The Angry Woman Suite (12 page)

His voice turned urgent. “Now listen to me, Francis: nothing is very far from us. Certainly not truth, and there’s no such thing as keeping distance. Guaranteed, the truth will find you. It’ll bite you on the ass at the end. The sooner you understand this, the better off you’re going to be. I learned it the hard way, Francis. And that’s why I’m writing everything down for you—your history, all of it, in my journal, in the hopes it will help cushion—”

I didn’t hear the rest. I’d tuned him out. Of course I knew Aidan was worried about Earl. Why, I didn’t know. Earl could take care of himself. But I was preoccupied with swing, my attention span solidly selective; I’d no empathy for anything or anyone else. Though I’d have asked like a house afire had I realized, then, the twists and turns that war and truth and distance would provide in shaping my brilliant career.

Shortly after my fifteenth birthday, four things happened. The first and the second were normal for a boy my age. But the third was as close to murder as anyone could get and live to tell about it.

The fourth, on its heels, marked the fork in the road on the way to my destiny.

“I don’t know why you made me wait so long,” I said when Aidan told me I could solo at Festival. I punched his arm, loving him. He swatted me back.

“Because you’re a smarty-pants and I don’t trust you. So keep it straight.
No
fancy trills. They’re not in the play book. We’re a company. Showmanship is only half of being a band musician, Francis.
Sportsmanship
is the other.”

When I told Stella I was going to be a soloist at Festival and also slated to play at the Washington’s Headquarters dance afterwards, Mother got wind and hightailed me into East Chester to get a suit.

“Inseam, 36 inches,” the tailor said. He barely looked at Mother. I hated him for that.

“Francis,” Mother gasped. “I’d no idea. What
have
you been wearing?”

I’d no idea, either. “Stuff of Aidan’s, I guess.” I took her aside. “Mother, we can’t afford a new suit. I have the uniform for the parade and Aidan can lend me something for the dance—”

“Hush, are you taller than me?” she demanded to know. “Stand up here next to me. Sweet Jesus, you
are
taller! Inches taller!”

I saw myself through her eyes. Five-eleven at least, and lean. The cut of the gray suit showed broad shoulders. The face was lean too, features chiseled: strong chin, straight nose, blue eyes. There was black hair, thick, and full, finely-shaped lips. I allowed them to curve upward. Only the scarred ear took away.

“A new white shirt,” Mother said firmly. She looked down. “And we’re going to need shoes. Good ones. Gentlemen always wear nice shoes. Remember that, Francis. The measure of a man is in the shine of his shoes.”

The morning of Festival I grabbed my trumpet case and duffel bag containing my new clothes and loped full-steam down Grayson Hill to Washington’s Headquarters. I slowed, awe-struck, just as I had for the nine years I’d had to watch preparations from the sidelines. But this year I wasn’t on the sidelines. This year I was a soloist for Festival’s parade in East Chester, and later, after the exhibits, Buster and I’d play for the dance at Washington’s Headquarters.

The pavilion was up and workers were putting down the dance floor, planting tables in the grass, hauling things into Washington’s Headquarters, hanging banners, running wiring, stringing lights. Aidan greeted me at the door in uniform. He offered me coffee, dodged the volunteers in the kitchen, then escorted me to the room where I’d change. It was a room I’d stayed in many times. Furnished simply: a narrow bed, a side table with a bowl and pitcher on it, a small watercolor on one wall, in browns and greens, of a rustic house with a water mill behind it. My uniform lay on the bed. My eyes caressed it. It was wondrous; deep purple with gold epaulets at the shoulders, like Aidan’s.

“Trousers are a little short,” Aidan said when I reappeared in the front room. “But you’ll pass.”

“Why don’t you get a car?” I asked for the umpteenth time, trekking into East Chester with him on foot. Aidan carried his fiddle case and mace. My horn was nestled in worn red velvet inside its shabby case. Aidan had bought it for a couple hundred dollars at a second-hand store in Philly. He’d also given me a raise to a dollar a week. I planned on paying Aidan back for the trumpet, then to start saving money for New York, where I’d audition for one of the big swing bands. That was the next rung on my ladder: New York.

“Don’t need a car,” Aidan answered. “Got legs.”

That was another thing: I was definitely getting a car. The hell with walking.

Buster punched my arm. “You gonna do it?”

I squinted against the sun, at the knots of spectators lining the parade route.

Buster wiped the sweat from his upper lip and whistled under his breath. “You’re either stupider than shit, Francis, or you’ve got more moxie than anyone I know. My vote’s for stupid. No doubt about it: Madsen’s going to kill you.”

We took our places in formation at the foot of Broad Street. Lower brass, trombones, baritones, mellophones stood in front, then trumpets, followed by percussion, woodwinds, and sousaphone. Aidan raised his mace, blew his whistle, and we marched silently. Then Aidan blew his whistle again, the signal for the downbeat to “Pennsylvania Polka,” and the crowd roared. I nearly lost my bearings when we marched beneath the banner proclaiming, “The East Chester and Chadds Ford Waterston Art Festival, 1943,” in honor of Matthew Waterston. At the top of Broad Street, where a gazebo had been erected, I broke rank and climbed its steps, as choreographed. I put the trumpet back to my lips. My long fingers fluttered the valves. The first notes were mellow, even reverent. Somewhere in the back of my brain I registered the lyrics:
Oh, say can you see!
I leaned back and tightened my diaphragm—and the horn soared through a change in octave, sweet and strong.
And the rockets red glare, the bombs
bursting in air
… A
perfect
high C—followed by gasps and murmurs from the audience.

I had them on the strength of a perfect high C. They were mine.

And the home
of the brave
… Those were the notes I held, letting them glide downward, oh so slowly. And then I started over before I could change my mind. From the top, changing tempo, hard and
fast.
My lips buzzed, my fingers fluttered, switching pitch, and the trumpet sang, handing out a hint of a trill, flitting up and down the scale, hardly finishing one note before starting another. I was unaware of my gyrations, the sweat pouring off my face, the ache in my back, in my gut, the pull in my neck. I only knew that the
thing
attached to my lips and hands was ripping out a red-hot rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner”
I’d
never even heard before.

And the home of the brave!

I lowered my horn, bowed my head. My pulse pounded. Someone whistled, and there it was: overwhelming, glorious clapping lifting me higher, up to where the stars surely were at least. I raised my head. My eyes met Aidan’s, but I couldn’t read what was to come, he looked so stunned. I decided the moon would have to wait. Had to deal with Aidan first.

Aidan got swallowed up by the sudden crush of people, but I found Mother and made her take my arm, and I walked her up Broad Street and whenever someone stopped to tell me how talented I was (and for one so young!), I made them acknowledge Mother.

“You don’t have to—” Mother said.

“Yes, I do.”

“Francis, there’s a girl over there looking at you.”

“Let her look.” I glanced around all the same. Four girls were standing on the corner of Broad and Nutmeg, some my age, some older. They smiled and giggled, covering their mouths with their hands. Except for one. I looked closer, not entirely convinced it could be the same girl. She didn’t giggle—and I remembered she was bashful.

“Hey Francis,” she said. Although she’d moved away years ago, I could never forget those dark, expressive eyes. But now she was tall and rounded in all the right places. I wondered what she remembered about
me.
I wondered if she was visiting Festival for the day, or staying longer.

“Hello Elena,” I answered, aware of Mother watching. I tightened my grip on Mother’s elbow, and walked on.

“I hear a collective sigh,” Mother said. “You’re destined to break hearts, Francis.”

About time, I thought.

Buster and I, slap-happy over having broken all of Aidan’s cardinal rules and thus far escaping consequences, passed on the art show, what Festival was actually most famous for, and grabbed one of the shuttles chartered for the dance, back to Chadds Ford. At Washington’s Headquarters we shed our uniforms and put on dress suits, then sneaked behind the pavilion to share a cigarette before heading up to the bandstand, where, finally, the inevitable: facing down Aidan’s disapproval—or so I thought. Incredibly, Aidan seemed totally disinterested in me. He kept looking over his shoulder, eyeing the crowd on the dance floor. I snuck in a trill. No reaction. I followed his gaze to where Mother was standing off to the side by herself—and I suddenly loved Mother for coming. But I didn’t love the lump in my throat loving her made. I looked away, hating small towns and the stupid small people who lived in them, who shunned my mother.

We were wrapping “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” when Aidan motioned for me. He handed me his baton and took my horn away, setting it on his director’s stand.

“I heard what I thought was an attempt at a trill. I told you, Francis, no trilling. Now, ‘Moonlight Serenade’ is next, and you’ve got a girl singer on this one—and it’s
not
your job to drown her out. Think you can manage that?”
And then he
left
—but not before waving a woman up on stage.

Stunned, I watched Aidan make his way through the crowd of spectators, over to Mother. He led her onto the dance floor, then looked up at me expectantly, Mother in his arms. I felt as if every pair of eyes in the two counties were on me—and so I turned my back against those eyes and gathered up my wits, what I’d left of them, at the same time glancing back at the young woman hesitating at the top of the bandstand steps. That’s when I did my second double take of the night. It was Elena, gorgeous in a green gown. I beckoned her closer. She inched toward the microphone, nodding shyly.

I raised Aidan’s baton, and just like that, as if I were a magician pulling a surprise out of a hat, Buster’s trombone made a tender sound: the haunting intro to “Moonlight Serenade.” Elena picked up the refrain smoothly, as if the three of us had practiced every day that week:

I stand at your gate

And the song that I sing is of moonlight …

The roses are sighing

a moonlight serenade …

Which prompted my third double take of the night. Elena’s voice was cool and breathy, charged with intimacy. She sounded like a full-grown woman. But something was missing; it was tiny, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I impulsively pantomimed a message to Buster, took my horn and stood beside Elena, waiting, listening, savoring her lyrics, once pure corn, now pure magic:

I bring you and sing you

A moonlight ser-e-nade.

That last syllable, that was the note, the signal. I snapped my fingers and did a smart sidestep away from Elena, holding the trumpet to my lips with one hand—pure show. Buster stood up then, and the sound from his trombone swelled round and large—I was exhilarated by how we’d missed scarcely a millisecond of time, starting our giant sweep just as Elena’s voice still hung in the air, regardless that Buster and I’d never worked with a singer before. We pointed our brass skyward, improvising, trilling all over the place, and the band picked up behind us, and I have to say it: Buster and I were
magnificent.
We were theater at its best, flying loud and jazzy, brass weaving in and out of brass, and I knew without even having to look that the crowd had stopped dancing and was standing rapt, openmouthed, caught up with me and Buster.

God, we were good.

Before I was near ready, Buster and I pointed our horns at the floor and bent our knees, making an even bigger show of bringing the music down, bar by bar, until it was like an offering, mellowed, and Elena, framed by our magnificence and reflecting the offering back onto us, made us even better theater. Eyes locked onto mine, she picked up the refrain perfectly.

I bring you and sing you

A moonlight serenade …

“It’s been years,” I said when we met up outside the pavilion. “You left Mr. Madsen’s, when?”

“After second grade,” Elena answered. “My father got a job in the city, in New York. Francis, thank you for that back there.”

I handed her a glass of punch. “When did you know you wanted to be a singer?” She looked down. She
was
shy.

“Mr. Madsen’s always encouraged me.”

“I never realized you’d stayed in touch.”

“He made it a point. Even more so after my parents died. He got me singing lessons, and that led to meeting a few music people … I get a gig now and then.”

Elena wore lipstick. I’d never tasted lipstick before. I’d never even wanted to, the idea had always seemed a messy proposition. But now I was interested.

“I’m sorry about your parents,” I said. “So, are you thinking of branching out? Going on the road? Going big time?” Elena’s cheeks reddened and I knew what that meant. She mumbled something about a secretarial job in the city. “Fantastic,” I said politely.

“What about you, Francis?”

She knew she’d lost me, but she didn’t know how, when. She couldn’t know that her ordinariness, her secretarial job, the not wanting to reach for the moon and the stars, threatened me. She couldn’t know that I recognized myself in her, and the fact that if she got too close she’d squeeze me dead—and, worse, I wouldn’t even know she was doing it until I’d reverted back to my old, ordinary self. Still, there were those lips and that taste I wanted to try.

“I’m going to New York to audition. Someday soon, I think.”

“You’ll be snapped up by a big band. You’re fabulous, Francis.”