Andy Abramowitz - Thank You, Goodnight

On her way out to an early appointment, Sara poked her head into the bathroom and called to me above the steady teeming of water on tile. “I’m going. I left you some coffee.”

“Thanks,” I shouted back. Then I pushed open the glass door and stuck my head out like a wet terrier. “Thanks,” I said again.

She smiled. “Bye.”

My mind seemed to be circling above something I wanted to say to her; I just couldn’t land on it.

Buttoning the sleeves of a light-blue oxford while avoiding eye contact with the bedroom mirror, I realized I was humming a tune. My mouth was forming words: “I could’ve sworn she’d gone missing, she was hiding in plain sight.” Then it formed the words again, then again. I just couldn’t place the song.

In the kitchen, I poured the remains of the coffeepot into a mug. But instead of taking a sip, I rested both hands on the countertop and stared at the stream of vapor rising out of the cup. By some mystery, I felt like I’d already chugged a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew, so I upended the mug into the sink and headed out.

It was out in the hall, awaiting an elevator to begin my six-block commute, as the one-melody phrase kept repeating itself to me, ever clearer, that I had a perplexing thought: I’d never heard this song before. “I fucking made it up,” I said out loud to the empty cream-toned walls.

At eight a.m., Metcalf was already popping Xanax like Flintstones vitamins. Before I could even set my briefcase down, he came bursting into my office with information, anecdotes, and tales of bad behavior that I’d missed during my European jaunt.

“I can’t deal with you right now,” I told him, waving him away. I faced the window and gazed out at the metropolis, surfing a sensation of coasting above the snarling zoo of buildings, as opposed to being lost within it.

I opted out of a practice group meeting, e-mailed my colleagues a succinct abstract of the Ireland deposition (“Went fine”), and fought off a progressively hysterical Metcalf, who kept returning to my door with a Big Gulp in his paw. I was used to these displays of Metcalf’s ever-tense mental state, which had accelerated a physical deterioration that was getting harder to ignore. With the vitamin D–deficient complexion, the jowls of Silly Putty, and the taiga-like hairline, he appeared to be in perpetual treatment for a disease that beat the shit out of him but didn’t have the decency to kill him dead. Several times a day, he would charge into my office, his shirt trying to untuck itself, and cry paralysis over a list of pressing issues he was unable to resolve without my input. My input was usually something along the lines of “You figure it out” or, if I was in a good mood, “Metcalf, you need a girlfriend.” My reward for being taxed with a human being so overwrought and frazzled was the gift of an occasional gaffe. There was, for instance, the conference call a few weeks earlier, an hour-long shouting match involving a dozen or so lawyers. As it concluded, everyone throwing out parting shots and threats of running to the judge, Metcalf was so busy scribbling on his notepad that he barely noticed himself absently chirping “Love you” into the speakerphone. He would’ve heaved himself out a window if the fucking things opened.

Noon found me walking back to my condo. Once inside, I marched straight down the hall to the room we’d set up as an office. Hands in my pockets, I stared at the wall. My Martin D-28 acoustic stared back. She’d been in here all along, and while I’d always been aware of her, like the old picture frame hanging in the bedroom, I hadn’t looked at her, really looked at her, in ages.

I allowed my eyes to settle on the sides carved of East Indian rosewood, the neck of mahogany, the ambertone top. I’d bought it in a guitar shop in the East Village in the midnineties figuring that if it was good enough for Jimmy Page and Hank Williams, it would probably suffice for a rhythm player who knew no more than two dozen chords. It had accompanied me into the studio and onto stages across the globe. It had been a patient accessory when I sat down in living rooms, hotels, and bus seats trying to follow the bread crumbs of a song that wanted to be written.

Slowly, I reached over and gripped the neck. The lower strings rang out in soft dissonance at the disturbance of being touched. I blew dust off the frets and held the body up to my face. This is weird, I said to myself. I should be at the office reviewing that discovery motion. It needs to be filed in a few hours.

With great care, I carried the guitar into the living room and, dropping a yellow pad beside me on the couch, I strummed. Although I’d been estranged from this instrument for longer than I cared to remember, we picked up right where we left off. I immediately began to pair chords with that unrelenting melody that had been looping through my brain since my shower. “I could’ve sworn she’d gone missing, she was hiding in plain sight.”

An hour later, I stuffed one of Sara’s caramel nut Luna bars into my jacket pocket and headed back to the office. Once there, I returned to my window and resumed my trancelike absorption in everything within view.

I felt isolated, on edge, out of my element, and unsure if there even was an element out there that would feel like my own. I didn’t know whether these were growing pains or the pains of realizing your growing days were done, but either way, for a reason I couldn’t place, it all hurt so good.

That evening, Sara scooped up her goblet, ambled lazily around the table, and planted her bony ass on my lap. Dinner often ended in this seating configuration. She tended to eat faster and drink more than I.

“Were you here today?” she asked.

The Martin, my tell-tale heart, was propped up against the sofa.

“I stopped back at lunch,” I confessed.

Her jaw literally dropped in amazement. “You came home in the middle of the day to play guitar?”

“I had to pick up some work that I left here,” I said, fumbling through a lie while stirring my penne in vodka sauce. “I grabbed a bite and just decided to strum for a few minutes.”

Red wine stained the edges of her smirk like day-old lipstick. Her words were smeared together in something just shy of a slur, as if she were speaking in cursive. “I’ve never seen that thing come down off the wall. Play something for me.”

“I don’t think so. And your exceedingly bony cheeks are crushing my legs.”

“Masculine to a fault,” she muttered, turning around and straddling me as if readying a lap dance. At close range, I could see her bloodshot eyes, and I wondered how she’d found the time to drain a glass or two before I’d walked in the door.

“What did you do today?” I asked.

“Nothing. A couple of client meetings. The usual.”

With a luxurious yawn, her head tumbled onto my shoulder and I caught the dying wisps of her lavender shampoo. It always reminded me of our trip to Provence years ago. It was the happiest I’d ever seen her, breezing from one medieval town to the next in our tiny white convertible two-seater, lunching on baguettes and cheese, lounging in cozy cafés under lamplight at the foot of a mountain. For that brief period, Sara seemed to have left herself and the dark weight of her past back home. One afternoon we picnicked on a rock in a secluded gorge by the Verdon River. As she leaned back on her hands, barefoot with her knees bent, she watched the current with a serenity that matched the river’s constant flow. “I’d like to live by the water one day,” she said. “The sea or a lake or a river, it doesn’t matter.” I didn’t see myself ever moving out of the city, but since we were just talking, I said, “How about a summer home on the Riviera?” She smiled, still staring at the rush of cold water. “Or a little cottage in Maine or Cape Cod,” I added. She turned to me and there was no denying the look on her face. She was holding me accountable for the peace she’d momentarily found. “Promise?” she asked.