Nine Volt Heart

by Annie Pearson

  “No shit? Where?”

  “She went into the girls’ can. I think her name was Rachel. Or maybe it was Rebecca.”

  Arlo scuttled back toward the johns, to wait for an imaginary Rachel or Rebecca.

  “Thanks, Warren. You are a true friend. He has been a pain for years. Always hanging around, saying he’s with the band.”

  “I know. He told me last summer that he got a girl to do him at the Winthrop Rhythm and Blues Festival when she found out he was Ian’s cousin and traveled with Jason Taylor and Stoneway.”

  My worst nightmare—other people using our band’s name to take advantage of women.

  “Thanks again, Warren. I should split before he comes back. See you around, my friend.”

  “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Taylor? Give you a ride?”

  “No, thanks. I prefer walking after the airplane.”

  That’s how Karl’s entire staff is, all nice, helpful people. I was hitching up my pack to hoof it over to Ian’s house when I spied this woman scanning the crowd. I can’t say why I looked twice. She was just this slender soul in an over-starched Brooks Brothers shirt and pressed jeans, a short shock of blond hair in a boy’s cut, not even glancing my way.

  A dude came by, wanting my autograph on a beer coaster and hoping to commiserate over ball-breaking witches that screw up your life. I used the line I always do when strangers presume to talk about my personal business, “Love stinks—but heartbreak makes great rock-and-roll,” while watching this cute woman over the guy’s shoulder. I gave him back the coaster along with the unwanted Jagermeister and started to follow the cute woman, only to be blocked by Quentin and Dating Woman.

  “Hi, Jason. Righteous band, huh?”

  “Hello, Quentin. Imagine seeing you here.”

  He too wanted to do the hippie handshake thing as he said, “Jason Taylor, this is Laura Stanley. She’s a big fan of yours.”

  Laura looked like maybe she was a big fan of herself. Quentin needed a boost by association.

  “Hi, Laura. Pleased to meet you.”

  “The pleasure is mine.” She wasn’t convincing. “But it wouldn’t be honest to say I’m a fan. Your last album had a couple of cuts that seemed almost interesting.” She named the two tracks that had received the worst butchery at the hands of our producer. “I prefer hip hop. Modern country doesn’t speak to me.”

  It doesn’t speak to me either. We don’t play modern country. However, I smiled, since I’m now used to people taking every chance to insult my music. Including women who move toward me in a suggestive way as they denigrate my work. Heck, I had married the queen of sexually aggressive music criticism.

  I said, “Our head-banger’s hoe-down isn’t for everyone. That’s what Quentin says.” He didn’t. I made that up. “He is always urging me to seek much broader influences. His past recommendations were Phosphorescence and Mwahaha. What do you recommend for my edification?”

  “The Lumineers. The Cave Singers.” She suggested other good West Coast bands, and I nodded, commenting on the musicianship of their members. Then she named a couple of label-manufactured synth-pop bands and went on to offer me advice.

  “No one wants to hear that twangy stuff since rockabilly died in the Eighties,” she said. “Except dinosaurs living in trailers in Duvall.”

  “I appreciate your insights. Though you can still find trailer trash like us inside the Seattle city limits.”

  Quentin stepped up, needing to claim whatever victory he could with Dating Woman.

  “I’ll be seeing you, Jason. It would be righteous to do an on-the-job interview while you are recording. Call me?”

  “Sure, Quentin. Let’s count on it.”

  ~

  I looked over Dating Woman’s shoulder at the cute woman, who saw me and broke into this indescribable smile that seemed to promise it would never rain again in Seattle. As I moved away from Quentin, she came over, extending her hand to shake like you do in business meetings.

  “Are you Jason?” she asked as her hand grasped mine, her voice as clear as a mission bell over the noise of the tavern. “I’m Susi.”

  “Guilty,” I said, since I might as well get on with my life and admit to being me. Her voice compelled truth.

  “You look exactly as I expected. Though your hair is longer.”

  I murmured whatever it is you say when someone has an unfair smile and a voice that sounds like Emmylou singing Billie Holiday covers. If she spoke much, I was doomed.

  “I hoped I’d find you here. I’m sorry I missed you at the airport,” Susi said. “Did you like this band as much as you thought you would?”

  “Not at all.” It dawned on me that this person was supposed to have picked me up at the airport, since no one but Ian and Cynthia knew I was coming here. Oh, and Arlo.

  “Then why don’t we get out of here? The air is destroying my throat.” She took my hand and pulled me toward the door. “How was your flight from London? Where did you leave the rest of your luggage? Did you stop by her house?”

  “The airlines lost it. They promised to send it to the house by courier when they found it.”

  “Doesn’t that always happen? I spent a week in Milan once, living off what I could purchase in the hotel gift shop. Do you have enough in your carry-on for the night? Should we stop at a drug store?”

  By this time, she had pulled me to the street, where she looked up at me with a shy version of her heart-stopping smile. She must practice to be so deadly. Behind her, the same denizens of the neighborhood and their hard-rocking brothers sat in the Comet Tavern as when I was last in Seattle, and the time before that, clear back to my father’s generation, trading stories that might or might not be true.

  She said, “You must be jetlagged. Do you want me to take you home? Or do you use that trick of staying up through the first night?”

  “I made the mistake of sleeping on the airplane.”

  “Why don’t we take a walk then? You must want to stretch out after the flight. No, don’t let’s go that way. There are too many street people out at night. Let’s just walk up Twelfth toward Volunteer Park.”

  As we headed up Pike toward Twelfth, I found myself chattering like a fool, having not spoken to anyone other than gallery guards, hotel clerks, and flight attendants for more than a week. She questioned me about the avant-garde show at the Victoria and Albert and then what I saw at the Tate Britain.

  “I confess,” I said, though I had been up so long, I would confess anything, “I went to the Tate only to see the Turners this time. I have this cross-sensory experience whenever I stare at what he does with light.”

  “You mean synesthesia?”

  “Exactly. I’m looking into the light and seeing the image behind it, but then I hear sounds that I also feel in my fingertips. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “I can taste certain music.”

  “Yeah, some songs leave a bad taste in my mouth, but I make it a rule never to name names.” I was trying to be clever, but she was serious.

  “I mean that certain parts of my mouth respond, like when you get lemon juice on the sour receptors or salt on that part of your mouth. The sound. High C tastes like—oh, never mind. It doesn’t anymore. Did you see any of the current shows?” she asked.

  “Dames Maggie and Judi together in the West End.”

  “You are so lucky. I haven’t been out of the country since—” Her voice trailed off, and she didn’t finish the thought.

  “What do you do with yourself most days?” I asked, thinking perhaps I should know her, but jetlag kept me from remembering whether Cynthia had ever mentioned her cousin Susi.

  “Oh, my job and music. That’s about all. I tried to teach myself to paint this winter, but I ended up back with just music.” She shrugged in this charming way, gesturing with both her hands as she talked. My jetlagged mind wanted to read more warmth in those gestures than such a sweet-sounding woman could intend for a man she just met. In my scrambled stat
e I hoped it was real. She said, “In addition to teaching at the school, I have a dozen private students, but I put that on pause while we work on the new curriculum and the foundation grant.”

  “Teaching is nice,” I said, because I’m a feather-brained idiot and I just wanted to keep hearing her voice.

  “I’m in awe of what you do,” she said, “and I’ve heard stories—”

  “Not a single one is true, Susi. Let’s pretend I’m a guitarist you picked up in a bar.”

  She laughed and the sound of that music nearly brought me to my knees to beg her to stay with me forever, hoping she’d laughed like that again. However, I knew it was jetlag.

  “Seattle has changed since I was here last,” I said, thinking I could make a real conversation. “Designer pizza has taken over the storefront where I got my first tattoo. The same guys I knew in high school or their first cousins were still standing near the bar, listening to a band with their hands in their pockets.”

  “Did you want to stay and listen to music? We can go back”

  “Not at all, since I’m in your company. Do you want me to show you the tattoo?”

  Foolishly, I had embarrassed her, for a rosy flush showed on her neck under the streetlamp.

  “I meant it as a joke, Susi.”

  “Oh. I’m so gullible. My brother loves to tease me because he knows I fall for it every time.”

  “As a gentleman, I promise not to take advantage of that confession. Though you are the one who took a risk, picking up a guitarist in a bar.”

  “Right,” Susi said, laughing again. The sound of her laughter could slay me outright rather than killing me softly. “She warned me that you tease. I’ll be on my guard.”

  “‘You’re leading me down a one-way street.’” I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s a line from Tim O’Brien.”

  “Hmm. I don’t remember that line. I haven’t been reading him lately. I’m not afraid of the challenge, but I have to be brave when I read him. The last couple of books—”

  “I mean Tim O’Brien the bluegrass musician. Odd Man In?”

  “Right. Of course. My father and I heard him perform once. He has a lovely tenor voice.”

  Two people in hoodies and jeans passed us, doing a double-take when they recognized me. But, hey, this was Seattle. People are cool. If Mark Lanegan or Ben Gibbard can buy Cheerios at the Wallingford QFC, I can walk down the street unmolested.

  However, Seattle is a small town. It happens that a lot of people live here, but otherwise it has all the other problems of a small town—like, everyone knows your business. You can’t escape the people you don’t want to see. For example, Ephraim Vance, my estranged A&R man and former producer at Albion Records, sat in the window of a bistro where Crave used to be on Twelfth Avenue, holding hands with Dominique, who had been my wife in a previous incarnation. I did an about-face so fast that I almost knocked Susi over.

  I said, “Let’s go. I’m bushed. I can’t sleep yet, but I don’t feel like prowling the streets.”

  “Do you want to come to my house? We can talk and I could show you the plan we’re presenting tomorrow.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “The same place in Leschi. My car is parked over on Pine Street.”

  It gave me pause, making me wonder if I’d met her before and forgotten it. But I don’t forget. I’m a far better man than my father.

  8 ~ “Tickin’ Bomb”

  JASON

  JUST BEFORE DOMINIQUE MANAGED to get me to marry her, I had planned to break up because, among other things, she is a slob, dropping every single thing right where she is done with it, expecting others to pick up after her. Needs a maid to clean a five-room condo, and makes fun of me because I hang up the towels in a hotel room.

  So I was nervous about this woman Susi, who was as friendly as a pen pal or a best friend’s cousin. In spite of her smile and warmth and wit, I wasn’t ready to be in her actual house, brought down to the reality of dust kittens and dishes in the sink, or teddy bears and lace. Having lost most of my will earlier in the day, along with my baggage, I agreed to go to her house and got in her car. Classical KING-FM played Berlioz when the engine turned over, but the radio was the sole luxury in her little economy car, which was as soulless as a rental that gets vacuumed by the lot boy every day. No crystal or dreamcatcher hanging from the mirror. No take-out wrappers on the floor. No detritus clutter in the backseat. In the dark, driving to her house, I shivered whenever she spoke, her voice plucking at the strings of my soul, each individual tone harmonious and rich beyond kenning, as Ian’s Scottish grandmother would say, yet fractured, letting the luminescence of her soul shine through amidst the jagged edges.

  When Susi switched on the light inside her house and smiled, damn if I could tell which action illuminated the room. She was cute but not all the way to beautiful. Whatever else you want to say about Dominique, she is movie-star beautiful. However, if I were dying of thirst and had to choose between water and Susi’s smile, it would be hard to choose, very hard.

  In the light, I could see that it wasn’t a blush of embarrassment, but a burn scar running the long length of her neck. A matching scar ran up her hand and disappeared into the sleeve of her starched shirt. All of which made me take a deep look at her. The burn on her face had been repaired, but a trace of the damage could be seen in the stiffness along one side and small unrepaired scars on her lips. To cover the remains, she had taken great care to apply makeup that looked like no makeup at all. Amid the natural asymmetry of her face, one beautiful brow escaped in an arch of perpetual surprise or pleasure, while almond-shaped grey eyes gazed at me in friendly interest. I tried to imagine the pain that she had endured from those burns. Yet she could still offer that beguiling smile.

  “Can I make you something to eat?” she said.

  Oh god, I wanted to say no. I loathe hurting people’s feelings, but home cooking usually turns out bad for me. She saw my hesitancy before I could even begin to stammer and decline the invitation.

  “Vegetarian, right?” she said. “I just don’t know the depths of your persuasion. Ovo-lacto? Vegan? You won’t be afraid to say, will you?”

  “Eggs and dairy. Though I will eat a fish once in a while if I don’t have to see its head or fins.”

  “That’s what I thought. I just couldn’t remember for certain.”

  “How did you know?” I don’t proselytize my diet or carry on a moral crusade. I learned it from my uncle as a way to stay healthy while living on the road. It is nothing more than that.

  “Common knowledge,” she said, laughing. “How about an omelet?”

  It seemed the safest choice that a stranger could propose, and I had already peeked past her shoulder to see that her kitchen was immaculate, with utensils in tidy order on a wall rail, spotless pans hanging from a rack near the range. When I nodded, she washed her hands in the kitchen sink, then pulled an omelet pan down from the rack, though she is small enough that she had to stand on her toes and stretch to reach it.

  “You can put on music if you like,” she said.

  Ah, permission from the owner to prowl her premises. A butcher-block island separated the kitchen from the living area. A baby grand piano stood at the far end of the room, and a large Mission-style sofa and two chairs filled the middle of the room. No TV in sight. Glass-enclosed oak bookcases lined the walls. Three of the larger cabinets held CDs and vinyl records. A couple hundred DVDs were alphabetized and labeled, apparently having been converted from reel-to-reel. The whole lot was worth a modest fortune on eBay. I was longing to see what a cultured pick-up artist keeps in her library, but my goal was to select music.

  Very little in her collection had been composed later than the middle of the last century. Plenty of the recordings were newer, but the composers had all died, save for a few like John Adams. An eclectic but deep set of classical CDs stood alongside a collection of Americana artifacts and British
and Celtic folk music that I would pawn Toby to own. My hands shook with both challenge and desire: I needed to choose what to play while repressing an impulse to drown in the liner notes of the CDs. It would take days to work through it all. I had intended to judge her taste, but looking at this awesome collection, it occurred to me that I would be judged by what I selected, and the performance anxiety unnerved me. It had to be something I knew well, so I could pay attention to her and not the music. Shaking from the overstimulation, I went for a CD collection of early recordings by the Maddox Brothers and Rose.

  With the West Coast hillbilly boogie turned down low, I forced myself not to examine her books as I passed. Yet I couldn’t help seeing the shelves of opera folios and musicology books, the kind you can read only in the reference room of a university library.

  “So, you’re a musical snob?” I said, trying to joke. “I see you aren’t afraid of what Puccini will do to you. You have it all. Madama Butterfly. The Girl of the Golden West. Turandot.” I almost selected the homemade CD of Turandot from the cabinet to play, but we had Rose Maddox for now.

  Susi looked up from preparing the food and smiled again, lighting the room. Dammit. Also, the food smelled wonderful. She said, “I’m not interested in opera anymore. I should have gotten rid of all that before now.”

  “Would you marry me so I could stay here and listen to your music and read your books?”

  She laughed as she turned the omelet out onto a plate. The toast popped up at the same moment. “I thought you’d like it. Oh, I know you don’t care for the classical part. The rest is a blessed collection, isn’t it? Most of it came from my father when he moved last fall. Do you want butter or jam for your toast?”

  She set a plate of golden food before me.

  “Dry, please. Why would you think I don’t care for classical?”

  “I heard you were wild about Lou Harrison and Terry Riley and all those just intonation and open-tuning people who consider the masters too pedestrian for the post-modern world.”