Me for You

by Lolly Winston

  Less than a week after her death, Rudy couldn’t imagine ever moving away from their house. The navy-blue flowers still graced the ceanothus bush. Every time golden-retriever guy passed by, he stopped to admire the flowers, shaking his head glumly at them. Had he had a crush on Bethany? Bee, who was as friendly and chatty and beautiful as her garden? You had to admire a woman who didn’t mind dirt or aphids or weeds. But who was this neighbor to pine after Rudy’s wife?

  Rudy found himself in the upstairs bathroom, peeking out at the golden-retriever neighbor as he admired Bee’s ceanothus. Get your own damn flowering shrubs, he thought, as he scuttled to the side of the open window.

  “Get out of here!” Rudy shouted down at the man. He felt mortified, but also enraged and excited. Across the street, another neighbor rolled his garbage and recycling bins to the curb. Trash day, dog walking. Rudy’s nerves were raw with resentment for these people who just carried on as though life were normal. He heard no sound from outside, noticing only that the window screen was caked with dust. Bethany always hired landscapers to wash the screens and windows once a year. Rudy didn’t even know where their number was or the name of their business. Nice husband. He’d let his wife work full-time and coordinate much of the maintenance for their beautiful home. For some reason this made Rudy hate the flower-identifying neighbor even more. That guy was probably a great husband.

  “Get out of here!” Rudy hollered again, not even sure if the man and his dog were still on the lawn. Rudy collapsed to sit cross-legged on the cool bathroom tiles, tears rolling down his face, their salt making his chapped lips sting.

  11 Months Later

  2

  Rudy wouldn’t play the piano at Nordstrom forever. It had been a part-time job to fill in the hours, make a little extra money, lavish his wife with employee-discounted gifts. Once her retirement began, they were to embark on the restful, yet adventure-filled, next chapter of their life. Prague. A rented cabin in Maine, where they’d make love under the weight of those gray woolen army blankets and a hand-stitched quilt.

  But now, here he was, widowed for nearly a year, chubbier than he’d ever imagined, bearded—like a Russian czar—wearing a rented tuxedo and playing a department store piano. A part-time job that had somehow become his only place to be in the world. He had taken the easily given grief advice: Put one foot in front of the other. These steps had led him back to Nordstrom a few weeks after Bee’s death, his black dress shoes landing on the pedals of the piano, soft pianissimo accompanying his numb dirge forward.

  The baby grand was positioned beyond Cosmetics and Jewelry, tucked next to the escalator, on a wedge of carpet that defined Rudy’s space as a sort of living room. His proximity to the route upstairs meant that shoppers stopped all day to ask him questions. Where is Lingerie? they wanted to know, as though he weren’t sitting there playing the piano for crying out loud.

  The first floor of the store smelled like perfume and powder, like lilies and roses, like women, like Bethany, who wore a simple, rose-scented perfume that made it impossible for Rudy to part with her clothes after she died.

  In his former life, when Bee was alive, he arrived home in time to cook her dinner—his favorite part of the day. He looked forward to supper with his wife, whom he’d tell stories about the department store as he chopped and sautéed. She laughed easily at the events of the day—made them light and bearable. As she listened to his tales, she often teased Rudy gently, lovingly, in a way that helped him better understand people. Rudy lost his translator when he lost his wife. Yet he continued to report to work in a robotic, carrying-on-with-things routine. This was a new chapter, all right. The chapter of hell on earth. The chapter of why not me instead of her?

  Rudy’s piano repertoire was large and varied—everything from Erroll Garner to Broadway show tunes to a jazzy rendition of “Itsy Bitsy Spider” if smaller children hovered nearby. Women swished past him in a constant arc all morning at the department store, swooping up the escalator, often smiling down or offering a little wave. “I love that song!” they would chirp. “Oh, I wish I’d kept up with my lessons.”

  “Most do!” Rudy would reply, trying to sound as cheerful as possible. (Smile, Bee had always reminded him. You have such a lovely smile.)

  The department store was smart to employ a pianist in a tuxedo. The live music promoted shopping. The sadder songs seemed to soothe customers’ sorrows—encouraged them to treat themselves to a floral perfume or fresh pair of shoes. The zingier show tunes made one want to spring for a brand-new outfit for a party, with a matching new clutch and a diamond necklace. You only live once! As the shoppers spun around Rudy’s corner, moving on up the escalator to Women’s Dresses, he broke into show tunes and lively jaunts, Start spreading the news! the piano sang out. Our lives will end soon! A wedding, a lavish fund-raiser, or even a dinner out—Why not be belle of the ball?

  Now Rudy serenaded two naked female mannequin torsos languishing immediately to his left, by the escalator. They were made of wire and cloth, like seamstresses’ dress forms, with tapered waistlines and perky breasts, although they lacked belly buttons or nipples. Long layers of beaded necklaces swept down to their sexless lower halves. The torsos had been part of Rudy’s permanent audience for some time now, and although they didn’t even have heads, they made him feel shy.

  The gleaming glass jewelry and watch cases lay just beyond the poised mannequins, followed by the rows of sparkling cosmetics counters. Whenever Sasha was on shift at the department store—the kind Hungarian woman who worked in Fine Watches—Rudy would play her favorites—dramatic Chopin waltzes that were far too stormy for dancing. Sasha was a fair blonde with pale gray eyes, milky skin, and high cheekbones. As Rudy played, he noticed how her eyelashes fluttered, then rested halfway shut, and how she’d fold her arms and lean dreamily across the glass case. The first time they spoke, she confessed to Rudy that she liked the warmth of the case, that she wished she could lay her head down there and sleep away the ache in her back from standing all day.

  The Men’s Department was located directly behind Rudy, and whenever he turned around to stretch his neck, he was greeted by another headless mannequin dressed in an Armani suit with a crisp orange tie. This man watched Rudy through his entire shift, posed in a relaxed, yet businesslike manner, the arm of his suit jacket tucked into the pocket of his pants. To Rudy, the mannequin was the most authoritative figure in the store—even more so than any of the floor managers. Despite the mannequin’s distinct lack of a head, he seemed to have a brain, a consciousness, and an unnerving amount of self-confidence. Today the mannequin seemed to say, Call me, Rudy, let’s make this thing work. What thing?

  Ah, his life. Since Bethany died, Rudy had been telling himself that everything was only temporary. When Bee was alive, he could mostly laugh off his job. He was just saving up a little extra for their early retirement.

  But now what? the Armani mannequin asked. What are you going to do?

  About what? he replied. My life? While it felt as though he dreaded everything, what Rudy dreaded most upon waking in the morning was the constant church bells of loneliness.

  Which brought him to Sasha. The strikingly lovely, yet distant Sasha, who was finer than all the expensive watches in her Fine Watches case. Before Bethany died, Rudy had had a married crush on his coworker. Since Bee left him, it bloomed into an infatuation that made his cheeks flush with shame.

  One afternoon, as Rudy cleaned leaves out of the rain gutters, a chaste fantasy of Sasha came to him all at once, quickly and brightly: They lay on his sofa in front of the fire with a cashmere throw around them, glasses of wine in hand. Chopin tinkled on the hi-fi. He was so flustered by this innocent, yet vivid, fantasy of a romantic date that he stuttered the next time Sasha approached him at the piano. His fingers fumbled at the keys as he rambled on about the Hungarian composer Bartók, asking her if she’d like to hear something by her fellow countryman. Sasha smiled a bit slyly. Bartók, it turned out, had gotten her into t
rouble as a girl, because she spent her practice time trying to learn Elton John instead of going over those stark, dark pieces her dour teacher loved.

  Sasha sternly furrowed her brow, wagging a finger at Rudy. “If you don’t practice the classics, you’ll end up selling watches!” she hissed.

  They both laughed. Sasha was funny! And kind. And pretty. Everything about her was sort of wispy—the blond hairs that escaped from her shoulder-length braid, her willowy limbs, her languid fingers. As he began the first few notes of “Tiny Dancer,” she sat, almost collapsing, on the very corner of his piano bench.

  He was cheating on his beloved wife!

  Rudy often played the piano with his eyes closed, concentrating on all the elements of the department store’s din—people talking, old men hacking, babies crying, children screaming. The phone in the Jewelry Department’s unique brrrrip brrrrip! The squish of sneakers, the click of heels. Some heels ticked along at a remarkable pace, as though they were rushing to catch a flight. Above this cacophony was another layer of sound: the PA system. The PA had two loops, music and an announcer—a woman’s voice that baffled Rudy. All she ever uttered were people’s names. Jennifer Bailey, Jennifer Bailey. Dawn Simmons, Dawn Simmons. Her voice was at once generic and sexy—feminine and calm, yet somewhat businesslike. Maybe Vincent Moreland, Vincent Moreland meant that someone was stuffing a six-pack of trouser socks under their shirt or a rhinestone clutch in their coat pocket. Or maybe it just signaled that a salesclerk named Vincent Moreland was due to take his break. Perhaps Vincent was to wait until he heard the PA woman beckon, then escape to enjoy his cigarette or coffee. Was the woman in the PA a real woman or a recording? She didn’t sound computerized—not like those stitched together automated voices when you called companies. She seemed to have human breath within her. But her voice was so even. Was she in a booth somewhere? Where did the PA woman live?

  Now a harried young mother approached Rudy, her eyes darting around and beyond him. He kept his eye on her, fearing she might need assistance. When he realized she was breast-feeding, making a beeline for the welcoming pair of armchairs alongside the wall of the escalator—flanked by a table, lamp, and fern—Rudy felt his face redden. He bent toward the piano keys. Shoppers often paused in his little makeshift living room to gather stamina before conquering more of the mall. They didn’t sit so much as collapse into the chairs, the seats whooshing beneath them, relieved sighs emerging from their lips as though pushed up from the leather cushions through their lungs. They mopped their brows, snapped their gum, rearranged their shopping bags, clicked on their cell phones, and chattered. And yes, a startling number of women settled in to breast-feed. Until today, most mothers pretended Rudy wasn’t there while he gave equal concentration to not looking at them. The chairs clearly offered the mothers comfort and, Rudy supposed, some bit of privacy. His daughter, Cecilia, had been a member of La Leche League when she’d had her one child. CeCe treated breast-feeding like a 4-H Club project and chided any women who didn’t do it right or long enough. He would always nod in ferocious agreement, while worrying that this was an odd natural function to be so militant about. The world never lived up to CeCe’s standards, and this had concerned Rudy and Bee since she’d been a child. Not that their daughter wouldn’t be fine in the world—she was the most capable person either of them knew—but that she might never be truly happy. In any case, Rudy’s standby melody for nursing mothers at the store was “Brahms’s Lullaby,” and he switched to that now.

  The woman’s baby replied with a shriek so loud and piercing it was as though a pterodactyl were on the loose. When the mother magically inserted the babe’s entire head into a billowing blouse with a complicated origami-like flap, it was silenced. Embarrassed that he’d looked up, Rudy bowed his face so close to the piano keys it probably appeared as though he’d play the next piece with his teeth.

  Then the woman was suddenly standing beside Rudy, her baby’s head like a melon of an additional breast under the blouse. He kept his eyes at her waist’s level—dark wash jeans and a faux crocodile belt. A spray of orange freckles on a forearm. She wanted to know the time.

  “I don’t wear a watch, but here we have a timepiece.” Rudy nodded at the small gold clock with Roman numerals beside his sheet music. Ugh. Whenever Rudy was embarrassed, he’d use far too many words to answer a simple question. A nod would have done. You don’t have to be so formal, he heard Bethany say, giving his arm a loving squeeze. He didn’t know why he fell into this odd formality when he became nervous or shy. At parties, he stuck close to Bee, happy in the shadow of her charm and ease.

  The baby fussed again, and its poor mother let out a long, withering sigh of exasperation. Rudy switched to Mozart, then made an improvisational U-turn back to Brahms. What should one play for a woman who, no matter how discreet, was too exhausted to care about her increasingly exposed breast? The jeans, the freckles, and the belt were not going away. The mother swayed back and forth from foot to foot.

  Rudy felt inadequate in the face of this poor woman’s despair—in his complete inability to meet anyone’s needs other than those of the songbirds in his backyard. He’d bought a “squirrel buster” feeder from a shop by the grocery since Bee died, and filled it twice a week, surprised by the attendance. He’d taken pleasure in identifying the creatures on the laminated card the store sold him. He cross-referenced the more mysterious visitors with the Audubon book. The feeder and the birds were the only new thing he’d done since Bee left him, and certainly the only remotely enjoyable activity. But it hurt that he couldn’t show Bee the dark-eyed junco! How beautifully ominous he was, with his black hood and sleek brown body.

  “If I don’t relax, the baby won’t relax,” the mother explained, as though Rudy were a girlfriend or nurse.

  “I’m sorry,” Rudy told the piano keys. “Maybe in the ladies’ lounge?” Rudy didn’t mean the woman should be banished behind closed doors. Women should breast-feed wherever they wished. He wasn’t judging anyone. His stupid shyness could make him such an ass.

  “Have you ever been so tired you weren’t sure you were going to make it?” the woman asked. “I mean, I guess, through the day.”

  “I’ve been that sad,” Rudy replied softly.

  She nodded down at him, just as Rudy looked up a bit, trying to get past the breast to her eyes, which were filling. “Yes,” she agreed.

  The baby, rocked by its mother, was quiet now, perhaps lulled by the closeness of the piano.

  “Never mess with the status quo of a quiet baby!” he whispered quietly but enthusiastically, happy to somehow be helpful. Bee had taught him this golden rule. He’d always had the urge to tickle or pick up CeCe, and later Keira, as they slept or ate peacefully in their high chairs.

  “Let’s try Debussy.” He didn’t need his sheet music. He played pianissimo.

  As the woman rocked her little one gently to the music, a cool dribble of sweat trickled down Rudy’s back, under the awful tuxedo. Francis, the guy who played afternoons, wore a designer tuxedo that he owned. Francis also played at weddings and even as a sub with the symphony. He was a full-time musician, slowly teasing out “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” as brides swished down aisles and mothers wept. Rudy’s cheap tuxedo and his too-tight, absurdly shiny black shoes, rentals that he’d bought used, were a comfort to him. Who bought used rental shoes? They’d probably danced with who knows how many bridesmaids. Rudy was comforted by the fact that this clearly demonstrated that this job—that everything in his life at present—was only temporary. Perhaps even Bee’s death. But she was gone, a fact worse than the Teflon frying pan feeling of the fabric of the tux, and he didn’t even need this job anymore. At least it was a relief from the empty house. When Bee was alive, even when she was at the grocery store or away at a pharmacists’ convention, the house had never seemed empty. Sometimes, all you needed was someone else’s shoes by the door not to feel alone.

  His breast-feeding friend was speaking to him again.


  “. . . and I’m new to the area and don’t even have girlfriends yet or know where the heck I am . . . This right here is better than the dang mommy-and-me group at the hospital, though. They just make me think I’m a terrible mother.”

  “You’re a wonderful mother,” Rudy told her, for a moment feeling closer to this young woman than to his own daughter.

  The woman shook her head at her shoes. “Hey, I wonder—do you think the café upstairs is baby-friendly?” She leaned in closer to Rudy, so as not to raise her voice.

  Then it happened. A round white pad—like a small, conical potholder—shot out of the woman’s shirt and onto the floor beside Rudy’s left shoe, then under the pedals of the piano. Rudy had a perfect view of the thing as he continued to work the pedals. Why did he keep playing? His left foot could have stomped on the pad as though it were a garden snail. The woman squatted, cradling the now-fussing baby’s head. Her diaper bag fell with a tug to her elbow and her unkempt blouse billowed open another notch.

  Juniper TITmouse! This thought shot into Rudy’s head with Tourette’s-like anxiety and vigor. His heart speeded up. Oh, dear. It was his favorite bird, solid gray with a little black eye and a spiky tuft of feathers at its crown quite like a hat a British woman might wear to a wedding.

  “I’ve got it.” Rudy was surprised by his own dexterity as he continued the melody with his right hand and with his left, reached down to grab the pad. His once black, salt-and-pepper curly hair brushed the piano keys. Why didn’t they sew the things in for crying out loud?

  His face warmed from the base of his neck to his scalp. He pressed his lips together over his teeth, causing a bit of pain as he shut himself up from this crazy recollection of that morning’s birds at the feeder. He finally gave up on the Debussy, stood, and handed the poor woman the pad. Then he lifted her diaper bag and helped her back to the leather chairs, sitting beside her for a moment as she got organized. He secretly hoped she’d ask him to hold the baby. That was one thing he could do, though who would ask a stranger in a dime-store tuxedo?