The Musician

by Douglas Gardham

  “I know. That’s why you’re here.” Randolph smiled and left.

  The door hadn’t quite closed behind him before Syd was at the door to the recording room. Gus was right behind her, his black bass in hand. Ethan headed to the control booth behind Raj. Greg turned into the one-toilet washroom.

  Syd and Gus checked their tuning. Raj gave them his thumbs up. Gus counted them in and was off with a new bass line he’d worked out. Ethan hadn’t quite figured out how Gus coordinated his finger movements on the neck to create a skip-flip rhythm that sounded so cool. After four bars, Gus had found a groove. Syd followed with a winding guitar intro that heightened Gus’s bass line—once again, musical evidence that the whole was much more than the sum of each instrument.

  Ethan closed his eyes. The lyrics came to his lips as if they’d always been there. He was in the nightclub. His hands were on the mirror-polished surface of the bar’s countertop. The woman tending the bar had her back to him. Her shoulder-length hair shimmered, reflecting the flash of light behind them.

  “Ethan,” Raj said, “ya gotta stop.”

  Ethan opened his eyes, surprised to be standing in the recording booth.

  “I can’t record you in here, and you’re too good to miss. Just wait.”

  Ethan sat and listened, startled at how quickly his head had taken him away.

  He watched Syd and Gus perform through the glass. He was getting so used to what they could do that he expected something new every time. He remained envious of Gus. It was hard to call himself a bassist with Gus in the band, but that didn’t stop his love for the sound of the instrument. The low, understated power still sent tremors through his chest. There was never enough bass, and Gus had a way of making the music all fit together and feel right. Ethan had taught himself the mechanics of playing and could perform some pretty good riffs, but he never seemed able to put it all together without getting messed up. He’d listened endlessly to the records of Geddy Lee, Chris Squire, and Jaco Pastorius in high school, attempting to copy their chops to the sold-out stadiums of his imagination, but Gus could play anything and add his own nuances to make the riffs and the songs sound even better. It was captivating to watch how Syd could feed off Gus and make everything sound fuller.

  Ethan turned to Raj, who was all but vibrating at the board. His body moved to the beat of unheard drums. His hands glided across the console of dials like a third musician playing what he wanted to hear and how he wanted to hear it. There was little doubt in Ethan’s mind that Raj knew what he was doing and would find the best way to orchestrate their work. He was wired to do what he was doing.

  They would do as many takes as Raj requested. Ethan was still mouthing the words to the song Syd and Gus were playing but doubted he’d sing again that day. He didn’t want to sit around and watch and decided a walk would do him good.

  As soon as he stepped out the front door of the studio, he spotted her. Half a block down the street, he saw her walk into an art gallery.

  He didn’t hesitate and hustled up the sidewalk to the gallery. Inside, he found her in seconds, already at the back, talking to a woman he guessed was the owner. With straight black hair and bangs cut straight across her forehead, she resembled art that might have been on display. He was about to speak when the sound of the woman’s voice stopped him, its familiarity nearly stopping his heart. How do I know this woman?

  Perplexed and suddenly unnerved, he backed away. He could feel the presence of the big padlocked door. He recalled seeing her brown eyes in the crowd on the sidewalk and, at Benny’s, hearing her speak. He remembered the voice on the phone and again felt the uneasy feeling of sinking in deep, sucking mud. It scared him. He took another step backward and turned.

  “Excuse me,” said the other woman. “Can I help you?”

  Ethan kept moving. The pictures on the surrounding walls seemed to spin.

  “No, just looking,” he said, not turning but feigning an interest in a painting he’d yet to look at. “Thank you.”

  Confront her, he told himself as he grabbed the handle of the front door. But it didn’t feel right. The padlocked door seemed right in front of him. It was too much.

  Outside, he headed up the sidewalk in the direction opposite Focus Sound. He didn’t get to the end of the block before he changed his mind. He’d head back to the studio. Maybe they’d be ready for him.

  The words to the second verse of “You Don’t Know What You’re Saying” were on his lips:

  You tell me what you think is true,

  but the words you speak are not from you.

  He wanted to shout them out, to scream them.

  He was mouthing the second line of the song as he passed the door of the art gallery. The door opened.

  It was too late to bolt past or retreat and run for cover.

  CHAPTER 32

  Wednesday, November 28, 1984

  Coming face-to-face with her brown eyes scrambled his thoughts and melted his heart. Their recognition of each other was instant. Locked in each other’s gaze, they embraced without touching one another.

  “Hi,” the woman said, breaking their silence. “I figured we’d run into each other eventually.”

  She spoke so matter-of-factly that Ethan was caught off guard.

  “You did?” he said.

  “Of course.”

  Her voice was like the sweetest music he had ever heard. He didn’t want to admit how good it made him feel.

  “Why do you think I know you?” Ethan asked, speaking what was on his mind, too mesmerized to do otherwise.

  “Because you do,” she replied, smiling. “We met at the bar the night you tried to knock the light off the ceiling with your head.”

  Her smile sent a warm comfort through his body. Her eyes said she’d known him much longer than that.

  “I think we should go for a coffee,” she said.

  Ethan nodded but didn’t say anything. He couldn’t.

  “This isn’t a two-minute ‘How ya doin’?’ conversation,” she added, and she turned to look across the street. “By the looks of it, we’ll need to be sitting down. Come on.”

  She directed him across the street. Ethan practically stumbled over the curb, feeling bewildered yet excited. His mind was spinning as if in search of crevices that might reveal some hint of where they’d met before Benny’s. The padlocked door was close. Her brown eyes held something he couldn’t quite put together. He’d looked up into them at Benny’s but known even then he wasn’t looking into them for the first time. He stepped on the curb on the opposite side of the street, not far from Nancy’s Restaurant. They walked quickly toward the restaurant. It was evident that was where she intended to go. Seeing her pretty profile as she opened the door brought back the night at Benny’s.

  “What would you like?” she asked as they approached the counter, where a blonde teenage girl stood ready to take their order. “I’m buying—no questions.”

  Ethan didn’t dare attempt to disagree. He could have listened to her voice all day; it was not only soothingly familiar but also one he could fall in love with.

  “Coffee. Black.”

  “Anything to eat?” she asked.

  Ethan shook his head. “No, thanks.”

  “You might need something. This could take a while.”

  Ethan hesitated. He could always eat. He hadn’t had anything since leaving Tormo.

  “A chocolate doughnut then,” he said, smiling at the girl behind the counter. His hands found the front pockets of his jeans. “I don’t want to upset things.”

  The woman said, “It won’t be you upsetting things.”

  The blonde poured their hot drinks and used plastic tongs to pull his doughnut and a blueberry muffin from behind the glass display. Ethan followed the woman to a small table at the front window.

  “I’m sorry, but I am in the middle of a
recording session,” Ethan said as they sat down. “I can’t be long.”

  “Yeah, that’s why you’re out visiting an art gallery with your hands in your pockets. Your time’s real tight.”

  He smiled, not knowing what else to say.

  “Ethan,” she said.

  It surprised him to hear her say his name when he didn’t know hers. The misgivings he’d had on the phone and in the gallery faded. Now that they were across from each other, he couldn’t stop looking into her dark brown eyes, which looked as if they were trying to tell him something.

  “I may as well start at the end. I’m Christa White.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Wednesday, November 28, 1984

  Ethan heard her say her name.

  For an instant, there was silence. Then he remembered. It had been only hours since he’d said her name out loud—the nurse from the hospital who’d left before he came back. Then he felt the door again, as if it were right there beside him, waiting. Only this time, he felt something was behind it, both sad and bad. Still looking in her eyes, he felt a strange sense of comfort as her name repeated in his head.

  “Christa!” he said, all but shouting. “You’re Christa?”

  He could feel those around them turning their heads at his unexpected loudness.

  “Yes, I am,” she said in a loud whisper, seemingly pleased with his acknowledgment of who she was.

  “I shouted out your name yesterday,” he said, lowering his voice before a confusion of emotions took over. Joy flipped to upset as one emotion fed the other, from the incident with Syd at the house that he remembered, to what might have happened in the hospital that he had no recollection of.

  Tears filled his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. Something hard and constricting grew in his throat. Embarrassed in front of this stranger, he turned away to hide from what he couldn’t understand or explain, only to realize he loved—and had loved—the woman sitting in front of him, whom he didn’t know or even remember.

  “Why didn’t I know your name?” he asked with a million other things scattering all at once inside his head. “How can I not know you and feel that I do?”

  Talking to her was like becoming part of a fairy tale. It wasn’t real—it couldn’t be—yet he’d taken his meds. His eyes shifted to Christa’s lips, which were dark with crimson lipstick. How could he have known what it was like to kiss them? But he did.

  “I’ll answer your first question,” Christa said with a forced smile. For an instant, it seemed Mila had risen from the grave like Jesus before Mary Magdalene. “Then I’ll explain some of the story—my story.”

  Ethan continued to stare at her, switching between the lips he wanted to kiss and the brown eyes he didn’t want to turn away from. Sitting still was agonizing.

  “Ethan,” she said. She stopped. Her eyes had become wet glass. A tear rolled down her cheek. “I’m sorry. I hadn’t expected to feel this way. This is not easy for me.”

  If it was hard for her, Ethan thought, it was nearly unbearable for him.

  “I was your nurse, Ethan,” she said, brushing away a tear on her cheek. “At the Royal. I had to leave.”

  Ethan nodded. He loved listening to her voice.

  “I was giving you the best care a nurse could give,” she said. “We had such wonderful times. You were the perfect patient. But I—”

  She didn’t finish as tears ran down both her cheeks. Her hands clenched into fists on each side of her cup of tea.

  “I didn’t mean to,” she said. Her hands shook.

  Ethan reached forward and put his hands on hers. He knew her skin, the warmth her fingers could give.

  “I know your story, Ethan. The murder. Your roommate. I’m so sorry. Oh, this—”

  She stopped again. Ethan was swimming in feelings. It was all he could do to keep his head above the surface of whatever seemed intent on pulling him under.

  “Are you all right?” Christa asked, her hands turning to take his. The touch of her fingers was electric, giving him strength to fight whatever was pulling him away. Her brown eyes stared intensely into his.

  “Yes, but something’s stirring,” he said.

  “We should do this another time,” Christa said with a weak smile. “Give us some time to—”

  “Are you nuts?” he replied, squeezing her hand. “I’d rather die than stop now. This is a chance to figure myself out.”

  Christa’s hands squeezed back. She was real.

  “We talked a lot,” she said, her eyes wide, seemingly intent on controlling her emotions. “I knew you were somewhere else and not where I was, but you were fun to talk to. The doctors encouraged us to talk to you, especially Dr. Katharine. You didn’t talk to everyone.”

  Christa let go of his hands—disappointing him—and, with both hands, raised the white cup of hot tea to her lips. He wished his lips were the cup.

  “Eventually, every time I was in the room,” she said after placing the cup back on the table, “you’d start talking.”

  Ethan didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t know when exactly,” she said, putting her forearm on the table. “In February or early March maybe, you started to say personal things.”

  Her brown eyes looked down at the tabletop as if suddenly seeing something of interest.

  “Ethan, I couldn’t take it,” she said, unable to control the tears that again trickled down her cheeks. “You’d already stolen my heart, and I knew I couldn’t have you. You were locked in a box and out of my reach.”

  Christa took a breath and then looked up at Ethan. “I was off for almost a month before I finally took leave and eventually quit. There were all sorts of rumors. The hospital did nothing to deny them. I’d kissed your forehead to say goodbye once as another nurse walked in. She asked what I was doing. I knew it was over. I’d—”

  She couldn’t finish.

  Ethan pulled a couple of serviettes from the chrome dispenser on their small table. He handed them to her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, patting her cheeks with the white napkin, sniffling. “I thought I could do this, but—”

  Then, as abruptly as their accidental meeting across the street had occurred, she stood up and left. Ethan was shocked. She was out the door before he even reacted. He sat in a stupor, as if he’d been slapped across the face.

  The beige leather strap of her purse brought him to his senses. It was slung over the back of her chair. He got up quickly, knocking into the table and spilling both their drinks.

  “Sorry,” he said, as if she were still there, and he hustled to the entrance, carrying her purse. Christa was already past where they’d crossed the street as he stepped out of the restaurant.

  “Christa!” he shouted, breaking into a run. “Wait! You forgot your purse!”

  It didn’t take him long to make up the distance between them.

  “Ethan, don’t!” she cried when he caught up with her. “I just can’t.”

  “Can’t what?” he asked, handing her the purse.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, but what can’t you do?”

  “I can’t bear to go through this again,” she said, her arms rigid at her sides.

  Before Ethan knew what he was doing, his hand moved to brush her hair back from the side her face. He saw the small gold hoop dangling from her earlobe.

  “Dorian’s Coffee Emporium,” he said.

  CHAPTER 34

  Wednesday, November 28, 1984

  “What?” Christa asked.

  He didn’t answer but leaned forward and kissed her. It was a light kiss, over in seconds, but found a depth that had been missing from his life since he’d come back. If love at first sight was a cliché, so be it. It felt wonderful, though this wasn’t really love at first sight, from what he’d just learned, though this would be the first
time he would remember. It was a moment of truth between them as pure as the birth of a child—innocent from the ways of the world, genuine in its virtue, and right and glorious.

  “Ethan?” Christa asked, breaking the sweet moment between them.

  “Yes,” he answered, joy bursting inside him.

  “Why did you say that?”

  “Say what?”

  “Why did you say, ‘Dorian’s Coffee Emporium’?” Christa asked, a hint of accusation in her voice. It felt like the moment after he’d said her name in front of Syd.

  “I don’t know,” he said, looking at her earrings. They brought back a feeling he could almost see. The sense of the padlocked door was there but different. He was inside. He saw the plate-glass window; Christa was behind the window, looking away from him. Gold hoops hung from her ears. The neon sign in the window was bright: Dorian’s Coffee Emporium. He didn’t know how he knew what it said, but he did.

  When had he been there?

  “You’re here, Christa,” he said, looking into the face he loved.

  “I am,” she said, shaking her head, “but are you?”

  “Did we have coffee there maybe?”

  Even as he asked the question, he knew it wasn’t right. He didn’t know any place by that name. A person passed beside them on the sidewalk.

  “No,” Christa replied.

  Ethan looked back into her eyes. “Your earrings,” he said, moving back to point to them. “I’ve seen them before.”

  “You have. I wore them at the hospital.”

  Ethan smiled, thinking, when he heard “I don’t give a shit!” from across the street. He knew the voice before he looked to see Syd smashing the rented acoustic guitar against the front entrance of Focus Sound.

  “Holy shit!” he said. He’d all but forgotten about their recording session. Syd was out-of-control upset. “Fucking Greg.”

  “What?” Christa asked, sounding alarmed.

  “Christa,” Ethan said, “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  “What?” she said again.