by Ward, Susan
“Is Sammy still sleeping?” she asked.
I set down my drink. “I don’t know. I haven’t checked.”
When I started to move toward the door, she stopped me with a hand. “No, Jack, sit down and eat. If he’s quiet I’d leave him alone.”
I wanted in the worst way to kiss her, but I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to, so I sat down in my chair instead.
“Chinese, huh?” I asked as she scooped food out onto my plate.
“I’m in the mood for something spicy,” she murmured on her husky purr that ran across my body like a tidal wave.
Maybe Patty was right.
Maybe Lena was telling me she was ready to be my wife again. “Good to know,” I said, locking her in my gaze, and she met it directly, clear with her answering message.
During dinner, we both laughed more than we had in months. Later we sat on the floor in the living room, having drinks around the coffee table. As the four of us continued the evening, Lena eased in to me, settling against me so I could wrap her in my arms as I used to always prefer it to be.
She was mostly talking to Reggie, and me to Patty, but that didn’t matter. It was nice to hold her while she laughed. Nice, though it made it difficult to focus on Patty’s chatter. It’d been months since we’d made love and I had to fight an erection the entire time her butt rested between my legs.
Patty checked her watch. “Damn it, Reggie. It’s after ten. We should get out of here.” We all started to stand up, but she stopped Lena and me. “It’s late. No. You don’t have to walk us out. Finish your drinks. I don’t want to get held up at the car talking more.” At the door, she pointed. “I expect both of you to come to the city soon to see our new place. But not too soon. It’s going to take me forever to figure out what to do with everything Reggie’s hauling there.”
Reggie rolled his eyes. “Ignore her. Come whenever you want. Catch you two later.”
The door closed.
We were alone.
I searched for something cautious but in the right direction to say. “It was fun tonight, wasn’t it, doll?”
She nodded.
There was silence between us for more minutes than I wanted, but then she turned in to me without moving from my embrace.
“You’re a good man, Jack.”
I smiled. “Why do you say that?”
She curled in to me, caressing my arms as she touched light kisses across my chest. “For putting up with me.”
I started kissing her hair. “I don’t put up with you, Lena. I adore you. That’s how it’s always been with us.”
She peeked up at me. “Do you adore me even when I stop?”
I wasn’t sure what she was asking, but her voice was light and suggestive again, so I humorously growled, “Especially when you stop. It’s the only time I can ever catch you.”
Her eyes locked on mine. “I’ve stopped so you can catch me now, Jackson.”
Jackson. Her voice and the look in her eyes shot straight to my heart then elsewhere. I started unbuttoning her shirt, placing kisses down her neck, and her head tilted back as she moved with my lips.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered, curling her fingers in my hair as I kissed her breast and tried to undo the fastening.
“I’ve missed you, too.” I lifted my face to stare at her. “But do you want to know what I’ve missed most?”
She nodded.
“The little things. You smiling at me, or just touching me for no reason. I even miss when you give me crap.”
She laughed, her forehead coming to rest against my chin. “You miss even that?”
I got her bra off and then her pants. “Especially that.”
“Not really?”
“Oh, definitely.” I eased her back against the floor. “I miss all things Lena when they’re not all mine.”
“I miss all things Jack when they’re not all mine.”
I was kissing my way down her body, starving for the taste of her. Slowly I made my way up the inside of her thigh with my fingers then mouth.
I was about to pull off her panties when her hand moved from my hair to my wrist, stopping me.
“It’s hard for a woman to lose a baby. I know I worried you and pushed you away, but I couldn’t get over it any other way.”
My heart jumped into my throat.
Christ. I lay on the floor, pulling her body atop mine, and brushed the curls back from her face. “It was hard for me, too.”
“I know.” Her eyes clouded and she lowered her cheek to my chest and encircled me in her arms. “It’s why you turned to Jessica. I understand that now.”
Oh fuck.
I lifted her face so she could see everything I felt for her in my eyes. “I never turned to Jessica. I want only you, and I always will. I want to love only you. I want us to love again.”
Her eyes widened. “Again? I never stopped.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I was making a mess of this.
She was naked.
I knew the signals of her body.
She was finally talking to me about things about us.
Not the things I wanted.
But perhaps what we needed to get us through this. I wasn’t sure what to say or which way this moment would go.
I stared at her. “I love you, Lena.”
Her mouth came back to mine and her hips started to rock, bringing her against my cock as she devoured me with her kisses. “I love you, Jack. Now show me.”
~~~
Things got better from there. We almost felt like us again. Lena wanted to try to have another baby. She and Sammy even started traveling with me when I was on the road.
It was hard. The venues were small and I could tell they were not places she enjoyed. The accommodations at times were anything but fancy. But the months that passed from spring into summer were very good for her and me.
We spent a lot of time with Reggie and Patty.
It was nice having couple friends and being a couple again. Even with Reggie and Patty, since political rants were standard fare after Johnson signed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and they’d widened their circle to become active members of the Catholic Worker Movement. Every time they joined a new movement it dominated our conversations.
By New Year’s, 1965 it felt like we were on a high we’d never come off and we’d just keep going as we were, happy.
Reggie and I were working on a second album for Columbia after the first had gradually gained steam.
I was ready to be a father and have my own child with Lena. It was our time since I was almost around the bend of financial worry.
All of us ushered out the old year in New York City. Lena was dazzling, even though she was sad the five months of serious trying hadn’t gotten her pregnant.
We spent the night talking about where we should move in the city, as it was clear to her I wasn’t going back any time soon to finish Harvard.
1965 was a new year.
A better year.
Or so I thought.
Reggie got a letter that started with “Greetings” and finished with “you are hereby notified that you have now been selected for training and service in the Army.”
Then, Yuri came to visit Lena.
Twenty-Six
Everything felt off. For ten hours, Reggie and I slugged away in the dingy recording space in midtown that Columbia booked for us. Nothing we rolled tape on was worth shit, and it was uncomfortable being with Reggie when before it had been easier.
Maybe it was because even at night it was stifling hot. We were both edgy, barking at each other, and the collaboration process that once thrived between us just wasn’t there.
Reggie stopped playing midsong and said into the mic, “Why don’t we just call it a day? I can’t take it in here anymore.”
I shrugged. “Fine with me.”
I’d been ready to quit hours ago. July in Manhattan was a like sa
una, and the ventilation system hadn’t worked all day.
I set my guitar in the stand for tomorrow. “You want to grab some drinks somewhere before heading home?”
His jaw tightened as he shook his head. “No man, I’m good, and you should probably go home to Lena. I’ll walk with you, though. I could use a walk after this.”
As I waited for him to get ready to head out—fuck, he took forever to get ready to do anything—I stood at the piano, thumbing through the black and white journal he carried everywhere. Most of what he wrote down didn’t make sense to me. But he also set down his lyrics and music there. His music definitely made sense to me. Reggie was fucking brilliant.
Patty was right; he did see things other people didn’t. It made who he was so much harder to understand.
“What is this?” I asked, and he paused in taking off his sweat-dripping shirt to look at what I was studying.
“Ah, that. Just a melody. Nothing really yet. I can’t seem to finish it.”
My chin jutted out as I played the music in my head. “‘Take Back the Dawn’?”
He pulled on a fresh shirt. “It’s yours, man, if you want to finish it. It probably belongs to you more than me anyway.”
Yep, it was what I thought. The wistful, quiet arrangement of notes. The title. It was about Lena.
“Fuck, finish it yourself. Then maybe we’ll have something decent to record.”
He poked me in the chest, took his notebook, and held it as a roll in his hand before he shoved it into my pocket. “Nope, if it’s going to get finished, you’ve got to do it, Jack. I won’t be here.”
Fuck. “I don’t get you, Reggie.”
He smiled, unruffled. “I know, Jack. And I don’t want to have an argument about the draft. Let’s just walk home together, a couple of friends like we used to be.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He stared at me, and we both knew what he’d meant.
I exhaled heavily. “Am I that obvious?”
“Not obvious. You’re just Jack, like a clear water pond. Never murky. I always know exactly where you stand on everything. But you don’t see where everyone else stands on things. I think that’s why all us murky people gravitate to you. We see our flaws shining back from Jack, always good.”
I closed my eyes, willing myself not to let loose my temper, but philosophical Reggie was at times as infuriating as ranting, political Reggie.
“Listen, I know all those hours you spend with her alone are not because you’re fucking Lena, if that’s what you’re thinking I’m thinking.”
He laughed. “Still seeing the small picture and missing the big one. Of course I’m not fucking Lena. Not that I wouldn’t. That’s something else you don’t see. I’m no saint. Lena’s one hell of a woman.”
“Asshole.”
He laughed and, fuck, he was just itching to piss me off for some reason. He’d never cross the line with her, and we both knew it—Reggie was a good guy that way. Not the kind that would make the moves on another guy’s girl—so his taunt just rolled off me.
We left the studio and headed to the street. “Then explain it to me. What the fuck do you two have to talk about?”
“Nothing, man. Everything. But mostly you.”
That shouldn’t have pissed me off—he was smiling when he said it. “Bullshit. Who’d want to talk about me?”
“Lena. She can see the writing on the wall, even if you can’t. Things are going to change around here real soon and not in a good way. She’s worried about you.”
I frowned. “Me?”
“Yep, you.” He sighed, annoyed. “All she ever does is worry about you.”
“She should worry about you. What the hell is going through that head of yours? Why the fuck aren’t you trying to fight getting drafted?”
“Now you’re sounding like Patty. I get enough of that at home.”
I stopped walking and stared after him. “Jesus Christ, Reggie. This isn’t a lark and it isn’t funny. You could get a deferment. Why aren’t you trying?”
He made a slight tilt of his head, moving it slowly, not really a shake at me, more of his Jack, Jack, Jack thing. “I bet you never thought marrying Lena in ’62 would have been such a smart move.”
“Marrying Lena was a smart move, but not because of the draft, you jerk.”
He nodded. “Yep, God was definitely watching out for you then, Jackie boy. You’d be a fucking stuffed shirt doing nothing with your life, being everything we hate if he hadn’t sent you her.”
I grinned. “Probably married to Liz. Or someone like her.”
“Fate worse than death,” Reggie jeered, and we both laughed and started to walk again.
“You should have married Patty the day you dropped out of Harvard. Requested the marriage deferment.”
Reggie threw back his head, laughing more uproariously. “Nope, that wouldn’t have been a smart move. She’s not like Lena.”
I ignored his propensity to compliment my wife, and argued, “The two of you practically are married. Why not do the real thing if keeps you from going?”
“That girl is as fickle as they come. Off in every direction the second something catches her eye.”
I didn’t like him being even mildly disparaging of Patty. “What are you talking about? She’s a great girl.”
“She’s cozying up to Georgie again.”
I stared at him, surprised; that was news to me. “Jesus Christ, they’re friends. We all grew up together.”
He shrugged, dismissively. “Nothing is ever as simple as you see it. Last year you were positive there was never going to be a war. Now you’re antiwar and antidraft, but only because of me. Every girl is madly in love with you—in your head—except your wife, when she’s the only girl, as far as I can see, who’s ever cared about you. Oh, and she trapped you into marriage because you’re such a prize—”
I shoved him up against a building wall. “Don’t you ever talk about my wife that way. She did no such thing. I married her because I love her. You can be a miserable jerk at times, spouting off about things you don’t know shit about.” My angry face was just inches from his, my fingers a tight ball ready to hit him. Reggie lay back against the concrete and laughed.
“Hey, man, they’re your thoughts, not mine. I think you’re a fucking idiot for thinking it even once. If I had her, I wouldn’t doubt she loved me. I’d just enjoy it.”
I pushed back from him. “I’ve never thought that. Not once. And I think you are a fucking idiot for running away to the army because of Patty. So what if she goes back to Georgie? It just means that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
He studied me almost in wonder. “Oh, Jack, you never see a goddamn thing.”
He stepped away and continued toward home.
We didn’t talk the rest of the way to the apartment he shared with Patty.
He paused on the steps. “You wanna come up? Say hi to Patty? Have a drink while we smoke a little grass?”
I was still angry over his comments about Lena. “Nah. I need to get home.”
“See ya at the studio tomorrow, Jack,” he called out to my back.
“Sure, Reggie.”
“Don’t forget. Finish that song for me,” he added, and then I heard the door close behind him.
It was five blocks more to the basement flat I was living in with Lena, but I spent a couple of hours walking, trying to shake off the mood Reggie had left me with.
Reggie liked to fuck with people. The problem was it didn’t feel like he was fucking with me. Under the inflammatory statements, it was like he was trying to tell me something.
Shit, who knew? Reggie Dun was an enigma. Fuck, he was antiwar before it was a movement and he was just letting the army take him away.
As I trotted down the steps to my front door, I wondered what the hell I was going to do once he was gone. It would be the end of Parker and Dun—for a while—and I st
ill had to make a living. Columbia hadn’t so much as winked that they’d keep me under contract without him. Reggie was the talent and I was the show. Fuck, what use were they going to have for me without him?
We weren’t living well, but we were getting by. Reggie being drafted ruined everything for Lena and me. It was a despicable thought, I hated thinking it, but it was the truth, even if it wasn’t how I wanted to feel.
Inside the apartment, I found Yuri and Walter with Lena in the living room.
“You’re home, Jack. Finally,” Lena said, rushing to the door to plant a kiss on my cheek.
“Sorry. Long day with Reggie. You should have told me we were having guests, Lena.”
“We stopped by with news,” Walter announced, uncharacteristically jovial even with me.
I smiled as I crossed the room to shake his hand. “Good news, I hope.”
“It is, if you can convince your wife to agree,” Yuri countered affably as I shook his hand.
I sank down on the arm of her chair and gestured for the men to sit again. I looked at Lena. “What’s going on, Lena?”
“Petkovic is retiring,” she said quietly.
“At last,” Yuri put in eagerly. “It means I have a chair to fill in the Sciarilo Quartet. Whoever I want. I want Lena. She’s the only violinist capable of filling Petkovic’s shoes.”
I scooped up my wife into my arms, surprised she wasn’t over the moon about this. “That’s great news. Why aren’t you happier?”
“She thinks she shouldn’t do it. That you won’t want her to go,” Walter explained. “I told her she was wrong, that it was what she’s work toward, but she won’t listen to me.”
I noticed Lena’s tight face and frowned. “Why wouldn’t I want that for you, doll?”
“The first nine months of the performance calendar are in Europe, Jack.”
Oh fuck. Walter was right. It definitely wasn’t something I wanted. Not to be separated from her, even briefly.
“I can’t go,” she added. “I can’t leave you.”
I could feel everyone waiting for my reaction. “Let’s not make any hasty decisions, Lena,” I found myself saying even though I wanted to say how the hell could you even consider that?
“We wouldn’t see each other for almost a year, Jack.”
