Nine Volt Heart (16 page)

SUSI

I
T WAS ALMOST EIGHT when I got
home, though with the spring-time switch to daylight savings time, the sky
still held a vague pale glow. Randolph had taken me to dinner in Leschi with
his grandparents, to finish the discussion aborted by my ridiculous
emotionalism on Saturday evening. His grandfather was gracious about it, though
Randolph was less so.

Over dinner, Randolph’s grandmother kept commenting on that
nice young man, while, Randolph looked like he had blood pressure problems.
Since I’d gotten no sleep the night before, all I could think about was
foregoing consciousness in the comfort of my bed.

However, Paul Harris sat on my front porch with Zak Lukas,
their voices drifting out through the trees in the dusky light. Zak appeared to
be beating on the railing with mallets. Paul greeted me with a hug and a kiss
on each of my temples.

“I misunderstood who you were bringing by yesterday, Susi.”

Zak said, “Jason called and asked me to come over. My mom
said I had to, because she wants me to do your school thing this summer. Is it
true that Jason will be working with your program? I’d jump for the chance to
work with him.”

“Susi!”

Jason hailed me from the road below, where he had emerged
from a minivan and was walking up to my door with two men.

“This is my friend Ian,” he said, pointing to the taller of
the two men, who had a shaved head and looked vaguely Finnish. Or Scots.

“Cynthia is in Minneapolis until the end of the week,” Ian
said, nodding rather than shaking hands because he was loaded down with
instrument cases. He had a piercing look, as if he mistrusted me. “Otherwise,
she would love to meet you.”

“Ian brought along his friend Les Paul,” Jason said. “Plus a
twelve-string Martin and my National Steel guitar. Oh, and this is Toby.” He pointed
to his smaller, bearded friend.

“Pleased to meet you both, and your instruments.”

I opened the front door wide, and they all came inside from
the porch and found places to set down their bevy of instrument cases.

“Can I offer you all a drink? I have beer. Or wine. Or
sparkling water.”

As a trio, none of them answered. Ian was examining the
music on my shelves, and Toby began tuning his mandolin against the piano. Ian
was tall and thin in an angular way, with a pointy nose, a shaved head, and a
translucent complexion; every time he looked my way, I thought his icy blue
eyes might bore a hole through me. Toby was a head shorter than Jason and
slightly round. He had sparkly, impish eyes and deep dimples in both cheeks,
made more charming by a well-trimmed Vandyke beard, in dark Vandyke brown. He
was dressed in the t-shirt and jeans that the three of them seemed to wear as a
uniform.

Jason just stood and grinned at me. He looked over his
shoulder at his friends and then followed me to the kitchen, whispering.

“Toby doesn’t believe a man should sleep with a woman who
doesn’t keep her piano in tune, so he’s satisfied now that all is well. Ian
will call Cynthia when he gets home, and then she’ll send me email to let me
know whether it’s OK to keep seeing you. They all wanted to break us up before
they even met you.”

“They can’t break us up,” I said. I assumed they’d want
beer, so I fetched bottles from the back of the refrigerator.

“That’s what I said.” He smiled.

“They can’t break us up because we aren’t going together.”

“It is true we aren’t going anywhere. We’re staying here,
right?”

“Jason, I don’t know you.”

“Yes, you do. What you don’t know, I’ll tell. Anything you
want to ask. My secrets can be your secrets.”

“It’s confusing. I don’t want to trade secrets. Please don’t
touch me.”

“Susi, neither one of us is guilty of anything.”

“Please.”

“I won’t touch you, but don’t make me leave. How can you not
believe that fate brought us together?”

“I can’t afford to believe in fate. It leads to despair.”

“Can’t we start again as friends, Susi?” He stopped,
pointing to the beer in my hand. “Unless Paul wants one, you should put those
back. We don’t drink while we work. Just water and coffee. I’ll make coffee.”

“Working?”

“We’re playing music. They want to hear you sing.”

“Jason, I asked you not to tell people.”

“You said you wanted to keep it a private experience outside
your regular life. We’re outside your regular life. I didn’t tell my cousin.”

“You said that you don’t have a cousin.”

“Yes, but if I did, I wouldn’t tell her that you sneak out
at night to sing.”

In retrospect, I can’t explain how I lost control of my
house that night. I could blame it on being so tired, but that wouldn’t explain
how I ended up singing, not just in front of Jason and his friends, but in
front of Paul and Zak, too. Paul came with a small selection of woodwinds,
including a penny whistle. Zak had come with an electronic trap set, which was
as much as he could carry on the bus over to my neighborhood.

Jason made everyone play. That’s how it happened. He wasn’t
bossy, but whatever he thought was a good idea, everyone went along with it.
Ian and Toby seemed willing to consider anything he proposed, each making
suggestions only for songs or keys or rhythms that we might try. At midnight,
Paul left, offering Zak a ride back to Capitol Hill. Jason talked them into
hauling the unused instruments out to the car as they left.

By two in the morning, we were singing quiet songs, and I
had abandoned posture and breathing, having already sung enough that I saw that
sweet indigo blue spot between my eyes for more than an hour. I fell asleep
with my head on Jason’s shoulder where we sat on the sofa.

When I woke in the morning, they were gone, and all traces
of our philharmonic orgy had been tidied up, with Zak’s electronic trap as the
only reminder they had been there.

I was an hour late for work. It didn’t seem that I could
offer “too much time in the key of G” as a medical excuse.

JASON

“G
EEZ, KARL. I DON’T know what
to do.”

“Hello to you too, Jason. You have Martha. She can handle
whatever it is. Are you out of clean socks? Do you need a new bus pass? A glass
of water for your wife when she chokes while explaining what a heel you are?”

“Very funny.”

“Martha did that yesterday for Dominique. Very professional
of her, for I don’t think Martha likes your Lady D.”

“I need you to go after someone.”

“Estoppels against the blog where your starfucker SusiQ
brags about her conquest?”

“I’m effing serious, Karl. That stalker hacked into one of
my blogs and listed every move I made after leaving London. Now that National
Steel guitar my uncle gave me is missing. My stalker friend stole it while we
were loading or unloading instruments this morning at the studio.”

“Stalker?”

“This guy has been haunting the Internet, says he’s my
brother. Puts notes on fan sites, pretending like he knows me and knows my
business. He’s the same one who jammed me for all time over Dominique.”

Karl knew the story: When I got busted for screaming at my
wife, this guy had news on the Internet before I even got out of jail. It was
his blog postings that made people believe I’m a scum wife-beater. He wrote (I
quote): “Dominique screamed, ‘You hurt me, you bastard.’ I can’t say I blame
him. If it was me with that witch Dominque, I’d of hit her too. Then she called
the cops to take my brother away.” End quote. It’s the “too” that’s wrong, and
the “brother” part. Both weren’t true.

“The same guy’s still bugging you?” Karl said.

“It’s like he is always lurking nearby. He’s who posted
lyrics and guitar tabs on the Internet from our show in Bergen. He started
trouble for that woman in Nashville whose only sin was going on a date with me.
He posted the news that I’m recording in Seattle before I got off the plane.
What can you do?”

“Not a hell of a lot. Have Martha report the theft. If this
guy doesn’t threaten you overtly, there is nothing the law can do. How is he
posting?”

“The webmasters don’t know how to trace him. They just pull
his stuff off the pages, after it’s already too late.”

“Is he one of those guys claiming to be your brother? I’m
still battling with a few who filed claims when your uncle died.”

“I told you to let them have whatever they want.”

“As your attorney, I’m not letting you give away the farm.
These guys all have ruthless ambulance chasers for lawyers, while I am just a
calm, noble-minded protector of your interests. Maybe we can find out if one of
them is your close buddy.”

“Something vile gets spit on me every time he shows up. He
could be standing by me or in the bushes watching right now. And holding onto
Beau’s steel guitar.”

“Have Martha call the police about the guitar.”

“I know enough to call the police, Karl. I want all the pawn
shops checked in case it isn’t my friend the stalker. I want to put out a
reward.”

“I do contracts, Jason. Ask the cops to give you advice when
you file the theft report. Please have Martha fax me a copy of the report so I
can prepare an insurance claim.”

“What does insurance pay for the sole family heirloom I
have?”

“Replacement cost.”

SUSI

T
HAT AFTERNOON, ON TUESDAY, I
came home right after work, graded papers, and worked my kitchen over. Baking
bread, making lasagna, roasting peppers, starting a pot of soup—it all helped
me to feel like I could manage a sane life again. I was too tired to think and
the repetitive work of cooking felt soothing. I thought that I’d have a little
of the soup and then just go to bed.

Then Angelia showed up. She ate soup and tried to make me
talk to her. We sat out on the back deck, getting the last of the April light,
and when I had nothing to say, Angelia had no trouble filling in the silence.

“Musicians are bums, Susi, at least when it comes to love.
Being a musician, I know. They can’t talk about their feelings, and they forget
about you if they have to decide between playing and love. Playing will win.
Lord help me, I will never get tangled up with a musician again. Nope. I’m
looking for a lawyer or an accountant or an engineer. If you have to sleep with
someone who can’t talk about his feelings, it might as well be someone who will
be there the next time you look.”

Then everyone arrived again, except Paul. Jason was standing
at the door to the deck and likely heard us.

“This is my friend Angelia,” I said.

“My long lost cousin!” Jason hugged her. “I missed the last
family picnic. You’ll have to give me the dirt on all our other cousins and
aunties.”

“What in the world? What’s going on?” Angelia backed up from
him, seeming serious. He smiled and shook his head.

“‘All we do is sit out on the porch and play our songs,’ just
as Uncle Tupelo says.”

“Do you really have an uncle named Tupelo?” I asked. Angelia
rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“See?” Jason said to Ian and Toby. “I told you. She’s like a
character in
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
.
She’s neurologically blind to pop culture. Angelia, this is Ian Griffith and
Toby Beaumont, who are my brothers as much as you are my cousin.”

Angelia didn’t wait a heartbeat before she had her violin
out of its case, and we were playing Celtic and Cajun songs. They ate my food
and played music late into the night. Talking during a break, Toby shyly asked
Angelia about her background, his dimples growing deeper as they talked.

“Your classical roots are so obvious—I mean that as a good
thing—but how did you come to be slumming in Cajun territory?”

Angelia said, “I wanted to play the violin because of my
mother’s Fairport Convention records, not because of Itzhak Perlman. In my
fantasies, I’m Mark O’Connor in reverse. He went from being the world’s
greatest fiddle player to recording with Yo-Yo Ma. I could go the opposite
direction.”

While Toby struggled to keep the conversation alive, not
realizing that Angelia had already fallen in love with him, I found out that
Ian is a bait fisherman. We traded stories about places our fathers had taken
us, and it turned out that he spent his honeymoon hiking a trail off Highway 2
that my dad used to love. After we talked steelhead, Ian taught me a song I hadn’t
heard before called “Fishin’ Blues.” It was fun to sing, except I had to sing
it with Ian, because Jason couldn’t sing it without laughing.

“‘Bet your life, your sweet wife, Catch more fish than you.’”

Jason had taken that leather string he wore in his hair on
Sunday and braided it around his wrist. I talked to his friends in order to
keep from looking at his hands.