckled my self-confidence. My insecurities kept me quiet the rest of the car ride.
“Ben?” Marni whispered as the lights were dimming. “I’m sorry for being such a downer. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to come tonight. Ali’s developed a little cough and she had the saddest look in her eyes when I put her down. Her tears broke my heart.”
Damn, that felt good to know it wasn’t me. I was so happy; I almost didn’t care that my daughter cried before going to bed.
“When I take you to dinner, I’m going to quiz you on all the music in this movie. You better be prepared to play ‘Name That Tune.’” Her confession put me in a light-hearted and playful mood.
“For your sake, I hope your music is good enough to be memorable.” She issued her own challenge.
Game on! “Stop yapping and start listening. The first song will be on in ten seconds, Miss Montgomery.”
Mar put up ten fingers and performed a countdown in jest and defiance.
My friend was back!
With time, the “best” moniker could return.
“That was a fantastic movie!” Mar exclaimed. “I think it’s worthy of an Oscar.”
Her delight pleased me. “It was pretty damn good, huh? I lucked out the director liked my song over all the other ones submitted.”
“So how does this work?” she asked while biting into bar grub. Marni had always preferred cheeseburger, fries, and beer to a fancy meal. She was so different from her sister. Melody loved the ten-course meals with wine pairings. While I liked the fine dining, hot wings and a cold beer suited me just as well.
“This is my first movie so I don’t fully understand Hollywood.”
“First of many from what I could tell. Your scores added all the right effects to the storytelling. When did you get into scores?”
“It’s something I’d been dabbling with since I was a kid. You remember all those tunes I’d create?”
“The ones where you forced me to spell rhyming words?”
We chuckled at the silly memory. Mar learned to read and write much earlier than I did. While I could detect the difference between B-flat and a B-sharp in kindergarten, Marni was reading chapter books by the dozen. There was always music floating through my head and I’d hum tunes to my best friend and beg her to write down the words that came with the music. Since Mar’s vocabulary extended way beyond the average five-year-old’s, she used more than the same thousand words in my repertoire—if my repertoire even contained that many words.
“You always had an air of superiority whenever it came to your jargon, Miss Montgomery. I didn’t appreciate that.” I pretended annoyance.
“Yeah?” she called my bullshit. “Is that why you came to me daily and asked for new words? Is that why I had to search through the dictionary and write down all the ones that might work for the numerous songs you invented…daily?”
“You always were a tough broad. A pedantic know-it-all and an occasional nag, if I remember correctly.”
Marni almost fell off her barstool, laughing. This was one of the qualities I loved about my friend. She could take a joke.
“I was a regular five-year-old bitch,” she added to the insults. When she finally settled down, she wanted to know more about my career.
“When Mel and I first married and went on tour with Austin Jones, I realized I wasn’t cut out for that life.”
“How so?”
“As much as I enjoyed creating words to songs, it was work for me. Notes and melody came naturally. All the other stuff made my brain hurt. I thought a few times about calling you in as backup. You were always clever with your expressions.”
“As if I could have helped,” she doubted.
“I’m not kidding. I told Mel many times that I missed your scholarly ways.”
“Then you should have called.” Mar was so matter-of-fact.
“Trust me, I was tempted.” I had doubts about telling her why I never reached out.
“What stopped you, Benjamin?”
I chuckled at the way she called out my name. She always used my full name when she was either unhappy with me or trying to teach me the ways of life. “Being your arrogant self again?” I asked with raised brows.
“Just answer the damn question, Benjamin.” The stress was loud and clear.
“Since your sister and I got together, things changed between you and me. I knew we’d never be best friends again since I had Mel, but I didn’t think we’d never be friends again. I loved my wife, but I missed you as a friend. That’s why I didn’t ask you for help. I didn’t feel welcomed.”
The smile faded immediately; I was sorry to see it go. I missed it already.
“When you and my sister became a couple, it hurt,” she confessed. “Not only did I lose the man I loved, but I also lost my best friend. You replaced our friendship and love with a new one, but the same didn’t happen to me—at least not for a while.” She sighed loudly and took a swig of her beer. “I’m sorry I never got to apologize to my little sister about being so childish back in college. I didn’t mean to make you and Mel feel uncomfortable around me.”
“I think you apologized and then some by carrying Ali for us. Your actions spoke louder than any words could have.”
Mar appeared satisfied. “So words to a song making your head hurt…?”
“Oh yeah…it was pure luck that my first album hit it that big. I never achieved that same success since then, and I speak the truth when I say I was relieved.”
“Relieved?” Mar was surprised.
“I took it as a sign from God to stop writing words and to stick to the melody.”
“I see…”
“So for the past five years or so, I’ve been focusing only on scores. A couple of years ago, there was a contest for music to a big-budget Hollywood movie. Unbeknownst to me, the students in my class entered my song and it won. When I met with the director and producers, they asked me to write a few more tunes and this is how I ended up a ‘Hollywood Composer.’” I emphasized the last two words with heavy sarcasm to show I wasn’t taking myself seriously.
“Very impressive, Benjamin Howard. I always knew when you sang lullabies to me in the playpen, you’d make something of yourself.”
“What the hell was that with our parents trapping us in the playpen all the time? We were like five and too big for the contraption, but they still made us stay in there.”
Mar laughed. “You’re so full of shit, Ben. As if you remember anything that happened when you were five.”
“I remember you being a pain in my ass is what I remember.”
“Shut the hell up and finish your beer. I need to get out of here before my dress turns into rags and the chariot into pumpkins. Plus, I want to get home and look in on Ali.”
“What does that say about my company when you prefer that of a sleeping one-year-old?”
She chuckled. “A LOT!”
Chapter 11 Marni (Past)
Remember When ~Alan Jackson
“You. Look. Stunning!” Sylvia, my best friend, my roommate, and my biggest cheerleader, declared with too much confidence.
“You think?” I was unsure about the dress.
“I know! It’s perfect on you. Noah is going to flip when he sees you.”
Noah’s mom had called me last week to invite me to his surprise twenty-second birthday party. Finals were coming up and I wasn’t in the best financial situation, but I couldn’t miss Noah’s big day. To make matters worse, I had nothing to wear. Syl came to the rescue and lent me one of her little black dresses.
“Thanks, again, Syl. I love the dress.”
“I’m just happy you’re seeing Noah, again. You haven’t seen him since summer.”
Sadness came over me immediately. I thought about our last outing in Vegas where those summer memories substituted for the lack of calls.
“You look stunning!” was also what Noah had said when he arrived at our room to pick me up for the night. I had nothing fancy to w
ear, but he didn’t care. He led me to our multi-course dinner as if I looked as regal as the queen. After eating and conversing through twelve courses, watching a David Copperfield show, and dancing until dawn in one of the nightclubs, I believed we were a committed couple.
When school first started, thousands of miles was only a small obstacle since we spoke on the phone daily—many times, twice daily. Somewhere between classes, exams, papers, and new friends, the miles pushed us further apart. As the weeks went by, the calls lessened and somehow our “relationship” went into a time-lapse. When we did speak, Noah sounded busy, slightly agitated, and more conflicted with each call. It didn’t help that his ex was at the same school. When I first discovered this fact, Noah did a fly-by explanation and never brought her name up again. From the times she’s answered his phone, or had been in the background during our calls, I knew she was a bigger part of his life than he admitted.
Believing space was what he needed, I stopped calling. I hurt. I was reliving Ben-and-Marni-before-Melody, all over again. To best minimize my pain, I reached out less. Noah compounded the hurt by reciprocating. To think of his relief with my lack of communication squeezed my heart into a chokehold.
“I was surprised his mom invited me to the party,” I confessed with an aching heart.
“Now why would you be surprised?” Sylvia was nosy in all the right ways. She dug into my life, giving me equal treatment of her own. She knew about Noah and Ben, and she championed my relationship with Noah as if it was her own.
“I know you’ve noticed that our communication has waned. Noah barely returns any of my phone calls now.”
“He told you how busy he’s been trying to finish his undergraduate degree while working on his graduate degree. It’s toward the end of the semester. I’m sure it’s not easy leaving school a year earlier than planned. You also said he didn’t get to take summer school as he had planned. Imagine finishing college in three years and working on an engineering graduate degree in the same amount of time, with a side job. You’d be in over your head, too.”
“I think this trip is a mistake, but I’d like to see Noah again. If we’re over, I’d like for him to tell me in person.”
Sylvia’s face said it all; she agreed with my statement. “It’s not over. Once you are in the same room, all will return to normal.” Her words were one thing, but her concern spoke differently.
“Syl, you see the same signs with Noah as you did with Ben. The lack of communication, enthusiasm, his unwillingness to open up about the other woman—it’s all there.”
My roommate reached over and embraced me. “I’m sorry, Marni. I really liked the idea of you and Noah.”
“Yeah, me too. With Noah and Ben being such polar opposites, I was scared at first when he showed me so much attention.”
“How about you get out of that dress and we go take a walk to the grocery store to buy a boatload of junk food? You can tell me your story while we burn off all the calories we are about to consume.”
I followed Sylvia’s advice and we started our walk as I began my story.
“Growing up, Ben had an artist temperament from the onset. A little irascible, a lot temperamental—depending upon the day, he could be one or the other. He could also be very happy a good number of days.”
“It must have been like having another sister.”
“It was and it was wonderful. I’d cajole him out of his testy moods and we’d have great fun coming up with stories and songs.”
“So what was he like when you dated?”
“All through high school, I coddled him. I was his girlfriend, his best friend, and a lot of times, his mother. I picked up after him, made sure his school work was turned in, and helped him through school.”
“And you were OK with that?” My roommate sounded appalled.
“I loved it, Syl.” I couldn’t help but giggle at my roommate’s groan. “Coming from divorced parents, or better put, living with a father who set up house with the other, favored woman and child, I wanted to feel needed. I had so much love to give and I could only give it on the weekends to my mom.”
“What about Melody?”
“You know how sisters are—love each other one minute, hate each other the next. My dad and Jean always sided with her so there were many days I hated my sister. Now, with Ben coming between us, we don’t have a relationship anymore; for that, I’ll always feel lost. No matter the bickering, she’s my sister. I’ll always love her.”
“You’re a better person than I.”
“It’s because you have two brothers. Sisters are a different animal all together. You can never dislike her regardless of what’s she’s done to you.”
“Uh-huh!” Syl didn’t believe me.
“Anyhow, all the time I knew Ben, he was needy, but loving. Suddenly, he gets together with my younger sister and he’s become the provider, protector, and pragmatist. He turned into someone I didn’t recognize.”
“So that hurt?”
I smiled with a saddened heart. “It killed. I wondered why he couldn’t love me enough to take the lead in our relationship. That’s when Noah entered the picture with his hovering, papa-bear fierceness.” My heart hurt no less thinking of my boyfriend. “Did you know he confessed to getting up earlier to grab me a cup of coffee every morning? Remember how you used to notice that my drinks and dessert were set on the table even before I finished my meal?”
“He was good to you, Marni. That’s why I always thought you two would be wonderful together.”
“Somehow, all that attentiveness—something I never received from Ben—got lost in the past months. Or perhaps, someone else found it and is putting it to better use.”
“Don’t think like that, Girlfriend. For all you know, we could be making this situation much bigger than it is. He might just have his head glued to the books.”
I didn’t have an answer for my roommate’s theory. Instead, we stocked up on potato chips and ice cream.
“Let’s go back to the apartment and watch Roman Holiday.”
“Why that movie?”
“It’ll remind us of all the good times we had in Italy.”
“OK…if you like.”
I touched my ‘Rome’ necklace wishing for those simple days where a shared cup of gelato was all I needed with Noah.
Chapter 11 Noah (Past)
Remember When ~Alan Jackson
“You. Look. Stunning!” I almost drooled when I saw Siena in her gown.
“I know, I do, huh?” Siena never lacked in the self-confidence department. “I’m going to wear this when we go to the naval dinner this weekend.”
“Gorgeous. Now, can I get back to studying? I really need to do well this semester and you’re not helping by asking me to be your fashion consultant.”
I tried to sound as serious as I could be, but Siena only pouted and kissed me on the cheek. “You’re not my consultant. I only needed a man’s opinion. Mom thought it showed a little too much cleavage for a man-dominated dinner.”
“Next to your pouty lips and sultry eyes, that may be your best asset.” She semi-glared at me. “What?” I asked, not having a clue why she’d be offended by my statement. “Couldn’t you tell me I was smart, kind and beautiful?”
“You’re that, too. Now may I study?” There was not an ounce of exaggeration when I explained my need to excel this semester. My future depended upon my success in school. “By the way, why are you here every day? Your mom stop feeding you at your home?”
“I thought you enjoyed my company?”
“I do when I don’t have to study.”
“When did you become so studious?” Apparently, she got the hint; she started packing up her messenger bag. “You’re not as much fun as you were the summer we hung out.”
“I’ve always been studious. If I lived my life like the summer we hung out, I’d be a beach bum on Jersey Shore.”
“Do you remember when we lied to our parents and went away for a weekend in Vegas?”
Did I ever. That was one of Siena’s craziest schemes. “What did you tell your parents about that weekend?”
“Fortunately, the Admiral was away on a secret mission. As for Mama, I told her I was spending the weekend at Hilary’s house, but she knew I was with you. Honestly, I think the reason she let me stay away for an entire weekend was because she knew you’d take care of me.”
“That was a lot of trust given to a horny eighteen-year-old.”
Siena fell on my bed and laughed. “You remember how I brought that Cosmo’s Guide to Sex book and we tried to perform all those sex acts listed in the manual?”
I had to laugh with her. “I thought my dick would fall off after our third round.”
“You were done after one night. I only hope you have more staying power now. Otherwise, your girlfriend won’t want to spend a weekend with you.”
The word girlfriend was a splash of water to my very warm body. Even if it was innocent reminiscing, it needed to stop. There was already too much guilt in my heart.
“Uh, I thought you were leaving?” I needed separation from my ex, my newfound good friend.
“All right, all right, I get the hint. Lucky for you, I happen to like you a lot. If not for my easy-going attitude, I might have dropped you as a friend already.”
I helped her pack up her bag and encouraged her to leave. “See you.” I didn’t say when I’d see her. Hopefully, I could put some distance between us.
“Good-bye, Noah Bergstrom.” As with every parting, she hugged me then kissed me on both cheeks.
I couldn’t have been more relieved when Siena left. With each parting, I felt an enormous sense of guilt and a burden to confess. Siena and I were only friends, and there was nothing to confess, but our get-togethers never felt right.
“Noah?”
“Yeah, Mom?”
Mom didn’t look happy with me. I knew what was on her mind. It was surprising she had waited this long to speak to me.
“What’s happening with Siena? I’ve seen her with you every day you’ve been home. And from the looks of it, I assume you’re with her on the days you’re not home?”