Up close the guy at the piano looked kind of fancy. He was wearing a coat and tie, he had round, horn-rimmed glasses and wavy, combed-back hair. He looked brainy and the music he was playing went along with the look—Cole Porter. Porter’s lyrics are clever and suggestive, and you could tell by the singer’s inflections and eyebrow wiggles that he knew what all the double-entendres meant. But underneath the glitter, Porter was deeply cynical—like a cocktail party that sounds fun until you really listen, and then you start to hear the anger and desperation lurking beneath the laughter and clinking ice cubes. After half a dozen songs of sparkling, witty cynicism I was beginning to lose interest, but then he launched into something soft and mournful. The crowd’s chatter had gotten a little louder as the set stretched on, and the first few bars of the piano were drowned out, but pretty soon everybody shut up. I’m not exaggerating, you could hear people near the back of the room shushing folks behind them so they could hear the song, a wistful number about romantic disillusionment called “Love for Sale.”
I looked at Roxanne, and the look in her eyes was the same bittersweet look I felt in mine as he sang it. I looked back at the singer, and suddenly his gaze locked on me, another pair of eyes that had already seen a lifetime worth of loss. “Old love, new love, every love but true love.” By the time he got to the end he was almost whispering, and he finished the song with a soft piano flourish that drifted up into the rafters like cigarette smoke. Before the notes had completely died away, he’d risen from the bench, stepped out of the circle of light, and disappeared into the mass of bodies.
The room was silent for a moment, then the crowd cheered and whistled and called for more. He did not reappear, and after several moments the PA system offered us consolation in the melodious form of the Andrews Sisters. A strapping young man in a corporal’s uniform asked me to dance, and I obliged. He leered at me, to make sure I knew that he—like the Andrews Sisters—was in the mood. “Man, those gals sure can sing it,” he said.
“They’re fine,” I said, “but that guy at the piano—he was really something. I wonder if he’s on a USO tour.”
“Him?” The corporal looked at me like I was an idiot. “Nah, that guy works here. He’s one of the eggheads. Chemist or something.”
Just then—at least, this is the way I like to remember the timing—I saw a long finger tap the corporal on the shoulder. “Mind if I cut in?” It was him: the singer; he was talking to the soldier, but he was smiling at me. The corporal looked annoyed but also embarrassed, as if he thought the guy had heard himself called an egghead, or as if the corporal had called down this punishment on himself by being an unappreciative listener.
We danced just that one dance, then he asked if he could walk me back to my dorm. The walk was only two blocks, but that was enough to decide things for me. The corporal was right about one thing, Novak was a scientst. But he was wrong about the other—Novak wasn’t an egghead; he was funny and self-deprecating, and an odd mixture of confidence and humility. He was a prodigy, with Ph.D.’s in both chemistry and physics, but he was surprisingly humble. I thought I had hit the jackpot, Bill.
We got married six weeks later, in the Chapel on the Hill. He and I exchanged vows in the very same spot where you and I saw his ashes yesterday.
I moved from the dorm to the house on the ridge that Novak was entitled to, as a senior scientist. “Snob Hill,” everyone called it, even those of us lucky enough to live on it, because we knew we didn’t necessarily deserve to live so much better than the people down in the valley. The difference between the ridge and the valley was amazing—down among the dormitories, trailers, and hutments, there were no trees and very little grass. During wet weather, the valley floor was a sea of mud—cars would get stuck up to their axles, and if you had to walk somewhere that didn’t have a raised boardwalk, you’d sink so deep your shoes would get sucked right off your feet. During hot, dry spells, it was like living in the Dust Bowl—dust got into every nook and cranny, you’d choke if you didn’t breathe through a handkerchief, and your face would be caked with red dust and streaks of sweat. Up on Snob Hill the roads were good, the yards were nice, and crime was virtually nonexistent.
Happily ever after, right?
Except that it wasn’t.
But that’s another story, Bill. Another story for another day.
CHAPTER 15
BEATRICE DEFLECTED ALL MY FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS about Novak. “I’m tired,” she said. “It’s too sad to talk about right now.” And then she added, “Tell me your name again?” The sudden, vague hint of senility might just be a ploy, I realized, but if I backed her into that corner, she might never come out of it again. Given that Emert and Thornton had both struck out with her, I decided a strategic retreat was in order.
I checked my unreliable wristwatch. “I’ve probably overstayed my welcome,” I said, “and I’d better be getting back to the university. It was so nice talking with you, Beatrice. You reckon I could come visit you again?”
She eyed me sharply, as if to size up my intentions or assess my sincerity. I smiled at her then, and it was a genuine smile—she really was a remarkable woman—and the smile seemed to tip the scales in my favor. “Of course, Bill,” she said, “if you can tear yourself away from those comely UT coeds long enough to listen to an old woman rattle.”