The third week of my senior year at Western, I got up thinking "it feels like fall." The air smelled different somehow. I cracked a few eggs into a pan and turned on the coffee pot. The phone rang halfway through breakfast, and I didn't know whether or not to answer it. I picked it up on the fifth ring.
"Happy first day of fall"
"I hope I didn't wake you." It was Bev Arnold, my faculty advisor. She and I had been on less than good terms ever since I had changed my major from Anthropology to Music the second quarter of my junior year. It was a perfectly natural decision for me. After all, it was the musical aspects of Human society that attracted me to Anthro in the first place. Bev's immediate reaction was "It just isn't done." We hadn't gotten any further than that. I changed my major and Bev and I stopped talking. Her call was a complete surprise.
"No. no - I was up. I was just lounging around. Had the stereo up, didn't hear the phone." I didn't try to sound convincing. Bev was used to my lies.
"Oh good. Listen. Nick; there's a young woman here in my office who's visiting the campus. She's interested in music. and I thought maybe you could give her an overview of the department."
I imagined a pretty 17 year old high-school senior on the tour of Northwest colleges. Aspiring pianist or violinist or singer maybe. They came in droves this time of year. and it was easy to pick up two or three with the romantic notion of "losing it" with a college man. I wondered if Bev knew she was setting me up. "Sure," I said. "Could you send her over in about an hour?" Bev covered the phone with her hand while she conferred with the girl. Then "Yes, Nick. That would be fine. By the way, her name is Francine."
Giving a name to my fantasy heightened my expectations. "Francine" was not the sort of name you see on financial aid forms. No, this girl had rich folks. I decided. And her teeth were straightened. and she visited a health spa, and she had a horse. I imagined her losing her rich girl's composure when I caressed her arms. I imagined her taut. firm belly and soft, round breasts trembling beneath my mouth. I imagined the pink, untasted lips of her cunt pouting as I tongued her thighs and mons. I imagined her quick, girlish gasps and "oh yes". trying to sound mature and experienced. I wondered if she'd try to fake orgasm the way rich girls always do. All the while I was carefully arranging the apartment ("gosh. you have your own place and everything. That's so neat!"), trying for a happy medium between trashed and compulsive. I threw out the beer bottles and put my bong out on a shelf where it would catch the eye without being too conspicuous. Like I smoke pot sometimes to relax, but I wasn't a "head". Then I took a shower and put on water for tea. Just enough time for my hair to dry naturally. Perfect. Then I just sat and waited for the inevitable. This, I thought, is what the college experience is all about.
The person who came to the door was not who I was expecting. She was about thirty, to start with, and the way she was dressed, I could tell she was a feminist. Not my idea of good female company. The killer was that she was fat. Not one of those disgusting fat ladies that lurch around and grin all the time. I had to give her that. She carried it wel1.
I showed her into the living room. poured her a cup of tea, and sat down opposite her on the couch. "So what brings you to Western? You don't look like a typical music major."
"Well, I'm not. I'm a lawyer, actually. But I've always loved the piano, and I thought - well, I'm really starting to look at my life. and it's really missing something. Being a lawyer in L.A really doesn't leave any openings for soul work. . . "
"What part of L.A.?"
"Pasadena."
"I'm from West L.A. originally. Brentwood?"
"Don't know it. "
"Oh well. . . . So what brings a girl lawyer from Pasadena to a little town like Bellingham? That's a pretty big life change."
She raised her eyebrows. "Well, first of all, I object to being called a girl. I'm 29. I'm sorry to jump on you. It's a pet peeve"
I wriggled a little uncomfortably. "To be honest, I really don't understand all that feminist stuff, but if it bothers you. . . "
She laughed, "You're pretty young. I don't expect you to be perfect".
"29's pretty young too," I said. "I mean, you're only eight years older than I am." She glanced at my belly, and I realized that the shirt I was wearing was missing a button about halfway down.
"You see, being 29 mean's I've got my 30th birthday to look forward to, and I took a good look at my life and saw that I wasn't really going anywhere. I had a good job, but it wasn't doing anything for me. And I've never had a chance to learn piano like I've always wanted to."
"But why Bellingham?"
"Well, that was sort of at random. I sort of knew I wanted to move to the Northwest, but I didn't know where. Then my friend Gabriel told me he was moving here, so I figured I'd check it out. See, I don't know anyone up here -- that's not true - I've got relatives in Tacoma, but nobody I really relate to. . ."
"- and besides. you don't want to move to Tacoma. In Seattle, all the nasty jokes are about Tacoma. What do you call a beautiful girl. . .what do you call a beautiful woman in Tacoma?"
"Let me guess - a foreigner?"
"Well, 'a tourist' is how I heard it."
There was an awkward silence. I got the impression she didn't appreciate the joke.
"How did you get connected to Bev? She's not the person you'd usually get sent to if you were asking about music."
"Well. I told Gabriel that I was coming up here. and he gave me Bev's name as someone to call when I got to town. She said you could tell me something about the music department."
I smiled. "Yeah. it really surprised me to hear from her. She's supposed to be my advisor, but we've had some problems lately. . ."
"She told me. She really admires you. Giving up a major in Anthropology and taking up music. I guess you had to really cram in the credits to make the prerequisites. . .The way Bev talked about, you. I got the impression you really loved music. . ."
That really floored me. Here I was, thinking Bev couldn't stand me - thinking she saw me just as a hard headed kid bucking the system. To think she actually admired me for it. . .that really stopped me. I couldn't talk for a minute or two. and when I did it was with more respect for both Francine and Bev than I had felt before. I really did love music - probably the one thing I had ever really loved in my life - and for the first time I really expressed my feelings about it. Not because I had suddenly undergone some great change - I was the same person I had been when Francine walked in the door. It was because for the first time someone really wanted to know how I felt. Francine wasn't asking me how I felt my major was preparing me for a career, or what I planned to do with my education. She really wanted to know about the deeper things - the things that would have made me follow music without the possibility of a degree, or a career. The things that would make me follow music into poverty. The reasons I would rather die than give up music.
I even played her some of my original compositions •- things I usually don't play for people because they invariably ask me what class I wrote that, for and what grade I got.
It was the one thing that we held in common. In all other respects, Francine and I were opposites. We discovered, in the three hours we sat there, that we could count on disagreeing on every subject we raised except one. And that was the feeling of sacredness we both felt in music. For Francine it was the piano. For me, the guitar. But for both of us it was the same.
Everyone I had met since I began college was there for the same reason - to get a degree. They didn't care what they studied, or even whether they learned anything at all. As long as they got that piece of paper with the initials on it. I never met anyone before who really loved what they were studying. I was there because I saw Western as an opportunity to get the greatest exposure to music I could. I didn't care about grades, or degrees, or job interviews, or 10-year reunions like my classmates. So I didn't bother to get close to anyone, to talk about why I was really there. I mean, even my advisor was pushing me to get a degree in the least amount of time with the least amount of effort. "But you can't change your major. Nick. It just isn't done." Push them through the grinder.
It was such a relief to talk with Francine. When she looked at her watch three hours later and said she had to go, it felt like ten minutes had gone by. I was sad to see her leave. I had forgotten that she was fat, that she was part of a different generation, that she was a lawyer. All I knew was she loved music, and that made her different, made her special. I actually hugged her goodbye.
When she was gone. I felt a little lonely. Here I had finally found someone who shared my deepest feelings, and I would probably never see her again. I sat with my guitar and started writing her a song. I worked on it all afternoon.
When the phone rang at 6:00. I was still engrossed in the music. As usual, I almost didn't answer it. As usual, I answered the phone out of guilt, knowing someone was trying to reach me. As usual, I couldn't imagine who it could be. As I've said, I didn't really have any friends.
It was Francine, of course. I didn't know what to say. She was calling to invite me out to see the Seattle opera. We had talked a lot about the opera that morning, how I would love to go but couldn't afford it and had no way to get to Seattle and back. I wasted no time saying yes. She must have been counting on that - she already had tickets.
She picked me up a half-hour later and we raced off down I-5. Follow the yellow brick road. For the first time I understood why they called Seattle the emerald city. We made Seattle in forty-five minutes. That was another thing to like about Francine - she knew how to handle a car and didn't worry about the law when she wasn't at work. "The way I look at it," she said, "you gotta separate business from pleasure."
If you're not a connoisseur, you won't understand the beauty of spending the drive back to Bellingham arguing about the superiority of the Coloratura or the Mezzo-soprano. I was crying tears of joy at even having someone to argue with. Even if her interpretation of Pagliacci's use of tonality was naive. We continued the discussion at my apartment over wine (God bless the 24-hour market!). and afterwards I read her some of my short stories.,
When we made love. it wasn't like the one night stands I was used to. For one thing, neither of us came. But we did giggle a lot, and somehow it was okay. It wasn't great sex, but it wasn't anonymous either. We were two people sharing something. I think the reason I didn't come was I felt guilty at not making her come. I couldn't just say "that's the breaks," and send her home like those teenage girls I was used to.
The next morning, she had to get up early to catch the flight back to L.A. We made love one more time. and I made her breakfast. She insisted on doing the dishes. She gave me her address and promised to write back. She also said she'd call me when she moved here. She already had her eyes on a house near Fairhaven.
We kissed goodbye and she walked off. She waved once when she got into her car. Then she was gone. I sat on the couch and went over the last 24 hours in my head. I felt like I had lived a week in the space of a day. It took me a couple of hours to re-orient myself. By that time, I was late for my theory class. so I grabbed my books and ran out the door.
A few feet past my apartment there was a dead bird on the sidewalk. A robin. The first one I had seen this year. They come down from Alaska to winter in Western Washington. I'm kind of superstitious, and I don't like to run across dead birds. I kicked it off of the sidewalk nervously and trotted off towards class.
I forgot about that dead bird until after class. Someone came up to me and asked me if I heard about the plane crash. I hadn't. It had been taking off from Sea-Tac, they told me, and all of a sudden it went into a nosedive. They didn't know what happened yet. Nobody on the plane survived the crash. They were calling it the worst accident in aviation history. I didn't ask where the plane was headed. I didn't need to. I searched the bushes around my apartment until I found that dead bird, and I took it to a wooded grove I knew. I chose a spot where two paths crossed, and I buried the bird there.
I went back to my apartment and just sat there. I didn't feel anything except numb. It was like a dream. I just sat there waiting to wake up, but I didn't. I sort of wandered through my classes that day and the next, unable to cry, feeling nothing. I just plodded through the work like an automaton. I thought "this must be what it's like to work for grades."
That evening, I was coming home through the grove, and there was this mushroom growing where those two paths crossed. It came up out of the fresh earth where I buried the bird. I pulled it up. It was big and orange and looked sort of like a chanterelle but not quite. I took it home and looked it up in my books. Clitocybe Auriantica, orange clitocybe. The books didn't seem to be able to come to any consensus about its edibility. One book said it was choice eating. Another said it caused mild indigestion. One classed it as deadly poison.
The next day, I took my chances and cooked it for breakfast. It was absolutely delicious. I sat for a while after eating it and just savored the taste in my mouth. That's when I saw the ring. It was sitting on my windowsill above the kitchen sink. Francine must have taken it off and left it there when she washed the dishes. For a few seconds I didn't move. I couldn't take my eyes off it. Then I got up and took it in my hand.
Someone knocked on the door twice in the next couple of hours, but I didn't want anyone to see the way I was crying so I didn't answer it. It was mid-afternoon by the time I came out of the bedroom. My eyes were still red but I felt better.
Whoever it was that was knocking before came back. She looked about eighteen. Blonde. Beautiful. I recognized the type immediately.
"Hi, you must be Nick. Dave Ralcor told me you could show me around. . . ?" Her voice was hopeful.
I didn't answer right away. My voice just wouldn't come. When it did5 it was weak, and it didn't sound like me. "No. I'm sorry." I said. "He doesn't live here anymore."