Her hair is loosely bundled into a wild knot, fine wisps framing her face and neck. Her red cotton knee length dress is matched with a blue woollen cardigan and black stockings. The outfit is colourful, sweet and slightly quirky, just like she is. The morning sun reflects in her eyes which in turn are reflected back onto the dusty train window. And it looks like her reflection is staring at me, as I stare back at her.
In my mind, I can hear our music that first day, playing The Power of Love together.
Together with this image of her, it’s art in motion. She is art. Living, breathing. Breathtaking.
“Hi,” I say, reluctantly, not wanting to shatter the moment.
She doesn’t turn and just keeps staring at the fields of muddied crops.
I go over and sink onto the tattered leather seat next to her, tugging gently on her ear phones.
“Hey, little girl lost,” I say and she smiles, not turning to me. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing.”
“No, really. If you were Brad staring so intently out the window, I’d say he was thinking of a double cheeseburger. You? It’s probably something a little deeper.”
“A triple cheeseburger?”
“There you go.”
“No, I was just… just thinking about last night’s concert.”
“What about it?”
“I was thinking… I was thinking how easy it was. How I had a little problem getting started but then I got through it.”
“You more than got through it, you crushed it,” I bump her with my shoulder.
The corners of her mouth twitch, like a tiny little feather is tickling them, “I did, didn’t I?”
“Yeah. You did.” I reach over and squeeze her hand. When I pull away she doesn’t let me, her fingers stiffen and take hold of mine.
“It’s all because of you, Marius. All you. You and the meditation techniques you taught me to do before going on stage. They made all the difference.”
“You would’ve figured it out eventually, I just helped you get there a little faster.”
“No. Listen.” Hey eyes fix on mine and they are glistening but not sad. She looks content. Wondrous. “You don’t… you don’t know what this means. This… problem that I’ve had, it’s crippled me. I thought… I thought I was never going to be able to perform again. I didn’t want to numb myself with sedatives every time I performed. With them I don’t feel anything. I can’t make music that way! What’s the point? So, I told myself, yesterday, if this meditation wasn’t going to work, I was going to give it up. Forever. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
“Aw, Anca, no. Never ever give up! Especially after only trying it once. Your gift is so extraordinary. There’s always another way.”
She turns back to the window and traces a tiny crack with her finger. “You gave me that way, Marius. I don’t know how to thank you.”
There’s no reply to that. I didn’t do it for the thanks. We stare at the canola fields whizzing by, blurring into a bright yellow haze.
“No wonder you were so nervous when we started,” I say after a minute, understanding more now, what was at stake for her.
“You saw that?”
I don’t want to embarrass her, so I just squeeze her hand and she grips it tighter.
“Of course you did, you see everything. You see me.”
“Just what you’re willing to show me, Anca.”
She leans against me and her cheek is against mine. “I want to show you everything.”
Her words fill with me hope and fear all at once.
Because I want to see everything she has to give me. I want to see the world through her eyes, and her through the world’s.
But it’s not for me to see. Not in this lifetime. Not for the life I’ve chosen, and the friends I’ve chosen to be in it.
Not now, not ever.
I take a long, deep breath, her vanilla scent intoxicating me.
Extracting my hand from hers, I pull away and it hurts, physically. Tearing at a strand that binds us, woven when I wasn’t watching
“I’m sorry. I… I told you, I… can’t,” I stammer. The words struggling to form. I look at her one more time. The wondrous look on her face crumbles, one sparkle at a time. The tableau of the girl in the window has changed. And now I’m on the outside looking in.
Anca
I was never supposed to excel at harp.
I wanted to draw things and write things and paint them in all the colors of the rainbow from my imagination.
Even as a child I’d see girls with their sketch books and journals sitting against tree trunks, losing time as they found themselves in the lines they drew on paper, words or doodles, something that flowed from mind to hands to create tangible art. I craved the day I could live such a romantic, bohemian lifestyle.
But as I progressed in music, those earlier dreams were forgotten, and I realized that my art did flow from my fingers, it stimulated the ears and penetrated the soul that way.
I spent hours in my room, reading music like it was Austen, Steinbeck. Those little notes were like words, rising and falling. Drama and pain, beauty and joy, they were all contained in those little black lines on paper. It was just my job to read them aloud with my hands on my harp. To tell the story how I interpreted it.
When I realized there was freedom in my gift, I thought my life was set.
And then everything changed.
And everything I believed about my talent was gone.
Because of one person.
Not the Mae- Maestro.
I can’t even blame it on him.
Because I let myself believe what he was telling me.
No, the only person to blame, was me.
When Jez called me that night, to offer me the position of playing with his band, my instant answer was no. No, not just no, but no no no no no no no. Not a soft serve cone’s chance in the seventh circle of hell was I going to perform.
He’d pleaded, he’d begged. And I’d never been able to refuse my brother before.
So I came.
And I listened to them. And for the first time in years, I yearned to be on stage.
With them.
And with him. Marius.
That need to be a part of the music he was creating trumped my crippling panic and fear, and it wasn’t until I was on that stage, a crowd of fifteen thousand waiting, hungry for what I was supposed to give them, that I felt I couldn’t do it.
But I should’ve known, I should’ve had no doubt that when I needed the help, needed someone to understand, someone to hold my hand and tell me I could do it, and how to do it, it would be him.
It was always meant to be him. I’ve known it from the moment I saw him when I was just a girl, too young to know about love.
It was always meant to be him.
Always.