Of Song and Water (25 page)

 

SHE HEARS no music in the room where women bearing fruit, sitting in plastic chairs, fill out forms and wait. She sees the face of a teenage singer on a dogeared magazine: the famous mouth wears lipstick the color of cotton candy; the famous breasts, standing at attention, create a dark canyon of cleavage. The words next to the singer's face declare her need, her absolute desire, for a baby.
Hail Mary, full of grace
. . . A nurse opens the door next to the sliding glass window. She steps into the room of weary and nauseated women, her white shoes catching the light. The nurse calls a name. A girl without lipstick or visible breasts picks up her coat and purse. She follows the nurse and the door closes behind her. Another magazine bears the face of a man, the only man in sight. The article says he's earned millions in advertising, mostly women's
lingerie and beauty products. “It's a delicate art,” he says. “We must make women want the things they need.” More photographs show him sitting behind a sleek desk or looking out over a vast cityscape.
Pray for us . . . Pray for us . . . now and at the hour of our death.
She puts down the magazine. This is a room without music, she thinks. Women come here after the fat lady sings.

 

SHE ALWAYS returns to the good years in Chicago, after college, when Coleman found work at the Green Mill, when Brian and Tom turned up and the CBT Trio started playing around town. The flat in Wrigleyville, a charmer with high ceilings and a bank of southern-facing windows, overflowed with light. She loved teaching history and felt grateful that her job was close to home. She explored the neighborhoods and shot roll after roll of film. After a while, she converted the flat's extra bedroom into a darkroom. Her sister lived in Evanston and often came down on a southbound train, getting off near the ballpark, and they walked and shopped and ate lunch on Addison. “It isn't the same as Boston,” she said to her sister. “Here I can breathe. The streets and the sky seem wider, less cramped.”

And then she thinks of the road trips from Chicago to Detroit, the Michigan weekends, which seem to her now no more than daydreams, brief scenes filled with light and water. Dorian offers his hand and she steps onto the boat. Coleman stands on the dock holding a bowline and waiting while the motor warms up. The Ford Yacht Club feels friendly, more so than Coleman had led her to believe. The boat slips out of its berth and points toward open water.

“This is the Trenton Channel,” says Dorian. “We're heading south to where the river meets Lake Erie. The island to port is called Celeron. East of that – and Grosse Ile, too – is the Livingstone Channel. In that one, if we're lucky, we'll see a big ship, a southbound freighter. Farther east is an island with an amusement park, Bob-Lo. Jason went there as a boy. They've had their
problems. Early this summer two girls fell from a cable car. Only cuts and bruises but it isn't helping ticket sales. Between Bob-Lo and Canada is the Amherstburg Channel. The northbound freighters use that one.”

Sailing with Dorian feels to her like waltzing with an experienced and graceful partner. Every action is well-timed and economical, nothing flashy or ill-prepared, and so the movement – the sails filling and the boat picking up speed – appears to be effortless, soothing, quite magical.

She sees Dorian checking the wind vane on the top of the mast. He looks out to starboard and then at her. He glances at her camera. “Jason tells me you take pictures.”

“All the time,” she says.

“Maybe you'll spot something out here.”

“There's so much,” she says. “I may miss the thing I'm looking for.”

“What's that?”

“I don't know.” She watches Coleman go forward. He sits on the cabin house with his back to the cockpit. “It's the same teaching history,” she says. “There's too much. It's easy to leave out what's important.”

“I suppose so,” says Dorian.

“But the kids are all right,” she says. “For them, it all comes down to one question. What's on the test?”

Dorian squints at the horizon.

 

IN THE room with women and plastic chairs, she waits. Words from the
Ave Maria
flash in front of her eyes like roadside billboards. She looks at the woman with black hair and bronze skin sitting two chairs over who can't seem to stop coughing. She watches the woman cover her mouth with her tiny hand and feels no revulsion, no violation, when the air fills with the sound of dry heaves, the phlegm breaking up and rising from the woman's lungs.
Blessed is the fruit of thy womb
. . .

The television set in the corner, suspended from the ceiling, is dark. She wonders what she would see if the screen came to life, a romantic comedy perhaps, or a scene with Catherine and Heathcliff, the latter boyish but irate, promising Cathy the company of his cruel ghost, cursing her with his undying love.
Blessed art thou among women
. . .

A new girl comes into the room and walks up to the sliding glass window. Someone on the other side hands her a clipboard and a pen. She finds a chair and starts writing. A nurse rushes in and the women with folded hands look up. “Ms. Jennifer Roe,” says the nurse.

 

SHE HEARS the laughter of children in the orchard. She glances in the direction of the sound but sees nothing. She imagines them running through the shadows, happy to be hidden by trees and pretending not to hear their mother's call. It's time to leave, she thinks. It's time to walk out of the orchard and ask someone friendly to give me a ride.

She remembers leaving Boston with Cole and driving to Chicago through constant heat and humidity, the car bursting with junk and the radiator boiling over.

She opened the door to the flat, flung a box onto the kitchen counter, and plugged in the phone. It rang. A man's voice talked in a jumble about her application, about a veteran teacher taking a powder. “How's that for professionalism?” said the voice. “A real mess now that he's gone, left us holding the bag, so you must come and check out the school, maybe tomorrow or the next day at the latest.”

Grateful for the offer, she signed the contract. She picked up some sensible clothes for the start of classes. She bought a new camera with her first paycheck.

As the months passed, Coleman played casuals and sat in with established groups. They decorated the flat, purchasing furniture, small appliances, blinds,
and a Persian rug. They set up an extra bed, mostly for Brian, who, with the birth of CBT, made a habit of coming home with Coleman after work, usually at two-thirty or three in the morning, to unwind and have a drink. “To see,” as Brian put it, looking at the gallery of photos, “the best pictures – and the best woman – in town.”

She'd often wake in her large bed and drift into the living room to find Brian and Cole sleeping on the sofa. She'd stand on the icy hardwood floor, barefoot, wearing only a thin T-shirt and panties, and shake Brian's shoulder until he'd stir and smile. She'd get him up, say good night with a quick kiss, and point him toward the guest room. Then she'd press herself against Cole, her thighs silver in the moonlight, and nudge him until he finally gave in and struggled to his feet.

She admits that she wanted all of it to last, the safety and intimacy of the flat, the pungent smell of the darkroom, her students asking questions, both silly and profound. But she feels now, walking in the orchard in Michigan, hearing the faint laughter of children, that the fullness of that time was squandered, drained away, until all that remained was a painful breach.

She moves in measured steps like a bride marching down the aisle. She recognizes the walk. It's the one she practiced at her sister's wedding.

She remembers the groom's mother frowning at her son as he recited his vows in a monotone. Gazing at the bride, the minister said, “Your love is the reason for living.” The groom's mother cleared her throat and said, “My reason for living is to get ready to stay dead a long time.”

 

SHE TURNS and melts deeper into the orchard and pictures herself, between the rehearsal and the wedding, between the conception and the creation, walking with Coleman in winter, standing with him on a snow-dusted platform near a waiting bus. She can't believe that he's serious, that he's suddenly superstitious about flying.

He won't put it down, she thinks. Not even to say good-bye. He'll drop his suitcase in a puddle, but the other he won't let go.

She glances at the white bus and shivers. “It's bitter cold,” she whispers.

“You need a winter coat,” he says, pulling her close. “Your lips are turning blue.”

“When will you be home?” she says.

A woman's voice comes through the loudspeaker announcing destinations and departure times. They kiss, his free hand slipping behind her neck. More than the kiss, she feels his guitar pressing against her thigh.

“I want you to stay,” she says. “I want you to go with me.”

“It's too late,” he says. “I'll look bad if I don't show up.”

“I'll look bad, too.”

“Tell your sister I'm sorry. Tell her congratulations. And don't worry. This trip won't change a thing.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Yes.”

A surge of nausea rises from her stomach. She takes a deep breath. “You're wrong,” she says. “We won't be the same.”

“You're making too much of it,” he says.

She thinks of Pennsylvania, the hills and the barren coal mines. She imagines the bus rising and falling on its way to Philadelphia, the driver going fast so that no one will see the hollowed-out ground, the dark ruts that slowly gave up the earth's fullness.

“I can't make enough of it,” she says.

He sighs. “It'll all be the same. I won't pass the audition. I'll come home. You'll go to school. We'll get a call from your sister the minute her honeymoon's over.”

“But if you pass the audition, then everything changes.”

“It's a long shot,” he says.

“Are you going?” she says.

He nods in frustration and checks his ticket.

Shivering in her thin jacket, she stands on the edge of the platform, her shoulder almost touching the bus. “So this is it,” she says. She wants to fill the open door. She wants to make it impossible for the door to close.

A blast of wind catches his guitar and knocks him off balance. “It's time,” he says. He kisses her on the mouth, picks up his suitcase, and steps up into the bus.

She follows him, drifting like a tired ghost, but then he turns and the shock of his turning startles her. She steps back and another woman rushes aboard.

 

HEARING her name, she stands and walks toward the wide, heavyset nurse. The door behind her closes, separating her from the women who sit like worried hens and wait, who fill blank spaces with the names and numbers of family members, old friends, people who can be counted on in the event of an emergency.
Hail Mary, full of grace
. . . She can't say whether the nurse spoke or simply pointed the way, but she remembers the metallic taste of the thermometer and the black band gripping her arm. She removes her thin jacket, the nurse having disappeared, and then her shirt, jeans, bra, and panties. She puts on a cotton gown . . .
The Lord is with thee.
Now, she waits again, aware of hushed voices and footsteps in the hall. The tiny room has no window, only a long fluorescent tube hanging from the ceiling. In the sink is a wet pair of latex gloves. The light dims for a second or two as if someone in the next room had plugged in a hairdryer. The dull drone of machinery comes through the wall.
Holy Mary, Mother of God
. . . She wants a sensible person to ask her if this is what she wants, if she's considered all the possible options. If she can answer these questions in a firm voice, then she can proceed without fear.

She sits on the edge of the examination table and hears someone breathing,
the sound of paper being shuffled. For a moment, the machinery stops. She rubs the back of her neck and suddenly takes in the floor, the pink linoleum, its long history of scrapes and gouges.

 

IN MICHIGAN again, maybe her third or fourth visit, she finds Coleman smiling, a mix of surprise and satisfaction, when he discovers his old portable radio in his parents' garage. He shoves in fresh batteries and then opens the door to his father's car and bows, offering her a seat.

She laughs. “Early for a picnic, don't you think?”

“This ain't a picnic,” he says.

A short drive carries them across the Grosse Ile Parkway and through the entrance to Elizabeth Park. He pulls over where the road parallels the river and shuts off the engine. She notices an old building with cathedral windows and a slate roof.

“Here we are,” says Coleman.

“Where?” she says.

He grabs the radio. “C'mon. I'll show you.”

She follows him around the side of the building and sees what appears to be a boarded-up casement.

Coleman, without hesitation, slips his fingers behind the plywood and pulls. “Good,” he says. “They still haven't fixed it.” He puts one leg inside and then ducks through the opening.

She goes in after him. “What is this place?” she says.

“A dance hall,” he says. “The Elizabeth Park Dance Hall.”

She gazes up at the thick beams supporting the roof.

“The great dance bands played here,” says Coleman. “Couples came from all over, especially at the end of the war. Some of the guys came in uniform.”

She goes to the window and looks out at the deserted patio. “What about you?” she says. “Did you ever come here to dance?”