Jane's Melody

by Ryan Winfield

  “Anytime, Ralph.”

  Ralph glanced into their cart.

  “Finally taking on that jungle behind the house, eh? And who’s this young stud you’ve got here? Your backyard all-star? What happened your face there, fella?”

  “Nothing happened,” Caleb said. “It’s just a birthmark, and it hurts my feelings when people ask about it.”

  Jane saw the embarrassed look on Ralph’s face, and it was all she could do to contain her chuckle.

  Ralph shifted nervously on his stool.

  “Well, let’s get you rung up then,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than jawing with silly old me.”

  He tallied the items and turned the register display toward Jane so she could see the total. She swiped her card and entered her pin. Ralph handed her the receipt.

  “You must’ve decided to finally list the place,” he said, obviously fishing for gossip.

  Jane answered with a tight-lipped smile.

  “I know them Peters Brothers have been dying to get their hands on that lot of yours. You want me to send ’em by?”

  “No, thanks,” she replied.

  “You know, they paid a pretty penny for Mrs. Snyder’s half acre. They put up three houses on it and sold ’em all in a month. Three. And one of the three even had a full mother-in-law above the garage. The island just ain’t what it used to be.”

  “I agree with you there,” Jane said, “but I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.”

  “Hard to say,” he nodded. “Hard to say.”

  Caleb gathered up their items, and they left the cart behind and headed for the exit. Ralph called Jane’s name before they reached the door, and she stopped and turned back.

  “We were real sorry to hear about Melody,” he said, his voice filled with apology. “Real sorry.”

  Jane forced a smile and then followed Caleb out.

  “Is everybody on the island like that?” Caleb asked when they were back in Jane’s car and headed home.

  “Ralph’s all right,” she said. “And the island’s got a pretty good mix of people, I figure. Just like anywhere else.”

  “Sorry if I was hard on him,” Caleb said. “I guess that Guns & Ammo magazine just reminded me of all the people I couldn’t wait to leave behind in Spokane.”

  “You don’t like guns?” she asked.

  “It’s not that I don’t like them,” he answered. “I just seem to be more comfortable when they’re not around.”

  Jane laughed.

  “And you want to move to Texas?”

  “Austin,” he corrected. “There’s Austin and then there’s the rest of Texas.”

  “You might want to keep that opinion under your hat when you get down there, cowboy,” she joked. “I’m sure some of those country boys are pretty proud of their state.”

  “Maybe so,” he said, looking out the window.

  As they turned onto Jane’s street a few minutes later, he shook his head and said:

  “Lying in the gutter looking down on folks again.”

  “What’s that?” Jane asked.

  “Oh, just a saying I heard somewhere. You know it takes a certain kind of person to cast judgment on people he hasn’t even met yet, when that person himself is a homeless musician without a guitar. I can be a real asshole.”

  Jane smiled as she pulled into her driveway and parked.

  “I wasn’t going to say it,” she said, “but I’m glad you did.”

  Chapter 5

  THE MEETING WAS ALREADY IN PROGRESS as Jane entered and took her usual seat next to Grace.

  Grace smiled at her and then returned her attention to the scarf she was knitting in her lap. Usually Jane was early, but she wasn’t quite sure yet how Grace would respond to the news of her arrangement with Caleb, so she had intentionally left home late to avoid their customary catch-up session before the meeting. This Saturday morning Al-Anon meeting had been her and Grace’s ritual for nearly six years—a respite in the weekly storm, they called it. Grace had encouraged Jane to come for several years because of her family, but it wasn’t until Melody’s problems with drinking that she had finally agreed.

  Jane looked around the small room as the usual crowd sat patiently listening to a newcomer, a woman whom Jane had seen several weeks before but hadn’t yet met, since she’d been so consumed with the grief of arranging her daughter’s funeral. The woman was smiling as she spoke, but it was a nervous smile that threatened to flee from her face at any moment.

  Jane focused in on what she was saying:

  “... He’s just so different when he drinks. It’s like I don’t even know him. And he does the funniest things sometimes, too. On Thursday he came to bed so drunk, he opened his own sock drawer and pissed in it. Then guess what he did? He went into the bathroom and flushed the toilet. Isn’t that weird?”

  She paused to let out a nervous laugh. The wiser women surrounding her nodded and smiled at her encouragingly. When she spoke again, her voice cracked and she got real.

  “Truth is I don’t know what to do. I feel like a prisoner in that house. And it’s all lies. Everything. All we do is post these cute family photos on Facebook all the time to make everyone think everything’s fine. But nothing’s fine. And I can’t ever say a word because his friends are on there, his boss. Sometimes, I just want to leave him for good. But our boy is only three now, and I have no idea where we’d go. And how would we survive? Anyway, I’m just glad I’m here and that I at least have this.”

  When she finished she wiped a tear away, and the woman next to her put her arm around her and hugged her close, but nobody said anything. It wasn’t a place for critique.

  “Jane. Would you like to share?”

  “Who, me?”

  The chairwoman who had spoken nodded.

  “No,” Jane said. “I wouldn’t like to, but I will.”

  She paused to take a deep breath and collect her thoughts. She felt Grace’s calming hand pat her knee.

  “As most of you know, I buried my daughter Melody just a little over three weeks ago. I want to thank those of you who made the service. It meant a lot.”

  She choked up and paused.

  Someone passed her a box of tissues, just in case.

  “It still doesn’t seem real,” she continued. “I get these pains that shoot through me. Like I’m suddenly reminded that she’s gone, as if I could ever really forget. It feels like I’ve lost a limb, but worse. The other day I stood in front of the freezer with the door open until the entire thing defrosted. I don’t even know what I was after. I lose time like that. And I’m obsessed with how she died. What she was thinking, what she was doing? You know, it’s strange, because the funeral home said the state certificate was filed as death by misadventure. But that’s a lie. It was suicide. I don’t mean to say that I know that she intended to overdose that very day. But Melody had been killing herself since she was fifteen.” Jane paused to pull a tissue from the box and dab a tear away. “God, I hate this fucking disease. I hate everything about it. If I go the rest of my life and never set eyes on another alcoholic or addict, and I intend to try, my family included, I’ll still have seen too many ruin too much.”

  She sighed, mildly relieved to have at least spoken about her daughter’s death out loud. Then her relief quickly turned to nervousness because she knew she had to mention Caleb to the group. For some reason she giggled. But none of the women seemed to think that her giggling was strange.

  “Now I’ve got a new project at home to obsess over. I’ve taken in my daughter’s boyfriend. At least I think he was her boyfriend. He’s a musician down on his luck.”

  Several of the women couldn’t contain their grins.

  “I know, right? Perfect for a hopeless co-dependent like me. And he’s cute too. Really cute. But I promise to be good. I’m taking my inventory instead of his. And he’s only staying for a few months, doing some work at the house for me until he can get on his feet. And he doesn’t drink. So
that’s good.”

  When she finished, Jane looked over at Grace for any sign of disapproval about the news, but Grace just smiled and continued knitting the scarf in her lap.

  After the meeting ended, and after the unofficial meeting after the meeting, where everyone caught up with one another, Grace followed Jane to her car in the clubhouse parking lot.

  “It’s shaping up to be a nice start to spring,” she said.

  Jane looked up. White puffs of cloud were passing in a blue sky.

  “Yes, it is,” she said. “I didn’t think the rain would ever stop.” Then she dropped her gaze to address Grace. “I hope you’re not upset that I didn’t mention Caleb before. He’s only been at the house a couple of days now. And, well, I guess I just didn’t know how to tell you.”

  “Oh, Jane, you don’t ever need my permission. Not for anything. You know that.”

  “I know. But you’ve been such a rock for me, and I just don’t know what I’d do without you. I felt like I should’ve said something to you.”

  Grace reached out and rubbed her arm.

  “And you just did say something, honey.”

  “Did I do the wrong thing taking him in?”

  “Well, only you can answer that, dear.”

  “Do you think I’m being smart?”

  “I don’t know if you’re being smart or not, but I know that being smart doesn’t always lead to being happy. And I’d rather be happy than anything else.”

  “Well, he’s only working for me, Grace. That’s all. This is strictly professional.”

  Grace lifted an eyebrow and Jane laughed.

  “Okay, okay. I do think he’s really attractive.”

  “Now you’re talking straight,” Grace said.

  “But I’m not going to let anything happen.”

  “Nothing at all wrong with admiring the great architect’s handiwork, sweetie.”

  “I shouldn’t feel bad for looking?”

  “You should feel human, dear.”

  “Thanks, Grace. You really are the best.”

  Jane opened her car door and got in. Before she shut the door, she turned back to Grace and said:

  “Maybe I’ll send him over to your place when he finishes with my yard. Since your mind’s already in the gutter.”

  Grace didn’t say anything, but as Jane pulled out, she could see her smiling all the way back to the club.

  Jane stopped by the island grocery on her way home and bought enough food for her and her hungry houseguest for the week ahead. As she unloaded the groceries in the kitchen, she caught glimpses through the living room window of Caleb working outside. His shirt was off, and the sun was glistening off his sweat-covered back, highlighting the ripples of muscle as he hacked and pulled at the blackberry vines nearest the house. His pants hung low on his hips, and his tight lower back had two dimples that made her tremble with excitement. She found her gaze drifting back to watch him so often, her thoughts so preoccupied by his appearance, that she put milk in the cupboard and cereal in the refrigerator.

  “You’re acting like a silly little schoolgirl,” she mumbled to herself, half laughing.

  She felt guilty for looking, but she blamed Grace for even putting the idea in her head. She forced herself to look away and finish storing the groceries. Then she carried the toiletry supplies she’d gotten for Caleb into the guest bathroom— toothbrush, razor, soap. She’d even bought him a tube of men’s styling cream, just in case he decided to ditch the hat.

  On her way back to the living room, she stopped and looked into the bedroom. She smiled when she noticed that he had made the bed, even turning back Melody’s pink sheets. She went to the closet and retrieved a spare set of white sheets and remade the bed, hoping he would feel a little more comfortable sleeping beneath something less feminine. She was about to put the pink sheets in the wash hamper when she thought better of it and carried them to the kitchen and threw them in the trash. Pink had always been Melody’s favorite color, and Jane had left those sheets on her bed for years, washing them every month, just hoping that Melody would come home.

  But Melody was never coming home.

  It was high time that she admitted it.

  Feeling a strange mix of liberation and guilt at having thrown the sheets away, she looked around at the rest of the house and the years of clutter that had accumulated around her life. Books she would never read again, board games that hadn’t been played in years, completed Sudoku puzzles, and old photos of her mother and her brother that made her cringe every time she passed them. She kept them on display only because of some sick sense of family obligation. She felt suffocated in her own living room, suffocated in her own life.

  She went to the garage and retrieved a box of black, plastic garbage bags and began filling them. She filled one bag, then another. She worked for hours, cleaning out cupboards and closets, until she had two piles of overflowing bags near the front door—one pile destined for the island dump, and the other for Goodwill.

  “Looks like you’ve made more progress in here than I have out there.”

  Jane looked up from where she knelt on the floor, sorting old CDs. Caleb was standing over her, thankfully with his shirt back on. She glanced at the pile of bags by the door.

  “Doing a little spring cleaning is all. You want to help me take a load to the landfill?”

  “You’re in luck,” he said. “My afternoon schedule just happened to free up.”

  “How very fortunate for me,” she said, reaching to take his offered hand and pulling herself up. “We’d better hurry before they close. The island kind of goes to sleep around five.”

  By the time the car was loaded, they’d stuffed it so full that Caleb spent the ride to the dump pushing the wall of advancing plastic garbage bags back into the rear seat and away from Jane so that she could drive. They made it to the island dump fifteen minutes before closing and stopped at the scale and took their weight ticket. A flock of gulls scattered as Jane backed up to the unloading gate, only to settle again before she even had the car in park. She got out and stood, looking down on the piles of trash. The place smelled of rotten garbage and gull shit.

  Caleb unloaded the car, backseat and trunk, stacking the plastic bags next to Jane, but leaving it to her to toss them in. When he finished, he stood beside her and asked:

  “Sure you wanna throw all this stuff away?”

  She sighed, closing her eyes and nodding.

  “I think it’s time that I uncluttered my life a bit. Besides, it would probably take another dozen trips to get rid of it all.”

  “That’s one thing I really like about living the way I do.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “No responsibility. No crap to tie me down. When you have to fit everything you own into a backpack and a guitar case, you get pretty picky about the things you hang onto.”

  She turned to look at him. Some city kid nomad with his hands on his hips, his knowing eyes scanning the piles of useless trash stretching out beneath them.

  “Don’t you get lonely, though?” she asked. “Always being on the move like that?”

  “Sometimes,” he said. “But it seems to me lonely finds a person just as easy when they’re settled down somewhere. And might be that it sticks better too.”

  “So you’re both a musician and a philosopher, I see.”

  He turned to look at her and smiled.

  “I wasn’t aware that there was a difference.”

  “You know something, Caleb?”

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “I think I’m really starting to like you.”

  She reached over and heaved a bag off the ground and flung it down onto the pile of trash. When it landed it broke open, and a snow globe music box that she’d brought home for Melody from a trip to Victoria fell out and started playing. The fall must have jostled it to life. They stood and listened to its song until the globe stopped spinning and the music faded away forever, leaving only the distan
t calls of circling gulls. Then Jane threw the other bags in, one after another, until they were all heaped together on the pile below.

  As soon as she’d finished, the closing horn blew, and a giant compactor blade crushed the pile of trash and pushed it to the edge where it fell down a slide into a waiting container attached to a semi, idling below. The semi pulled away, her cluttered memories destined for some mainland landfill, and another empty semi pulled into its place.

  “How do you feel about Chinese?” she asked.

  “I’ve never had any reason to feel one way or another about them,” Caleb said.

  Jane elbowed him, playfully.

  “Not Chinese people, you dork. Chinese food.For dinner. Are you hungry?”

  “I could eat, for sure.”

  “All right then. Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter 6

  THE BELLS ON THE DOOR JINGLED when Jane stepped into Seattle Strings. She could smell the wood varnish and the wax as she walked the aisles, looking at the walls lined with guitars. The sound of someone tuning a guitar carried to her from a back room. Then it stopped, and a few moments later a kid was standing in front of her. He didn’t look old enough even to be working, but his neck and arms were already covered in tattoos.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for a guitar.”

  “Well, ma’am, you’ve sure landed in the right place then. We’ve got a few.”

  “Just Jane is fine.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Just call me Jane. I hate being called ma’am.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just that owner likes us to say it. He says us Gen Y-ersgotta work on being more respectful and less narcissistic. But I’ll call you Jane. Are you looking for acoustic or electric, Jane?”

  “I’m not really sure. It’s a gift.”

  “Well, maybe an acoustic with electronics then. Will it be her first guitar?”

  “It’s for a man, if that makes a difference. And no. He plays, but he had his stolen.”

  “Do you know what kind of guitar he had before?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said, scanning the walls. “I’m not very familiar with guitars, but it kind of looked like that one there.”