Chapter 49
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Gabriel
We sat at a small table by the window with our knees touching. Cleo divided the cake in two and handed me a plastic fork like this was our standard practice.
“Your work is extraordinary,” I said. “I meant to tell you that the other night. It’s thought-provoking and vulnerable and there’s a luminosity that shines through in even the darkest pieces.
You’ve captured the entire human experience on canvasses.
Loss and grief. Shame and hurt and anger.
Joy and hope. And the beauty and bizarreness and complexities of everyday life. ”
Cleo stared at me. “Gabriel,” she whispered. “You…” She shook her head and let out a heavy breath then sipped her coffee and set the cup down, her tone changing. “So what do you do in Montauk?”
I wish she would have said whatever she was thinking before, but I answered her question and gave her a snapshot of my life.
“I run on the beach with my dog every morning. I swim in my pool. Tend to my wild garden. Practice guitar, write bad poetry, read Murakami and Sufi poets. I play piano and harmonica and listen to music…” I paused.
“It’s weird. I’ll read a book that I’ve probably read before, but I don’t know the plot or the characters so it’s all new to me.
Same with movies. But with music, it’s different. ”
“Different how?”
“A Neil Young or Rush song will come on the radio, and I’ll know the lyrics.
I’ll know the song. Even if it’s not on any of the CDs I have at home, I’ll know it.
Just last week, I stopped at the store to pick up some milk.
A Fleetwood Mac song was playing, and I knew every word.
Fleetwood Mac.” I threw up my hands as if to say, Explain that craziness .
“It makes perfect sense,” Cleo said, a small smile playing on her lips. “You have music in your soul.”
I leaned back in my seat with a sigh. “Then I need to find the key to unlock my soul. I’m supposed to go into the studio in September.”
Her brows shot up. “You’re writing an album?”
“Trying to. I’ve got three songs.” I held up three fingers for emphasis. “Basically, I’m fucked.”
Cleo laughed. “You say that every time and then you disappear for a few weeks, get in the zone and write like a madman. I used to have to remind you to eat and sleep because you were so consumed, so obsessed with the music that nothing else existed. But it was so magical and so inspiring. In the end, you’d have all this incredible music.
” Her smile was soft, her eyes unfocused like she was in a different time and place.
When she caught me watching, her smile slipped, and she lowered her eyes like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t.
“Cleo.” I leaned in until I found her eyes. I wanted to tell her that it was okay to reminisce, and that I wanted to hear it now. “It’s okay?—”
“No, Gabriel, it’s not okay .” She stabbed her fork into the last bite of cake but didn’t eat it. “Where did you go when you left here?” I saw the flash of hurt in her eyes before she averted her head and crossed her arms over her chest. “Wherever you were, they obviously didn’t have phones.”
If she only knew how many times I’d fed coins into a pay phone to call her. But every time, I changed my mind and hung up.
What was there to say?
I’m lost in the desert, took a peyote trip, and oh yeah, I just had a psychotic episode so can you come and pick me up?
“I went to California. San Francisco. Big Sur. It was cold and damp all the time, so I kept moving.” I drew lines on the tabletop with my plastic fork. Two down, two across. Tic-tac-toe. I drew an X in the center box. “I ended up in a desert town in New Mexico…”
If I left out parts of my story, she’d never know. But if I wanted her to know me, the man I was now , I had to be honest. Chances were I’d never measure up to the man I was before, the man she’d fallen in love with, but I couldn’t withhold the truth or pretend to be someone I wasn’t.
I drew O’s with my plastic fork to block the X’s.
No winners in this game.
I threw down the fork and leaned back in my seat, my eyes on her.
She swallowed, waiting for me to finish. My gaze dipped to her neck.
I wanted to bury my face in it and breathe her in. Trail kisses down the side of it. Scrape my teeth over her collarbone.
I wanted to kiss her hair. Her feet. Her inner thighs.
But I was still stuck in this hell that I’d created, so I couldn’t touch her.
“I was doing a lot of drugs, and I woke up in a hospital with no idea how I got there,” I said finally.
“Gabriel.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she brushed them away angrily. “ Why?” she said through clenched teeth as she lunged across the table and smacked my arm. “You have been given such a precious gift. Your music. Your life . Why would you do that to yourself?”
Not, why would you do that to me but why would you do that to yourself ? An important distinction.
I bit the corner of my mouth and gave it some thought before answering.
“I don’t know why I had to completely lose myself before I could find my way back.
I don’t know why this thing that happened to me affected me the way it did.
Maybe some wires got crossed in my brain.
Who knows?” I shrugged. “I was out there in the desert doing all these drugs and it was like a spiritual quest. At one point, I was convinced I was a shaman. It was a hell of a trip.”
I started laughing, but she didn’t join in.
“Stop being glib.”
I was still laughing, no idea why.
Her eyes narrowed. “Cut the shit, Gabriel. None of this is funny.”
I hung my head and rubbed the back of my neck. “I’m just trying to explain where my head was at. You asked me where I was and why I didn’t call. I didn’t call you because I was a fucking wreck. I had nothing to offer you, Cleo. Less than nothing.”
She shook her head. “You would have been enough, Gabriel. Just you.”
No, I wouldn’t have been. Not then and not when I’d first returned to New York.
I’d needed to get my life together and I needed the time and space and solitude to do that.
It wasn’t something anyone could help me with, and I didn’t want to burden her or the people who cared about me any more than I already had.
“And now?” I asked. “Am I still enough?”
She looked out the window. “So much time has passed. We’ve changed. We’re not the same people anymore.”
“So what?” I argued. “People grow and change and evolve all the time. Otherwise, they stagnate. That’s life, baby.”
“Yeah, I know that. That’s why couples end up getting divorced,” she volleyed. “When they change and evolve and grow in separate directions.” She stabbed her finger at me. “And don’t call me baby.”
I scrubbed my hand down my face, frustrated.
Don’t call me baby. Don’t tell me the truth. Don’t do this. Don’t do that.
What the hell was I supposed to do?
“What if we’d just met for the first time right here in this coffee shop?” I said. “Would you talk to me? Would you want to get to know me better? Or would you just walk away?”
She thought about it for a minute. “I don’t know. What would you say to me?”
I stood up. “Let’s try it.”
“What?” She laughed as I headed to the door. “Come back and sit down. This is ridiculous.”
But I walked out the door and strode half a block before turning around and strolling past the coffee shop. When I looked in the window, she was up at the counter ordering more coffee and I took that as a good sign. At least she wasn’t running away.
I paced the sidewalk.
What would you say if you could do it all over again?
I ran my hands through my hair.
What would you say? What would you say?
Cleo set the two coffees on the table and sat down again. Then she wrote something on a paper napkin and pressed it against the window: If you’re a musician, just keep walking.
I laughed as I pushed through the door and stopped next to her table. Guess I’d just wing it.
She raised her brows. “Do I know you?”
“Not yet.” I took a seat across from her and leaned my forearms on the table. “Have you ever felt like you met someone in another life? I know you don’t know me but trust me when I say I would never lie about something like this.”
I crossed my heart. “It’s not a line to try and pick you up. This really happened. I saw you in my dreams and then I was walking past the window and there you were. And I just thought, what are the chances that the girl of my dreams would materialize right before my eyes?”
It was all true. In my dreams, I saw her sitting in the window as I walked past, and I always stopped and reached out my hand, silently pleading with her to take it.
Sometimes our eyes would meet. Sometimes she would stare straight ahead and never even notice me.
One time she ran out the door and we kissed, and when I woke up, I was shocked to find that I was alone in my bed and she was nowhere to be found.
“And okay...” I held up my hands. “You got me. I am a musician. But a struggling one. This morning, I wrote a song about the girl I saw in my dreams. The girl is you . So, I just wanted you to know that you were the inspiration for my music. If you want me to leave, just say the word and I won’t bother you again.
But if you think maybe you might want to get to know me, I have all day.
” I reached for her hand and clasped it in mine.
“I have all the time in the world for you.”
She released a ragged breath. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“I’m not ready to let you go. Not when I’ve finally found you again.”
“You’ve had three years , Gabriel.” She yanked her hand away.
“And I know it’s not your fault that you don’t remember me.
I never blamed you for anything that happened in the months after your surgery.
None of that was your fault. But you chose to leave.
You chose to stay away. And I do blame you for that.
Wasn’t I even worth a phone call?” She swallowed hard, her voice quavering. “Did I mean so little to you?”
Fuck. What could I say to that? I should have stayed. I should have tried harder. I should have done a lot of things differently.
But I also knew that if I’d stayed, it never would have worked. At the time, I wasn’t capable of loving her the way she deserved to be loved.
I rubbed my hand over my chest. There was that ache again. “I’m sorry?—”
“I don’t want your apologies.” She stood up from the table. I stood too. “I just…this was…a lot.” She blew out a breath. “I need to get going.”
I grabbed my backpack and held the door for her. “I’ll walk you home.”
We walked in silence. A weighted silence filled with hurt and resentment and unanswered questions, and on my end, regrets. Her shoulders were rigid, and she looked straight ahead, chin lifted.
Stubborn. Fierce. Worth the fight.
When we stopped in front of her building, I wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my arm and looked up. “Does the apartment still look the same?”
Invite me in.
Invite me in.
Invite me in.
Cleo shook her head. “No. It’s a co-op now so they renovated all the apartments in this building. They took out the bathtub.”
“Those fuckers.”
She laughed but then her face fell. I don’t know what she was remembering but I remember her sitting in that bathtub drinking wine on the day I left.
If you jump, I jump .
That was the kind of love we had once upon a time. The kind of love that saved lives. That pushed us to become better versions of ourselves.
Now we were headed for divorce, and I had no idea how to turn things around or fix what was broken.
I wanted to grab her hand, lead her upstairs, and bury myself inside her.
Instead, I asked for a hug.
We held each other on the dirty sidewalk, in front of the apartment building where we used to live together, for minutes or maybe hours.
Cleo was shaking so I gathered her close to my chest and held the back of her head until she stopped shaking and let out a soft sigh.
Holding Cleo again made me feel like I was home.
“Gabriel,” she said, her face pressed against my chest, her voice muffled.
That was all she said. Just my name. But she stayed in my arms, and maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t ready to let go either. So I gave it one more shot.
“Just give us one more chance,” I said, running my hands up and down her back.
“I think love is like art…if you want to create something deep and meaningful, you have to take risks. You have to just say, fuck it, win or lose, I’m putting it all out there.
There are no guarantees in life or in love so I can’t make you any promises.
But if we don’t try, we’ll never know. And do you really want to spend the rest of your life wondering what if?
Come to Montauk. Spend the summer with me. ”
She took a step back. “You’re infuriating.”
I smiled. “You’re devastating.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll think about it.” Cleo pushed through the front door and looked over her shoulder. “I’ll call you.”