“So, that’s where you should go… when you get out of here. Go visit them. Go home.”
I haven’t thought of Romania as home in, literally, decades. But something about the way she says it makes an overwhelming homesickness wash over me. I have a craving for the rugged hills and small, warm cottages of my childhood. So much so, I feel a prickling in the back of my eyes that I try to suppress. I give myself a few minutes waiting for it to subside then my mouth opens before I can stop myself. “Would you come with me?”
“To Romania? To visit your grandparents?”
I shrug.
She just grins. “Sure, why not? I always wanted to go to Europe. Mostly France and Belgium but I don’t mind swinging by Romania.”
And my mind ignores the list of reasons why not, and just allows me to enjoy the moment.
I reach over and my fingers stroke up and down the strings of her ukulele, emitting an almost inaudible sound, more like an aura that hangs in the air like an invisible wind chime.
“Do you play an instrument?”
My hand snaps back, involuntarily. And something twitches in my wrist and it suddenly aches.
“Um, I used to.”
“Used to? You don’t anymore?” There’s a frown on her forehead.
“I don’t know, to be honest.”
I know it’s a vague answer to a pretty straightforward question. But she seems to pick up that it’s not something I feel like talking about. And I’m not. Not yet. Not to her.
“Why are you in here, Jez?”
I close my eyes, and like it often does, the screeching sound of tires on the road echo in my brain. My eyes snap open, the light is usually enough to scare the sound away, but right now, it doesn’t. I get lost in it for a second, before she asks the question again.
“Jez? Did you hear me? Why are you in the hospital?”
“Um, I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Sorry.” She leans right back, as if my hesitation to answer her question is a personal rejection. But it isn’t about her.
“No, it’s okay! I mean, I’m okay. I just, I’m enjoying being here with you. Not having to talk about my blood pressure, or how I’m feeling, or when I’m going to be better. I’m just… I like talking to you.” And I hold my hands out, to show they’re empty. Because it’s really as simple as that. I just like being here with her.
“I like talking to you too.”
“And, I like hearing you play.”
“I haven’t played for a while. I stopped. For a few years. But when you sent me that first note, I couldn’t stop myself.”
The idea that she would ever stop baffles me. I know there must be a story behind it but I understand more than anyone, that sometimes… there are circumstances beyond your control. I hope I’ll learn the reason one day though.
For now, though, I just say, “I’m glad. You should always play.”
She pulls the ukulele onto her lap, plucking a little melody on the strings. “Do you want me to play something now?”‘
I grin. “Pretty much more than anything else in the world.”
“What would you like to hear?”
“Anything you want to play.”
“Something old, something new?”
“How about something borrowed and blue?”
She thinks for a moment, and then nods her head, “I’ve got it. Perfect.”
She shuffles forward on the couch, bracing the ukulele on her right knee. Her throat clears and I get a thrill at the thought they she might be singing along.
I sit back and take it all in.
She plays Love is Blue, L’amour est bleu. Her voice, husky and high, painting my world with color. As she sings, her voice grows stronger and stronger with confidence, her foot tapping on the floor and her head tilts to the side and her eyes flutter closed.
On the other hand, mine grow wider. Watching her. Falling for her.
She ends the song with a drawn-out chord. Her eyes open as the last of the note fades away and her lips curve up high in a bright smile.
“Like I said, beautiful.” I let her interpret what I’m referring to.
“I liked playing for you… I don’t know why, I feel like, you get it. What my music is about.”
“I think I do too.”
“Did I play for you… before?”
“No.” I shake my head. And now the past me finally gets to know what it’s like to be jealous of present me. “I didn’t know until I heard you the other day.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, because there’s something you’re learning about me now, too. Instead of just the other way around. And well, this is me. The me as I am now. In all my fucking glory.”
“Nice to meet you, now Noemie. Potty mouth and all.”
She grins, and I realize it’s the first time tonight that she’s grinned… really grinned. You don’t grin like that unless you’re feeling comfortable. And something in that thought makes me grin right back.
The stupid grins eventually fade into a comfortable silence again, and I drag myself up onto my feet, stretching my legs out a bit, giving my arms a test lift and then drop them back down, ignoring the niggling stiffness in them. The moon is high in the sky and its light is uninterrupted by clouds tonight. The blinds on the windows aren’t closed all the way, throwing the room into rows of light and dark, the furthest wall is the back drop of abstract shadows creeping up to the ceiling.
“Tell me something no one knows about you,” she says, out of nowhere.
I feel my head turn sharply, looking at her. almost harshly, I guess, because she instantly backs up against the couch.
“Sorry… I didn’t mean…” she stutters.
I sit back down on the couch, facing her. “No, no, it’s fine. You, er, you just surprised me. I wasn’t expecting the question.” Not again, that is. This isn’t a case of a sense of deja vu, it really did happen.
She relaxes a little. “You don’t have to answer it… It’s just something I always want to ask people. I’m pretty nosy.”
I ponder the question.
Well, no, I ponder the answer.
I know what I want to say. But in a way it feels like it’s unfair. A betrayal. To the two of us, three months ago in that alley. To try to relive the moment. The truth is, that secret I told her, isn’t entirely true anymore.
“Okay. No laughter, no judgment, right? And whatever is shared in this room, stays here?”
“Deal. Although I doubt there’s anyone out there wanting to pay me for secrets about Jez Petrescu.”
I bite back a smile, if only she knew.