by Daryl Banner
“And yeah, sure, maybe it’s because he loves me. But when someone is like that, isn’t it also a strong indicator that … oh, I don’t know … maybe he doesn’t trust me? I’ve never cheated on him. I never even looked at another guy. But then when I told him about Dmitri and I—” He cuts himself off and stares down at me. He’s about a head taller than I am. “I don’t mean to dig up bad blood, if that’s weird to you that … that Dmitri and I, like …”
“Nope. Doesn’t bother me a bit.”
“Really?”
“Not at all. It’s kinda hot, actually.” I bite the end of a chocolate-dipped strawberry. It literally bursts to life in my mouth with flavor.
“Ugh. Maybe we should date, you and I. If Dmitri will let me. I wish Bailey was more like you. Hey, can you scare the shit out of him again like you did the day y’all first met? He mentions that story to me every time I bring you up in conversation. He adores you.”
I smile. “Maybe you need a couples counselor. Like Life and Death did in Dessie’s show.”
“You know, I don’t know why she’s making a fuss about me missing her opening night. I came to both of the invite-only preview performances earlier this week.” Eric shrugs, staggers slightly, then downs the rest of his champagne before discarding the glass right in the middle of the dessert table—totally not where it ought to go. “Nell and Brant have had their bumpy moments, especially with all their kids and whatnot. Maybe they’ll have advice for me.”
I glance across the room, but can’t see Nell through all the fancily-dressed people. “I think the play hit a personal note for her. Especially since she related so much to Death.”
“Ooh, right. In act two, when you find out—”
“—that Death is pregnant with Life’s baby. Yeah. Then the counselor Emily points it out, saying that life is growing inside death, that if that isn’t an indication that their relationship is ‘doomed’ to be saved, she doesn’t know what is.”
“Then Death touches her and kills her.”
“Yeah.” I lick a stray bit of chocolate off my lip.
Eric smiles suddenly. “But then Life brings her back after Death is gone, and Emily gets a second chance at life.” He turns melancholy for a second, his shoulders slouched. “I wish I could get a second chance at life.”
I take his plate, put both his and mine down, then take his hands into mine. Eric lifts his eyebrows, confused, as I turn to face him importantly. “Life gets messy, Eric. Things aren’t meant to work out cleanly. People get hurt. People make mistakes. People hang on to regrets the rest of their lives, but they also hang on to hopes and dreams. Just dare to be messy. Don’t worry about living the perfect life. In fact, you ought to embrace its imperfectness. Embrace how stupid you were, and how stupid you can be, and how stupid you’ll probably still be ten more years from now. And have fun with it, and throw a party in honor of the fact that we’re all here, we’re all making mistakes, and we’re all stupid.”
Eric presses his lips together for a moment before speaking. “So what you’re telling me is … I’m stupid.”
“And I’m stupid, too,” I go on. “I’m stupid for denying myself the beauty …” I can’t believe I’m about to say this. “… the beauty of the bassoon for so long. We need to get messy, Eric, and stop defining our life by only the things that go right and cleanly and perfectly.”
Eric tilts his head, studying me. “A perfect life is a boring one, isn’t it?”
“And it’s okay to feel lost now and then,” I tell him, thinking of the mess of music in my head that has no shape, that has no voice, that has no clue what it’s doing. “Some people get lost … but as it turns out, getting lost is the only way we can—”
“Find ourselves,” finishes a voice from behind me.
I turn. Dmitri stands there with a knowing smirk on his full, sexy lips. He recently got a lip ring, which I find so damned sexy that I can’t stand it. He’s really rubbing off on me, what with the new musical-note tattoo on my shoulder, and the curly spread of piano notes I’m planning for my upper back.
“Hi, Dmitri,” greets Eric.
“Hey there, Eric.” Dmitri slaps him on the back, then pulls him in for a big squeeze. “Is Sam finally convincing you to kick the Bail-boy to the curb? It’s going to be a mighty cold curb, tonight.”
“Too cold,” agrees Eric, “just like last winter. No, I’ll need my snuggle buddy. You know, I just need to talk to him. Real talk. Open talk. Let it all out, and let him have it all out.” He nods at the both of us, then eyes me importantly. “Thanks, Sam, for your otherworldly wisdom. Dare to be messy!”
“Dare to be messy,” I agree, “except in the instance of leaving empty champagne glasses on the dessert table.”
He swipes it back into his hand, grabs his unfinished plate of dessert, then pops the last bite of cake into his mouth with his fingers.
“Sam, I came to fetch you,” announces Dmitri.
I turn to him. “What for?”
“Dessie needs you by the piano.”
My fingers turn to ice at once. “I, um, what?”
Dmitri puts a gentle arm around my back. “Come, babe.”
The pair of us—or, rather, trio of us, if Eric is following—cut through the crowd to the baby grand in the center of the room where Dessie, Victoria, and Victoria’s beau Dirk are hanging out. At the sight of me, Dessie’s face lights up.
She grabs me by the wrist and excitedly pulls me to the piano bench. “We’re going to do a song!” she announces to me.
I blink. “Say what?”
“Okay, okay, okay. Remember that time when I first took you to the theater and we got on that stage and you just played from your heart and I sang from mine?”
Oh dear God, no. “Dessie …”
“We made brilliant music on the spot,” she goes on, oblivious to the pulmonary embolism happening in me at her words. “It came out of nowhere. Improvised brilliance.”
“That’s relative,” I mumble.
“Dirk’s here with his guitar. As you can obviously tell, the quartet I arranged to have here couldn’t make it, hence the silence—”
“It’s not silent in here,” I mumble through the ceaseless chatter and laughter in the room.
“So I was thinking, as a little treat, you and Dirk could sort of … riff off a little. Play off the cuff. Improvise.” She gives the piano bench a pat, then pretty much squishes me down onto it. I comply, my weak knees no match for Dessie’s pushiness. “Start it off. Dirk’s already plugged in and amped and ready to jump in when he feels it.”
Dirk, for emphasis, lifts his guitar. He’s a spunky, slender sort of guy with messy hair—a total 90s rocker cliché with a pinch of emo, a spritz of hipster, and a modest splash of metrosexual. Victoria bites her lip and stands near him, excited to hear what we come up with.
“And you’re going to sing?” I suggest, petrified so badly that I can hardly make words.
“This room’s heard enough of me,” says Dessie with a roll of her eyes. “A whole evening of me, in fact. It’s your moment to shine.” Then she leans in. “Everyone who means anything on Broadway is here tonight, so, like … y’know. No pressure. But you’re brilliant in every sense of the word, so I ain’t sweatin’.”
Spoken like a true Texan with those words, which makes me chuckle. Wait, no, I’m not chuckling. My mouth is frozen. Everything is frozen. The chuckle is locked away inside me, as is any capability of making my muscles work.
Dessie has to be shitting me right now.
It’s either me or our positioning here around the piano, but I feel the sound in the room drain away like thick, soapy water in a bathtub, as if suddenly the room has come to expect a performance. Fuck. The voices damper down to nothing but hums, and I experience a very strange and terrifying tunnel vision that blurs out the whole world—except for the eighty-eight keys in front of me.
They’re so … white.
Blindingly white, with the black sharps and flats giving
a well-needed reprieve from the glare of all that distressing ivory.
“You’ve got this, babe.”
I glance up and find Dmitri and Eric at the other side of the piano. Dmitri is looking sexy as hell and calm as a banana. Eric is trying not to tip himself over with all the champagne making a carousel in his skull, half-clinging to Dmitri to keep upright.
Dare to be messy.
A sudden rush of flare and drama finds me. My fear shatters in an instant. I lift my chin proudly like a diva who’s toured the world wide with her magnificent music that demands attention, bring my steady hands to the keys, and then strike my first chord.
The noise in the room cuts to nothing.
F major. My first chord of choice. A bold chord. A ready chord. It’s ready to chase its way up to resolution with C, or settle downward into something curious with D.
Which way do I go?
I strike a G# major, neither of the choices I gave myself.
My eyes close.
Dare to be dirty.
I turn that chord minor, add a seventh, and then let my left hand give us a slinky bass line, playing along the deep notes like a bass guitar in a jazz club.
Where is this music coming from? I’m not even drunk.
Maybe it’s my father in me after all.
I strike another chord, then start to develop a rhythm. My right hand tinkles high notes without my permission, harmonizing with the bass, and before our eyes and ears, a song takes shape.
Then, as if by the cue of a sheet of music that doesn’t exist, Dirk comes right in on my next chord, anticipating it from the rhythm I’ve created, and he’s playing a sexy riff that goes along with my tune. He even plays off of me, adding sixth and seventh notes to my every chord, jazzing it up with a pinch of spice wherever he can fit it.
Holy crap. We’re making music.
And it’s really, really good.
Of course, I let it get to my head right away, because why not? I purse my lips like a cocky mo-fo and add twice as much vigor to my playing, banging the keys with strength and turning up the heat on my twisting, playful, flirty chords. Whistles are returned from the room. I hear a shout from my right and a holler of excitement from my left.
My hands are ignited. My soul is possessed by the melody.
I’m literally shimmying as I play.
Like, who the actual fuck am I?
Dirk must feel my aggression (or is it passion?) because he starts jamming out on the guitar in time with my music, matching my forceful chords, and it is a beautiful marriage of rock, jazz, and something cleverly new all at once.
And in our ringing harmonies and overtones, I feel the soul of another instrument entirely, an instrument that’s not here, an instrument that’s playing in my memories from years, years, years ago.
I hear a bassoon.
It’s singing a sweet, proud song of its own, like a surprise solo in the concerto. I don’t even think it’s Tomas playing the bassoon, to be honest. It’s like the instrument I’ve always hated has sucked up a lungful of courage, and it’s stepping into a room it’s been told to stay out of all its life.
I’m looking at that bassoon. I’m hearing its song. I’m listening to it for once.
Dare to be daring.
That bassoon is the weirdo who no one let sit with them at the lunch tables. That bassoon is the one that’s shrugged off in favor of the famous violin, or the bold piano, or the proud trumpets. That bassoon is even someone I’ve spent my whole life mocking, pushing away, feeling disgust toward, and never letting in.
That bassoon … is me.
My music changes tone. Dirk follows like a pro. The chords turn gentle, but the bass line still flirts, pulling us through a sonic landscape of mourning, then of hope, then of wonder.
The chords are full. The music reaches its end.
And then I strike an A minor … my right hand gliding up the notes I scratched into the wall of my garage when I was a little kid, my daddy tinkering around: A … B … C … D … E … F …
And then with a G, the song ends.
I lift my gaze from the keys, returning from my trance. For a second, I wonder if the whole thing was in my head and I haven’t even started playing at all.
Then the room erupts into applause and cheers. Dessie has her hands to her mouth, her eyes glimmering with happiness at whatever I just unleashed from my being. Dirk is taking in the applause with humbleness, bowing his head and giving little waves to the crowds—at least until Victoria throws her arms around him and plants a big kiss on his startled face.
I turn to Dmitri and Eric, both of whom are smiling at me in awe.
And while staring at the love of my life and his old roommate, I realize how stupid lucky I am and how much time I’ve wasted denying myself the creative, artistic pleasure of letting in certain things … like bassoons. I’m going to put one in my newest work, which sits awaiting me in the form of digitalized noise on my laptop and a bunch of papers and notebooks on my piano at home.
The first thing I’m going to do when we all—drunken Brant and giggly Nell and cake-filled little Zara included—get back to my place is: I’m going to add a bassoon to my work.
And a hundred seventh chords. And a minor ninth and a handful of diminished chords, too. Why not? I’m going to mess it all up—and proudly.
Because it’s good to be weird.
Chapter 6
Clayton
It’s always an interesting experience, watching a roomful of faces come to life when Samantha Hart sits at the piano and bears her soul through her powerful music.
And not being able to hear a note of it.
But boy, do I feel it. If anyone looks at Sam and thinks her to be a meek little emo girl, they’d be proven dead wrong when she’s given an instrument. She commands it with such force that I literally feel the music through my feet. My chest vibrates with every bass note. My fingers tingle when Dirk hits a killer chord on his guitar. If I’m not crazy, I’d even swear that my hair is stirred by the ringing blast of music coming from that dynamic duo.
I can guarantee you, it won’t be the last time they play together.
The music had interrupted Brant and I chatting. He seems to be convinced that I was let down by the fact that he and Nell declined our invitations over the years, but I was quick to assure him that it wasn’t the case. He has a family now, and family always comes first.
Then he said something unexpected: “But you’re my family, too. You’re the brother I never had. And you’ll always—mark my fuckin’ words, my fuckin’ lips—you will always be my brother.”
I damn near shed a tear at that, then pulled him in for a bone-crushing hug. Maybe literally. He hasn’t quite been walking straight ever since I let him go.
Shit, I miss my best friend.
He had tried (or, rather, fumbled awkwardly) with his signs, but managed to get a few sentences going as we chatted about various grievances in our lives—his daughters’ antics, his wife’s antics, his parents’ antics and constant meddling (they’re so fucking excited to have granddaughters), and then all my stresses, my lighting designs and gigs at over seven theaters in town, and I even share a story about a sign-language-inclined lady at the sandwich place I visit for lunch every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Brant couldn’t seem to wipe the smile off his face as we chatted away, reminding me—even with the extra pounds he’s put on both in his body and his shaggy hair—of the boy I grew up with. He even offered staying an extra day or two to take professional photos of our show—the set, the characters, a scene or two—and I told him that’d be fucking great. Dessie, in fact, was secretly hoping Brant would offer so she didn’t have to be presumptuous in asking.
After Sam and Dirk’s impromptu musical performance—during which Brant put Zara on his shoulders so she could watch it over everyone’s heads—Brant faces me again showing an expression of awe on his face. “That was amazing, dude. Sam has got some talent!”
I smirk knowingly and nod.
I’m so fucking glad Sam came into Dessie’s life so many years ago in that fortuitous, random roommate selection process at the dormitories. Dessie lucked out, that’s for sure. Not to mention having Victoria as a neighbor right across the hallway. Those three have been peas in one crazy, creative pod. Between them, they could own New York in a hot minute.
Zara starts moving her hands at me suddenly over Brant’s head, still perched on his shoulders: I want more cake.
I laugh, watching Brant’s confused face, then sign back to her: Ask your daddy.
Zara’s face wrinkles, then she signs: No.
I point at him demonstratively, then sign again: Ask your daddy. Not me.
She huffs: More cake.
I lift an eyebrow: Daddy.
To my utter surprise, Brant catches on and joins in with a few clumsy signs of his own: No cake. Sugar. Awake. Bad. Then after fumbling for a second, he speaks the rest instead: “You are already up way past your bedtime, young lady. I’m surprised you aren’t dead asleep yet, considering it’s even an hour later here than it is at home.”
Zara pouts, her eyes meeting mine. I feel so much for the little girl, having taken the time to learn way more signs than she needed to for basic communication—which is what Brant and Nell apparently chose to do with all their kids. So to ease her frustration, I make a silly face at her, shoving my thumbs in my ears, sticking out my tongue, and blowing up my cheeks. Zara laughs, then says something I can’t make out with her tiny lips. I make another crazy face and she laughs harder, then signs: Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun—over and over.
Fun, indeed. I haven’t had this much fucking fun in so long.
Feeling a presence near me suddenly, I turn. Dessie stands there with her hands clasped. She was watching me being silly with Zara, though I can’t say for how long. There’s a curious sparkle in her eyes, the sparkle of thoughts and wonders and dreams.
I lean in and give Dessie a kiss, then pull back. “Sam’s got quite a set of hands for that piano.”