Back at the café, Jenny had arrived. She, Martha, and Sheil were all huddled behind the counter, looking at Jenny’s hand. Jenny spotted me walking toward her. “Oh my god, Tyler asked me to marry him!” She screamed ecstatically and jumped up and down.
“What? How long have you known him?” I blurted out, shocked and still pissed from the Will episode. Sheil gave me the stink eye.
“Can’t you be happy for me, Mia?”
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately and sincerely. “I’m having a bad day. I’m excited for you. I know you guys love each other.” It was true, I just didn’t understand how it was possible and how they were so sure of it.
We hugged and then Jenny asked me to be her maid of honor. I was surprised—Jenny and I hadn’t known each other long, but I was honored nonetheless. As the four of us talked about planning a wedding and setting a date, my mind began to wander to the current state of my life. I couldn’t help but fixate on the fact that Will was probably screwing a weird woman in our apartment.
It was quiet when I got home. I grabbed a beer, popped the top off, and began guzzling it. Will walked into the kitchen… shirtless. He stood right in front of me without a word. This time I looked directly at his chest and then slowly appraised every detail of his body. He stared motionless at me as I studied the large tattoo running down one side of his torso. It was a beautiful, abstract design that could have been a painting. He had another small tattoo, the words Soul Captain written in wispy script across his heart. I looked down at the angel wing on his forearm and decided it was the most intricate wing tattoo I had ever seen. He was wearing black jeans, the belt he always wore, and I’m pretty sure nothing underneath. I followed his happy trail down to his waist and let my gaze pause on his thin hips and low-slung jeans. I looked down a little farther, then lifted my head to the brazen expression on his face.
“That woman is old enough to me your mother,” I whispered.
“Keen observation.” He reached around me to grab a beer from the refrigerator. “I love women, Mia, and I love my mother. Teeny and I are just friends.”
“What does that have to do with anything? Bringing a sleazy woman you barely know back to the apartment to screw in the middle of day is not very considerate for her or me or your mom, for that matter.”
“Like I said, we’re just friends and she’s not sleazy. I’ve known her for a while—longer than you, in fact. She’s does a show in the theater next to the Montosh.”
“She a stripper?” I spat out.
“Performance artist.”
“Same. Thing!”
“No, it’s not the same and calm down. She went home and we were just goofing off earlier. It was hundred degrees in here so she took off her shorts.”
“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.