Sorrow

by Tiffanie DeBartolo

  Cal must have put it up there because I could barely reach it, and if I could barely reach it, October definitely couldn’t.

  “Why is it on top of the fridge?”

  “Diego has a weakness for prosciutto.”

  It was a long, heavy wooden board filled with vegetables, cheeses, and meats, plus olives, nuts, and crackers. I lifted it carefully and set it on the counter. Like the table outside, the board looked like a work of art. October had arranged flowers, berries, and branches with imagination and precision all around the food, and even though I was hungry, I decided it was too beautiful to mess with before the guests got a chance to see it.

  I grabbed a beer while October drifted over to her laptop. She pushed a few buttons, and seconds later music started playing softly inside and outside the house. Subtle singer-songwriter stuff that amplified my melancholy. I looked out the window and nursed my beer while a mopey guy playing what sounded like a prewar Martin whisper-sang, It’s not that we’re scared, it’s just that it’s delicate, and I wanted to say: Speak for yourself, buddy; I’m fucking terrified.

  I could see October was listening to the song too, and I felt relieved when I spotted Cal and Diego walking up the driveway, because I didn’t want to be alone with her and all my leaden, Martin-tinged emotions.

  I walked out to greet Cal just as a big Mercedes SUV pulled up. A tall, light-skinned African-American guy got out and then helped his wife out of the passenger side. Cal embraced them and introduced me as his oldest and best friend. They shook my hand and told me their names, but I’m terrible with new people and names, and a second later I couldn’t recall what they’d said.

  We went inside; more cars pulled up, and before I knew it the house was filled with people talking and drinking and messing up October’s beautiful antipasto board without ever telling her how incredible it looked. They took her talent for granted. Or, as she might say, they missed the point. Even Cal seemed to miss it. But October didn’t care. She didn’t do it for them. She didn’t make interesting and beautiful things so that people would notice and tell her how interesting and beautiful they were. She did it because it moved her to do so. She did it for the doing itself. That’s what art is to her. Doing. Living. The expression of oneself in action and in creation. You know that old question about if a tree falls in a forest but nobody hears it, does it make any noise? October was the art equivalent of that. If you make something and nobody ever appreciates it, is it still art? I would argue it most certainly is. October would surely argue the same.

  The only good part of all the socializing and mingling was that I couldn’t hear the mopey guy singing anymore.

  Cal went out of his way to make me feel comfortable. He introduced me to his manager, Nancy, and her husband, John, and I talked to them for a while. They both had soft handshakes and shiny silver threads of coarse hair at their temples, and had come with one of Nancy’s other clients, Loring Blackman, another famous musician who writes songs for other artists now. I got a kick out of meeting him because I’d listened to his music a lot in college. Loring and his wife, a jewelry designer, told me they lived in a brownstone three doors down from Cal in Brooklyn and were in town visiting one of Loring’s sons, who went to UC Berkeley. Cal told them I’d graduated from there and they asked me a lot of questions, the kind it didn’t bother me to answer. They were sweet and attentive with each other, and something about the way they interacted made me imagine for an instant that October and I could have ended up like that, had it not been for Cal. Deep down I didn’t believe it—I didn’t think I was brave enough to go the distance with a woman like October. Nevertheless, it made me feel better to have someone to blame other than myself.

  The last to arrive was a photographer named Guy. He had a big, egg-shaped head, a long beard, and a loud, fuzzy voice like he was speaking through a distortion pedal. The first thing he told me was that he’d shot Cal’s last two album campaigns “but not his first one, because he couldn’t afford me then.” Guy was wearing a fur vest, and I disliked him within thirty seconds of our meeting. He was twitchy, reminiscent of an old neighbor in Berkeley who did a lot of bad drugs. The other thing I disliked about Guy was that he was very touchy-feely with October, resting his hand on her back as he spoke to her. And I could tell by the way she flinched and walked away that she disliked him too. She’s sensitive to touch, especially to someone who’s full of negative energy.

  Guy had arrived with two models in tow. They had similar names that I can’t recall now, Carla and Claire, or something like that. They seemed nice enough, but they spoke with extreme Southern California accents—you know that monotone way of talking as if nothing matters—that made me want to bang my head against a wall.

  Eventually I got tired of talking to strangers and went back into the kitchen to see if October needed any help, but she waved me off, and I could tell by her demeanor that the last thing she wanted to be doing was entertaining a houseful of people. Cal strolled in a second later and put his arms around her. She whispered something to him that I couldn’t hear, and he rolled his eyes and said, “I dare you to have a good time tonight,” before grabbing a couple crackers and walking back into the living room.

  Diego was sprawled underneath the table, either hiding from the partygoers like I was or waiting for someone to drop food. He looked up at me, and I fed him a slice of prosciutto. After that he followed me to the couch, where he sat at my feet and kept me company until October told everyone to go outside and sit down for dinner.

  I ended up with the tall African-American man on my left and Loring’s wife, Bea, on my right. Model Claire sat directly across from me, Carla next to her.

  “Are you a musician too?” Claire asked, and I knew that listening to her talk for too long would’ve turned me into a serial killer.

  I told her I was not a musician, but Cal, who was at the head of the table, waved his napkin in the air like he was trying to shoo away a swarm of mosquitoes and said, “Don’t listen to him! He’s the single greatest guitar player you’ve never heard of!”

  That egged Claire on, and she began asking me more questions—the kind I hated, like where I was from and what kind of music I played. In an effort to get her to leave me alone, I turned and asked the man on my left the same dumb questions, which turned out to be the most amusing part of the whole night. I had assumed he was someone with whom Cal worked, maybe a band member or a roadie, and when I asked him what he did, the entire table went silent.

  “I play basketball,” he answered softly.

  “Professionally?” I asked. He did seem tall, but not as tall as Cal, and certainly not as tall as I imagine basketball players to be.

  Once the guests realized I was serious, laughter erupted. Then Guy explained, at volume ten and with an offensive amount of disbelief regarding my knowledge of sports, that the gentleman on my left played for the Golden State Warriors and was arguably the greatest point guard in the NBA.

  I didn’t know what a point guard was, but I congratulated the man. Claire then announced that she wasn’t into sports either, as if that inextricably linked the two of us, and Cal immediately came to my defense like he used to when we were kids.

  “Harp and I were too busy practicing our crafts to care about sports.”

  That made me think about the way Bob used to bark, “What are you, his lawyer?” whenever Cal stuck up for me or made my case. I reminded Cal of that, and he told a story about the time Bob took us to a 49ers game during a short-lived phase when he was trying to spend more quality time with me. Why he had chosen football as the venue to express that, I’ll never know. But it was a Sunday, and Cal and I had plans to go to Tower Records that day, so naturally we’d protested wholeheartedly—and by “we” I mean Cal—but Bob told us we didn’t have a choice.

  “We brought Spin, Guitar World, and the NME,” Cal said. “And we read magazines the whole time.”

  “Man, was
Bob pissed,” I laughed. “He didn’t let you come over for a while after that, remember?”

  October had barely said a word throughout dinner, but she smiled as we told the story, and I didn’t know if it was a happy smile or a sad smile, or if it was directed at me or at Cal.

  After we finished eating, October gathered a handful of dishes and took them into the kitchen; Cal followed her with the rest. I watched them through the window. Cal stood close to October as he separated the dishes from the silverware and stacked the plates in the sink. Then he said something to her that made her swat him in the arm and laugh, and they kissed.

  When they came back outside, October was carrying a white cake that she’d decorated with rosemary and manzanita berries. Cal had a bunch of small plates in one hand and the bottle of tequila I’d brought over in the other.

  “How about a song before dessert?” Guy shouted.

  The basketball player chimed in, the models started droning on about it too, and soon everyone was pestering Cal to play something.

  “Fine, fine,” Cal said. “Hold your horses.”

  He ran off to the studio and came back with a Gibson SJ-200E and an old, beautifully weathered Takamine with a worn-down pickguard and scratches all over the finish. He presented the Takamine to me and said, “I’m not playing unless you play with me.”

  I didn’t protest. As insecure as I was about most of my abilities, making music with Cal was not one of them. I pulled off my shoes and socks, took the guitar in one hand, poured myself a shot of tequila with the other, and tossed it back quickly.

  Cal and I moved our chairs out from the table and formed a semicircle a few feet away. Then, like I used to do in high school, I asked Cal what we were going to play—it was always up to him, he was the ringleader, the mastermind behind our performances—and he said, “The Tam High set list, obviously.”

  He didn’t have to remind me what songs were on that list. I remembered.

  We tuned our instruments and did some funny vocal warm-ups that Mr. Collins, our freshman year music teacher, had taught us. Even when we were kids, I laughed through them, but Cal took them seriously, claiming he still used them before every show.

  I’m not a great singer, but I can hold a decent tune. And I’d learned to sing by harmonizing with Cal, so I knew he and I sounded good together.

  As soon as Cal gave me the nod, I counted to four and we hit our D strings in unison.

  Our first tune was a slower, bluer version of “Peaceful Easy Feeling” that silenced everyone at the table, even Guy.

  During the song I kept glancing over at October, to see if she was paying attention, and every time I did her eyes were on me.

  We followed the Eagles with Oasis, then Petty, and then Cal told me to show off, and I lost myself noodling around on my own. When I finally stopped playing and looked up, everyone at the table was staring at me as if they’d just noticed I was an octopus. They seemed stupefied. Then they started clapping like crazy, and I put the guitar down to make it end. The rush of playing and the reaction of the guests felt like a great dam breaking inside of me. A tiny glimpse into a world I’d missed. No, not missed, but had forsaken.

  My heart was pounding, my breath shallow, and I knew I needed to get away from the table. I slipped my shoes back on, excused myself, and snuck off to the trail behind the house. I walked slowly in the dark, my steps heavy as I inhaled and exhaled deeply, audibly, trying to calm myself, trying to crack the silence around me, hoping to stave off what felt like an imminent collapse. And I was just starting to settle down when I heard the drone of Claire’s voice call my name and ask me to wait.

  “What are you doing?” she said, plodding behind me.

  I stopped to help her up the hill despite wanting to pretend I didn’t see or hear her. “Taking a walk.”

  “It’s dark out here,” she said, grabbing onto my arm. A small purse on a gold chain dangled diagonally across her body. She pulled her phone out of it and turned on the flashlight, lighting up a stretch of trail I didn’t want or need illuminated.

  We walked for a bit, but Claire wasn’t wearing footwear for hiking, and by the time we made it to Beanstalk she asked if we could sit down.

  I sat against the trunk of the tree and she sat beside me, fidgeting and scanning the area above her head and along the ground with her flashlight, plainly uncomfortable about being outside. “Are there spiders on this tree, do you think?”

  I told her there were most likely hundreds of species of bugs we couldn’t see crawling around that very moment on the tree, including spiders.

  It was the truth, and I’d hoped it would send her running back to the house, but she laughed like she thought I was teasing.

  “Want to smoke some pot with me?” she asked, pulling a joint and a lighter out of her purse.

  “Yup,” I said. Anything to avoid the tsunami of emotions surging inside me.

  She lit the joint, and we passed it back and forth without talking. Then Claire said, “You were really good back there,” although she was texting someone on her phone at the time, not even looking at me. “Do you play in Chris’s band?”

  “No.”

  She started scrolling through Instagram. After a while she put the phone down and said, “You don’t talk much, do you?” Her voice was deeper and less annoying when she was high. Or maybe it just seemed that way because I was. “Gloomy. Like a lost dog.”

  I took one last hit of the joint and held it in until I was dazed. As I exhaled, I coughed a little and said, “Is the stench of my misery and self-loathing that strong?”

  She turned her head and looked at me. It was dark, so I couldn’t fully make out her expression, but it might have contained a modicum of fear.

  “Sorry,” I said. “It’s been a weird weekend.”

  I spit on the remnants of the joint to make sure it was burned out and buried what was left of it in the dirt. When I stood up I felt lightheaded, but strangely heavy too, as if my head were a helium balloon and my body the string attached; only the string was tied to a brick.

  I walked to a small redwood a few feet away and rested my forehead against its trunk.

  Claire giggled and said, “What are you doing?”

  “I love this tree,” I told her. I stepped back and looked around at the other trees nearby, at Beanstalk and at all the different-size redwoods, oaks, and madrones, all smaller than Beanstalk but just as beautiful. “I love all these trees.”

  The whole forest was starting to come into focus as my eyes adjusted to the dark. I could pick out sword ferns and Indian paintbrush, and even some wild irises farther up the trail. But then Claire swiped her stupid flashlight back on and everything beyond a two-foot radius went black again.

  I ran my hand down the redwood’s bark. It was hard and soft, damp and dry, depending on where you pressed. And underneath that, an ancient history. A whole world inside itself. “Do you know that redwoods don’t go from youth to adolescence until they’re about eight hundred years old?”

  Claire stared up at me, nonplussed. She was a beautiful girl. Big eyes and blond hair that, in the glow of her flashlight, shone like a halo around her face.

  “This tree is still a baby,” I told her. “It seems so big, right? It’s a toddler.”

  Claire let me ramble on about trees for a while, and I explained all the different parts to her, from the cambium layer to the sapwood and the heartwood, all the way down to the pith. And to her credit, she listened, even though I could tell she was bored.

  At some point during my homily, I had an epiphany about why I was so drawn to redwoods. Because, metaphorically speaking, I decided, I was one. Breathless with weed-induced insight, I said, more to myself than to Claire, “Redwoods can live at the bottom of the forest, often times in the shade of their older and stronger brothers. In the kind of darkness where most species would die. But they don’
t die. They grow slowly. And they endure.” I paused, and then added, “Let that be a lesson to me.”

  Claire said, “You’re an odd duck.” She ran her hands through her hair, pulling and smoothing it down around her face with her fingers. “Super cute, but odd. Do you want to make out?”

  I clammed up and made some grumbling noise meant to indicate that making out wasn’t likely.

  “A girl?” Claire asked with borderline indifference. “Is that your problem?”

  “One of them.”

  She stood up and wiped dirt from her jeans. She’d had enough of me. She put on some lip gloss and said, “I’m cold. Can we go back?”

  By the time we returned, all the other guests had gone. I told Claire I would drive her home, even though I didn’t want to, and as we walked in front of the main house, I could see October and Cal through the front window. They were cleaning up and talking. I didn’t think they spotted me or Claire passing by, but they couldn’t have missed my truck pulling out.

  Claire lived in San Francisco, near the marina. At that hour the round-trip from Mill Valley to her apartment and back took forty-five minutes.

  When I pulled back up the driveway, all the lights in the kitchen were off, but I noticed a glow from October’s studio. I parked and walked over, thinking she’d left a light on by accident, but when I went in to shut it off I heard music playing quietly in the back.

  I followed the sound and found October sitting in front of an easel, tiny paintbrush in hand, working on a small canvas. Her face was maybe an inch away from the painting, like she was perfecting some minute detail. She was still wearing her dress, though she had a smock over it. Watercolor paints and a small Mason jar of water sat on another stool beside her.

  She turned her head when she heard my footsteps, sighed, and said, “Go away.”

  I kept heading toward her. And I think I expected to see an image more representative of her apparent mood on the canvas in front of her, but it was Diego. She was painting her dog.

  I asked her what she was doing, and without taking her eyes off the canvas, she said, “I’m pretty sure the answer to that question is obvious.”