Kim Church - Byrd

Addie can see them reflected in the mirror over the bar, picking at their food, not talking to each other. She isn’t jealous. Guilty, a little. Mostly she’s angry — with herself for having wasted so much time, with him for being such a cliché. How did she not see that right away? A married, middle-aged college professor with hairy knuckles. Too smart to be wise, too horny to be good in bed.

She should leave the restaurant now. But the piano player is talking to her. He has long brown hair, a gray suit, a nice smile.

“Beautiful blouse,” he’s saying. “It matches your eyes. The same dangerous shade of green.”

It’s not the obvious flirting that intrigues her. It’s that word, dangerous .

She holds up her wineglass and pretends to examine it. “I can’t remember all the esses,” she says.

“Sorry?”

“The way you’re supposed to drink wine. There are five esses. ‘See,’ ‘swirl,’ ‘sniff,’ ‘sip,’ and something else, I can’t remember.”

“’Swallow’?”

“No.”

“’Spit’?”

“No.” Addie laughs.

“I’ve got it,” the piano player says. “‘Stay.’ You sip your wine and stay through my next set and I’ll buy you dinner.” Without waiting for an answer, as if he’s already sure of her, he leaves her at the bar and returns to the piano.

She can see his hands on the keys — long, sleek, manicured, confident hands. You’d have to be a musician if you had hands like that. Or a surgeon. He’s playing “Spain” by Chick Corea. Every note is perfect, polished. Every note gleams.

He looks down when he plays, concealing his face. The way Roland used to play guitar.

Roland’s music was different — rougher, full of mistakes. But the blues is about mistakes. Mistakes and suffering. To play the blues, Roland once said, you have to reach down into the saddest part of yourself. “That’s where the music is,” he said.

She hasn’t thought about Roland in a long time. The memory of him comforts her somehow, makes her warm. She can feel heat rising, blooming in her face.

While his wife nibbles at her chocolate torte, the professor watches Addie and the piano player eat off each other’s plates and carry on animated conversation, their voices rising as if they want to be overheard. Addie drops names. “Bill Evans ….” “… like Keith Jarrett.” “… with Gary Burton.” Musicians she would never have heard of except for the professor.

The fact that he has no right to be angry only makes him angrier.

As if sensing his attention, Addie gets up. She is wearing a shiny emerald green blouse over tight black jeans. She starts toward the ladies’ room, then makes an elaborate detour, doubling back to his table. His wife looks up. Her cheek is flecked with chocolate. The professor has never felt sorrier for her, or loved her more, or been more ashamed of himself for wanting Addie. And he does; he wants her more than ever.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she says, and lays her hand on his arm. Her hand is warm, her face flushed. “I just wanted to say goodbye.” She leans toward him, her hair swishing forward, brushing the table.

Instinctively, he closes his eyes. He is terrified, thrilled, swallowed up in the moment. In every present moment, the past and future converge . When he opens his eyes, Addie is gone, so suddenly he wonders if he imagined her.

His wife sets down her dessert fork, sighing, as if the fork has become too heavy, a burden she can no longer bear.

“Full?” the professor says.

Dear Byrd ,

Even now I don’t know why I thought to call your father after so many years. It’s a question I’ve often asked myself. Here are some possibilities .

1. I was feeling stupid and small and wanted someone to make me feel special like your father once did . You and me, we’re not like everybody else. Maybe he said that to everyone, I don’t know, but when he said it to me, it seemed true .

2. I wasn’t thinking of the times he had not made me feel special .

3. I’d heard from a friend that he was working as a musician in a famous place I’d never been. He had followed his dream, chased it clear across the country. He’d been brave in a way I hadn’t, and I wanted to congratulate him .

4. I had lived too long among academics .

5. Astrologically I was due for an adventure — north node in Sagittarius .

6. Retrocausality. This is how my philosophy professor would have explained it. At a point farther down the space-time continuum was a child waiting to be brought into the world. I called your father because you wanted to be born .

“Hello?”

“Roland?”

“Donna?”

“No. Addie. Addie Lockwood, remember?”

It’s early December 1988, a Sunday afternoon. Outside her window the magnolia tree glistens with ice. There is a chilly quiet in the apartment, throughout the house; the store is closed — one reason she chose today to make her call. She has been up since early morning. She practiced in the shower what she would say. I met a man who looks like you. He has your hands . She’s wearing her blue sweater. She’s wearing makeup. She wants to feel pretty, even if he can’t see her. For the last hour she has been sitting on her sofa, wrapped in her softest quilt, telephone on the coffee table in front of her, a scrap of paper with his number, and a bottle of Beaujolais, now half-empty. The wine makes her brave; it also makes her sad for having to spend so much bravery on a single phone call.

“Addie? I can’t believe it. I was just thinking about you.”

“No you weren’t.” Who’s Donna? she wants to say.

“Okay, not really, but damn, baby, it’s good to hear your voice. Are you okay, is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. I was—, there was this guy, this piano player—”

“You just break up with somebody?”

She twists the phone cord around her finger. “As a matter of fact, yeah,” she says.

“I knew it. A breakup call. It’s okay. Tell me all about him.”

“Oh no, that would put us both to sleep. Anyway, this isn’t a breakup call. I just wanted to talk to you. I heard you were in L.A. making music and it made me happy and jealous. You’re doing what you always meant to do.”

“Venice Beach, actually. Yeah, it’s totally wild out here. It’s fucking paradise is what it is. I’m four blocks from the beach. You can see the ocean from my roof.”

His voice is so familiar she can feel it, humming through her like electrical current. “Wow,” she says.

“Who told you where to find me?”

“Danny Brewster. Well, Shelia, but Danny told her. He works on your mother’s car.”

“Danny that used to sell loose joints?”

“He married my friend Shelia and opened a garage.”

“You’re in Carswell? I thought you left.”

“Greensboro. I came here for college and stayed.”

She pulls her quilt tighter. She can hear the tick of freezing rain outside her window. On the phone, too, in the background, there’s a faint tapping. Then silence. Roland sniffs. Another pause. He lets out his breath.

“You still writing poems?” he says.

“Not since high school. I read like crazy, though. I work in a bookstore.”

“That’s so you . I always loved that about you.”

“What?”

“Everything. I’m just flattered as hell to hear from you.”

She pours another glass of wine. “Tell me about you,” she says. “What are you up to?”

“Same thing as everybody else out here. Show business. I work for a company that builds movie sets. Ready Set. Get it?” He laughs his old laugh, huck-huck-huck .