Randy Tierce is a former music educator, fine arts administrator, and university assistant professor. Although he now spends most of his time hiking, thinking, and writing fiction, some days he just looks out the window while drinking thick black coffee. He resides near Houston but dreams of one day living in the Pacific Northwest.
~~~
The first thing the pianist noticed was a tracheotomy scar that glowed like a necklace at the base of the olive-skinned young woman’s throat.
She wore a black maternity dress, tights, and flat-soled shoes. A pashmina shawl with tasseled ends was draped across her shoulders and down her arms. Long dark hair framed her face as she scouted the wedding reception hall with emerald-green eyes.
The wedding coordinator waved her over. “See that guy on stage? The one with the bright eyes, blond hair, and square jaw, the one too handsome to be real, the one wearing a tux and looks like he hasn’t eaten in a week? That’s him. He’ll tell you what to do.”
Out of breath after climbing the steps, the woman brushed a ribbon of rose-highlighted hair from her heart-shaped face then held up a single finger. After a moment, she exhaled and extended her hand. “I’m Rose, your singer for tonight.”
“I’m Jack,” said the pianist as he shook her hand.
“Funny,” she chuckled. “I hope that’s not an omen.”
Jack didn’t respond to her quip, just asked what happened to the woman who usually sang at wedding gigs with him.
“Conflict,” said Rose. “I’m your sub. Tell me what we’re doing.”
Jack handed her the set list. “I’ll play some of the tunes as dinner music, and you can solo on some of them while I accompany.”
Rose caressed her scar like an amulet and softly whistled. “This is a lot. I hope you’re going to solo on some of them.”
“I will,” said Jack. “And we can do some duets, if you want.”
Rose tapped the list that seemed to include everything from Nat King Cole to Adele. “I like this Sheryl Crow and Sting tune. It’s at the bottom of my register, but since I got”—she clutched her stomach like a basketball—“muy preggers, I sound like a man half the time, so….”
They got acquainted while Jack played. Rose said she’d gone to the Eastman School of Music; Jack rubbed a knee while saying he’d briefly gone to Texas State before dropping out to do “other” things for a few years.
Rose said she’d tried the professional music scene after leaving the conservatory but quickly tired of the lifestyle and had opted to make music her hobby. She lightly touched the scar, saying she’d also done some “other” things for a while.
“I’m a mixologist at Town Lake Executive Club,” Rose said. “The pay is okay, but the hours, meh, not so much. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of time for socializing other than on the job.”
Rose patted her stomach. “He was the barback. About five years younger than me and a big flirt. When I told him I was knocked up, he pouted. Said if I wanted us to stay together, I’d need to get rid of the baby. I said, ‘How about I stay with this baby and get rid of you—you big baby—instead?’ And that, Jack, is how you end up twenty-seven years old, unmarried, working full time, but busking for food and rent money when you’re thirty-seven weeks pregnant.”
There was a brief lull in the conversation while they each considered what the other had shared. After a few beats, Rose said, “So, you’re one of those guys, huh?”
“What kind of guy is that?” Jack said as he played a familiar Elton John song.
“No sheet music, everything from memory—that kind.”
Jack continued to play as he told Rose that he didn’t use sheet music because he didn’t—couldn’t—read music, not in the conventional sense.
“Has it held you back?” Rose asked.
Jack modulated to a different tune and kept playing. “Not so far.”
“How do you learn something new?”
“Not really sure. I hear something and instinctively know how to play it.” His hands were busy. “I’m basically self-taught.” He played an ascending arpeggio. “I use these”—he quickly touched his ears, then played a descending melodic progression —“and sometimes I just fake it.”
* * *
The wedding coordinator wanted to recognize the musicians for their contribution. She poised her thumbs over her phone as she looked at the duo.
“I’m Jack.”
“And I’m Rose.”
The coordinator smiled while tapping into her phone. “Oh my, this is awesome.” She hustled to center stage and used the microphone to gain the crowd’s attention. “Hey, everyone! How about a big round of applause, for Jack—and Rose!”
A murmuring wave rippled through the sloshed crowd. Several people slurred loud, drunken comments. Someone shouted “Iceberrrg!” Rose laughed and smiled as she turned to Jack. He looked at her with a blank expression and shrugged his shoulders.
* * *
The tipsy bride handed Jack a note, wondering whether they could do the theme song from that shipwreck disaster movie. She’d enclosed their names in quotation marks: “Jack & Rose.” Drawn a big heart around their names. Scribbled little hearts in place of the letter a in Jack and the letter o in Rose.
Although Jack felt certain Rose could handle a full-voice D5, he nodded questioningly in her direction. Rose traced her scar with a finger. “Sure,” she said. “The worst that could happen is I’ll go into labor, and you’ll have to deliver my baby in front of three hundred strangers.” Jack grimaced. Rose playfully punched him in the shoulder. “I’m kidding, Jack, let’s go for it.” Then, in a British accent, she mumbled about something being “right ahead.”
Rose placed a hand on Jack’s shoulder as she carefully stepped over the floor monitor. Said oof as she squeezed around him. She stepped out of her shoes, turned her head away from the retro microphone and softly cleared her throat into a fist.
Jack played the introduction as Rose placed her fingertips lightly against the side of the microphone stand. She took a deep cleansing breath, closed her eyes—and sailed away.
Midway through the song, the wedding crowd openly wept when Rose caressed the base of Jack’s neck while tearfully singing that one touch of love could last for a lifetime.
Jack had never thought about the lyrics. Hadn’t even seen the movie. Previously, when he performed the tune, it was merely ambient background for a noisy dinner party. But on this night, he rode the wave of every phrase. The highs, the lows, the ebb and flow, the crests, the troughs.
* * *
While still married to their most recent exes, the newlyweds (everyone was calling them the oldyweds) had swayed into each other at a Michael Buble concert. “Quando, Quando, Quando”—the hipster crooner’s duet with Nelly Furtado—became their song. It was their “first dance” music.
Rose was exhausted from all the belting in the shipwreck song. And iyiyi, it felt as if the baby was already dancing a ballroom rumba.
“You going to be okay?” Jack asked.
Rose sat on a stool with her legs apart, furiously fanned her face and underneath her dress with a wedding program. “Just go, Jack, before I pass out.”
Jack vocalized the opening question a cappella—Tell me when will you be mine?—and then together, in the key of A Major, they sang about when, when, when….
* * *
While waiting for the windshield to defrost, Jack looked to his left, where Rose was parked. He touched the tender spot of his shoulder, where she’d squeezed him during one of the numbers. It felt bruised. He watched Rose in her car, and hummed, “hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm, quannnn-dooo.”
Rose drove a dented twenty-year-old compact sedan that barely ran. She sat for a moment in her cruddy car, cradling her stomach with both hands. The baby had been kicking all night, and in the middle of that boat song, Rose had grabbed hold of Jack’s trapezius muscle and squeezed it like an anchor line to avoid falling.
The pain had been so severe when she sang about one touch of love lasting for a lifetime, she’d cried. And then she’d had to reach for Jack again when they sang that damn duet. But she’d missed his neck and had grabbed the top of his head instead. Her sweaty palm had slid down the front of his face. She’d squeezed his cheeks to keep from screaming that line about not being able to wait a moment more.
Rose rubbed her hands together and blew on them. She ran a finger across her neck scar and then turned the key. Clicking, then silence. Rose shook her head and spoke to her stomach. “Baby—it’s cold outside.” This tickled Rose, and she began laughing. Then crying. Then laughing and crying. She patted the air with her hands, looked into the rearview mirror, and shook her head. “Get a grip, lady!” She rubbed the laughing tears from underneath her eyes with her pinkie fingers and muttered to herself. “What a fricking disaster you are, Rose.”
Jack continued looking toward Rose, watching her talk to herself. He hummed, thinking of how he hadn’t wanted the evening to end. The way she’d touched his hair, felt his face, squeezed his cheeks, making him look like a fish, during the duet. He wondered what the scar on her neck would feel like against his lips.
Rose smiled, waved at Jack and then turned the key. More clicking. She punched the dashboard with a fist. “You sorry stinking lousy piece of shi—Ahhhh!” Rose pounded the steering wheel three times. “No, No, No!”
When Jack heard Rose screaming, he jumped out of his car and hurried toward her vehicle. Rose was already standing outside when he got there. Something was dripping from underneath the hem of her dress onto her shoes.
“I think I might have a bit of a problem, Jack.”
And then it began to snow.
* * *
While Jack drove, carefully navigating the ice-covered roadway, Rose called her mother. “Mami?” Then in a sing-song manner, “Sooo, how ya doin…?”
“Rosie! How am I? How are you?”
“Yeah, so everything is fine, Mami.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful. Nana and I were just talking about you. It won’t be long now. So exciting. Can’t wait!”
“Yeah, so here’s the thing, Mami. Things are going fine, but my water broke about ten minutes ago and—”
“Nana! Rosie va a tener el bebé. Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Nosotras estamos en camino!”
* * *
Rose was resting with a forearm draped across her eyes. Jack, who was sitting in a chair beside the hospital bed, quietly slipped Rose’s car key into his pocket as she said, “How old are you, Jack?”
A pause.
“Jack…?”
“Forty…one…and a half.”
Rose sighed and fluttered air through her lips. “Of course you are.” A forlorn laugh. “You’re the same age as my father.”
Jack did the math. “Your father was fourteen when you were born?”
“Mmhmm…Mami too.”
“Wow.”
“Yep-puh—wow. Nana raised me and Mami. Imagine raising your daughter and your granddaughter…as your daughters.”
Rose rubbed her closed eyes with both palms and then traced the scar on her neck with a finger. “I’ve never met him. He was just some green-eyed, oversexed, pimply-faced white boy—no offense—from the north side, and she was just a dumb gullible bubble-gum-chewing Latina from the south side who liked stupid horny teenage guayabera-wearing wannabe San Antonio gangstas.”
* * *
The doctor told Jack he should probably wait outside while she examined Rose. He walked down the hall. Looked out the third-floor window. Icicles were hanging from the eaves. Puddles had turned into frozen ponds in the cold dark parking lot.
The elevator chimed as the doors behind him opened. Two women stepped off and rushed down the hall, excitedly chattering with one another in Spanish. Jack paused a moment before following them.
The doctor came out as Jack approached the room. “We’re in a bit of a holding pattern,” she said, “but don’t worry—your daughter is doing just fine.” Jack felt a hollowing out when the doctor said this to him, but he didn’t correct her. Instead, he quietly opened the door and entered Rose’s room.
The privacy curtain had been pulled around the bed, and Jack could hear the three women speaking to and over one another in English and Spanish. He listened to their animated conversation for a few seconds, then backed out of the room.
* * *
Jack had three gigs the next day. It was approaching dark when he finally returned to the hospital. He popped into the gift shop five minutes before it closed. Bought roses. Purchased pink and blue gifts.
The hospital room was empty. Jack rushed to the nurse’s station and asked about Rose. No need for alarm. Rosabella Hermosa had given birth to a healthy baby girl. Mother and grandmother had taken Rose and the infant with them. Jack asked for a phone number. The nurse shrugged and said, “Sorry—HIPAA,” then winked and nodded toward his computer monitor.
Sitting in his car, just outside the hospital, Jack called the phone number the nurse had shown him. He heard a burring sound under the passenger seat. He fished out Rose’s phone. Looked at it for a second, then tossed it in the center console, and went home.
* * *
Two months later, Jack was sitting at his dining table drinking his usual single cup of espresso. He had no performing engagements that first day of spring, but as was his habit, he had risen early, showered, shaved, and dressed. Casually attired in color-coordinated shirt, shorts, belt, socks, and shoes. Thick hair perfectly combed and moussed, not a strand out of place.
* * *
Rose slipped the backpack diaper bag over one shoulder, removed the detachable car seat holding the baby, and approached the house. She changed hands with the baby carrier as she read the tarnished brass nameplate in the middle of the front door: Jackson.
* * *
Jack looked through the narrow window beside the door. Almost, he didn’t recognize the woman smiling at him as she peered over the top of large sunglasses. Rose had lost a lot of weight. Her hair was shorter and missing the rose-colored highlight. She wore running shoes, maroon leggings, and a loose-fitting cream-colored tunic top that bared one shoulder.
When Jack opened the door, Rose stepped inside, removed her sunglasses, and ran an index finger across her neck scar. “You must be the only person on the planet without a Ring doorbell, Jack.” She walked past him, set the carrier holding the sleeping baby in the middle of the dining table, then placed a hand on a cocked hip. “So, your last name is Jackson, huh?”
“Afraid so.”
“Catchy. Jack Jackson. Easy to remember.” Rose sat and exhaled. “I just wanted to come by and personally thank you for”—she touched the carrier—“this thing. Muy fancy.”
“Pleasure.” Jack reached out and felt the sleeping baby’s hand; she reflexively clutched his pinky finger.
“And for the diaper bag,” Rose added as she placed it on the floor.
“Glad you like it.”
“And the two-month supply of diapers.”
“Happy to do it.”
“And for moving my car to the club…and for replacing the battery, and for filling the tank, and for having it repaired so it doesn’t continue to run after I kill the engine—and for returning the key that you stole and the phone that I lost.”
Jack shrugged. “Welcome.” “And for the roadside assistance coverage that came with a spiffy decal. That’s so very, AARP of you, Jack Jackson.”
“Ugh.”
“Joking—Jack Jackson.”
Jack and Rose watched the baby push her fists into her cheeks. Her lips made a puckering and sucking motion as she slept. She smelled of baby lotion. Cheeks showed a touch of rosacea. A small spot of milk was caked on her chin.
Jack reached out and smoothed the blanket. “Little girl, huh?”
“What was your first clue?”
“Looks just like you.”
“Gracias a Dios.”
Rose stood and walked to the cupboards, opening one after the other. “So organized, Jack Jackson.” She helped herself to a glass, filled it with tap water, then noisily slurped as she stepped outside and walked toward the balcony railing.
The narrow lawn sloped toward the Colorado River. A tire swing hanging from a large oak near the riverbank moved like a slow metronome in the soft breeze. Rose wiped a drop of water from her chin and sighed. “This is so beautiful, Jack.”
Jack came and stood beside Rose and leaned on the railing. “When I was a kid, we called this The Lake Place, which is funny, you know, because it’s on a river, not a lake. It belonged to my aunt. She bequeathed it to me in her will…trusted me to do the right thing with it.”
“Which is…?”
“Never get rid of it.”
“Smart.”
“Very. You should go check it out, Rose.” He pointed toward the river. “Make yourself at home” Jack gestured over his shoulder. “I’ll watch…?”
Without taking her eyes off the river, Rose took a drink, swished the water in her mouth, paused, and swallowed. “Jacqueline…I’m going to call her”—she turned and looked at Jack—“Jackie.”
* * *
Rose strolled past the neglected garden spot toward the river’s edge. She stretched out on her stomach and swung back and forth in the tire swing, holding her arms out like a child pretending to fly.
As Rose returned to the house, she stopped to pull some weeds from the bare flower beds. When Jack cleared his throat, she looked up. Rose was pleased with herself for not reacting to the sight of his leg prosthesis when he opened the front door earlier. From this distance, though, she could look at it without him knowing. It had an insignia she intimately recognized. She was amazed that Jack walked without a limp.
Jack held the baby forward-facing in front of him against his chest. Standing on the balcony, it appeared as if they were in the forward bow of a cruise ship. Rose watched Jack speak softly to the baby, as though telling her a secret. He then kissed Jackie’s head and took her inside.
Rose entered Jack’s studio on the bottom floor of the house; it was filled with digital pianos, keyboards, synthesizers, laptops, and accessories. A Chickering & Sons baby grand sat before a picture window that provided a panoramic view of the backyard. Two walls with floor-to-ceiling shelving held an immense recording library: a trove of vinyl, CDs, and tapes of various formats.
A tattered flag with three equal horizontal red, white, and black stripes—and riddled with holes—hung on the fourth wall. Rose gasped and clutched her throat. Felt a phantom pang and rubbed her stomach. She closed her eyes and took three slow calming breaths.
Rose explored Jack’s bedroom; the bed was made. She stepped into his bathroom; spotless, no hair in the sink, no toothpaste splatters on the mirror. She raised the toilet lid; no drips. The cleanliness of everything was discouraging.
Next, the bedroom closet. The light came on when Rose opened the door. Jack’s clothes were organized by season, type, and color. Shoes in orderly rows. Undershirts on hangers. Performance attire in clear laundry cleaner bags with receipts still attached. A wall-mounted biometric gun safe.
Rose stood beside the bed, picked up each pillow, and sniffed. The one on the right smelled clean, like Jack. She lay on the bed, rolled onto her side, and pulled her knees to her chest. Rose rubbed the bedspread then scooted to Jack’s side. After a moment, she stood, smoothed the surface of the bed, looked at it for several seconds, then went upstairs.
Jack was holding Jackie in front of him, gently bouncing her, softly singing, Quando, quando, quando….
The baby squawked and began fussing when Rose walked up. “Here, give her to me. Sounds like she’s wet.”
“She’s not. I just changed her.”
“You what?!”
“Changed her?” Jack handed the baby to Rose. “She was wet, and you were outside, so....”
Rose held the baby close. Looked into Jack’s face. She shook her head, then turned and went to a dining chair and sat down. Rose paused and looked at Jack again.
“Sorry,” Jack said. “Too familiar?”
In an elegant motion, Rose raised her loose-fitting top and unsnapped her nursing bra. Jack saw multiple scars on Rose’s abdomen. A trio of raised gashes like bear claw marks. Two angry puckered indentations that resembled tiny volcanoes.
Jacqueline made frantic, hungry sounds as she searched, then latched on. Before long, she was full and quiet and still. Jack stood and pulled a cloth diaper from the bag, placed it on his shoulder; he walked behind Rose and looked down at the blue veins that tracked just below the skin’s surface toward the small pink rose tattoo on her breast. A string of milky saliva stretched like spider silk from Rose’s nipple as the baby’s slack lips released.
Jack motioned with his hands without speaking. Jackie’s arms jerked as if she were falling when Rose pulled her away and handed her to Jack. The baby made a small smacking sound but didn’t wake when Jack laid her on his shoulder and walked over to the window. Rose came and stood beside him.
“Just tell me one thing, Jack Jackson.”
“I’ll try.”
“And it’s okay if you are.”
Jack smiled. “You looked in my closet?”
“Maybe.”
“And my bathroom?”
Rose nodded. “And I might have stretched out on the bed…and smelled your pillow.”
Jack pursed his lips as he patted the baby’s back. After she burped, he laid her in the carrier and tucked the blanket around her. He looked up and smiled. “I’m not a control freak, Rose. I’m just organized. I like to be clean. There’s nothing wrong with wanting things a certain way…needing order.”
Rose nodded and moved outside to the balcony. She was standing at the railing, looking toward the river, when Jack walked up close behind her. Rose reached behind, took his arms, and wrapped them around her middle.
“I like the swing.”
“It’s been waiting for you.”
“Flower beds need work.”
“Yep.”
“Garden too.”
“Agreed.”
“I love the water view.”
A pause.
“Jack?”
“Yes?”
“You might need to kiss me before too long.”
“I’d enjoy that.”
Another pause.
“Nine mil?”
“NATO armor-piercing round.”
“Oohrah.”
“Rah.”
“When did you know, Jack Jackson?”
“The moment you brushed that pink hair out of your eyes as you entered the reception hall two months ago—You?”
“First of all, it was not pink, it was rose. Get it? Rose? And I guess I was pretty sure when you kissed Jackie’s head a few minutes ago.”
“It’s a kissable head. She’s a beautiful baby.”
“But I wasn’t absolutely certain until I fed her, and you looked in my eyes instead of staring at my tit like a lech. That was a test, by the way, Jack Jackson.” Rose paused a moment before adding, “You should know something about me.”
“Like…?”
“Like I’m kind of messy.”
“How messy?”
“Like really messy.”
“I can do messy.”
“Ha, ha, yeah, right, funny. I’ll also need the driver’s side of the bed.”
“I’m flexible.”
“Mmhmm. Sure you are.”
Rose raised her arms like wings, as if taking flight.
Jack placed his hands on top of hers. “You’ll be glad to know I finally watched that movie.”
Rose leaned back. “Then you know what happens next.”
“I do.”
Rose rested the side of her head against Jack’s cheek. “I’ll never let go of you, Jack Jackson.”
Jack kissed the top of her head. “Promise?”
“Semper fi, baby.”
They paused and together looked toward the river.
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“Is this a bad idea?”
“Who knows?”
“How will we figure things out?”
“Play it by ear?”
…
“Iceberrrg…”
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