Chapter 12

It had always been strange with Lori and Andrew; they seemed like such an oddly mismatched pair of characters. Lori, the bouncy, happy type with a ready smile and a kind word for everybody, as though she were permanently a high school cheerleader. Andrew, the quiet, almost brooding type with an impenetrable, sullen wall protecting whatever was going on in his head.

I always got the feeling I never really knew Andrew because he seemed very evasive. To the contrary, I always felt like I knew everything I needed to know about Lori because she was always so chatty and upbeat that she could not help but come across as having nothing to hide. Everything changes. Impressions of people doubly so.

I walked into the building on a Saturday, two weeks before Andrew was to leave on his European sojourn, and I was a mess of perspiration. I had not been the least bit prepared for the summer heat of New York City, though I suppose I was as prepared as anybody could be for the fact the city was an enormous hibachi come late June. I was just returning from a grocery trip when I heard an unusual sound coming from upstairs.

The cello was silent, which was not unexpected. Andrew took it a little easier on weekends, that is he only played for about three to four hours a day on Saturdays and Sundays. However, there was another sound I had never heard before. It sounded like Lori and Andrew were arguing.

I wound my way around the stairwell to try to determine what was going on. Yes, they were definitely arguing. I could not determine the point being argued, however, as they were not yelling loud enough to make everything out. I could pick out a word here and there, but none of them cleared anything up. The only time that either of them was loud enough to make out what was being said, the other would also increase in volume, obscuring everything.

Not being sure what to do, I simply walked into my apartment and closed the door behind me. I put my food away before I grabbed something to drink, opened the door and stood in the atrium to listen.

I pieced together a few bits of the row. Enough to realize that Andrew was angry at something Lori had done. Something to do with not wanting her to "shit this away too" and "waste that much more of her life". Lori was arguing that "it’s not up to" Andrew and this was something she wanted to do because she just wanted "to have a normal life for once". They would crescendo on these points, but the rest of it was unintelligible. I listened to them for somewhere around ten or fifteen minutes before the argument came to an abrupt halt and I heard the door open. I quickly ducked back into my apartment. It was obviously not the best time to talk to whoever had stormed out.

I made myself a quick lunch as I tried to figure out what to do. I figured neither one of them would of a mind to have company and, besides which, I wasn’t sure who was still there and who had walked out, nor did I know when the other person would be coming back. I chewed over what to do as I finished my meal, eventually deciding to walk upstairs to find out just what the hell happened.

"Hi, Tom," Andrew told me after answering the door. He looked terrible. He had the sort of intense, exhausted mien that you usually see in pictures of old coal miners. It was the look of someone who was trying to find the strength to continue being beat down. As he turned around and walked back to the living room, he invited me to come in.

He was sitting on the couch, pouring himself a shot of Bushmill’s 1608 as I sat down on the other couch.

"Have a drink," he told me, "it don’t cost nothin’." Then he fired the whiskey down his gullet.

"I heard you arguing," I told him.

"Yeah," he said as he poured himself another drink.

"What happened?" I asked him.

He seemed to ignore me as he stared at his drink, then he fired that one down, as well. He had always been a serious sort, but it was more of a cynicism around the edges. This visibly upset Andrew was an unfamiliar character. He lit a cigarette, took a puff, and placed it in the ashtray. "Ray asked Lori to marry him," he explained.

I felt my heart sink into my stomach. Before I could say anything, Andrew handed me a shot, which I slugged down all too quickly.

With a cough, I choked out, "I’ve never been much of a hard liquor drinker."

"Whiskey helps wash these things down."

"If you say so," I told him as I recovered my voice. The question running around my mind had an obvious answer, but to make absolutely sure, I asked Andrew, "Did she say ‘yes’?"

Andrew slowly nodded his head, saying, "Yeah." He pulled another cigarette out and lit it before he realized he already had one burning in the ashtray. He put the new one out, grinding it up in the process, as though he could take out all his frustration on the tobacco. "Shit," he announced as his face rubbed up and down against his hands.

"When?" I asked him.

"When what?"

"When did he ask her?"

"Last weekend. It wasn’t until today that she decided to tell him ‘Yes’."

We both sat there silently, I am not sure how long. It was enough time for Andrew to get to lighting another cigarette.

"Do you mind if I ask you something?" I asked him.

"Go ahead," he told me.

"What’s the deal with you two anyway?" At some point I had to ask it and this seemed like as good a time as any to find out.

"Lori and I? It’s a long story," he answered.

I figured he’d say that. "I’ve got no place to be," I told him.

Andrew took in a slow, deep breath, then slowly let it out before picking up his cigarette and taking a drag. He was quiet for a while, long enough to think that he didn’t feel like telling me. However, just before I figured I would try to open another topic of conversation, he asked me, "Have you ever been to Yellowstone?"

"Yeah, I took a trip out there with my family a while back."

"How old were you?"

"Jeez, um, probably about twenty-two. We went just after I graduated from college."

"So it wasn’t really that long ago."

"No, not really."

"It’s a beautiful place isn’t it?" He asked me as he stood up and walked over to hunt through some tapes next to the stereo.

"Absolutely."

He found the tape he was looking for and popped it into the stereo. "Well, no stories for now, just listen to some music," he told me. He hit ‘Play’.

Yellowstone is a remarkable place. Majestic waterfalls, petrified trees, geysers, hot springs, rivers, forests, plains. It’s a remarkable ecopod unto itself and a stunning example of just what nature can do when it feels like showing off.

Bison wander their way throughout, oblivious to the insignificant asphalt ribbons that wend through their habitat. Bears patrol their territory, bighorn sheep climb the craggy abutments, moose roam the forests and elk graze the glens. There is never any doubt as to the fact the animals are home and it is the humans who are just visiting.

Great swaths of land are laid barren from sulfurous earth created by the geysers, mudpots, fumaroles and hot springs. Geothermal basins and seemingly random, defoliated, steaming hillsides overwhelm the senses with an angry beauty. Between these geothermal anomalies that excite and astound all the senses, one passes scenes of sublime beauty that simply make a person wonder, "Can anything more idyllic exist?" and the answer is always "Yes, it’s about a third of a mile down the road."

From the striated, multihued Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, to the expansive plains sweeping in vast green brushstrokes between horizons, to the whitened faces of terraced springs, it is, in many ways, as wild as the day man first saw it. The first national park anywhere in the world, it cannot help but astound the eyes, excite the heart and inspire the mind such that one could easily find oneself exclaiming, "Praise God for allowing mankind to gaze upon wonders such as these."

Those sentiments and more were pouring out of the speakers in Andrew’s apartment. Majestic and sweeping, yet with simplicity in its details, I pictured that place once again as clearly as if I was there. It was so vivid that, despite my lack of familiarity with classical composition, I could picture, exactly, some of the places that were being illustrated by the music. At some points, I was actually a little teary eyed at the memories recalled through an aural experience that had vivid colors of its own.

#

"So what did you think?" Andrew asked me a few moments after the closing notes drifted off.

"Wow," was all I could come up with.

"Are you familiar with the composer?" he asked me.

"No, not at all."

"I’m not surprised, it’s a pretty obscure piece."

"I can’t understand why."

"For the same reason you probably enjoyed it. Though it’s a sweeping, many-layered piece, none of the individual instrumentalists have to work very hard. Very simple, easily understandable bits that join into a creation that’s complex but easily accessible to the common listener. One can listen to it and enjoy it without knowing anything about it."

"Rather like our Lori," I noted, getting the point.

"Yes, exactly like our Lori."

"Yeah," I agreed dejectedly.

"So I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising that she composed it."

After a pause, I asked, "Huh?" Apparently I hadn’t gotten the point at all.

Andrew explained. "Something like seven years ago, I was fresh out of my undergraduate work at Colorado University. I’d just finished my BA in music and had entered school at Indiana University for my Master’s. It seems like a distant, unreal memory now, but I was young, optimistic and ready to take on the world. Don’t look at me like that Tom, even a curmudgeon like myself had salad days.

"As I was saying," he continued, "I was enthusiastic and I thoroughly loved what I was doing. I would go to class, I would practice my instruments -- the violin and piano mostly, as well as cello -- every day and I would write papers and small compositions for my classes. The assignments weren’t much fun sometimes, as I’m sure you can understand, but I knew they were expanding my musical vocabulary and skill. And I was fully aware that I needed to more of both if I wanted to play in orchestras and properly interpret music. So I was happy to complete whatever work I was given.

"I knew some of my compositions of that time were decent for a graduate student. Better, I knew, than what most any of the other people in my classes were capable of turning out. However, I never really loved composition. Playing music was always my first addiction.

"Back to the point, I was a first year Master’s student at Indiana. The first semester had just wrapped up and the university was putting together a series of performances by the second year master’s students. Well, despite the fact I nearly talked myself out of it, I walked across a miserably frigid campus to see the four pieces scheduled.

"The first was nothing special, a wind ensemble piece. It was good, but I wasn’t particularly thrilled with it. The second was a concerto for violin and piano. Once again, good, but I was fidgeting in my chair and thinking to myself, ‘I should just go home and get some sleep.’ I was very tired, you see, I’d been out the night before with a few friends, celebrating the end of finals. Plus, I had to catch an early flight home the next day, so the idea of staying up later than necessary was not that attractive.

"Well, I saw a cello concerto next on the program, so I figured, ‘What the hell’ and decided to stay for one more.

"Some days I wonder what would have happened to me if I’d left that hall. Or if I’d never gone there in the first place. Maybe I’d be a lot happier than I am today. But knowing what I know now and knowing the events that followed, I’d still go.

"I was in the back of the auditorium, so I could just make out the woman walking across the front of the hall to the conductor’s podium. She calmly opened her music, tapped her baton and magic thrilled through that auditorium.

"I’ve never heard such a beautiful cello piece before or since. It was a plaintive melody named ‘A Winter’s Tale’ that made the hairs on my neck rise. It was tender and evocative, recalling pleasant winter days and also winter nights like the one I had to endure to get to the concert. It was so brilliant that…" he trailed off and lit a cigarette, an unspoken thought hanging amidst the smoke in the air.

"Anyway, I sat through the next piece, some sonata or another and I didn’t hear a thing. I was looking through the crowd for where she was sitting, trying to find the woman who could elicit such transcendent sounds from mere string and wood. I frequently looked at the program to ensure I had the name right. Lorelei Anne Pressman.

"After the last performance, I walked down to try to catch up with her, but she was gone more quickly than I could manage through the crowd. I did catch a glance of her as she exited and I raced as quickly as I could to try to get to her. Unfortunately, that isn’t easy on snow covered sidewalks when you are wearing wingtips so I must have been quite a sight as I stumbled, slipped and fell in my attempt to catch up to her. She kept walking, unaware of my bumbling about behind her, until she entered a bar near campus which I, soon thereafter, entered in a state of significant disarray. As I walked in, I saw the back of her head at the bar, ordering a drink and I took the opportunity to go back to the bathroom and clean myself up a bit. Not easy in the bathroom of any campus bar, as I’m sure you’re aware, but I did the best I could. Back to the point, I exited the bathroom to find this Lorelei Pressman and the woman I found rather stunned me. She was in her usual situation at any bar, that of having a group of about six guys trying to hit on her, and I was standing back from them, quite shocked at just how attractive she was up close. She was holding court quite comfortably amongst them as I tried to weasel my way through to talk to her. The other fellows weren’t happy about my attempts, but I needed to at least try to catch her attention.

"Eventually, she looked up at me and asked, ‘Do you need something?’

"I saw those eyes of hers looking at mine and I heard her voice addressing me and I could barely stammer out, ‘I just wanted to know if I could get a copy of that concerto of yours.’

"She had a calm surprise about her as a smile crossed her lips. She asked, ‘Did you enjoy it?’

"’It was brilliant.’

"She asked me, ‘Are you a cellist?’

"’I am now.’"

Andrew took a long drag off his cigarette and closed his eyes as he exhaled. Then, with a deep, clean breath, he gathered himself up once more and continued.

"We started conversing, which led the other guys there to mill around muttering before sulking off to other corners of the bar in search of women who didn’t write concertos. I was amazed at how easily conversation went. It was like two old friends who’d just met. We chatted at the bar until closing time and I walked her home. And that was it.

"I walked home absolutely oblivious to the world. I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night. I couldn’t even sleep the next day until I’d flown to Denver, which is where I’m originally from by the way, and told my family about this girl I’d met. I was very excited. Meeting someone like Lori is an experience any man would be lucky to have in his lifetime.

"I returned to school after the New Year and immediately called her. I stopped by her apartment that same afternoon to pick up a copy of ‘A Winter’s Tale’ and somehow we ended up spending the rest of the evening talking. Yes Tom, just talking, nothing else. Once again, it was some amazingly easy conversation as we discussed all manner of things, starting with music and eventually onto just who we were, where we’d come from and how we ended up at Indiana University. I think I ended up leaving there in the wee hours of the morning, though it had seemed to me that no time had passed at all. Such it is when you’re chatting with a very interesting, pretty woman.

"It all seems hazy now; I can’t really point to a time when we started dating. We’d frequently spend a day together, listening to music, talking, whatever. She’d help me interpret some of the music I was playing, I’d assist her by playing out parts of her new stuff. Occasionally, I’d just act as a scribe, copying out ideas as they popped into her head. Other times I’d assist her by giving her variations on a theme. Anyway, just so you know, we really enjoyed being around each other. It was impossible for me not to fall in love with her."

Andrew rubbed his hands together after he put his cigarette out. It was obviously uncomfortable for him to gaze at old scars.

"After spring semester, which she capped with a performance of a magnificent chamber orchestra piece, we headed to Yellowstone. She told me she was doing research for her thesis and I was more than happy to join her.

"We camped out there for a week. Yes, in a tent, Tom. I guess it is rather out of character for such an obvious urbanite as myself, and yes, I slept next to her every night in that tent. And I don’t think I need to tell you what an experience it is to wake up to seeing her. Even if she isn’t sitting on your chest."

I smiled. Obviously, Lori had told him what she did to rouse me when Dan was in town.

He smirked knowingly for a bit before he started again, "Yeah, well, we returned to Bloomington and we both spent the summer there. Lori began putting together the Yellowstone symphony, I played whatever bits I could for her. I have to say, I was disappointed when I played the parts she gave me. Such seemingly inane simplicity, it was embarrassingly easy to run through the notes. I never really understood it at the time, but she just kept telling me, ‘Trust me, that’s exactly how I want it.’ All I could do was shrug and keep playing. At the end of that summer, we moved in together.

"Fall semester, Lori finished an oboe sonata, a cantata based upon some works by Emerson and two pieces for solo instrument, as well as her continual work on ‘Yellowstone’. She never seemed to tire; she’d sometimes come to bed after I’d fall asleep, and I’d wake up the next morning to see her at her desk writing more.

"Eventually, spring semester rolled around and about fifteen of us went in to record her thesis. Much of what I did was on piano, but I played some string parts alongside six other people. We had one person playing harp, six on brass, three percussionists and a few woodwinds, though Lori played many of those parts, as well as the French horns.

"She played all the woodwinds and the horn quite beautifully, I should add. Especially the flute, that was always the instrument she was most comfortable with.

"Back to the original story, I can’t tell you how many hours I spent in that damnable studio. Playing, replaying, this is a new part, listen to this bit again. ‘Okay, here’s what we need,’ was her catchphrase for that semester. At one point, I was in that studio for at least seven hours every day for almost two weeks and I wasn’t there nearly as much as she was. Other instrumentalists would come in at various times and play whatever was on their plate that day. Over and over again, she would run through it with everybody. ‘That bit was wrong,’ ‘Let’s run through it again,’ ‘You’re off the timing, start over.’ Everybody was sick to death of that blasted room except Lori. She was in charge, running the show and she knew exactly what she wanted out of everybody. And I assure you that being the focus of her scrutiny was not pleasant.

"As spring was winding down, Lori added the last of the woodwinds and she finished dubbing everything together. After she was satisfied with it, she rounded up everybody who’d performed and we all sat down in the studio to hear it.

"As he heard it for the first time, everyone sat in that room slack-jawed. We couldn’t move. We let that music spill over us like a rushing torrent that cleared out all our doubts, frustrations and incomprehension at what she was doing, because we all knew we were a part of something we’d never even imagined, much less heard. Simple, elegant, with layer upon layer of such deftly interwoven counterpoint that we half expected Haydn himself to walk into the room and shout, ‘Bravo!’ She handed us each a tape of the final product, which everybody was too stunned to properly stammer out thanks for, me included, and we all left the studio in utter disbelief."

He paused to pour himself another drink before he continued. "I was anxious to finally hear a full symphony play the piece, but I could tell Lori was stressing as rehearsals got going. She wouldn’t talk to me sometimes, she would just try to smile and tell me, ‘Everything’s fine.’ Obviously, things weren’t fine, but I allowed her optimism to make me believe they would be. I figured music that brilliant couldn’t be played badly. I absolutely believed in her and I thought nothing bad could ever happen to her; she was too good for that. And it’s true, she was too good for that. She still is.

"The night of the performance rolled around and Lori was nervous. She tried to appear calm, but I could see she was ill at ease. I knew things were going badly, but I couldn’t let myself see what the problem was. I chalked it up to pre-performance jitters, what with the fact it was her thesis.

"I sat down in the auditorium and calmly awaited Lori’s performance. She went second that night. I didn’t particularly listen to the music of the first symphony because I knew the greatest piece of the evening was yet to come.

"As the music started, I recognized those beautiful tones I’d heard before, but it wasn’t too far into the piece that I started noticing trouble. The first strings were having problems when they had divided into the first and third strings. The problems were compounded by the second strings’ obvious confusion when they had divided into the second and fourth strings. The woodwinds were having some problems of their own and they began falling off the beat. It was starting to sound rough. I was hoping the section where the tympanis take over would provide some guidance, but when the tympanis just missed the beat, the entire structure collapsed."

Andrew slammed down another shot before lighting a cigarette. "Lori held herself up for the duration, always holding her tempo and trying to guide the orchestra, but it was no use. There were too many holes to plug. There were people up there who were off the beat, others were off an entire measure and two members of the all-important woodwinds simply sat there looking confused.

"I don’t know how Lori managed to keep herself composed through that debacle; my stomach was knotted up so badly I was afraid I would throw up. After it was over, I looked for some of the people in the orchestra who had worked with Lori in the studio. They were crushed, like they had personally failed her. Lori stood there uncomfortably for a moment before she closed her score and walked backstage.

"I went outside, but I didn’t see her. I walked all around the building just to be sure. She wasn’t there. I wandered back inside and sat down to try to think.

"It was rather like someone you knew had died. You just can’t believe it could be the case. You run it through your mind over and over, but it just fails to sink in. ‘It couldn’t have happened like that. It just couldn’t.’ But it doesn’t change the past, no matter how many times you repeat it to yourself.

"After the third symphony ended, I waited outside the doors for her. The entire audience had trickled out, still no Lori. The faculty and musicians had trickled out, still no Lori. I tried calling our apartment, but nobody answered. I kept glancing in the doors to see if she was coming, but I didn’t see her. All I could do was sit down on a bench to try to think of someplace else to look. That’s when I heard her voice behind me asking ‘Is everybody gone?’

"I stood up and turned around to look at her. She was remarkably calm, not a trace of worry about her, despite the fact her music had recently been vivisected mercilessly.

"I just told her, ‘Yes.’

"She looked into my eyes for a second before she put her arms around my waist, sank her head into my chest and started crying."