Coffee smells began to permeate the room. I put on a collection of Scott Joplin rags. There is something indefinable about Joplin that reminds me of the tunes I used to hear the fiddlers play back in the proverbial Old Country. I’m not sure what it is, but when the sounds of the upright piano filled the room, I felt it.
“Feel free to put something on the stereo,” she called.
“Thanks, I will.”
She waltzed back, twirled twice, bent backward with one arm curled over her head, straightened, bent forward, picked up the telephone, pushed buttons from memory, and ordered a small pizza with pepperoni, onions, and mushrooms. She spoke on the telephone as if ordering this pizza was one of the most exciting things she had ever done.
As she was hanging up, the door opened, and a very young looking couple, both wearing old ankle-length coats, scarves, and stocking caps, came in, accompanied by a trace of cold air in spite of the entryway door. They looked at me, I looked back. Susan introduced them as the mysterious tenants of the attic as they took off their winter garb and set things on pegs in the entryway. Neither of them commented on my bobby’s coat. She was a little taller than he was, had mousy brown hair and a rounded face with tiny blue eyes. He looked like a New York Jew, with long, curly dark hair, faintly Semitic features and brown eyes. Her name was Melissa and his was Tom. They looked and acted burned out. I smelled stale marijuana smoke on their clothes (her T-shirt said Hard Rock Cafe, Chicago, his said Pink Floyd), but that proved nothing; it’s possible to burn out on marijuana, but it takes dedication. Susan told them my name and it looked as if it had passed through her head, into his, and then fallen to the floor; I’d have been willing to bet money that if I had asked them what it was right then neither would have known.
Tom sniffled, Julie coughed, and they headed up the stairs after nodding to me politely.
“Now I understand,” I said.
Her eyebrows asked the obvious.
“The blue lights in the attic,” I explained. “All has become clear. Do they manage their share of the rent on time?”
“His mother owns the house,” she said. “We pay him.”
“I see. Not a bad arrangement, I guess.”
“They’re okay. There was a while when they were using ecstasy, and-”
“Ecstasy?”
“MDMA. A designer hallucinogen. They were a little hard to live with then because they wanted Jill and me to understand how wonderful we really were.” She laughed. “Jill took to hiding in her room and I started playing speed metal. Anyway, now they’re back to acid, and at least we can stand that.” She turned her head sideways, I suppose to gauge my reaction, as she said, “I’ve tripped with them a couple of times.”
She seemed to be waiting for me to say something, so I said, “I’ve never used, myself.”
“Want to sometime?”
“Not really.” After all, it either wouldn’t affect me, or it would, right? “Does it matter?”
“No,” she said. “I think it does not.”
“I agree. And in any case there’s something more important to us.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Your pizza is here.”
She laughed. “That is more important, but I don’t hear anything.”
“You will.”
The door chime came right on cue; two deepthroated gongs, the second a fifth below the first. She looked quizzically at me and said, “You have good hearing.”
“I only listen to quiet music.”
She stood up and went over to the mantelpiece, took the top off a pewter bowl, and pulled some paper money out of it. “Then turn the record over and we’ll hear some more. Coffee should be done, too; help yourself.”
I turned over the record and got two cups of coffee, mine only half full, so I missed hearing her interactions with the delivery boy; that would have been interesting. The coffee steamed on the knee-high table in front of the couch. There were coasters on it, so I used them. She set the box down, opened it, and said, “Are you sure you don’t want any?”
“Quite sure. I’ll just make you nervous by watching you eat.” In fact, I thought the smell rising from the baked dough more noxious than appetizing, but I kept my opinion to myself. I brought the coffee to my lips, enjoying the warmth, as Susan took a triangular piece of pizza and bit into it. Her bites were neither gluttonous nor dainty; she seemed to be enjoying herself.
“So,” she said as she finished the first piece and carefully wiped her mouth on a paper napkin furnished by the pizza company, “you like Joplin?”
“That contumelious ass? Hardly.”
“What do you mean?”
I smiled. “Excuse me, I was being funny. Yes, I enjoy his music a great deal. You, it seems, have quite a variety of taste.”
“And you don’t?”
“In theory, yes. I like the very best music, whatever form it might take.”
“But?”
“But I haven’t the patience to wade through the ninety-nine percent that is worthless to find the occasional gem, so I usually let time decide for me.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“If a piece of music has survived forty or fifty years, then it probably has something to it that is worth listening to.”
She shook her head. “You have to wait a long time, then, to hear anything new.”
“I’m patient,” I said. “And the music I enjoy does not quickly become wearisome.”
“I love the way you talk,” she said, smiling full into my face.
“More coffee?”
“Please.”
I got her a new cup, warmed my own. She drank some, had another piece of pizza, then closed the box and said, “I think that is enough for me.”
“Then shall we go upstairs?”
“By all means.” She stood and held out her hand for mine. I took it, and, believe this if you will, I felt anticipation like a quickening of the pulse and a shortness of the breath. We went past the room where Jill was sleeping soundly, and Susan opened the door to her room. She stepped in, turned the overhead light on, and I followed. I took a moment to observe, both for what I could learn of her, and to prolong the moment; to hold off the delicious and now inevitable joining; if I ever indulge myself shamelessly, I think it is in such things as this.
It was a good-sized room, with walls painted some color for which only women know the name, one of those shades that is almost white with a bit of yellow. On the wall to my right was a black-framed photograph of her in the midst of some dance, ecstatic expression, mid-leap, etc. The opposite wall held a print of Renoir’s Moulin de la Galette. There were potted plants both hanging and on the floor throughout the room, many of them trailing tendrils haphazardly, so one had the impression that the entire room was framed in green stems and leaves. The end of one even dangled onto a corner of the bed, which was a mattress set on the floor, in elegant disarray of blue pillows, blue sheets, and yellow comforter. A plain wood dresser was next to it, an old-fashioned windup alarm clock on the dresser.
“Do you like it?” she said, spinning slowly, arm extended to show the room.
“Yes, only I’d expected a big iron bed enclosed in white lace.”
“Oh yes. Someday.”
She pulled off her T-shirt with the unselfconsciousness one finds in actors and, I suppose, dancers. There was no trace of coquetry in the action, although she watched me and smiled. She wore nothing underneath. She untied her skirt, let it fall, and stepped out of it. She wore nothing underneath that, either.
I searched for an interjection and didn’t find one, so I just shook my head. She came up to me and began unbuttoning my shirt. I took her hands in mine and held them, then brought my mouth to her warm, warm lips. She
