Soundtracks of a Life

by Carina Lupo

  I’m driving back home after a visit to James’s parents’ house and I’m glad to have gotten that step out of the way. Now I could hurry back home where intend to curl up to lick my wounds and wait for the next day to be over.

  I always visit James’ family this time of year, though it’s never an easy task, I owe them this much, they’ve done so much for me. It’s an event with mixed, bittersweet feelings. I love them but there are just too many memories… some good but too painful to remember and some bad that I do not wish to remember. And then of course, there is the issue with the pity eyes… No matter how much time passes, his parents still look at me with pity in their eyes. I just can’t stand the pity look anymore. Not that it is their fault. I totally understand why it happens. My life represents many of their own memories, memories of their lost good friends, memories of all I went through which they had witnessed first-hand. I wish I could be more involved and present in their lives. They are my closest friends and I care a lot about them all. They were there for me through all of this and I owe them a lot, but it is an unspoken understanding between us why I am not with them more often.

  During my visit I also handed James’s sister, Carol, the presents I had bought for her from Paris, London and other countries we had been to on the tour. She was absolutely delighted. I had a special bond with his little sister and pampering her was one of the few delights of mine for this time of year.

  Just as I close my apartment door, after my rewarding but grueling visit to James’ family, I hear the intercom buzzing. I answer and the doorman lets me know that Ted is downstairs asking me to come down to see him.

  I take the elevator ride back downstairs. I step outside the building and see Ted sitting on a sparkling new, yellow convertible Porsche. He gives me a smile that stretches from ear to ear. I laugh when I see him.

  “Now is this a chick magnet or what?” he says to me grinning widely.

  “Man, you look good in it Ted.” I encourage him.

  “You bet I do. I was born for this ride, baby!” He gets out of the car now and gives me a big squeezing hug.

  “Well, you deserve it.” I say to him, truly excited about his happiness. Ted did not have the financially easy life that all of us had and I was happy to see him enjoying it now.

  “It was all because of you babe,” he says, as he plants a wet kiss on my forehead. “And this magical, musical brain of yours…. I wanted to stop by and thank you for taking me along this whole amazing journey we’ve all been on.”

  “Hey, we couldn’t have done it without you,” I say, but he quickly dismisses my comment.

  He looks into my eyes, serious. “No… truly, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” I reply happily.

  “Now you take good care of yourself girl, you hear. Don’t let the holidays get to you too much Lor,” he gives me another hug.

  “I’ll try.” I say as he gets into his car again. “So what are you doing for the holidays?”

  “Oh, you know just driving down to Sacramento to hang with the family they are excited to see me it’s been a while. Then it’s back here for New Year’s where I plan to party till I drop!” He turns the car on and the engine roars.

  “Hey Ted,” I say before he drives off. “You in that car… the chicks won’t know what hit ‘em!”

  “Yeah baby!” he laughs delighted and waves to me he speeds away.

  I’m smiling to myself making my way back inside the building when I hear, “Hey Lor!” I look back and see Chris walking my way.

  “Hey!” I answer surprised. “You just missed Ted, he left a minute ago. He came by to say goodbye, but mostly to show off. Have you’ve seen his new ride?”

  He laughs. “Yeah, he came by the hospital earlier today…. So I got great news! My mom was just released from the hospital so we’re all going home to Santa Barbara now for our Christmas party. How fast can you pack?”

  “Oh… Chris, that is excellent news… but I…” I take a deep breath. “I think it’s better if I stay here.”

  “Alone? For Christmas? You’re crazy,” he says completely dismissing it as a possibility, “we are all waiting for you, come on.”

  “I don’t even like Christmas. Not anymore at least,” I say and he gives me a reprimanding look. “Seriously Chris,” I continue ignoring him. “Do you know how long it’s been since I even had some form of Christmas? Not since my sister was alive and even then, after my parent’s death, it was almost pro-forma, mostly because my sister insisted. It was always more of a sad occasion than happy for us.”

  “But you’re my girlfriend. I would like to be with you for Christmas. I still celebrate it. Can’t you do it for me?”

  “I don’t think it’s such a good idea, Chris. This is a happy time right now for your family. Remember how well it went that first time I was with them? I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle Christmas time in a family setting yet and I do not want ruin your family’s time. Please understand.” I say taking his hands on mine. “Besides I’ll be fine, I have a terribly bad action movie all ready to go and keep me entertained with fantastic mindless explosions and the beauty of no mention at all of Christmas or family or plot really for that matter!”

  “Yeah I know how you spend your Christmas Lorelai,” he says bitterly, “you drink yourself numb…”

  “Well, a certain amount of alcohol is required if I’m going to live through a Sylvester Stallone dialogue!”

  “Come on Lor. I’m serious. This is messed up. I don’t want to leave you alone. I don’t think it is a good idea.”

  “Look it’s just two days. I can meet you for New Year’s. It’s my best compromise Chris. I’m sorry… maybe sometime I’ll be ready for Christmas but this is not that time yet.”

  He takes a deep breath looking resigned. “I didn’t even bring your present with me. I was sure you would come.”

  “It’s okay. You can give it to me in two days. Speaking of which, I do have a gift for you. Stay right here I’ll go upstairs to get it.”

  I come back a while later with a small package in my hands. I immediately hand it to him.

  “Should I open now?”

  “Sure.”

  He carefully un-wraps it and is a bit surprised to find a shiny new IPod in its perfectly designed box. “Oh cool, I guess you can never have enough of these...”

  I laugh at his polite comment. “Actually, the real gift is what is in the IPod. The IPod is just a bonus, but that you should listen to it later.”

  “Okay,” he says with a warm smile. He places a tender kiss in my lips and gives me a hug.

  “Are you sure?” he asks again pleading one last time.

  “I’m sorry.” I say feeling truly bad about it. Rejected, he says goodbye to me, his face still showing disbelief that he is leaving without me. I can tell he is really upset about it.

  I get back to my silent apartment and somehow it seems lonelier than before. I look around as I take a deep breath. “Well just another day and half to go,” I say to myself. Just keep occupied and let time pass is my mantra. I decide to play piano for a while. I do that until I get bored. I take a seat on the comfortable living room couch, grab my IPad and start to play a game. After a while I’m really bored. At least now I’m bored and hungry so I put on a jacket and a baseball cap (my measly attempt of trying to go unrecognized) and take a stroll to an Italian restaurant nearby to get some dinner. I feel too pathetic having dinner on my own, in a restaurant, on Christmas Eve, especially if someone would recognize me. So I get the order to go and take it back to the privacy of my own apartment where shame can’t find me.

  After dinner, I clean up and decide it’s as good a time as any to start the movie. I make myself a drink and slip the disc in the Blu-ray player. The movie is absolutely awful but halfway through a bottle of whisky it starts becoming quite entertaining.

  **************

  I wake up the next day at ten in the morning, the sun shining bright through the living room’s balco
ny glass door. I must have passed out in the couch… I have a horrible hangover, my eyes hurt. I shield them from the light. My head feels too heavy for my neck. I get up and drag myself to the kitchen and start making some strong coffee in hopes that will revive me. I whip out some toast with cream cheese to go along with the coffee.

  “Well merry fucking Christmas,” I say to no one in particular.

  After finishing my quiet breakfast, my attention turns to all the boxes littering the floor of the apartment. I guess that would be a productive way to kill time… might as well start going over some of them and putting things in order. The idea actually sounded horrible, I wasn’t particularly excited to tackle this project but it had the benefit of keeping my mind occupied with the manual labor of it.

  I start opening a few boxes and pouring over the items inside them. The task turns out to be a lot more entertaining that I had predicted. It was almost like discovering a hidden treasure, much like finding again something you lost a long time before. I had not seen some of these items for more than a year now and I didn’t even remember that I had some of this stuff. I found a box filed with books that I neatly organized on the living room book shelf and another box filled with CD’s. I was delighted to find my CD collection again. It brought me back to the many hours of joy I had listening to them. I had already transferred most of those CD’s to my computer and IPod but there is nothing like the tactile feel of the CD with its booklet of pictures and its artistic covers.

  After I’m done organizing the CD’s on the bookshelf, I go back for more boxes. An older looking box immediately grabs my attention. On the top of it, written in bold letters with a black marker pen is ‘Do Not Remove From Storage’. Intrigued to see what might be in it, I open the box. As I catch a glimpse of its contents, I feel the air rush out of me like a deflating balloon. Inside were many of my family’s photo albums, picture frames, video tapes, things that were too hard to keep around anymore and so they were locked away years and years ago. I sit down on the cold hardwood floor, next to the box. Feeling a tightening in my chest I start going through some of the items. I pull out a picture of my sister and me riding horses in the vineyards. I lift a wooden framed revealing a photo of me and my parents back when I got some music school award on the glass is a post it note in my mom’s handwriting “Great Job, Lorelai.” The lump in my throat makes it hard for me to breathe.

  I take out a big photo album and start looking at my family photos … all of us together on a beach during our trip to Cancun… all of us, together, in happier times. It’s hard and it hurt me tremendously to keep going but it was kind of like watching a car wreck. As much as you know you should turn away and you don’t want to look, you just can’t take your eyes off of it.

  I open up another album, each picture sending me deeper and deeper, drowning me in an ocean of despair. I run my finger over my mom’s handwriting under some of the pictures, captioning the year and place of the photos. Seeing her writing makes her feel real again, she was here at some point, writing in this book…

  When there are no more pictures to see, I’m left empty and utterly alone. The room around me feels small and tight like there isn’t enough air in it for me to breath. I need to get out. I wipe the tears from my eyes, grab my purse and head down to the garage where my burgundy red Mustang is parked.

  I mindlessly start driving and realize I am heading towards the vineyards. It’s a long drive but that helps me calm down a little. Time seems disjointed. I arrive at my family vineyard before I know it. I can’t help but notice that even after all the time that has gone by since I was last here it all still looks pretty much the same as I remembered.

  It’s Christmas day and the place is deserted. I pass by the main house where the tasting room and offices where located. I’m surprised to find Robert, my dad’s friend who runs the winery for me now, standing in front of the vine covered red brick building. I can see the look of utter surprise on his face when he recognizes me. I stop and get out of the car as he walks towards me.

  “Lorelai! What a surprise to see you. It’s been such a long time.”

  “Hi Robert.” I reply. He gives me a hug. “It’s Christmas what the heck are you doing here?” I ask him.

  “Just taking care of a few things, you know my work here is never done, but I was just about to go home, my family is waiting.”

  “The place looks great you’re doing a great job here.”

  “Thanks, that means a lot. So what are you doing here?”

  “I thought I would take a ride up the hill and visit my family’s…” the words trail off my lips and I look away as I can’t bring myself to say the word grave.

  “I see. Okay, you want to ride Claude? He is in the stables. You think you still remember how to saddle him?”

  “Yeah I think I can handle it. Thanks Robert.”

  “Sure you’ll be ok?” he asks worriedly, but I just keep on walking away and just wave him off.

  I approach the stable, trying to avert my eyes, not wishing to look towards the direction of my childhood home. I grab a couple of apples that have fallen to the ground and open the old rusted door leading to the horse stalls. There, standing tall but looking rather bored is Claude, a stunningly beautiful completely white Andalusian horse, the horse my dad gave me when I was a kid. I had named him after my favorite classic composer Debussy. I also thought that calling a horse Claude was very funny at the time.

  “Hello Claude,” I say as I run my hands over his long face. “Do you still remember me?” I give him one of the apples and he eats it with joy.

  “I haven’t been a very good friend to you have I? You deserved better... I guess none of our lives turned out the way we thought they would. I hope you can forgive me,” I say as I give him the other apple. “Maybe you will still indulge me with a ride?” I open the stable door, pull him out and start to saddle him. It still seems so natural, like I still do it every day. A warm feeling overwhelms me.

  I mount Claude and we head towards the steep trail up the hill where my parents and sister are buried. The ride only takes a few minutes until we reach the top of the hill. I carefully dismount and kneel down in front of my family’s graves. I run my hands over their names carved on the stones. It’s windy and piercingly cold but in my state of mind I hardly notice. I look up at Claude who looks particularly sad, as if somehow he understands… I put my head in my hands and copiously start crying. “I miss you all so much. I was hoping the pain was going to subside but it hasn’t. It just hurts so much, you know. Every day. I don’t know if I can’t take it anymore. Can you help make it stop? Please make it stop. I want it all to stop, please… just please… help me…” I cry for a while longer until I can’t stand it anymore. I get up, hop back on Claude and ride him hard down the hill at full gallop. As we approach the bottom of the hill I pull hard on the reins to make him stop, he whines in complaint of the sudden command but dutifully obeys slightly going up on his hind legs to make the stop. I jerk on the reins, turn him around Claude loyally responds and we gallop back up the same hill just to ride fast back down again jerking him to a sudden stop when we reach the bottom. I do that one more time, almost asking to be thrown off, but Claude is better to me than I am to him and he doesn’t let me fall.

  I dismount at the bottom of the hill and with a swat of my hand to his hind quarter I send him running back to the stables without me.

  Poor Claude, doesn’t he know he can’t stop me? I can fall all on my own.

  Chapter 21

  “What are you doing sitting here on the porch all alone looking worried, huh?”

  Deep in thought, Chris looks up lovingly at his mom. He still experiences relief every time he sees her here at home recovering and out of danger.

  “Oh, nothing… just thinking.”

  “I know you. There is something bugging you. What’s on your mind?” his mom taking a sit next to him.

  “I’m worried about Lorelai. She didn’t want to come here with me and I unde
rstand why she is reluctant but something tells me she shouldn’t be alone right now. She seems kind of different since she came back from the tour. I don’t know I can’t put my finger on it. I just have this weird feeling.”

  “Well if you feel you need to be with her right now, you should go get her. And if she still doesn’t want to come here then stay with her there. It’s okay with me you know?”

  “But I really want to be with you and everybody here.”

  “I know you do, but we’ve done our Christmas now. I’m going to be fine Chris, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll still be here when you come back later. The worst is over. If you feel you need to go, then go, you have my blessing.”

  “Thanks mom,” he says with a tender smile. “I love you.”

  “I love you too son,” she says as she gets up and gives him a tender kiss on his forehead before going back inside the house.

  Chris watches as the screen door closes behind his mom and looks down at the package in his hands, Lorelai’s gift to him. He pulls the IPod from its box. It is then that he notices there is a note underneath.

  “Dear Chris,

  I wrote and recorded this song back in LA that day when we first kissed…

  I didn’t want my feelings known then so I asked the studio to keep

  the recording and forget all about it. But now it doesn’t matter anymore

  and I thought you should have it, after all it was written for you.

  Love,

  Lorelai”

  Chris puts the headphone on his ears and presses play on only song in the playlist. As the beautiful melody washes over him, he is overcome with emotions, feeling so deeply in love it almost makes him dizzy. When the song ends he goes back into the house says goodbye to his family, with a big smile on his face. He hops in his car and start driving not being able to wait another minute to see her again.

  **************

  Susan is quietly watching the chatty interaction of her sister and her nieces while working on a plate of delicious roast turkey. Ever since her divorce, she spent her Christmases with her sister’s family which suited her just fine. Never having any kids of her own, she lived out her motherly feelings vicariously via her nieces. Her dad always joined them too which it was nice, she certainly didn’t see him enough so she appreciates having this moment to share with him. One thing of being around her new talent, Lorelai, had definitely taught her was to appreciate her own family more.