He paused, and I wondered if the bulge of silence had my name on it.
“Maybe it was because she was engaged. I . . .” He lowered and swung his head. “I never filled that vacancy in my heart.”
He poured himself more wine. I was hoping to wrap things up, but he appeared to be going in the opposite direction. Andrew never mastered the art of conversation as much as he received a doctorate in talking.
“I was speaking metaphorically about kissing, you know that, right? We kissed plenty of times but never consummated the passion. It was my fault. I just wasn’t aggressive enough.”
“I don’t see how—”
“We decided to go out one night when her fiancé was traveling. I knew she was the one for me, engaged or not. I’d bet my bottom dollar she felt the same way. That night was to be our night. Pause the stars and halt the tide, baby, that girl was mine.” He caressed the wineglass with his hand. “It was autumn. Trees were flamed with color and the air was snowing leaves. Paths of gold lined the woods. The first cold front had blown through and all the girls were wearing sweaters and leather boots. Lost love hurts most in the fall.”
Andrew went to college in Gainesville, Florida, but I wasn’t going to interrupt his reminiscing. Besides, memory is part fiction.
“We didn’t know it then, but we were experiencing the final blast of youth before life sucked us in. The waning days before embarking on whole decades that would rush by with no identifying mark. Numbing years with no scar upon the body or song upon the heart. No night wrapped in white satin to brand the time.”
He took a slow drink. He kept the glass on his lips, lost in the great mystery of dissolved youth—certainly not in the robust nose of the wine.
“We went to Sam’s, some techno-beat club. She was pretty looped—never could hold her liquor. We danced. She smelled of sweet almond—she referred to her perfume as flowers, and that was her favorite. I whirled her off the floor and suddenly she went limp. Nearly passed out from JD and Coke. Her friends hauled her off to the women’s room. As they did, she gazed at me and mouthed, ‘I’m so sorry.’ She knew that was to be our night. Both our lives would be different if . . .”
“She’d gone a little easier on the Jack?” I said, after he failed to articulate his thoughts.
The great blue heron squawked, as if it, too, registered my glaring poverty of empathy. Andrew slumped in his seat, and I wondered if his presence was a calendar event or a barstool decision. He fumbled with his wineglass and then placed it on the table. I went to the Magnavox and flipped through a stack of records. What to play? Maybe Frank. He always paired well with sappy love stories. He understood that hurt doesn’t die. Hurt hurts forever.
“Did you see her again?” I asked, trying to leapfrog the story to a conclusion. I put on a snappy Ella Fitzgerald disc. Andrew didn’t need any encouragement.
“I was young,” he said, and I wondered if my question had even registered. “I had my music. Books. I wasted it all on the frivolous pursuit of money.”
“I wouldn’t say you—”
He cut me an irate look. “You think I’m nuts, right? Once on a high and windy hill, I’ll be looking at the moon and seeing you, there’s a summer place and all that crap. Maybe, but I know this: Our passions are inextinguishable. Our lives are a pale reflection of our soul.”
Remember, if you needed a recliner, this was your guy.
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” I said. Granted, that wasn’t a doorbuster, but it was all I could summon. Ella jumped into the night with “Too Darn Hot.”
“I never saw her again. We were supposed to go out the next night, but her fiancé came home. She deserved more than me. I was gutless. A rusted knight on a coin-slot kiddies’ horse outside a five-and-dime store. I blew it, man. And she knew it.”
“She’s the one who got hammered.”
He humped his shoulder. “Should never have come to that. Is this the live album, Ella in Berlin?”
“It is.”
“You got good taste, man,” he said, perking up. “Norman Granz produced that album. 1960. Wrote the liner note too. She forgot the words to ‘Mack the Knife’ and had to ad-lib her own. And Granz—you know him, right? He did more for jazz and civil rights than anyone will ever know. Why the hell someone hasn’t made a movie about him baffles me. A Jew and a black woman, fifteen years after the fall of the Third Reich, fill the largest concert hall in Berlin—I forget the name—and bring down the roof. Art is so much more transformative than war.”
“Deutschlandhalle,” I said. Andrew and I had spent many nights discussing music until the waking sun put us down. I have a good mind for music. His was better.
He gave a slow nod and glanced down at the rug that needed vacuuming. He ran a finger under his nose. I sensed he could have run with Ella Fitzgerald and Norman Granz to the stars and back. Silence hung between us like a mute observer.
“I saw her last week,” he finally said. “At least, I think I saw her. I was at a dinner downtown at the Vinoy.”
“Did you talk to her?”
He seemed unaware of my question. Unaware of the world.
“Her hair was different. Blonde. We stared at each other like we were both trying to place the other. But we knew. She always had the kindest eyes I’d ever seen, and you can’t change the windows to your soul.”
“You thought it was Elizabeth based on kind eyes?” Would I know Kathleen’s eyes after not seeing her for twenty years? I wasn’t going to find out. “You wouldn’t parade that into a court of law.”
“That doesn’t diminish its credibility,” he said with a tone of admonishment. “I can still feel her in my arms on our last night together. That emotion—that embrace—is a moon that orbits my life. Sometimes it’s so small it’s barely there and other times so bright and dominating I can’t even function. It just destroys my day.” He leveled his eyes on mine. “The heart has claws, my friend. The heart has claws.”
He paused and I wondered if it would be rude of me to ask for a good deal on a couch. The new wood floor in my living room had aged mine beyond reasonable acceptance.
“She turned to join the man she was with. Then she spun around and came back to me. She grabbed me, her hand braceleting my wrist, and said, sotto voce, ‘I need to tell you about trumpet.’”
“Trumpet?” I said. “As in Gabriel blow your horn?”
I’d been gazing at the shadowy sailboats moored against the distant mangrove shoreline. When I cast my eyes back to him, Andrew was touching his right wrist as though it were a holy relic. He gave me a sheepish grin, born from the awkwardness of being caught, but he couldn’t hide the moisture in his eyes.
Is the king going to break down on my screened porch?
“Yeah,” he said. “Strange, right? I have no idea what she was referring to.”
I didn’t believe him but said, “Was that some code name between you two?”
“Got me, brother,” he said, but his attempt at a jovial tone thudded to the floor. “I thought she’d say more, but” he shrugged, “she was gone.”