Ribbons of Sound

Mary’s blood felt thick in its quickened course under her skin, flushing the covered pulse points brightly. Her numbed hands brushed her interlocked forearms as she stared at the projection screen. It was only a kiss. The man and the woman on the stretched black and white screen were just two actors, playing out characters that now were leading up to share a kiss, as the director so wanted. It was all make-believe, so why was she the only one uncomfortable with the stinging lightning in her veins? Mary’s friends giggled pleasurably between the scene itself and their stolen glances at her dampened outward reaction to it.

“‘Look honey, when you walk out that door, part of me will go right with ‘ya. For the whole new world’s gonna open up for you. I made fun of Bruce and Albany and all that kind of thing, you know why?’

‘Why?’

‘I was jealous. I was sore because he could offer you the kind of life I can’t give ‘ya.’”

“Well I thought it was cute!” one friend remarked to the other three, her shined heel kicking a small stone on the sidewalk outside the theater that January evening.

“And dreamy!”

“And that hair-”

“Those eyes!”

“The great lover, Cary Grant.” Helen nudged Mary’s side with her elbow. “What did you think, Mary? You seemed to enjoy it, I think!”

Paling at the memory of the lightning, the blonde shook her head curtly, her short curls bouncing against her downward-facing chin. The other girls laughed, but said no more towards her until it was to wish her a goodnight on her doorstep, as was customary of their weekly movie route. Hiding her face behind her short wave to the group, Mary opened the door to her tenant building and ducked inside.

“I’m afraid I’ll never know what love is, Chester.”

The orange tabby gave a yawn in reply as Mary shrugged off her jacket and hung it by the door with care. She smoothed out wrinkles from her woolen skirt and let out an exasperated sigh.

“Why is it so awful? It feels too…too much!”

The young woman plopped herself down on the sofa beside the cat and removed her linen glove before scratching him behind the ear. Moments of silence passed, and when her mind finally stopped replaying her embarrassment on loop for her, she stood up and prepared for bed.

Numbers, decimal points, papers, and the grounding smell of hardcover books encasing fine print within them. The library was a refuge of consistency and predictability. Mary sweeped one of her curls out of her eyes with the back of her hand before bundling more books from the return cart into her arms.

Stacks, disarrayed books across the tables, half-read novels, and the wonderfully safe list that was the Dewey decimal system. Mary loved the work of fitting the proper books in their homes after having spent years in the library before having her job. It was an organizer’s dream. It was reliable. It was a man staring at her. It was safe. It was comforting.

She stopped. She pulled back out the book she had just placed, and made eye contact with the man in question, who was seated some odd yards ahead of her aisle at the tables in the center. The man who now was aware of his known presence, casually dropped his gaze back down into his open book. Mary stood there for a few breaths longer, her index finger brushing the lining of the book in her hands rather aggressively.

Her brown eyes contemplated the man; from his sunken cheeks hidden beneath the slightly protruding cheekbones defined well above his sharp jaw, to the way his unlit cigarette stuck to his thinned lips haphazardly from the side. The cigarette tip’s bounce was quick, almost timidly so, as his dark eyes scanned the text before him. His shoulders were broad, yet pointed, and his arms were stretched thin under his button-up shirt. His eyes soon froze in place on the page. His hand trembled upwards towards his hair in that stillness, only to feel for a hat that wasn’t there, and chose instead to tend to his cigarette to place in front of him on the table. That was the only movement he made, before resuming his reading.

Mary placed the book back in its proper home, and rubbed the painfully protruding veins on the inside of her wrist. Had she looked for too long? Had she been rude? He was likely looking at the books around her, and never even had seen her face. Mary mentally scolded herself for her awkwardness and ran her palms flatly against the grooved covers of the books in her cart to soothe herself.

“Excuse me, miss?” a gentle feminine voice whispered beside her. Mary gave a slight start and breathlessly laughed as she turned towards the woman. “I’m sorry. Could you help me find a book? I’ve searched everywhere, but I can’t seem to locate Erle Stanley Gardner.”

“Oh, of course. We have his books towards the front. Let me show you.”

“I don’t know how to feel about a wooden doll coming to life.”

Mary chewed on her lower lip as she and her girlfriends began discussing the latest film. She looked up at the late February sky, half-listening to their discussion.

“Well, at least it wasn’t a romance. I think you liked this one the most thus far, eh, Mary?”

“It was nice,” she agreed. “I liked the mouse. He looked smart.”

“Oh so you like a well-dressed man,” Helen teased, then cocked her head. “You seem elsewhere. You really are thinking a lot about that movie, aren’t you?”

She gave a shrug of her shoulder. The discussion continued for a few blocks, until the blonde relented and began narrating her inner dialogue.

“Do you feel uncomfortable,” Mary began, immediately gaining her friends’ attention, “when people look at you? I don’t mean…I don’t mean like in passing, or people that you know. I mean…well I suppose I mean everyone else.”

She looked around at the faces of the rather confused girls and gave a slight smile.

“No, I don’t suppose so,” she mused.

“How do you mean ‘uncomfortable?’” Helen asked, slowing their stride. Granting Mary her complete attention, she lightened the conversation. “Uncomfortable like, ‘why ‘ya looking at me,’ or uncomfortable like ‘how are you doing, you handsome devil, you?’”

Mary smiled wider, though she shook her head. “No. I don’t really know. None of you make me feel uncomfortable like that. It kind of is a pain. It hurts my arms. It isn’t a good feeling, I don’t think.”

“You don’t think? Well, if it’s not a good feeling, I’m glad you don’t feel it with us, honey.”

The conversation died off as suddenly as it had shifted, and the group of friends returned their focus on the slurry of melting snow they were trudging through on their way to their homes. Mary’s was the first drop-off, and she gave a quick hug to the other three ladies before stepping up to her door. They resumed discussing the pros and cons of the impossibility of a wooden puppet doll becoming a real boy, leaving Mary to tend to her thoughts alone.

“Mary?”

“Oh, yes sir?”

“Mary, would you mind looking through the reference section today? In that third aisle, over there,” the older man asked, pointing with one hand as the other was elbow-deep in a bucket of papers. “I had someone come in earlier looking for some books, but he and I both couldn’t seem to find them. I know we have ‘em, just can’t find ‘em.”

“Absolutely, Mr. Lester,” Mary nodded. She placed a bookmark in her index and stepped lightly with an empty wooden cart to the third aisle. She skimmed the books silently, with both her eyes and her fingertips, recalling each one in order from memory. The worn gild of the hardcover books were soft under her skin. Faded hues of reds, taupes, and aged green slid between her fingers and scraped at her filed nails. The anatomy reference was missing from its home. Questions of cancers and answers in physiology were present, but tissue composition was misplaced, as well. A lone Mr. Popper’s Penguins had found its way between a book on chemistry and anthropology, which were also both on the wrong shelf. Mary made quick work of removing the offending catalogs when a familiar thin man with dark eyes stepped slowly up beside her cart, his shined shoes muffled against the wooden flooring. He heavily rested a palm on one of the larger series down, and she stiffened when she glimpsed upwards to find him already looking down at her.

“Oh!” Mary grew flustered in embarrassment at her own soft outburst, and she gently rubbed her fingertips against the wooden cart. The man’s thick eyebrows twitched upwards and settled back down in response, his dark eyes wide and attentive to the smallest of her actions. He could not have been much older than herself, but men did have the indecency to age gracefully. His countenance was almost studious of her, before he briskly drew in a terse breath and began formal pleasantries.

“I’m so very sorry,” he quietly murmured, his lips barely moving. “I’m afraid I’m the man who found this aisle to be rather…disorderly. I wonder if you would happen to know where I may find the Physicians Squibb Vitamin Reference Book, as I sense you may have a greater knowledge of this place than your employer.”

“Oh…” Mary began. Her palms smoothed out the fabric of her skirt more out of awkwardness than of neatness. She met the man’s intense stare with her own, though she didn’t necessarily mind the thrumming in her ears. “Well, I’m actually unsure of its location right now. It seems these books have wandered around quite a distance since I was here last.”

The man laughed softly. His was a pleasant laugh. Not condescending, but truly amused. She continued.

“I may need more time to locate it, but I can check the return sheet to see if someone possibly-“

“You’re red…” he whispered, barely audible. Interrupting her explanation and her smile, Mary slowly and confusedly drew a hand to her face to feel for warmth, but only felt it begin to blossom under her touch from the accusation. “Oh no, I don’t mean…that’s not-”

Mary shook her head and turned away, clicking her heels as quietly as possible back to the librarian’s desk. She could hear the muffled footsteps pleading behind her, but her palm against her cheek was far too warm for her comfort to face him, and her skin began to feel itchy.

“Let me check the back, sir,” she threw back behind her, and hastened her stride. Unable to bear turning to see the man who assuredly must be shocked at her callous display, Mary tried to calm herself behind the door. Her fingertips clutched at the hem of her skirt and pushed each thread into her stockinged thighs for comfort. Her eyes stung from the tears welling up from the embarrassment. There had been some slight discomfort in her hearing, and only a small bit of pain in her chest, but it wasn’t entirely painful or bad.

Yes, it had not been bad at all, but now it was. It was excruciating pain, and Mary had no creative thought as to how to avoid the confrontation waiting for her behind the counter. She ran her hands through her hair and fluffed up her curls absentmindedly as she thought.

That book in particular she had not helped to check out recently, and she had not seen it in the registry. It was a fairly new print, so it had no reason to be removed from the shelves. The simple truth is that it was hidden somewhere within the library, and it would take weeks to find, what with how understaffed the building was at the moment. She would just have to explain that to the gentleman. Her noted redness be damned. Straightening her back, Mary righted herself and strengthened her resolve. She opened the door to find the man waiting patiently behind the counter, his eyes never having left the door, with his hands wringing the brim of his hat. Mary stepped up to him, her story prepared on the tip of her tongue.

“Would you have dinner with me?” the man asked.

Piano notes hung suspended in the smoky room, where a rather passionate player’s talents was merely secondary to the marble and gold accented walls and dining tops of the upscale restaurant. Mary’s fingertip encircled the lip of her martini glass, where the olives were untouched on the side and the drink itself was nearly complete. The man’s elbow was fixated to the tabletop, supporting his head as he was solely enraptured by the side of Mary’s face. He drew in a long breath of his cigarette, and blew it slowly into his glass of whisky before taking a long sip.

“I don’t believe I’ve been to dinner with a man who didn’t find pleasure in speaking,” Mary quietly commented. She intended to only glance at him, but once she did look at him, she found she didn’t necessarily want to look away. His already sunken cheeks fell further in as he drew more smoke into his chest. He smiled a small bit.

“Would you prefer I speak?” Charles questioned.

“…I’m not sure.”

“An honest answer.”

“Would you prefer I lie?”

“No.” He snuffed out his cigarette and discarded the remnants in the silver ashtray. “But do tell me if I begin to bore you. I tend to ramble, that is, when I no longer am silent. A curse, really. Do you experience life in a way that’s meant to be lived?”

Mary withdrew her hand from the lip of her glass in favor of taking a sip. The man’s eyes wandered down her arm at the movement to her hand, then traveled back with it as she brought the martini to her stained lips. After a long moment of silence, she nodded.

“I believe I do, yes.”

“And does that experience of life make you happy?”

“…I am satisfied.”

“But are you fulfilled?” Charles leaned in closer at this question, his expression unchanging. “Does the life you live give life to you, in turn?”

“I will admit, I don’t understand.”

He smiled wider, then finished his drink. He offered his hands to her, silently requesting hers. Mary looked between his palms and his gaze, and softly set one of her hands down into his. Gently folding one over top of hers, he gingerly caressed her skin. Her wrists began to ache.

“I’m under the impression that life should live in you as much as you live in it. Or at least, that is the ideal I am used to. The green of the grass in summer, the cold of the snow in winter…all of that should be prevalent in daily life.”

“I’m afraid I still don’t understand,” Mary murmured, shaking her head.

“Well, if you’ll allow me,” he began, “please, let me explain myself. To begin with, this room. Do you hear the piano? It’s a sense of life, you see. Once it was an idea. Now it’s become a memory, and makes more memories still. And to me, it is ribbons. Ribbons that enter your ears and wrap around your brain. Beethoven is blue, Bach is green, and Mozart is red.”

“Why those colors? Why ribbons?”

“I don’t know. Honestly. Ever since I was a child, the melodies have been nothing more than lace on silk. A hemmed edge of a fine suit. People, however. People are many, many things.”

“Things?”

“Oh yes,” he nodded, his upper hand leaving hers only for mere moments as he spoke, enunciating his thoughts, before returning. “People are…sounds, colors, and beautiful memories. Like you.”

Charles’ eyes softened, his eyebrows lightly knitting.

“You are red.”

Mary began to pull her hand away to check her face, but the soft hold Charles had on her strengthened briefly. He shook his head.

“No no, you are red,” he pressed. “You are Mozart. You are flowers in the field in autumn, button eyes on a well-loved bear. You are the oak trees in the winter and the bonfire in summer nights. You are memories of childhood loves. I don’t understand why, but you are red.”

Mary’s chest came alive with tingles, and she felt the lightning surge under her skin as he spoke. She could feel her veins rise and harden under his fingertips, and his outward happiness grew as he gently rubbed at them, soothing the pain and stimulating them.

“You experience life differently as well, don’t you?”

“Feelings are a lot for me,” Mary murmured. They walked with arms linked among the busy sidewalks of the night, the brisk air and passing crowds pressing her further against his side. “They’re too much.”

“No, not too much,” he hummed, glancing down at her. “You’re just not used to it. Yet I won’t rush you. If you find you don’t like those feelings, they do not have to be experienced.”

There was a gentleness in Charles’ voice, and a sincerity that Mary found she trusted. It eased the lightning in her, but altered it, somehow. It was no longer stinging, but now refreshing.

“…I would like to try.” She stopped walking, and took a moment to truly look at him. For a short while, she felt like the female interest in every romance movie, and now she worried intimacy was expected of her. Did Charles want to kiss her? How should she behave? Her chest tightened as he smiled warmly at her, and her breath stopped altogether when he drew closer.

He wrapped his arms around her in a gentle embrace, the smoky breath from his nostrils flowing through her hair. Mary slowly began to unfreeze, and closed her eyes in relief as she relaxed into the comforting hug. Is this what red felt like?