The Sound of Light

by Claire Wallis

  “Why, yes, dear. That would be quite nice.” Nice. Like all the parts of Adam that came from her and not from his animal-hating mother.

  “Come on, Gram. Let’s get rolling.” Adam stands up and walks around to the back of Ms. Sinclair’s wheelchair. As he releases her brake, he nods at me and quietly adds, “How ’bout that. I never would’ve pictured my dad as a canary type. Vulture, yes. But canary…”

  I can’t stop myself from smiling.

  THE FOLLOWING TWO days fly by uneventfully. Ms. Sinclair enjoys a few more fleeting moments of semi-lucidity, but nothing like the canary conversation. Nothing that gives Adam a reason to hope for more. By the time the end of Saturday’s shift arrives, I’m in need of another housecleaning.

  Crackerjack Townhouse is playing at a bar in South Philly tonight, and Adam has enthusiastically agreed to come swoon, even though I warned him of the pending inquisition from Jarrod. When he said, “Bring it on,” I told him he has no idea what he’s in for. The truth is, though, I don’t think he has much to worry about. I think Jarrod is well-enough freaked out about me seeing someone that he won’t want to scare the poor guy away.

  Just before I leave work to head home, Adam tells me he’ll pick me up at my place at 7:15 so I don’t have to take my bass on the bus. I’ve lugged the StingRay on and off of a bus a million times before, but it doesn’t stop me from accepting his offer without a second thought. I already can’t wait to see him again, even when he’s still standing right in front of me.

  On the bus ride home, I think about tonight and how Jarrod and Adam will be together, with me as their common thread. I’m both excited and, admittedly, a little nervous.

  The bus drops me at my stop and passes with a belch of exhaust as I walk the last block to my building. In its wake, a black car races past me, one with dark, shaded windows. It’s the same car I’ve seen twice before; I’m sure of it now. But why is it here? Is it possible that someone’s watching me? A sinking feeling quickens my pulse when a few possible reasons why someone would be following me flicker through my mind. I climb the stairs of my apartment building and immediately head inside.

  AS WE’RE SETTING up the stage in South Philly a few hours later, my mind is reeling with more questions about the car. I don’t owe the man on Latham Street anything, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think I do. Nor does it mean he didn’t sell me out. Maybe one of his “associates” is in that car. Or maybe the cops are watching me, hoping to catch me with whatever it is he told them I have. I won’t know why the car is following me, of course, unless I know who’s driving it.

  Just before we start the sound check, my thoughts turn to what I should do about it. Knocking on the car window and asking the driver what they want is definitely a bad idea, no matter who’s behind the wheel. If I ignore the car and make sure I don’t give the driver any new reasons to stick around, maybe they’ll eventually give up. It’s a big maybe, for sure, so the thought doesn’t offer me much comfort.

  The whole thing ties my insides into a thick, contorted knot. Too much is at stake. Too much could be lost.

  As the bar doors open and Jarrod, Marquis, Bryson, and the rest of us head backstage to wait for showtime to arrive, I shut down my worry as much as I can. I close it out and prepare to let the notes scrub my mind and my soul clean once again.

  Despite all of my uncertainty about the car, the gig is downright amazing. The music flows out of my fingers like a rousing symphony, clean and warm and luscious. There are women, so many women, crowded against the front of the stage. All of them watching Jarrod’s every move, but feeling my every note. Feeling the echo of the song in their chest. It makes me happy to see them happy. Just like always. But better. Way better. Because I know my lone swooner is out there somewhere, feeling the very same thing.

  A few minutes after we finish the first set and head to the back for a break, Adam comes in to see us. He says hello and briefly shakes hands with Stevie and the rest of the guys as he passes them on his way to where Jarrod and I are standing. By the time he gets to us, a lump of excitement has clogged my throat. Adam extends a hand, and Jarrod takes it firmly into his own. It’s a solid handshake, from one man to another. Full of respect and acceptance. Even though I’m not the one touching Adam’s skin, “Soul to Squeeze” is there, low and resonating and wonderful. The handshake makes me giddy.

  “Good to see you again, man.” Jarrod is the first to break the silence, just as their hands release. “Thanks for coming.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.” Adam steps over to me, puts a hand on the small of my back, and bends down to kiss me on the temple. It’s simple and electric. A nice-boy kiss, full of promise. “You guys sure know how to put on one hell of a show.”

  I look up to find Adam’s gray eyes connected directly to mine.

  “That’s because Kace is one hell of a bassist,” Jarrod says, breaking Adam’s stare with his words. Jarrod’s wearing a half-cocked smile, one that tells me he took note of Adam’s kiss and he’s trying to talk me up in front of my swooner.

  “And Jarrod is one hell of an ass shaker,” I add, talking him up in return. Mostly to show him how ridiculous it sounds. But also because the whole idea of someone talking me up makes me a little uncomfortable.

  “Exceptional bass playing and ass shaking aside, you guys really do sound great. K’acy tells me you’ve been playing together for like six years. How’d you two meet?” The question is aimed at Jarrod, not me, and it’s clear from Jarrod’s expression he did not expect to be on the receiving end of the inquisition. He thought he’d be the one asking all the questions.

  I wonder how much of the story he’ll tell.

  “We met at a bus stop. I was high out of my fucking mind, nearly ready to claw my own eyes out, and some stranger named K’acy sat down next to me and fixed everything.” His face is relaxed, full of peace and gratitude. We’ve talked about that night before, lots of times, but he’s never put it quite like that. He’s never made me feel like I was his savior. Until now.

  I’m not quite sure what to say. The emotion wells up inside of me. I swallow hard.

  Adam is silent at my side, knowing he’s just gotten way more than he bargained for. It takes me a second to come up with the right words.

  “All I did was remind you that you’re in charge of your own future.” I shrug and shake my head. “The rest was Crackerjack Townhouse’s doing, not mine.” I hear Adam’s exhalation.

  “Whatevs, Kace. Fine. Don’t take credit for my current state of epic ass shaking then. But it’s the truth.” He switches his attention to Adam, turning the tables as he goes. “And how about you? I hear your grandmother’s a patient at Pine Manor. How’d you manage to hook up with one of her nurses?”

  “For the millionth time, I’m not a nurse, Jar. I’m an aide.”

  “Oh yeah. Right. An aide. So, how’d you hook up with her aide then?”

  “I guess I got lucky,” Adam answers. “She was coming to give Gram her medicine, and we literally ran into each other in the hallway.”

  I don’t think Jarrod knows I’m not licensed to medicate patients, so thankfully, my eavesdropping will remain a secret.

  “Well, not to give too much away about the girl, but…” I have the sudden feeling my best friend is about to throw me to the wolves, “…unless she’s lying to me, I know K’acy better than anyone else ever has, and I gotta say, she seems to be a little more relaxed since you started hanging out with her. She’s taking it a little easier on the rest of us.” Jarrod moves his hand to indicate the other guys in the room.

  It never dawned on me until now, but he’s right. I haven’t been overly involved in band stuff since Adam showed up. I haven’t been texting Jarrod twenty times a day, asking for extra rehearsals and writing sessions. It makes me wonder how Jarrod really feels about it. He hasn’t said a word, until tonight. I hope he doesn’t think I stopped caring.

  “You do know I’m standing right here?” I say with a lift of my brow, trying
to keep things from getting too serious.

  “I’m just trying to let Adam know that your relationship—or whatever it is—has been beneficial to all of us. I wouldn’t want him to think we disapprove of it or something.”

  “All very good to know,” Adam chimes in with enough lilt in his voice to sink a ship. “I’ll do my best to keep her off your back.”

  I turn to Adam just as the stage manager comes in to tell us it’s time to head out for the final set. “How noble of you,” I declare.

  “No problem.” Adam is smiling from ear to ear.

  “In the meantime, we’ve got some funk to play,” Jarrod says. “Come on, Kace. Kiss The Mister adieu, and I’ll see you out there.” He reaches over to shake Adam’s hand again, and I can see the mischief on both of their faces. They’ve just had a male bonding moment. Cute.

  Jarrod walks away, and I issue an unnecessary apology to Adam, telling him I’m sorry for all the foolishness. He tells me he loved every second. I kiss him on the mouth and walk out onto the stage.

  WHEN THE SHOW ends and we start the teardown, Adam watches us from across the room. I guess he doesn’t want another rebuke from a sound guy, so this time he keeps his distance.

  Despite the emaciated woman with a pixie cut who can’t take her eyes off of him, Jarrod is talking to me as we pack up. He glances at her from time to time, silently telling her to hang tight. “So, you going home with The Mister tonight?” he asks. “I see he’s still here.”

  “Yeah, I guess. He’ll probably offer me a ride.”

  “A ride on his love stick?”

  What? “Oh my God, Jar. You’re so weird.”

  “What?” He lifts his palms and shoulders to the sky. I shake my head at him and roll my eyes. “Don’t tell me you guys haven’t done it yet…”

  “That would be none of your business.”

  He narrows his eyes at me. “You haven’t, have you?”

  “Like I said, none of your business.”

  Jarrod tosses his arm around my shoulders and puts his mouth against my ear. “Good for you,” he says in a near whisper. There’s no sarcasm in his voice. Two seconds later, his arm drops off my shoulder and he offers me another double fist-bump. He turns to wink at me just before he jumps off the stage, heading toward the Pixie Princess and her promise of easy, temporary “love.”

  For some reason, as I turn away from Jarrod and the Princess to put the StingRay into its bag, my momma pops into my head. She never taught me a lick about sex. In fact, she bailed on us just a few months before my big sister was christened into womanhood in sixth-grade gym class. Charlie thought she was dying. Mrs. Krick had to take her into the locker room and explain the situation.

  The gym teacher had to tell my sister how to be a woman because her own momma decided she’d rather be somewhere else. The controlled descent of Charlie’s self-esteem spooled out about a mile of rope that day. And I don’t think it’s stopped unraveling since.

  Lucky for me, I had a big sister to teach me how to be a woman. The day Mrs. Krick told Charlie about “her friend” was the very same day Charlie shared the information with me. Probably a bit much for a nine-year-old, but useful nonetheless. Eventually, I heard about everything from Charlie. She showed me how to kiss a boy three years before one even took interest in me. I learned about sex by listening to my own sister recall, in great detail, her encounter with Treyvon Rail under the football bleachers. She showed me how to buy a bra and how to deal with my period when the time came for both. Charlie said she didn’t want me to be as lost as her. She said she was watching out for me.

  But then I grew up, and I started thinking maybe I should’ve been watching out for her instead.

  Thinking about all of this makes me wonder who taught Adam about sex. He didn’t have a big brother, and I can’t imagine his animal-hating mother sitting him down with a book or something. He was too young for it to have been his grandmother. Maybe it was his gym teacher or a camp counselor or, God forbid, one of his nannies. It certainly couldn’t have been his giant dickhead of a father. Giant dickheads don’t care enough to teach their sons about stuff like love and sex.

  Whoever it was, I hope they did it justice.

  CHAPTER 15

  Mary DiPetro—Room number 107

  I spent most of my life on the telephone, talking to friends or neighbors or relatives, just to avoid feeling alone. And when I couldn’t reach someone I knew, I’d call someone I didn’t. I spent a collection of long hours over my lifetime talking to assorted catalog representatives, pretending to be interested in placing an order and asking question after question about their products. It started with Sears and Roebuck in 1949, the year I turned thirty and Donald was forced to take his sales team on the road for days at a time. I was alone a lot, for many years. Yes, I had the children, but it wasn’t the same as having another adult to talk to. Plus, they were always at school or out playing in the woods. The three of them could disappear for hours at a time, only to return at the clang of the dinner bell. Donald used our only car for work, and so I was stuck. It was just me. And the telephone.

  The Lana Lobell dress catalog was my favorite, and then came J.C. Penney and Radio Shack. I would spend hours looking at the pages, deriving a list of questions about a particular product and then telephoning to ask them all my questions. I’d end the call, sometimes an hour later, with a promise to place my order in the mail the following day. I never placed the orders, though; I just called a different catalog and asked another long string of pointless questions.

  Then Dottie moved into the cottage down the lane, and she was as lonely as I was. Her husband, Jim, was a long-haul trucker, and he was gone almost as much as Donald. We’d talk on the phone every day, sometimes three or four times. And we’d get together for coffee and cards a few afternoons a week. But in between our conversations and visits, I was even more desperate for company than before. It was like I would have a long drink of water, only to be followed by hours upon hours of drought.

  In many ways, Dottie’s friendship made the lonely times all the more lonely. When she moved away in 1973, my children were long gone, out of the house and off living lives of their own. I had no one left to talk to except for a few church friends, my sister in New York, and the catalog call center operators. Donald spent weeks at a time away from home, driving cross-country to sell industrial steel. It was just me again. And the telephone.

  I watched the years roll by courtesy of the catalogs whose pages I turned over and over again. Lillian Vernon, Plow & Hearth, Macy’s, Lands’ End, Toys “R” Us. I studied them all, watching house and toy and fashion trends come and go. I watched them until I stopped being lonely.

  I’ll never forget the day it happened. March 15, 2004. I was an eighty-six-year-old widow with no one to talk to. My kids and grandkids were too busy for much more than a weekly phone call, and all my church friends—and my sister—had long since passed. Tommy, my eldest and most practical son, decided it was time for me to move out of my house. He said I couldn’t take care of myself anymore. He said he was scared I would hurt myself worse than I did the day I fell off the ladder changing the battery in the kitchen clock. I didn’t fight him because, truth be told, I was tired of taking care of that house. And I was tired of being alone.

  But once I moved into Pine Manor, things were different. There was always someone to talk to. I could have my pick. Sometimes the conversation might not go as planned because someone’s mind would slip, but by and large, I could talk all day if I wanted. I was never lonely there. I never ate another meal by myself, and I never again had to call a catalog representative just to hear a voice. They were the sweetest ten years of my life. I made many good friends at Pine Manor, both men and women. It turns out I wasn’t the only one that spent far too many years with no one to talk to but telemarketers and the Meals on Wheels driver.

  A place like Pine Manor is proof that loneliness is a soul-smashing thing. After so many years, it wears you down, and some peop
le never get over it. They showed up there and didn’t know how not to be lonely anymore, so they stayed in their rooms and refused to make friends and denied themselves the chance to feel again. Those were the people I was drawn to the most. Those were the people I wrapped in my folds. I talked with them until they talked back. I listened to the story of their life and told them all about mine. We talked about what we’d seen of the world. Wars, births, sorrow, fortune, deaths, happiness, loss. At one time or another, each of us had felt both the heart-lifting joy of the world’s goodness and the stinging touch of its bitter evils. But there, in Pine Manor, we were all the same. Just a bunch of old, lonely widows and widowers who, at long last, didn’t have to be lonely anymore. And it felt good. It felt really good.

  When it was time for me to go, I only had one wish. In the last moments of my life, I wanted a phone against my ear. I wanted to listen to a voice, any voice, and I wanted to remember what it was like to be lonely. Somehow, knowing loneliness was only a memory and not a reality, made the pleasure of the last ten years feel all the more sweet. So, in the middle of the night, when my sons and daughter were asleep in a nearby hotel room, it happened. My children knew it wouldn’t be long until I left. That’s why they came to be with me. But that girl, the dark-skinned one that put the phone to my ear, she knew exactly when it was time. So she dialed a number, settled the phone against my cheek, and held my hand until it was over.

  CHAPTER 16

  The tendons in my forearms are aching and sore; it’s the best kind of tired for a bass player. On our way out of the bar, I quickly scan the street, looking for the black car. It’s nowhere in sight, but that doesn’t stop the worry from squirming its way back in. As I swallow it down, Adam opens his car door and I climb in. I rub my arms gently the whole drive home, trying to massage the ache out of them, and by the time we reach the landing outside of my apartment door, I want to fall straight into bed.