String Bridge by Jessica Bell Read Free Book Online Page B

my problem.” He snatches his arm away.
    “Yeah. That I know. You always say that. What I want to know is, what’s your problem with me?”
    “Everything.”
    “Argh! What are you? A broken record? Can’t you act like an adult, just this once? We have problems. We. Need. To. Stop. This.”
    “And. You. Need. To. Fuck. Off.”
     
     
     
    After I put Tessa to bed I sit at the end of our three-seater couch clutching my knees to my chest. Through the open balcony door I can hear a man yelling at some driver for double-parking and blocking his car. I lean my head on the armrest. Still in my blue dress. Sticky. Stinky. Too lazy to take a shower. I stare at the TV, which is off. I look at my reflection in the screen. Quite warped in a pretty, yet indistinct kind of way. Like an eighteenth-century portrait of my soul on canvas, in a gray hue as if painted in darkness. Like the darkness I live in my head. If only I could remain in that reflection, as a painting, on a canvas—motionless, flushed with gothic candor, a lost spirit, a drifter, in a place where I will never be judged; a place where I can be hung in a gallery and be praised for my unconventional individuality.
    I close my eyes and the image fades and molds together like I had been staring at the sun. I’m just drifting off to sleep when I feel the other end of the couch move. I open my eyes. It’s Alex. I watch him as he takes my feet and rubs them.
    “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
    I don’t move. But I do smile at him despite feeling too sad to do so.
    “Mel,” Alex says, lying down next to me and kissing my neck. “Let’s get Tessa dressed.”
    “Pardon?” I ask, sitting up. Not quite sure if I heard right. “She just went to bed.”
    “Well, get her out of bed. We have tickets for Patti Smith.”
     

Five
     
    Patti begins a Jimi Hendrix cover on clarinet. It murmurs a tragic mellow vibrato through Lykabettus Theatre like a wilting willow pleading to be left in solitude to wither and fade. Chatter hushes like ebbing rain as the guitarist’s jazz scales move the clarinet’s tune through waves. Rhythm guitar suspends the melody and the crowd roars. Patti puts the clarinet down, approaches the microphone and sings in her deep, gruff, aching voice,
     
    If you can just
    get your
    mind together …
     
    The slow four/four beat of the guitar and Patti’s voice thumps through the ground, through my legs, body, arms, tightening my throat. Synchronic drums, bass and distorted guitar unite with the rhythm on the beat, creating an eruption of sundry emotion within me that startles the cold tears falling down my cheeks. I wipe them away with my smooth silk, silver shawl; I smile self-consciously at Alex. He’s balancing Tessa on his shoulders so she can see above the crowd of bobbing heads. He winks and wipes a stray tear dangling from my jaw. I quiver from his touch, in shock at the tenderness, the warmth I feel through such a small gesture. Has he realized what I’m craving? Does he understand?
    “You okay?” Alex screams into my ear gripping onto Tessa’s legs as he leans over. We are standing right next to a speaker twice the size as us, so I just smile, shake my head, and indicate that I have some dust in my eye by pretending to get it out. I give him a peck on the cheek, face the stage again and nod my head to the beat reverberating through the floor.
    I didn’t want Alex to see the tears. He says I cry too much. He also believes I use my tears to get what I want. But it’s not so. He overheard my mother one day, whispering in my ear when she thought Alex wasn’t listening: “There’s nothing wrong with a few tears to give a little push in the right direction.” The fact that Alex believes I’m capable of such a thing, alone, makes me want to cry. But if I was ever put on stage, or in front of a camera, and instructed to cry, it’d be like asking me to grow a penis. I can’t stop my feelings but I can’t fabricate them either.
    Alex, on