Frankie had been first, probably, but so innocent. A kiss on the cheek or the lips before the streetlights turned on. Next came Andy, the upright-bass player in the jazz ensemble. We spent Saturday nights in the backseat while Charles Mingus played in the CD player, convincing ourselves that our hands down each other’s pants while listening to the best upright-bass player of all time was somehow different than regular hands down regular pants. I mean, how do you not fall in love with the first person who wants to touch you that way? I thought we were magic. Two jazz prodigies, entwined.
But we weren’t prodigies. We were kids. Me, especially. Once, I’d flown three hundred miles to watch Andy’s college showcase. Instead of surprising him after the concert, I witnessed him making out with a willowy, freckled flute player in the wings.
It was past one thirty, and Frankie still hadn’t texted, which was weird, because he used to call back within seconds. Then again, that was years ago.
I started swinging to pass the time. The hard rubber dug into my hips. This was a terrible idea.
After Andy, I’d stopped playing piano altogether. I’d confined myself to antimusic, listening to No Wave, Kraftwerk, BauHaus, Joy Division. I was alone, and I liked being alone.
That’s why I thought James had been perfect. James didn’t believe in love, and neither did I. James believed in rational hedonism. I believed in secular humanism. We “fucked like animals,” as he would put it, and ingested every drug available on campus until we burned out, fought, and made up again. We enrolled in the same seminars so we could spend our nights comparing notes, editing each other’s papers, pushing against each other’s viewpoints so hard that we would have to rip our clothes off in the private study room on the fourth floor of the library. We didn’t think it was love, but of course it was.
I dragged my feet on the ground to slow the swing. I checked my phone. No word.
After I graduated from Pomona, I was surprised I didn’t run into Frankie again. I moved back in with my mother, applied to paralegal jobs. I started riding my bike. I started baking. I started wearing colors. I spent hours plunking out ragtime versions of Katy Perry and Rihanna. In my headphones, I pumped Elton John, Billy Joel, the Carpenters.
And Tyler loved all this about me. Tyler told me he wanted to marry me on our third date, a late showing of Sabrina at Violet Crown Cinema. Tyler was in law school, Tyler brought my mom chrysanthemums the first time he met her. Tyler regularly got his hair cut by an actual barber. I bought toys for his niece’s birthday, I decorated the apartment we found in North Loop with large vases full of dried reeds. I got a job at the firm full time, with every intention to get into law school once Tyler had passed the bar. I was twenty-three, I had gotten my wild years behind me, and I had it all figured out.
Then, something started to crumble, but in a good way. A hard shell falling off. I started to avoid Tyler by going on long walks, listening to album after album, any artist, any genre I could find, as long as I’d never heard it before.
I had realized the only times I felt sad, tired, inadequate, were the hours spent at the firm, or in that sterile, empty apartment. When I was out in the world, by myself, I felt free.
I’d moved into Rita’s attic within a week.
That was a year ago. I’d been making minimum payments on my student loans, trying to keep my mother happy, teaching myself to hone my rough voice into something listenable, collecting synthesizer equipment, working fifty to sixty hours a week, and now learning how to cook food that wouldn’t kill me.
And with the exception of exchanging occasional booty calls with the drummer of my band, I’d been doing all of it completely, gloriously, and sometimes terribly alone.
Now I needed help.
Finally, Frankie texted. Sorryyyy, on our way.
Frankie would get it. He was still there, still willing and kind, at least. He could go overseas, I would stay here, and by the time he got back, well, I would have had my shot. If I wasn’t making a living from music then, and if Frankie was ready after deployment to pursue actual marriage with someone else, we’d break it off. I’d go back to having shitty jobs with crappy health insurance and figure out another way. Until then, we could just be two independent people in a mutual agreement.
I took a deep breath and started walking toward his house. My gut was burning, but on my side. I’d fed it expensive quinoa for lunch. That always helped.
After a few blocks, I looked up at his enormous house, hearing the door of the Lexus shut. People were laughing.
Up the driveway, three people got out of the car: Frankie. Luke, the asshole from the other night. And a woman in a turquoise dress, maybe Luke’s girlfriend.