“Yeah, right.” I crossed my arms.
Will shook his head at me before leaving the kitchen. As he headed down the hallway he shouted back at me, “I didn’t have sex with her, not that it’s any of your business. I didn’t even kiss her. We’re just friends.” This time when he said we’re just friends, I couldn’t tell if he meant us or him and Teeny. Either way, I was wrong for criticizing him. He got in one last dig, “By the way, how’s Banker Bob?” Then he slammed his door before I could respond.
I knew it wasn’t fair to denigrate Will for having a friend over, especially when the night before I’d left the door open and basically dry humped the banker on my dresser.
Track 6: You Get That, Right?
Things were getting weird at the apartment and I knew I had to lay low for a while. Will must have felt the same because I didn’t see him for days. We finally caught each other on a Wednesday afternoon before he went to work. We played music together and he kept telling me to stop keeping time, to shut out the noise and just feel the changes. He played everything from his ear without regard for technique. Music was about feeling to him; it was purely innate. When I played the way he showed me, the sound was fuller and rich with emotion. I was learning a lot from his instinctive interpretations of songs. Even though I was classically trained, he was much more talented with no training at all. It was like a divine gift, or it was his passion that had manifested into the gift. After every session with Will, I felt like I had purged all the negativity or stress I was feeling that day. As I sat still tinkering on the piano, Will stopped next to me before heading out for work. He bent down, kissed the top of my head, and said, “You’re so good and you don’t even know it. Night, baby.” The minute he closed the door, my eyes welled up… My father used to tell me the same thing.
My mom flew in the following day. She took a taxi to Kell’s. I let her hold me in the café kitchen for what seemed like an hour. We’d missed each other. She looked the same with her light brown bob, not a hair out of place, and some variation of a business-casual pantsuit. She always dressed conservatively and mostly wore earth tones; she thought it softened her lawyer energy, but I thought it just made her look like the Republican that she wasn’t.
That afternoon, around a small table in the back of the café, my mom and I sat with Sheil and Martha and reminisced about my father. We told stories, laughed, cried and hugged each other over and over between cranking up the loud espresso machine and serving our short supply of customers. I gave my mother the key to my apartment and warned her about Will. I expected some kind of inviting musicians to live with you is stupid lecture, but it didn’t happen. She just took the key and said she’d see me in a bit.
When I climbed the stairs to my apartment that night, I expected to find her curled up on the couch with a book. Instead, as I reached the landing I heard the sweet sound of Will’s guitar and another sound, unfamiliar to me. I walked in to find my mom at the Wurlitzer playing, “I Feel the Earth Move.” She was singing horribly out of tune. Will nodded his head encouragingly as he accompanied her with some interesting funk guitar on the telecaster. I spotted the notorious bottle of Patrón on top of the Wurly. He looked up and shot me an errant smile. I rolled my eyes at him.
“Okay, lovely ladies, that’s it for me tonight,” he said as he put his guitar in the case. “Liz, it was a pleasure to meet you. I see where your daughter gets her beauty.” He kissed my mom’s hand. Her giddy look made my eyes roll again.
“Oh, thank you, Will. It was so nice to meet you.”
“Where are you headed to?” I asked.
“I have a gig tonight at nine.” He paused before heading out the door, then whispered back to me, “Night, Mia.”
I thought it was strange that Will said I have a gig and not we. I also couldn’t help but feel like it hurt him to be around me or maybe it just annoyed him.
“Mia, he’s cute.” My mom said, wiggling her eyebrows.
I scowled at her as if her comment was complete blasphemy. “He’s a musician!”
There was a long pause. “So are you, sweetheart.”
I had never had a serious conversation with my mom about men. She never lectured me on whom to date or live with. I’d made a strict set of rules for myself… guaranteed success… remember?
As I studied her silly, drunken expression, I recognized something real, something human… I saw her vulnerability.