Perfect Pitch

by Amy Lapwing

  James hurried after her. “Let me see you to the door.” This was his chance. But she seemed so tired, like she had already gone in and closed the door on him. He followed her up the stairs, she did not allow enough room for him to walk beside her. They arrived at her door and she looked for her key. “Justina,” he began, “I had a great time.”

  She found the key and smiled at the eager young man. She unlocked the door and put her hand on the knob.

  “Justina, can I kiss you?”

  “Goodnight, James.”

  He took that to be a no. He thought he had missed something when she suddenly kissed him on the cheek. She smiled again, more prettily this time and went in, closing the door softly. He decided that was a “no” for now, a “maybe” for later.

  Inside her apartment, Justina let out a sigh. Free and floating, light and aimless, like Pascale’s butterfly scarf.

  How long has it been since I’ve felt that way?

  She pulled off her clothes and got into bed, nestled into the indention her body had pressed against the mattress.

  Will I ever feel that way again?

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Lingering Heat

  He was not going to talk about Justina to his family, but he had already written about her, before the break-up, so they were curious to know where things stood. The day after he arrived home for Christmas, two days after he had left Justina, the family sat in the T.V. room for after-dinner coffee. His sister Marisol asked him how things were with Justina, her black eyes big with expecting a romantic tale. Yes, said Catalina, sticking her chin in the air and tossing back her dyed blonde hair, smiling to her sister, would they be meeting her soon? Michael told them he was not seeing her anymore and sat back in his chair and watched the T.V. screen. Marisol and Catalina scrutinized his face in uncharacteristic silence. His niece Pepita came into the room with a carafe of coffee. She offered a cup to her uncle; he remembered to smile at the sweet girl and winked at her. Catalina remarked, “Pepita is twenty-five,” and turned to Marisol, who nodded, “Yes, that’s right.” Pepita sat and took in the unspoken disapproval. Her uncle sat sipping, staring at the bright painting of a market day on the wall, the garish jags of black and red and yellow, while her mother and her aunt shook their heads at each other and at her grandmother. Her grandmother silently shushed her daughters with a glance and looked with pity on her son; she could see that this break-up was not a welcome release for him. She told her grandson Julio to start the singing machine. Her husband looked up finally from the stock market report zipping by on the T.V. screen. He had not received the subtle signal that the subject was closed, for now, and grumbled that Justina sounded like a mannish woman, with a woman’s loving nature propagandized out of her by the feminists; she would never have been right for Miguel, nor would any woman of her generation. Pepita reminded her grandfather that she was of that generation. He said, “But you’re a Tica! You’ve been brought up right!” The girl smiled and shook her head, and the others laughed. Michael hoped they had all gotten it out of their systems; he did not want to hear them talk about Justina for the next four months. He picked up the mike and handed it to his mother and they sang Spanish love songs all evening, taking turns, the boys Julio and Ernesto standing and trying to outdo each other in sincere imitation of their operatic uncle.

  At the end of May, he flew to Atlanta to spend the next two months with Pepita. She went off every day to debug programs for ODB, Inc., which company lore said stood for “Only Disney’s Bigger”, while he worked as assistant to the director of the Atlanta Opera. He kept quiet and listened and watched as they prepared La Bohème. The singers were world-class, some of them; even so, he thought his Kennemac productions would have stood up well next to this fine company’s. He and the director got along well, and Michael enjoyed the feel of the busy city, gracious and southern but not sleepy. The shopping was terrific and he made many clothing purchases, counseled by his niece. Pepita’s taste was similar to his, and he bought two jackets, a gray silk herringbone and a black mohair. Pepita said he looked like an Arabian oil sheik in the black one. He remembered that Justina had thought he looked like an Arabian prince in his burgundy jacket and as they walked around the mall he could not shake the irrational expectation that he would see her at any moment. The woman going down the escalator as they sat and sipped iced tea, the woman walking by outside the shoe store, the flash of shiny brown hair in the atrium below, all held the spirit of Justina until he got a good look at them. It had been six months since he had seen her and he was having this response to a slight suggestion of her. What I will do when I see her on campus again?

  He wanted to spend August in the Bay area with his nephews Julio and Ernesto, undergrads at Stanford. He almost missed his flight when Pepita decided to drive him to the airport via the picturesque ivy-bordered, mansion-studded, tortuous Northside Drive and they got stuck behind a big yellow rent-a-truck. It finally turned right onto a side street and Pepita floored it, getting onto the highway at the earliest opportunity. The truck’s driver was Teresa Bartel, her fourteen-year-old son Derek sat beside her; Michael noticed the boy’s head resting on his arm upon the open window, the black curls fluttering in the wind. The boy’s impassive gaze took in everything as the truck crept along, the flowers and lawns and houses and the man that looked back at him from the car that had been behind them. Teresa had just transferred to ODB in Atlanta from Miami. Within a couple of days she did a search in the Atlanta directory of employees to see if there was anyone she knew. There did not appear to be.

  There was a need for muscle-soothing ointment, so Michael perused the products in the Soap/Toothpaste/Nylons aisle of his favorite grocery store which was also the most crowded one. He had not been permitted to leave San Francisco without hiking the mountains. He chose a tube of something he had seen advertised, got some chicken for his and Charles’ Sunday dinner, and advanced to the check-out.

  The store was Saturday-packed and the musical soundtrack was not noticeable in the din until he got to second place in the line. The cashier was belting out, “Signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours!” as she scanned Number One’s groceries. Michael watched her in wonder, smiling to himself and putting his groceries on the conveyor belt behind the plastic divider. She had blonde hair, dyed, he was pretty sure, but nicely. She was tall, maybe five nine, with a mature fullness well-proportioned to her height, and with a delicate face subtly lined despite the make-up. She finished the order and smiled to the customer, reciting the total. Her body bopped to the music as she took care of the accounting, aligning a charge form and pressing buttons and handing over the receipt. Michael finished putting his order on the counter and moved forward to the Customer Number One position.

  “Hi!” she said. “Got any cue-pons?”

  “No—” He squinted at her nametag. “Helena.”

  “Okay—” She squinted at his shirt pocket.

  He smiled and told her his name.

  “Okay, Michael.” She began scanning his groceries and hummed the song, “Hot Fun in the Summertime.” Michael nodded his head in time to the barely audible music, trying to encourage her. She broke out singing, “And here she comes back, Hi, hi, hi, hi, there!” She belted out the refrain. “Hot fun in the summertime! Hot fun in the summertime! Hot fun in the summertime!”

  “Yeah!” Michael was getting into it. She stopped singing. “Don’t stop, that was good!”

  “Yeah, right. You think so?”

  “It was terrific! I bet you are a singer.”

  “In my dreams. Fifty-two eighty-three.” He got out his bank debit card. “Exact amount?” she asked, her hand poised over cash register buttons.

  “Give me thirty more.” She punched in the numbers, he punched in his numbers and the purchase was complete. “I’ve never seen you here before, Helena,” he said.

  “I started two weeks ago.” She handed him the receipt.

  “I hope I see you again.” He moved to the end where the high school
boy was finishing the bagging, keeping up a conversation about the coming Saturday night with the next bag boy.

  “Me, too, um—?” said Helena.

  “Michael.”

  “Michael.”

  He smiled at her again as he left. She gave a little wave and sang, “Left a good job in the city! Working for the man every night and day!” He waved over his head and went out to his car. Hay-layna, the singing check-out lady. Got to remember to check her out next time, he thought.

  Classes were starting the Tuesday after Labor Day this year, so the last week of August meant continuous preparations. Michael needed to go by the bookstore to make sure they had stocked the music his chorus needed to buy and the text his theory students needed. He had a good deal of phone work to do, to set up a schedule for his private students. And he just wanted to get back in the swing of things, so he went to work everyday that week, and he and Charles did the daily eleven-thirty lunch at the fac thing.

  The first encounter with Justina occurred on Monday morning as he walked toward the bookstore. He turned the corner and found her and James coming up the hill toward him. James was talking animatedly, looking at her for her reaction, laughing enough for both of them as Justina just smiled. She said something back to him and he guffawed as she cast her eyes at him. The outline of the pair of them, shoulder to shoulder, heads almost touching, stood traced against the blurred background of grass, asphalt and cars; Michael’s mind cut them out and placed them against one field after another, on campus, in the fac, in her office, in her car, on the couch in her apartment. He looked in another direction; the campus was practically empty, one or two stoop-shouldered figures passed, the vaguest reminder that this was a place of many varied works, temporarily in stasis. He straightened his back and filled his lungs, letting his chest rise.

  “Hello, Justina, James,” he said and went by them as she responded, “Hi—” sounding a little surprised that he did not stop.

  It had been easier than he thought. He looked over his shoulder at her, the shiny hair shuddering above the inverted triangle of her shoulders and waist and her skirt leaning inward and brushing her leg above the knee with each step. She was looking so good.

  The idea of pursuing her with the aim of bringing her around was all he could think of at first, at home during Christmas. But he finally came to realize it would not work. Only she could effect a change in perspective. And he had no reason to think she wanted to come to love him more. He decided there would be no pursuit, no dropping of hints, no attempt to create fertile ground for intimate communication. Sometime in the last month he had come to understand that there was absolutely no action to take. He might indulge himself by observing her, but he would not attempt to communicate with her with an ulterior motive. He loved her, he did not try to deny it, and he believed she loved him, she had said so, even when she was telling him to go. But they would not be together. It was a love he had never heard of before, and certainly had not anticipated would happen to him. He did not know how long it would last, but he was tired of waiting for something magical in some elusive future that only he seemed capable of imagining. He would take it a day at a time, whatever it was. In the meantime, he was having a nice life, as they say in the movies; he was in good health, he liked his work, he had enough money, he had good friends and a loving family. Everybody should be so miserable, he thought.

  The fall was getting a slow start, summer heat had arrived late and lingered still. The new mums in fall colors, purple, yellow, orange, mauve, that the grounds crew had planted all over the place were in danger of dying. At lunchtime Michael and Charles came up to the library entrance just as the French group were going in. They heard James say he would call the grounds chief and tell him to order extra watering. The remark was greeted with silent smiles; Michael heard Justina snort softly and he saw her shake her head as she looked up at the young trees, already losing their leaves. They all passed around “Hello! How was your summer?” Pascale greeted Michael lavishly, getting the pair of kisses from him. Michael and Justina simply named each other, the barest of greetings.

  They went into the fac and stood in line together, French group first. Pascale took up the rear of her contingent, next to Justina, so she could talk to Michael. “Where did you go? To Salzburg again?”

  “Not this year,” responded Michael.

  “Getting tired of her, hein?”

  “Yes, I’m tired of my Salzburg sweetheart.”

  He glimpsed Justina zinging a glance at him.

  “So, who have you found instead?” Pascale persisted.

  “I went to Atlanta—” he began.

  “I hear Southern women are very beautiful, very sultry,” said Pascale.

  “To visit my niece. And I worked with the Atlanta opera. And I played volleyball. Our team was number one!”

  “They were going to draft him, but he kept squeezing the peaches and ruining them,” added Charles, leering at Pascale.

  “You have so many talents, Michel. So, who did you meet all summer in Atlanta?”

  “Hardly no one with a southern accent. A lovely black lady from Louisiana, she had an accent. I couldn’t understand a word, but she was delightful.” Justina’s eyes went wide as she stared at the stacks of roast beef and turkey and bowls of tuna salad and chicken salad behind the glass in front of her, trying to ignore what he was saying.

  “You want turkey, right, Justina?” James said, and he ordered for her, on whole wheat, with lettuce and tomato, no cheese.

  “That’s all? You were there three months and you met one woman?” continued Pascale.

  “Too much,” said James as the sandwich girl spread mayonnaise on Justina’s sandwich; she scraped some off.

  Michael raised his voice. “I met a lot of people, Pascale, you know how I am.”

  “No mustard!” said Justina with irritation to the sandwich girl.

  “Sorry!” said James.

  “But I was only two months there,” Michael continued. “I passed August in San Francisco visiting my two nephews.”

  “You were quite the doting uncle, then,” said Pascale. “How old are they now?”

  “The boys are twenty and twenty-one. Pepita is twenty-six.”

  “They’re all grown up!”

  “They like to think so.” He smiled to Pascale when he caught Justina checking his expression. “It was good to spend time with them, to get to know them,” he went on.

  It was Pascale’s turn to order. “Sit with us,” she begged Michael. “I want to talk to you some more.”

  He looked to Charles, who thought of something. “We’re going to order to go today,” his friend said. “Waiting for phone calls, you know.”

  “Another time, Pascale,” said Michael as she pouted.

  The heat hit them with the frantic exuberance of an over-tired child about to subside into sleep as Charles and Michael came out of the library balancing their sandwich-heavy paper plates. “Hm-m-m!” breathed Michael, relieved. “Good quick thinking, B sharp.”

  “You’re going to have to fix this, Stickbeater; I won’t be deprived of my fac time every day, you know.”

  “We won’t run into them every day. It was a flake.”

  “But what if she’s already there? You going to snub her?”

  He did not know what he would do. He did not know that he would not want to sit at her table today. ¡Coño! I don’t want to worry about her anymore! He willed himself to feel calm, to try to bring back the passive feeling from this morning when he had passed her on the sidewalk. But he had not stopped to talk with her then. He had been so pleased that he could say hello to her nicely, or somewhat nicely; politely, anyway. He did not know if he would ever be able to just talk to her. He could not now, that was clear. Screw it, I’m not going to worry about it. He ate his sandwich at his desk and read the paper, and then did some more phoning. He read through the opening movement of the Mozart Requiem, conducting an imaginary orchestra from his desk. A fan of water against his
window from a grounds man's hose startled him so he knocked over his iced tea and smacked his hand against the window ledge. He cleaned up the mess and sat with his head on his hand and looked around at his office, the shelves of scores, the piles of old exams and compositions never picked up, and felt like a child forced to sit quietly in his grandparents’ house of old things where nothing new ever happened. He saw the notice of Justina’s Ph.D. talk still on his bulletin board. No frustration, no anger; he removed himself from the feelings and sat way on high, and watched himself take down the notice and look on the shelf for the vocal score to the Fauré Requiem. He put the square of newsprint inside the cover and put the music back. He was not being sentimental, he told himself; it was a meaningful item, but it did not belong on his board of current events.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Out and Back

  The French and French-loving people walked back to the Modern Languages building, Pascale splitting off to visit the bookstore to check which edition of Tartuffe they had ordered, she could not tell from talking to the woman on the phone. James was yammering on about his visit to Carcassonne during his sophomore year abroad, walking the ramparts and coming across a baby goat in a turret. He was relating at tedious length his efforts to find the owner of the animal, knocking on doors, meeting the astonished stares of the people. “I must have looked like Christ to them!” he hyperbolized.

  “Right,” said Justina, wishing he would shut up and let her think for Christ’s sake.

  “You know, gathering the lambs?” She did not answer. “Justina, I want to ask you something.”

  “Hm,” she answered, struck dizzy by the sight of pumpkins decorating the entry to the Chemistry building.

  “You like me, right?”

  “Sure, I like you, you dork.” He was implausibly cheerful and naïve and enthusiastic and he reminded her of the sweet Midwestern boys back home.