Tiger Lily

Candis was the last of the gathered poets to stash her notebook and assorted pens in her capacious bag after everyone else dispersed. The highlight of her week always ended too soon.

She abandoned the picnic bench outside Scripps Cottage to head back to the main campus of San Diego State University. Glancing down, she paused to adjust her bag so the mermaid portrait trimmed with sequins would be displayed to any passerby. The opposite side only showed a curling wave, frilled with a filigree of foam, not half as interesting.

She glanced at the graceful bell tower, which to the untrained eye resembled one of the many California Missions, that basked in the sunshine among a few palm trees. These days, the historic building was just part of the scenery. Strange how things changed. She toyed with the idea for a possible poem then abandoned it. Not every stray thought about the nature of life deserved to be written down.

Disappointed that her poet friend who gave her the mermaid bag after a trip home to Palo Altos could not join her for lunch, Candis resigned herself to eating alone. She would have shrugged it off entirely as a waste of time but knew she needed to refuel before heading to the library to continue working on her master’s thesis.

She didn’t always eat on campus, but today it seemed pointless to walk all the way to her student digs only to have to return again after lunch. She never kept track of when the buses ran, besides it was only about a mile. Standing and waiting for a bus to travel such a short distance made her feel lazy as well as impatient.

A horse was what she needed, but she wouldn’t want to ride alongside fast-moving vehicles and potentially careless drivers. Inflicting noisy chaos on such an intelligent creature would only make them both unhappy. But her own horse was four thousand miles away in New England.

Feeling the warmth of the summer sun as she walked and wishing for a cool breeze which seldom materialised, Candis refused to regret her decision to relocate here to study for her M.A. in English. What was done was done.

Whenever she spoke to her parents, she never dropped a hint that she was already bored of the perpetual summer, sunshine, hot weather and palm trees. She would never admit that she was the least bit homesick. She knew that her father, an excellent rider, was exercising her horse regularly but no more than that.

***

Michael, having spent all morning alone with his violin in a practice room in the basement of the Music building, emerged blinking into the bright light of day like a mole coming out of hibernation.

He looked down to check that he was carrying both his violin case which was the right weight to tell him that his violin was inside and his music folder, since he sometimes left things behind. It was easier to establish this right away as retracing his steps later could prove to be a nightmare.

 As he was mastering in Music, he could have booked an upstairs practice room, but those needed to be booked in advance which required more organisational ability than he possessed.

Did moles hibernate? He wasn’t sure, but he liked the idea of a slow-moving creature with weak eyes. He needed to wear glasses as his eyes had proved not suitable for contacts. Something small and unobtrusive, not one of the tree-hugging sloths which his ex-girlfriend once pointed out to him at the zoo, claiming to see some family resemblance. How could she compare him to something so ungainly as a sloth?

Hunger had rudely dragged him away from composing, made him aware of the musical cacophony intruding through every wall as others practiced pieces or also attempted to compose for a wide variety of instruments including the human voice. Being oblivious to noise was part of his creative process but could not be sustained when his stomach was sending signals asking whether his throat had been cut.

Food. Yes, that was what he needed right now.

Michael looked around, puzzled for a moment that none of the buildings within sight offered any promise of sustenance. His eyes tracked the movement of other students for a while until his brain oriented itself to everyday reality which required him to fully disengage from the realm of music which was his preferred habitat since the breakup.

***

Though Candis knew there were healthier options elsewhere on campus, she walked toward the main cafeteria. Something quick and filling would suffice since she was eating alone.

She almost gave up on the idea when she saw how many students were waiting in line. But she persevered, hoping that while standing there, she might see someone she knew from her classes. Or maybe an idea for a poem would land on her shoulder like a butterfly sent by her muse.

Usually, Candis felt inspired after Poetry Circle, though she suspected that the frustration that she was not lunching with her friend, who also happened to be not only the best of the poets but also famous for wielding her red editing pen, was blocking her poetic inspiration.

***

Michael searched in vain for a familiar face when he entered the noisy cafeteria.

The striking woman sitting alone at a table for two caught his interest, though as far as he could recall, he had never met her before. Though his memory was excellent for anything musically oriented, his mind didn’t always latch on to faces and names or other practical useful information.

He swallowed, glancing around for other possibilities, but everyone else sat with one or more other people. Perhaps she was waiting for someone, but he would soon find out.

Avoiding any collision with other students as he made his way toward her, he practiced the question he needed to ask and tried to ignore the paralysing shyness forming a cold puddle around his heart.

***

Candis dipped another French fry in the red blob of ketchup, resolving that tomorrow she would make sure to get a healthier lunch.

“Would you mind watching my violin while I get something to eat, please?”

She looked up, her first impression translating him into an Emperor penguin with ruffled feathers, though on second glance, he didn’t seem quite so tall. Maybe it was the dark hair and the black rimmed glasses? The penguins featured on the sign outside the Tierra del Fuego gallery in Old Town might be a better match, but she didn’t know what they were called.

“I’m Michael,” he added.

She dragged her mind back from images of sunlight glaring on ice under a cloud heavy sky. “Yes,” she agreed, then added, “I’m Candis.” 

His smile made her feel she had made the right decision. “Thank you,” he said.

She liked the attentive way he positioned his violin case leaning against the wall, not far from the back of her chair. He leaned a plain manila folder next to it as though doing so would keep the violin from wandering off while he was absent. If she actually carried her portable typewriter around with her, she might feel equally protective. Essential tools of their respective trades, so to speak.

Watching his retreating back, she considered a penguin poem. A few stanzas, sparse words, strong images dealing with loneliness without mentioning the word, the ghost of an arctic wind teasing his feathers. Or should it be Antarctic? If this poem was to survive her friend’s red pen, she would have to research to make sure of her facts. Definitely needed to find a book which compared the different kinds of penguins.

“This seat taken?” asked a big guy with great masses of red hair exploding out from his head above an SDSU Aztecs sweatshirt carrying a tray heaped with food.

“Yes,” Candis told him. “Sorry.” She only added the apology because of his obvious disappointment, but was relieved when the sports enthusiast turned away to find somewhere else to sit. She might be wrong, but she doubted they would have enough in common to make conversation.

***

“That’s interesting,” Michael commented, though her description of her choice of thesis subject had not made much sense to him. Because she had finished her meal, while he continued eating, she was doing most of the talking. To be honest, he preferred to be a listener although admittedly his attention was not all that it should be or so he had often been told.

“Very interesting,” Candis corrected him. He didn’t expect that flare of fierceness in her eyes. As if she needed to defend her thesis, she continued with additional details about further intricacies. These clarified nothing for him as Literature at least when it was spelled with a capital L was not within his repertoire. His comprehension leaned heavily toward all things musical, particularly of the classical varieties though he was not unfamiliar with modern composers and had a considerable investment in jazz despite the disapproval of one of his professors.

Of course, he was in no way impatient. He recognised that she would probably not be enthralled if he tried to regale her with musical theories and composing conundrums. He nodded at what felt like appropriate points, sipping his 7up and taking small bites of his burger and dipping his fries in ketchup at frequent intervals.

He quite enjoyed her voice, wanted to ask her if she sang, if he ever got the chance to introduce the question into their conversation. He felt pleased that they both liked ketchup with their fries and persuaded himself that any gap between Music and Literature could easily be bridged. They were both devoted to the Arts, while his ex-girlfriend’s major and minor were both in Science.

***

While Candis spoke, she found herself liking Michael’s attentive gaze, how his glasses magnified his eyes, and the mannered way that he ate, not devouring everything in front of him like some men did, but taking bite size amounts.

His movements were nearly birdlike, so she thought of the penguin swimming in the cold ocean and catching tiny fish. Were those called krill or was that something else? Being a poet required such a vast amount of random knowledge that it sometimes daunted her. She would never admit this to anyone, especially not since the Queen of Research invited her to join the poetry circle.

Suddenly realising that she had been doing most of the talking, Candis switched her focus and asked, “When did you first start learning to play the violin?”

***

Michael welcomed her question with a smile. “I started with a child’s violin when I was six.”

Photographic images floated up in his mind as he talked. A child on stage with bow in one hand and violin in the other, looking surprised by the applause. A long-haired teenager wearing a formal suit, the youngest member of a violin quartet performing at a wedding. 

He deliberately set aside and avoided mentioning the violin solo that he performed for an audience of one to wake his ex-girlfriend from her morning slumbers back when the flame of their love still burned bright.

Candis said, “I admire people who can play an instrument. I know it must take years to learn and then hours and hours of practice to improve and then to maintain the fluency you have.”

“Fluency,” Michael echoed, “yes, exactly.” He felt understood and appreciated by her words and wanted to give her something. What a pity he knew so little about Literature. However, he smiled again, knowing what he could do. After wiping his fingers on a napkin and then refolding it to tidy his lips, he used the momentary lapse in conversation to retrieve his music folder.

***

Candis watched with interest as Michael riffled through the paperwork inside the manila folder. Among the sheets of music, she glimpsed handwritten notation with treble clefs, plump notes and quarter notes and squiggles she didn’t have names for dancing soundlessly. She wanted to ask him whether, for him, looking at music written down brought sounds into his brain.

“For you,” he said as he handed her a pale lavender cardboard ticket picturing a violin with details about a lunchtime recital tomorrow. “If you would like to attend,” he said with a little shrug.

“Are you going, too?” she asked.

His gentle laughter warmed a part of her that she only now realised had been cold for a long time. “I will be playing my violin,” he explained with a modesty that endeared him to her.

***

Michael saw and regretted her awkwardness, all his fault, but then she smiled so he nodded and gave her his best smile. Everything was all right again. Maybe more than all right even.

Though most of his creativity went straight into his music, a nickname for her rose up in his mind in case it ever came to pass that he needed one. Tiger Lily because underneath her beauty and intelligence was a fierce creature he briefly glimpsed when she defended her choice of thesis though he had not actually attacked her idea.

He sent up a silent prayer that, one day, they would be explaining to friends and family how they first met. But only she would ever hear the music whose first notes were teasing him already, the solo piece that he would call Tiger Lily. Perhaps his ex-girlfriend had only been practice.