The Night Singers

by Valerie Miner

  As they drive to a fancy North Beach restaurant where Evelyn has made a reservation by a window table, you may be curious about graduate school. Did Evelyn ever persuade Columbia to grant a deferment? Did the waiting list student win the Pulitzer Prize? The answers are no and no. But Janet has won her share of awards.

  The old roommates are being served prosciutto e melone, Janet’s favourite. Evelyn opens her briefcase and withdraws a small box.

  “Happy Birthday.”

  “You remembered.”

  She doesn’t tell Janet that this birthday is the only reason for her trip to San Francisco. She’s given up a big story in the Aleutians for this celebration.

  Janet examines the red glass earrings. “Pretty,” she says in a quizzical, pleased voice.

  “Peppers,” Evelyn is laughing. “Mementos of Herb’s pepper plant.”

  “Lovely,” Janet’s voice is a little shaky. Then she pretends to be mad. “You came just for my birthday. Now tell me the truth.”

  “Hey, an easy choice. It’s a big day,” Evelyn finishes her appetiser. “And, well, I’m lucky to know you. Did I ever thank you for saving my life?”

  Flat World

  It’s a long, flat drive through the heartland on I-90. Once you hit South Dakota, the highway is so straight and the landscape so monotonous, that your mind mirages bagels, espresso, tapas, cream soda, fennel salad. You don’t come to a flat world for surprises.

  Honeymooning is a good time for compromise and Annette wants to visit her Great Aunt Uma once more before we take up my assignment in Naples. State Department buddies kid me about our camping honeymoon, but the boss agrees that visiting National Parks will be valuable for a press attaché.

  We like Wisconsin. Reminds us of weekend trips to Upstate New York in grad school. We met in the library, in a quiet corner next to the northern windows when we were both feverishly finishing our theses—her collection of poetry and my dissertation on America’s relations with countries emerging from the Soviet Block. One morning we bickered over a table with the best light; that evening we went out for pizza.

  After leaving Wisconsin yesterday, frankly, it’s all been down hill. We cross the Mighty Mississippi in a minute and then it’s Minnesota Farmland growing into ranchland into more farmland. As someone who’s allergic to wheat and doesn’t eat red meat, it’s hard to get excited. Where are those 10,000 lakes?

  Suddenly we’re in South Dakota, which looks the same, but has fewer towns and a zillion signs to Wall Drug, way the hell out by Rapid City. Anyway, by the time we hit the Missouri, I’m feeling like Louis and Clark on a bad day. My bride is revelling in fond memories of Aunt Uma’s farm. In my dour moments, I wonder if a happy person can succeed as a poet.

  “Let’s see if this little town has some decent coffee.” Annette sits up tall and perky.

  It is time for a break. She’s right. I get too focused on objectives and destinations.

  Annette has a kind of travel radar. A few years ago she said as we drove into Cody, and I do mean Cody, Wyoming, “I feel like Northern Italian tonight.” Sure enough, we find Franca’s Restaurant, run by a Genoese who makes the best ravioli west of Italy and serves dreamy tiramisu.

  So I steer off the freeway into Main Street, South Dakota. And, of course, within two blocks, here’s Johnny’s Java Jam sandwiched between a laundromat and a dusty stationery shop. My eyes widen.

  She smiles and shrugs.

  The shiny, neat cafe is furnished with random 1950s linoleum tables and chairs, items that’d go for a song in prairie garage sales. The walls are vividly splashed with Wild West murals—buffalo, cowboys, bucking broncos. Silence. The place is empty. 3pm isn’t exactly prime coffee hour on Main Street. A checker game is half finished on a table to the left, almost as if we’ve stumbled into someone’s den.

  We approach the counter, ding the bell, wait. No one comes.

  Annette groans dramatically. “I must be experiencing interference with my radar, commander.”

  “Well, we can get a couple of Pepsis at the gas station.”

  She turns, notices a rack of Stash teas, a plastic tiered pastry tray, a snazzy Gaggia machine, breaking into that toothy smile of discovery that won my heart.

  I ding the bell again,

  “He’ll be right out,” drawls a tiny voice. We peer into the shadowed corner to find a small black boy in Star Trek uniform playing computer games.

  Startled to discover an African American dwarf astronaut in South Dakota, my voice quavers, “Who, who will be out?” Mr Spock or one of those gruesome Klingons?

  He ignores me and shouts, “Daaad!”

  Annette is giggling. I really do understand there’s nothing to worry about, but sweat slides down my temples.

  A short, round man emerges, wiping his tortoise-rimmed glasses on a shirt sleeve. “Cliff. Cliffie, are you OK?” he calls anxiously.

  Looking through the glasses now, he gapes at Annette and me.

  Does he think we’re intruders? Kidnappers? We just want coffee. We have no intention of stealing his cute child. The shingle outside says “Johnny’s Java Jam.” Maybe we’ve been driving too long, walked into the wrong mirage.

  He breaks into a wide grin.

  So does Annette.

  I’m wearing my impassive State Department face, which comes in handy in unreadable situations.

  “You will be pardoning me,” he speaks in a musical Caribbean accent. “I didn’t hear you enter. I was unpacking coffee in the storeroom. So, well, welcome! What may I offer you—espresso, latte, cappuccino? You are visiting from where?”

  “Washington,” I announce, fighting an urge to say Naples, for soon enough we’ll be living in Italy and then, depending on my career course—Bombay, Istanbul, Paris. We both love Paris. I’m lucky to have a smart, beautiful wife who likes to travel. Poetry is a portable, if not lucrative, profession.

  “And you?” Annette is asking. “I’d guess somewhere in the West Indies?”

  “Zzzzzzz. Zzzzzz. Ping. Ping. Ruoommmmmm.” From behind us, Captain Boy is creating unearthly noises.

  I can almost taste that java, so, shifting from foot to foot, I say, a little too abruptly, “Double espresso for me and you, honey, what will you have?”

  She looks at me curiously. Doesn’t like it when I interrupt. Quite right, of course.

  Cliffie points his plastic silver toy at us. A vanishing gun, I deduce. “Ping. Ping. Souummmmm. Souummmm.”

  I half expect to be projected back on the highway. But here we are waiting for our damn coffee. Now, I need that caffeine in more ways than one.

  Turning back to the proprietor, Annette sighs, “I see you do iced drinks. I’d love an iced latte.”

  “Coming up!” Johnnny declares (I see, now, that his name is printed on his long-sleeved t-shirt, just above a stencil of a steaming cup of coffee.)

  “Trinidad,” he answers her question as he presses buttons and levers.

  She’s smiling again. “Do you mind if I ask what brought you all the way to South Dakota?”

  He hoots. “Whole passel of people: Wild Bill Hickcock. Sitting Bull. Calamity Jane. Wyatt Earp. Doc Holiday. Crazy Horse.”

  Leaning on the counter, I sigh discreetly, to remind him we’re customers, not visiting relatives.

  He pauses, creating an artistic foam for Annette’s drink.

  I clear my throat impatiently and Johnny steps back, as if I’ve wounded his professional pride.

  Cliffie zaps me again, overlooking Annette, who is also, obviously, an alien.

  My espresso comes with a perfect crema. Nothing wrong with this girl’s radar. My shoulders relax.

  “Aren’t those unusual heroes for a Trinidadian child?” she asks Johnny.

  Sometimes I think I won the Naples posting because Annette is such a good conversationalist—genuinely curious, questioning in an unobtrusive, charming way.

  He whoops, shakes his head, then laughs harder, as if his life story is a new joke he hasn’t heard.

/>   “We got all the old American TV programs—‘The Cisco Kid,’ ‘The Lone Ranger,’ ‘Bat Masterson,’ ‘Gunsmoke,’ ‘Ponderosa.’ And I don’t know, I did a project in secondary school on the American West …”

  Annette sips her foam, nodding for him to continue.

  “Brrring. Brrrring. Bopsy. Bopsy zooooom.”

  The kid is tapping my shoes with a new, blue pointy weapon.

  “Quiet down there, Cliffie,” Johnny calls gently. “Can’t you see Dad’s talking to these nice people?”

  “Well, I got a scholarship to Haverford College, that’s near Philadelphia, and married, became a father, then divorced. The city didn’t seem a safe place to raise Cliffie.”

  On hearing his name, the astronaut reboards ship, pressing knobs. “Ping. Ping.”

  “I wanted somewhere I could keep an eye on him. Where, if he got lost for a couple of hours, neighbours would watch out for the boy. You wouldn’t believe it, but in some senses this town is like the Islands. People look after children.”

  I’ve finished the espresso and am antsy to get to Badlands National Park before dark. Annette is still asking questions about race relations, schools. She tells him about Aunt Uma. Of course, as a diplomat’s wife, she’ll learn timing. We’re both new to this.

  “So, he’s happy here?” she asks. “Does Cliff love the Wild West, too?”

  “Oh, ho,” The cup of coffee on Johnny’s belly is shaking hazardously. “He’s gone one step beyond, as you can perhaps discern. I thought I could raise a Trinidadian cowboy and he turned into an intergalactic explorer.”

  Judging from his current technology, I think, the kid won’t be lifting off any time soon.

  “Yes,” Annette laughs. “I guess we all want to go somewhere else.”

  She looks at me in that quizzical way. I guess she wants to get back on the road.

  The Best Sex Ever

  Lou was swanning in the corner, surrounded by women’s laughter. He sipped Sancerre as he leaned on the piano telling his stories: Boston theatre gossip for the elegant matrons of Clapton.

  One of them, Dorothy Glendenning, was curator of the excellent local museum. Before I moved here, I had no idea how well they preserved history in these Northeast villages; it felt as if people here had always known they lived in an important place.

  Even Clapton’s private homes exuded tradition. On one wall of this grand living room, ancient family portraits of pale, long-faced men were framed in dark mahogany. Over the mantle hung a Georgian map of the Thirteen Colonies.

  Martin, our host, waylaid me at the refreshment table. “Everyone loves Lou,” he whispered, unsteadily waving his third g and t.

  The yellow cheeses stank beautifully of French and Italian alleys. Martin’s sangria tasted of decent red wine and I refilled my glass. Everyone dressed in that crisp, casual, expensive style. I was savvy enough to buy my long summer shirt from a Junior League shop in another part of the state. No one wore black. This was not New York.

  As much as I missed the Village and Amy, I was beginning to savour Clapton’s comforts. I loved the distinct, dramatic seasons. And the architecture was stunning in this old, many would say “venerable”, New England town where several houses dated back to the mid-18th century. Some people, like Lou, commuted to Boston. But most worked at the distinguished college, the art gallery, the orchestra, the shops or in municipal jobs. Clapton prized the local. You had to wait three generations to become native. Yet townspeople were welcoming after a while.

  Martin found me again. “I mean, Lou is such a good storyteller. Look how he draws in the ladies, even if he is gay.”

  I sidled away from my well-lubricated host, wondering if I were wise or cowardly. As the new cellist, I wasn’t ready to come out. I felt grateful for my seat in a good regional orchestra after ten years of scraping by on the chamber music festival circuit. OK, this was a life of compromise. Someday I wanted to drive a reliable car and to share a condo with my one true love. Meanwhile, I was content renting half of Lou’s duplex.

  I perched tentatively on a French provincial chair, observing the raconteur again, and feeling oddly jealous of his matrons. Each woman had a safe crush on Lou. Even though he’d run as far as possible from the cowboy culture of his youth, he still carried Texas in his voice and they loved Lou’s soft drawl. Of course I had a more intimate relationship with him after nine months as his tenant-neighbour.

  Now I considered his handsome face, bordered by the trim beard. Ash blond. I doubted he used colouring. However, with a job way off in Boston, he could be engaged in all sorts of camouflage. Alas, he led a pretty straight life for a gay guy. A lonesome one, which was strange for an attractive, successful lawyer. What more could you want than this man, so fit (off to the gym every morning—I knew because his car woke me up), tall, smart, lively. Lou’s sartorial style murmured discretion: one small gold earring, a simple watch, an expertly pressed mauve silk shirt, tucked into his perfectly creased grey cotton pants. He considered the loneliness his fault. Too picky, he admitted ruefully.

  Lou noticed me and winked, a sign that we’d be leaving soon.

  He couldn’t have been more neighbourly—that’s what it was at the beginning of course. Friendship takes time to develop. Patiently, he shifted furniture around my new living room until I was happy. Feng Shui isn’t my thing. He began inviting me over for pasta once a week. We discovered mutual tastes in literature and politics. I’m pretty good with fish, so now I returned the hospitality on Sundays. With our mutual friends Dennis and Kate, who introduced us, we attended film or theatre three or four times a month. Recently, he’d been talking more about loneliness, really fretting that gay men grow less desirable as they age. Although Kate set him up with two different friends from the college, he never answered their calls after the first dates.

  Finishing his story with a flourish, Lou raised a glass to our host, “Thanks, Martin, for a splendid evening,” he pronounced. Then, despite sighs from the chorus, “I need to get up early and work tomorrow.”

  “On a Saturday?” protested Dorothy Glendenning. “No, that’s not healthy.”

  “Complicated case,” he grinned and raised an eyebrow to me.

  Chit chat, even with these very pleasant people, could wear a person down.

  We slipped onto the warm summer street. I listened to crickets and frogs and the very occasional swoosh of a passing automobile, thinking, as I did every day, how different this was from New York. Quiet. Secure. Peaceful. Maybe a little eerie.

  He was humming, walking too quickly, until I reminded him about the relative lengths of our legs.

  “You really have to work tomorrow?”

  “An accusation of dissembling?” Hand on his broad chest, he gasped. Then laughed. “Actually, Andrea, I have a date tonight.”

  “Tonight?” I was more startled because Clapton closed down at 10pm than by the bulletin about his social life.

  “Promise you won’t tell a soul?”

  I nodded warily.

  “I met him in a chat room on Monday and I think I’m falling in love.”

  “Oh, yes?” I prodded. “What is he, well, like?” I felt sad he’d resorted to virtual dating. Perhaps he’d exhausted Clapton’s fleshly options.

  “We haven’t exchanged pix yet. But he tells me he’s five foot nine, slim, pale skin, dark hair, no beard, brown eyes. I’ve always liked little guys.”

  “What do you do you chat about in the chat room?” Electronic courtship seemed kind of dry. We passed Reverend Clara’s garden teeming with heady honeysuckle.

  “Oh, we switched to our own emails on Tuesday night.”

  “You moved in after one day?” I laughed.

  “Well, that’s how it works, of course, if you want to get intimate.”

  “Intimate on the internet?”

  “Don’t be so Victorian, hun,” he scolded archly. “Writing is a fantastic erotic tool and James has a facility with certain turns of phrase.”

  James, I mu
sed, reassured by the normal name. We had three more blocks before the duplex, which wouldn’t leave enough time for my questions. Maybe that was good. “Where does James live when he’s not cavorting on the internet?”

  “Florida,” he didn’t miss a beat. “He has a beach house outside Miami.”

  On the doorstep, he pecked my cheek. “Now you’ve promised not to tell a soul.”

  “Cross my heart,” I whispered, trying to ignore lingering qualms. Naturally Lou would be fine. This wasn’t a bath house romance; it was a nice, germ-free email exchange.

  Pasta night was cavvatapi with fresh basil, heirloom tomatoes, Kalamata olives, garlic and a pinch of pesto. We ate earlier than usual because he had a date with James tonight. Disappointed by the shortened evening, I hoped we’d still have time to talk over some problems I was having with my conductor.

  Lou was rosy and buoyant.

  “So how’s the chatting?” I savoured the breeze and the cool Sauvignon Blanc after a blistering day. I’d have to think carefully about the vino for Sunday night’s halibut. We weren’t in a competition or anything. I liked the way our dinners allowed us to express affection and have a good time.

  “Great, just great.” He blushed.

  I smiled, in spite of myself, at the unflappable attorney flapping.

  “You’re really into this,” I observed.

  He played with the collar of his new Ikat cotton shirt, then took a fork of the scrumptious pasta.

  I loved eating dinner in Lou’s minimalist dining room, sitting back on the black and white chairs, surrounded by framed, ancient world maps. Fresh flowers always graced the table. Tonight six perfect irises in various stages of bloom. I stared at the map of Old Saxony until Lou finished swallowing. He remained silent.

  “Well?” I tapped his hand.

  “Andrea,” he was sighing, “It’s the best sex ever.” He waved his long fingers, a pianist in his last life, then blushed again.

  What was I going to say to that? Are you a top or a bottom? How do you do it? One hand on the keyboard, I guessed. What was the etiquette here? The supportive response?