All You Need Is Love (6 page)

Dressed in spring attire, feeling a certain bounce in my step, I walk to the student center and indulge in a cinnamon bun and ice water so cold it hurts my teeth. Campus looks lovely; the students seem happy and lively. It’s the kind of day where everything feels like it’s going to work out — Asher will visit, Mable will be healthy, Chris and I will walk the Avon Breast Cancer Walk and raise tons of money, Lindsay will find herself this summer and return for senior year with newfound respect for others, and we’ll all get into the colleges of our choice. Swell.

Of course every lapse into animated pleasantry brings with it a cartoon wolf or witch or gray cloud that hikes you back to the surety that life isn’t that easy. I’m relaxing into the too-sweet icing on my pastry, when I find myself immediately reconsidering my thoughts form three seconds earlier.

Jacob Coleman walks through the door with a gaggle of guys. The kind of guys who hook up with girls for sport, with a couple of the sensitive sweet ones dawdling at the sides, and takes a seat on a low couch way off to the far end of the student center. He’s laughing, squished between two long-haired seniors who belong in Hugh Heffner’s hot tub. He’s doing that laugh that used to be just for me. At least, that’s what I thought at the time.

It’s like when you love love love a song and are the first to find out about this totally cool band from Iceland or something and everyone thinks you’re nuts or doesn’t care to listen to your band of choice. You have your special, secret song that’s even more amazing because only you and the rest of the Icelandic population know about it. But then suddenly, the Isterflikens (or whatever their name is) get airplay and their single “Volcanic Summer” goes to number one and suddenly everyone knows the band — YOUR indie band. They walk around singing the lyrics out of tune and claiming they knew it a year ago when it wasn’t even released. That’s how I feel about Jacob. He was just a hottie holding his place well under the Hadley radar when I liked him and now…

“Bels, you just won’t believe it!” I say and pace around my room. “He’s like THE hot guy on campus. How did this happen?”

“See,” Arabella says, “You send a boy to Europe for a couple months and you get a man in return.”

“Yeah, whatever, you’re right — Europe is the heart and soul of culture.”

“I miss you,” she says and puts on her little girl voice.

“No baby talk! But I miss you tons,” I say and frown.

“If I wind up a wrinkled old lady it will be because of you.”

“How do you figure?” I ask and look out the window at the campus from a very safe distance. I bolted from the student center before — I think — Jacob saw me. Not that he would have strutted over to talk or anything, what with his bevy of beauties surrounding him.

“I’ve noticed I frown more without you around, therefore I am sure to have more lines on my face should you continue living Stateside.”

I plop onto my bed and lie down. Then I get a headache so I sit up. Then I move to my desk chair. “Arghh, I can’t get comfortable.”

“Because you need to come back,” Arabella offers. “I’m sitting in the Bracker’s phone booth looking at the front door, just in case you’ve come to your senses and flown back.”

I sigh. “I wish. But I don’t. I just started to feel okay, you know?”

“Are you still calculating five hours ahead every time you check your watch?”

“Yes, always,” I say. “You know? I think I need to clear my head.”

“If I know you, this means either running….”

“Done that already.” I cut her off and stand up, convinced if there were a pacing Olympics, I could win a medal. Maybe not gold, but bronze.

“Or singing.”

“You’ve got it — I’m heading over to the music rooms so I can belt out Carly Simon at the top of my lungs. I figure if I can sing I haven’t Got Time for the Pain at noise level reserved for showers, I’ll feel good as new.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Arabella says. “I picked that expression up from you, you know.”

I nod like she can really see me. “Before I hang up…”

“He’s fine,” Arabella says. “Not that I’ve seen much of him since you left, but Asher’s okay. He’s here, but not here right now.”

I picture him in the topiary garden where we first met and swallow my sadness.

“Make sure he visits soon, okay?”

“I’ll do my best,” Arabella says and blows and overly loud mwah kiss in to the receiver before hanging up.

The music building is an L-shaped structure well behind the science building and near the faculty parking lot where I used to park back when I first got my license and drove everywhere I could. My trusty car will hold suitcases, my giant duffle bag, some extra kitchen items and more cds than I’ll ever listen to when I head to Martha’s Vineyard for the summer.

When I picture being there in the little cottage in Edgartown, warmth radiates out from my insides. Just imagining waking up there feels good. Even though the place must have baggage for my dad — I mean, it did used to belong to my ever-mysterious mother — for me it feels like home. Arabella and I will have a great time there, and Mable will be our chaperone and we’ll all take barefoot walks on the beach and…

I stop myself because all of a sudden it feels like I’m reminiscing about things that have yet to occur and that feels depressing. Life should just unfold one day at a time, right?

I settle into the smallest practice room that is still big enough to house a baby grand piano, ancient music stand, and a chair. It’s best to avoid the practice rooms with more furniture or floor space, since those are really where the bored and horny congregate for hook-ups on Saturday nights.

I take out my Best of Carly Simon book of sheet music and start with the first song. I’ve sung my way from “Let the River Run” to the mind-bogglingly upsetting “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard it Should Be” to Mable’s favorite “Mockingbird” which I had to skip after the first line because it requires two singers, and I lack my own James Taylor to fill in. Then I proceed, ultra-loudly, to do a rendition of “Haven’t Got Time for the Pain”, which is a classic.

Already, my mood is lifted. Music will always do that for me, just as certain songs will always pull me immediately into memories of places or of certain people. The last song in the book is “You’re So Vain”.

I start singing and remember that on the Vineyard Mable told me Carly Simon auctioned off the right to know whom she wrote “You’re So Vain” about — is it Warren Beatty or James Taylor or Mick Jagger (who sings back-up vocals — on the real recording, not in my Hadley Hall practice room. That would be cool, but highly unlikely). Cooler still to have written a song that makes people so curious even decades later.

You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte
…I sing it and then wonder out loud what the hell that word means. Is it a verb? A noun? Both? Can you say I was gavotting past the store the other day and —

“It’s an historical dance term,” a voice says from the hallway. The door of my practice cubby is open a crack and I wedge my foot in and open it all the way. Standing there in his trademarked hands in pockets stance is Jacob. “The gavotte became a stylized member of the Baroque dance suite. It was performed after the sarabande.”

“Oh,” I say and tug on the front of my hair. I don’t really have bangs (fringe as Arabella calls it) but there are a few strands at the front that refuse to be held back in a ponytail.

“It was considered a pastoral dance,” Jacob nods his head like a chicken, more back and forth than up and down.

“That’s really just so much more information than I ever needed to know about The Gavotte,” I say, my voice totally flat — on purpose both for comedic affect and so I don’t let my nervousness show. “But I’m thrilled to know to what Ms. Simon is referring in her song.”

“Well, if memory serves, you always did like to know the details,” Jacob says and leans on the doorframe. “Then again, it’s been a long time.”

It’s so weird — because part of me feels like no time has passed. We could be back a year ago and he could come into the practice room and kiss me and it wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary. But he’s suave now, more casual in his movements. He runs his hand through his dark curls of hair and waits for me to say something.

“Would you like to come in?” I ask and gesture to the tiny room like it’s my apartment.

“Don’t mind if I do.” Jacob sits on the piano bench and I sit in the rusting metal chair that has been host to many a Hadley rear over the years.

“So…” I say and hope he interrupts me.

“Yeah,” he says. His hands rest on the piano keys and he presses the white and black notes only halfway, so they don’t make a sound. “Want me to accompany you?”

In life? Um, um, um. Oh, he means sheet music. “Sure. Go to this one.” I stand near him and flip through the pages until I get to “Legend in Your Own Time”. My voice sounds good on this one, I haven’t yet sung it today, and he just might interpret (half falsely, half true) the lyrics pointedly. I get to the part where I’m supposed to sing a
legend’s only a lonely boy when he goes home alone
and stop. The song is about this guy who could be Jacob; a quiet guy who found fame. And maybe Jacob’s not in the pages of entertainment mags yet, but he’s certainly building up his campus lore.

“What’s wrong?” Jacob asks.

“Nothing,” I say. All of sudden I feel like I could sob. Not just because it’s confusing being here with this person I felt so much for, revealed so much to about my innermost thoughts and sexual musings, but because of Mable and my dad and my mother about whom I am still in the dark, and the whole passage of time thing that plagues me.

Jacob stands up and turns me so I’m facing him. “You haven’t changed,” he says gently and smiles.

“You have,” I say and look him right in his bright green eyes.

He shakes his head. “Not really. Don’t think of it as change — think of it as added life experience.” It’s a band-aid response but one I’m perfectly willing to slick on right now, so much so that when he puts his arms around me and hugs me tightly to his chest (which is without a doubt wider), I hug right back.

“Play something else,” I command to break the hug.

He opens the book and begins.
“All those crazy nights when I cried myself to sleep, now melodrama never makes me weep anymore…”
I sing loudly, in my best voice (thank you, thank you Carly for your vocal range which is the closest to mine of any other singer).

Afterwards, we don’t say anything. I am at a loss for words — can you really just pick up where you left off without a confrontation? And didn’t we leave off being a couple? Or do you pick up after the letters we exchanged about losing our virginity or do I ask him about his lascivious past (or present) with Lindsay?

I look at the old-fashioned black and white clock above the doorway. “I should go,” I say, as though I have an actual appointment somewhere.

“The clock’s ten minutes fast,” Jacob says.

“Really?” I check it against my watch. “Well, I should still take off.”

He stays seated behind the wall of the piano and I collect my music and my bag and nod goodbye.

It’s only when I ensconced in the library that I realize that being in sight of Jacob, both in the music room and when I first saw him on the quad, was the first time I didn’t calculate the time change in Europe. I make a mental note to call Asher as soon as I get back.

“So, that was good,” Dad recaps for the fifth time as we enter the house.

“Yeah — Mable really really seems better, doesn’t she?” I say not really expecting a response.

Dad sighs and sits down at the table with his new concoction of Rose’s Lime Water and Raspberry seltzer, which I assume is a Louisa influence. He sips and sighs again. “At this point, I think we have every right to feel hopeful.” I smile and hug his shoulders. “But I do think keeping a sense of reality is important.”

I sit next to him. “Is it okay if I go to the Spring Screening tonight?”

Dad nods and finishes his drink. “Sure. I appreciate that you asked.”

He’s been saying stuff like this lately, like he’s proud that I was “upfront about my whereabouts” when all I did was go to the supermarket to get eggs (organic, of course). Either he’s just glad to have me back or there’s an issue brewing that he’s yet to uncork. It’s hard to tell sometimes if I’ve pissed off my dad or if he’s just disgruntled that I’m getting older, like it’s a sign we’re moving apart.

“What’s the film?” Dad asks and tidies the table. Spring handouts, Mable’s medical records, and her medical bills are all heaped into one stack.

“Oh, we’re in luck tonight — it’s a double feature. A decent but unlikely pairing of Grease and Jaws.”

“Musicals and monsters,” Dad muses. “Wish I could go.”

“No you don’t,” I say.

“Maybe not,” Dad says and I can tell he’s distracted by his real plans. He has a great date tonight and plans on taking Louisa for an early evening kayak on the Charles River (my idea) and then further woo her with wine, cheese, and a gourmet picnic (also my idea, though slightly plagiarized from that last day in London when I was meant to go punting in Oxford or Cambridge, whichever it was. Can it be I’m forgetting already — or no, I probably blocked that last part out?).

I go to my room for a second and then sprint (as much as one can sprint down a spiral staircase without requiring stitches) to the kitchen and hand a sheet of paper to my dad. “I almost forgot — will you sponsor me?”

Dad reviews the words in front of him. “Of course!” He smiles, proud and pleased and signs his name on my Avon Breast Cancer Walk form. “If you’d like, I’d be happy to take this to my next staff meeting. It’s staff and faculty tomorrow night, so…”

“Sure — a little peer pressure’s good for fund-raising.,” I say. “Chris is hitting up the dorm and we thought we’d try to work the dining hall on Sunday night before chapel.”

Dad heads to his study and turns on his classical music. Then he reappears. “In case I don’t tell you often enough, I love you, Love.”

My eyes well up but the tears stay trapped. “Me, too, Dad,” I say and then we go our separate ways.