I had shut the window screen, my eyes and brain off to the world, when I was jolted by the weight of my own bag being tossed onto the seat next to me. My eyes darted open and up to Will, who was forcefully rearranging everything in the overhead bin.
“Sorry, baby, I’ve got to make room for her,” he said, grabbing his guitar and hoisting it up.
I rolled my eyes at the thought of him personifying his guitar. He grabbed my bag, shoved it in the bin, and collapsed into his seat. I shot him a slightly annoyed look. “Why didn’t you request an aisle seat?” I asked.
“Well, you see, sweetheart, I like to be right behind the emergency exit. I’ll hop over this seat, jump out the door, and be down that super slide in a split second,” he said with an arrogant smile.
“Then why not request the exit aisle?”
“I am not the person for that job, trust me.”
“Damn, chivalry is dead. It doesn’t matter anyway; our lives are in the hands of these hopefully sober pilots and this nine-hundred-thousand-pound hunk of metal, so…”
“Can we stop talking about this? I don’t think you understand.” He pulled a rosary out of his pocket and proceeded to put it around his neck.
“Something tells me you have no idea what that’s for,” I said, giggling. “Are you Catholic?” He was desperately trying to peel a tiny price tag label off one of the beads. “Oh my god, you bought that in the airport gift store, huh?”
Putting his finger to his mouth, he said, “Shhh! Woman, please!” He looked around as if he would be found out. “Of course I’m Catholic.”
A light chuckle escaped my mouth. “Well, God would know, so wearing that around your neck instead of chanting your Hail Marys is probably pissing the big guy off, and that’s not good for any of us.”
He let out a nervous laugh and then whispered, “Hey, little firecracker, you like taunting me, don’t you?” Waiting for my response, he looked directly into my eyes and smiled cutely.
I suddenly felt bashful and shook my head nervously. “Sorry.”
Still smiling, he squinted slightly and then winked before looking away and pulling a stack of pamphlets out of the seat-back pocket.
While he reviewed the safety information flier, we began taxiing toward the runway. I noticed a few things in that moment. One, Will was universally attractive; even though he dressed a little edgier and had slightly imperfect teeth, he could have easily been a print model. He stood a tad over six feet, was thin with muscular arms, maybe from years of playing guitar. He had brown, disheveled hair and dark eyes, a chiseled jaw, high cheekbones, and great lips. As he read he mouthed the words, the way a child reads silently.
Two, he didn’t smell bad at all—as a matter fact, he smelled heavenly. A mixture of body wash, sandalwood, and just a hint of cigarette smoke, which would normally repulse me, but for some reason it suited him. He wore black pinstriped slacks that hung on his thin hips, a silver-studded belt with a wallet chain, and a red T-shirt that said “Booyah!” above a silk-screened picture of Hilary and Bill Clinton playing Ping-Pong. I didn’t get it.
Three, he was genuinely scared to fly and it was apparent that he would be white-knuckling it the entire way. I made the decision to try to calm his nerves by being friendly and chatting him up.
The pilot came on and announced we were cleared for takeoff. “Jesus Christ! Did he sound drunk to you?” Will blurted.
“Not at all. Relax, buddy, everything will be fine and you should probably tone down the Jesus Christs, at least while you’re still wearing that thing.” I pointed to the rosary around his neck. He looked down at the beads like they were about to perform a circus act.
Nervously he said, “Hey, hey can you open that screen? I need to see us get off the ground.” I obliged as he peered over me and out the window.
“You’re funny, Will. You want to sit in the aisle seat, yet here you are, leaning over me to look out the window.”
Ignoring my comment, he took a deep breath in through his nose, tilted his head to the side, and with a half smile whispered, “You smell good, like rain.” I was totally caught off guard by his proximity; a delicious chill ran through me.
“What kind of guitar do you have?” I asked abruptly, attempting to change the subject.
“Um… an electric guitar?” The answer was like a question.
“No, I know that. What kind?”
“Oh, it’s a Fender.” He squinted his eyes and smiled. He seemed somewhat charmed and probably grateful that we were talking about guitars while the plane was barreling full speed down the runway. He gripped the armrest, still not totally at ease.
“Is it a Telecaster, Stratocaster…?”
“As a matter of fact it’s a blond Tele. I also have a Gibson acoustic and a vintage Harmony at home.”
“I love the old Harmony guitars. On my fifth birthday my father gave me his H78. It was the first guitar he bought with his own money. He ordered it from a Sears catalog in 1970.”
His eyes shot open with surprise. “That’s awesome. Your father must be a cool guy.”
“He just passed away a month ago.”
“Shit… I’m so sorry,” he said with genuine sympathy.
“It’s okay, but I’d rather not talk about it right now. Let’s talk about guitars,” I said, realizing it would be for both our benefits.
When we hit cruising altitude, he relaxed a little and began describing the magical pickups on the Harmony and the modifications he’d made to the Telecaster. He clearly knew what he was talking about and I found his enthusiasm sweet.
We continued into an easy conversation about our favorite musicians. We agreed on everything from Led Zeppelin to Bette Midler. We talked about Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, Debussy, the Naizi Brothers, and Edith Piaf. It was the most intense and diverse musical conversation I’d ever had. We talked nonstop for the entire length of the flight.
I told him about my musical background and also how I was going to live in my father’s apartment with my yellow lab, Jackson, and run his café, maybe teach piano lessons on the side. He told me how he was working as a bartender in a swanky boutique hotel lounge in SoHo. He said at the moment he was living in a literal storage closet in Chinatown until he could afford an apartment. He was playing guitar in a band that he wasn’t too excited about. Between practice and his job and the few gigs they played a month, he was never home.
I thought about my spare bedroom for a second and then pushed the idea out of mind when I reminded myself that Will was a complete stranger. Even though I found his neuroses more endearing than scary, I figured inviting a struggling musician to live with me was not the best idea.
As the plane started to descend, Will gripped the armrest. “Mia, we’re going down. I need to know everything about you right now! How old are you, what’s your last name, what street do you live on? If we make it out of this, I think we should jam together, you know, musically or whatever.”
He was being adorable. My body tingled with warmth from his gaze. I shifted nervously before answering, “My last name is Kelly, I’ll be at my father’s café most days—Kell’s on Avenue A. Come and have a coffee with me sometime and we’ll talk music. Oh, and I’m twenty-five.”
When we were safely on the ground, he smiled sweetly and said in a low voice, “We both have double first names. I’m Will Ryan, twenty-nine. I live at 22 Mott Street in the storage closet. I work at the Montosh. I’m O negative, you know, the universal one and I play in a band called The Ivans. Oh, and I love coffee. It was nice to meet you, Mia.”
“It was nice to meet you too.”
“We made it,” he said, pointing out the window as we taxied to the gate. “You know they say people who have stared death in the face are bonded for life.”
I laughed. “Your antics are cute, Will.”
“I was going for irresistible,” he said with a brazen smirk. He handed me my bag and let me go in front of him. His warm breath on my neck caused me to shiver and stumble in the aisle
. He chuckled. “You’re cute.” When another passenger jetted out of his seat, bumping me, Will blurted out, “Hey! Watch it, buddy!” I turned around to his sexy smile. His lips flattened, he narrowed his eyes and then whispered, “See, baby, chivalry isn’t dead.”
When I stepped out into the crisp March, New York air, I sensed him walking behind me, but I didn’t turn around. I walked straight up to the first available cab, hopped in, shut the door, and shouted, “Manhattan!” As we pulled away from the curb, I glanced over at Will. He was blowing a lungful of smoke into the air with curiosity in his eyes like he was listening to God. His gaze met mine and with a larger-than-life wave, he mouthed the words, “Goodbye, Mia.” I thought I caught “Sweet Thing” just as he left my view.
As the cab wove in and out of traffic, I couldn’t get my mind off him. The entire flight I didn’t think once about my future, my father’s apartment, or the café, and I don’t think Will worried much about the possibility of crashing. We kind of hit it off; we did hit it off. He had this silly, to the point of being honest, quality about him. When I thought about our conversation, I remembered how he called Pete, the lead singer of The Ivans, the world’s biggest douche bag. It was clear to me that Will was in a band for the love of music and not for fame or sex; I was sure he didn’t need any help in that department. I knew there was something about him that drew me in, but I convinced myself at that moment that Will was not boyfriend material—not in my book, anyway. I thought maybe we could be friends; after all, I didn’t have many in my new city.
The last time I was in New York had been for my father’s funeral one month before. I knew I had my work cut out for me, which gave me a rush of anxiety. I needed to sort through Pops’s things and make room for my own. Making my way through the door leading to the stairwell, I stopped at the mail slot and slipped my key in but could barely turn it from the amount of mail jammed in the tiny box. I managed to shove the massive pile under my arm and carry the rest of my things up the stairs to the landing. I set my bags down and searched for the right key. I tried five keys before finally unlocking the door. It occurred to me that the giant key ring was a handful of discoveries I would learn about my father.
The first thing I noticed when I entered the apartment was that it was very clean. Someone had been there, probably one of the two regular women in my father’s life. Either Martha, who was like a sister to him—she also ran Kell’s—or Sheil, who was his on-and-off girlfriend. Both women had been in Pops’s life for decades and both were like family. They were going to be lifelines in the months to come as I ventured through my father’s belongings… and his story.
After tossing out a large amount of junk mail, I sifted through a few sympathy cards, financial statements, and bills before I got to a letter from the probate lawyer. I leaned over the kitchen counter, closed my eyes, and inhaled deeply before opening it. My father’s scent was still somehow wafting through the still air in the apartment, like his residual movements were reminding me that his spirit was alive. My eyes welled and my heart ached over his loss. I committed his smell to memory, a mixture of espresso, petula oil, and hand-rolled clove cigarettes that had stained every article of clothing he owned with a combination of earthy spice and sweetness. I smiled slightly at his somewhat-painful memory and then addressed the task at hand.
In the days following my father’s heart attack, my mother and David had put their lives on hold to follow me to New York to make arrangements. That week is a foggy memory; filled with shock and pain, but the ease, grace, and familiarity that my mother displayed through it all was inspiring and intriguing to me. I wasn’t sure if it was born out of her love for me and desire to help when she knew I was hurting, or if it was a deeper love for my father that I hadn’t known she felt. As disjointed as my family seemed growing up, in Pops’s death we were all brought together. Isn’t that how it always is? It was like my mother and Martha were sisters who shared an untold story, each one falling perfectly into a rhythm in the apartment and at Kell’s.
The day before the funeral, we worked in the café, I watched my mother navigate the espresso machine with a certain know-how. “Were you a barista in another life?” I said to her.
“It’s not rocket science, honey.” She had a natural-born acumen in almost everything she attempted to do. It was a trait I admired, and one I wasn’t sure I had inherited.
My mother and Martha arranged the funeral while David took care of all the legal aspects of my father’s estate. I knew decisions would have to be made but I wasn’t ready at the time, so I decided I would go back to Ann Arbor after the funeral, wrap up my life, and then move to New York for a few months until I could decide what to do. Moving to New York was never part of my plan before Pops died, but that’s where I found myself.
Everything regarding his estate was cut and dry. I was the one and only recipient of his assets. However, I knew there would be items that Pops would want Sheil and Martha to have, and I was sure he would have requests regarding Kell’s. When I opened the letter, I knew from the tone and formality that it was something Pops had dictated to his lawyer and then signed. He wanted to be official. Everything financial had already been dealt with in another section of his will. I knew the letter I was about to read would address his personal belongings, along with his hopes and dreams for Kell’s. I skimmed through the logistical pieces in the beginning, obviously put there by the lawyer, until I got to the specifics. I braced myself.
Sheil Haryana and Martha Jones shall have access to my apartment to gather their personal belongings, as well as any music, letters, or photographs that pertain to them.
Several moments passed as I studied the sparse document. I ran my index finger under each word, slowly searching for a hidden message, but there was nothing more. It’s all up to me. He left it all up to me. The buzzer rang, startling me out of my daze. I went to the speaker. “Yes?’
“It’s Martha.” I buzzed her in immediately and could hear her bounding up the steps beside my four-legged friend. I opened the door and fell to the floor as Jackson pounced on me with the full weight of his front legs.
“I missed you, buddy!” He licked my face and shifted from paw to paw as I scratched behind his ears. I stood up and sank into Martha’s embrace. “Thank you for taking care of him… and Kell’s.”
“Oh, my Mia Pia! It’s so good to see you, sweetheart.” She pushed my shoulders back to study my face. Looking right into my eyes, she said, “We have some work to do… don’t we?”
That was the understatement of the century.
Track 2: Hello, I Like You
Sorting through a box of pictures, Martha pulled one out and held it up. “Do you remember this, Mia Pia?” I scanned the black-and-white photo as the memory came flooding back. We were at the Memphis Zoo, all of us. I was about six, sitting atop my father’s shoulders. On one side of us stood my mother and David, on the other side stood Martha and her husband, Jimmy. We were all smiling exuberantly at the camera except for my mother; she was looking at my father and me. Her smile was different—it wasn’t excited, it was warm and full of love.
Martha, Jimmy, and Pops had been on a road trip all over the U.S. My mother and David decided we would meet them in Memphis. Just moments after we took the picture, it began raining. Instead of calling it a day, my father pointed and shouted, “To the butterflies!” Showered by the warm rain, he skipped toward the exhibit with me bouncing above his six-foot-four frame. I held on to his ruddy brown locks while he hummed “Rocky Road to Dublin.” I remember feeling safe, loved, and exactly where I should be. Inside the screened enclosure, he pointed to a chrysalis and explained metamorphosis to me.
“Pops, will I have a metamorphosis?”
“Of course, luv. We are ever changing, always learning, always evolving.”
“So I’ll be a beautiful butterfly one day?”
He smiled and chuckled. “You’re a beautiful butterfly now. It’s the change that happens in here that matters.” He pointed to
my heart.
Before handing the picture back, I stared at it for several moments, absorbing everyone’s youthfulness. Martha’s hair had gone completely silver since that time and her eyes, still wildly expressive, had dulled from a stunning blue to a cloudy gray, framed with heavy lines. She rarely wore makeup; instead she maintained her classic hippie vibe, always in colorful shirts and long, flowy skirts or faded jeans. I handed the picture back while she continued sifting through the box. When she reached for it, she glanced up and noticed my puffy eyes. She began taping up the box hurriedly.
“Hang on to all of this for yourself, sweetie, and go through it when you’re ready.”
I carried the box to the hall closet and shoved it onto the top shelf for another time.
Sheil and Martha came to the apartment several times in the days after I arrived in New York. They gathered items that were meaningful to them while we all worked to make the place seem more like mine.
Sheil remained quiet in her grief. Her silence was perceived as indifference to some, but I knew better. She had traveled here from India twenty years ago as part of a music troupe. Once she met my father, there was no looking back. An accomplished sitar player, Sheil had become very successful, working with the World Music Institute. Her transcending beauty and passion when she plays has made her a sought-after musician for many different kinds of acts looking to add that Eastern sound.
Even though I never saw her cry outwardly, I knew she was in a lot of pain over the loss of my father. She had found him in the apartment just moments after his heart attack. At his funeral she played a very long and sorrowful piece of music, but her face remained completely stoic. When I hugged her afterward, I realized the front of her sari was drenched. Tears had poured from her eyes without any change in her facial expression. It’s pure pain and pure surrender when your soul cries without any fight from your body and that’s how I knew she was deeply affected.