The Night Singers (19 page)

“Of course,” James returned a sad smile.

Lou and I said good-bye to Petie, who was engrossed at the computer screen. On a nearby wall was a gallery of his favourite soccer stars, including a familiar photo of James April.

Back in the living room, we thanked James for lunch.

As we drove off in the rental car, I noticed that Lou had left the rose and the ukulele behind. The key lime pie was probably still cooling in James' kitchen.

It was the following August and I was in a tizzy practicing for our new performance season. So I felt grateful dinner would be at Lou's tonight. Summer light was closing out. Hot weather persisted, but a recent thunderstorm had revived my hopes of autumn. I'd lived in Clapton almost three years and this thought filled me with contentment.

He'd set the table on the screened porch and we ate by candlelight to watch for shooting stars. As he served the shitake and artichoke
fusilli
, I watched the silver crescent moon.

He raised a glass of Sancerre. “To enduring friendship.”

We clinked glasses.

He stared at the sky. “I've always loved August. The shooting stars, sometimes you get to see them this late in the month.”

We hadn't discussed James in a couple of weeks. They'd broken off the nightly marathons, but stayed in touch. Several months after our visit, James confessed that, after all, maybe Lou wasn't quite the man of his dreams, but their bond would last forever. He thought of moving to San Francisco, where he might find a flexible gay man who could love a woman's body. What did Lou think? Lou didn't respond to that, but he did send money to help them buy a new fridge.

“Delicious pasta,” I said.

He grinned, “I like an appreciative audience.”

I pictured him draped over Martin's piano several summers before, with the matrons gathered around. Lou had many appreciative audiences.

“Have you heard from James this week?” I ventured.

“Yes,” A rueful smile. “The sex is over obviously.”

“Why
obviously
?”

“Well,” he served the arugula and fig salad, my favourite. “Of course I knew it was all
virtual
.”

I nodded, savouring the sweet/savory infusion of vinaigrette and fig juice.

“But once the spell is broken, you can't go back.”

“Yes,” I glanced at the sky. Then I shouted, “Yes, yes, there's a shooter.”

Lou stared upward. “Damn. I missed it.”

We ate in silence.

Lou murmured, “I'll always love James. Just not in that particular way.”

“Oh.”

He laughed. “Impossible love. Didn't think it was on my dance card. Loneliness, yes. Solitude, yes. But impossible love? Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes,” I nodded, “I think I do.”

Broken Membranes

Marian's thighs stick to the car seat; sweat drools between her breasts. She thought she was prepared, dressing in a t-shirt and shorts this morning despite the San Francisco fog, despite the pinky-purple veins slithering up her shapely legs. But here in sweltering Petaluma, her air conditioning sputters out. She pictures herself as one of those legendary local chickens boiling in a big family soup pot.

The sign to Rocky Beach relaxes her. Even in the worst heat, she can wiggle her toes in the Russian River, splash water on her arms and face.

Imagine—the Russian explorers travelled all this way. Now
they
would have been staggered by such heat after sailing from freezing Siberia to the Aleutians, Alaska, British Columbia. Did they go back for ice and forget to return?

Marian has no intention of surrendering. She plans to enjoy this holiday away from her stimulating, but demanding job at the arboretum, away from her volunteer tutoring, and hopefully away from recent marital obsessions.

Marian and Sam and the girls have rented the same cabin every August for over twenty years. It's far enough from the city to forget work, close enough for good friends to visit. This year the girls are bringing their new beaux, arriving about dinnertime. And Sam, well, he has taken
his
new girlfriend to another river—the Amazon—and in Marian's worst moments, she hopes their boat sinks. She also fantasises about extremely painful snakebite. Not a deadly venom because the girls do need a father.

Imagine—the twins will be seniors at Berkeley next year. They've been passionately in love with different this-is-the-ones, four times now. These new guys are nice boys, but
boys
. Pam and Sue have so much time to settle down. Didn't her own mother say something similar when she and Sam got married? Imagine—Sam leaving her twenty-five years later for a junior architect. Imagine—after a quarter century on the Russian River, she will be splashing alone.

The friendly sound of crunching gravel cheers her as she pulls up to Cochran's General Store. She'll pick up some lettuces here, and fresh bread. The rest of dinner is carefully packed in their cooler and will arrive in fine shape, even if she doesn't. Marian mops sweat from her neck and face.

Oh shit, she notices the time: 5.30 already. She has to pick up their key, air out the cabin, check for mice, ignite the barbecue coals. Always Marian drives too slowly when obsessing about Sam. She should have listened to NPR. Wars and earthquakes and Supreme Court decisions make her drive faster, as if to escape their consequences. Well, this isn't the Safeway, just a simple country store. How long can it take?

Of course Cochran's is packed, with locals stopping by after work. (She forgets that not everyone is on vacation.) More and more Latinos have migrated north to the proliferating vineyards. Half the video rack is in Spanish and Marian is grateful for the increasing assortment of
tortillas
and
salsas
. Then there are the tourists—campers at the state park, couples staying in the upscale
nouveau
inns—who, like her, are on last minute errands. The River has become popular in recent years. Still, their secluded, funky cabin is far from town. “A healthy hike,” she used to tell her daughters when they voiced adolescent complaints about having been “kidnapped to nowhere.” She looks around for lettuce.

Annie Cochran waves to Marian from the register.

She nods and smiles widely in return, taken aback by her pleasure in being recognised, in belonging.

Cochran's has expanded over the years. They've added racks of comic books and stands of sentimental greeting cards. Rows of hardware and housekeeping items. A wall of local wines.

They've always had a decent produce section and Marian rolls her cart there first. Musing over the lettuce—Annie's field greens look fresh and those romaine hearts are usually OK—she hears a woman talking to a kid.

“Now we'll want some parsley and basil for the pasta.” The patient, careful tone of domestic tutoring.

How often has she brought the twins here? She turns to smile at mother and child.

The blond woman studies a bunch of semi-wilting parsley.

The flaxen-haired child looks up.

Marian is startled to see an eight or nine-year old girl with severe birth defects: bulging eyes, wide jaw, flattened nose.

“Hi there,” Marian swerves into insincere cheerfulness.

The child slurs something in return.

Her mother glances over and apparently finding Marian harmless, returns to the parsley.

Marian passes on the romaine, selects some purple onions and slides down to the mushrooms. She knows she's lucky to have two healthy daughters. Certainly this makes up for a slimy ex-husband who she'd take back in a second and nurse through snakebite, scorpion sting and compound fractures.

The mushrooms are pretty fresh; she carefully chooses ones where the membranes from the caps are still attached to the feet. Sam taught her that on their River honeymoon. He taught her most of what she knows about cooking, for she grew up in a non-garlic, non-fungal family.

“Yes, that's it,” the young mother advises her daughter. “And now, Samantha, we need mushrooms. Maybe ten. Can you count ten mushrooms and bring them to me?”

The girl nods vigorously, wiping back a strand of her fair hair.

Maybe she's not retarded, thinks Marian. Maybe in a few years surgery will repair her face and speech. Why is she so moved by this child? She doesn't feel so much saddened as lightened by her presence. Marian's hands shake as she secures a red twisty on a plastic bag.

Bread, she pulls herself together, remembering she had promised Pam a whole wheat baguette and Sue a sourdough loaf. Their boyfriends have distinctive palates.

As Samantha reaches into the mushroom tray, Marian is tempted to counsel her about avoiding the ones with broken membranes.

The girl embraces her task with enthusiasm, haphazardly tossing the white, spongy objects into a bag.

Toadstools, Marian muses. Do they have toadstools in the Amazon? Maybe Sam's girlfriend will croak on a lethal kebab.

Mineral water. Sorbet. Cheese. Yes, there
were
a few forgotten items. When Marian reaches the bread section, the young woman is standing by two other little girls, pretty kids with the same light blond locks as their older sister. They are mulling over the rolls—rosemary and olive? Walnut paprika?

Marian spies her baguettes. She wants to tell the woman she admires her—for coping, for treating her damaged daughter matter-of-factly, for having two more children, for being sanguine about the uncommon assaults of every day life.

But Annie Cochran saves them all from embarrassment, waving broadly to Marian from the cash register. “Is the whole family coming up this year again?” she inquires cheerfully.

“Oh, yes,” says Marion, not missing a beat, telling Annie about the boyfriends' different tastes in bread. The
whole
family, yes, membership rearranged. This self-pity is getting old, but she'll hang on to her pleasurable spite with Sam and his floozy.

Annie is talkative.

Marian unloads her heavily laden cart. This is not the simple errand she anticipated.

As Annie chats about the other summer people, Marian spots the woman and her daughters zipping along the adjacent check-out counter.

The girls are all laughing over there. Their mom is no more than thirty—about the same age as the post-modern garage architect who is now expiring in the Amazon. Marian would have understood if Sam had run off with a steadfast woman like this young mother.

“On vacation?” The other clerk asks the family.

“Oh, yes,” says the mother, “we've been looking forward to the river all year.”

“Ri-ver?” asks Samantha in a slow monotone.

“Yes,” says her mom. “River. You remember. Swimming. Floating in the tube.”

The child thinks.

All the other patrons seem to freeze. Listening.

“Splashing,” Samantha says finally. “Splashing in the water.”

“Yes,” her mother laughs and sisters giggle.

“Splashing,” Samantha shines with sheer happiness.

Vacation. Swimming. Floating. Wiggling toes in the river. Splashing, Marian imagines herself splashing, as she waves good-bye to Annie and carries groceries out into the hot evening air.

She smiles, anticipating her daughters and their young men, feeling luckier than she has in months. Sam is like those poor Russians. He doesn't know what he left behind.

The Night Singers

Your first impression is prison. And they've locked up the wrong person.

Obviously it's not that terrible and you'd never make the comparison to Cecilia, who has been visiting an inmate on death row for years. Death rows because they keep shifting Luis from facility to facility. Luckily, Cecilia says, the prisons have all been in driving or train distance for her. Texas has so many prisons.

More of these senior homes, surely. Of its genre, Lurline Vista is one of the nicer models, but the bleak colour of the common room and the frugal furnishings alarm you. How does Cecilia feel about giving up her cozy home on the hill after fifty years, a good marriage, three children, two thousand political potlucks? Does she feel
confined
in Lurline Vista?

She greets you at the door with familiar playfulness. A smaller woman today. You remember meeting a trim, handsome, and yes, it must be said, short Professor of Philosophy thirty years ago. Now she's a few centimetres slighter each time you visit. Under five feet. Partially it's the bowed legs. And the normal shrinkage of an eighty year old spine. Today she looks tiny, as if she's sat in a hot bath for too long.

Hugs.

Exclamations of delight.

“Henry, how well you look,” her brown eyes examine you critically.

“Thanks.” Maybe she notices that the paunch has gone since Maynard needled you into working out at the gym.

She hugs you tightly.

“You look great too!”

Her trade mark smile is exhilarating. The hair is still red as fire while yours is distinctly grey. With an exaggerated flourish, you present her favourite purple and pink asters.

She embraces you again in her sturdy arms.

“How about a tour?” she cocks her head ironically.

First the small living room with a French door, armchair, computer. In the adjoining dining area, papers are scattered and stacked on an oak table. A tiny kitchen is crowded with old pots, dulled from time and residues of her herbal medicines. The health food store should name an aisle after her. You're startled by the old pots, which look a little dingy in this newly painted apartment. But why would an old woman buy new pots, you can hear her ask.

Sucking in your lower lip, you think about the gorgeous copper sauté pan Maynard bought you for Christmas. Cecilia would not appreciate your sadness, grief, about her kitchen utensils.

The tidy bedroom—books piled high on the glass stand—opens to a patch of veranda. There her children have placed a huge potted cactus. Also a small wrought iron table and chair. The banister will prevent her from falling twelve floors below. Do some people jump? Next door, neighbours have installed a gas barbecue so you imagine there are some evenings when vegetarian Cecilia keeps her patio door shut and bolted.