It was Nina who had discovered Coffee Grounds, who had first brought me to listen to Real Book, although I strongly suspect that she preferred the chocolate-covered coffee beans they sold to the music. Nina had a much more discerning ear than I had, and she prized consistency. Real Book Jazz, for all its virtues, was far from consistent. Yet sometimes they played the most extraordinary music—if only for a few moments—leaving behind a feeling of pure joy. In that regard the experience wasn’t so much different from watching a journeyman ballplayer going yard in the late innings with the game on the line. It put a jump in your step and filled your heart with the sense that all things were possible.
That’s why Nina valued out-of-the-way joints like this.
That’s why I valued them as well.
God, I missed her.
Certainly, I had gone more than a few days without seeing or speaking to Nina in the past. Yet knowing she was out there and available had been reassuring to me; I always knew that I wasn’t alone. Now that we were on the outs, suddenly I understood the anguish behind the Cole Porter song Stacy was singing from the stage—“Love for Sale.”
It had been nearly two years since Nina and I met, and already I was having a difficult time remembering what my life had been like before she came along. There were things I had done prior to meeting her, events I had witnessed—Ella Fitzgerald at Northrup, Wynton Marsalis and Itzhak Perlman jamming on “Summertime” at Brilliant Corners, James Earl Jones playing Othello opposite Christopher Plummer’s Iago at the State Theater, the Minnesota Wild skating to the brink of the Stanley Cup Finals, the Twins winning their second World Series. Only here’s the thing—when I recalled these moments, and so many others, I nearly always saw Nina. She wasn’t there; she couldn’t possibly have been there. Most of these events occurred before I knew her, some when I was a still a kid. Yet somehow, in my memory, Nina is always at my side. Why was that?
I took a long pull of the mocha.
Real Book completely botched “Autumn Leaves”—that’s what happens when you don’t rehearse—did a decent job with “All of Me,” and just soared on “The Girl from Ipanema.” It was when Stacy let out that famous sigh that I decided I had had enough.
I dropped a twenty in the tip jar, bought a half-pound bag of chocolate-covered coffee beans, and went looking for Nina.
The storm the weathergeeks had been predicting all day had finally arrived, but it was coming in like a lamb, so I didn’t bother with an umbrella as I crossed the parking lot and entered Rickie’s. The sound of a jazz trio playing in the upstairs dining and performing area greeted me at the door, piano, bass, and percussion doing a splendid job covering the Johnny Mandel tune “Suicide Is Painless.” Half the tables in the downstairs lounge were occupied, and the customers seemed more animated than usual. I wondered briefly if the coming thunderstorm had anything to do with it. I found Nina Truhler behind the bar. Seeing her filled me with an almost adolescent glee that I instinctively worked to hide.
She and Jenness were both chatting with a customer, his back to me. For a moment I thought it was Daniel. I was relieved when I discovered it wasn’t. As I approached, Nina moved casually down the bar, stopping in front of a few unoccupied stools. I greeted her there.
“McKenzie, nice to see you,” she said. From the tone in her voice, she could have been welcoming any one of her regulars.
“Hi.”
I presented her with the chocolate-covered coffee beans.
Nina took the bag from my outstretched hand, opened it and sniffed. “French vanilla, my favorite,” she said without emotion, even as my own heart leapt. “You’re spoiling me.”
“That’s the plan.”
Jenness stayed with the customer but watched us. When she noticed me noticing her, she gave me a thumbs-up signal.
“What happened to your face?” Nina asked. “Did you get into a fight?”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay?”
“You should see the other guy,” I told her.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Yes, I’m okay. It looks worse than it is.”
“Good. That’s good. So . . .”
“Yes?”
“Did you get my phone message?” she asked.
“I did. I tried to call back. You weren’t answering.”
“When did you call?”
“About eight this morning.”
“McKenzie, you know the hours I keep. After I get Erica off to school I go back to bed.”
“I didn’t think. Why . . .?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you call?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just to see how you were.”
I nodded as if her answer actually told me something.
Nina set the coffee beans on the bar top. “What brings you out tonight?” she asked. “You know it’s going to rain.”
My plan on the drive over was to grovel. Grovel without shame, embarrassment, or pride. Only seeing her in front of me—The Nina I had come to know and love had no respect for groveling. I tried a different approach.
“I was thinking. . .”
“Yes?” she said.
“For the last couple of days all I’ve been thinking about is you, and us, and how much I messed up the other night, because . . .”
“Because?”
“Because I didn’t tell you what I wanted to tell you, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.”
Nina leaned across the bar. “What did you want to tell me?” she said.
I bent toward her, slipped my hand behind her head, and held it there as I kissed her mouth. The kiss wasn’t quick, but I broke it off before it could become something more.
“That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
I stepped back. I smiled at her. She smiled back, but it lacked the light-up-the-world brilliance that I had hoped for, that I was accustomed to. I had blown it.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I took another step backward. “I should go.”
“Hey,” Nina said. Then, “Hey,” again.
She rounded the bar and closed the distance between us. Her head listed forward, hesitated, then pushed forward again and kept going until her lips were pressed firmly against mine. She kissed me for a long time. The world changed with her kiss. Suddenly, I was an exhausted explorer discovering a new land. I liked it there. I wanted to live there.
When our lips parted, she smiled her usual confident smile and said, “I like men who know how to express their feelings.”
I hugged her tight and muttered her name a few times.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Jenness announced from behind the bar. We both turned toward her, and she immediately glanced up and down and around, looking anywhere but at us, pretending she wasn’t eavesdropping. It was then that the storm finally broke over St. Paul. Rain fell, intermittently at first, then in torrents. Lightning flashed, thunder roared.
“Would you like to stay for the storm?” she asked.
I nodded and grinned, a child accepting a special treat.
She guided me to an empty table and we both sat.
“I want to thank you for not slugging Daniel the other night. I know you wanted to.”
“Not in your place,” I said. “Never in your place.”
“I know you were angry.”
“I wasn’t angry at him. Well, yes, I was angry at him, but mostly I was angry at something else.”
“You were angry because I was dating him.”
“You have every right to date whomever you wish.”
“No, I don’t. After all the time we’ve been together—listen—the only reason I did it, the reason I had dinner with him the first time, was because he had asked when we were at the ball. The man dropped everything to help me out. How could I refuse?”
“What about the second time?”
“I did it to annoy you,” Nina said. “I saw you parked outside my house, McKenzie. I recognized your car. You were spying on me.
That was just plain psycho.”
“I know, but. . .”
“But what?”
“Why did you invite what’s-his-name into your house? Why didn’t you shake hands and say thanks at the door?”
“I told you. I saw you parked outside and I wanted to give you something to think about. If you had waited another five minutes, you would have seen me push him out the door.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” she said, her tone mocking.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Why did you do it?”
“I was concerned . . .”
“Concerned for my safety?”
“No, for my safety. There hasn’t been a moment since we met when I wasn’t aware that you could do better than me.”
Nina waved a playful finger at my face and smiled. “That was a good line,” she said. “I like it.”
“It also has the virtue of being true.”
“Ahh, McKenzie. It isn’t true. If you’d been involved with as many men as I have, you would know that.”
“How many men . . .?”
“Never mind.”
“I shouldn’t have been jealous,” I said.
“I shouldn’t have given you reason to be jealous.”
“I should have realized that you were trying to make me jealous.”
“We need to work on our communication skills.”
“Talk more.”
“Yes. For example . . .” Nina gently stroked my cheek with her fingertips. “Tell me about your face.”
“I had a run-in with a guy yesterday, no big deal.”
“I think it’s a big deal,” she said.
So I told her about it; told her about yesterday and today, told her everything. Except I didn’t tell her about my dream—maybe some other time. And I didn’t tell her about Benny—maybe never.
“You take too many chances,” Nina said. “This preoccupation with doing favors for others. Did you ever think of just working with a charity? The American Red Cross is always looking for volunteers.”
“You don’t think they take chances?”
“Not like you. Besides, they’re actually concerned with helping people.”
“I’m not?”
“I think you spend most of your life trying not to be bored.”
“You think I’m an excitement junkie?”
“I think you need something to hold your interest.”
“You hold my interest.”
“You need more.”
“All I need is love.”
“Love?”
“I love you.”
“Will you jump-start my car?” Nina said.
“What?”
“Will you mow my lawn, will you clean my gutters, will you give me sex?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I love you—the phrase. Sometimes it’s a request. Sometimes it’s an excuse. I love you, but I have to leave now. I love you, but I have to go to work, catch a plane, play golf. It asks questions. ‘We’re all right, aren’t we?’ ‘You love me, too, don’t you?’ It means we’ll go shopping, we’ll go to the party, we’ll visit your mother, we’ll get a cat. It rarely means, ‘I have an intense affectionate concern for you.’ ”
I grasped her hands. Holding them in mine was like mending a break in a power line—it allowed electricity to surge through me.
“I have an intense affectionate concern for you,” I said.
“I have an intense affectionate concern for you, too,” she said.
She leaned in close and we kissed.
“I suppose this is all my fault,” she said when we finished. “I won’t marry you because of my previous experience with the institution. You won’t live with me because it’s unfair to my daughter. So we date.”
“Girlfriend and boyfriend.”
“But since we have no formal commitment, theoretically we’re allowed to see other people, and the freedom scares us. Isn’t that why you were frightened about Daniel?”
“I wasn’t frightened.”
“No?”
“I was jealous.”
“Big distinction.”
“Hmmph.”
“Hmmph, what?”
“I’ve been thinking lately that when it comes to relationships, we never actually leave high school.”
“We’re not kids anymore, McKenzie. We’re mature adults.”
“Sometimes I forget.”
“In high school, it’s impossible to hold our partners to their promises. There’s just too much future in front of us and it’s too uncertain. Adults—we’re expected to keep our vows.”
“What vows are those?”
“To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, forsaking all others until you tell me otherwise. That vow.”
“Or until you tell me otherwise,” I said.
Nina extended her hand.
“Promise?” she said.
“I do.”
We shook hands and held hands and spent several moments staring at each other.
“If we were in high school, I’d want to sit at your table,” I said.
“I’d save you a place.”
Jenness appeared. She set a Bailey’s on the rocks in front of Nina and a Summit Ale in front of me.
“So,” she said. “Are you guys good again?”
“Yes,” said Nina.
That single word filled me with relief and joy that I simply don’t have the words to express.
“Then I win,” said Jenness.
“Win what?” I asked.
“The pool. We were all betting on how long it would take you guys to get back together.”
“Really? How much?” I asked.
“Fifty-five dollars.”
“A tidy sum.”
“Don’t you have work to do?” Nina asked.
“Ah, love,” Jenness said, and returned to the bar.
“Fifty-five bucks,” Nina said. “If I had known there was a pool. . .”
“This has all been so silly,” I said.
“You’re the one who was parked outside my house.”
“You’re the one who went out with some loser.”
“You’re the one who stood me up for an important date.”
“I told you, I was in jail.”
“I told you, it’s always something.”
“Arrrrggggggg!”
My cell phone played the opening notes to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” I untangled my fingers from Nina’s—it took much longer than was necessary—and reached into my jacket pocket. I read the name on the caller ID and glanced up at Nina.
“I need to take this.”
She nodded.
“This is McKenzie,” I said into the mouthpiece.
Nina leaned forward to listen.
“Yes, Debbie. Are you all right? You sound . . . When . . .? Did you call the police? Yes, yes, right now . . . You should . . . Okay . . . Okay, yes, I’m coming . . .”
The tone of my voice told Nina that it was trouble. She rested a reassuring hand on my wrist.
“Tell me where you are . . . Where is that?”
I pulled a pen from my pocket. Nina slid a napkin in front of me. I nodded my thanks to her and started writing.
“Tell me again . . . Yes, I have it. I’m coming, Debbie. I’m coming right now.”
I deactivated the cell and turned my attention to Nina. “I need to go.”
“McKenzie . . .” She let my name hang there. Then, “Another damsel in distress?”
“ ’Fraid so.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
I stood and moved toward the front door.
“McKenzie.”
I looked back.
“Call me when you can. And for God’s sake, be careful.”
Nina couldn’t have said anything more perfect.
I blew her a kiss and stepped out into the rain.
13
I took Selby Avenue to Dale Street to 1-94 to Highway 280 to 1-35W to Highway 10 to Anoka County Road 47, driving at speeds that invited disaster. A hard, slanting, remorseless rain, driven on by a steady wind, continued to fall from the northwest, and I drove straight into it. Water cascaded in sheets down the windshield, the wipers barely keeping up. Often I was forced to reduce my speed to as little as 20 mph. Light shimmered on my windows; the red taillights of the vehicles in front of me softened to pink smudges, and oncoming traffic seemed like a mirage. Gutters were clogged. Storm sewers backed up and overflowed, creating virtual ponds on the streets. All of it seemed designed to slow me down.
It took a long time before I could find Debbie Miller’s apartment building in Coon Rapids—I passed it twice—and the delay tied painful knots in my stomach. Finally, I turned into the parking lot, splashing water that had pooled at a sewer grate. I found an empty spot at the end of a long line of cars and stopped. It was very dark beyond the ragged blur of light coming from the building’s foyer. There were no people anywhere, no dogs—why would there be? I made a run for it, the heavy rain making noisy little thuds on my shoulders and bare head. I attempted to vault a puddle and failed. Water drowned my shoes and soaked the bottoms of my jeans. I reached the doorway and entered the foyer. There was no security system, no locked doors to get past. I checked the mailboxes for Debbie’s apartment number, found it, and bounded up the stairs to the second floor. Debbie Miller’s apartment was at the end of the corridor. The door was open.
I pulled my Beretta from its holster and thumbed off the safety.
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