How Smart People Talk - (May 2017)
Annie walks into the yard, the spring air still warm well past sunset. The scent of the freshly cut grass calms her beating heart as she approaches the maple tree where JP sits cross legged with his eyes closed.
“When did you start meditating?” She stands for a moment peering down at his black curls before taking her place on the plaid blanket next to him .
“Mindy, my therapist on the island, she suggested it.” He answers without opening his eyes. “She said it would help me calm my mind and figure out my purpose. Turns out I like hearing the sounds in the world.”
As the words leave his lips Annie is aware of the trill of a bird in the distance hum just as the bells of St. Catherine ring out eight times, the shrill call of a crow in the branches reminds her of the bittersweet loneliness she’s felt since her arrival now muddled with her desire to never be alone again. Annie feels grounded in her decision to invite JP to visit, but her fluttering heart and nervous stomach make her reluctant to give into hope.
“Being with Mama these past few months has not been easy, but Mindy convinced me that complaining is not my friend.” A playful smile brightens his face just before he opens his eyes without turning toward Annie. “Turns out not complaining forced me not to talk but to write. I have a new album to record. And I have the mystery of Martha’s Vineyard to thank, the place I ran away from, I learned to appreciate the sounds of nature.”
“You were never really a nature guy.”
“It wasn’t nature,” he laughs. “I know being out in nature is supposed to be a great heartbreak cure but it wasn’t. Not for me.” He turns toward Annie and she feels the weight of his words in his glistening brown eyes. “But when I got there I started taking walks into town, that’s where I found inspiration. I played on the pier as the tourist disembarked. Since its quiet this time of year sometimes the pier was empty, but on those empty piers I could finally hear my voice again. It was a blessing to be alone, or not alone so much as not with you, because I’ve lost the skill to be with myself. And then one day I realized I wasn’t so lonely.”
“Did you miss me?”
“I was heartbroken,” he says quietly turning his vision toward the night sky just beginning to lighten with the evening stars. “But Mama’s dog died the day of her accident so she was heartbroken too. And you know that she likes to say that what happens in life happens in the heart.”
“She’s so French,” Annie says feeling her empathy for JP’s mama.
“Emotional devastation can break the body, and Mama knew this as fact.”
“I know, it’s true, heartbreak can cause real disease.”
“I told her that we would find love again. I said you will look back on this and it will be ok. And she said, How did you get so smart? And I said because I have a good mama.”
Annie takes his hand but he doesn’t turn toward her. “I’m sorry I got between you and Mama. I didn’t know what I was doing, I was only twenty-three. And honestly, at the time, I thought we were being courageous running from all the expectations. But we could have done better.”
“But if we had been prudent you never would have run off with me.”
“True.”
“The last days we were there together were idyllic, when I think back. We were so young.”
“And adrift.”
“And Mama was so controlling.” He laughs and turns toward her. “Now I’ve found the island life fits me. I suppose that’s something I would have known sooner if we hadn’t….”
“Run away,” Annie finishes.
He’s silent for a moment and she waits for what words he will speak. “I never want to stop hearing the sound in my heart, the one I know is there but has been silent for so long,” he sings to her and she feels the ice on her heart melt.
“Your poetry, it’s always worked on me.” She smiles placing her hand on his thigh and leans back against the scratchy bark of the maple tree.
“You gave us space, Annie. We’ve been together for so long and I thought being alone with Mama after the accident would undo me, but it’s been good. Me and Mama.”
“We broke her heart that summer.”
“I know.
“Truth, I never thought about her feelings.”
“We were both selfish kids.”
“I always wanted to be on the stage but you were the first to believe I could. Maybe it was courageous or maybe it was crazy for you believe in me. I was a dreamer and you always believed in my dreams. But truth, it never crossed my mind how devastated Charlie and Dottie would be if you didn’t come back.”
“I was running too, that’s why I went all in and I had no idea to know how it would turn out, I just knew I wasn’t going back to Cambridge.”
They sit together, hands entwined with their backs against the sturdy maple tree trunk, and listen to the evening sounds, neither willing the break the calm between them, until the bells of St. Catherine ring out with four staccato chimes.
“Do the bells ring every fifteen minutes?” JP asks
“It’s part of the neighborhood charm,” she answers knowing she’s being drawn into a zone of comfort with JP that she’s nervous she’s about to break. “Thanks for not making this hard,” Annie begins, feeling her heart race and the palms of her hands moisten, as she turns to face JP. “I want to apologize. I was a fool in my own fantasy. When I ran away I didn’t know I would break your heart, that was not my intention. But once I got here by then there was no turning back.” She pauses but JP stays still and silent. “It’s weird, I didn’t know I had so many people who give a shit about me, but since I’ve been back I’ve been finding them. Everywhere. I don’t want to live in the past of what could have been. I’m here now and I want you here too, if I haven’t broken us.”
She pauses and looks down at the plaid blanket they are sitting on, her vision blurry through the well of tears in her eyes.
“Bruised,” he says gently lifting her chin and locking his vision on her. “We will never be broken.”
Her heart lifts as his lips touch hers and she feels warm and safe in his embrace. They lean back on the sturdy trunk and watch the charcoal branches against the steel gray sky, the small clouds float past her view creating a menagerie of forms that remind Annie of circus animals.
“Remember how it was? When we were scrappy. That little house in Nashville and that school where I taught until you met Khadijah.” Annie pulls a small brown box from her back pocket that opens to reveal a perfectly rolled joint. She lights the tip with a smooth inhale and exhales toward the menagerie of clouds above before passing the joint to JP.
They sit quietly together remembering who they had been when they’d fled that summer to find a stage for JP and freedom for Annie. As the joint calms her mind she begins to feel the nostalgia of that decision from long ago turn into something she doesn’t want to keep remembering, and brings herself back to the moment.
“Has Mama been lonely?”
“Not lonely, she keeps herself busy. And she’s sorry, she knows blackmailing Khadijah wasn’t the right thing to do but she was desperate, Annie, she was blinded by her grandma instincts.” He takes the joint from Annie’s hand and turns away as he exhales his worries with the smoke.
“What did you do with Mama all day? Are you busy?”
“When I’m not writing or playing, mostly we watch TV. There are so many great shows on Netflix.” He pauses and turns toward her now relaxed and playful as the joint dwindles in size. “I’m not busy at all, I’d say I’m unbusy – and surprisingly I like it.” He laughs and leans onto her shoulder. “In LA I was completely absorbed in the things I should not be doing. But here, I’m different. Better.”
“I miss talking with you, I miss you.” Annie confesses before inhaling long and deep, her eyes closed as she tries to focus her thoughts. She opens them to exhale as JP turns to kiss her head. The smoke blinding him for a moment and with an awkward jerk Annie’s lips connect with his, she is lost in the softness of his mouth, their bodies instinctually arching into each other before Annie pulls back remembering where she is. “Not here,” she says quickly. “Never again here.” He understands and nods slowly as he sits back against the solid trunk of the maple tree.
“Just let me breath a minute,” he says slowly, “that was feeling pretty good.”
Annie laughs.
“Is this where it happened?” He looks up at the branches, the open space where the platform had been allowing the evening light to shine through. “We could rebuild it, Colette would love a tree house.”
“It seems so innocent, a tree house and a priest. But I’ve learned that sometimes we can’t distinguish the real horrors in life. Maybe I’m a real horror in life.”
“You aren’t a horror, but sometimes you’re exhausting,” JP answers.
“I did overreact when I threw your guitar over the balcony, it just caught me at a tender moment, I think. I’m better here, feels likes I matter here.”
“You matter to me,” he says slowly taking her hands in his. “You are all that matters to me.”
“I know that, but on the road. With the band these past twenty years, it’s been about you. I was the support, a roadie. And it was good. More than good, it was magical. But I want this now, stability. A place where my purpose is more than taking care of your dream, I want to take care of my own. And that’s the bakery. And being closer to Mom and Charlie, until they don’t need me anymore.”
“I can be here,” he says. “I don’t know why you won’t ask me, but I’m telling you. I will live here with you. You matter, you have always understood me. You saw me and got me to where I am, I’m grateful. I love you.”
“I know. And you never got tired of me.”
“Good thing I don’t tire easily,” he says with a mischievous smile and a glimmer in his dark eyes. “I love you, that will never change.”
“I miss the music, but not the touring. Thinking about the past feels like a longing for something made up, almost. It seems so fantastical that that was my life. And now I’m back here, where I was before, like I never left.”
“Except everything is different,” JP says. “Look at us, babe, I’ve always loved you, from the first moment I saw you in the subway station. You are brilliant and beautiful and for some unfathomable reason you liked me too.”
“You saved me,” she says quickly. “You took me on a magical mystery tour these past twenty years, but now I need to deal with me. I feel like I’ve found something, found me, here, I want to stay. Sometimes it feels like those years were lost because we were moving so fast and we didn’t have time to pause, and then came Colette. We lost time with people we love, for that I’m sorry. But without those years I wouldn’t be here, now. I loved the dark, the lights and the energy of the room where we all came to be together with the music. Then Colette changed everything. I didn’t even know I wanted that life, because for so long I’d simply rejected it. You know, it wasn’t my choice and the decision I made in that moment, it couldn’t be undone but Colette healed that wound.”
JP takes her hands in his and she quiets, their eyes only seeing each other. “It’s okay,” he says quietly. “But there was harm and I’m sorry for that.”
She nods slowly and feels her heart beat slow and her soul drawn into JP’s vision. “Are you going back to LA?” she says with a clenched stomach and stinging eyes. “I know you are staying for a few more days but it’s never enough time. Why does it hurt every time you leave me?”
“Then ask me to stay.”
“But you can’t, your life is not here.”
“But could be. It would be. My life, my home has always been with you. Travelling the world, staying up all night and watching the sunrise in every continent.”
“My father, Chapman, he said I should watch the sunset every night.”
“He was right. We missed something living like we did. No stability and no real home. But it’s never too late to make things right. Ask me.” JP feels a quiver of anticipation release into his body as he waits for what he can’t control.
Annie pushes herself away from the sturdy trunk and stands herself up. She searches her pockets and pulls out an orange hair elastic which she twirls around her finger as she slowly lowers herself onto one knee. “One more thing,” she says with a purr in her voice leaning in close to JP’s body. “This time, Charlie gives me away.”
“So, ask me. Ask me Annie, everyone likes to be asked.”
“Jean-Pierre Sarfati will you marry me?”