by Lori Carson
I listen as one after another singer-songwriter gets up and plays a couple of originals. Their songs recall the music of Coldplay, John Mayer, Dave Matthews, and Radiohead. Gone are the three-chord progressions and folk melodies of the seventies that influenced me and a generation after me.
A young woman with short bangs and sunglasses approaches and asks if I am who she thinks I am, and I say yes. It occurs to me that she’s probably about the age you would have been, Minnow.
“Oh, play something! Will you play something? I’m a huge fan,” she says.
The vibe is very low-key in the room, and I do feel like playing. I’m given a guitar and find myself seated in the spotlight, being watched intently. I’m not famous-famous, but I’m a little famous, and though most of them are too young to know who I am, just hearing that I’ve made records and have had a career makes me someone worth listening to.
How many thousands of times have I been in this particular position? Tuning a guitar while an audience watches and waits. Hearing my own clear voice find its way into the air. It’s a good voice, I know, not strong but emotional and pure. It’s always touched people in a way that surprised me.
Eighty-eight
You never wanted children,” Jules says.
We’re on the phone, in the middle of another late-night conversation.
“Hrmm,” I say. I’ve been reading to her from the black composition notebook. I write in it every day.
“We felt we needed to be alone to be artists,” she says. “That we had to be selfish in order to get any work done. We thought they were little monsters who invaded our favorite restaurants and disrupted civilized conversation.”
“But those were other people’s children,” I say. I do remember thinking that having children was what other people did when they ran out of ideas, but I can’t recall when I started to feel that way, or why. There are so many layers to what’s true. It seems impossible to untangle it, or get to the bottom of it.
“You’re only questioning this now because it’s too late to do anything about it,” Jules says.
Maybe she’s right. But it doesn’t feel that way.
Minnow, in home movies, I’m a little girl rocking a doll.
Over and over again, I find myself wishing it were possible to be your mother, to be twenty-three or twenty-four again, walking with Gabriel on Columbus Avenue, to say to him, “Gabriel, escúchame, por favor. There will never be a better time. I will never love another man this way. And no one will ever take the place of our child.”
Eighty-nine
For years, Alan lived alone in a dingy studio apartment, surfed the Internet, and played his guitar all day, but then he found Maeve. It seems to me he was dangling off a cliff side until she pulled him up over the edge. He’s become more himself, really blossomed, as a husband and father.
I follow him through their apartment, down the hallway; it looks so lived in, so homey; children’s drawings on the back of bedroom doors, toys, miniature furniture, scribbled notes, piles of laundry, everywhere evidence of love and family.
In the back room that is his studio, I say, “Get ready. You know she’s going to hate it.” Marta Lightman is due to arrive any moment and I expect her to give me a hard time about the score. It’s always difficult for someone to appreciate the new when they’ve gotten accustomed to the old. The trick is to get her to give it a chance.
“She’s going to love it, because it’s fucking great,” Alan says.
But Marta is very quiet as we take her through the key scenes. The score is spare with long minutes of silence. The songs she knows have been replaced with a single note of upright bass, a mournful bowed cello, or three black piano keys, gently played. Hammond organ breathes and sighs while a lone guitar figure repeats, its last note a question and then a resolve.
Does she think it’s too slow, too spare? I’m already defending it to her in my mind when Alan cues up the birthday party scene at the end of the movie. Ashley, her mother, and other relatives are gathered around the baby as the intro to “Still True” begins. “Oh,” Marta says, and moves up a little closer.
The baby’s face is covered in cake and icing. It’s all over her hands and her dress. “Oh, Lisa,” Marta says.
Alan looks at me, as if to say, I told you so. We let it play all the way through. The song runs long but will extend over the credits once the film is completed.
As the last note rings, I see her beaming at me. “I love it. It’s beauuutiful! You guys did so good!”
We take a taxi to the East Side to celebrate. There’s a Mexican restaurant I know of on East Ninety-eighth Street. It’s very authentic, and I think Marta will like it.
She and Alan order margaritas in frosty glasses with salt on the rim. Their drinks look good, but I’m all right with my ice-cold Coke. Our waiter mixes up a bowl of spicy guacamole at the table.
“To the new score!” Marta says.
“The score!” says Alan.
“To your beautiful movie,” I say. “Thank you for allowing us to be a part of it.”
Ninety
There’s no red carpet for I Gave My Love, though the screening room in Tribeca looks like a red velvet jewel box. Ashley and her mother are supposed to be coming down from Ellenville for the premiere. I’ve invited all the musicians who played on the score. Next, the film is headed for the festivals.
Alan can’t make the screening but will meet me later. We plan to stop by the after-party for a few minutes before leaving to pick up Maeve and the kids. It’s the last weekend they have the rental house this summer, and I’ve been invited to join them at the beach.
Most of the hundred or so seats are taken as the curtain parts in the small theater. I can see Ashley’s blond head a few rows in front of mine. She’s holding Lorelei in her lap and keeps getting up to quiet the little girl. After the third time, I follow her into the hallway. “Let me take her, Ashley,” I say. “Go enjoy the rest of the film.”
“Are you sure?” We’ve only met briefly, but she doesn’t seem concerned, only relieved to hand Lorelei off to me.
“Yes. I’ve seen it a million times.”
The baby from the movie is about two and a half now. She’s got blond curls and sweet pointy ears. I give her my key chain to play with. She holds it in both chubby hands and looks up at me with wide blue eyes. She has that spark you hope for in a child. A part of me imagines stealing away with her, out the back door. But of course it’s only a fleeting thought.
From the hallway, I can hear the other Ashley, the one up on the screen, saying, “It’s only now that can’t be any different; the past can be anything you want!” It’s my favorite line in the movie. She’s defending some half-truth on a job application, but it means something very different to me.
At the after-party, I see JC coming toward me, glass in hand. “Notice anything new?” he asks.
He’s wearing his usual black jeans, the leather jacket. “No,” I say. “What?”
“I’m drinking club soda!”
“Well, good for you,” I say. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to take him seriously.
“I’ve been going to meetings,” he says. “I was thinking maybe we can go to one together sometime.”
“I’d love that,” I say, “but I’m heading back to L.A. next week, so it will have to wait for next time.”
“Already?! Listen,” he says, and leans a little closer. He smiles that great smile. “I’ve been thinking … We should get together sometime—you know, for real. I don’t know why we never have.”
I don’t bother to remind him that we did get together, a long time ago. “It’s too late for that, J,” I say, aiming for a lightness in tone.
“What are you talkin’ about? We’re not dead yet!” He takes my shoulders in his hands and gives me a little shake. He’s still pretty sexy. “But no one’s getting any younger,” he says, and kisses me on the side of the mouth. “Maybe I’ll have to come out there and change your mind.”
/> Though we both know how unlikely that is.
Ninety-one
On the East End, rain has moved in by morning. Maeve is trying to figure out something we can do to keep the kids occupied. There’s a children’s museum on Sagg Road, and after breakfast we all get in the car and take a ride over there. It’s a pretty cool place with all kinds of activities for the kids. Samantha and Justin are playing in an impressive spaceship facsimile when I see Sofia across the room.
An actress with personality and style, Sofia was once one of my best friends at the Café Miriam. I remember we used to sing this song together, passing through the kitchen, plates balanced on our arms: “Woman.” It was from John Lennon’s Double Fantasy album. The record was huge in 1981. John Lennon had been killed the year before. We knew every song on it.
Sofia looks the same almost thirty years later. Shag haircut and long slim legs. “Oh my God! Hiiii!” she says, when I come up behind her.
She still has the big, joyful personality, and it’s good to find her that way. A lot of people I know have had the joy kicked out them by life. She’s living in East Hampton, she says, directing plays for a local theater group. She’s been divorced for ten years and has a boyfriend. Her children are grown.
“What are you doing at the children’s museum?” I ask her.
She points out a boy who looks to be about three, playing alongside Justin and Samantha on the spaceship. “Can you believe it?” Sofia asks. “I’m a grandma!”
I can’t believe it.
“Are you still singing?” she asks. “I have your music on my iPod. I’m so proud of you!”
I tell her I’m not singing so much, but that I’m still doing music. I don’t say that I would trade it, in a second, to have what she has.
By then, Samantha and Justin are getting restless and Maeve is talking about finding a movie for them to see, so Sofia and I say our good-byes. I take her number, and she takes mine. “Let’s stay in touch, honey,” she says.
“Absolutely,” I tell her, and hope that we will.
Ninety-two
While Maeve takes the kids to a matinee in Sag Harbor, Alan and I hang out on the porch with Lola the beagle and the paper. Maybe it’s because of the rain, but I can smell fall coming. The hydrangea bush in the yard is still full of purple blossoms, and the lawn is lush and green, but soon it will be September and everything will start to change. A few Indian summer days, and the leaves turn yellow. Before you know it, it’s winter again.
“You having a nice weekend,” Alan asks, “in spite of the crappy weather?”
“Totally,” I say. “I like the rain—especially out here. I wish I didn’t ever have to leave.” I’m feeling nervous about returning to sunny L.A. I know it’s just a matter of time before I run into E and have to pretend to be over it. I feel the tears start to burn my eyes and the back of my throat.
“You will meet someone else, you know,” Alan says. “Your life isn’t over.”
That’s when I lose it. Kindness always does me in. I probably will meet someone, at some point. But I’ll never be young again. I’ll never have a child. That part is over.
“Heyyy,” he says, placing his arm across my shoulder. “Don’t cry.” He’s wearing a wool sweater that smells like wet dog. I think Lola’s been rolling in it.
“You stink,” I say through tears.
“Oh, thank you. Thank you very much,” he says, and soon we’re both laughing.
He hands me the Book Review and I pass him the Arts section. We go back to reading the paper. Lola is whining softly, dreaming. I think she’s chasing squirrels in her sleep. Beyond her, I notice droplets of rain clinging to the tips of hydrangea petals.
By the time Maeve and the kids get back, the sky has cleared and the rain has stopped. “What are we doing for dinner, guys?” she calls, gently reprimanding us. We haven’t done a thing about it yet.
“I’m getting the barbecue started right now,” Alan says, getting up, while I follow Maeve into the kitchen.
Ninety-three
Hours later, I’m hunched over the child’s desk in my room when Samantha comes in to say good night. She shows me her freshly brushed teeth and leans into me.
“Very nice,” I say about her teeth.
She’s wearing pajamas with ballerinas on them that are too small for her. She has such delicate wrists and ankles. “Are you still writing your story?” she asks.
“I am,” I tell her. The original black composition book has become two over the course of the summer. I’m rewriting my own memories. The past can be anything you want.
“I’m writing a story, too,” Samantha says. “It’s about a girl detective. Maybe you can read it tomorrow.”
“I’d love to.”
“Will you read me yours?”
I look through the notebooks for something that might be appropriate to read to her and settle on the pages about fish and guinea pigs and cats. She listens with her chin in her hands.
“What do you think?” I ask when I’ve finished. I close the notebook.
“It’s good,” she says with great authority.
Ninety-four
When we get back to town on Sunday night, I find JC waiting on the front steps of the brownstone. I’m not completely surprised to see him because of his text message:
what time u comin home?
“Hey, you,” he calls. His dark hair is falling into his eyes. He flips it away and reaches for me.
“Wait a sec,” I say. We watch as Alan and Maeve’s car turns the corner. I don’t want them to see him kiss me.
I open the door and hold it for him. He follows me up the three flights of stairs to the narrow floor-through. We kiss in the dark, in the foyer, under the archway. As we move toward the bedroom I’m trying not to worry about my fifty-two-year-old body. The last time JC saw me naked I was relatively perfect. Now, under my shirt and jeans, I have cellulite, fat on my belly, and sagging breasts. Of course, he isn’t young anymore either.
One day you’ll be sixty, I silently scold myself, and then seventy, and eighty, if you live that long. You’re going to look back on this night and know what a silly thing it was to worry about.
“Relax,” he says.
Still, I don’t let him take my clothes off until we’re safely hidden beneath the covers.
Ninety-five
A couple of days later, I’m three thousand miles away, pulling into the driveway of my house, a 1920s bungalow at the top of a climbing street. There’s a green shutter hanging off a window. The yard is dusty and overgrown. “You poor thing,” I say.
I bring my bag inside, turn on the sprinklers to give the garden a drink, and then head out to my studio, a small building behind the house that used to be a garage. There are cobwebs in the corners and the guitars are covered in dust, but it’s a good room with an A-line roof and a couple of skylights. It always smells a little of sawdust. I know I’ll miss it if and when the house is sold.
I pull the cover off the piano and sit down to change the strings on my Martin. It’s my favorite songwriting guitar and has been for as long as I can remember. Ever since Jules lent me the money to buy it. Its rosewood body has a worn patina only love and time could give it.
It’s already dusk when I lock up the studio and come back inside. I turn on the TV and all the lights, but the house feels too quiet. There’s no food in the kitchen except for some stale cereal. I stand at the counter and eat it straight from the box. From my window, I can see the downtown skyline glittering in the distance.
When I call Jules, she screams, “You’re back!” She launches right into her news, excited to tell me about a new collector. He’s interested in one of her larger mixed-media pieces. Its sale will pay the bills for months.
“You hungry?” I ask her.
“Not very,” she says. “But come get me.”
She’s waiting out front when I pull up in my beat-up Land Rover. Her place isn’t much more than a concrete box, but it looks good. She’s f
illed the front yard with wild lilacs, hollyhocks, and black-eyed Susan.
She climbs into the seat beside me and we drive over to the health food restaurant on the Third Street Promenade, where we always go. I get the same thing every time: a veggie burger with sweet potato fries. She takes pride in her healthy diet of tofu and kale and anything with flaxseed oil. Meanwhile, she’s ducking outside every fifteen minutes for a smoke.
We talk and talk, dissect every feeling and thought. It’s good to get her perspective on things. She’s able to place our failures and regrets in the context of archetypes and mythological tales. By the end of the night, she’s convinced me that what I really need is a dog.
Ninety-six
The next morning, I begin my search, scrolling through pictures on Petmatch.com the way some look for love on a dating site. When I see her profile, I know she’s the one. A border collie mix, supposedly part Eskimo dog, she’s white with light brown patches. There’s something tender yet intelligent in her expression. Excited, I forward the link to Jules. Check out her name, I write.
Like the Van Morrison song—is it kismet? she writes back. She has a lovely face.
We take a ride to the Valley to pick her up. I’ve already faxed my paperwork. I’ve got four hundred in cash in my pocket. Jules brings Madeline along, one of her own dogs, a half-blind Chihuahua mix who’s going on twenty. “Madeline’s a good judge of character,” she says.
My dog has been rescued from a kill shelter and is being fostered by a couple in Reseda. They think she looks to be about a year old.
We get on the 101. It’s a long drive up through the Cahuenga Pass. “Remember when Bighead called me, thinking he had called you?” Jules never tires of talking about the man who brought us together. We’ve had a version of this conversation more times than I can count.
