The Alchemy of Noise

by Lorraine Devon Wilke

  “All right, sweetheart.”

  Karen blew a kiss from the porch and headed down the stairs. Before Sidonie stepped out, Marian murmured: “Forgive me, sweetheart. I guess I’m not as strong as you.”

  Sidonie gave her a sad smile, knowing those words were true and they changed the way she felt about her mother.

  TWENTY-NINE

  KAREN RANTED ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE CITY. IF SIDONIE had been less tired, she might have participated, but as it was, she was happy to cede the soapbox to her sister, who was riled and in rare form. It wasn’t until Willis Tower came into distant view that Karen finally depleted herself, concluding the ride in silence.

  When they pulled in front of the townhouse, she double-parked and flipped on the hazards. “Gosh, that was a fun night! Let’s do it again real soon, m’kay?” Before Sidonie could respond, Karen looked up toward the second floor of the townhouse. “Is he here?”

  Sidonie peered up; the light was on. “I think so. He had an early night.”

  “He has a key already?” Karen grinned.

  “Yeah. It was just easier.”

  “I’d ask to come up and meet him, but I think we’re both too exhausted, yeah?”

  “Yeah. But thank you. Thanks for standing up for me . . . for him. It meant a lot.” Suddenly she was crying.

  “Oh, sissy, I’m so sorry our mother loves a flaming racist.” Karen tilted her head with a goofy grin. “But look at it this way: at least the asshole isn’t moving her to Mississippi and fitting her with a set of pointy white sheets. That would be worse, right?”

  “God, you’re horrible!”

  Karen patted her knee. “Go be with your guy. He really does sound like a gem. We’ll figure Mom out later. Or maybe we won’t. But whatever happens, you got me.”

  She couldn’t have said anything better.

  FINDING CHRIS AT the dining room table as she walked in, Sidonie was hit with a wave of home. He looked up with a radiant smile, lit with the pleasure of seeing her, and she was cleansed of the day.

  Without a word, she took his hand and led him upstairs to the bedroom, where assuagement was found in Gato Barbieri on Pandora, good wine on the bed stand, and warm hands banishing all that was cold.

  “I love you,” he whispered, sweetly altering the day’s most indelible feature.

  “I love you, too . . .”

  THIRTY

  THEY MADE BREAKFAST, SMILED AND TOUCHED IN PASSING, but neither referenced the words uttered the night before. Until they did.

  “Did you mean what you said last night?” she asked.

  He looked at her, surprised. “Of course.” He smiled. “Did you?”

  “Of course.” She smiled back.

  “Good.”

  He poured coffee for them both.

  She sat quietly for a moment, then: “Do you want to move in?”

  He looked up, startled. “You mean officially? I’m here almost every night anyway.”

  “Yes, officially. With drawers and hangers, a toothbrush in the glass, your own crappy food in the fridge.”

  “I don’t have crappy food.”

  “String cheese and Jell-O cups are not gourmet.”

  “I’m a simple man.”

  “Do you want to move in?”

  “You’re serious?”

  “I am.”

  “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

  “I wouldn’t have asked otherwise. Do you ask because you’re not ready for that?”

  “No. I just want to be sure you are.”

  “I’m sure. I like knowing you’re here when I come home. I look forward to you walking in the door. I like waking up to you next to me. I want you here . . . if you want to be here.”

  He crossed the room and enveloped her in a deep, resonating kiss. She was breathless by the time he let go.

  “I want to be here. Let’s make it official.” He poured two glasses of orange juice, handed her one, and offered a toast. “We are now bound by the power of love, orange juice, and string cheese. Amen.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  HUSTLING DOWN THE STAIRS TO THE GARAGE, THEY DEBATED whose car and which route, and just as the door rolled open and Chris stepped out to the driveway patio, a perky young woman in a neon orange track suit, platinum hair high in a flouncy ponytail, emerged from the garage next door.

  “Sidonie!” she squealed with a wide toothy grin. “My God, girl, where have you been? I haven’t seen you in ages!”

  “Hey, Alice!” They hugged warmly. “I’ve been around, but the club’s been nuts and so are my hours. How are you doing?”

  “I’m fabulous, but Mark is going completely crazy. He did get the job at Skidmore. Remember that architectural firm I texted you about a couple of months ago?”

  “Yeah . . . wow! That’s a big deal, right?”

  “It is, it’s fabulous, but it’s such a steep learning curve. Lots of dramatic whining.” She laughed. “But otherwise, everything’s pretty much the same.” She glanced at Chris.

  “Oh, sorry, Alice, this is Chris Hawkins. Chris, this is Alice Rosen. She and her hubby, Mark, live next door and have been my pals for ages.” She turned back to Alice. “Chris is the sound manager at the club.”

  Alice and Chris shook hands. “Fabulous! Nice to meet you, Chris!”

  “The same.”

  “Chris is going to be moving in over the next couple of weeks,” Sidonie interjected with a smile, “so you’ll be seeing him around a lot more.”

  Alice looked him over with heightened interest. “Fabulous! Let’s plan a dinner or something when you guys get settled. It’s been too long since we’ve done that—like, what, over a year? And I know Mark is dying to have a Scrabble rematch. He’s convinced you cheated last time!” She stopped with an awkward laugh, “last time” clearly having involved a certain ex-husband.

  Sidonie slid over the conversational bump without a hitch: “Mark was always a sore loser, but let’s have at it. I bet Chris is better at Scrabble than Theo could ever hope to be.” She turned to Chris, who smiled and took the prompt.

  “I haven’t played since I was thirteen, but at the time I was quite the wordsmith. Count me in.”

  Sidonie leaned into him appreciatively. “Great . . . so you’re on, Rosen. We’ll get in touch when we’re more organized. Tell Mark to get out his dictionary!”

  “Fabulous! Well, listen—oh God, there she is.” Her voice suddenly dropped to a whisper.

  Both Sidonie and Chris turned as the other neighbor, the “cranky old shrew” as Sidonie had initially described her, stepped out to her deck above. Alice looked away immediately as the older woman glanced in their direction. Sidonie gave a terse nod; the woman nodded back, shook two small rugs from the balcony, then turned and went inside.

  “Ugh,” Alice continued, “I can’t even stand to look at her!”

  “Now, be nice. It’s better than getting into a brawl.”

  “Do you know how many times I’ve fantasized about just that, punching the shit out of that bitch?” She laughed. “But, yes, I’ll be nice. She’s not worth the trouble. All right, gotta get my run in. Great to meet you, Chris. Enjoy the neighborhood and I’ll see you around!”

  “You got it.” He smiled as she trotted off, ponytail wagging, her skintight suit literally glowing in the midday sun. Chris watched for a moment, realizing he’d have never imagined, in any scenario, having a neighbor with quite the perkiness of this quintessentially blonde white woman. He smiled as he got in the Jeep.

  Sidonie noticed. “What?”

  “That’s the nice neighbor?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “She’s cute. Likes the word fabulous.”

  “She does.” Sidonie laughed. “She runs a very trendy Chicago tour company, so her enthusiasm is a commodity. She and Mark are actually great. We used to spend a lot of time together, but after the divorce . . . I don’t know . . . and then the club got busier. Anyway, it’ll be fun for you guys to get to know each other.�
��

  “I look forward to it. What’s the story with the other neighbor? Obviously there’s some bad blood there.” He pulled into traffic.

  “Yeah, Sandra. We all pretty much avoid her. She lives alone, generally unfriendly, mostly keeps to herself unless she’s stirring up trouble. I’m just grateful I never had a dog to contend with. Mark and Alice had this little yapper about two years ago, and it got really ugly between all of them for a while. Animal Control, mediations, fines, the whole thing. I stayed out of it, but wasn’t too unhappy when they finally shipped it off to Mark’s brother’s up north. It was pretty noisy. But Sandra was hideous about it all.”

  “I’ll look forward to avoiding her too.”

  Sidonie smiled. “Yes, wise. But let’s definitely take Alice up on the invitation. I think you’ll like them.”

  “We will. We’ll do all that stuff, just like the real couple we are.” They grinned at each other. A dashboard light pinged.

  “Damn.” Chris sighed.

  “What’s that?” Sidonie asked.

  Chris tapped on the dash screen but the light persisted. “My radiator’s going. I still can’t decide whether to overhaul this thing or bite the bullet and get something new.”

  “You could use something prettier. And cleaner,” she added slyly.

  “It is pretty rough.” He laughed. “Even my brother would probably agree it’s time to let it go . . .”

  She reached over and squeezed his hand. “Probably.”

  “Let’s make a date to go look at something new on one of our days off.”

  “A car date—how romantic!”

  “I know how to treat my women,” he growled.

  She smiled. “You do. You really do.” She leaned back to look out the window. Their chosen Lake Shore Drive route, usually easy at this time of day, was hampered by street construction that repeatedly held them at full stops. She fell into silence, long enough that he finally looked over.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Just thinking about yesterday. My mom . . . the whole mess.”

  “Tell me what happened. You were pretty quiet when you got home.”

  Sidonie detailed the unfortunate circumstances of the previous afternoon, with its revelation that her mother would be making her relationship with Chris an awkward family issue for the foreseeable future. “Which is the last thing I expected.”

  “She never gave a hint of anything like that before?”

  “Not really. She isn’t the most socially evolved person in the world, and even though she pretended to forget my black boyfriend in college, it didn’t seem to be a problem at the time.”

  “You never mentioned a black boyfriend before.”

  She looked at him sharply. “What does that mean?”

  Her tone surprised him. “It means you never mentioned it, that’s all.” He frowned in response. “What did you think it meant?”

  “Sorry.” She blushed, chagrined. “I’m being oversensitive. It just bugged me that she framed it like it was some sort of proclivity that appealed to me, dating black men . . . jungle fever and all that.”

  “Is it?”

  She turned with her mouth agape only to catch his mischievous grin. She slapped his arm with real feeling. “That’s not funny, Chris!”

  “It kind of is. I mean, come on! You date one black guy in college and your Mom’s concerned it’s a thing? That’s kind of funny.”

  “Yeah, hilarious. Her boyfriend’s a hoot too.”

  “What’s his story?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t spent that much time with him, just seemed like a normal Midwestern dude. Not terribly sophisticated, but generally decent. Finding out he’s a Fox News segregationist is disturbing.” She looked over to gauge his reaction. “Does all this give you one of your ticks?”

  “Once removed, maybe. It makes me feel bad for you. It’s your family—you want their support. But people do what they’re gonna do, that’s a fact. Just let me know how you want to play it.”

  “I don’t know yet. She’s leaving soon, so I’ll have to figure something out. But I’m sorry. It shames me to have to apologize for my family.”

  “It’s not your shame to bear. I’ll be dealing with something similar with my sister.”

  Sidonie was taken aback. “Really? But you said you dated white girls before.”

  “Twice, briefly, and both times Vanessa let me know how disappointed she was.”

  “In what, exactly? Something as simple as Steve’s equation, that races shouldn’t mix or . . . what?”

  “Some version of that, but less personal, more political. When it comes to black men with white women, my sister goes to the reality that black women have been denigrated throughout history while white women have been idealized. So there’s a sense of betrayal when a brother chooses a white woman over a sister. When it’s her brother? All the worse. Like it or not, agree with it or not, that’s where Vanessa lives.”

  “I shall be sufficiently terrified to meet her.”

  “We’ll take it slowly,” he said, smiling.

  They rode in silence for a moment. Then she looked over at him.

  “How do you feel about all that?”

  “Her view?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I understand it, but I won’t live my life limited by history. To me that’s just another form of slavery. Part of my freedom is being able to love who I choose. Who I fall in love with. I don’t fetishize white women, but I won’t reject love if it happens to be with one either. She sees it differently.”

  Sidonie had no opposing angle to offer. No argument, no debate. Again, she was struck by the gap in their experience, the complexities that affected him that she’d never given thought to beyond history class or observations of contemporary culture. It was jarring.

  Chris looked over, concerned. “What’s going on over there?”

  “It’s just . . . I don’t know . . . all this. It’s new. I’ve never had to think much about it before. Race didn’t affect me. I know you’ve had to think about it your whole life, but it’s an education for me.”

  “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

  “Or maybe just sad.”

  “How so?”

  “That both of us leapt in without really thinking about the racial angle.”

  “I always think about the racial angle—”

  “What I mean is, we got involved with just us. Just who we are as people, a man and a woman who feel something for each other. Now we’re dealing with Steve and Vanessa, and race and black history, and police looking for pipes in the glove box, and it’s all so strange and invasive.”

  “This is the gig, Sidonie,” he said, not unsympathetically. “And hopefully this is as bad as it gets.”

  She looked at him with alarm. “What does that mean?”

  “Just that I hope this is the worst we have to deal with: cranky family members and occasional police stops. I can live with that. Can you?”

  They’d arrived at The Church. He’d pulled into the employee parking lot and turned to her, waiting for an answer.

  “Yes, I can live with that,” she said somberly.

  “Good. Then I’ll find time over the next week to get my things over to your place—”

  “Our place.”

  “Our place. I might even pick up some necessary essentials, like, say, a better TV and a wider selection of string cheese and Jell-O cups.” He grinned. “And let’s be sure to talk about my contribution to the overhead. If I’m living there, I’m part of the payment formula, okay? Mortgage, utilities, whatever.”

  She liked that he offered. “You’re a noble man.”

  “I am very noble. And hopefully worth the trouble.”

  She reached out and caressed his cheek. “No trouble, Chris. But yes, worth it. Every bit.” She meant it. “Okay, I’m heading in.” She hopped out of the Jeep.

  “I’ll follow in a few.” They were still working the secrecy angle.

  Just as Sido
nie turned toward the door, Al came out with trash bins in hand. He stopped and looked at them both. His expression—wheels of curiosity spinning like mad—compelled her to squelch a grin.

  THIRTY-TWO

  “HEY, KIDDO, I JUST GOT A CALL FROM LOUISE BARTON OVER at ALZ and they want to add fifteen people. Is that possible at this point?” Frank, more frazzled than usual, grabbed Sidonie the second she walked in the door. The Alzheimer’s Association was throwing their annual benefit this coming weekend and last-minute additions were wrenching the works.

  “Fifteen? Are you kidding me? That’s . . . I don’t know. I’m guessing that puts us over occupancy and the last thing anyone wants is a visit from the Fire Department.”

  “That’s what I told her. She’s apologetic, says she knows it’s way past the head count deadline, but apparently the add-ons are big hitters. She’s hoping we can accommodate them.”

  Sidonie shook her head, annoyed. “Let me look at the layout and see where we are.” She started toward her office.

  “Hey, before you go, can we talk a minute?”

  She turned, surprised. “Sure. What’s up?”

  “Let’s go sit in my office.”

  Sidonie felt a wave of reminiscent dread, the feeling that descended with every directive to the principal’s office. They walked into his well-ordered space—walls covered with event posters, framed citations and awards, family pictures and neatly arranged stacks of folders—and as she sat in the chair across from his desk, he shut the door, further piquing her concern.

  “You’re making me nervous. Am I about to get detention?”

  Frank laughed. “Sorry, I’m not trying to be mysterious, I just want to keep this private. Al’s probably out there right now with a highball glass to the door.”

  She laughed, almost picturing it.

  “So, kiddo, this is a personal question, which is not usually in my playbook, but I think it’s time I asked. Is there something going on between you and Chris Hawkins?”

  Boom. Like a cannon. Sidonie had been convinced of their success in hiding the situation; clearly she’d miscalculated.