Chapter 24

Lori was there when we saw Andrew off at the airport. She seemed genuinely happy that Andrew had visited and was positively giddy the entire ride home. However, the next Saturday, I received a package in the mail. The return address was Berlin, so it was not hard to figure it was from Andrew.

I opened the package, which contained a giftwrapped box and an envelope with my name on it. I opened the envelope and read the following:

#

Thank you,

Andrew"

#

I looked at the present but I could not tell anything about it. It was a long rectangular shape that told me essentially nothing about the contents. I walked upstairs with it under my arm, trying to figure out just what sort of present Andrew would offer Lori that he did not want to give her himself. My first thought was that it might be a bomb, but I quickly figured that was overly paranoid.

"Why hello Tom, what brings you up here?"

"Well," I told her with what I was sure was obvious confusion, "I just got this package from Andrew and he told me to give you this. For some reason, he wanted you to receive it after he was gone."

I handed her the box and she received it with a look of surprised confusion before she happily offered me to come in and sit down, which I did. "I couldn’t tell you the last time Andy gave me a present," she informed me happily.

She sat down with the box on the coffee table in front of her. She opened the wrapping paper quickly, but she paused before opening the box. She appeared nervous as she pulled off the tape. As she peered inside, I could see her eyes widen. She continued to stare at the contents with a stunned look on her face. Without taking her gaze out of the box, she asked, "He told you, didn’t he?"

It took me a moment to realize she was expecting an answer before I returned, "Told me what?"

"Andrew. He told you." She fixed her gaze at me with a disappointed, unbelieving look. "He told you about us. Everything."

"Yeah," I told her guiltily. "Yeah, he did."

"Indiana?"

"Yes."

"Moving to New York?"

"Yes."

"Vienna?"

I nodded.

She returned her gaze to the box as she nodded her head. "I wish he wouldn’t have done that," she stated sadly.

"I’m sorry," was all I could come up with.

"Well, I suppose now is as good a time as any to hear it, tell me what he said," she commanded accusingly, though I was not certain whom she was accusing, Andrew or me.

"You really want to hear all this?" I asked her nervously. I really did not want to be the one to recount the story to her.

"I think it’s time to hear Andrew’s version of those events, yes."

I related it as best I could. She grew rather upset at hearing the story, especially the debacle at the live premiere of Yellowstone, and I asked her a few times if she would like me to stop. However, she always gathered herself and told me to continue. Though some of the details were a bit hazy for me, I managed to put together a decent synopsis. I finished as I told her about my helping Andrew to learn about her attempts to play the cello.

She sat there silently for what seemed an eternity after I finished. Eventually, I asked, "Should I go?"

She sat there quietly for a bit before finally shaking her head. "No… No, I just can’t believe it. I never knew just how much you knew. When did he tell you?"

"Just after you and Andrew started fighting."

"And you never let on once…"

"Andrew didn’t want you to know that I knew."

Lori nodded thoughtfully to herself before asking, "Would you like to go for a walk?"

#

The sun had long since set by this time and a calm, cold night met us as we exited the building. Snow was falling in thick, heavy flakes that covered the roads and sidewalks. The blanket of winter served to muffle sound in such a way that the city became serenely pastoral. Few pedestrians were out as cars glided by whisperingly. The bustle of New York had been washed away by a gentle, white shower that heightened senses normally dulled by the incessant din of a city always on the move.

"I love nights like this," Lori began.

"It’s a regular winter wonderland," I quipped.

"Andy and I used to take long walks on nights like this. When the quietness was something tangible. We wouldn’t speak, we’d just kind of…walk. It was like the world was allowing us to just enjoy each other’s company for a while."

"That sounds nice," I commented.

"You know, the bed never really worked right," Lori blurted out of nowhere.

I tried to digest that statement for a few seconds before I gave up trying to make sense of it. "How do you mean?" I asked, hoping she knew what she was talking about.

"I mean before the Vienna situation. Every time I would sleep in the cargo netting part, the bed would fall in and Andy and I would wake up and he’d reassemble it.

"Andy and I would fight sometimes," she explained, "and, since we were both upset, I would sleep in the top bunk. Well, of course, we had to reassemble the thing and, while we were doing that, we’d usually work out our differences and I’d climb into the king bed with him. And everything would be fine again.

"The night after our breakup, I slept in the top bunk again, figuring I should get used to it. Of course, it fell again and this time I was the one who had to put the bed together. It occurred to me, while I was tying it off, that there was a better way to do the ropes on the top. So, I redid the knotting and it’s stayed up ever since." We walked quietly for a couple steps before she informed me, "I’m not sure why that suddenly seems important…"

After a short silence, Lori began speaking again with, "One of the things about Andy’s story that really sticks out is the part about my moving out here. I guess I should tell you the real story behind that.

"We never talked about it," she went on, "Not once did I ever mention it to Andrew while I was thinking of doing it. I figured he didn’t need to worry about it until I’d made a decision. I guess I didn’t want to face his reaction when I told him I was thinking of leaving. The first he heard about it was when he came home one day and found me packing. He asked me what was going on and I told him, ‘I’m going to New York.’

"I broke his heart when I said that. He tried to stay even keeled, but I could see I’d hurt him badly. I really did want to stay with him, but I knew I couldn’t. I cared a great deal about Andy, but neither of us was happy when I was being haunted by the failure of that symphony. He even helped me pack -- I still can’t believe he did that, you know –- and while we were doing that, I tried to explain things to him, but he’d only tell me, ‘If that’s what you think you have to do…’ and he’d return to his silence. I rented a truck the next day, he helped me fill it and he watched me drive off.

"I didn’t hear from him for probably two months until I sent him a letter asking if he would come visit. He agreed and drove to New York the next weekend.

"From the moment I saw him again, everything was as good as it had been before. At the end of his visit, I asked him if he would come out after he graduated. He told me, ‘Absolutely.’

"It was very good after that. I don’t know if Andrew knows how much I enjoyed that time we had; but if he doesn’t now, I suppose he never will. It wasn’t perfect, but it always worked. Like a… I don’t know what it was like, it was just good. I wish I could tell you why."

She let that thought hang before she continued. "That’s why it’s so strange to me why I couldn’t do the same thing for him when he asked me to move to Vienna. I don’t know why I didn’t go for it. I tried and I tried to figure out why I didn’t go, but the answer was just never there. All I remember is that I heard him ask if I would move out there. And I just couldn’t do it. I don’t know why. I wish I did know, it might allow everything to make more sense. Anyway, I made up some excuse about how I wanted to have a normal life and make some money and live in a nicer place and all that. After I hung up the phone, I figured that I’d said it, I had to do it. That was that, I was done with music and I was done with Andy.

"I don’t know, maybe it’s better this way, maybe it isn’t, I just don’t know anymore. It’s just so hard to tell what’s for the best these days, Tom." She hung her head dejectedly as she announced, "That’s the thing about it, Tom, Andy’s gone. And that’s the way it is in life, everybody leaves you sometime."

"Lori," I told her in all honesty, "I can’t imagine anybody ever leaving you."

She looked sadly back at me as we walked. I remember that moment distinctly. Because I saw a confused, scared little girl, lost in the world she had created. I can vividly recall the way starlike crystals of snow nestled in her hair. The way her eyes looked back at me uneasily, like they could not figure out what to make of everything they were seeing. The way a smile tried to cross her lips, but just could not manage to break through. It is odd that my most enduring image of Lori is the one from just before she broke my heart. "You’re going to leave too, Tom. Your contract is up in a few months." She looked back down at the sidewalk in front of her. "Then you’re gone, too."

That is when it hit me; she was never going to be interested in me outside friendship: she had always and would always expect me to leave. There was no escaping it no matter how hard I tried or reassured myself or hung around fruitlessly waiting. I suppose that is when I finally made the decision to go for the assignment in San Diego.

With those thoughts swirling around my head, I managed to ask, "So what now?"

"How do you mean?" she returned.

"I mean, what are you going to do next?"

"Next?" she echoed as she pulled herself together. "Next, I’m going keep on going. Andy told me he’d keep paying his portion of the rent until our lease ends, so I don’t have to move for a little while. All I can do is pick myself up and get on with living my life. Andy’s just another face in the past, I guess."

"Is that what you want, though?"

She looked back at me with another failing smile. Then she wrapped her arms around one of mine as she leaned her head against my shoulder. "Let’s just walk for a while, Tom. Let’s just walk."