by C. S. Lakin
Barry stood next to her and nodded, as if he could read her thoughts. “That last tune kicked, didn’t it?”
She threw back her head and laughed. “And your fingers.” She turned and he was inches from her face, towering above her, his body muscled and tight, her body buzzing louder. Bees were swarming in her head, thrumming around her ears. She smelled his sweet honey sweat mingling with the acrid odors of the alley. Stepping over some line, she slid her hand over his. “I’ve never seen your fingers move that fast over the frets . . .”
“They know some moves, girl. You haven’t seen them all . . . yet.” His chuckle, warm and inviting, rumbled into her chest. Every nerve stood alert. Behind them, the bustle of closing time bumped against her, pushing her further into the slipstream. Dishes clattering, chairs pushed around, doors opening and closing—the night was winding down inside the club, but she felt something gearing up, readying.
Barry turned his hand over and gently clasped hers. They had been playing together here, a few nights a week, always the music touching, overlapping, as they shared smiles and drinks. She didn’t know a thing about him, where he lived, if he had a wife or lover, where he came from. Did it matter?
An ancient familiar stirring came unbidden from some hidden place, startling her. She wanted to say I’m married, I’m pregnant, I belong to Jake, but even as she thought those words they skittered and sank like stones under the surface. She thought back to that night Jake had come home, with Levi only a month old nestled against her. That last time they had made love, so many eons ago she could barely remember his touch, the way his body felt against her skin, his lips on hers. A twinge of awe struck her, thinking how she had gotten pregnant again, so soon, as if her body stood always ready, always open, longing for a seed to implant her, this constant fertility, this rich femaleness she embodied. A man could just look longingly in her direction and she’d ovulate.
She hadn’t dared tell Jake—and didn’t care. She knew what his reaction would be, the hurtful words that he’d throw at her like sharp splinters, hoping to burrow deep into her flesh, cause her to fester, in hopes she’d remove the offending appendage. He would find out at some point, but they were two dancers on either sides of a stage, never touching, never within close orbit. And Jake never looked at her anymore. Buried in his job, in their children from the moment he walked through the door, busied himself around the house until he fell fast asleep on the couch or in Reuben’s bed, sidled up to his son, still in all his clothes. By the time her pregnancy would refuse to hide under wraps, it would be too late for Jake’s arguments or demands.
This was her body, her decision. Even now, standing next to Barry, letting his fingers play with hers in promise, she felt her baby hard in her womb, now perhaps as small as a walnut. She couldn’t imagine feeling any more filled—with life, with joy, with the thrill of music and poetry and song. Every pore in her body tingled and vibrated in harmony with all life, with the throbbing of existence, the nuclear explosion of stars, the need to expend passionate energy. She had more songs to sing, more words to voice. Too much passion to be contained in this bag of flesh; it wanted out. “Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? And can I sail through the changing ocean tides, can I handle the seasons of my life? Oh, oh, I don't know . . .”
She looked back at Barry, at his fingers that had slid away from her hand and moved up her arm, lighting over her skin, setting every pore on fire and coming to rest at her throat. His chuckle turned into a deep-seated moan, a moan that triggered her need in such intensity she couldn’t hold back. She leaned into him and found his mouth and all the elements of the night and the place where she stood and the potent power of the man pouring into her sent her soaring beyond the orbit of the planet, far out into the reaches of space, far beyond where anyone could summon her back. The thrill of his newness, his unpredictable way of touching, the strange taste of his mouth and the surprising way his lips moved made her life way back on planet earth fade in dim memory. A Stephen Stills song started playing in her head. “If you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with, love the one you’re with.”
In silence, he took her hand, led her through the half-lit club, past someone wiping tables, past another sweeping, another shuffling through papers behind a desk, eyes glancing momentarily, then away. She saw these things as if looking a long distance through a telescope as he took her upstairs to the small room where they often sat and smoked a joint or snorted a line or two before the gig. But now the room was empty and dark. She thought how soon someone would lock up and lock them in; thought of her car parked outside under a lone streetlight, sitting there wondering where she was; thought of a man and three small boys in their beds, all but one sleeping.
And as Barry lowered her down onto the upholstered coffee-stained ratty armchair and reached his beautiful dark hands with those long talented fingers under her blouse, she loosed those thoughts to fly out into the blackness and silence of space, until they grew small and vanished from sight, mired in the expanse of stars.
1977
Cold as Ice
You’re as cold as ice
You’re willing to sacrifice our love
You never take advice
Someday you’ll pay the price
I know
I’ve seen it before
It happens all the time
You’re closing the door
You leave the world behind
You’re digging for gold
Yet throwing away
A fortune in feelings
But someday you’ll pay
You’re as cold as ice
You’re willing to sacrifice our love
You want Paradise
But someday you’ll pay the price
I know
—Foreigner
Jake kept his voice down, although there was no way Leah could hear him through the door, even with it propped open just enough to fit the phone cord through, so he could sit on the front stoop of the apartment and talk to his mother. Behind him, the TV blared, actors laughing on The Love Boat. He snorted. Like there really was such a thing. He had left Leah resting in bed. The drugs she’d been using had caused an onset of premature labor. With over a month still to go, the doctor wanted her lying supine as much as possible, with her feet elevated, under careful supervision. He heard Doreen’s stern voice admonishing Simon, muffled through the stucco and the haze of his own mind, a mind always befuddled.
He now knew what people meant when they said they were at the end of their rope. He’d run out of rope months ago, when he realized she was pregnant yet again. Like in those cartoons with Wile E. Coyote, the poor fool grabbing frantically at the air with his legs pedaling futilely, hundreds of feet above hard ground, watching the rope slip free below him and Road Runner bleeping his tongue in mockery at the idiot about to splat on the asphalt road. Who was the idiot now?
He didn’t believe her adamant insistence that this baby was his. He’d seen her at the club, the night back in May when he couldn’t take it anymore, found the name and address on one of her matchbook covers deep in her purse, had to see for himself, saw more than he bargained for. It was one thing to slip in to the shock of her alone onstage, belting out a song and strumming her guitar. She never even played for him, said her songs were personal. And there she was, raw, emotional, lost in her music before a packed room of faceless smokers and drinkers, strangers riveted under her enchantment. It was another thing altogether to stand back in the shadows, watch her march backstage to the embrace of long black curtains and a tall black man whose ready arms and lips were nothing unfamiliar to Jake’s wife.
My wife, he had wanted to shout out. But, coward that he was, he ordered his feet to move, and as he did so, left behind a torn piece of his heart bleeding on the floor, something for Leah to trip over, should she even notice. Well, it would be apparent in a few weeks when the baby was born, by its features and the color of
skin. Then again, that man may have only been one of many. For that matter, was Levi or Simon even his? The question flattened him, squashed him like a bug underfoot. That’s how he felt—like a cockroach, scum around the edge of a bathtub, mold in the corners of a cobwebbed room. Dirt under her fingernails.
The doctor never did pry it out of her but he suspected cocaine. Marijuana. Certainly alcohol and tobacco. Those last two Jake confirmed. The first two he prayed not. Was Leah insane? How could she babble on about the joys of motherhood, the thrill of pregnancy, then subject her unborn child to a damaging, possibly deadly, exposure to chemicals? It made no sense, no matter how hard Jake tried to wrap his brain around it. Levi’s health problems should have shaken her awake, and Jake thought they had, the way she was so filled with remorse after his birth, seeing him that tiny, struggling so hard to breathe. But those matters were clearly forgotten in the wake of her rush into the night.
At least this bed confinement kept her in his purview, however much her focus and thoughts wandered elsewhere, mostly deep in her notebook, penning more poetry, the edges of the outer world darkening to where the only small light shone a few inches before her eyes. It broke his heart to watch Reuben run into the bedroom after his morning at kindergarten, anxious to show her the simple presents he made for her, only to have her respond listless and unenthused, not even caring the way she dashed him to the rocks, his smile drooping from the deflation of his spirit. Jake would do damage control, boost Reuben with encouragement and snacks, and when Doreen arrived to watch the other two boys would take him for walks now that summer had arrived. They’d circle the neighborhood and play at the park, and Reuben would chatter to him while climbing the jungle gym, while Jake spun him on the metal carousel, faster and faster, Jake wishing he could spin away the anger and hurt and confusion and frustration and bitterness, fling them far away where they would escape terminal velocity and travel to the outer reaches of the galaxy, impotent in the vacuum of space.
He couldn’t afford to keep Doreen coming each day. And his leave from work would end on Friday. He was desperate, and his mother knew it. At least she didn’t seem to care what Leah thought about her coming out to help—and frankly, neither did he. His sons were his main concern, and having his mother there took care of more than one problem. She would finally stop needling him about getting to spend time with her grandchildren. His father had learned how to manage with impaired sight, and Ethan pretty much ran the business anyway.
“Are you going to tell her?” his mother asked. “That I’m coming out?”
Jake balanced the phone on his legs as he repositioned himself on the hard concrete step. “No. Why should I?’
Her sigh travelled through the phone line, sounding heavy and thick in his ear. “I’ll call you in the morning, once I’ve booked with the travel agent and have my flight information. Will you be able to pick me up at the airport?”
“That’s no problem. I can arrange for Doreen to be here.”
“She sounds like a capable nurse. I’m glad you hired her and didn’t try to juggle all this yourself.”
A sudden need to confess came over him, strangling him with its noose of judgment and self-recrimination. He desperately needed to talk, needed someone he could pour out his heart to, confide in, expose his failures and mistakes and stupidity, lay them all out on the table, like a spread of cards, so that he could fold this hand and get dealt another. Reshuffle the deck, take the jokers out. But he knew that wasn’t how it worked. You played the cards you were dealt—isn’t that how the saying went?
He got as far as saying “Mom.” Then the dam of water burst through that tiny pinprick hole he had made with the one word and engulfed him in a violent torrent that swept away his intentions. He covered the receiver with his hand but his sobs were so loud he knew she could hear them. She’d hear them anyway, without phone lines, regardless of the distance.
“Jake, don’t worry. All this will sort out when I get there. And then we’ll talk. I’ve been thinking the best thing for you and the boys is for you to move back here, to Colorado.”
Jake grunted. “She’d never agree—”
“Leave that to me. And to her doctor. You said she hated LA, wanted to move. Well, what better place than the Rockies and fresh air, and beautiful scenery? The change would do her good—all of you. And you know how it is out here. Not that easy to find a nightclub, or . . . other bad things to get into.”
Jake shut tight his eyes, tried to imagine living near his father, near Ethan, having dinner at their table, the one place he’d run as far away from as he could without wading into the ocean. No way would he move back there, even though his mother’s argument made some sense. He just couldn’t though. He knew it would cost him more than he could afford. He’d wither and die. He’d already mostly given up his dreams. If he went back, that’d be the nail in the coffin. Just dig a deep hole in the hard rich Colorado dirt, bury his dreams, cover them up and stomp down on top. At least here he could keep a little spark going, blow on it, keep fanning it. He could figure out a way to finish that degree, save money, open a woodshop—here it was still within reach. In Colorado, he would die alongside his dream.
Make that a double-wide coffin, stuff both him and his dreams in it, may as well.
He blew out a shaky breath, willed his hands to stop trembling. “We’ll . . . talk about all that when you get here. How long can you stay?”
“As long as it takes, Jake. For the birth, for Leah’s recovery.” A sound like a snort. Leah’s recovery. Yeah, that might take a while, like maybe never. “I’ll stay until things have settled and you’re ready to take the next step. It’ll be good to have you back home, Jake. Your brother’s been talking about marriage, to this local gal, and she’s atrocious and wild. He doesn’t listen to me. Maybe once he sees you, with all these kids and dealing with what you’re dealing with, well, it might give him second thoughts. Maybe he won’t rush into marriage. He’s only known her a few months and . . . well, he should learn from your mistakes is what I’m trying to say.”
Normally Jake would have argued back, defended himself. It was obvious she’d been meaning to say such things for years now, so he let her. Why not? He’d gotten into this mess by not listening. He hadn’t listened to either his mother’s warnings or the warnings his own mind had spewed out. Leah had roped and tied him the moment he stepped off that bus. He always blamed her, but it was his fault he let her hold such sway over him. Just like his mother. He didn’t know how to hold his own alongside powerful, confident women who told him what was best for him and the way he should go. What a boy needed was a strong, loving father to guide him, set his feet headed in the right direction. And Isaac Abrams never cared to take on that job. Couldn’t be bothered with someone as insignificant and worthless as Jake.
The pain of that reminder cut him afresh, even though he was about to turn thirty. It made him more determined than ever to be a different father to his children, one who showed them love and respect and courtesy. The image of his brooding, frowning father filled his mind as he listened to his mother say good-bye and he heard the click of the line disengaging. Jake set the phone down, determined never to allow his father to get too close to his own boys. Moving to Colorado would expose them to untold emotional damage. Didn’t they have enough as it was, with Leah?
It would no doubt turn into a knock-down and drag-out fight, but he’d have to hold his own against his mother’s wishes and tell her he would not move his family out to Colorado. But he’d put off telling her as long as possible. For now, he needed her on his side and helping keep his family together. If it meant stooping to giving her empty promises and pretending, then that’s what he’d do. It was a matter of survival at this point. He’d worry about the fallout later.
Leah stopped pushing the stroller along the clackety wooden planks of the boardwalk and stared out at the water. She sensed Jake and his mother walking behind her, heard her sons squawking like seagulls, although there was a gul
f, a wide gulf, slow-moving water separating them, separating her from everyone around her. She was an island. Even though the Santa Monica Pier regaled the hundreds of beachgoers with the aroma of fish and chips and bright calliope music coming from the carousel, it was the ocean’s restless murmur, disappointed and haunting, that called her attention. She had noticed a dog earlier, sitting at the water’s edge, staring at a seal that bobbed in the waves, its head fixed in fascination upon the dog, only yards separating them. Worlds that overlapped on a thin interface of sand, neither able to speak nor comprehend the other’s language, both similar size, slick fur, drawn to water. Worlds apart.
That’s how Leah felt, being so close to the ocean, close enough to touch, to step into, yet foreign enough for the sea to dispel and reject her. How she longed to melt, merge, blend, saturate, disintegrate in order to integrate. She was mostly water, wasn’t she? What was this skin, this barrier that allowed her to touch water but not be it?