Your Song (5 page)
Authors: Gina Elle
Ping
. An email just popped in my inbox. I don’t recognize the sender but I open it anyways.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Chicago
Are you the Eric who was in Chicago this past weekend?
AXC
Who the hell is this? I met a lot of people in Chicago over the weekend just as I do every time I travel. Who did I talk to? I try to recall the conversations I had with other conference attendees but none of them are jumping out at me. A hotmail address? How did this person find my email address? I didn’t distribute any business cards, nor was I wearing one of those nametags you get when you register for conferences. I frown as I contemplate emailing this person back but the phone ringing beside me interrupts my train of thought.
“Hey, JFK
Jr, how are things?” It’s my sister, Claudia, David’s mother. Ever since one of her high school friends commented to her once years ago that she thought I looked like JFK, Jr., Claudia has rechristened me. At the time, I didn’t even know who JFK Jr. was but Claudia assured me that he was some major heartthrob all the women went crazy for. Then the tragic Cessna plane crash that ended his life a few years later only elevated my status for them as a stand-in JFK Jr. A huge compliment, nonetheless, but one that I am not sure I entirely agree with. Yes, I have the height, and I’ll even give them that I have similar dark hair and eyes. But, I think that’s where the similarity ends.
“Hey, Claudia,” I respond half-dazed refocused now on the note wedged in the corner of my monitor.
“How was Chicago? It was Chicago where you went this weekend, wasn’t it?” she asks. It always surprises me how much my sister takes a genuine interest in my life.
“Chicago was fine. Thanks. How’s David?” I ask.
“He’s great, as usual. One month left of school and he’s already thinking about summer vacation,” she says.
“I’ll pick him up at noon on Saturday, if that’s all right with you and Ryan?” Ryan is my brother-in-law, David’s father. Claudia and Ryan are both lawyers with busy careers and even busier lives. My Saturday outing with their only child gives them the chance to spend time together or catch up on things. I know they appreciate how much time I spend with David and, besides, the pleasure of being with the world’s greatest kid is all mine to enjoy.
“Yes, of course it’s fine with both of us. David adores you and is looking forward to it. Listen, the reason why I am calling is to let you know that I was speaking to Mary over the weekend and she had some bad news. Apparently, Mr. Callahan is not doing well at all. The disease is spreading quickly and his
prognosis isn’t very good.”
“Shit,” I sigh, more bad news. Mr. Callahan is my best friend Danny’s father. Or should I say,
was
my best friend Danny’s father? The reason why Danny isn’t telling me about his dad’s illness is because Danny is dead. We lost Danny; it will be three years ago next month, to one of those tragic accidents that you hear about on the evening news but never think will happen to you or anyone you know. Danny was driving to work one morning along one of Toronto’s busiest highways when a speeding tractor-trailer tipped on its side, fell over the ramp and onto Danny’s car below. Danny was killed instantly. Days later, instead of celebrating his wedding as his best man, I was honoring his life at his funeral service as his pallbearer.
Danny and I grew up on the same street in Toronto’s west end. Like me, he too had an older sister, Mary, who has been lifelong friends with my sister, Claudia. Danny and I were as close as brothers. We went to school together, played sports together, cycled together, and travelled together, everything that you could imagine boys do, we did together. At the time he died, Danny was living with and was engaged to marry Lara. Watching the devastation his death took on Lara in the months following his death ha
s undoubtedly contributed to my . . . let’s say . . . hesitation at even the idea of falling in love. Love hurts, bad, I conclude. Then again, maybe that was just an excuse for avoiding it altogether.
“I’m going to drop by and visit Mr. Callahan next time I’m at mum and dad’s,” I promise Claudia. The
Callahans and my parents still live in our childhood homes, a few houses apart.
“Is everything all right with you? You don’t sound like yourself,” Claudia asks. Leave it to the big sister to probe, or is that just the lawyer in her fishing for information?
“I’m all right. Just had an interesting day,” I say.
“Well, do you want to talk about it?” she asks with genuine concern.
“Thanks, but not right now. I’m just tired,” I say. Claudia and I end our call leaving off that we will talk some more on Saturday when I pick up David. How would I begin to explain to Claudia about what’s bothering me? I’d sound like a sulking fool describing how I liked a girl but she didn’t like me back. Claudia would probably fall
off her chair in shock if she heard how crazy I have fallen for this unknown stranger
. Eric doesn’t fall for girls, they fall for him and hard
, she’d say.
With the depressing news of Mr. Callahan’s prognosis, I log off my computer and make my way to bed. Even as exhausted as I am, once under the blankets, I grab my
iPad from my nightstand and tap on the photo album icon. Thinking about Danny again. I pull out the slide show of pictures Mary forwarded to me after his funeral. The Elton John song “Daniel” accompanied the slide show. To induce even further self-suffering on myself today, I listen to the song and watch the slide show for the thousandth time since he died. If you’re at all familiar with the lyrics of this song, you know what I mean when I say that it’s a tearjerker.
By the time the song ends and I have looked at all of the pictures of Danny as a young boy, of him having fun
, smiling with friends and family over the course of his life. Now that I’ve looked at the dozens of photos of the two of us happy together, I am numb with feeling. No matter how many times I watch the slide show, I always feel like I’m looking at Danny for the first time.
As I slide my right index finger upward to shut off the
iPad, my thumb accidentally brushes the screen, and that is when I see the picture I took of Caroline this morning pop up. I’m frozen. I completely forgot that I snapped these images of her at the airport. I slide the screen again and find another shot of her; this one slightly more of a close up. Then, I brush the screen again and on this last shot I see Caroline smiling down at something. I enlarge the screen with the pads of my fingers and pull the iPad up closer to my face so I can soak in the details of her face. I stare at it some more.
Then, it hits me. Her smile.
It was her smile this morning that grabbed me as she was collecting her change from the server at Starbucks, her smile as she was speaking to the airline attendant, her smile as she was heading into the gangway boarding the plane, and of course, that bright-as-day smile when she turned around to look for the passenger who sent her the note. All those magnificent smiles were speaking to me. I stare at it some more and I begin to smile. Then, unintentionally, I brush back the screen to the pictures of Danny and begin to study all of his smiles more closely. Magnetic and full and real, just like Caroline’s. I find myself smiling again. When Danny smiled at you it was his special way of telling you he was with you in every way.
I blink away an impending tear. The irony is not lost on me that the two people whose presence I need more than anything in my physical world inhabit my digital world, pages apart. For a pretty nostalgic and old school kind of guy like me, here I am able to connect with each of them through a glass screen. The ultimate paradox if ever there was one.
I’ve lost them both.
No 1970s song could take the pain of that away.
Amy is my ex-girlfriend. My very hot and young ex-girlfriend. Amy and I started dating last September after we met one night in a jazz bar downtown Toronto. My friend Ro and I dropped in for after-work drinks one night at this bar and as soon as we got there, Ro immediately recognized Amy and one of her friends from his high school days. As we approached the women standing at the bar, sparks flew between Amy and me.
She was sexy
, standing there in her very mini, open-backed black dress and high stiletto heels. She was looking at me through her exotic eyes. A modern day Cleopatra, I thought, as soon as I looked at her wide set eyes thickly lined in dark kohl, sparsely placed fake eyelashes highlighting her very large almond shape eyes, and then, a mouth outlined in an glamorous shade of crimson. She extended her hand to me even before Ro had the chance to introduce us. And when she placed her hand in mine and held it there, she didn’t take her eyes off me. Deadly confident girl, I thought. Interesting.
The rest of that night Amy and I were in our own little world, flirting with one another, oblivious to the activity around us. She was a twenty-three year old Masters student at the University of Toronto, in her final year of studying French literature. She spoke passionately about her studies but I remember not really paying much attention to her academic talk, I was too distracted by her suggestive mannerisms and her rather sexy voice. For most of that night, the two of us sat at an intimate table in the corner of the bar, sipping cranberry and vodkas while soaking each other in. I remember, at one point, while Amy was talking about Victor Hugo, her favorite French writer, she seductively crossed her legs under the table rubbing up against my leg. But instead of moving her leg away from mine, she kept it there and that’s when I knew it was a matter of time before we’d go at each other. And we did.
“So, Eric. What brings us to this neck of the woods?” is how she greets me as I take my seat across from her at the table. After our phone call on Monday while I was still at O’Hare, Amy texted me as she said she would. And, now here we are, on Friday night, in a dark, quaint restaurant in Bloor West Village, definitely not one of our usual
neighborhood haunts.
Wearing dark jeans, a black dress shirt and a black leather jacket, my usual effortless style, I glance around at the other diners and f
eel appropriately dressed. While we were dating, Amy and I went out to dinner often but usually to restaurants in the downtown core. Asking her to meet me here in Bloor West Village has probably thrown her off. Amy and I have been broken up now for about three months but we remain friends. I think it was a pretty amicable break up, no hard feelings, nothing too dramatic after only seven months of dating. Amy was looking for a good time, and a good time I believe she had during our time together. But then her young, adventurous spirit resurfaced and she told me she “wanted to travel and see the world and not be shackled down” (her words, not mine) by a relationship. I couldn’t disagree with her, she was young and needed to live and be free before settling in a long-term relationship. Besides, her coming from a traditional Indian family, if her much older siblings and aged parents had their way, Amy has explained to me, she’d have been married off and having babies by now.
The sheer force of her rebellion against the old values she was raised in is a testament to her strength of character. After fighting for her right to pursue a Master degree in art and literature, instead of health sciences or business as her family would have liked, and her fight to move out of the suburban family home and into a downtown Toronto apartment, the last thing Amy needed was a boyfriend, an older boyfriend who has already seen a lot of the world and had his share of life experiences. Amy and I were never destined to be and I knew that from the start. But, she was a lot of fun to be with and still is.
A sweet and somewhat feisty friend to have. And didn’t I say a hot one as well?
“Hey, I thought we should expand our horizons a bit and travel west. Why, don’t you like this place?” I ask her taking another quick look around in this very small restaurant. There are no more than eight tables in here and three of them at most are occupied with diners right now. The lighting is low and the music is playing even lower. I look across at Amy who is studying the short menu. She looks gorgeous wearing an emerald green bandeau-style silk blouse that ties around her long neck and cinches around her underarms and outer breast area. Her hair is blow-dried full and straight and falls below her shoulders, a change from her usually very curly locks. She is wearing a gold cuff on her right wrist and her nails are painted a dark red. With the long tablecloth covering her, I can’t see what she is wearing on the bottom but if I use my imagination, it is probably something tight and mini. No doubt she is we
aring her signature heels, high and sexy.
“Oh, it’s fine, Eri
c. I was just kidding,” she says. Luckily, Amy was seated with her back to the front window when I arrived so now I get a seat with a full view of anyone walking outside along Bloor West. That anyone hopefully being Caroline.
I’ve been combing the Bloor West Village area on almost a daily basis. In the past few days, I have driven out of my own neighborhood in Yorkville and come to Bloor West Village to get my espressos, drop off my dry cleaning,
pick up groceries and even to pop in to an ATM in hopes of a sighting. Caroline jogging perhaps, Caroline walking her dog at night perhaps, Caroline buying some flowers at the flower shops on the corner of Runnymede and Bloor, perhaps. Yes, I’ve been stalking her surroundings but since I can’t seem to find her, I wonder if it’s actually considered stalking? And here I sit across from Amy on a Friday night in Bloor West Village praying to the universe that by some unbelievable stroke of amazing luck, Caroline will walk into this tiny restaurant for dinner tonight.
