Oh, if it could just be that easy, she thought miserably. If music could just fix…everything. At the same time, Jessie knew her music biz friend had a point. When she looked hopefully up at him, Joe was inspired.
“Hey,” he said. “If you’re anything like me, then you’d likely be more comfortable on stage anyway than hanging out in the crowd out there, answering their questions about where you’ve been for the past year and a half.”
A cloud washed over her face, and he instantly regretted having said that. But they both knew it was true – why else was she hiding amongst the flowers and the bees?
“Okay,” she said finally. “But can I sing one with you first? Then I’ll sing something of my own, or maybe...I don’t know. Just one.”
He was heartened. Anything to bring some joy into this sad girl’s eyes.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ve got a few guitars for you to choose from. Take your pick.”
They weaved their way backstage through effusive partygoers and soon Josh and Charles were given a birthday present each would remember for the duration of their lives - Jessie’s public return to the stage.
Accompanied by his band, Joe Kelly started to play. Although the familiar first chords were greeted with acclaim and excitement – he started with Van Morrison’s Into the Mystic, one of those rare covers the new artist plays better than the original and in this case, it was common knowledge the Joe Kelly Band rocked this particular tune – it was nothing compared to the stirring cheer that welcomed Jessie when she was first spotted, two verses in, sidling slowly downstage strumming on the guitar, eyes darker than usual, her expression somber, and her toes still bare.
She didn’t look at the assembled crowd, but Jessie knew all eyes were on her. Startled, Dee grabbed Charles’ arm when she spotted Jessie, and at her visible reaction everyone in the immediate vicinity turned, Jacob included. He raised his eyebrows and grinned, a twinkle in his eye, and soon every guest was on his and her feet.
By then Josh and the Drifters friends were relaxing in comfortable padded chairs around a patio table. As the guests thrilled to Jessie’s surprise appearance and rose, Josh was the last to stand. He could feel Michelle’s eyes on him, but try as he might neither he nor any of Jessie’s old friends could hide their conflicted emotions when they realized who was on stage playing the extra chords.
Jessie, whose recorded Christmas song stunned them months before, surreal, ghostlike, dreamlike, reminding them she was and always would be imbued in the fabric of their collective souls, was now singing live in front of them.
She played it safe. When she looked up, which was rare, she aimed her searching eyes at Joe, alongside her on stage. He was somewhat of a mentor, a well respected Canadian musician known for his exceptional talent on the guitar. Here, today, he comprehended the awkward position in which Jessie found herself. She was an uncomfortable object of curiosity, a circus freak.
He nudged her deeper into the music. As it took hold it gave her confidence, and soon they were hitting the beautiful highs and lows of the great blues tune together, electrifying the crowd, singing the much-loved Van Morrison song about spiritual quests and the universe. Its soothing medium paced tempo was a perfect re-entry into the public for Jessie, a girl who was always trying to figure out where in the grand scheme of the world she actually fit.
As they wrapped up the last few sweeping chords, Jessie looked over at Joe. He could see a peace pass subtly over her pretty face. Blushing, she beamed up at him, and once more the light in her soul radiated outwards. Her counterpart on stage was pleased, and as she stepped back from the microphone he shoved his guitar to one side, and then leaned forward and kissed her delicately on one pink cheek.
“Okay?” he whispered. “Better now?”
She nodded, smiling, eternally grateful. “Yeah. Okay.”
Joe squeezed her elbow in reassurance, and then he stood back and encouraged her to face the mic – and her past – alone, while he provided backup, confidence and support.
Taking a deep breath, Jessie stepped forward and once again reached for the mic, adjusting it just a little as the sound guy on the ground in front poised over his board, ready to modify the levels he wasn’t prepared for, but which he was thrilled to have to tweak.
She sang another old classic. This time it was a slow tune that Sting and then Eva Cassidy made famous, “Fields of Gold”. Jessie sang it with a flair and interpretation all her own, and the result was a haunting rendering of a lyric and music that, to Jessie, brought to mind sunny days and hope for more. Hope perhaps for a re-acquaintance, a re-do, a do-over - a once again.
She couldn’t look at Josh – or Jacob – as she sang, so once again she found a place to focus on that allowed her the freedom to sing in her bubble, safe and unhindered, her emotions laid bare. Near the end of the evocative melancholic piece, its poignancy not lost on the assembled partygoers, her voice started to break. Jessie’s cracks were showing, and the song – like the light Joe spied in her soul when Jessie allowed the music to seep in and through her – was a lot to bear in Josh’s company, to share so soon after her return home. It was a reminder of why she was there – to end things, to find a resolution to both Josh and the Deuce McCall troubles and thus, a way to go on.
So she had to reach deep within herself in order to finish the song. In the end Jessie let the tune find its own graceful route to a definitive and touching conclusion as the guests as one, silent and awed with no exceptions, held their breath.
When she finished Jessie stepped back and licked her dry lips, and then peeked up at the audience through long dark eyelashes and a dampness in her eyes that gave her away to everyone present. She didn’t smile; instead she grabbed the guitar and pulled it away and off her body quickly, as if all of a sudden she awakened from a dream to find herself somewhere she didn’t belong, holding something that exposed her fully to a harsh and judgmental world.
And then without even thinking about it, with the guitar in her left hand and the audience on their feet crying out in joy and acclamation, she found her right hand lifting itself to her eye. Two fingers touched its corner, almost in a salute. The hand traced itself delicately, quickly, down her cheek and touched her lips. Then she moved it away from her body and outwards, gracefully, lightly, an angel’s caress on a cottoned cloud, palm outward, welcoming, inviting, loving.
It was a signal, something she often did after her shows back in the day when Jessie and Josh were Jessie and Josh. Only a few people caught the movement, but they were the people that counted – Steve, Charlie, Dee, Charles…Josh. And Jacob, who wrinkled his eyebrows, wondering, glancing over to Josh in time to see him draw away from Michelle, his stance changing to lean away from her, his tangled fingers letting go.
Realizing immediately what she had done, Jessie looked to Joe, her face a mixed bag of horror and fear. She was frozen, her bare toes scrunched up underneath a wavering body. The seasoned blues musician reached out and gently nudged the guitar from her confused grip, and then he placed an arm around Jessie’s shoulders and called out her name to the crowd, who cheered as one, loudly, exhilarated and electrified.
When Jessie found her footing, she smiled through a veil of grateful tears. And then she spied Josh standing next to Michelle, wooden. Neither was clapping and Jessie watched as Michelle grabbed his hand and gripped it tightly. At first shocked, his expression turned stony, a mask now firmly in place in an act of self-preservation.
Moving backwards slowly, Jessie could not draw her gaze away from his, and once again, like in the song, they were lovers in a golden sun-kissed field underneath a warm indigo sky where hope reigned eternal.
Then Jessie turned, the new auburn curls bouncing lightly on her shoulders, and she tiptoed back across the outdoor stage and tentatively down the wooden risers to the ground, where she had no recourse but to once again dig her bare toes into the dirt. Resolute, she had to remain on solid ground, in the real world - the sometimes horrid one where most of u
s must stay - instead of in the butterfly one where bees buzzed happily around flowers living life to the fullest swept away on the star-crossed fairy wing of the most magnificent music.
Joe watched her go. He saw the toes dig in the dirt and then the head come up, but he knew the sad pearl eyes were still lost somewhere in the haze of fluffy gauze clouds and rainbows. He felt sorry for the girl who carried the burden of such beautiful music, and he understood.
As Joe regained his balance after Jessie’s moving return to the public spotlight, Jessie made her way back to the side of the house, where she yanked a smoke out of a package tucked earlier underneath a rosebush. She lit up, the fingers that only moments before had tenderly mesmerized a few hundred people now shaking uncontrollably. She could hear her musician friend strumming the first few chords of an upbeat tune to try to bring the emotional crowd back to some semblance of reality.
Jessie was aghast at her behavior – embarrassed. She couldn’t believe her audacity, in front of a knowing group of friends, to signal to Josh that way. For one, Jacob didn’t deserve it. He was sweet and loyal, and she loved him dearly. And Josh – what would he be thinking? Hopefully Michelle had no idea – but then, she wasn’t stupid. Of course Josh’s girlfriend knew what Jessie just frankly told everyone present. Jessie had been looking right at him, at the man she would love forever, whose heart she had once quite solidly trounced.
Turning towards the wall of the house and laying her forehead against its soothing sun-warmed brick, Jessie closed her eyes and groaned inwardly. A shadow crossed her body a moment after the nearby side door thudded shut, and she jumped, startled. The shadow was Josh. Hands in his pants pockets, the green jacket shed in the heat of the day, he paused a few feet away and gazed down at her solemnly.
They beheld each other in the prism’d spell that befalls lovers who are powerless to let go.
“Fuck, Jessie,” he said softly, a trace of Joe Kelly’s wistful blues finding its way into the husky voice Jessie loved so much.
She leaned back against the brick, resigned. Sorrowful. Jessie waved an arm in the air, dumbstruck. She wasn’t surprised he found her there. They’d often escaped to this little sanctuary in the midst of a Keating extravaganza to cuddle, to kiss, to love each other.
“I don’t know what to say, Josh. That was careless. I’m sorry.”
She turned her face up towards him, eyes intense, flickering pearls in the afternoon sun. He sighed and brushed a pesky mosquito away from a stubbly cheek.
“Jessie, I don’t know if I can do this.” He leaned against the brick next to her, shoving his hand back in his pocket and staring down at a cracked flagstone.
“What’s there to do, Josh? Survive?”
“You don’t get it, do you, Jess?” Josh looked over at the girl next to him, the sunlight caressing her curls.
“Well, actually,” she said, a hint of sarcasm in her voice as she wound a tendril of hair around and around a finger. “That’s the heartache of it, Josh. I do get it. Of course I get it. I just can’t stand it.” She lifted her other hand and took a long pull on the cigarette.
“You made your choice, Jessie. You shut me out, and then you took off.”
“Yeah, I get that Josh, and I was happy in Edinburgh. I didn’t want to come back here. Face all this…bullshit…” She looked away.
“Yeah, you’re pretty good at the running away thing, Miz Wheeler.”
“You know, you could at least pretend you’re somewhat happy to see me.”
He paused. “Look, it was a shock, okay? And as I said, I don’t know how to deal with this…” He let the sentence trail off, waving a hand randomly in the air to illustrate his confusion.
“With what, exactly? Me? That’s easy. Stay the fuck away from me.”
“Ah, Jessie, please. Don’t be like that. It’s not – you, exactly.”
She whipped around to face him, her face taut, demanding, a hand defiantly balanced on one hip. “Then what is it, Sawyer? Exactly.”
He shrugged, helpless. “Your music, for one. Jesus, what am I supposed to think when I hear you sing songs like that – wistful tunes about what we had?”
Sharply, she retorted, “I didn’t write that song. Sting did. Those are his thoughts.”
“You sang it!”
“Okay, so now I’m not allowed to sing old love songs. Because they might upset you – or is it Michelle you’re worried about?”
“Jessie, please.”
“You know something, Josh? I can’t let it go. Us. I can’t. I never will. But I promise you, for Jacob’s sake mostly, that I will try. And I’m going to give it my best shot with him, because he deserves it. He’s as fucked up lonely as we are. Or is that as fucked up lonely as we were now, in your case?”
He eyed her sharply. “Fine then. So I’ll stop interpreting your music so damn personally. But no more not-so-secret fucking messages for me then, either, Jess.”
Her lips parted as if she wanted to speak, but Jessie couldn’t. It was exhausting, fighting with Josh like this. It took all the energy she had left in her tired soul just to lean against the warm brick and love him from a distance.
“Look, once McCall sinks his talons into me again I’ll get the hell out of your hair forever. Okay? You and Michelle can have the kids you and I talked about, and you and she can buy that ranch in Alberta. Just don’t expect me to come to your wedding, okay?”
“Aw Jessie, come on…” he could see tears forming in her eyes now, and his were glistening as well. The mention of McCall sickened him.
Once again they found themselves full circle, in that place where their eyes spoke for their spirits in ways their voices and brains could not. Jessie ducked her head and swiped at her eyes, the cigarette dangling from nicotine stained fingers and a tendril of hair protecting her bitter countenance from Josh’s penetrating glare.
When she looked up, he was still staring. Josh was frozen. He couldn’t go forward, and he was powerless to go backwards. Jessie cut into his reverie.
“Just one hug,” he heard her whisper earnestly as she stared back down at the ground.
She looked up then, and weakly lifted a finger that she pointed gently at him as she narrowed her eyes. “I came back for you. To set you free. To set us free. And so far you’ve raged at me and told me in no uncertain terms not to sing to you anymore. So now that you’ve succeeded in clipping my wings, Josh, I think I at least deserve the courtesy of one…” her voice broke, and she almost lost it altogether…”simple little hug. Just to let things go better, between you and me. From here on in. You know?”
Josh hung his head then, and the hands remained in his pockets. He shook his head from side to side, and Jessie thought that was his answer, final and complete. But then the head came up and she could see in the new lines that etched his face all the same old pain that seemed to cling endlessly to him, a thirsty shadow hanging on for dear life lest its water source dry up.
Jessie ached to go to him, but this would have to be his call, and his alone.
Slowly he moved forward and took her in his arms, encircling her with first one and then the other, enclosing her in the musky Josh effervescence Jessie craved with every breath, each day every day. She reached up and grabbed him, too, and although she fought hard against a sob, a low moan did escape her lips. It was unavoidable – Jessie had desired his touch, fully and completely, every second since that unbearable hard moment when she spied Deuce in the photo from Agassiz, when she knew in no uncertain terms she would have to start letting go of the man she loved. She buried her face deeply in Josh’s neck and soaked up reams of comfort in his essence.
Josh, too, knew they needed this – a moment of reconnection, reconciliation, no matter how difficult or painful or fleeting. He and Jessie were alone for the briefest flicker of time, and they had to find a way to relate that would allow them both the grace to move forward in the directions their lives seemed to be taking them. He held on too, agonizingly, and breathed her in.
And so he did – finally – break their spell. He forced himself to let her go, again, slipping out of their embrace and back down the path towards the nearby door, towards life, the barrier that kept them apart – two lovers who understood each other’s true needs but who just asked the other to be the one to let go.
Jessie rocked back on her ankles so she was once again leaning against the house, but now it was late afternoon and the sun was moving on, leaving only a cold chill in its wake on an April day that had been warm but now was losing its gusto. She shivered, and sank down onto the grass by the path she no longer felt much like traversing.
***
After his all-too-brief meeting with a subdued Jessie, Josh slumped off to the poolside bar. As much as he wanted a strong drink of bourbon to numb and fortify himself for the rest of the party, he settled on his old stand-by, a fizzy ginger ale that tickled his lips. Just as he wrapped white knuckles around the perspiring glass, he felt a presence steal soundlessly up behind him. Turning, he found himself face to face with Jacob.
Josh had the advantage – Jacob was a little drunk, a little high, and a little too fueled by Charles’ lofty attention to hold his tongue. But before they batted words back and forth, Jessie’s new man stepped forward and ordered a Guinness from the twenty-something Korean bartender, a strong looking fellow who wore brown rimmed glasses on the edge of his nose, masking high cheekbones and dark watchful almond eyes. The bartender, who went by his Canadian name, Patrick, was on alert the second he spied Jacob wandering up behind Josh. The tension between the two customers was immediate, and so thick a shovel and a strong back couldn’t loosen even the top layer.
No Greater Love Page 28