Happy Any Day Now

by Toby Devens

  “I could use some advice here. I can’t see the forest for the trees,” I conceded.

  “Well, sure, but before I take out my little ax, lunch and a rundown of your party so far.”

  She wolfed down the pastrami on rye and crunched through the half-sour pickle that, in a moment of knish-induced psychosis, I’d had the counterman at the Carnegie Deli bag along with her sandwich. It had dripped garlic juice on my shoes during the bus ride back from New York. Such is the power of friendship.

  She insisted it was an abomination to eat Jewish deli without beer to wash it down and made her way through the first bottle as we reviewed the caterer’s menu. Heavy hors d’oeuvres. Assorted pastries. Our budget was beginning to nudge the limits of my mother’s donation and I wasn’t about to dip deep into my savings for hard liquor. Bottom line, wine and beer only. I did spring for champagne for a toast and a cake that Marti had planned on setting ablaze with fifty candles. Over my baby boomer body. We compromised on five, one for each decade. The invitations were ready to be picked up at the printers. The guest list was presented for additions and deletions. So far, there was no sign of Brenda Himmelstein, last known address Parkside Avenue, Brooklyn. Marti had Facebooked, MySpaced, Classmate dot commed, PeopleFindered, and Googled her way through cyberspace with no luck. Her last hope was to trace Brenda through her birthday on some esoteric site she’d dug up. “You know your best/only childhood friend’s birth date?”

  “March twenty-fourth. Same year as me.”

  “You can’t even say it, can you? It tears your heart out to say out loud the year you were born because why? You think your life is slipping away and you haven’t accomplished enough?”

  I had an answer. Marti knew about Richard Tarkoff’s retirement, but not about my decision. “Richard would dearly love for me to take over his spot and I think my time has come. I’m going to audition for principal cello.”

  She broke out a congratulatory smile. “Good thing too, or I’d never speak to you again.”

  “And Geoff offered to work with me to get me in shape. He heard the principal cellist of the San Francisco Symphony has his eye on the seat. Stiff competition.”

  “You’ve got Geoff in your corner, so that’s an edge.”

  “Well, there could be a problem.”

  “Isn’t there always?”

  “He might not want to mentor his ex.”

  Marti’s gray irises went steely. “Did I hear ‘ex’ or were you just clearing your throat?”

  “I’ve been thinking about converting my relationship with Geoff from sexual to . . . I don’t know . . . fraternal.”

  “Really? That’s what you’ve been thinking?” Never taking her eyes off me, the crazy lady, she said, “Oh, that’s going to be well received.” Marti shook her head disapprovingly. “I can’t believe you’re serious about dumping Geoff and, without a breath between, picking up with Charlie. You just can’t move people around on the chessboard of your life without regard for their feelings, Judith. Do you not realize how self-absorbed that is?”

  I said, “You could look at it that way.” I had. Over the past few days, I’d examined this triangle from every slant. In the end I came up with a decision I could live with, though it was probably half rationalization, half truth. I explained to Marti, whose chiseled features had taken on a dubious cast, “The way I see it, it’s worse to dangle Geoff while I explore the potential of the Charlie thing. In my book, that’s cheating and Geoff deserves better than me two-timing him.”

  She thought about that for as long as it took to polish off her sandwich. “You’ve got a point,” she said seriously. Then she drawled, “In fact, it’s very noble of you, shafting Geoff.”

  At least I’d knocked her off her moral high horse. And Marti being Marti, as soon as she was on foot, she took the low road.

  “But listen, Jude. Wouldn’t it be fun to get it on with both of them? Not at the same time, though; that might blow your delicate circuits. Rotate. Like the sultans used to do. Men shuffle women like cards all the time. Wives and mistresses. Multiple girlfriends. It really pisses me off that women can’t manage it. Not even my fellow vagitarians. Okay, my opinion: I think you need time off from both your charming suitors. Listen, I know Jews don’t do convents. But there are Buddhist nuns, right? You need to be alone for a while. If it takes wind chimes and incense, so be it. My advice is to back off from men in general, a couple in particular, until you’re sure you know what you want.”

  “I hear you. But how do I find out if I back off? And Charlie needs an answer about the Georgetown reception the next time he calls.”

  “You’re not even listening, are you? You knew damn well what you were going to do before you asked me. I think you’re crazy cutting Geoff from the lineup this early on. And you’re going to lose a cello coach in the bargain. That may not be the smartest move on the planet, Judith.”

  “But don’t you think it’s smarmy to string him along just so he’ll prep me for the audition? I could probably pick up a coach at Peabody.” The prestigious music school downtown had a slew of faculty members who were eager to earn some extra cash.

  “You’ve really thought through all these moral issues, haven’t you?” I couldn’t tell whether she was being serious or sarcastic. “Anyway, I’m not sure why you called me in on this. Your mind is made up. Proceed with The Barrister at your own risk.”

  “No, really, I bounced it off you to figure out what I really want. And it worked. Thanks. You’re the best.” I leaned over and popped a kiss on her cheek.

  “Wow. Kissing. Now you’ve fallen in love with me too? Nasty habit, Judith, all this falling.” She had eyes only for the slab of New York cheesecake I’d brought her for dessert. “And I’d say you have enough on your plate at the moment.”

  Chapter 10

  The talk at Wednesday afternoon’s rehearsal was about Richard. Angela made an announcement before we got started. She’d just had a call from Sarah Tarkoff, who asked her to inform us that Richard’s last round of chemo hadn’t been successful. His most recent MRI had picked up melanoma metastases in a part of his brain that couldn’t be reached by surgery. He and his oncologist were considering next steps. In the meantime, Richard was home trying to regain his strength.

  “He’s up for visitors as long as you phone first.” Angela took a vibrato-edged breath before going on. Our tough musical director had her soft side. “She asked that we pray for him and for their family.”

  I sniffed my way through the run-through of the Tchaikovsky.

  Rehearsal over, I stored my cello, phoned the Tarkoffs, and went looking for Geoff. He was digging out his car keys as I approached. “I just called Sarah. Richard would love to see us.”

  “You mean today?” he asked.

  “A quick stopover. Sarah says we’ll do him a world of good.”

  Geoff jingled his keys. “Then let’s go. And, Jude, bring the Dvorák music. I think he’d get a kick out of discussing your approach to the second movement. Make him feel useful.”

  It was just like Geoff to be eager to extend a hand. He was such a decent man, I almost had second thoughts about dropping my breakup bomb at dinner.

  • • •

  Sarah and Richard Tarkoff lived in a handsome Tudor home in Roland Park, one of Baltimore’s most beautiful neighborhoods. At the front steps, a gardener was fussing with some early tulips and hyacinths, perennials that would bloom next year when Richard was gone. Inside, the atmosphere was timeless as my colleague’s personal clock tick-tocked down his remaining days. Sarah, having overtaken the housekeeper on the way to the door, briefed us on the ground rules. Briskly, like the attorney she was. Richard had just awakened from a snooze, she told us, so he was in good spirits. Beyond a polite “How are you doing?” she asked us not to talk about his illness. Orchestra gossip, on the other hand, was good medicine. When Geoff asked her, waving my sh
eet music, whether Richard’s consulting on the cello concerto would pass muster, her dark eyes lit up. “He’d love that, Geoff. Just the thing to engage him. But no more than a half hour with him, please. He tires easily.”

  We stayed for more than two hours. The patient wouldn’t let us go. Twice, Sarah tried to intervene. “Be gone, woman,” Richard shooed her. “Would you deny a dying man his pleasure? This is the first real fun I’ve had since the grandkids were here on Saturday. Judith, try this chocolate-covered marzipan.”

  The spacious bedroom overlooked a back garden and an open window captured the scent of lilacs and the fluty trill of a Baltimore oriole late on an April afternoon. In the corner, Richard’s priceless cello stood idle but watchful. The instrument, built by the Venetian luthier Matteo Goffriller in 1729, had been Richard’s guardian and his companion for decades. Now it presided over his death watch.

  With my music in hand, he pointed a skeletal finger at the instrument. “Damn thing needs more exercise. Play that second movement for me.”

  The Goffriller was slightly larger than my own cello, but slender with a rich, full sound that flooded the room. I’d played it a few times before and was familiar with the adjusted touch it required.

  Richard’s critique zeroed in on the fine points. “A little too much fire there. Hold something in reserve.” And, “Ah, yes. Much better, darling.”

  “There, you’ve nailed it,” he said when I’d finished. “I’m proud of you, my dear. Look at that face. Always so hard on yourself. You’re much better than you think. There’s no doubt in my mind that you’re ready for first chair.” He stared at the ceiling for a long minute, plucking at the quilt pizzicato as if he were working something through. Geoff and I exchanged glances. With a groan, Richard shifted so he was talking directly to me. “The hell with it. I hate secrets anyway and this one you should be a party to, Judith. This one should light a fire under you.”

  In the ten seconds of silence that followed, a dark-feathered bird landed on the windowsill with a loud caw. From where I sat, with an old maple tree casting deep shadows, I couldn’t tell whether it was a crow (bad omen in Korean folklore) or a magpie (lucky).

  “Well, that fellow seems to agree. You—” He raised an eyebrow to Geoff. “You’re only included in this cabal because I know Judith would tell you anyway. It’s all very hush-hush. In fact, I think the reason Angela let me in on it is because she wanted to give me something extra to live for, to fight for. You need to keep this to yourselves—is that understood?”

  Geoff and I nodded in unison.

  He smiled impishly. “It looks like the orchestra is heading for North Korea next spring.”

  “What?” That was my voice with only enough strength to manufacture a whisper.

  “The idea of a cultural exchange was initiated by the State Department. Something about stalled nuclear talks, but relations between the two countries are especially shitty these days. This cultural outreach is supposed to thaw the situation as much as it’s thawable. Negotiations are under way and Angela is hopeful.” He took a sip of his bedside water through the straw. “It’s not a done deal by any means. The North Koreans are famous for reneging last minute. They make unreasonable demands, the project falls apart, and they blame us. However, if we get there, it would be a helluva coup for our merry band.” His eyes twinkled when he said to me, “So, do you want to visit North Korea, sweetheart?”

  I was caught between stunned and delighted. “Incredible” was all I could muster in reply. I was a loyal, oh so grateful American, but Korea would always own half my genes. I shook my head in disbelief. “My mother will go ballistic.”

  “No telling Grace,” Richard admonished.

  “Not now. But if and when it goes through, she’ll be thrilled.”

  “I thought your mother was from Seoul,” Geoff said.

  “She moved south right before the war, but she was brought up in a farming village in a place called Hwanghae. If I have any relatives left, they’re in the north.”

  “And so will you be next April.” Richard grinned, obviously pleased with himself.

  “You too,” I lied.

  “I can’t fool myself. I don’t expect another year. Maybe I’ll make it through the summer. No guarantees. Now give the old man a kiss, Judith, and you two get on your way. Mmm, chocolate and perfume. Why do women smell so delicious? Well, it’s nice to know I ain’t dead yet.”

  • • •

  Stuffed on chocolates and tasting the lilac fragrance that seemed suddenly like funeral flowers in the back of my mouth, I wasn’t hungry. It was too late for Geoff to roast the rack of lamb he’d planned and I wasn’t up for the noise and hustle of the Mt. Washington Tavern. What I really wanted was to go home alone, make myself a bologna sandwich, and later climb into bed and daydream that Richard’s chemo had worked and he was in the first seat as we played the orchestral arrangement of Arirang, the Korean folk song my mother sang me to sleep with when I was little. At the end of the Pyongyang concert, the audience, comprised of people who looked a lot like me, stood and cheered. Lovely fantasy.

  The reality was Richard was dying and I had a life ahead of me. Which meant moving on. Only, to move on, I’d have to undo history, starting with the most recent past. The big talk had to be tonight so I could get myself in fresh trouble immediately.

  “Follow me. My place. I’ll rustle up something simple,” Geoff said as we left the Tarkoffs’. His territory. Not the best choice for the conversation I had in mind, but I was too preoccupied and too sad to protest.

  Geoff lived in a downtown high-rise with a panoramic view of the old Domino Sugar factory and the Inner Harbor. The condo’s décor was Australian sports/ethnic/music. Lots of aboriginal drums and didgeridoos among the soccer and rugby shirts hung like tapestries and framed autographed photos of his favorite dames: Joan Sutherland, Edna, and me.

  In the kitchen he rummaged through the fridge. “Let’s see what I have in here. Uh-oh. Sorry. I forgot to restock on bologna.” He turned to give me a fond and knowing smile.

  It was more of a joke now, but back in elementary school I’d been obsessed by bologna. While the other kids unwrapped Oscar Mayer on Wonder Bread or PB and J, I emptied my lunch box of leftover squid and vegetables, kimchi or cold-by-lunchtime seaweed soup packed in Tupperware knockoffs. The aroma invariably drew a crowd. “Chink-stink,” the little bastards called it, pinching their noses and ostentatiously gagging. I was mortified. By middle school we were living in Bed-Stuy, where I could have had my ass whipped for lesser infractions than smelling up the cafeteria. The shape of my eyes alone got me deliberately and repeatedly bumped in the hall by Tylana Haynes and her gang. So I made my stand, and my mother didn’t protest; she knew when it was futile. I made my own all-American bologna sandwich on the days I didn’t eat pizza or chicken nuggets off the cafeteria line, a free lunch for which I easily qualified along with most of the kids, then hit the vending machines for a Snickers dessert with the money Mrs. Beckersham slipped me every week after my lesson.

  I loved that lunch meat. How it tasted, what it symbolized.

  While Geoff puttered in the kitchen, I was in his living room, drawn to his trumpet, spotlighted like sculpture, its brass glowing. As I traced the sensual flare of the bell, ran my finger over the curve of a slide, I picked up a resident energy, as if the music were coiled within, ready to spring to life. Leafing through the sheet music on his stand, which wasn’t really like going through someone’s mail, I shuffled classical pieces coming up on the orchestra’s schedule as well as some standards and jazz, the stuff he played for fun. A man of multiple tastes and talents, he also composed. Brilliantly, of course. Under the score for “Stompin’ at the Savoy,” I recognized, with its corrections and marginal scrawling, a piece he’d been writing for two of the three years of our relationship. The title, Geoff’s loving pun, was spelled “Suite for My Seoulmate.” I was hi
s muse, he’d confessed before playing the half-finished version for me a few months before. Its beauty had left me speechless, breathless.

  After tonight, like some symphonies of note, it would probably remain unfinished, crumpled and pitched into the trash. My sense of Geoff was that—unlike Charlie—he did not look back.

  I replaced the music with trembling fingers and moved to the window to stare out at the water shimmering in the harbor light and ponder how I was going to start The Conversation. And then he came up behind me, encircled his arm around my waist, and handed me a glass of Shiraz. “How about I fry us up some eggs?” he asked.

  “I’d just as soon skip dinner,” I said. “Do you mind?”

  “Fine with me. I haven’t much appetite either. Not for food anyway.”

  His right hand cupped my right breast. He’d once told me he loved that I was this slender Asian reed with boobs like a Wagnerian soprano.

  He rubbed his thumb over my nipple and I felt it stiffen in spite of myself and my thoughts of extinction. In spite of the looming conversation. That was what we did, Geoff and I, buried the deep feelings under the easily reachable ones. Sex was our cure for everything. Geoff was hiking my skirt with his left hand, making passage for the other one to migrate down to my panties and burrow.

  Sex and death, an odd duo and one you never expected to work but did, like Sonny and Cher or Yoko and John. Maybe the pairing had to do with schadenfreude—someone’s dying, I’m not, let’s make love to prove we’re alive.

  I didn’t bother to resist as he slipped his hand into my panties. For a moment, I thought he was fingering the trumpet part in the Brandenburg No. 2, which would have been outrageously insulting, but then he found my rhythm and we tumbled onto the IKEA sofa that groaned under our weight.

  Geoff always made me hot. No one, including Charlie—there he surfaced again; down, boy—had ever turned me on like Geoff Birdsall did. And as he tried to do that night. Fingers there. Lips here. In, out, up, down. The man tried every trick in the book and some that had been edited out. And yet. So close. And yet. And yet.