Won't Be Surprised If It's A Dream

He looked over at her in the spotlight.  She could slip into a song like it was a nightgown.  Some were flowing, silken, long and gorgeous-out of a 1930's musical.  Some were cute and skimpy, just the way he preferred; and she'd offer the audience a little bit of "coming attractions", like a bride on her wedding night, or a good girl gone bad.

She made him feel like everything was so close.  Like back when he was young.  That singing was so easy, it just mattered WHAT you sang.  The difference wasn't that big.  If one song wasn't a hit, then the next one would be.  And it lasted, for a while.  Every album had one or two really big singles, and the rest still got decent airplay.

Her voice sounded good in almost all of them, like a nice fitting pair of jeans.  That was it.  Her ass looked good in everything.

Like he could reach out to her and she'd embrace him like she used to.  What broke his heart was how quickly she could slip into the Beauty and the Happy of a song.  Damn, she was a good actress.  Made him forget the fight they just had.  Or not forget, but maybe let him think she had forgiven him.  She was so professional.  Smiling and winking at him, the same every night.  The actions of an old married couple, trusting each other, trusting that the fighting always led to fucking.

But you could work your ass off, singing the songs.  Even if they were the RIGHT ones, it mattered so much who was singing.  And where they stood in popularity.  Even now, when he sang the hits, the ones 40 years out of date, they sounded false on his lips.  Like kissing the wrong woman.  Or a woman who doesn't want to be kissed.  Stiff somehow.  Accepting a hug, but eager to pull away. He repels all the hits, all the successes.  When they step offstage, she won't be talking to him.

But just maybe, she'll let him hug her when they are onstage.

So close.


Top of the World by the Carpenters

His Clothes are Dirty But His Hands are Clean

The look in his eyes was straight sex.

Usually, there was laughter or sentimental stuff floating between them, diffusing the space between them. Soft clouds, a fine haze, but she had to catch her breath on how suddenly everything was clear.

The clock radio was playing next to the bed.  A song that he thought was romantic, or at least direct.  A big folk singer, in his "alternate voicing" stage.  She thought it sounded like a bad Jim Neighbors impression.  Testing his audience, daring them to laugh at his insanity.

She only heard the song that reminded her of her father.  That song that her mom hated because it was from a girlfriend of his, back in the old country.  It was "their" song, a song of a previous life.  As if the wedding ring magically could render all previous love, events and emotions null and void.

Her father's daughter thought of the phrase that she had read in the dead man's journal.  "Perhaps I should have embraced everything she had to offer.  When I had the opportunity,"

The girlfriend her mother was jealous of never even seduced him out of his virginity.

And now, here she was, looking across a big brass bed, at a man who loved her.

The hinge of his hand.  He lifted up his shirt, in a shy way, revealing a surprisingly muscular stomach.   She could fly from this space like a bird.  Or she could stay and accept everything he had to offer.

Was this a matter of simply saying yes when she had so often said no?  Could this man wield his instrument like a sword, poisoning her, initiating her into his curse?

She would only let herself do it if she couldn't bear to tear herself away.  If he carried a curse, she wanted the moment to be worth it.

He smiled at her one more time, like that first time he winked at her from behind the mic at the radio station.  Her stomach dropped and she could feel herself melting from the inside, like a glass candle.

She held her breath and smiled back, like she was a black and white movie star.  That's who she wanted to be in this moment, strong and with a big band behind her.  Her fingers rolled the dial until the room changed flavors and colors, out of his comfort zone and into soft lush tones that she was comfortable with.

==

The grainy taste of a brown sugar cookie mixture she made with her grandmother on a warm summer day. Before it went into the oven, when she could steal a fingertip behind her back and lick it off before she was caught.

She saw sand on cement down a path, a wooden fence post-so far gone from the weather that you could see the splinters.  Maybe a parking lot.  Cape Cod, the sun was different there.

3000 miles from the West Coast to the East.  From the East to the West.  What does it matter if the person you love is on the next coast or in the next room.  Even being inches away from someone is too much sometimes.

She floated through the music, from song to song.  Senses displaced and mixed, memories flooding in, all the sensations surprised her but she let them come freely.  His skin was new to her, but she had no place for new details in her mind.

From
Lay Lady Lay by Robert Zimmerman