The Sound of Serendipity

by Cynthia A. Rodriguez

  When he leaves, I stop typing and I think back to what he told me.

  I’m a little tired.

  Who gets tired of their dreams?

  I run my hands through my hair and over the music note studs I’m wearing on my ears. The thought of spending tonight with Maddox brings me peace, and I find myself closing out of my work to get to him sooner. It’s irresponsible and my dad wouldn’t approve, but it’s either my work or my sanity.

  I grab my things and turn off the lights and when I pass Hollis, I tell him he can leave for the day. He shoots me a strange look and I ignore it.

  “I’ll see you at home later.” I’m still walking, steady little steps that click on the floor with quiet determination. I’m leaving and if anyone has a problem with it, I don’t care.

  “O…kay.” He starts packing up his things and I head to the stairs. Maddox’s office is two floors down, and I don’t want to have to explain to Holly why I’m headed to A&R. My coat is tucked over my arm and my purse is sitting in the crook of the same arm. When I walk into his office, I’m a little stunned by the sight of a woman sitting on his desk, leaning toward him to look at his computer monitor.

  Maddox is too engrossed in what’s on his screen to notice me enter the room, but his companion sees me immediately.

  “Ms. Kingsley! What are you doing down here?” Felicia Gardner, head of the A&R department. She’s attractive, now that I’m having to size her up. Busty and dirty blonde. She doesn’t dress for the office the way I do, but then again, hardly anyone does here. Her sweater is tight and low cut, and I immediately want to tell her to wear something more professional to work.

  “Just checking on the status of something Mr. Bailey and I are working on,” I say instead and Maddox is looking at me, his crooked smile on full display. What could we be working on? I glance around the office so I’m not looking at him in a way that’s telling, and I’m not looking to see if she thinks I’m lying. His office already looks more like him than mine looks like me. He has plaques and pictures and records and tapes and CDs. All I have are a few pieces of art that my father gifted me a few years back when I started and some white furniture. Not to mention the fancy lamps the designer insisted on. I look back at him because I’m tired of trying not to. Screw Felicia.

  “Well, I think I’ve got it handled, Felicia. Thanks for your input,” he says, and I hate that he breaks eye contact to speak to her. But if he didn’t, she’d know something was up because I’m already blushing.

  “Let me know if you need anything else, Maddox.” She removes her ass from his desk. “Good to see you again, Ms. Kingsley.” She leaves the room. I don’t miss how she calls Maddox by his first name and me by my last. I don’t miss the way she leaned over him and how she looked at me like I somehow didn’t belong. I don’t miss how the entire exchange makes me feel like all of the air is being sucked from the room and Maddox is still managing to somehow smile while I’m internally clutching at my throat in a panic.

  “Pleasant surprise,” he says, and I offer a tight smile in return.

  “Are you liking it down here?” I try to seem casual but I know I’m failing miserably. My voice is a little squeaky, and I keep looking at the spot on his desk where she pretty much laid.

  I’m being dramatic. But, still.

  “Sure. Felicia’s nice. They’re all nice down here and I like my job.” He’s clicking on his mouse, and I’m still trying to get the image of her all over him out of my head.

  “Felicia’s nice,” I repeat.

  He looks up at me and nods before looking back at his monitor.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well,” I start, “did you want to head out soon? I decided to leave a little early.” I hold up my arms so he sees that I’m ready to head out.

  He groans and my hopes try to fly out of the closed windows in his office. Instead they smack into the glass and slide down, much like a Saturday morning cartoon.

  “I’m sorry, Em. Felicia needs me to look into this new talent and I can’t leave yet.” His eyes are earnest, but I don’t want earnest. I want him to leave with me. Stamping my foot would be childish, and I’m already being irresponsible today so I can’t afford to be childish as well.

  “And if I tell you to leave now?” I suppose I could be childish.

  He grins and I want that to mean he’ll stop what he’s doing and we’ll chase away the bad day, but I’m not hopeful.

  “If you personally came down from your office to tell me to leave? With you? Everyone would see us getting into the elevator together and sharing a cab.” His grin widens. “My, my, Emerson. You’ll start an uproar.”

  “Where’s the fun in being your boss if I can’t get you to leave work early?” I plop down on one of the chairs in front of his desk. When I hear someone heading toward Maddox’s office, I sit up straighter.

  “Emmy?” I close my eyes for a moment when my father says my name. I remember where I am and why I’m here and all of these emotions battle each other, filling me with the need to get out of the room as quickly as possible. So I stand and turn but midway I slow down because I have my things in my hands, and I know leaving isn’t what I should be doing.

  “Hey,” I say, hoping the cheerfulness in my voice sounds sincere. My back is facing Maddox and I wish I could say goodbye to him, but the moment my father came into the room, I was more worried about leaving before he asked me any questions.

  He notices my coat and purse and frowns a little. I try not to let it affect me because I so badly want to do right by him.

  “Skipping out early?” he asks, and I can hear that smidge of disapproval in his tone.

  “Yes,” I answer. If I’m going to do something he doesn’t agree with, I at least have to stick to my guns. He pauses before shrugging.

  “I suppose that’s okay. You’ll have plenty of long nights ahead.”

  “I’ll leave you two to it then,” I say as I offer a curt nod and walk out. I don’t know how to take his comment even though I know it’s true.

  The distance between my father and me…it’s like we’re separated by an ocean of disappointment. Tomorrow I’ll pretend it doesn’t exist. I’ll smile and act like this is everything I’ve ever wanted.

  Because it is. It is.

  I’m sitting at the park. I need to see a dreamer and just when I need it, a woman walks toward me with three children. The eldest is sullen, on her phone, uninterested. But the two younger ones run around and, despite the woman—nanny, I presume by her young age—telling them not to run off too far, they’re now in front of me.

  “Hi,” the little girl says with a wave, and I have to look around before I understand that she’s talking to me.

  “Hi,” I say back. It’s a whisper but when she dances around, dragging her brother behind her, I wonder if my response meant anything. She looks back and waves again and I wave goodbye. The nanny and teenager walk past me, not acknowledging me, and I wonder about the difference between the children and the young woman who passed me without a glance.

  When do we lose that childlike hope? When does the world stop playing a tune we can dance and march to? How do we lose those rosy cheeks and the belief in ourselves and in magic?

  My answer: Life.

  The more it went on, the more I was a little destroyed by it. The days ground against the edges of my hope until it frayed and fringed, and I don’t know when it all went away but it’s gone now. My body aged, but I guess parts of me the world didn’t see hardened as well. Experiences hung on my body like ornaments on a tree.

  “There you are,” Maddox says as he approaches, and I almost wish to be alone because I can’t be great company right now. “You all right?”

  “I think I just want to sit here and not say a word for a minute,” I tell him. Rather than walk away, he sits beside me and scoots over until my hip is pressed against his. He pulls me to lean into him.

  There are things that, as women, we think we want and all of those things may appeal to u
s. Those fantasies we have about men who will probably never exist. We want love and lust and someone handsome to fill our lonely nights. But I never dreamed how Maddox would support me through my moments of sadness. We don’t fantasize about the bad things. But as he sits here silently beside me, I realize that these moments—the real ones—are the ones worth fantasizing about. Because I’m learning that the same Maddox who can make me crazy with lust can also warm my heart without words.

  “I’m sad today,” I say, and he sighs.

  “I can tell. I should’ve left with you when you asked.”

  I shake my head against his shoulder.

  “No. You’re being responsible. Something I’m still aspiring to be.”

  “Not sure if you still want to be quiet but…has your relationship with your father always been so…stilted?” He exhales. “When I first came to the company, you guys seemed to interact a lot better than you do now.” He runs his hand up and down my back, and I want to cry but I can’t because I don’t know how to anymore if music isn’t involved.

  “He used to be so different. I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Midlife crisis?”

  I can’t help my chuckle.

  “Maybe? He says he’s tired.”

  “Have you thought about telling him you don’t want to do this?”

  “I do want to do this. I just…want to produce, too. Besides, who else will do it?” I ask.

  “That’s not what I asked you. You have to stop worrying about problems that aren’t yours. That’s why you’re miserable to begin with.” He stops rubbing my back. “If you don’t stop worrying, you’ll start looking my age. And then this relationship won’t be as exciting for the rest of the world.”

  I sit up and though I smile, it isn’t as big as it should be.

  “Tell me your story, Emerson. Your sadness is about more than you’re letting on.”

  I shove my hands in my pockets and tip my chin up to look at the night sky. I think about all of the steps, the shifts in life that led me right where I am now.

  Some of those things hurt me, made me cry back when I could. But the way I’m feeling, it’s like life is telling me I’ve paid enough in tears and I’m finally getting the grand prize. I smile and this time it’s bigger.

  “I was born in Rhode Island. Spent a chunk of my childhood there. Just as the company took off, my mom started getting migraines and my dad figured it was stress from moving here. I was entering middle school when we found out she had a tumor in her brain. The cancer was spreading. Fast. So dad moved us back home with her family and even though I hated that she was sick, I was happy to be back home.”

  It feels strange to speak so much to someone and to not be worried about what he thinks of what I’m saying. It feels strange to not speak in bursts, like dropping grenades and then hiding away from the explosions. I’m holding this conversation and though my hands aren’t moving, it reminds me of when his did, as if he were in front of an orchestra. My own maestro.

  “I learned to listen from her. She was getting so sick that she’d cough all the time and she couldn’t really talk. Most times she’d whisper. So I learned not to talk as much because I wasn’t the one dying and I didn’t want to miss anything she had to say.”

  Some people think beginnings are special. Some think endings are too. But it wasn’t my mother’s last words that I remembered. It was the ones she gave on normal days, before her tumors took her away.

  Maybe one day you’ll marry Henry. But maybe you won’t. Neither is tragedy nor blessing. They’re just things that will happen. What makes them a tragedy or a blessing is how you approach them. Henry. The same boy who kissed me for the first time the day she died.

  The same boy Maddox makes me forget without even knowing it.

  My mother was right. Today, Henry and I not being together was neither a tragedy nor a blessing. It was just what was. I look at Maddox and I give him the rest of my story.

  “I watched her die and when it was over, I just didn’t want to talk anymore.”

  “And now?”

  His question is so vague. I take a moment, but I try to give him the most honest answer I can.

  “Now I talk to you more than I talk to anyone,” I tell him. At the last word, his eyes move to my earlobes. Today I’m wearing music notes. Usually I save them for days I need to remind myself that I am fortunate, but they’ve taken on a new meaning now and that meaning is staring right at me.

  “Do you mind if we do dinner some other time?” I ask Maddox. His eyebrows are drawn together at my request, but he tells me it’s okay and offers to share a cab with me.

  “No, no. I’m all right.” And I am, I just need some time.

  I don’t think he understands that I have to step away because I can feel the ground tilting beneath my feet. Gravity is pulling at me but I’m not ready to fall. Not yet. So I need to leave before I latch onto him and never let go.

  I almost gave everything up for a man before and I won’t do that again.

  He has to know something is up, but as I watch him when the cab pulls off with me in it, I know that he’d thank me for this. Ultimately, I’d thank myself for the distance.

  When I get home, Hollis is waiting for me. As soon as I see him, I’m hit with guilt. I’d never usually go this long without speaking to him. He was my vault; the one person I could be honest with who would be honest with me. Though it’s stupid to keep Maddox from him, I can’t bring myself to do it. Maddox is my secret and the rest of the world can still think of me as impenetrable because for the last few years, that’s what I’ve been. The years before that, I was everything but that.

  “Hi,” I say as I step out of my pumps and flop down on the couch. He grins and pauses his show.

  “Well, well. If it isn’t the woman who no longer needs me.”

  I turn and hike my leg up so I can look at him because even though there’s a playfulness in his tone, I still sense the small bit of hurt.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper and I am. Between Maddox and work, I’ve let my friendship fall to the wayside. “I had to get out of there. I had to….”

  He pats my leg and without a word, pulls me in for a hug. Once I pull back, I try to say the words I need to in order to feel better.

  “I know I have everything but sometimes I feel like I have nothing.” Just a bunch of memories and secrets…songs that’ll never see the light of day and pain that will only ever sit at the bottom of my body like weights holding me down.

  In the back of my mind, I know it’s not true. I know I have so much to be thankful for, including Maddox. But dropping my dreams, the one thing that’s kept me going these past few years, has me rethinking so many things.

  “I know this isn’t what you want. You know this isn’t what you want. I’m sure, to an extent, your father knows this isn’t what you want. Why can’t you tell him?”

  “He chose me to do this, to keep this thing we invested so much in alive. When my mother died, he didn’t bat a lash. He kept working hard because he needed to provide for me. I went away and he supported me. I came back with no degree and a broken heart and he gave me a job. This is the least I could do.”

  No one understands this. I heard him cry when he thought I was asleep, and though he stayed up all night with his grief, he was up early the next morning. He sent me to the best schools, molding me to take on his legacy. This is what comes with being his daughter and I’m accepting it.

  “Love doesn’t come with a receipt, Emmy. There are no IOUs. He did those things because he loves you.”

  “Can we just…not?”

  I can’t tell my father that the one thing he found solace in after my mother died will die with me. That it ends with him. My mind is racing, and I know the real reason he doesn’t want anyone to take charge of Kingsley.

  Because he put all of his grief into it. Everything he did for the past ten years was for her.

  Chapter 14

  After my fourth meeting of the
day, I’m sitting at my desk, hair out of my bun, heels off of my feet. My computer monitor’s screensaver bounces from edge to edge, corner to corner, and I’m just existing in my chair. I’m taking advantage of the fact that it’s nearing seven in the evening and everyone is already home. No one is bothering me, needing answers, or judging me. The world of music business is winding down, at least on my end. Even Hollis has left for the day. Just as I’m letting myself relax, my phone rings. My work phone.

  “Yes?” I say in lieu of greeting.

  “Rough day?”

  That voice relaxes one part of me while bringing to life another. For the first time all day, I’m smiling.

  “You could say that.”

  “Have plans for tonight?” His voice sounds so close, and I just want to wrap myself around his vocal chords because I love the way they soothe me.

  It’s Wednesday so unless it’s getting into my pajamas and going to bed, I have no plans.

  “No….” I leave it open-ended because I’m curious to see where he goes with this.

  “Wanna try for another best night of our lives?” This question is pitched lower than his last and my lids drop a little.

  “On a Wednesday night?”

  “What if I told you that you won’t regret it?”

  “You don’t have to,” I tell him because if I know anything, I know that the bags under my eyes tomorrow morning will mean nothing if it meant I got to spend time with Maddox.

  “Want to get changed and meet me?”

  I groan and slap my hand over my forehead.

  “No can do. I have a ton of work to catch up on over here. Plus, if I go home, I’m not coming back out. What if I meet you where you’re headed in…a few hours?” I give my voice a hopeful lilt but he’s not having it.

  “You have an hour.” He shoots off the name of the place and then hangs up before I can object. I jot down the info on a sticky note before I forget.

  Forty-five minutes later, I’m logging off my computer and grabbing my things, and the day’s fatigue flies out of the cab’s window as we head toward a bar called The Underground Lounge. The cab driver asks me if I’m a singer and I shake my head.