It was the guitar that made me fall in love with him. He'd been playing it on the day I moved in. (My mother had won me the apartment by chatting with Mr. Altschul in German.) I was sitting, exhausted, on top of a packing box and eating ice cream with my sweaty siblings, who had hauled in all of the heavy stuff. Suddenly, a melody wafted through the window, unmistakably played on a guitar and pretty certainly coming from the apartment above. Then a voice began singing, as though my own troubadour had come
to woo me at my window. I wondered vaguely if the singer was a professional.
“What's that?” asked Fritz, two years my junior, distracted for a moment from his double scoop cone, his fox-like face alert, his red mustache dripping.
“A guitar, brain,” answered Gerhard, two years my elder, still studying his ice cream sandwich's label, his dark brows furrowed above his handsome face.
“The song, I mean.” Fritz shoved what remained of his cone in his mouth and then, in an awesome feat, continued to speak: “The awhtist.”
“Gordon Lightfoot,” I ventured. He was playing “That's What You Get for Lovin’ Me.”
“It's acoustic,” Fritz sneered.
“That's right. We forgot you don't like instruments that can't be plugged in,” Gerhard quipped.
“Or musicians who play more than one chord progression over and over,” I added spitefully, referring to Fritz's garage band, the Grinning Bishops
,
who had once practiced in my parents’ garage but had mercifully moved their act to his friend Chuck's basement. Apparently things were different now, though, because Fritz actually made more money some weeks with the band than he did working as a manager at Barnes and Noble. In any case, our family tended to remember those appalling years, the discordant notes and loud feedback still echoing in our nightmares.
Some kids grow out of that nasty argumentative phase, but my brothers and I still argue—I think, sometimes, it's to express our closeness. We feel we have the right to be sarcastic because we're family. We don't strike each other or fling things, but we have potentially cruel tongues.
Still, it was my brothers I went upstairs and called now. They share an apartment, so they were able to yell at me on two extensions.
“Wait until Mom hears this,” Fritz threatened. “She's gonna have a nutty. She was crocheting some sort of little bag for your wedding.”
“Shut up, Fritz, that's a secret,” boomed Gerhard in my ear.
“Well, it doesn't matter now, does it? She dumped him.” The two of them began an argument of their own, and it comforted me briefly, until I heard Jack playing his guitar upstairs. He knew I could hear him; I'd confided that to him long ago. I could even hear lyrics when my window was open, which it was now. Jack was playing “Devil Woman.” Real subtle.
“We weren't even engaged,” I protested.
“It doesn't matter, Madman. He's the one she wants you to marry. Everyone does. He's not a total loser, like some we could name, so of course you had to break up with him.” Fritz, as usual, opted for criticism over compassion.
Gerhard was gentler, by a hair. “Really, Madman, we did like him. I have to wonder if the problem isn't just something you're manufacturing, maybe for a little drama?”
“Okay, I'm hanging up now!” I yelled just before I slammed down the receiver.
I rubbed at my eyes. There was no one who was going to be on my side here, except maybe good ol’ Gloria Steinem, and I didn't think she'd be returning my e-mails, or voice mails, or whatever kind of mails I might send her.
This was where Fate intervened. Jack had switched to something more melancholy; it sounded like some sort of sea chantey. I imagine he thought it would send me running up there in a diaphanous gown, seeking a night of passion in his bed. In his defense, I suppose it had happened before. I'm only human, and I do love the guitar. However, despite the sound of the lonely sailor above me, I remained on my couch, and I was back into Agatha Christie and
Mrs. McGillicuddy
when the phone rang. It was Fritz. He'd forgotten to tell me, in his anger, that Logan Lanford had disappeared. Naturally, Fritz was holding me personally responsible.
two
The following morning
I walked briskly out the door, appreciatively sniffing the autumn-scented air, my mind still on Logan Lanford. Logan and I had gone to high school together, and it was I who had recommended Logan for Fritz's band. Logan was a great musician, and I'd been concerned about him since he'd gotten fired from his public-relations job at the town hall a couple of months before. My mom worked part-time for the mayor, and I tried to pump her for information about Logan's termination, but she merely shrugged and said that Mayor Paul had his reasons. Logan had a wife and two kids to support, so I mentioned to Fritz that Logan played bass. Fritz needed a bass player, and it seemed like the obvious solution.
I was still thinking about this, and about Fritz's incoherent ramblings about Logan's disappearance, when I spied Jack tinkering under the hood of my car. I was tempted to yell something, but I decided instead to catch him in the act. Furtively, catlike, I moved toward him, trying to stay in the cool shadow of the building. He must have seen me out of the corner of an eye, because he let the hood slam shut, which brought Mr. Altschul to the window with surprising speed, considering the arthritis and the lack of knee cartilage. Our landlord lingered at his ground-level window, ostensibly as a noise hunter, but quite obviously as an eavesdropper.
He had to be standing on a chair.
Jack looked ready to hare off in the other direction, but I was quick.
“What are you doing under my hood?”
“Checking your oil.” He was a bold one. He wore a look of complete indifference.
“What gave you the—who do you think—this is just so unbelievably—”
“You never check it, Madeline. Just because you're mad at me doesn't mean I'm going to stop caring about your safety.”
“Good timing, Jack. You couldn't even wait a day before you displayed still another controlling behavior. I'm tempted to call the police. Really. You've committed a crime.”
That got his goat. “All right. Call the police. Tell them I checked your oil—which is fine, by the way—and gave you new wiper blades and filled your windshield reservoir. Tell them you're my recently ex girlfriend, and some old habits die hard!” Jack was the kind of guy who didn't get loud when he got angry, but he did develop some facial twitches. His one dimple would appear, just as it did when he was happy or mischievous. I stared at his dimple, too upset to meet his slate blue eyes.
He cleared his throat. “Besides. Technically, I didn't ‘break into’ your car—you left it unlocked again.” He shrugged, as though my carelessness cleansed him of all responsibility.
I lowered my voice, aware of the long, curious nose in the window behind me. “This is what we're fighting about, Jack: not because you're not a good person or I don't love certain things about you, but because you have this pathological need to control my life!”
“A lot of people would be grateful—”
“That's not the point. All you had to do was come to me and offer, as a friend. I might have said yes, thank you, how nice of you. But you didn't, and I'll tell you why. Because you didn't want to give me the option of saying no. Right, Jack?”
I had the brief satisfaction of seeing him squirm. “I didn't mean to make you upset, Maddy. I just wanted—I felt—”
“You love her!” yelled Mr. Altschul, impatient with our labored conversation. “
Mein Gott!
” He slammed his window in despair, sending some very offended birds shrieking away.
We stood in silence for a moment, and then we began to laugh. It was a nice release. I was able to admire again how wonderful Jack looked when he was smiling—friendly creases at the corners of his eyes, straight white teeth, and the solitary, beloved dimple in his clean-shaven face.
“He's taken our troubles very personally,” I said softly. “After all, that's one hundred percent of his tenants with unhappy love lives. But I know we're another soap opera to him. I hear him yelling at his TV all the time, like, ‘Don't let her walk avay! Tell her you were drugged when Carly seduced you!’”
I imitated his German accent to the best of my ability, and Jack, grinning, nodded in recognition.
“He summarizes the plots for me when I'm stretching before a run. I guess I should stop stretching in front of the Old School.” This is what Jack called our building, because I told him that's what
Altschul
means: “old school.” I realized I was softening, so I looked at my watch. “I've got to fly. I have to do some, uh—research.”
His eyebrows went up; he was curious. I could forgive that, because I happen to be very nosy about everything Jack does as well. However, he wasn't going to make the mistake of asking what I was up to, not after two arguments in a row.
“Have a nice morning,” he said.
He looked rather forlorn, standing there with his windshield fluid. Things like that tempt a person to give in, but I had my principles. “Thanks.”
He touched my arm. “I have some bad habits, Maddy. I'll work on them. You've been happy with me for a year, haven't you?”
“Yes,” I acknowledged.
“Just tell me it's not over. I don't expect you to hop back into bed with me. Right away. Just tell me you're not going to leave me over this, okay?”
“I…” I hesitated, confronted by the dimple in a truly earnest expression. “I'd like to see us work things out. We'll see.” I opened the driver's door of my rehabbed Merkur Scorpio, a car I'd chosen because it bore my astrological sign.
“Dinner tonight?” he asked, with an appealing amount of humility.
“We'll see.”
“I'm cooking.”
I shut the driver's door and rolled down the window a crack. “Let me see how the day goes. If you're planning some kind of seduction …”
“I'm not, Maddy. I said I wasn't.”
“Because what we need is communication, not sex.” This wasn't entirely true, as one thing Jack and I had in common was a healthy zest for making love, but I was trying to make a point.
He put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Can you at least call and let me know? Chicken Shea takes two hours to prepare.”
Chicken Shea
, I thought, suppressing a smirk. How did I end up dating a guy who named recipes after himself? Still, I happened to know that Chicken Shea was delicious, as was most of what Jack created in the kitchen.
“Fair enough,” I said grudgingly. I started to drive away.
He called out, “No charge for servicing the auto!” with a big, obnoxious smile. So much for humility. I treated him to a Madeline glare (we all have our specialties) and accelerated.
I fumed for a while as I drove into downtown Webley, but soon enough Fritz's strange call was back on my mind, as it had been when I'd woken, showered, and consumed my solitary bowl of Cap'n Crunch. Logan Lanford, my old high school pal, had apparently just walked out of his own life. His wife, Jamie, had no idea where he was, nor did anyone in the band. I wasn't clear, nor was Fritz, about what the rest of Logan's family might have to say, but Fritz had suggested, not gently, that somehow it was my job to find out.
“How can you just lose your husband?” I had protested. “I mean, Jamie must have some idea—”
“Here's a great idea, Madman,” Fritz said testily. “Since he was your amazing contribution to my band”—I wondered here how the other Bishops would view the use of
that
possessive pronoun—“why don't you do us the favor of finding him? We've got this great gig next Saturday, and Lanford doesn't even know it. It's good dough too, and I think he could really use it. Otherwise the guys are going to find a replacement. I can't blame them. But I thought it would be nice to give Lanford a chance to appear. He's a fairly cool guy, when all is said and done.”
Ah, a glimpse into Fritz's shallow well of compassion. It wasn't unusual for my little brother to make his problems my problems, and I suppose I'd gotten into the habit of accepting whatever he tossed my way, but this seemed kind of silly. “Fritz, Logan and I haven't discussed much more than the weather in the last eight years. I don't think I'm the person who should—”
“Listen, Madman. You're a reporter. You're always following those vibes you're so proud of. This guy was once one of your best friends. His wife is freaking out over this, and the band is going to be left in the lurch—”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” I yelled. “How hard can it be? Give me his phone number, and I'll go talk to Jamie.”
That conversation with Fritz was the reason I was now on my way to speak with Jamie Lanford, Logan's wife. I'd called that morning to get permission for a visit; I had heard kids crying in the background, and she'd sounded stressed almost to the breaking point.
“Hello?” she yelled over the din.
“Jamie. It's Madeline Mann. From high school. I don't know if you—”
“I remember you, Madeline,” she said, sounding a bit hurt. “We were in chorus together.” I had not remembered this until now. Suddenly I had a vision of Jamie as a sophomore, with shining blonde hair worn straight to her waist and freckles on her nose. She looked like someone straight out of
Little House on the Prairie
. Until, that is, she put on her cheerleader skirt as a junior and began turning the heads of all the boys.
“Oh, yeah. Of course. The Hallelujah Chorus—how could I forget?” I asked jovially. I felt a bit odd broaching the subject of Logan, yet I was far too curious not to mention it. “Listen, Jamie. Fritz told me that Logan's been gone for a while. He hasn't by any chance returned, has he?”
“Returned? No. I just don't know what to do, Madeline—if I should call the police, or what. And these kids…” She muffled the phone and yelled into the cacophony. It lessened slightly. “I'm really sick of the single-parent thing, I'll tell you.”
“If you're willing to let me drop by, maybe I can help you for a while. Watch the kids, talk over your options.”
Jamie and I had barely spoken since we were sixteen, so I knew what desperate straits she must be in when she jumped on the offer. “That would be great, Madeline. No one really…well, if you have the time…”