“Perfect,” he says, taking her hand. “A waltz.”
She follows his lead, feeling her body turn and turn again, the two of them making a perfect circle in the room. She closes her eyes and imagines the hall after dark, lights sparkling on the Detroit River, the windows cranked open, and the music rising up into the evening. She opens her eyes. “You told me musicians don’t dance.”
“I lied,” he says.
“You said they never dance.”
“I’m a good liar.”
“Should I be worried?”
“I don’t think I can answer that honestly.”
“You’re terrible.”
“True. But not at dancing.”
“What if somebody cut in?”
“There’s no one here.”
“You’re awfully sure of yourself.”
“I know the steps.”
The waltz ends and she comes to rest, the room still moving around her. She hears a deep, formal voice saying something about the conductor and the recording. Coleman smiles. They stand and face one another, holding hands and breathing hard, waiting for more music.
He looks around the hall. “I thought you’d like the place.”
“I do.”
The voice on the radio keeps talking.
“We can’t dance to that,” says Coleman.
“I didn’t think you could dance at all,” she says. “You kept it a big secret.”
“Without secrets, there are no surprises,” he says.
“That’s what you say about music.”
He shrugs.
She takes his perfect hands and plants them on her hips. “So why surprise me now?”
“First opportunity,” he says.
“That’s crazy,” she says. “We’ve been in plenty of bars where people dance. Parties and weddings, too.”
“That’s not dancing,” he says. “I’m not sure what it is, but it’s not dancing.”
THE DOOR opens and a young doctor enters the room. He walks to the sink, frowns, picks up the used gloves, and drops them into a metal can. He pumps soap into his left palm and washes his hands under a slow running faucet. He sits on a stool, opens her thin file, and reads.
She looks at his hair, smooth and black, the head of a leading man in a silent film. She can barely hear him breathe. He tells her to lie down. “Any problems since your exam?” he says. She shakes her head. “What about cramps or bleeding?” She shakes her head again. His hands slip beneath her gown. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb . . . “Any discomfort?” he says, pressing hard. His fingers are strong and blunt. “You’ll be moving to another room,” he says. He turns and opens the door. “A nurse will direct you.” Then he’s gone and the air fills with silence.
I can’t move, she thinks. I won’t. It took too much to get here. They can’t ask me to walk down the hall in this flimsy gown. I won’t do it. If I’m quiet, then the nurse may forget. Blessed art thou among women . . . Her arms and legs feel heavier than stone. She stares at the ceiling, the stained acoustic tile. I won’t complain if she forgets. I won’t make a sound.
AT THE Green Mill, before the last set begins, she sits with Brian and Cole and argues with them about whether or not a color can be heard.
“Most people can hear blue,” says Brian.
“But hearing a color isn’t the same as seeing it,” says Coleman.
She sips her drink. “I can hear red just the way I see it,” she says.
“Describe it,” says Coleman.
“When a saxophone squeals in just the right way, my eyes see a liquid like blood.”
“But will two people listening to that sound agree that it’s red?”
“Why not?” says Brian.
“If they do, it’s only a coincidence,” says Coleman. “And what about yellow or green – or pink or purple?”
“Musicians paint in broad strokes,” says Brian.
She smiles. “And mostly in primary colors.”
They laugh. Coleman stands and heads for the stage. Brian gets up and follows. The waitress clears the empty glasses.
She wants to continue the conversation. She wants to tell them that she hears black and white the best – that for some reason time turns around when the trio plays and everything in sight becomes silver and gray. Of course, Cole would say that that proves his point, that what she really hears is the absence of color. But he would be wrong.
All those gradations of black and white, she tells herself, can’t be the absence of anything. It’s not possible. She’s entirely convinced that all black-and-white scenes, whether photographs or old films, are deeper and more nuanced, one shade bleeding into the next. That’s why she chooses to work without color. Kodachrome, she knows, is blunt but ephemeral. She’s seen how images, even the most shocking, reveal in black-and-white a sudden elegance and dignity – whatever joy or sadness there is becomes timeless.
The music begins and the waitress comes around for last call. “You’re Jennifer, right?” says the waitress. “Cole’s told me all about you.”
SHE RISES from the table when the door opens. “Is someone playing a radio?” she says. The nurse shrugs and tells her to come along. Walking in measured steps, her gown falling open, she searches for the words that until now had flooded her mind. She takes a deep breath, readies herself to speak, but no sound rises from her lips. She follows the nurse into the hall, where all the surfaces are white, gray, and black. The dull drone of machinery is silver. She notices the nurse’s black hair and white uniform. Not like this, she thinks. I won’t have it fixed forever. She feels the impulse to pray. She opens her mouth. “In Tobermory,” she says, “the houses on the harbor are red, yellow, and blue.” The nurse stops. “I didn’t get that,” she says, checking the file. “Come along, Jennifer. It isn’t much farther.” She looks down. It pleases her to see that she isn’t barefoot, though where the slippers came from she can’t say. Her tongue feels swollen. More than anything, she wants a cup of water. In Tobermory, she thinks, the houses on the harbor are red, yellow, and blue.
SHE LEAVES the clinic without acknowledging a single face and rides the Brown Line back to her neighborhood.
On the train, she hears the nurse’s voice repeating the caution that someone should stay with her through the night. At first, worried about privacy, she’d resolved to go it alone, but after reading the grim pamphlets and signing the medical release, she made the necessary call, explaining that it’s only a safeguard, in case of hemorrhaging or some other complication. Then, this morning, before going with Cole to the station, she’d cleaned the bathroom, changed the sheets on both beds, and managed to step out for groceries. She wanted the apartment fresh and the refrigerator full.
Now, she emerges from the CTA station and walks slowly, her legs trembling, and turns just before the ballpark. She sees Brian sitting on the stoop. She feels a sudden relief when he stands and comes running down the street.
“You okay?” he says.
She nods.
“You’re shaking,” he says. “I should’ve been there. I should’ve picked you up.”
“No,” she says.
It was her choice. She’d asked him to wait at the apartment, ignoring his insistence about going with her, about taking her to and from the clinic. She didn’t want him to see the place, though her reasons were not altogether clear. She went round and round trying to explain, feeling the weight of his stubbornness, until finally she said, “Please don’t. It isn’t a memory I want you to have.”
He stopped pressing the point after that and mentioned it only in passing when she called to confirm the exact day and time.
“Before I turned the corner,” she says, “I was afraid you wouldn’t be here.”
“I couldn’t do that,” he says.
She leans on him as they go up the steps. “Is that your bag? In all the nights you’ve stayed, I’ve never seen you with anything but your bass.”
“Well,” he says, “I figure I’m staying more tha
n one night.”
She pulls the keys out of her purse and opens the door. Stepping inside, she picks up the faint scent of lavender soap. She pauses at the window. The gray light, the overcast sky, and the snow still falling feel calm and soothing.
“I’ll make some tea,” says Brian. He helps her out of her jacket, wraps her in a wool throw, and settles her on the sofa.
“Earl Grey would be lovely,” she says.
He goes into the kitchen, fills the kettle, and puts it on the stove. The burner clicks before the spark fires.
She hears his footfalls and opens her eyes. “I’m so glad to see you,” she says.
Brian nods, carrying mugs, cream, and sugar on a tray. “I’m glad you wanted me here,” he says. “But I need to ask you something.”
“Anything,” she says.
“What about your sister? Why isn’t she here instead of me?”
“I didn’t tell her.”
“Why not?”
“She’s Catholic.”
“Oh,” he says. He picks up his bag and takes it into the guest room. A minute later, he’s back and sitting on the sofa. “I still think it’s shit that he doesn’t know.”
“You have to promise you won’t tell him,” she says.
“I already promised.”
“And you never will?” she says.
“No. But it’s even deeper shit that he left for his damn audition and you’re like this – ”
“Like what?”
“Alone,” he says.
She turns her head. “But I’m not.”
“It’s too easy,” he says. “Cole always gets off easy.”
“Maybe this time,” she says.
“Most of the time, I’d say. Paying dues doesn’t hit with him. He’ll probably ace the audition and get the gig. Then he’ll come home and fall all over himself explaining why it is he has to go.”
“He pays for it,” she says.
“I don’t believe it.”
“He’s not easy on himself.”
“Yeah, I know. He sets the bar high.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
The kettle begins whistling, a soft whine that builds swiftly to a steady shriek.
“You know him better than I do,” says Brian.
“Maybe not,” she says.
He gets up and hurries into the kitchen and shuts off the burner. He pours the water into a teapot and leaves it to steep.
“All I know,” he says, “is that he plays like a son of a bitch, better than anyone in his league.”
“But he doesn’t believe it,” she says.
“He will,” says Brian.
“No,” she says. “That’s the thing I mean. He’ll never believe it. He’ll never believe he’s good.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m dead sure,” she says.
Brian sits on the edge of the sofa, looks at a magazine on the coffee table, and starts thumbing the pages. “Let’s not talk about Cole,” he says.
“All right.”
“The tea should be ready.”
“Stay,” she says. “Let it steep.”
He leans back, very close to her, and closes his eyes. “It’s quiet,” he says.
She listens to him breathe.
“Do you want me to put on some music?”
“No,” she says. She rests her head on his shoulder.
“Do you love him?” says Brian.
“Yes,” she says. “But he’ll never believe it.”
I REALLY must go, she thinks, as the orchard darkens, the sun falling away somewhere beyond the trees. She’d seen a boy and girl walking together, holding a basket of apples between them. They moved slowly as if they had nowhere to be, as if they’d been here forever.
She thinks of the rooms she won’t be going back to, the flickering lights and the dull drone of motors, always the furnace or the fridge, the constant humming that fills her mind with silver. She thinks of the keys she’ll carry for a time but then set aside, dropping them into a box with paperclips and loose change.
But now, standing in the orchard, she pictures the apartment: the wood floors, the tables and chairs, and the windows. She thinks of Brian in those rooms, the confusion of him living there – was it four days or five? – making breakfast and dinner, checking on her in the middle of the night, knocking on the bathroom door. “We were better than husband and wife,” she whispers, remembering the cold of those mornings, the dread of waking up, but then, like a rare gift, the sudden aroma of coffee and buttered toast.
SHE WALKS out of the orchard and into the parking lot, the sun setting, and finds the car with the door unlocked and the keys under the driver’s mat. She isn’t surprised that he left it, that he found another way out, but she wanted a clean break, something dramatic, a gesture that felt sharp and unmistakably final. Now the car keeps him with her, his tapes strewn across the backseat, the smell of his hands on the wheel.
She drives to a gas station and gets directions to 1-94. She tries to keep her mind occupied, reading road signs and license plates, but the effort proves useless.
She remembers being nervous when Coleman came home because Brian’s scent, his warmth, was still in the apartment.
Coleman took a short glass out of the cupboard and filled it with a handful of ice. Then he opened a bottle of vodka and poured a drink.
“Never again,” he said.
“Is Philly that bad?” she said.
“No. I mean the bus. Damn near killed me.”
“I told you to fly.”
They went to dinner, one of her favorite restaurants, and he bought a rose from the old woman who roamed from table to table. He rushed through dessert. He wanted to get home and go to bed. He wanted to have sex. When she refused, he thrashed the bed, tossing and turning like an angry child.
She woke the next morning – and for a month of mornings thereafter – and found the bed empty, found him in the kitchen playing his guitar, no smell of coffee or toast. He spoke rapidly about opportunities and doors opening. He talked about his career, his plans.
She went to work. She corrected papers and turned in her third-quarter grades. She tacked up new photographs in the kitchen, in the bedroom and bathroom, too.
“They’re empty,” said Coleman.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“Park benches, streets, alleyways – they’re all vacant. Even the trees are deserted.”
She argued for the simplicity of the pictures, the unbroken lines. “I’m tired of faces,” she said. “I see blank expressions all day. Is it my job to spark their enthusiasm? I’m tired of putting on a show.”
Coleman flipped through the mail.
“Nothing I do fills them. Nothing satisfies them. They scrape the bottom of every barrel and toss out the remains.”
“You need a break,” said Coleman. “You need to slow down.”
“Or we need to look again. Maybe they’re not empty at all. Maybe they’re mirrors, pieces of dark glass – ”
She sees the junction ahead: 1-94 West to Chicago. She brakes and puts on her blinker, though there’s nothing behind her but darkness. She turns on the radio and finds a station playing oldies. She sings along, tries to match the doo-wop harmonies. She doesn’t worry about singing off-key.
SHE KNOWS, passing the exit for Ann Arbor, that going back to the apartment is more than she can bear. She won’t watch him pack. She won’t ask for the details of his schedule or the day of his return. She’ll refuse to play the woman who’s satisfied to wait, as if waiting were her purpose, her duty.
He doesn’t know it yet, but today, in the orchard’s twilight, she let him go for the last time. I won’t follow him, she thinks. I’ll go to Evanston and stay with my sister. I’ll wait until he’s gone, then I’ll empty my closet and clean out the darkroom. I’ll pack only what belongs to me.
Like her predecessor at school, she’ll quit without notice. She’ll set off a string of sudden meetings filled with hand-w
ringing and condemnations. In the faculty lounge, eating a bagel before class, she’ll inspire a polite hush. A friend will observe in an offhand way, almost as a consolation, that contracts are made to be broken.
When the time seems right, she’ll call on her grandmother and take advantage of Tobermory, the old house, and the promise of absolute calm, a refuge without ghosts or obligations. From there, she’ll venture out and visit a place that’s new, somewhere she’s never been. I’m ready for mountains, she thinks. I’m tired of being a flatlander. She imagines the ground of Colorado rising into the sky. She’ll try Boulder. She loves the boldness of the name.
Driving west, she thinks about Chicago and the fact of leaving her hometown for good. Having settled on a course of action gives her a feeling of strength, but seeing Brian and telling him about her plans won’t be easy. He’ll be distant and very matter-of-fact. He’ll wish her luck, of course, and tell her to be careful, but in the sound of each thing he says, she’ll pick up notes of anger and disappointment.
Even so, she thinks, it may not be that complicated. We’ve been long out of touch. He may say he’s too busy.
She wanted him, in the time since they’d stopped speaking, to drop in unexpectedly, to walk up the stairs, as he’d done so often, with a bag of carryout food or a bottle of wine. Instead, he kept his distance. She managed to see him once – a Wednesday night at the Mill, a set with Kurt Elling, the songs spiraling upward like flames.
“How are you?” she said.
“Good. Cole out of town?”
“Of course,” she said.
Brian looked in the direction of the stage. “They keep him busy.”
She smiled.
“I never told you,” he said, “but when Cole came back from Philly, he said he’d still have time for the trio.”
“I’m sure he meant it.”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“Why don’t you come over sometime,” she said. “I’ll cook.”
“Sure,” he said.
She fiddles with the radio and sees from this distance that her invitation was selfish and cavalier. He couldn’t help but ignore her. Now, having made up her mind to go, she’ll leave a message – awkward after such long silence – and hope that he’ll return the call, though she wonders what she’ll say to him, trying to remember the comfort of his hands, his voice, trying to convince herself that between them nothing has changed.
Of Song and Water Page 20