Chapter 25

I suppose you are wondering what was in that package Andrew sent Lori. I rather wonder that myself sometimes, but I think I have a pretty good idea. Andrew was right, Lori played the flute beautifully.

Lori was obviously a very gifted musician to be able to pick up the flute so easily after several years off between practice sessions. I would often sit outside her door and listen to her play, usually for hours on end, as she went through piece after piece, completing one and immediately starting the next. She was every bit the tireless musical machine Andrew had described. I wondered why I never saw that in her before. It occurred to me that the reason was, "Because she didn’t want me to see it." I wondered if Ray knew.

With these thoughts running through my mind, I arrived back at my apartment one weekday afternoon, surprised to not hear a flute being played upstairs. I was even more surprised to see Lori sitting outside my door, smoking a cigarette. She looked up at me and told me, "Let’s have a drink."

#

I expected that we would be going to Weddleman’s, but instead we headed to a bar by the name of Luigi’s that I had only visited twice before. It was a large room below street level with a bar on one side, a pool table on the other and almost nobody in between. A few tables were set up in the room, but they sat empty. The two other patrons present were playing darts in the back, but they took little notice of us as we entered.

Lori had not spoken on the entire walk over and I felt it best to let her stay in her shell. She ordered a vodka martini but she did not drink it; she seemed content to smoke a cigarette and dawdle with the olives soaking in her glass.

As the silence grew tiresome I asked Lori, "Do you want to tell me what’s on your mind?"

She stared vacantly at her drink, then took a puff off her cigarette. "Ray and I set the wedding date," she explained.

"Congratulations," I told her evenly. It did not seem like a boisterous reply was correct.

"Thanks," she replied quietly.

"But…" I offered. There seemed to be a ‘but’.

"But… Something’s wrong."

"What’s wrong?"

"I don’t know."

"What don’t you know?"

"I mean that I should be ecstatic, shouldn’t I?"

"I think that’s the idea."

"I should be thrilled about our future together shouldn’t I?"

"Probably."

"Then why aren’t I?"

"I don’t know."

"I don’t know either. And it scares me, Tom."

"Why?"

"Because I’ve been trying to get him to commit to a date for months now. I’ve finally done it and now, for some reason, it feels empty. It doesn’t even feel relieving. It feels like something is missing."

"Is it something Ray did?"

"That’s the thing. Ray hasn’t changed a bit. He’s the same as he’s always been. Oh Tom, what’s wrong with me?"

"I can’t imagine that there’s anything wrong with you."

She smiled weakly at the compliment. "No," she answered, "Something’s wrong and I can’t figure out what it is."

"Have you talked to Andrew about it?"

A disgusted look crossed Lori’s face. "No, I haven’t. And I really don’t want to."

"Why?"

"Because I know what he’d say. He’d say that it’s because I shouldn’t marry Ray."

"I take it you don’t want to hear that."

"Why would I want to hear that, Tom?" she asked me upsettedly. She calmed down a bit as she told me, "No, I don’t want to hear that."

"Why not?"

"Because I made a plan and I’m going to stick to it. Obviously, I had reasons for making the decision to go ahead with this, why should I change now? I’ve changed plans before because things got tough. I’m not going to make that mistake twice."

It was not hard to figure out what that other plan was. "What makes you think the situation is the same as the one that made you decide to quit music?"

A nervously tentative look appeared on her face as she turned to me. "Please, not you too, Tom."

"Please not me, what?"

"Please, don’t start in on me about whether I should be doing this."

"What makes you think I’m going to do that?" I backpedaled.

She looked back to her drink as she took a sip. Her eyes traced their way up to the wall above the bar. Obviously, she wanted to feel better about the decision she made and wanted someone to give her unquestioning validation. The lack of support had left her withdrawn and sullen. I offered, "I’m sorry," because it was a phrase that had worked with every other unhappy woman that I have known.

She took a deep breath. "It’s okay," she told me calmly.

I was at a loss for conversation at that moment. Having nothing else to say, I asked, "How’s the flute playing going?"

This seemed to lighten her up a little bit. "Very good. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it."

"Good."

"I take it you’ve heard me play?"

"Yes."

"Since that’s out in the open, may I ask what you think of it?"

"I’m impressed. You certainly have a gift for the instrument."

"Thanks," she told me. "It’s gone more smoothly than I originally thought it would. But I’ve hit something of a sticking point."

I was fully aware of that: there was one piece of music she had been playing over and over again for the previous few days. But I decided to fake ignorance with, "Oh really? How’s that?"

"I think you know what I mean. You know I’ve been playing my flute. I’m sure you know I’ve been having a problem."

I guess I did not do a very good job of faking anything. "I know you seem to have hit a sticking point with one particular section of music, because that’s the one you’re always playing. And you’re always stopping at the same point and restarting. Everything seems fine with it to me, all the notes seem to be there, but for some reason you aren’t happy with it and I don’t know why."

"I don’t know why I’m not happy with it, either."

"Anything I can do?"

"Can you tell me what I’m doing wrong?"

"No," I answered flatly.

"Well, that’s what I need."

"Do you have any ideas?"

"Unfortunately, no. I just can’t seem to get it to sound right. I don’t know if I’m losing the tempo or using the wrong meter altogether or if I actually am missing a note somewhere. I even recorded myself once and listened to it that way, but it didn’t help. It’s been driving me crazy."

"Have you tried talking to Andrew? His ears are obviously better trained than mine."

"No, I’d… I’d hate to bother him. I’m sure he’s very busy with the orchestra and everything. And I don’t think he’d want to hear from some girl back in New York who needs a flute lesson."

"I think you know that you’re more than just ‘some girl’."

"You think so?" she asked hopefully.

"I’m positive. Besides, has he ever been less than honest with you?"

Lori smiled at the question. The answer was abundantly clear to both of us. "No, he certainly has not."

"Then if he doesn’t want to help you, I’m sure he’ll tell you that. No matter what, he’s still your friend isn’t he?"

"I hope so."

"Then call him. What have you got to lose?"

"Good point." She leaned over to give me a quick hug around the shoulders. "Thanks, Tom."

"I’m always happy to help."

I saw Lori the following Tuesday, when she came knocking on my door to give me another hug and cheerfully tell me, "I talked to Andy yesterday!"

"That’s great! How’d it go?"

"Oh wonderfully. He explained to me that I wasn’t having any problems aside from an interpretational difficulty. I just wasn’t thinking through that section of music fully. He told me to play the next few measures and it would make more sense. I did and everything fell into place. I backtracked, replayed the old section and it was perfect. Thanks again for the advice," she told me with another hug. I was beginning to hope she would have more trouble with the flute.

"Like I said, I’m always happy to help. So I take it you two are back on speaking terms now?"

"We were never really off of speaking terms, but everything is okay with us, yes."

"I’m glad to hear it."

"So anyway, what’s new with you?" she asked chipperly. She had walked into my apartment by this point and was sitting on my couch.

"Well, I accepted that job out in San Diego."

"Oh really? Does this mean you’re leaving me?"

"It looks that way."

"See, I was right," she told me, "I told you that you’d leave me."

"What can I say? You called me out."

"I can’t believe my friend is going all the way across the country, though."

"It seemed like it was time for a change of pace."

"It’s not going to be the same here without you."

"I’m not happy about leaving more friends in distant cities, either, but I’m sure we’ll both manage. Anyway, how’s Andrew doing?" I wanted to change the subject, since leaving was not something I really wanted to think about at the time.

"He’s doing good. He’s falling into the orchestra very well and his German has improved enough that he knows what the conductor is saying when he’s yelling at him."

"Is that good?"

"Actually, yes. If you don’t know what the conductor is screaming about, you can’t fix it. But, he’s been doing well enough that the conductor told him he was very glad that Andy was not good enough to play in New York."

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

"Yes, but conductors are like that," she informed me.

"It’s a good thing I don’t play an instrument then. It would be too difficult to deal with conductors."

"It’s really great for him, he sounds like he’s finally found his place in the world. It’s amazing the difference from the way he was in New York. He sounds like the old Andy."

"What was the old Andrew like?" I still could not bring myself to call him ‘Andy’.

"Optimistic. Like he was ready to take on the world. He had a sort of irrepressible happiness about him that rubbed off on everybody around him. I wish you could have gotten to know him then."

"I find that version of him pretty hard to imagine," I admitted.

"It’s not so hard when you’ve known him for a long time."

"Which I haven’t," I pointed out needlessly.

"Very true. But anyway, how’s your friend Dan doing?"

"You can ask him yourself two weeks from Friday."

Lori happily asked, "He’s coming to visit again?"

"That’s the rumor. He said he wanted to come out here again before he helped me move."

"Great! I’m looking forward to seeing him again."

"Well, I’m sure that he’ll be happy to see you, too." It’s strange how a lie can often be the complete truth. What I implied was it was probable, but not positive, that Dan would be happy to see her. In actuality I thought he was coming out to New York almost as much to see her as to see me.

#

"What, Lori isn’t here?" was Dan’s greeting to me at the airport.

Unfortunately, with Dan, it is not always easy to tell when he is asking a serious question, so I just responded, "Sorry, no."

"Crying shame."

"We’ll see her soon enough, don’t worry."

"Good, I approve. Tonight?"

"Tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow night!?" he whined like a spoiled three year old.

"Yes, I’m sorry, Lori is playing with Ray tonight."

"Damn. So what are they up to this evening?"

"I have no idea. Something with each other, that’s all I know."

"Well, what do they typically do together? Do they go out, do they stay in? Do they go to movies? Do they rent movies? And what kind of movies? Happy or sad? Funny or serious? Action or adventure? Travel or religious? Charro the actress or Charro with Elvis?" I suppose I should add that when Dan is free-associating, it is best to just wait until he is finished. Dan usually indicates he is finished by looking at you expectantly, as though you would somehow be able to respond to a long string of complete nonsense.

Upon him giving me that very look just described, I responded, "Um, I don’t know, I’ve never seen a movie with her."

"Oh well. Seriously, though, what do they do? I can’t figure out what their common interests would be."

"Like I said, I don’t know."

"Do they go out on dates?"

"I don’t know."

"Seriously?" he asked me, genuinely confused.

"Seriously. I don’t have any clue what it is that those two do when they’re alone together. Truth be told, it’d never occurred to me to ask."

"It would have thought she would at least indicate something."

"Not once."

"Not even her mentioning something that happened while she and Ray were out, say, shoplifting."

"Lori doesn’t seem to like to volunteer information. The only way I can get her to tell me anything about herself is to already know it."

"Seems like she would have said something, though."

"In case you hadn’t noticed, she has a tendency to keep conversation directed toward the other person. She can ask you enough questions that you never realize she hasn’t actually provided any information about herself."

"You know, I never noticed that she did that."

"It takes a while to figure out that she does it because she manages to keep the topic of conversation on everybody’s favorite topic: themselves."

Dan gave a laugh. "Ah yes, I forget just how true that is. I know I’m as guilty of that conceit as anybody else."

"Don’t worry, you’re not the only one."

"It sucks to be human, doesn’t it?" I asked rhetorically.

"Only when you realize that’s all you are."

"Very deep."

"Thanks."

"How long have you been keeping that one?"

"Actually, I just came up with it."

"Not bad for an ad-lib."

"I’ll inform all the latest philosophy publications. Anyway, what have we got planned for tonight?"