…It’s the notes that aren’t played…

It was quite a while ago. I had fallen in love with my idea of a sophisticated, worldly gentleman who knew so much about something I knew nothing. He was suave. He was mature. He was an authority on jazz.

I met this gentleman through my college best friend. She was his secretary. I met them in a bar on a Friday night after a long day of classes, teaching a noon aerobics class, more classes, then taking my grandmother to 4:00 mass.

My friend, Sandy, was in my 8:00 class-I can’t even remember what it was, I just knew I was looking at a long day of things I HAD to do, with nothing that I really WANTED to do anywhere on the horizon. At the end of the class, Sandy casually mentioned that she would be at The Bumble Bee after she got out of work.

The Bumble Bee was a jazz club. Dark, smokey, kind of forbidden and foreboding. It was a place I’d only been to after I’d danced and drunk my fill at neon-lit night clubs filled with neon-clad twenty-somethings. It was the only bar I knew that stayed open until 4 a.m., and it was usually a final destination for me and my friends when we weren’t ready to call 1 a.m. a night.

I knew no one who went to the Bumble Bee before midnight.

After mass with my Nana, I felt exhausted, but knew I shouldn’t wave the white flag and surrender to my bed, pajamas and a book on a Friday night. I had no plans. In fact, I was so busy with my day and running late from one thing to the next, that Sandy’s plans were the only ones of which I was aware. I knew I could meander into the Metro or Bill’s in a few hours, but I didn’t think I had the stamina to wait out a few hours before trying to make a casual entrance. So I headed out to the Bumble Bee jazz club at around 6:00 that evening.

When I think back, I recall walking up to the door while it was golden light outside, a beautiful ealy fall evening. Inside the Bumble Bee, I was plunged into a thick darkness. I now laugh to think of how I must of looked, trying to adjust to the change in atmosphere: edging my foot along the floor with my arms outstretched, my mouth opened wide to somehow make my eyes adjust to the gloom.

“Good evening, welcome to the Bumble Bee,” breathed a voice right beside my ear.

I gasped and managed to make out a spectral shadow of high hair and a bit of glitter glinting off a silhouette of a woman.

It was Elyanna, the ageless, gorgeous Bumble Bee hostess. She wore fitted, strapless glitter gowns and teased her neon red hair up about a foot above her scalp, then shellaced down to a helmet flip-do. Her eyes were heavily lined in black khole that swooped out to her mid-temple. It was a retro 1950’s style that NO ONE was imitating in the 1980’s. And Elyanna owned it. She was stunning.

Before I could yammer out anything that made sense, my friend Sandy called out, “E—! We’re over here!”

Elyanna cupped my elbow with a warm hand and gracefully maneuvered me through the maze of tables to Sandy and her boss. She deftly pulled out a chair and sat me down by pushing on both of my shoulders from behind. That woman could manage a rioting mob.

Sandy was a happy person. Everyone was a friend and she naturally brought people together. I don’t think I’d have known three people in college if I hadn’t met Sandy, and there we were sitting with her boss. She was half-lit, smiling even more happily than she usually did.

“Henry, this is my best friend in college, E—,” she reached and grabbed my hand.

“Nice to meet you, E—”

Henry had a deep, smooth voice but as my eyes had adjusted to the dark, I saw he was much younger than I expected. He couldn’t have been more than a couple of years older than Sandy and me, although it looked like he was trying to pass for thirty in his wide-shouldered pinstripe suit and paisly tie. He was very thin, with a large adam’s apple. He wore a pencil moustache and his hair was cut in a very short 1950’s side-part Dick Tracy. He studied me, while I smiled and nodded, then reached out a thin hand to offer his fingertips for a very strange handshake.

Sandy ordered me a gimlet martini, something I’d never had in my life. It arrived in a huge glass and hit me hard after the second sip. Sandy was making the small talk while Henry sat back and looked around the room, then back at me every minute or so. I can’t remember what topics she gushed about (Sandy gushed about everything), I just remember thinking I’d probably have that one martini. and call it a night.

Suddenly Sandy stood up and looked at her plastic watch.

“Oh shit! I’m supposed to meet Frannie at 6:00!”

She gave me a quick kiss on my cheek, told Henry she’d see him on Monday, then ran out. And there I was, alone at the Bumble Bee with a total stranger.

Henry looked like he wanted to bail as well. In fact, he looked like he wished he’d acted on disappearing before Sandy bolted, but he surprised me by leaning in, and said,

“Let’s have the calamari. It’s the best.”

We got calimari and more martinis. A saxaphone-snare drum duo took the stage and played wending, winding background music while I just leaned back in my leather chair and relaxed.

Henry began talking. He was interesting but I can’t remember much of what he said-mostly it was about his work, which I feigned interest but couldn’t actually give a shit. I answered questions about myself with brief but truthful answers. Sometimes I lied, either for my enterainment or to avoid future encounters.

Henry began talking about jazz. He had an authority and mentioned names, labels, clubs and songs I’d never heard of. We were on our third martini, and I was mesmerized.

By ten o’clock, I was sure I had met the two loves of my life: jazz and Henry. We left as a six piece combo was taking the stage, and the place was getting packed.

Henry’s apartment was a studio with a murphy bed on the seventh floor of what should have been a condemned building. I don’t remember much except the record he put on kept playing over and over all night but I was too disoriented to get up and pull if off, and the sex was really good.

My martini hangover was probably the worst I’d ever had. Over thirty years later, I still can’t drink gin. It was the kind of hang over that I was praying I would puke in order to feel better. Henry didn’t move when I clumped out the door. I didn’t care if he did or didn’t, I remember wishing I was dead instead of having to teach an early aerobics class to overweight lesbians at the YWCA that morning.

Sandy was all smiles when she saw me at class the following Monday morning. I was still feeling the remnants of the hangover, so I faked a smile and told her we had a great time after she left because I couldn’t bear to think of anything that had to do with martinis. On Wednesday morning, she told me she’d given Henry my phone number so I smiled again, and said, “Great!”

Henry called me on Thursday. We made plans to meet at the Bumble Bee on Friday after work-exactly one week after we met. I was still nauseous if you can believe it, but I wasn’t ashamed, and aside from the wretched aftermath of acohol, I was intrigued by Henry. I wanted to see him again. I remembered the sex was actually quite good.

He was nursing a soda water and lime when Elyanna plunked me down at the same table. I ordered a pepsi. We looked at each other a bit warily then drank in awkward silence. Then he slid a cassette mix tape across the table.

“This is some of the best intro jazz for novices. These songs will help you learn to appreciate jazz and move on to a deeper level if you’re into it. I think the most important thing you’ll learn about jazz is, it’s not just the notes that are played, it’s the notes that aren’t played that make it great.”

He left after he finished his drink. We never met again. Sandy got all awkward when she talked about work and only referred to Henry as, “my boss”. I can’t tell you what actually happened or what didn’t happen to make it feel like it went all wrong. There’s a message in there about too much booze I’m sure, but that’s not what bothered me.

Years later, I heard the phrase “it’s the notes that aren’t played” on the radio when a station was eulogizing the death of a notable jazz musician. It brought back all sorts of memories, an event that was far too significant, stylistic, artistic in it’s brevity.

A couple of months ago, my husband’s younger cousin, a darling girl who wears her heart on her sleeve, was struggling with her feelings for a young man (she liked him waaaaaaay more than he’d ever deserve), and was, in reality, just a booty call for this undeserving man. To make up for his wretched behavior, he texted her a string of jazz songs and a long, self-aggrandizing ramble of his expert knowledge on jazz with the phrase “it’s the notes that aren’t played…”

Can end that now with, “…it’s the women who are.”

When You Run Into That Someone…

There is Someone. Someone you’re dying to accidently run into so you can show how perfect your life is after he or she dumped you, cheated on you, left you for for that asshole. You’ve rehearsed your casual hello and practiced a nonchalant toss of your perfectly highlighted hair. You are twenty pounds less than your post break-up wreck when he or she saw your in Walgreen’s buying adult diapers for your grandfather. Your skin is clear. You are on top of the world. You are having the best fucking sex of your life and it shows on you. And your ex is just a blip on your big life screen.

You’re hoping he or she is wretched. That life is the perfect opposite life of what you both were when you were dumped. That he or she is fat, living a miserable life, working a menial job, wearing sweat pants because nothing else fits. When he or she sees you, you are the object of envy and desire and wonder: “How could I have let that go?”

So that moments never happens. Still you practice for it, just in case. Because out there, there is one person you wish you could serve a big shit sandwich of your awesome fucking life, if wishes could ever come true.

It took over twenty-two years. And it was worth every second.

The details of how we came together don’t matter except that it was complicated and messy. There was a nasty divorce on my side and a fragile girlfriend on his side. To complicate matters even more, he was my boss. He was nearly twenty years older than me. Everything about us said, “Run. Run away. Don’t do this.” Which made it more exciting at the time.

We started out on the sly. It was delicious. The little innuendos, the longing stares, the secret touches, and best of all, forbidden sex at work. In the car. Quickies where ever we could. We were the only ones who knew of this passion, this pleasure. It would be so worth it but we had to keep it a secret (his rules) because my soon-to-be-ex-husband was dangerous (not so sure about that, we had been separated for months, and by my accounts, he was mostly annoying) and his girlfriend was fragile and almost suicidal.

A year into our secret relationship, my divorce was nearly settled but he was still living with Miss Fragile. Her name was Cathy. He told me he was trying to get her to understand why they needed to be apart, yet he went to Cathy’s apartment every night. She was really unstable, he assured me. She had been decimated by her divorce, left impoverished, betrayed by her best friends on the witness stand. Her child had been taken from her custody. Her behaviors were erratic spanning the scope of nearly suicidal depression to homicidal anger. (I am not kidding, he swore she strangled a dog that killed her cat and never felt an shred of regret). She could not weather another blow. Losing him might be the final break, could throw her off the deep end. Besides, he liked to pile on, I was dangerous. My ex-husband might lash out unpredictably. It was best we kept a low profile and fucked like monkeys in secret, dark places.

I wasted over two years of my life on these principles. First I believed it, I believed I loved him and I believed in us. Then I believed I was nothing without him. I went from a pathetic wife in a bad marriage to a cheating mistress. No break. No time to take stock of who I could be without someone who expected me to be something for him. My greatest regret of that time was that my son took a back seat to the menial, meager offerings of the Love Of My Life. I can never undo that.

I’d like to reveal that I came to my senses and left his sorry ass, the lame exuses and cheating crap because I knew I was better than that, but that is not what happened. The truth is he finally ended up breaking up with Cathy. Our holding pattern was over! No more sneaking around.We could move into our own place. Our dreams could finally come true…then I was asked out on a date by a gorgeous, rich, funny, charismatic friend and I went out with him for the following reasons:

1. Athough I was only 25, I hadn’t been on a date in years.

2. The date was to a hip, happening restaurant, then to see a jazz band.

3. The Love of My Life was wallowing in a trough of sorrow on his mangey couch for fragile Cathy, who was, by his account, destroyed. She was sorry for whatever she had done to him and that wracked him with guilt. Cathy believed that everyone she loved left her which was probably true but it was just blah, blah, blah to me after two years of sneaking around.

4. The nearly twenty-year gap in our age was a bit daunting. His body was on the decline: he had man boobs, a hefty paunch and an unfortunate mound of fat just above his penis that nearly hid his manhood when he was standing up. He thought nothing of farting in bed. And he talked with authority about the 1960’s and the Vietnam War. I kept doing math like, “When I’m 30, he’ll be…48…” It got even uglier when did the math for40, then 50…then 60.

My date was unbelievable. We were young, sharp, fun, drunk. We fucked our brains out in a huge, clean, soft bed at his loft after dancing the night away. My date dropped me off at dawn with a loud smooch and a declaration that we had to do that again! I couldn’t sleep. I was electrified by the night I just had, it was glimpse of a life I would never live if I moved with someone who was ready to settle in for listening to himself talk about his wild days gone while pondering hypertension and diabetes.

Three hours later I was looking at the weathered, pained, egotistical face of the man I declared for the past two years was The Love Of My Life and in my blurry, hung-over miasma, his face made me sick. He was still so full of self-righteous grief for the fragile Cathy that he had no inkling of my previous night’s activities, except that I was unusually quiet. I told him, “I’m tired of hearing about poor Cathy.”

He calmly replied with an authority one expects from  master to servant, “I’m not interested in your feelings right now.” And that was it for me. The only way I can describe the complete end of any affection I had for the man was a door slammed in my brain. I was done. Less than twelve hours earlier I learned there was a far bigger world than I had ever dreamed of and I wasn’t going to waste any more time on a fat, two-timing loser.

I said nothing because I wasn’t angry, I wasn’t outraged or empowered. I wasn’t about to start a fight or initiate the break up because that would have taken effort and emotion that simply no longer existed. It felt bizarre, as though any love I’d felt for him was erased, gone, vanished. He had a sense of my distance because I left that afternoon-I lied and said my ex had to bring our son home early-he said, “Don’t ever wake up and realize I’m too old, too fat and too stupid for you.” That was a line he used occasionally when I was sobbing about being alone while he spent holidays and weekends with fragile Cathy.

I didn’t respond in my typical, “Never! You are the most amazing, brilliant, handsome man I know!” I think I just stared with my mouth agape as I wondered what the hell I was doing with a fat, old hippy. He then said, “You know, if you dump me, I’ll just give up and marry Cathy.” I could not get away fast enough.

It was a feeble break up to be sure, but I had no shame because I absolutely did not care. I didn’t take his calls for several days. When I finally did, I just told him I was done and didn’t want to see him anymore. He was floored. He needed a reason. How could we be finished when the love we shared that transcended the universe? We couldn’t be over, we needed to be together to find out if we really should be apart. His rationale disgusted me, especially when he hinted that I could never find anyone better. With that, I didn’t believe I owed him a face-to-face after the two years of sneaking around as a second girlfriend. Besides I was having a blast with a new young guy. Plus there were other young guys calling me up for dates. I wasn’t a mess, I wasn’t second rate and I wasn’t trouble just because I was divorced with a kid. I was starting to live life as a twenty-something.

Things didn’t just magically turn around at that point, let me assure you. It was difficult. The handsome, rich, young guy broke up with me because he wasn’t ready for kids. That stung. I learned to set limits on who I let in. I stopped sleeping with men on the first date. I decided to just be alone for over a year which was hard at the time but further defined who I was and what I wanted from others. I loved being a single mother although I have no idea how I got through it when I look back. Then I met my husband. And life has been getting better every year.

I would be lying if I told you, “Oh, I only wish the best for that guy I almost moved in with.” For some reason, he pisses me off when I think of him. I compromised my integrity, my values and my self worth. He defined me in such a degrading way: young and divorced-implying ignorance. A package deal that was a burden. Less than ideal. Our “Perfect Love” was a poor second thought and I went along with it! I was a mistress. A cheater. A sneak. I know I let those things happen, and that I was a willing participant but it stings me to think of it. He was older, he was my boss, he initiated it and he could have had a better perspective and better character to not cheat on his girlfriend or fuck the hired help.

I had created many scenarios of chance encounters, from the sublime to the fantastic. Through a mutual friend, I learned he did marry his fragile Cathy and I was dying to run into them just to say, “Nice to see you’ve given up.”

Thankfully that encounter never happened-it would have been embarassing. Instead, over twenty years later I ran into him at a furniture making open house. I heard his voice before I saw him and tried to duck out of meeting him but I had made my way into a small room and he was standing by the only way out of the room. Unless I dove out a window…which I seriously contemplated for several minutes.

I decided just to say, “Hello” and caught him utterly by surprise. His face turned purple. To make matters worse for him, he had just had shoulder surgery and wore a sling and swath that held his arm out at a 90 degree angle from his body. He was not as fat as my memory made him out to be and other than that absurd contraption on his arm, he looked almost exactly the same.

I really can’t recall what was said–pleasant nonsense I think, jabber about how my son, who was two when we met was now twenty-six. He babbled some foolishness about working at the same job because his plan for complete world domination never really materialized, which was a little funny but felt like practiced patois in case we ever met.

I was just about to say, “Well, nice seeing you,” and scram when a tall, barrel bodied woman with wire hair and long thin arms and legs came to his side. She was smiling. He should have just let me leave but instead he said, “You do remember my wife, Cathy…Cathy, this is E—.” Her smile vanished, her eyes became slits and she reared her head back and bared her teeth. I suddenly felt as though I was looking at Medusa. I also know with absolute certainty the last thing that poor dog saw before she choked the life out of it.

 

 

 

 

Foggy Nights of Early Spring

I have always loved the early mornings after a foggy night, especially in early spring. It is quiet and empty. The air is cold and damp but filled with hints and promises of a better life. Sparrows and robins are the only birds chirping until the silence in shattered by harsh calls of a couple of crows. They shout as if they own the silence. As if they’re not going to let you keep your peace enshrouded in the white-gray silence.

I have lived in small cities along the Atlantic ocean for over twenty years where there is nothing like a cold, foggy morning with a mere promise of spring. The damp chill creeps into your bones and lives there. It can feel worse than the January wind but is worth enduring because the rich smell of the ocean is so solid you can nearly taste it. That smell heralds spring earlier than the yellow hue on the hemlock trees or the sudden swath of brave snowbells on brown lawns.

Since my college years, I have taken to walking downtown, enveloped in the fog of those nights and early mornings. I have never been able to sleep in, especially if I am hungover. What a curse to lie in bed in pre-dawn, wide awake, still drunk but with a pounding heart beat in my ears, a hammering headache and a queasy stomach. Oh, to only be able to bury my head into my fetid pillow and sleep away a few more hours while my poor liver metabolized the poison with which I taxed it. So jealous I was of my slumbering, snoring roommates. They were sure to suffer as I was, but at least they had put off the misery for a good stretch of precious oblivion.

One of my best pre-dawn fog walk memories was as a college coed. I woke, or surfaced after a night of hard drinking in a strange bed. Lying next to someone I could not remember. We were both naked. Sex had indeed taken place.

I took inventory of my surroundings and the potentials of my bedmate. The previous evening started at a house party. My roommates and I had gone as a group. The party was a blast: music, conversation, new people, several potential prospects for the night. We were drinking plenty and having fun and I recall there were at least two young men I would consider leaving with.

I studied the back of the head of his head. He had thick brown hair, a good cut-I could tell that even with his bed head. He had lovely strong shoulders and beautifully shaped arms. His hands were tucked under his pillow. He slept silently, even after a night of partying. I lifted the blankets to inventory his bottom half as well as I could in the dim light. He lay on his side. His waist tapered in to narrow hips. His buttocks were perfect: round and hairless.

The room, his room? Was strewn with our clothes but otherwise fairly orderly. We were lying on a real bed, made up with sheets and pillows with pillowcases. We were warm under a top sheet and comforter. The blinds were drawn, neatly drawn, against weak, predawn light, there were no missing or broken slats. There was a large desk was loaded with textbooks in organized piles. The closet door was ajar, but nothing looked to be spilling out from inside it. It was cold. The room smelled like morning funk and sex.

I propped myself up on my elbow as quietly as I could to see his sleeping face but I couldn’t raise myself up enough to look over him. I thought I had an idea who I was lying naked in bed with: a faint crush, a mere acquaintance, someone I knew I could crush on if I had enough to drink but I was a little surprised to discover I had been drunk and horny enough to wake up here.

My surreptitious and careful movement made my pounding headache worse. I lay back quietly and looked at the ceiling, calculating how long I would lie there waiting for him (Chris? Peter?) to wake up, wondering how embarrassed we would feel when we looked at each other from our pillow. I wondered if we would face the dilemma of a sober-but-hungover fuck vs. the awkward horror of the morning-after regret.

Minutes dragged. My bed mate was a silent sleeper and because I had no memory of our night of passion, it was his best quality. After lying there for as long as I could stand, which was probably about ten minutes, I decided I was done with the scene. I would not be able to stand a face-to-face. I hadn’t the guts or stamina muster up sexy feelings, to fake any sort of banter, or post hook-up revelations. Breakfast was clearly out of the question.

I slipped out of bed and gathered my clothes. Mini skirt, turtleneck, knee socks, bra, boots, one glove, my trench coat with (thank God!) my wallet, ID and a few bucks. No panties. They were nowhere on the floor, within reaching distance in the bed, or under the bed. Not on desk, not even in the closet that I could see. I gave them up as casualties of the night and quickly and quietly dressed without them.

“Hey, where are you going?” came a gravelly voice as I cracked the bedroom door open. My heart lurched, mostly because the closer I was to leaving without notice, the more I wanted to leave without notice.

“I have to go,” I whispered. “I hadn’t planned on staying all night.”

“I hadn’t planned on you staying at all,” he laughed.

I smiled over to him from the door. It was still too dark to see who I had spent the night with. “Come on back,” he said and rolled onto his back.

I walked to his side of the bed. He had a beautiful even face, heavy dark eyebrows, aqualine nose of a Roman god, a strong chin. I had never seen this man before last night. He wasn’t Chris, he wasn’t Peter. He was gorgeous.

“Let me ask you,” I knelt down beside him and with my elbows on the mattress, “was it good?”

He smiled slow and lazy and brushed his thumb along my mouth. “You better believe it.”

I came out to a gray, silent street. Cool damp air snuck up my bare thighs and soothed a throbbing inside. My head ached less and my stomach felt settled in the fog cacoon. I was several blocks away from my apartment and I walked home accompanied only by the gritty echoing steps of my leather boots.