Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I don’t know how he did it but Gabriel, the non-believer, charmed Father Francis into letting him play the organ.
I sat in the front pew next to a Catholic priest while Angel Gabriel transported us to the heavens above. Joking.
Only Gabriel would play “Light My Fire” on a Catholic church organ in front of a priest. A song that had gotten The Doors banned from The Ed Sullivan Show . Not that I believed in censorship, but come on, a time and a place.
Thankfully, he was a cool priest, and Gabriel had played it beautifully, but I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
On our way out, Father Francis encouraged us to come back again. Gabriel said he was probably a Jim Morrison fan. “Now there’s a priest who appreciates a poetic rebel.”
I got the feeling that he was just being polite.
Ten minutes later, I found myself sitting across from Gabriel at the Kiev. He was still jazzed up from his organ playing, and I was so cold and hungry that I’d barely put up a fight.
And okay, I loved being with him. As friends, though. Just friends, nothing more. Surely, there was no harm in that.
He looked especially cute today in a black hoodie with his hair all messy and a crooked smile that was just for me.
“Good news about Chuck,” he said after we’d ordered enough food to feed a small army. “He told me how he met you. He said you would have made a hell of a revolutionary.”
I shrugged. “I just did what anyone would do.”
Gabriel laughed under his breath. “You can’t be serious.
Most people would have turned a blind eye.
You were, what, seventeen, and you were right there in the middle of the riots, in the middle of those cops on horseback, fighting for the rights of a homeless man? That’s not something anyone would do.”
“I just got caught up in it all and when I saw that cop bash Chuck over the head, I got so angry,” I said. “He wasn’t even doing anything, Gabriel. He had this big gash on his head with blood dripping down his forehead. He didn’t deserve that treatment.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what, if there’s ever a Zombie Apocalypse, I want Cleo Babington fighting by my side. Hell, you’ll be leading the whole ragtag brigade.”
I smiled. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
We won’t survive on the food in my cupboards, that’s for sure.
I ate a can of pineapple chunks for breakfast and finished off the jar of peanut butter and my last can of soup during the storm of the century.
Now all I have is a jar of maraschino cherries, a bag of marshmallows, and a can of olives. ”
“I have a box of cereal, a can of refried beans, and two tins of sardines that have been in my cupboard since the Reagan administration,” he said. “They came with the apartment. So did the roaches.”
“What glamorous lives we lead.”
“Like two Russian revolutionaries.”
“It’s been a long, cruel winter.” I sighed dramatically, my hand going to my heart. I’d meant it as a joke, but Gabriel nodded somberly.
“The longest and the cruelest,” he said, his eyes meeting mine and conveying the message that we weren’t talking about the weather.
Gabriel shifted in his seat and our knees touched.
I could have pulled back. I could have ensured that no part of my body was touching any part of his. I could have lowered my eyes.
I did none of those things.
The intensity in his gaze mirrored mine and we both leaned in almost imperceptibly like flowers bending toward the sun.
Time ceased to exist and the noisy clatter of plates and utensils and waitresses shouting Mama! I need two bowls of borscht and kasha varnishkes to the stalwart cook muffled to a distant hum.
When the food arrived, we pulled back, but our knees still touched.
I devoured a potato pancake drenched in sour cream and applesauce, speared a pierogi and ate a bowl of steaming borscht and slabs of challah bread like a heroine in a Russian novel who had just survived the longest, cruelest winter of her life.
I can’t remember ever being this hungry.
“How are things with Annika?” Gabriel asked. That was one way to ruin my appetite. “Did you work things out?” He looked so hopeful.
Annika was still a sore subject, so I drank my coffee and evaded the question altogether. “Let’s talk about you.”
He pushed his empty plate away and leaned back in his seat, stretching his arms over his head and cracking his knuckles like he was preparing to go into the ring for the fight of his life. “What do you want to know?”
“Oh, you know, the usual. Past relationships, your childhood, what you do every day, your dirty secrets and guilty pleasures…Just give me your whole life story.”
“Wow. Okay.” Gabriel laughed and drummed his fingers on the table.
“Let’s see. I don’t feel guilty about anything that gives me pleasure.
I’m going to plead the Fifth on dirty secrets.
For now,” he added. “My childhood was lonely. My past relationships have humbled, enlightened, soared and crashed. Ultimately, they taught me that I needed to grow the fuck up and figure out who I am.”
“And have you? Figured it out?”
“I know who I’m not,” he said, leaving it at that.
“And what do I do every day? I sing for my supper. I play organs in churches. Write lyrics in laundromats. I listen to music. Every single day. Rock, punk, metal, soul, jazz. French chanteuses and African drummers and Pakistani Sufi poets. I play my guitar religiously and if I didn’t have music… ”
“You would perish and die,” I finished.
He nodded solemnly. “A life without music wouldn’t be worth living.”
I didn’t want to hear that, but chances were good that he would always have music in his life, so I contented myself with that.
Just to be safe though, I asked if he was a drug addict.
“An addict? No. I’ve dabbled. Cocaine’s not for me. Tried mushrooms a few times and I can see the merits but I’m not jonesing for my next one. I believe that weed should be legalized and I’ve never tried heroin.”
Gabriel propped his elbow on the table, rested his head on his hand and stared at me for what felt like an eternity. Normally, I would feel self-conscious if someone looked at me that intensely, but with Gabriel, I felt like I was basking in a warm glow.
“Your turn. Tell me your dirty secrets, Cleo.”
“You never told me yours,” I reminded him.
“A secret for a secret,” he said. “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone.”
I could have pleaded the Fifth too, and that’s probably what I should have done, but I rose to the challenge and took it as a dare.
“Okay.” I cleared my throat. “When I was eight, my mom and I were at the flea market. I was a little magpie, always attracted to shiny things, so I wandered off to check out a table of vintage jewelery and fell in love with a brooch. It looked like a golden bird’s nest with a little pearl and a robin’s egg blue stone nestled inside. I wanted it so badly...”
“Oh no, Cleo.” Gabriel laughed. “ You didn’t .”
I covered my face. “I did!” I lowered my hands.
“When the woman’s back was turned, I slipped the brooch into my pocket, and all the way home, I was filled with nervous excitement.
But when I hid in my bedroom to admire it, I felt so guilty that I couldn’t even look at it.
So I stuffed it under my mattress and tried to forget about it. ”
“And where’s the brooch now?”
“I took it over to St. Mark’s Place and sold it to a guy selling stolen loot on a blanket.
I think he gave me a few quarters for it but keeping the money would have defeated the whole purpose.
So I ran to the nearest bodega and put the money into one of those charity fundraiser cans on the counter. I think it was the March of Dimes.”
“There you go,” Gabriel said. “You restored your good karma.”
I sighed. “If only. The old man behind the counter thought it was so sweet that a little kid donated her allowance that he rewarded my good deed with a candy bar. A jumbo-sized bar. And I ate it .”
Gabriel howled. “This is priceless. An evil mastermind at the tender age of eight. I’ll bet you were adorable. Like a little Oliver Twist.” Gabriel held out his hands and gave me a sad, puppy dog face. “Please sir, I want some more.”
“Are you kidding? I was the Artful Dodger!”
Gabriel found that hilarious. He was laughing so hard that a guy sitting by the window shot us a look before he went back to sulking over his coffee.
I’m pretty sure it was Lou Reed. Or someone who looked exactly like him.
“I’ll bet this story would have scandalized the turtleneck guy.”
I rolled my eyes and took a sip of my coffee. “You’re really hung up on those turtlenecks, aren’t you?”
“He didn’t have a passionate bone in his body,” Gabriel said dismissively.
“Wow, you really saw a lot from that window. You’re being pretty judgmental about a guy you don’t know,” I said. “For your information, we had a lot of interesting conversations, and I enjoyed his company.”
Gabriel snorted. “Conversations, huh? That’s code for the sex was lousy.”
Sex with David was underwhelming but I was eighteen and inexperienced when we met, so I’d chalked it up to sex being overrated. What had bothered me the most though was that he never took off his socks.
When I asked Annika if that was normal, she’d laughed for a solid two minutes and told me to dump him immediately.
But it felt disloyal to dish the dirt on David’s sock-wearing-during-sex habit, so I kept that to myself.
“How many girlfriends have you had?” I asked instead.
He shrugged. “Not that many.”
“I find that really hard to believe.”
“Believe it. I’ve only had one long-term relationship that could be called serious.”
When I prodded him for more details, he told me they were together on and off for almost two years when he was out in L.A. He said she was a “very cool chick” but it just didn’t work out.
I sensed some lingering feelings, but he denied it.
“It was my first serious relationship,” he said. “My only one, really. I was young and stupid and didn’t know how to handle it. I was dealing with a lot of heavy shit at the time, and she was a lot more switched on than me.”
“Did you love her?”
He thought about that for a minute. “I liked her. I cared about her. There was a time when I thought I might have loved her. But when we broke up, I just felt relieved. I was free to go anywhere I wanted, do anything I wanted. Free to make mistakes and fuck up without dragging someone down. And I don’t think I would have felt that way if I’d really loved her. ”
“So you didn’t even get any good songs out of it? No tragic ballads?”
“Sounds like a missed opportunity,” he joked. “Did you love the turtleneck guy?”
“I guess it was the same for me. I liked him and cared about him but I didn’t really mourn the loss when it was over.
” I circled the rim of my coffee cup with my finger.
David had accused me of being cold and never letting my walls down.
We were together for over a year, and when we broke up, he said he felt like he never really knew me at all.
“I thought maybe there was something wrong with me for not feeling more emotional when I ended things.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Gabriel said. “He wasn’t your true love. He wasn’t The One.”
He reached for my hand across the table and clasped it, brushing his thumb over mine like it was perfectly natural that we should be holding hands.
Gabriel had great hands. Veiny like his forearms.
David hadn’t been big on hand-holding or any form of public affection, but whenever he’d held my hand, it had always felt awkward. Like our hands didn’t quite fit together. His weren’t rough and calloused like Gabriel’s, and they weren’t as warm either.
Letting go of David’s hand had been easy. I’d never felt like I was missing something.
But now, holding hands with Gabriel across the table in a diner that was so warm condensation dripped down the window panes, I knew what had been missing in my previous relationships.
An emotional connection with someone who made me feel like I was lit up from within. Molten lava flowing like syrup.
Just by holding his hand.
I swallowed, opened my mouth to speak, to ask what this sorcery was, but closed my mouth and said nothing.
His eyes met mine and I saw the answer. There was no real explanation for this . No way to describe the phenomenon of finding your person, the one who banished the clouds on a gray day and made you wonder how you’d gotten through life without them.
Gabriel turned my hand over and studied my palm like he was reading my future. Or my past. With his index finger, he traced a line that ran up the middle of my palm, and I didn’t know much about palm-reading, but I thought that was my Fate Line.
“That kind of love only comes around once in a lifetime,” he said, intertwining his fingers with mine. “If you’re lucky.”
If you’re lucky.