The Color of Home: A Novel (13 page)

“A dance studio?” she asked as they entered the building. She put her hand on his shoulder, pushed up on the balls of her feet, and said, “I’m so happy for you.”

“Wait.”

They stepped inside the studio and were immediately greeted by a slender, gray-haired woman. “Sassa, this is Adrienne. She’s been my teacher for the past six months. She’s worked a miracle and taught me to dance.” Sassa and Adrienne chatted for a few minutes about dance, about the studio, about Nick as a dedicated, but challenging, student.

“Would you like to dance?” Palm up, he extended his hand to Sassa.

“Of course.”

When he’d booked the studio, he had preselected the songs. Adrienne had them queued up and ready to go. They glided out onto the parquet dance floor. Beautiful mahogany inlays finished the floor and surrounded the two of them, separating them from the rest of the studio. The ceiling, twenty feet high, made the thirty-foot square room seem larger. The walls, painted white, held enormous black and white photos of couples, young and old, dancing.

They started to triple swing to Marvin Gaye’s “How Sweet It Is.”

“You’re good,” she whispered.

Their bodies, fluid, intertwined, found grace, as if they’d been dance partners for a long time, as if they’d discovered a new way to create beauty. They didn’t speak until the last song finished, their rumba to “Love Will Keep Us Alive” by the Eagles.

“Wow!”

“Yeah, I even surprised myself on that one.” He imagined Jackie for a moment and smiled, sending her a mental thank you. She was much more than his therapist, and he was finally more than an observer.

Silent, breathless, and sweating profusely, they plopped down on the floor and leaned against the wall to cool down. He’d made it through the dance knothole, and had no need to fill the silence. Perfect moments followed, rare, beautiful, each like a new song. After an album of them, he invited Sassa back to his apartment.

As they strolled toward his home, they talked through gestures and half-sentences offered by one and completed by the other. During a lull, they played cutting-each-other-off-as-you-walk, a game they had perfected during their year together. Contentment percolated.

“Nothing has changed!” Sassa blurted out. “All of the same stuff is in exactly the same places.”

Nick surveyed his living room as if he were detailing it for the first time. The furniture, seemlingly bolted down, sturdied the place. Pictures of Sassa lined the walls in the same order. His Martin guitar stood upright in the usual place. An extensive library of CDs and vinyl records, cataloged alphabetically by artist, remained the room’s centerpiece. The CDs he had pulled from the library to make Sassa Soars, still out of their cases from a year ago, covered the tops of his speakers. The flat screen TV, the one they had watched so many movies on, hung from the same wall.

She ran her fingers from left to right along the top row of CDs. “Let’s see. Aimee Mann . . . Ani DiFranco . . . Animal Collective . . . Arcade Fire. All the same.”

“Weak year for new music.”

“What’s the bedroom like?”

In the bedroom, the same clothes and shoes lined his closet in the same locations. The empty drawers Sassa had left behind remained empty, and her designated space in the much-too-small closet remained free.

Smiling, she ran her finger along the top of his bureau. “Just like the living room.”

A few minutes later, they sat down on the living room sofa, and parked their feet on the coffee table in unison. He flicked on
SportsCenter
.

“I see you still like background noise,” she said. “So, tell me about your year.”

A lot had happened. The crash had made him stronger, had knocked him down to his foundation so he could build wider and eventually higher. Jackie had helped him. Through talk. Through dance. And then there was Halfa. “The first three months, I didn’t do much of anything. I was down. I wanted you back. I crashed. I worked a lot. I ate a lot. I drank, even by my measure, a lot of Diet Pepsi. I stole weeks and slept almost the entire time. I went to visit my mom.”

“How is she?”

“The same.”

“I miss her.”

“She misses you, too.” His mom had loved Sassa from the first time they met, as if they’d recognized some common purpose in each other, as if they spoke a secret language. Even after the break-up, she’d stayed connected to Sassa by sending her regular recipes and articles.

Nick detailed his trip to Sedona: The plane ride with therapist Jackie. How an unexpected conversation about “Dancing Ground” had changed his path. Shaman Halfa and the vibrational energy in the vortexes. Cord cutting. Soul retrieval. The medicine wheel ceremony. Ayahuasca. The old man hallucinations. As he spoke, Sassa, more than attentive, almost riveted, asked a lot of questions.

After he finished his story, she came back to cords. “During the cord-cutting ceremony, did you reconnect one with me?”

“Yes.”

“With modifications?”

“As is.”

“Good.” She eased down from the sofa to the floor. Sitting cross-legged, she patted the floor with her hand.

Pushing the coffee table out of the way, he sat cross-legged as well facing her, and rubbed both of her knees as if he was dialing one up and one down. “During the last part of the trip, I camped two days and nights in the canyon alone. On the first night, I built a fire and played a little guitar. I felt connected to the land and sky, maybe even to a higher power, I don’t know. I fell asleep content for the first time since you left.”

“Sounds beautiful.”

“At about three in the morning, I heard something outside. I peeked out of the tent and made out a large gray wolf standing on the other side of the smoldering fire, staring right at me.”

“Were you scared?”

“Surprisingly, no. We must have stared at each other for a good five minutes before he ran off.”

“A sign?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. When I tried to go back to sleep, my family came to mind: Different Sundays when we all ate too much and then crashed watching NFL doubleheaders. Thanksgiving-week trips to Larson’s Turkey Farm, where we picked out the turkey we would eat later that week. Toy runs with my father to Five Guys from Belleville, where he marked down prices himself on Christmas Eve. We filled our mini-van with so many toys that I had to straddle the stick shift on the way home. I fell asleep after about an hour of reminiscing.”

“Those are great memories.”

“Yeah.” He had nothing but good memories for the first seventeen years of his life. Did he ever fight with his father? Was there ever any conflict in his family? Did he ever get anything but straight As? Ever lose a game? Truth white-washed with time, with death. Why was that?

“Where did you go just now?”

“More about home.”

“Ah.”

“The next day, once again quite peaceful, was filled with hiking, meditation, and guitar playing. That turned out to be a good thing, because on the last night in the vortex was something.”

“How so?”

“I went to sleep at about the same time. The peacefulness from the day had carried over and deepened. At around 2:00, like the night before, I picked up a noise outside the tent.”

“The wolf again?”

“No.” He pressed his palms into his thighs and drew in a deep breath. He wasn’t sure if he should tell her. But that was their deal. Complete truth, with no masks. “Well, sitting outside my tent on a rock about five yards away, I saw my father.”

“Your dad? Really?” She reached out with both hands and pulled his hand toward her. She gently stroked his palm with her thumb.

“Yes. We had a long conversation. He asked if I was happy. He wanted to know if I was in love. He wanted to know about you.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him the whole story.”

“I would give almost anything to talk to my parents and sister again.”

“I know. I thought about that right after I spoke with him.” For a moment, he forgot they were no longer together. During their year as a couple, when at their best, they’d created their own balm through talk. There was nothing else in the world as soothing, as connected, as loving. Yet the balm from the current conversation had come from doing work on their own, and it was somehow better. Maybe there was something to separate-together.

She smiled, as if she knew his thoughts.

“Finally, he told me that he was sorry for leaving, for putting me through so much pain, for not taking better care of himself. He promised that, after he left, I could talk to him anytime I wanted and, even if he didn’t answer explicitly, I should imagine what he might say.”

She swallowed slowly, and tears welled. “What did you say to him?”

“I mostly wept. I told him how much I missed him. I told him I had felt lost for years and how I changed for the better when I met you.”

“Do you believe he was real?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was an after-effect of the ayahuasca.”

“He was real, Nick.”

Sassa stayed with Nick that night. They held each other on top of Nick’s bed without a blanket to cover them, mostly in silence, joined in a way that neither of them fully understood. She’d stayed true to herself for the entire visit, and he’d hung in there with her. They’d practiced truth, and grew as a result of it.

“Sorry about the rise. I can’t help it,” he said.

“Probably not a good idea.”

“I know. It will pass.”

“I know Brayden was hard to accept.”

“That’s one surefire way to get it to pass.”

“Sorry.”

“I guess he did help you.”

“I love you for that.”

“Cambridge in the morning?”

“Cambridge in the morning.”

“Is help on the way?” was the subject line of Rachel Lyst’s email. Nick tapped his fingers on his keyboard as he read the body of her message, a deluge of questions about the online recording process. Dead on arrival. He could always tell. Rather than waste time answering her questions in detail, he replied, Why don’t you give me a call?

A moment later his phone rang.

“Hey, Nick, to build on my email, I’ve got a song and could use an edgy backing band. No polish, plenty of edge. Can you help?”

“Tell me more about the song.”

“Alternative-punk-folk. I don’t know. I don’t like labels; it’s music, man, you know? I need good drums and bass, and keys if we can strange them up a bit. Maybe an electric guitar, if it’s not overpowering. I can handle the acoustic work and vocals. ”

“I can do whatever you need. I don’t need much to get started, just your song idea. I can take that sketch and build the full song. You’ll approve every step of the process.”

“That’s for sure. Well, here’s the thing. I live in the city, and I’d like to check you and your studio out before I hand over any of my extremely limited dollars. No money in music, Nick. Love, that’s all. Do you love? Can you help out a starving artist?”

“When do you want to visit?”

“How about now? I’m in the neighborhood.”

“You’re close?”

“Hey, Nick, this is New York. You can’t be that far away. Are we on or should I take my business elsewhere?”

“1423 Avenue J. Call when you get here and I’ll come down to let you in. The buzzer doesn’t work.”

“Okey dokey.”

Nick lost himself in mixing an alternative song. The band, the Huffing Posts, blended Zombie-like harmonies with Nirvana-like soft-hard guitars. He loved soft-hard guitars; steep contrast in music had always appealed to him, though it had never found its way into his own songs.

“Hey, man, the door opened so I popped in,” Rachel shouted over the mix.

“Give me a second.” Seated with his back to her, he remained engrossed in making minute adjustments on the mixing board. A little more reverb on the vocals. A guitar panned further right. The snare volume upped a tad.

“Who’s the band? They’re fucking kick-ass.”

“The Huffing Posts. Good, aren’t they?”

He wheeled around in his chair and faced Rachel. She stood smiling, flipping a guitar pick between the fingers of her left hand, as a gambler might do with a casino chip. In her right hand, she grasped the handle of a Santa Cruz acoustic guitar case. Small, even in military boots that added a few inches to her height, she had long brown braids and dark brown skin. A white sleeveless pullover shirt highlighted the tattoos on both of her arms. Her jeans were tight and tattered at the knees. He couldn’t make out the detailed tattoo designs from where he was, but they appeared elaborate, artistic.

She moved closer. One tattoo portrayed an older bearded man and the other outlined a portrait Picasso might sketch of one of his lovers. Peppermint and lemon scented the air.

“I love your tattoos.”

“My dad and someone who helped me out once. I probably wouldn’t be here without the two of them, so I did the human billboard thing.”

“Solid acoustic by the way, I like what Santa Cruz Guitars is building these days.”

“Me too. Let’s check out your gear. Time’s wasting.”

“Okay.”

“How did you end up here?”

“The Beatles.”

“What?”

“I persuaded the owner to renovate and rent me this space for cheap during an all-night, fourteen-shot tequila binge where I inched out a victory in a Beatles trivia contest.”

“Most famous cult Beatles song?” she asked.

“‘Rain.’ Not even a close second.”

“Right on.”

Beaming, he gave her the tour of the studio, starting with a fully loaded Apple Mac Pro in the control room that, running Digital Performer, acted as the brains of the studio. “I prefer Digital Performer. It’s cheap and sounds just as good.”

“Cheap is good.”

“I picked up twenty or so software plug-ins, including Guitar Rig, Lexicon reverbs, MOTU Ethno Instrument, and MOTU’s Symphonic Instrument. Their software’s easier to use.”

“I’m into analog. Old school. Lo-fi.”

“Ah.”

“But this will do.”

He moved to vocals. He raved about a couple of Avalon M5 preamps he loved for their warmth; rattled off many different Neumann microphones, which he used exclusively; and showed her a separate room he had built for recording vocals. “The room is acoustically perfect.”

“You know how to talk to a chick like me, don’t you?”

“It’s all about technology.”

“Time will tell.”

He jumped to drums, pianos, and synthesizers. Rachel banged around a full Pearl drum kit mic’ed in the corner of the room, and played “Chopsticks” on a second-hand Kawai baby grand piano that he had bought at a moving sale. To show off the full palette of production sounds, he demoed a rack of vintage synthesizers from Roland, Korg, and Moog.

Saving his slew of acoustic and electric guitars for last, he pointed out three Martin guitars on stands, an HD28, a D42, and an OM42, as well as a slew of electric guitars hanging on the wall, including a Fender Stratocaster, a PRS Custom, and a Gibson Les Paul Standard.

“Solid set of equipment and the acoustic recording booth is spiffy. Let me play you the song I wrote from the booth.” She opened her guitar case and lifted out a beat-up Santa Cruz Vintage Artist with most of its gloss picked off around the sound hole. “Years of touring.”

“Ah.” Hard work, not misuse. She was out there living the dream. Why hadn’t he ever toured like that when he was younger? He mic’ed her guitar and set up a vocal microphone. In the control room, he opened a new song called “Rachel,” and pushed record on Digital Performer. He stilled.

She began messing around up and down the fret board of her guitar. The partial lead from “As My Guitar Gently Weeps.” The opening of “Over the Hills and Far Away.” The solo from “All Along the Watchtower.” Placing her pick between her teeth, she fingerpicked a classical piece, “Concierto de Aranjuez,” by Rodrigo.

Wow! She was old school in more ways than one.

“This is called ‘Gordian Knot.’” She launched into an intricate and percussive guitar part, which drove the song. The first verse, “Last time I saw you, I didn’t know you / Only outlines of some other life / I thought we had gone below the surface / But I was wrong / We never will,” caught hold.

His arms tingled, like the first time he heard “A Day in the Life.” Her tone, pure and raspy, and runs, Beatlesque but atonal, were amazing. A hint of Sarah McLachlan? Or Patty Griffin? Could he capture all of the feeling? “Good song.”

“I know. The question is what can you do with it? Here’s the chorus and the bridge. ‘Time will tie your distinction / Like a Gordian Knot / Time will tie your distinction / Cut the Gordian Knot / There is a world you’ve never seen / Where you can say what you feel / Where you can stand naked without fear / There are keepers of light there / No Gordian Knots.’”

“Nice. First, I’d add a strong drum track with a heavy rock feel. Then I’d add an electric guitar that builds on your main riff. Then an organ, probably a Hammond B3, to make the chorus and bridge a little fuller.”

She smiled. “Want to go see a band with me on Friday? We can stop for pizza at DiFara’s along the way, if you’re up for the wait.”

“Do you always ask people out who you’re about to employ?”

“Only when I’m interested in fucking them.”

His face warmed. Raine popped into his thoughts, in her Columbia dorm room, naked, watching him dress from the bed. He had no idea why. “I’m coming off a pretty serious relationship.”

“How long ago did she dump you?”

“A little over a year.”

“You haven’t gotten laid in a year? Man, you need me more than I thought. Meet me at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Thirteenth at 7:00 on Friday night. We’ll check out the band after Difara’s; then, we’ll see. You in?”

On Friday, he made his way toward the meeting location. The city heat, oppressive, forced him to stop for a bottled water from a street vender. What to make of Rachel? He wouldn’t have described her as attractive, yet he was drawn to her. The whole grunge-army-tattoo look wasn’t his thing, yet he liked it on her. In-your-face girls? Never. Yet here he was. A musician? A client? Both firsts. Why was he excited to see her? He missed Sassa.

Several blocks away from the corner of Sixth Avenue and Thirteenth, he spotted a girl waving in his direction. He didn’t recognize her. Dancing as she waved, she reminded him of a picture he’d once seen of his mom and dad pogo dancing at an early seventies punk party. He moved another block closer. Rachel. He waved back. As he closed the gap between them, he sipped his water.

She had transformed. Wearing a brightly colored summer dress circa 1969, she had brown leather boots on that kissed the hem of her dress right below her knees. Long, flowing black hair had replaced her braids. Pastel makeup and hoop earrings, which almost touched her shoulders, matched the red and purple in her dress. She was beautiful.

“You look completely different.”

“What’s with you? You met me once before, and you’ve got me all figured out? I only dress a certain way? My hair is always fixed the same? I only paint my face with black makeup? I told you before, I don’t like labels.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We’re going to see Fleet Foxes tonight, and this is how I felt like dressing for the show. Can you handle my look or should I call someone else who doesn’t give a shit about such silly things?”

“I’m sorry. You look great.”

“Ah, so this is a look you like. I’ll make sure I take note and dress accordingly the next time I’m with you.”

“I hope there is a next time.”

“Oh, stop being a wimp, Nick, and show some balls. I’m going to see a lot of you in the coming months. We both know it, so stop acting like you don’t understand what’s happening.”

“What’s happening?”

“We’re about to become lovers.”

“We are?”

“I’m stating the obvious.”

After the concert, Rachel asked Nick back to her converted attic—a Bedford-Sty apartment. He followed her up three flights of stairs and entered a large room. Her clothes covered the floor, which served equally as a closet and a walkway. Dirty plates covered the countertops and table in her studio kitchen. Garbage overflowed onto the floor from a makeshift paperbag waste basket. CDs, in and out of their jewel cases, occupied what little space remained on chairs, tables, the bed, and the floor.

She cleared off a spot on her bed and waved him over. “Come here.' Shoving him down on the bed, she lifted her dress over her head, and mounted him. Folding lust like origami, she moved on him, through him, in him, and shaped desire.

He had no idea what she was doing. A name? What a beautiful body. With so much magic in it, he had to accept his role—student. He reached down to pull off his shirt.

She cuffed his wrists with her hands. “I’ve got you.”

Once she had undressed him, she glided toward him until her face hovered only an inch from his and began a deep-aggressive, shallow-soft rhythm with her lips and tongue. Her stare was so intense that for a moment he believed he was already inside her. A moment later she was. She coupled their bodies together with precision—arms, fingers, breasts, legs, tongues— finding their momentary roles in a larger movement. As he inched closer to finishing, she slowed down. “Breathe.' She built up again only to stop an instant before he crossed the point of no return. Shaking all over, he tried to hold back as his entire body arched off the bed. She sped up. A burst. Collapse. Death. Bliss.

“There you go. No need to cry, man. There’s a lot more where that came from. Now show me what you can do.' She rolled onto her back.

“You didn’t come?”

“That was more about you.”

“I need to work on that.”

“You do. And when you’re done, you’ll never need to ask me again.”

He flipped over and straddled Rachel. His shoulders and neck tightened. She had skills. How could he match her? Gradually, he worked his way down her body, focusing first on her breasts, then her stomach, finally opening her legs. He devoted himself there.

A short time later, she laughed. “What are you doing?”

He popped up. “What do you mean?”

She propped herself up on her arms. “Do you have any clue on how to go down on a woman?”

“You didn’t like what I was doing?”

“If I graded you, the most you would get would be two out of ten.”

Fuck. He jerked over on his back. Was she serious? This had never happened to him before. A giant cobweb in the corner of the ceiling, intricate and old, caught his attention. He had to do better. “I’m sorry, let me try again.”

“No, man, not right away. I need to give you a few lessons first on female anatomy. Then I’ll let you try again.”

“I’m so sorry. It’s not like I haven’t done this before.”

“I’m sure you have. You just haven’t done it well.”

“I’m so sorry.” He draped one leg over the side of the bed.

She reached for his forearm and gently tugged him toward her. “Stop acting like a hurt puppy. Sex is like everything else in life. You need to practice and work hard at perfecting your craft, man. I mean, the equipment you’ve got is fine; you just don’t know how to use it that well. Your tongue is the brush and I’m the canvas. I’m looking for a masterpiece every time.”

“Should I leave?”

“Leave? You’ve gotta be kidding me. No way.”

“Are you sure?”

“I got you off, now you need to get me off. You can’t bail on me. You need to keep working. You can leave after you get it right.”

Rachel was a mistake. He hadn’t heard any negative feedback in the past. He wanted out of there. Too much truth. Did he just say that? Deep breath. In. Out. In. Out. He could do this. Slow and steady. One step at a time, it was workable. Slowly, he kissed his way down her body.

“Less of that. . . . Better. . . . More of that.” After a few minutes, she stopped instructing and spread her legs a little wider. A short time later, she moaned softly.