John Brandon - A Million Heavens

When the class was dismissed, she went out and stood under a tree in the liberal arts quad. She could hear singing now, along with the piano. She heard singing and the voice was her own. The lyrics were as unfamiliar as the music, but the voice singing them was hers. She looked around. Sorority girls and a yoga guy and a maintenance man. A professor from the journalism school. They were all going about their days, wishing to be better people. There were no leaves on the tree Cecelia was standing under. The ground beneath her was too soft. She didn’t know what to do. She went to the student union and ate lunch off by herself. She tried thinking of another song and couldn’t keep straight even the simplest, catchiest pop melody. She picked her sandwich apart and then pushed it away. She put her head down on her bag and tried to sleep and pretended to sleep, but she was nowhere near drowsy. The other kids were finding lines to wait in. They were getting out on the sidewalks and striding toward reasonable destinations. Cecelia couldn’t blend in with them anymore. She felt ridiculous. She went to a deserted part of campus and sat under a sculpture that resembled a shipwreck and cried for a time in the shadows down under the hull.

By the time her afternoon class wrapped up Cecelia was way beyond liking or disliking the song. She’d spent a day with it. She knew every note and lyric by heart and she always would. She’d collected some handouts her religion professor distributed, but she couldn’t remember a word the woman had said. The song was poppy but not upbeat. It groused impalpably, it’s underlying tone one of grievance.

Cecelia went to her evening class, a class focused on the city of Paris during certain decades. The song was as clear as ever, but not as insistent as it had been. Or maybe Cecelia was exhausted. The song seemed to have gotten comfortable with her, too-loud background music. Cecelia could almost follow the thread of the lecture. Marie, the girl from the A/V booth who’d sent her the pizza, was in this class. She winked at Cecelia. Cecelia sat in the back and held a pen over a blank sheet of paper as ten minutes passed, then another ten, then another, admitting something to herself, a fact Cecelia had no idea what to do with but could no longer avoid. She knew what Reggie’s songs were like and they were precisely like this one. She had the same feeling in her guts, the same apprehensive joy, as when she’d first heard any of Reggie’s songs. The structure, the lyrics — none of it was done in a manner that would’ve occurred to Cecelia or anyone else. Cecelia had written plenty of songs and they were a far cry from this one. This wasn’t her style and it wasn’t anyone else’s in the living world. It was the unmistakable style of Reggie Mercer. A fact was a fact. The Paris professor was going on about plumbing and bearded painters, and Cecelia stared toward him dumbly, nodding as if she appreciated his knowledge, watching the piece of chalk he kept tossing up and catching.

After class, Marie came back and sat in a desk near Cecelia. She had colorful eye makeup on. Marie always invited Cecelia to go out with her at night, and this time Cecelia did not turn her down. Cecelia didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t want to go back home with this song in her head, didn’t want to go back home regardless.

They walked together to the parking lot and then Cecelia followed Marie to a heavily balconied high-rise, where Cecelia parked her car and hopped into Marie’s brand new volkswagen Bug. They drove across town and visited some people who lived in an old church building. There were a handful of young men around who were continually engaged in tasks. There were girls, all of whom had long pink fingernails, and they lolled about on the couches. It was an environment where a conversation would never survive, and Cecelia was glad for that. The young men kept bringing sweating pitchers and the girls kept emptying them into their glasses. Marie sat next to Cecelia with a hand on Cecelia’s forearm. None of these people knew Reggie. Marie hadn’t known him. Outside of Nate badgering her, Cecelia hadn’t spoken about Reggie since his death. She never felt like explaining how she felt about him, explaining the quiet benevolent edginess he’d embodied, explaining what was happening now, his song.

Cecelia looked around at all the stained glass. At the other end of the room was an altar, a pulpit or whatever. A couple rows of pews hadn’t been ripped out. They still had the hymnals in the little slots.

“There’s no music,” Cecelia said. “There isn’t any music on.” She wasn’t sure whether it would help or hurt, to have music going outside of her. Maybe she wanted everyone’s voices drowned out. Maybe she didn’t like a bunch of people lounging around in a house of God. Cecelia didn’t think there was a higher power looking out for her, but this was still disrespectful. It was the kind of thing Reggie never would’ve done.

“We’re trying to cut down on music,” one of the girls told her.

“For purposes of spiritual renewal,” said another.

“Music giveth,” the first girl said. “But it also taketh away.”

In time, the young men came out with grilled cheese sandwiches. Each girl, Cecelia included, got her own little platter. The girls all had to remove their bare feet from the table. A pickle was on each plate, a handful of chips. The sandwiches were quartered. The young men didn’t sit down. They stood by in case the girls needed anything else.

Next they went to a bar with a cowboy theme. The place was closed and the staff had convened out back to drink from a keg and grill hot dogs. Cecelia downed her beer greedily. She had passed most of the day with the feeling of being on a remote plane, but now she felt close to the ground, aware. She could smell the sweat of the busboys, stripping their shirts off in the cold.

Cecelia found herself in the passenger seat of a parked SUV, Marie on the seat with Cecelia, half on her lap. Cecelia recognized the guy in the driver’s seat. He was the pizza guy, the one who’d come to the A/V booth. This time he wore a light blue shirt. It said, across the front, LIGHT BLUE SHIRT. He put on some music, soft enough that Cecelia couldn’t really hear it.

“It’s stuffy in here,” she said.

“All the windows are open.”

“Is this elevator music?” Marie asked.

“This is my music,” answered the pizza guy. “Frankly, I wouldn’t mind if it was used in elevators.”

“Cecelia’s a musician,” Marie said.

“My bandmate died,” Cecelia said. “His name was Reggie. He died, so the band is over with, but the notable thing is that last night he sent me a song while I was sleeping. That’s the only conclusion I can draw. That’s the part that might be worth mentioning to people at a party. A new song of his, one I’d never heard, found its way into my mind while I was sound asleep and it’s playing over and over as we speak.”

Everything was still for a moment. Cecelia was relieved to have said what she’d said. She couldn’t decide if it sounded crazier or more reasonable, now that she’d put it into words. The pizza guy blew air into his cheeks. He seemed like maybe he’d heard all this before. He tapped his knuckle against the windshield, thinking.

“That’s morbid,” he said.

“I agree,” said Cecelia.

“How do you know it’s this Reggie guy’s song?” Marie asked.

“Because it’s just so ,” Cecelia said. “It’s done the perfect amount — not underdone and not overdone.”

“Sounds like a good name for a really bad album,” said the pizza guy. “ Just So .”

“You can’t tell what the song’s trying to do until it does it.” Cecelia could hear the beer in her voice. She was drunker than she felt.