The Distance Between Us

by Noah Bly

  It’s not a question of talent or ambition; it’s a question of character. She doesn’t have the passion; she doesn’t have the endurance; she doesn’t have the self-honesty necessary for fusing her heart and mind to her fingers. And most damning of all, she doesn’t have the guts to live the kind of life that would teach her these things.

  I can’t fault her for that, I suppose. Most people are just like her.

  I lift my head and fill my lungs with air, then I let it all out again a second later with a heavy sigh.

  For better or worse, there’s only one Hester Parker.

  Prior to our children being born—and before I shattered my wrist—Arthur and I were frequently asked to perform together. The best concert we gave was in 1966, in Boston’s Symphony Hall, and I can still recall the entire program. We played the Violin Sonata by Darius Milhaud, and Ernst Bloch’s Baal Shem, and the third Violin Sonata by Brahms, and Rachmaninoff’s Romance and Danse hongroise. The audience nearly rioted at the end of all that, and after they finally let us off the stage (four encores later), we escaped to the city’s North End for a midnight dinner at a quiet Italian restaurant, near Old North Church.

  Being a classical music celebrity is an odd thing, because your fame is so limited. One moment you can be standing in front of a packed concert hall, receiving a ridiculous amount of adulation from what seems to be the entire population of the planet, and the next you’re out dining in public, unnoticed by anyone.

  I remember Arthur bringing up this strange phenomenon that night, over an exquisite bottle of chianti and two vast platefuls of spaghetti and meatballs. I looked up from my meal to find him surveying our surroundings with an expression of utter satisfaction.

  “What is it, dear?” I asked. “Is the wine kicking in?”

  Arthur wasn’t much of a drinker in those days, and could become positively giddy after one or two swallows of anything containing alcohol. His boyishness at those times was one of the things I found the most charming about him. But then again, we were newly married, and very much in love, and almost everything he did delighted me.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact,” he beamed. “But I was also just thinking how nice it is to be an anonymous deity.”

  I smiled. Off-kilter statements such as this were daily fare from him. “Pardon me?”

  “Think about it. A mere …” He glanced at his watch. “… hour and a half ago, we were being treated like the Beatles, and now we’re just a couple of nobodies. There’s not a soul in this place who’s ever heard of us.” He picked up his fork and poked at a meatball, giggling. “Of course, our audience is somewhat different, isn’t it? Most of our fans have blue hair, for one thing.”

  I waited for him to go on. When he was in a chatty mood, which was most of the time, I mostly just listened to him talk.

  “What I mean,” he continued, “is that I love this. It’s the best of both worlds, really. We get to be treated like emperors half the time, and regular human beings the other half. Who else can say that?”

  I wrapped a piece of spaghetti around the tines of my fork. “Radio talk show hosts? Politicians?”

  “Radio personalities don’t count. They’re just disembodied voices. It’s easier for them to be anonymous.” He played with the melted wax drippings on the candle in the middle of the table. “And politicians are never anonymous. They have power, and people with power are always being stalked, and never really get away from the public eye.”

  His face wrinkled with concentration. “That’s the secret. Most celebrities have power, but we have no power at all. We just have talent, and there’s a real difference between the two.” He seemed pleased with this analysis. “Power comes from words, and we only deal with emotion. And since our art doesn’t rely on words, we have no power to effect political change in the world.” He nodded, as if agreeing with himself. “And that’s the reason we have no name recognition outside of our art, of course.”

  I dabbed a piece of garlic bread into a bowl of olive oil. “I see.” I leaned forward to tease him. “What was your name again, by the way? You look familiar, but I can’t place you.”

  His smile grew, and he put his foot on my chair, between my legs. He’d somehow gotten his shoe off, and I could feel his toes work their way under my skirt.

  I flushed. “We’re in public, darling,” I admonished. “If you wish to remain anonymous at this establishment, you might want to exercise a bit of care.”

  He licked his lips, aroused. “The tablecloth goes all the way to the floor. No one can see what I’m doing.”

  He was so handsome back then. So tall, and strong, and sensuous. I loved watching his fingers toy with his plate and his utensils, I loved watching his gray eyes as they studied my face.

  I was having considerable difficulty focusing. “So you think we have no power, but pop musicians do?”

  He shrugged. “Of course they do. They use words. Their music is about something. If they want to make a political statement with their songs, they can.” He fed more wax from the base of the candle into the flame at the top. “And I know what you’re going to say. ‘What about arias, and lieder?’“

  I raised my eyebrows. “As a matter of fact, that was exactly what I was going to say.”

  He waved his fork at me, and the waiter came over because he thought he was being summoned. Arthur apologized and the waiter withdrew to a corner, with a knowing expression on his face. He was no doubt aware of our under-the-table mischief, tablecloth or no.

  Arthur waved his fork again, less dramatically. “Think about it. Arias and lieder are more often than not about ridiculous things, like flea-bitten cats sitting in the window, or lost scarves. And when they’re serious, they’re always too specific to an individual character’s problems to have a political agenda, or a broader social message.”

  His foot was pressing softly against my undergarments as he said this, and I opened my legs a little wider for him as I pretended to be absorbed in my spaghetti.

  I cleared my throat. My voice was husky. “I’m afraid I can’t agree with you on that point. Your logic has gaps in it.”

  His toes found their way past the elastic band around my thigh. “Perhaps.” He spoke in a whisper. “But I’ve found a much more interesting gap.”

  We didn’t finish our meal that night. We left money on the table and exited the restaurant long before the bill arrived, and barely made it back to our car before losing all of our clothes, and our sense of decorum, too. We were young, and attractive, and insatiable, and this was the way most of our meals ended, as I remember it.

  And Arthur was right, incidentally.

  We may have been powerless in the real world, but we were also gods.

  I hear them on the lawn, at two-twenty in the morning. I rise from my bed and make my way to the window, and peek out the curtains to see who in the world is making such a ruckus at this hour.

  There’s enough light from the street to make out two figures in my driveway, sprawled on the snowy ground in front of St. Booger’s pedestal, like supplicants at the feet of the Pope. One of them is howling at the moon, apparently, and the other is cackling like a madman. Even through the heavy leaded glass of my window I can hear them carrying on.

  The howling one is Alex, but I have no idea who the other boy is. Good Lord. They appear to be drunk as skunks, and the neighbors are likely to call the police any second. I draw my fist back to bang on the glass, but all at once they get to their feet and the noise stops as they appear to confer about something or other.

  I should be angry at their thoughtlessness, I suppose, but as long as they’ve stopped making a public nuisance of themselves there’s no real harm done. Besides, they didn’t wake me. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since Arthur moved out, and before Alex and his friend showed up tonight all I was doing was staring at the ceiling. To be honest I’m almost grateful for their buffoonery; the thoughts I was having made for poor company.

  I used to love this bedroom. Arthur
actually carried me into it on our wedding night (his parents were still living at the time but had relocated to an assisted living facility in St. Louis two years earlier), and for decades it was my favorite place on earth. It has high, graceful ceilings, a bench seat by the windows, and a working fireplace in the corner. The original wood floor is polished and smooth and welcoming, and I adore it, but in the winter Arthur and I always covered it with an enormous Oriental rug, which at the moment is warm and luxurious under my bare feet. The bed is king-sized and soft, and crowded with inviting pillows and quilts and afghans, and we often spent entire weekends up here, nestled in the sheets, making love and sleeping, only leaving the room to forage for food, or to use the toilet.

  But now it’s just a big empty room, with a big empty bed in the middle of it, and I hate it.

  Outside, Alex steps up within a foot of St. Booger and raises his head to look the statue in the face as his hands do something near his waist. The other boy comes over and stands next to him, and it takes me a moment to realize what they’re doing.

  They’re urinating on poor old Booger.

  I sigh and return to my bed. St. Booger’s dignity is the least of my concerns at the moment, and I’ll speak to Alex tomorrow morning when he’s sobered up again.

  I have excellent hearing and my bedroom door is open, so when they trip into the entryway downstairs I still hear them, even though they’re attempting to be quiet.

  “Shh.” Alex’s whisper drifts up the steps. “Hester’s asleep.”

  “Who’s Hester?”

  This voice is deeper and louder than Alex’s, and he’s slurring his words.

  “My landlady,” Alex answers. “Remember? Professor Donovan’s mom.”

  “Oh, fuck!”

  I stifle a laugh in my bed. It seems that Caitlin’s students are still terrified of her.

  “I forgot all about that,” he continues. “If she’s half as bad as Donovan, she’ll probably shoot us or call the cops or something.”

  “Nah, it’s okay.” Alex’s voice gets harder to hear; he’s apparently stepped into either the kitchen or the living room for some reason. “She’s not like that.”

  The voices fall silent for a minute, then I hear Alex yelp from the kitchen. “What the hell?”

  “What happened?” His friend must still be standing in the entry-way.

  “Shh, Eric! Keep your voice down,” Alex hisses. There’s a pause. “I just stepped on something sharp.”

  I almost start laughing again.

  The phone. I never did clean up the mess I made when I broke the phone after speaking to Paul. There are chunks of plastic all over the floor, and the ruined receiver is dangling from the wall on its cord like a lynched man.

  “You okay?” Eric asks.

  “Yeah. I’m not bleeding or anything. It just hurt like hell.”

  Alex has now returned to the entryway, and a moment later I hear their footsteps as they near the landing by my bedroom.

  “What’d you get?” Eric whispers.

  “Whiskey, I think. I couldn’t really see ‘cause it was so dark in there.”

  I sit up in bed. They’re stealing my alcohol?

  “She doesn’t care if you drink her booze?”

  “I doubt it. She’s pretty cool.”

  There’s affection in his tone, and it catches me by surprise and makes me hesitate, long enough for them to move off the landing on their way up to the next floor.

  “Besides,” Alex’s voice is nearing the edge of my hearing. “As much as she drinks, I doubt she’ll even notice a bottle missing.”

  I blink in the darkness, and I lie down again, filled with an abrupt sadness. I’ll deal with him in the morning.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Morning.”

  I’m fooling with the teakettle on the stove when I hear the soft voice behind me, and I jump a little and spin around to face the intruder with a hand on my throat.

  Alex is standing in the kitchen doorway, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans. He’s rail-thin and pale, with freckles on his shoulders, and a V-shaped patch of light red hair in the middle of his chest.

  I glare at him. “Good God, boy, are you trying to give me a heart attack?” I take a jagged breath. “I should make you wear a cowbell around your neck so I’ll be able to hear you coming.”

  He grins at me and leans on the door frame. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “I suppose I’ll forgive you this time.” I turn back to the stove. “I’m making tea. Would you like some?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve got somebody waiting for me upstairs.”

  I decide to play dumb. “An overnight guest? How scandalous.” I hesitate as a new thought strikes me. It’s really none of my business, but I can’t help being curious. I test him. “Well, she’s welcome to join us, too.”

  He flushes a little and begins to stammer, shaking his head. “It’s a he. He’s a he, I mean. His name’s Eric.”

  He really couldn’t be any more transparent, and my heart goes out to him.

  I raise my eyebrows. “Oh, my. The plot thickens.”

  His blush spreads. “No, it’s not like that. We’re just friends.”

  “I see.”

  I tilt my head to the side and study his face. He and Eric may indeed be “just friends,” but there’s more going on here than that. A crush, maybe?

  Lord. I wouldn’t be his age again for anything in the world.

  He’s squirming under my scrutiny and I finally turn away to get my favorite mug from the cupboard. It’s dark red, with white, hand-painted snowflakes on it. Caitlin created it for me years ago, in her high school ceramics class.

  I face him again. “So will your friend want some tea, then, do you think?”

  He’s fiddling with his silver neck chain, and his expression relaxes. “No, I don’t think so. But I was wondering if you had any aspirin I could borrow? We had kind of a rough night.”

  I drop a tea bag in the mug and pour hot water over it, then seat myself at the table. “I assumed as much.” I indicate the liquor cabinet with my thumb. “How did you enjoy my brandy, by the way?”

  The cabinet door is standing open, just as I found it this morning.

  His white skin gets even whiter, and he hangs his head to avoid my gaze.

  “I’m sorry, Hester,” he says quietly. “We were really drunk and the bars were closed and I was going to put the bottle back before I went to bed but then I passed out and forgot all about it. I know I shouldn’t have taken your brandy but we didn’t even drink much of it, and I’ll buy you a new bottle and I promise I won’t ever …”

  I shift in my chair and he runs out of words. The room is deathly silent.

  A patch of warm sun coming through the window paints a stripe across his naked stomach, but the floor must be cold under his feet. He flexes his toes and waits for me to say something. A faint chiming floats down the hall behind him as the grandfather clock in the study goes off. It rings eleven times in the stillness before stopping again. He crosses his arms over his chest and raises his eyes.

  I play with the string on my tea bag, swirling it around in my mug. I dunk the bag a few more times then let go of it.

  “Relax, dear. You’re not in trouble.” I remain stern. “At least not too much. You and your friend pilfering my brandy is the least of my worries.”

  He heaves a sigh of relief and starts to say something else but I cut him off by shaking a long finger at him.

  “Mind you, the next time I won’t be so lenient.” I turn my attention back to my tea. I’m tired and on edge this morning, neither of which is his fault. “I’m going to need every drop of alcohol I’ve got to keep me sedated over the next few weeks, so don’t push your luck. Understood?”

  He clears his throat. “Okay.” It’s clear he feels bad, but doesn’t know what to do about it. “Are you all right?”

  I rally a little, straightening in my chair. “Right as rain, dear. Don’t worry about Hester.” I wav
e a hand. “There’s some Motrin in that drawer by the sink. Help yourself. I buy the stuff by the truck-load.”

  The drawer is crammed full of letters and rubber bands and other assorted junk, but he finds the Motrin right away and dumps a handful of pills in his palm. He’s watching me from the corner of his eye, as if he’s trying to determine my mood. I ignore him, but once the drawer is closed again he doesn’t leave.

  “What happened to the phone that was in here?” he asks. “It was in a million pieces when I got home last night.”

  My eyes drift to the vacant phone jack on the wall. “Nothing, really. I was just redecorating yesterday and didn’t get around to tidying things up again until this morning.” I look back at my tea. “Telephones simply do not belong in kitchens.”

  He waits for more but I remain quiet, so after a minute he thanks me for the Motrin and starts to head back upstairs. Before he gets to the door I call his name and he turns to face me.

  I look him up and down and give him a slight smile. “That’s a rather nice outfit you’re wearing, incidentally. Wherever did you get it?”

  He blushes instantly, and I toss my head and laugh, delighted. I’ve always been an unrepentant coquette (Arthur once told me in a jealous snit that I’d flirt with a pimply iguana, if no other male was available) but at this stage in my life I certainly don’t mean anything by it, and most especially not with this child. But Alex doesn’t know that, and my manner seems to have thrown him for quite a loop. Nor can I resist poking at him a little more; I think he deserves a large dose of embarrassment for his behavior last night.

  I adopt my best sultry attitude, caressing my throat with the tip of a finger and dropping my voice to a husky murmur. “Oh, come now. Surely you don’t think that I no longer pay attention when there’s such an attractive, available young man in the room?”

  His eyes go wide with dismay, and he begins to stutter. I watch him wriggle about for as long as I can bear it, then I trot out his own words from the staircase last night. “Or did you think that with as much as I drink, I simply wouldn’t notice?”