Strangers

Nora was never much of a musician. In fact, in eighth grade she’d received a D in music – partly due to her lack of talent, and partly due to her incessant talking. You have a lot of potential, all her teachers would say, and she wore it like a badge.

But I suppose that isn’t relevant, so where were we? Nora was never much of a musician, so it was a peculiarity, albeit an endearing one, to find her onstage at an open mic night. She hadn’t anticipated the crowd, and amongst them her muse glistening like a pearl, lifting a bottle to his lips. What was Alex doing there?

“I wrote—” she began, but the microphone screeched; the crowd, with a collective rise of the shoulders, bobbed like a buoy.

“I wrote this last year,” continued Nora, her voice softer than intended, muffled like the sea lapping the shore.

Alex leaned against the bar, glowing orange beneath a hanging lamp. The rest of the audience seemed to melt into a blob of ink, silhouettes moving about him like water flowing around a rock. His long, black hair twinkled a tiger’s eye brown under this artificial sunset and Nora recalled him on her terrace, his black beard speckled with red in the morning sun as though sprinkled with paprika.

So much had changed since, or maybe nothing had – he’d been a stranger then, despite the speed with which they were swept up in it all, and he was a stranger once again. The in-between had been the real him, not the beginning nor the end, and that snarling in-between was not nearly as composed as the man in the brown leather jacket with his eyes on her – eyes sparkling as they had the very first night they’d met, the very first week, the very first month.

The lights felt brighter, blinding, a blinking lighthouse; and the stage more exposed – a shoddy lifeboat, a raft.

“It’s called Así de dulce.” Her voice was louder this time, louder than she’d intended – a wave crashing upon the shore. With her heart thumping in her chest, the past whispering in her ear, she could hardly hear herself. Her head was in an old seashell, and she was hypnotised by those liquid, butter toffee eyes, eyes scintillating like a flame reflected on water, eyes brimming with the image of a sinking ship – cold, detached, distant from the fiery panic.

A cough in the crowd punctured the pin-drop silence, and Nora regathered her senses. With an exhale, she began to sing, and her guitar pick kissed the strings – it was Alex’s; once upon a midnight, it had fallen in her shoe, and she’d worn it all the way home.

A veces el amor

huele a orina y sudor;

se resucita en un bar,

un bar de descreídos.

Somos dos cucarachas

en una caja de zapatos.

Encontrarte aquí

es cosa de milagros.

No es el humo de cigarrillos

que me recuerda a las nubes;

es tu suave aliento,

tus ojos soñadores.

Y cuando me folles,

fóllame así,

así de dulce,

así de dulce.

Cuando nos miremos,

mírame así—

se desvanece,

todo se desvanece.

Nora’s fingers felt heavier as though the guitar pick and strings were magnetic; each leaden strum was met with an invisible resistance as though someone were tuning into gravity like a radio station.

Nora could recall the two of them on his single bed, the single bed of the composed man in the brown leather jacket. She could recall his legs tucked beneath him, his big knees sticking up, enclosing him like the sepals of a flower, and his monkey hands on his hairy calves, on his bulky knees. She could recall his gentle eyes—butter toffee, the very same ones—following his little white cat, Blancanieves, as she explored the expanse of his bed.

Yes, the single bed of the composed man in the brown leather jacket, bottle to his lips, another sip, blink, blink, blink as though they were strangers, as though he hadn’t made her bed every day for a year, as though she hadn’t stocked her pantry with milk and sugar just for him.

No son las luces,

tampoco la cerveza,

sino las mariposas

que así me embriagan.

No son los colores

ni las ilusiones

que te den un halo

y te hagan brillar.

Y cuando me folles,

fóllame así,

así de dulce,

así de dulce.

Cuando nos miremos,

mírame así—

se desvanece,

todo se desvanece.

Nora was singing with her throat; it was more a gasp, a cry, a yowl. She was an alley cat with fleas, and once upon a time, a gentleman had stopped to pet her with one cautious finger and place a tin of smelly sardines on the asphalt beneath her eager nose. Once upon a time, the composed man in brown had awoken so much in her that she’d reduced herself to an alley cat. Why? These furry, little creatures had elicited a giggle, a sigh, from her big, bearded man whose big hands, long fingers had tickled their bellies and brushed their ears; they’d roll over and play bite him, unaware of who it was who stopped to pet them on those dusty, lamplit sidewalks. It was the composed man in brown with the liquid, butter toffee eyes – it was Alex.

Y yo no sé qué ponen;

escucho un solo latido.

Aleteando, somos dos bichos raros

en un simple tarro—

—de mermelada,

lleno de migajas,

hojas, ramas,

y el cielo entero.

The chords trembled and the crowd cringed collectively, yet another bobbing buoy. Nora strummed on autopilot, pounding the strings – in this blinding bubble of light, she very well could have been dreaming. What was Alex doing there?

She recalled them on his single bed, him cross-legged in a singlet and shorts. She couldn’t tell him he was the most precious thing in the world, she couldn’t tell him that he made her all roses are red, violets are blue, that he restored her to a little girl, and for the first time in her life she was experiencing innocence, mutual support and discovery; for the first time in her life, a man sat across from her as an equal, as a boy, smothering Blancanieves in his big arms, planting kisses on her tiny head, brushing his nose against her back.

No wonder Nora had reduced herself to a cat.

Y cuando me folles,

fóllame así,

así de dulce,

así de dulce.

Cuando nos miremos,

mírame así—

se desvanece,

todo se desvanece.

Pin-drop silence again. A shy applause scattered through the audience, a cough, and as the stage light dimmed, the black blob of ink regained its colour, its form, and the awkward glances, the stifled laughter, the grimaces became visible.

Nora felt paralysed an instant – she couldn’t recall having started the song, she couldn’t recall having finished it, all she could recall were those liquid, butter toffee eyes – and she found them again, right by the bar where she’d left them.

“Thank you,” she muttered into the microphone before stumbling offstage, and yet she couldn’t shake the thought of them on his single bed.

Have you got a capo? she’d asked.

No. Which fret?

Second.

The stage lights flickered bright. The microphone screeched. A blonde in blue.

“Whoops, sorry. I’ll be playing a so—”

As Nora sunk into a chair, her back to the man in brown, she couldn’t shake the thought of him leaning over and holding down the strings, his big olive thumb firm against the fret, the guitar neck clamped between his long fingers. So much had changed since, or maybe nothing had – he’d been a stranger then, and he was a stranger once again.