Page 41 - WTP Vol. V #4

—something jazzy or sexy, something funky so I’ll move like I’m twenty again, not elevator music for the wheelchair set. Well, consider our history: When I was working in a record shop, he was studying abroad; when I was cocktail-waitress- ing, he was perfecting his Yiddish, probably by an oil lamp. Granted, no one ever said Jewish schol- ars who prefer footnotes over football are known for having rock ‘n’ roll souls.
“My teacher says I need to work on my musicality. Put away the sheet music and play from memory.” With Shakespearean flair: “Feel the music.”
Lunch at two, coffee at four. Half-asleep and off- key. Yawn.
After warming up, Lovebug launched into a recog- nizable number: Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable.”
Early on when the enchantment between us was palpable, we would slow dance like the moon outside my condo was hanging in the sky for us and us alone. In some perfect little film, Love- bug got up from bed one night, went down the hallway and into the kitchen, made clinking
Old-fashioned but smooth. “Thumbs up, Lovebug!”
and clanging noises, then returned balancing two flutes of champagne and two little plates of chocolate cake. Voraciously inhaling it all, the bubbly, the sweet, the magic: “This is what Life is all about...”
“You mean sing?”
“Yes!”
“I don’t know the words.” “Grab the sheet music.” “But I can’t sing!”
“Yes, you can!”
How could I possibly fall asleep after that? Ever.
Before supper, Lovebug hopped off the couch. I blinked like an old horse and wheezed: “What’s up?”
As an adolescent, too young to drive and stuck at home, I fancied myself a songstress—the next Carole King!—and composed a summer’s worth of songs that my mom, bless her heart, put to music. Our mom-daughter duet brought down the house, the house being a yellow colonial in the ‘burbs. Seeing as we still laugh about them, our performances were legendary to us, at least, and I can replay them at will: She’s on the piano giving
“Sax time, Sweetie.”
A year ago, Lovebug began taking saxophone les- sons, and for someone who’s the first to admit he’s not a natural, he hooked up famously with his new brassy friend.
Out of its case, the instrument cast a glow in the sunroom and suddenly, ionically, a stage was born. My eyes lit up, a little.
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Feel the music. Made sense. But what music? Law- rence Welk music?
“Let me serenade you,” he said.
A serenade sounded promising. But Liberace- style?
A few pleasant rounds later, he suggested I ac- company him.