Nine Volt Heart (4 page)

“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 state 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.

JASON

J
UST 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.”

The tea kettle whistled just then, and she reached on a
shelf behind the sink to take down a tea caddy, while I considered what else
she would have learned about me if she’d spent enough time searching on Google
to find my open-tuning explorations.

She said, “Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchung? It’s Murchie’s, so
the Earl Grey isn’t over-perfumed.”

“Lapsang Souchung, even though it smells like bong water. A
person can appreciate both Terry Riley and David Diamond. Do I come across as
an uneducated heathen?” I had felt the intellectual pull of open tuning, but
Dominique hated what she called atonal nonsense and banned it from the
condo—and she considered headphones an insult to intimacy—so I hadn’t
experimented on my own for quite a while.

“Of course not,” Susi said. “It’s just—I’m not being
considerate. You can’t find it pleasant, people talking about you when you
aren’t there. I know I hate it when my brother and friends have talked too much
about me. It is unnerving when you meet people who have these preconceived
notions about you. We should both try to forget what people have already said
and pretend we’re two strangers.”

My head was swimming, drowning on London time. And the
omelet had its origins near the district where the gates of heaven open. Greek
olives and chunks of fresh tomatoes, after I’d spent weeks eating those pitiful
grilled faux things they serve in Britain. Plus some other flavor.

“Cream cheese,” she said. “I didn’t have any feta.”

I looked up in surprise, not knowing I had spoken aloud.

“Cream cheese,” I repeated, and then laughed like an idiot.

“What’s funny?” she asked, as if suspicious that I was
laughing at her.

“Susi and cream cheese. Like Frank Zappa.
Susi. Susi Creamcheese.
”

“Who is Frank Zappa?”

At that moment I realized that I’d slipped into a time warp
between boarding that British Airways jet and disembarking in this woman’s
living space. Like in those novels you find in airports. Except there were no
Scottish warriors or oatcakes, just real food and music created before 1955.
Where but in a world that exists in another dimension can you find a woman who
picks you up in a bar, knows your tastes in music and food, and yet never heard
of Frank Zappa?

Pondering it must have put me into another jet-lagged spin.
I discovered that I’d inhaled the food and held the cup of tea in my shaking
hands. The kitchen had mysteriously been restored to its former pristine order.
As I tried to string words together that made sense, she looked at me curiously
and then shook her head.

I was holding her hand, and I don’t know how it happened. I
snatched my hand back and buried it in my lap, feeling as sheepish as a
schoolboy.

“You must be done in, Jason. We were having so much fun
talking, I forgot about your jetlag. Now it’s late. Do you want me to drive you
home? I know it’s clear across town, but that’s not a problem.”

Thinking about what happens when I walk into Cynthia and Ian’s
house after midnight, I shook my head. “It’s too late. I’ll get a cab to a
hotel.”

“That’s silly. Don’t waste your money. Just stay here.”

She popped into the bedroom before I could stop her, to make
her understand that I don’t sleep with groupies, however much research they do
ahead of time, and I don’t eat food in other people’s houses, and I don’t go
home with strangers. My attorney Karl would kill me, if my conscience didn’t
get me first. Then she emerged with a pillow, blanket, and sheet, which she
used to make up a bed on the Mission sofa.

“This is your last chance for the bathroom, because there is
only one and I’m locking my door, since your reputation precedes you.”

“My reputation is grossly exaggerated,” I said, which was
true.

“No matter. My brother says that this is the perfect house
for peeing off the deck in the dead of night.” She pointed to the deck out
back, which ran in front of the big picture window, both of which looked onto
tall trees. “No one can see you.”

I touched the rich oak of the sofa’s arm. “This is the kind
of couch a man would choose,” I said, apropos of nothing in this world. I sank
down on it, really, really wanting to sleep.

“It was my father’s, like everything else. Nothing fits in
the care facility, and we weren’t ready to let go of these old things. Anyway,
goodnight. We can talk about the plan tomorrow morning.”

She shut her bedroom door just as Rose Maddox finished
singing.

I stretched out on the man-sized Mission sofa and sank into
the kind of physical comfort that you can find only when you are transported
into another dimension.