“The workmen’s ladders!” The moment of awareness came with a rush of mischievous excitement that for Vicky was one of the most delicious natural highs. “Don’t get too excited. Don’t get too excited,” she coached herself in a low voice as she unlocked her door.
Building 3300 was one of the many buildings in the Camelot complex undergoing roof repairs from recent storm damage. She knew the workmen usually left some of their things there overnight and she thought she saw a ladder by the light of the side floodlight when she came up the walk that night.
She entered her apartment and made sure to close the door behind her with a loud enough bang so that Sally would think she was in for the night. She threw her purse on the sofa then quietly crept out her sliding glass patio door into the coolness of the June night, bright with a full moon and alive with the sound of buzzing insects. She turned the corner and walked around the side of the building. Sure enough, there was a perfect aluminum ladder lying in the grass. “Yes!” she shouted aloud, then realizing she shouted a little too loudly, she quickly covered her mouth so as not to expose the clandestine operation she was about to carry out.
She carried the ladder to the other side of the building by Frank’s place. The most difficult thing was remaining quiet. Sally has ears like a cat, Vicky thought as she gingerly set up the ladder and locked it into place in front of Frank’s window. Her only fear as she slowly ascended each step was that someone might spy her with the brightness of the full moon shining on her like a searchlight.
She reached the top in a short span of time, and with all her tomboy agility climbed over the balcony railing. Frank’s light was on and she could hear piano music playing. The sliding glass door was open as she figured it would be on this beautiful night. She stood for a moment just taking in the beauty of the whole scene: the moon, the piano music drifting into the night air, and the breeze blowing at Frank’s curtains through the screen.
Carefully she slid open the screen door, pushed aside the curtains, and stepped into Frank’s apartment. She heard a thump like a piece of furniture falling to the ground.
“Who’s there,” the terror stricken voice of Frank called out into the darkness.
“It’s just me Francis darlin’–your friendly neighborhood cat burglar.” Vicky said emerging from behind the curtains.
“Holy shit!”
“Watch it, you owe me a quarter.”
“Holy excrement!”
“Too late. Did I scare you?”
“You knocked ten years off my life,” Frank said dramatically clutching his heart, taking deep even breaths through his nose and exhaling noisily through his mouth.
“You know, you ought to be more careful about keeping your doors locked.”
“Vicky, I don’t know what question to ask first. What, why, how, when and where did you come from?”
“I just borrowed one of the workmen’s ladders and climbed up. They just leave their stuff lying around on the lawn, you know. Why don’t they put fire escapes on the outside of buildings anymore? It would make my job so much easier.”
“Why, may I ask, would you do something so inane?” Frank said, his arms flailing everywhere like they always did when he got excited.
“Inane. You know you’ve used that word on me before. ‘Devoid of meaning, Empty. Meaningless. Pointless.’ But to get back to your question, I did it so I wouldn’t have to walk past Sally’s place. Her door’s wide open and she’s just a waitin’ in there like a fox in a holler.”
“Since when do you care what people think, especially Sally?”
“Since never! You know I don’t give a rat’s patootie what anyone thinks. Shoot, when the only reputation you ever had is a bad one, you got nothing to lose. But you, now you Francis got a lot to lose.
“Don’t you see, it ain’t–sorry–it isn’t me I’m worried about, it’s you. I don’t want anyone going around ruining your reputation with a bunch of stupid rumors.”
“What stupid rumors?” Frank asked.
“You know! You don’t want them saying you’re fucking the trailer trash, now do you?”
“I’m sorry I asked. You owe me a quarter,” Frank said, his face blushing with embarrassment.
“I guess that makes us even,” Vicky said, delighted that she had shocked him. “So, what did you want me to see?”
“I can’t believe you haven’t noticed it yet,” Frank said.
“Noticed what?” Vicky asked.
“Noticed this,” he said stepping aside and gesturing to a beautiful black shiny upright piano. “You scared me so bad when you barged through my window I knocked the bench over. You’re lucky it didn’t break,” he said lifting the bench carefully off the floor and surveying the damage.
“Oh, Francis, it’s beautiful! Is it okay? Is the bench all right? Are you all right? Did you fall too?”
“I’m fine, the bench is fine. Don’t worry,” Frank said calming her with his low soft voice and a gesture of his hand.
“When did you get it?” Vicky asked, a little embarrassed she hadn’t noticed it right away, but then when she was around Francis she was so often oblivious to everything but him.
“It was delivered yesterday. Are you surprised?”
“Heck yeah, I’m surprised. I didn’t think you’d actually do it. Oh, Francie boy, I’m so proud of you!” She excitedly gave him a quick and rather awkward hug.
“Can you play it for me, Francis? The one you played in the music store?”
“Claire de Lune?” Francis said, lifting the lid of the bench to look for the music.
“Yes, that’s it! Meaning the light of the moon in French. Composed by Debussy. I’m getting good, ain’t I?” Vicky asked with a grin. Frank looked up at her from where he knelt on the floor rifling through sheet music and merely smiled his bemused smile.
“Ah ha! Here it is!” he said pulling out the music. “Claire de Lune by Claude Debussy. What an appropriate song for tonight. By the way, did you see the moon?” Frank said situating himself on the bench and scooting it under the piano.
“Did I ever? It was so bright I was spooked it might blow my cover when I was climbing up here. Definitely not a good night for breaking and entering.”
Frank laughed then began playing the familiar tune that Vicky fell in love with when she first heard it in the music store. His jovial mood quickly changed as he focused on the music before him and lost himself in the solemn beauty of the melody. Vicky quietly scooted next to him on the piano bench, watching Frank’s fingers move up and down the keys and studying the expressions of passion and poignancy which shadowed across his face.
“Beautiful,” Vicky said applauding as soon as Frank finished playing. “You’ve been practicing it just for me, haven’t you?”
“Actually, yes.”
“Does it bother you when I sit next to you? I mean, does it disturb your playing?” Vicky asked.
“You always disturb me when you sit next to me,” Frank replied.
“Not like that, Francis darlin’. You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I know what you mean, and no, it doesn’t bother me. In fact I like it. It inspires me.”
“Inspires you? How do you mean?” Vicky asked.
“I don’t know how to explain it. You ask tough questions, you know that? Did you hear what I was playing when you broke into my apartment?” Frank said, abruptly changing the subject.
“Yes, it was beautiful. I had to stand on your balcony and just listen, like I was in some romantic dream. I had no idea it was coming from a live piano. I thought it was an album. What was it? I know I’ve heard it before. It sounded familiar.”
“It was a variation from Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. You remember me playing that Rachmaninoff album for you?”
“Rachmaninoff. Right. Last of the twentieth century romantics. Tall fellow, gaunt face, bony fingers just perfect for piano playing. Defected from Russia,” Vicky said, proud of herself that she remembered all the details.
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“Very good!”
“You like those Russian composers, don’t you?”
“Definitely something about them. Speaking of which, did you get chance to listen to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake?”
“Yes, I loved it. Sorry I haven’t returned it. I couldn’t figure out a way to climb up the ladder with the darn thing in tow. Unless of course I held it in my teeth and I didn’t think you’d want me slobbering all over one of your albums. Please tape it for me,” Vicky said.
“Of course,” Frank agreed.
“How many albums have you taped for me now?” Vicky asked lighting a cigarette.
“I don’t know. Enough to where it would qualify as an official pastime. It’s become my hobby you know, about all I do in my spare time. I don’t watch nearly so much baseball anymore and I’ve practically given up golf. I just tape albums for you,” Frank said, as he lightly played the Rachmaninoff piece.
“Are you complaining?” Vicky asked leaning against the piano so she could be face to face with Frank.
“No, I rather enjoy it,” Frank said with a smile. “Making music for others, even if it’s just taping an album, is never a waste of time.”
“Now you have a new pastime,” she said pointing to the piano.
“Yes, I do. I’m glad you talked me into it,” Frank said with a smile and a look that made Vicky’s insides feel all at once suspended. Only Frank could do that, move her with just a glance, making her feel like a balloon filled with helium, like just one clip of the string that held her to earth and she would completely defy gravity. It always happened when she was around Frank, yet it always took her by surprise, as if each time was the first. She held his gaze for what seemed like too long, long enough for her face to redden. Vicky never remembered blushing until she met Frank, and it baffled her. She quickly strode over to his coffee table where she flicked the ash from her cigarette into Frank’s lead crystal ashtray.
“So you golf? I never knew that,” Vicky said, realizing how little she really knew about this man. There was a whole other side to him, a side that existed during the day, a side that his co-workers and those he socialized with knew but that he kept hidden from her.
“I love golf. You never knew that?” he said puzzled as he continued to play the piano lightly. It was as if the thought had never occurred to him that there was so much of his life that Vicky was not a part of.
“Where do you play?” Vicky asked as she bent over the coffee table and picked up a framed picture of Frank with his brother. She examined the picture as if there was some hidden clue there that might help her understand more about his world.
“Wherever I get a chance,” he said, more just playing random notes over and over again than any actual piece.
“Where’s your favorite golf course?” She asked trying to imagine herself there with him, riding about in the cart on a perfect early summer day before the southern Indiana heat becomes too intense.
“You mean around here?”
“I guess so,” Vicky said, erasing the mental image of the two of them in the golf cart with an imaginary eraser and blowing away the eraser dust. It seemed too silly to even be a fantasy.
“That would have to be the Lamasco Country Club. I’d like to become a member. Maybe next year I’ll make enough to join.”
How funny, Vicky thought, he aspired to join the Country Club and she aspired to work there.
“What about you?” Frank asked. “What are your hobbies?”
“Bowling and motorcycling. I sold my motorcycle right before I moved into Camelot though ‘cause I needed the money. I used to ride Bobby’s, but...” A catch in her throat caused Vicky to stop.
“I’m sorry,” he stopped playing and turned around on the bench to face Vicky who was still standing by the coffee table.
“For what?” Vicky said flippantly, not wanting those emotions to surface again.
“For your loss.”
“It’s okay. Life has to go on, you know,” she said shrugging off the sudden sadness. “What were we talking about? Oh, yeah, hobbies. Anyhow, I had to quit my bowling league ‘cause it just got to be too much with work and classes. You know, I’m signed up for American Lit during the first summer session. ‘From Hawthorne to Hemingway’, that’s what the course description says. I’ve already got some of the books. I’ve flipped through them you know and…”
“Vicky, I hate how you do that,” Frank said, turning back around on the piano bench and resuming his playing, only this time slightly harder and more deliberate.
“What?”
“How you start a book in the middle. How you read the last page first.”
“I can’t help myself. I always go back and read it from the start all the way through.”
“But doesn’t it ruin it for you–knowing the ending?”
“Most times the endings don’t make much sense until I’ve read the beginning and the middle.”
“Then why do you do it?”
“I don’t know, to get a feel for where I’m going. I told you I can’t help it. It’s like a… what’s the word–a compulsion. But anyhow I think I know who my favorite writer’s gonna be.”
“Don’t tell me, let me guess. Mark Twain,” Frank said without missing a chord of the tune he was playing.
“How did you guess?” Vicky asked dumbfounded.
“Because you are the female version of Huck Finn.”
“Why, Francis, you know me better than I thought,” Vicky said. Frank smiled.
He retrieved some more music books from inside the piano bench and began flipping through them. “Let’s see, I know it’s in here somewhere. Ah ha! Here it is,” he said pulling out the sheet of music he’d been looking for in the pile. “Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. What a perfect song for tonight. You have to sit next to me for this one, Vicky.”
“Needing my inspiration, are you? All right, scoot over. So tell me about this one.”
Frank played softly as he told her about Ludwig von Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and how he’d dedicated the piece to a Countess he loved who jilted him for someone more socially acceptable. Vicky recalled the composer’s ninth symphony which Frank taped for her and how moved she was to learn he was almost completely deaf when he wrote it.
After Frank finished playing the adagio movement, Vicky put her head on his shoulder and her arm around his back. Together the two just sat there in silence until Frank put his head against hers’.
“He must’ve really loved her. Poor dude must’ve been really heartbroken when she dumped him for that rich count.”
“Poor Ludwig was never too lucky in love. He had another great love in his life. He composed several letters to her and referred to her as his ‘immortal beloved’. Nobody knows for sure who she was.”
All of this was too much for Vicky–the music, the moonlight, the June night air, all this talk of romance, and the proximity of Frank’s body as they sat on the piano bench with their arms around each other. She felt the steady rise and fall of his breathing and smelled his cologne, a fragrance which was now on her and would stay with her all night, driving her half mad with longing.
“I have to go,” Vicky said disentangling herself from Frank’s embrace and scooting off the piano bench.
“So soon?”
“It’s getting late and you know Allison’s gonna be banging on my door at six o’clock wanting to go jogging.”
“Let me walk you to the door,” Frank said, rising to his feet.
“I’m not going out the door,” Vicky said.
“You’re not?”
“No, I’m going out the same way I came in.”
“Vicky, that’s crazy,” Frank said, his arms once again flailing in frustration.
“You know, if someone tied your hands together I don’t believe you could talk,” Vicky said pulling aside the curtain to his patio door and sliding open the screen.
“Do you want to kill yourself? There are easier ways to do it.” Frank said following
her out onto the patio.
“I didn’t hurt myself coming up so what makes you think I’m going to hurt myself going down?”
“Why are you so stubborn?”
“That vein in your neck is starting to pop out, Francis darlin’,” Vicky said approaching the railing.
“Don’t,” Frank said reaching out quickly and grasping Vicky by the arm.
Vicky’s first instinct was one of indignation. It always was when she thought someone was trying to tell her what to do. She pulled her arm away from his grasp and in one sudden act of defiance, climbed over the railing and onto the first wrung of the ladder. “I climbed trees a heck of a lot higher than this when I was a kid,” she said to Frank through the railing.
Vicky’s right foot tried to descend to the second wrung of the ladder, but she hesitated as a sudden uncertainty came over her. At that moment she remembered her childhood and that same foot grappling for a branch beneath her with Bobby looking down from a higher branch. Only this time it was the face of Francis above her. She froze. Fear and panic overtook her as another memory surfaced.
*****
She was just a kid, maybe ten or eleven. Her father was in a drunken rage over something she’d done, or not done, or possibly nothing at all. She never knew what set those rages off when he was drunk, she only knew she was the brunt of them. He’d taken his belt off and she knew what that meant. When he was really mad, like now, he’d wrap the end of the belt around his fist so he could hit her with the buckle end. He chased her through the house. Her mom used to try to stop him but she’d given up. She would become strangely quiet and absent when he was like this.
He knew all of her usual hiding places so it was no use trying those, and he was fast. She couldn’t get around him and out the door. He’d catch up to her. He always did. Still, she had this belief that if she could just get out of the house and into the open air of the Kentucky countryside she would be all right. It was her one hope of escape. She figured out if she left the window unlocked in her bedroom she could get out of the house quickly.
She ran to the upstairs of the old farm house, all the while her father was close behind her, shouting obscenities and whipping at her with the belt. She tried to close her bedroom door but he wedged his foot in before she could shut it all the way. She knew not to struggle. He was too strong for her. And if she fought with all her might and injured him (which she sometimes did when defending herself) then he’d be even madder. The only thing to do was to get out that window and up on the roof as soon as possible. The open air was her friend, and even if he followed her out onto the roof she had the advantage of size and age which would allow her to slide down the guttering downspout quicker than he could. If she could just get to the ground before him, she could run and find a place to hide.
ODD NUMBERS Page 41
