Traces

One song in particular reminded him of her.  Though Digory Marks heard Sossity Chandler’s hits everywhere popular music played, that song made his stomach tighten and his breathing labor.

He would be riding in a car with friends and hear “Traces” by the Classics IV:

Faded photographs, covered now in lines and creases
Tickets torn in half—memories in bits and pieces
Traces of love long ago that didn’t work out right
Traces of love with me tonight . . .

The lyrics and the mournful saxophone solo would put him in a blue funk, so much that his friends would ask him what was wrong.

He did not begrudge her success.  Back when they dated, she played coffee bars and taverns, always short of money, always living on the edge of poverty.

They met during a fraternity picnic at Purdue University.  He noticed her because she was pretty.  She had on a black and gold Purdue sweatshirt, a pair of white shorts, athletic socks and running shoes.  He stepped up and listened to her sing James Taylor’s “Carolina on my Mind” for an elderly alumni couple.  They threw a twenty-dollar bill into her open guitar case.  He glanced down and saw she had earned about a hundred dollars in tips.

When he looked up, her small audience had melted away.  She smiled, showing a row of white, even teeth.

“Hi.  You got a request?”

“Not really.”

“Well then, I’m going to take a break.  I’ve played for an hour and my fingers are getting sore.”

He pointed.

“Are you coming to the picnic?”

She glanced over at the rows of outdoor tables.  Staff from a catering company were loading them with food.

“I don’t think I’m invited.”

“I’m inviting you.”  He held out his hand.  “I’m Will Marks.”

She shook his hand.

“Sossity Chandler.”

“Sossity?  That name sounds really English.”

“My mother is English and she gave me an English name I have to explain to everyone.”

He laughed.  “My real first name is Digory.  Very English.  You’re braver than I am.  I go by my middle name.  What’s your middle name?”

“Elizabeth.”

“Why don’t you just go by that?”

She knelt down to put her guitar in its case, but first she scooped up the money people had thrown into it.  He stole a glance at her beautiful legs.

“I don’t know,” she answered.  “Really, I kind of like my name.  It’s a good conversation starter, if nothing else.”

“Well, Sossity, Digory is inviting you to be his guest at the Sigma Upsilon Fraternity Alumni picnic.  They’ve been roasting a pig for sixteen hours, there’s beer, wine, whatever you want.  How about it?”

She smiled.  “Sure.  Let me put my guitar away.  I’m supposed to play one more hour before the football game.”

“You’ll have time to play.  Are you just getting tips today?”

“No, I’m getting tips on top of a fee.  That’s good.  Your people are generous.  I’ve made a hundred and forty in tips already.”

“Rich old geezers who like to give money to pretty girls are what they are,” he observed.  “Come on.  Let’s find a seat.”

After that she called him by his first name.  She was the only girl he had dated who addressed him as “Digory” or “Dig.”

That afternoon they ate, drank beer, and talked.  She had been a student at Purdue but dropped out to try to make it as a musician.

“How did your family feel about that?”

“They were not real happy,” she said, biting into a peace of barbequed pork and getting sauce all over her hands and mouth.

“What was your major?”

“Pre-med.  They wanted me to be a doctor.  I decided I wanted to be a musician.  I dropped out after my sophomore year.  What’s your major?”  She finished off a bottle of Amstel Lite beer.

“Business.  My family owns a brokerage firm in Columbus and I’ll eventually take it over.”

“You like doing that sort of thing?”

“Not particularly, but my family expects me to take the reigns and continue the business.”

One of the servers came by and asked Sossity if she wanted more.  Digory watched as the catering staff filled her plate with pork, corn on the cob, and sweet potatoes.

“You want me to get you another beer?” he asked.

“How about some wine?”
    He went over and got a bottle.

“You’ve got a good appetite,” he observed.

“I eat as much as I can when I can.  Things have been thin lately, so any free meal I try to make the most of.”

“You play music for a living?”

“And give guitar lessons.”

“Where do you live?”

“I have an apartment on State Street.”

This puzzled him.  State was not a residential street.  He wondered for a moment if she were homeless.  He decided she look too healthy for that.  Asking where on State Street she lived would be too forward, he decided.

“How do you feel about going in the family business?” she asked.

“I don’t mind it, I guess.”

“Is being a broker what you really want to do?”

“It’s as good as anything, I guess.  I like having money.  So even if being a broker isn’t my first choice, I like the fringe benefits.”

“Fringe benefits?” she repeated.  She started to eat corn on the cob.  “Like what?”

“A BMW, summers in Europe or the Caribbean.  Nice things.”

“That does sound nice,” she observed.  She seemed more intent on eating than talking.

She sat with him and watched the festivities.  As they went on, she drank almost the entire bottle of wine and got rather drunk.

Afterward she played the second set.  He wanted to ask her out but something about her made him unsure of himself.  He requested “Eye of the Tiger” and she did an acoustic version of it.  At the end of the show she was elated to have made another $220.00 in tips.  He added twenty to her tips and said he would try to get her another job playing for a fraternity event.

“I’d appreciate it, Digory.  I need all the help I can get.”

He tried to get up enough courage to suggest they see each other again, but something rebuffed him and he backed off and went to football game.  That night he Googled her name and found she had won several track titles in high school and one or two when she attended Purdue.  He could not find any further information on her.  He only knew she lived somewhere on State Street.

At the beginning of October he saw a poster.  She was playing at a local pub.

Digory came in the bar and saw Sossity Chandler sitting on a bar stool on a small platform to the left.  The place was deserted but for the bartender.  She had on an orange dress and had tied her hair back with a headband.

“Digory,” she smiled as he approached.  “Hello.  Glad to have at least one customer.”

She had remembered his name.  He glanced around.  “It’s awfully quiet in here.”

“There was a pretty good crowd twenty minutes ago.  They left.  I was just about to do ‘Now We’re All Alone.’  That’s what I usually play when no one’s around.”

“Why do you play when no one’s around?”

“To keep my fingers warm. And I was hired to play.  I play for myself if for no one else.  You got a favorite?”

“Pick one out for me.”

“Vocal or instrumental?”

“I like to hear you sing.”

She did an original, one she later recorded on her first album.  More people came in.  In fact, quite a few people came in and she warmed to the crowd.  He bought her wine (the pub did not have a liquor license and could only sell beer and wine) and listened to her play.  At nine she said good-night to the crowd and collected her tips and money from the bartender. Digory lingered.

“I was wondering,” he said, his voice nervous despite attempts to conceal his anxiety, “would you like to go over to the Parthenon for more wine and get something to eat?”

She looked straight at him, her eyes calculating.  His heart began to pound.  Something about the way she looked at him unnerved him.

“Sure.  A gyros would really be nice.  Let me get my guitar and we’ll go over.”

She packed up her guitar.  They walked across the street towards Von’s Bookstore and down to the Parthenon, a Greek restaurant.  Inside, he ordered food and a bottle of wine.

“You look nice,” he told her.

“Thanks.  I perform in jeans way too much.  I thought I’d dress up tonight.”

“Do you make much money at places like that?”

“Hardly any.  The house paid me twenty-five bucks.  That’s an insult.  I’ll never play that shit-hole again.”

He sipped a glass of wine.

“You ate at the picnic like you were kind of hungry,” he commented.

“I hadn’t eaten in a couple of days.”

This shocked him, though he tried to not show his reaction too much.

“That’s not good, Sossity.  You should at least get a job so you have money for food, for Christ’s sake.”

“Everybody tells me that.  I only care that I have enough to keep my apartment.  I can go without food for a couple of days at a time.  I don’t have to do it very often and when I do it’s not so bad.  Just promise you’ll pay the bill tonight, because I sure can’t.”

She poured his glass a wine full then poured and then hers.  She lifted her glass.

“Here’s to better times,” she said.

They clinked glasses, drank, and began to talk.  They discussed their mothers, both English women married to Americans.  They talked about Purdue, about music, about the absurdities of having an English mother in American culture.  They laughed, bought more wine, got drunker and drunker, and finally walked out arm in arm when the restaurant closed.

“I’m way too drunk to drive back to the Frat House,” he said, “even though it’s only a couple of miles away.”

Somehow this seemed hilariously funny and they both laughed uproariously.

“Come up to my place.”

“Where?”

“I live up there.”

She pointed to one of the old buildings just down from the bank Louis Sullivan had designed where State and South Street come together.  They staggered across the roads and by an alley door and entered an old building that housed a business.  They stumbled up a set of creaky wooden stairs.  Sossity fumbled for her keys.  After several attempts and a great deal of drunken laughter, she got the right one in the slot and they went inside.

Inside he saw three squares of light from tall windows that faced the street.  He tripped on something and almost fell.

“My bed’s here,” she said.

“Where?”

“On the floor.  Actually, it’s a mattress.  Come on.”

She led him through the dark punctuated with squares of street light.  He felt the mattress.  The two of them lay down.

“I usually sleep in a sleeping bag,” Sossity told him, “but I’ve got a couple of quilts.”

She pulled them out of an old steamer trunk.  Digory was too drunk to undress.  Sossity took off her clothes and threw on an oversized t-shirt she slept in.  In only moments both of them had fallen asleep.

He woke that morning before she did.  She lay across from him, beautiful in unguarded sleep.  He gazed down at her a moment then let his eyes rove around her apartment.

The room measured, he would guess, thirty feet by twenty.  It was the top floor of the old building with a book store underneath.  He could see the wooden framework of the roof.  The three un-curtained windows faced the street.  The floor was clean but worn, its wood grey.  Besides the mattress, he saw a wardrobe full of fairly nice clothes, its bottom stuffed with shoes, a suitcase with underwear and towels spilling out of it, her guitar case, a small writing table and chair.

“Sossity,” he whispered.

She squinted in her sleep then opened her eyes.  She smiled at him.

“Hi.”

“Where’s the john?”

“Out in the hall.”  She pointed.  “Go out the door and it’s just left.”

He got up, went through the door where the stairs came up, and saw a short corridor, turned, and found her bathroom.  It contained a toilet, sink, and shower—not in bad shape but, like the apartment, shabby with age.

He came back, she lay on her side, eyes closed but he could tell she was awake.  He slid into bed beside her.

“How’s your hangover?” she asked groggily.

“Not as bad as I thought it would be.”

“Mine’s pretty bad.  Wine gives me a bad hangover.”

“It dries you out.  Are you up for breakfast at Denny’s?  I’ll buy.”

She smiled.  She still had not opened her eyes.

“That sounds good Digory.”

He snuggled in closer to her.  He could not remember if she kissed him first or he kissed her, but one thing led to another and they made love for the first time that morning.  He still remembered it with painful longing after all the years they had been apart.  Afterwards they both fell asleep.  They woke up ten.

“I feel better now,” Sossity told him.  “I’m ready to eat,” she said.

They drove to the Denny’s on Highway 26.  That morning drive remained in his memory like a favorite scene from a cherished movie that never loses its magic no matter how many times it is played.  The sun sat in the sky, white and pale, spreading light over the frosted grass of lawns that glistened as the hoar melted away.  Mist rose from chimneys and grates in the street.  They crossed the Wabash.  A heavy mass of fog rolled up from its surface.

They ate.  After breakfast they went for a walk in Happy Hollow Park.  When she said she had to go he asked, “Are we going to see each other again?”

Her enigmatic gaze fell on him once more.  And he again felt light-headed and fluttery.

“I think so,” she replied after a long pause.   “I’ll call you.”

They parted.  Digory went back to his fraternity house, up to his room, and much of the day thinking about her.

He had dated girls who were prettier than Sossity Chandler and girls who were more intelligent and well-spoken.  He had been in short-term relationship with co-eds who seemed just as quirky as she—who had defied parents with even loftier expectations for them in order to become painters or ballet dancers or to hitch-hike through Europe or sit at the feet of gurus in India and Sri Lanka.  Her rebellious girl talk was nothing new to him.  Something about her, though, puzzled and attracted him.

She and Digory dated for eighteen months.  Those months had been a magical time in his life.  She taught him to play guitar.  He attended her gigs in bars and coffee houses, at state fairs, dances and weddings.  Digory experienced something he had never before or since known with a woman:  true, genuine intimacy.

Then one night he had ended their relationship.

They were in Lafayette.  One of Digory’s friends was on vacation and he had offered to house-sit that week.  Sossity was back from an exhausting week in which she had played eight concerts in five days.  The two of them lay in bed and looked at the patterns the moonlight shadow of a tree made on the ceiling.

“Remember that song by Simon and Garfunkle?  ‘Patterns’?”

“Don’t remember it.”

“It was an album song.  They never released it as a single.”

She sang the song.  He remembered her haunting, a cappella rendition of the piece, surprisingly passionate for such a private moment.  After their split, he bought Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme and played it over and over, memorizing the lyrics, especially the last two stanzas:

The pattern still remains
On the wall where darkness fell,
And it’s fitting that it should,
For in darkness I must dwell.

Like the color of my skin,
Or the day that I grow old,
My life is made of patterns
That can scarcely be controlled.

He could remember her voice dying away in the quiet of the bedroom.  When her song ended, the wind shook the house.  The windows rattled.  The pattern of branch shadows on the ceiling shimmered violently.

“That’s not a very optimistic song,” he commented.

“It’s true.”

“Not true.”  He hesitated then began.  This was an opportunity to bring something that had bothered him of late.  He would graduate soon.  After graduation he planned to return to Columbus and begin working for the family business.  Sossity had said nothing about her plans for the future.  He had vaguely thought of marriage—not that he exactly wanted to marry her but he wanted her to consider it a future possibility.  He realized her career plans might not allow this.  “You control your life,” he went on.  “You’ve seen that, Sossity.  You made a decision not to go back to school.”

“But how do I even know that was a free decision?”

“If it isn’t then maybe you ought to rethink the performer thing.”

She looked over at him.

“I can’t believe what I just heard you say.”

He smiled, hoping the anger he saw in her eyes was not completely genuine and that she might be joking.

“What the fuck are you grinning at?  Digory, you’ve been my boyfriend for over a year and now I see you don’t know the first goddamned thing about me.”

“That isn’t true.”

“It is too.  And that’s the bad thing.”

“You’re talking like a crazy woman.”

“Digory, I’ve slept with you and lived with you.  You don’t think I know you?  You meant every word you just said.”

“I just want you to think about it, that’s all.”

She jumped up and pulled on her jeans and sweatshirt.  He never dreamed anyone could get dressed so quickly.  She picked up her shoes.

“Sossity, stop acting like an idiot.”

“This is sad,” she said, as if she had not heard his last admonition.  “You’ve been in my bed and in my pussy but I can tell you don’t know even know who I am.”

“Where are you going?”  He got up on one elbow.

“Home.  To my place.”

She walked out, slamming the door as he called after her.  He heard her car start and pull out of the driveway.

He thought it was only a temper tantrum.  He thought it might be the result of a hangover, PMS, or maybe exhaustion from playing too many gigs that week.  But she never called.  He had not seen her again.

As Digory Marks sat at his desk in the brokerage firm he now ran, he looked at an announcement on the internet.  Sossity Chandler would do a concert in his town in a week.  The city’s biggest arena was already sold out.  After a long struggle, he clicked on the address for fan mail and wrote her:

Hi, Sossity.  This is your old boyfriend Digory.  You’re coming to my town and I’m arrogant enough to think you still might want to see me.  Can we get together for old time’s sake?  Dig.

He decided that was all he would say.  He hit the send icon and his short missal went out into cyberspace.

The next day he got a reply:

Digory—I’d mentioned your name to my screener and she recognized it and passed your message on.  I’m sending you a backstage pass and a ticket for the concert.  Walk up and show the pass to my security guard and he’ll escort you back.  We can talk about old times.  Sossity.

He could hardly believe it.  His hands shook so badly he took them away from the keyboard, afraid he might hit the wrong key and delete the message.

At a staff meeting two days before the concert he got up to make a presentation.

“This has been a good month,” he said.  “A really good month for profits, but before we get to the report I have something to say.”

A slight look of alarm flashed in the eyes of his staff.  He resisted the impulse to smile.

“I’m changing the name plate on my door,” he said, “and on all my stationery.  You all call me Will, but you know that my real name is Digory.  Digory William Marks.  Starting today I want to go to my real first name.  I know it will take some getting used to, but I want you to address me as ‘Digory.’”  He paused.  “Any questions?”

He saw a few guarded smiles.  They wondered if he was joking.  He did not smile and his employees—who could read his non-verbals well—knew he meant it.  The meeting proceeded.

He had the name plate changed.  That night he went home, opened a bottle of Drumbuie, drank and listened to Sossity’s music, then to the Simon and Garfunkle tape, until 3 a.m.  The next day filled up with meetings and consultations.  An important opportunity opened in Singapore but he sent his vice-president, Marla, to represent him.  Nothing in the world would stop him from attending the concert.

Nothing in the world would prevent him from seeing Sossity Chandler.

A valet parked his Jaguar.  He walked into the concert hall.  Sossity had reserved a front row seat for him.  The place was sold out.  He settled back in his chair.

A local band opened.  After their short set, she came out on stage.

The crowd roared and got to its feet.  She smiled and waved at the crowd—or at him?  He gaped at her.  She looked the same.  She had not changed.  Up close, he realized, she might look a little older but from this distance it was as if she had answered the door to her shabby apartment on State Street.  She carried the same red acoustic guitar she owned at Purdue and wore boots, a short blue skirt and white top.  When the cheering died down, she glanced back at her band members, nodded, and they broke into one of her fast hit songs.

She performed with energy.  He remembered how intense she had been in the old days.  Even if her venue was only a local bar or coffee house, she would give it all her energy and talent.  Her ferocious stage presence contributed to her continued success.  Critics were unanimous in saying she put on the best show of any pop star.  He listened with rapture and watched with adoration.

She did a solo segment—a regular part of her show, performing acoustic versions of her slower hits.  After the second song, she leaned close to the microphone.

“Tonight, Ladies and Gentlemen,” she said, “an old friend of mine is here.  I don’t want to embarrass him—hell, I do want to embarrass him.  Digory Marks, please stand up.”

He stood up, turned to face the larger part of the audience.

“Ladies and Gentleman, Digory Marks.  Digory and I used to date back when I was in college and it’s great to see him again.”

He smiled, waved, and then sat down.  The crowd cheered and clapped.

“Digory, this song is for you.  I’ll see you backstage afterwards.”

She strummed a chord and tuned (an old habit, he remembered).  Then she launched into “Returning,” an immensely popular current hit.  After that her band came back on stage and played a set of fast, blistering songs.  After an encore the house lights came on to indicate the show had ended.

Clutching his pass, he got up.  Security led him backstage.  When Sossity saw him, she threw his arms around him and, to his astonishment, gave him a kiss on the mouth.  He felt himself tightening up, feeling same the kind of fear as what had crept over him that day at the alumni picnic when he had been too petrified to ask for a date.

She put him at arm’s length and appraised him.

“Good to see you again,” she beamed.  “Let’s have a drink, like old times.”

He followed her to the table.  Sossity produced a bottle of Canadian Club whisky and two glasses.

“I can afford a lot better than this now,” she said, “but this is what I always used to drink back then—what we used to drink.”

They sat.  He glanced at her legs—just as beautiful as the first day he had seen her and been attracted to her.  She noticed and raised the hem of her skirt

“I wore a mini just for you,” she said.  “You were always into my legs.”
    “You knew that?”

“You think a girl doesn’t notice what part of her a guy stares at?”

He laughed and felt a bit of relief.  She poured him another drink.

“I tried to get on your web page and catch up on what’s been happening with you,” he said, “but it was down.”

“I had my webmaster shut it down because we had to revise some things.  Had to take the family information off.  I’m getting a divorce.”

“Divorce?  I’m sorry to hear that, Sossity.”

She sipped her drink.  “I found out my husband of eight years was fucking my best friend and former college roommate.  You remember Kathy Farisi?”

He remembered her—a tall, sinewy Italian girl with olive skin and long hair.

“I found out and went overseas to get some perspective.  I met an Israeli guy in England and stayed with him.  Then he got tired of me too.  So I end up betrayed by a husband and dumped by a lover all in a couple of months.”

“I’d say those two guys are real idiots.”

He wanted to say more but his voice trailed off.  What he feared overcome him.  Once more he had become paralyzed, tongue-tied.  He looked hopelessly at her, unable to speak.

“You’ve changed,” she observed.  “You know what I’d planned for tonight, Digory?  I thought you would come here and get all ingratiating and I would get to tell you off and I would enjoy it greatly because I’m out for blood and especially the blood of guys I know.  You’ve thrown me a curve.”

His tongue seemed to be made out of lead.  He fought his way through and managed to speak.

“I love you,” he said.  He stammered but managed to continue.  “I’ve never stopped loving you.  If that’s stupid I guess it will have to be that way.  I’m sorry for what I said to you that night we split up.  Your husband and your boyfriend—I called them idiots.  I can say they were because I’ve been there and done that.  I was an idiot that night in the apartment when you sang ‘Patterns’ to me.  And it cost me.  It cost me my whole life, Sossity.”

She was looking at her and then lowered her eyes.

“Well,” she said, “I was pretty ruthless with you that night.  I wanted to tell you I’m sorry but didn’t think I’d have the courage to do it.  Now I have to say so.”

“I’ve never forgot it.  I went into the family business.  I did well.  My family is proud of me.  I have all the perks, just like I told you that one time.   I kept living everyone else’s script.  Basically I still am.  But it’s started to change.”

“How?”

“A good place to start is with your name.”

He explained what he had done at the office.  She listened carefully.  He asked about her divorce.  They drank more whisky.  With considerable bitterness, Sossity narrated what happened with her marriage.  After finishing the story, she smiled.

“Just like old times.  I’m bitching and you’re listening.”

Her bodyguard walked up.

“Sos, they want to close the place.”

She looked over at Digory.

“You want to continue the conversation at my hotel room?  I can throw out my manager so we can have some privacy.”

Digory looked at her.  He saw the face he knew so well, the face that had been against his as they made love—the white-blond hair, the blue of her eyes.  In a flash of warmth he remembered the contours of her body. But he hesitated.

“I don’t think it would be good—at least not tonight.”

She gaped at him.  “Why not?”

“It’s too soon and it seems too impulsive on both our parts.”

She met his eyes.  For a moment he thought she would explode in anger once more, but her gaze turned sad.  She looked down.

“Okay.  I can see where you’re coming from.”

“Are you leaving tonight?”

“I’m leaving tomorrow night.  I’ve got a concert series in England and Scandinavia to get ready for. And I’ve got a bunch of interviews to do.  I’m not looking forward to that.  I have to tell about the divorce—the whole shtick.”

“Then tonight you ought to rest.  How about breakfast and we’ll go from there?”

She nodded.  They arranged to meet at a private dining room in her hotel.  They stood a long moment in the dark silence of the concert hall.

“It’s spooky when you don’t talk,” Digory commented.  “You always used to have something to say.”

“Maybe that was the problem.”

He kissed her.

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

Digory turned and left.  The police escorted him out of the darkened building.  Outside, rain fell.  The air felt cool.  He headed for the parking garage to get his car.

________________________________________________

David W. Landrum teaches literature at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan.  His fiction has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Traces is one story in a series he is doing on music and musicians, a number of which have appeared in Riverwalk, Amarillo Bay, The Cynic OnLine, Eskimo Pie, and others.