15 Where Have I Been?

15

where have i been?

Alexander

The apartment is dark, cold, empty. What did I expect? I’m the one who found it. I flip on all the lights, set my bag down, and look around. Dani added white linen curtains, some hanging plants in macramé slings, and a bunch of tchotchkes on the shelves. Some I’ve never seen. She must have gone to a thrift store. It’s definitely more inviting than it was, but the décor is random…eclectic. Very Dani. I’m much more of a symmetrical, organized, matching person. She’d call it “sterile. ”

I go to the small bedroom off the living room, where I start to put the coffee-splattered sheets on the bed. I don’t care enough to rewash them. When the cleaning people come on Sunday, I’ll have them do it. I lie on the bed and start to doze off in my clothes. I need to get the coffee ready for tomorrow. I drag my feet to the kitchen and notice Dani stocked it with some basics. I pick up a porcelain jar and open it. Ground coffee. I usually always grind the beans, but this will do. I’m relieved I don’t have to go out to the store right now .

In the refrigerator I spot a takeout container. I open it to find what looks like fettuccine with some sort of creamy marinara sauce. It’s not like Dani is going to eat this in four days when she’s here next. I don’t think she’ll mind. I find a bowl, dump it in, and put it in the microwave. While the food is warming I wonder where she got the pasta. Did she go to dinner with someone? There’s a pit in my stomach. What if I’m eating his leftovers? I briefly look around the apartment to see if there is evidence of another person here. Dani said the apartment is off-limits. She acted like it was too soon.

The microwave dings, startling me. I was headed straight down the rabbit hole. She probably went to dinner with Alicia or just got takeout alone, but I want to know. I look in the trash for a clue, but it’s empty. As I’m eating the mystery pasta, I’m looking around the apartment, in drawers and cabinets, under couch cushions. In the corner I spot her record player and astack of albums on the floor under the shelf. There are severalrecords organized in what looks like chronological order, starting with thirties jazz, all the way through the decades to about the early two-thousands. I remember that’s when she stopped collecting and writing in them. I never looked at what was written. She always said it was just for her, so I treated them like a personal diary, and out of respect, I didn’t read them.

I can tell by the stack on the floor that she’s still going through the albums. Several of them were her dad’s. She told me not to touch them, but I can’t help myself. I had forgotten just how unique the collection was.

The first one I pick up is Loggins and Messina’s Gator Creek album. I search my memory wondering if we had ever listened to it. As I take the record out, the sleeve cover comes with it. Instantly, I see old handwriting that must be Dani’s father’s, and then Dani’s undeniable chicken scratch, a combination of standard and cursive slanted dramatically to the right.

I know I shouldn’t read it, it’s not mine and it’s private and she made it very clear not to touch them. But did she actually say don’t read them? I’ve already touched one. If she were in my shoes, would she read them? Probably. I always said Dani’s curiosity would get her in trouble one day.

I take my pasta and the record and sit down on the new, rock-hard couch. Why did I buy this uncomfortable thing? I set the bowl on the coffee table and pull the sleeve and record all the way out. Her father’s note reads:

Song 2, “Danny’s Song.” If it’s a boy, Danny, if it’s a girl, Dani. Ilove you so much, Irene. We have everything we need right here. We earned what lovers own.

I’m stunned. It’s from Dani’s dad to her mom. I’ve never known him to be emotional, or romantic. In fact, he’s the opposite. He’s truly a shell of a man. I had no idea he was like this. Irene must have been pregnant with Dani when he wrote it. I look over to Dani’s writing.

Song 2 was a song Kenny Loggins gifted to his brother, Danny, for the birth of his son. I wish I could write something to you now, Ben, and gift it to you. I’m glad you only ever knew Mom and Dad happy and in love.

When did she write this? I have a lump in my throat like I just swallowed a wad of Silly Putty. I take a deep breath and stand. I’m contemplating taking the bowl of pasta to the sink and rinsing it, but then I realize only the cleaners will see the dirty dish. I’m leaving it .

I put the record back and pick up the next one, it’s Chet Baker. Standing next to the record player, I take the album out of the sleeve. We had listened to it many times but I had never looked to see if there was writing. I take it out and read only Dani’s handwriting this time:

Song 2. “It’s Always You.” Last night you said I love you for the first time. You thought I was sleeping. Now you’re sleeping…in my apartment, and I want it to be our apartment. I love you too.

My throat tightens up. I remember. I didn’t think she had heard me. I know I have to get a grip right now. I’m mad at myself for not reading these sooner.

I flip through to find something lighter, if that’s even possible. I find Van Morrison’s Moondance. I remember her getting this album. We had just bought our house, but we hadn’t had the boys yet. She’d written:

Song 5 then 3.

I put the record on to song five. Without even looking, I know it’s the song “Into the Mystic.” Dani used to play this album all the time. I look down and read the rest of the paragraph.

You’re building the garden boxes I asked for. I’m watching you through the window. You’ve been out there all morning. You want them to be perfect. I can’t take my eyes off you. I’m going to tell you it’s time for a shower…

Instantly I’m right back to almost twenty years ago. The music is bringing the memory sharp into focus, almost tangible. Dani asked for garden boxes on the side of the house to plant tomatoes. I spent one whole Saturday morning building them. I remember the moment when this song was playing. Dani was standing in the doorway out to the backyard. I could see her in my peripheral vision, watching me hammer nails into the wood.

We had just finished renovations on the house, and we were in those early years of our life where we felt like we could conquer anything together. No kids, new house, we were naked a lot.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

I looked up and then froze. She was wearing a sheer white sundress, meant to be worn with a slip or swimsuit or something, but she had nothing on underneath. I could see everything.

“Well?” she said.

“I’m…I think I’m done for the day.”

“Hmm, you look pretty dirty.” She walked over to the spicket and hose. I wasn’t wearing a shirt, just a pair of shorts, work gloves, and sneakers. I kicked the shoes off and threw the gloves to the side as I watched her proceed to pull the hose out of the bin it was coiled inside.

I remember her dark hair was long and wavy over her shoulders. It contrasted beautifully against the thin white fabric. It was before the trees in the backyard had matured, so the neighbors on both sides could look out their windows and see our yard, see us, being so in love.

“What are you going to do? Hose me down, you little naked sprite?”

“I’m not naked,” she said with feigned seriousness.

“Dani, I feel like adding water to this scenario would not be in your best interest, considering your attire.”

She quickly spun around to face me, armed with the hose. She squeezed the nozzle and sprayed before I could even make a move toward her.

“You’re going to regret that!” I shouted.

She dropped the hose and ran across the yard toward the door to the house. I chased her, grabbed her arm in the doorway, spun her around, and kissed her, pressing her against the open door. My hands were all over her while she kissed me frantically. I touched her between her legs, over the thin fabric. Her knees buckled. “Alex,” she whispered near my ear.

The memory is heavy and vivid. Too vivid. I take a deep breath and shake my head, trying to get the image out. I pick the needle up off the record and move it to the third song. It’s “Crazy Love.” Just hearing the first three seconds propels me right back to that day again.

We didn’t care if the whole neighborhood saw us. We were against the wall in the kitchen, on the counter, on the floor. All the doors and windows were open. We were loud and unconscious, swept away with each other. Whatever that thing was that Dani and I felt, that passion, lust, infatuation, respect…it was there for so many years. It was unspoken and easy, but once it was gone, we could never get it back. It wasn’t newness, it wasn’t puppy love or crazy love—it was just simply being in love.

My whole body is heating up thinking about that day. I have to stop.

I close my eyes and picture Dani now, her new light hair, her ridiculing expressions, the pain and misery we’ve experienced the last few years. Reality is back. I turn everything off, set up the coffeepot for tomorrow, do the one dish I dirtied, just out of habit, and head for the bedroom.

As I lie in bed, exhausted from my time juggling the boys and work and partially moving into the apartment, I hear my phone buzz. It’s Brian, my golfing buddy whom I had met through Dani years ago.

brIAN: Yo! I know I told you this already, but I wanted to remind you that you’re getting me in the divorce.

It was a given. Even though he was a writer friend of Dani’s from a long time ago, they didn’t really talk anymore and were never that close to begin with. Actually, Dani didn’t like him much, thought he was arrogant, but I chalked that up to Dani not wanting me to have single friends.

ME: Better be. T-Time Saturday?

brIAN: Yeah. Anywhere, anytime. We should go out afterward too.

What do men my age even do when they “go out”? I mean, it’s not like I’m going to show up at a club.

ME: What, like dinner?

brIAN: Yeah. Why not? What else do you have to do?

That’s true.

ME: Sure. You plan it, I’ll be there.

I set my phone on the nightstand and turn the light off. But I can’t fall asleep. All I can think about is how Dani should dye her hair back to her natural dark brown. How beautiful she’d looked in that white see-through sundress.