Love Still Waits
Bud plays requests six nights a week but his heart is far away. Some nights, while his fingers drift across the piano keys, he thinks back to the first time he saw a sheet of music. The notes looked like winged angels dancing across the page. He was six.
Lately he has imagined those notes taking flight as he plays. Up through the roof of the dining room, they soar into the night sky. Bud wishes them on their way; wills them up, up. In his dream they twist and turn, catching the salty Atlantic breeze, riding it to a time and place where the music had made him feel alive.
There was a time Bud had played for love. But love, like those floating notes, slipped away and all that remains are crumpled bills tossed in a jar on his piano each night. Then one day, like a melody you can sing without knowing why, Michele came into his life. Though twenty- five years younger, in her eyes he saw the springs and summers that had slipped past. When Michele served guests, she would catch his eye and smile.
On slow nights she might slip onto the bench beside him. Her closeness called back thoughts of a woman who once did the same. Shirley was that women. Bud met her on the driveway of the Excelsior Hotel in Saranac Lake, New York. It was June of 1957 and both had come for summer jobs. With Bud it was love at first sight, for Shirley it took a bit longer. Three days of Bud"s piano convinced her.
On nights that she served in the main dining room, Bud would play and Shirley would sing. Her clear voice floated above the dining room like mist on the lake at morning. Michele helps Bud recapture those nights. Love becomes his reason for music once again, and love sometimes calls forth marvelous things.
One Autumn night Bud arrived late and hurried to the piano. After so many years, the only songs he needed were stored in his head and his heart. As he approached the piano, he saw a single sheet of music lying on the black bench. It was titled "Always."
"God, it has been so long since I heard that song," Bud thought. His fingers searched out the old tune. The black notes on the page were like a road map to a man who already knows his way home. He mouthed the words, “I’ll be loving you always, with a love that’s true, always.”
Northern nights came rushing back. Bud was again wearing his new tux and starched white shirt. The tight collar scratched. Shirley glided across the vast dining room. She lifted a glass, turned and smile a smile that said, “Only we know you are playing that song just for us.”
He played the song again to an empty room, imagining himself back to those nights. Why had it been so hard to tell her how he felt? That summer he wished upon so many songs, shaped them like Cupid’s darts, aimed straight for Shirley’s heart. If they hit theirmark, he did not know, for he never had the courage to ask. Since the night she walked out of the Excelsior and out of his life he had regretted his silence. Now he longed to bring the feelings back. He played with a new honesty of heart, setting the music free in a way he never could before. As he played the music rose. It danced into the night sky and turned along a path of star dust.
Shirley lays on her bed and watches the curtains dance about the casement. Since moving to Florida, Shirley has come to love the evenings of early winter. The close heat of summer is only memory and window panes rise, inhaling gentle breezes. She listens to the sound of crickets and bull frogs as they serenade her towards sleep and dreams.
Faintly a melody rises on the wind. The lyrics begin to slip from her lips like a lullaby to the soul.“ Not for just an hour, not for just a day, not for just a year, but always,” she whispers. Moving to the window she peers into the dark, looking for from where the music comes. The night reveals no secrets.
Unlocking her back door, Shirley steps onto the soft carpet of green. Moonlight outlines a circle of lawn, creating a dance floor. The music plays on as she gave herself to it, her long white gown billowing with light and air. As she had danced at twenty, so she frolicked now. As her feet carried her across the cool yard her heart carried her back to the ballroom of theExcelsior.
Many other nights found Shirley dancing alone. This night was different. This night the music was more than memory and Shirley was not alone. In the nights that followed, sheets of music began to appear often. They sat like loves notes on Bud’s piano bench. “As Time Goes By,” “What’ll I Do,” and “It Had To Be You” were each played with infinite sweetness. Patrons commented they had seldom heard music played with such passion. Diners came to fall in love as Bud played his magical tunes. It was as if the music had power to heal broken hearts.
The first Tuesday of December Bud arrived to find a sheet of music, handwritten and unfamiliar. The title was “Love Still Waits.” There were no lyrics, just a trail of melody across the lined white sheet. Curious, Bud began to pick out the tune. The sound broke free, fluttering as butterflies in the wind. Shirley heard this song, how, she did not know. Was it a wish, or a dream? It did not matter. She moved with knowledge of its rhythm, for the song was hers.
The holidays arrived and Shirley found herself in Orlando shopping for her two grandchildren. They live in New York. She missed them, but Shirley has come to believe that sometimes the things we want most never happen. She had wanted a close marriage with Tom but for most of their years together he had seemed farther away than her grand children did now.The night he told her he was leaving, she was not surprised. He had been gone a long time already. Nine months later she picked up the pieces of her heart and moved south. Finding work as a music teacher was easy. She gives lessons in her living room on an old piano that has been her closest friend for many years.
She remembers the day she bought it. The pianist at the Excelsior helped to pick it out. It had been a good excuse to talk to him. She loved to hear him play. He seemed to be able to make the songs sound as if they were played for her alone. She did not realize until later that they actually were.
One warm afternoon they drove over to Ferndale in Bud’s Pontiac to see a piano advertised by Mrs.Banks. On the way, they parked and spread a blanket for a picnic in a field sprinkled with yellow wildflowers. As Shirley arranged the lunch Bud picked a bouquet of sunshine and lovingly laid it beside her on the blanket. It is funny how she remembered the details of that day so clearly; the sound of bees buzzing in thegarden, smell of bread baking in Mrs. Bank’s oven. Most of all she remembered Bud’s hands. With the same gentleness he used to pick the flowers, he examined the old piano. He made the old upright sound as if touched by angels. Instinctively, Shirley found herself seated beside him on the bench. Her hands drifted onto his as he played. She reached out and felt them as they moved over the keys. Bud paused and yet her hands rested on his. Neither looked at the other, savoring the intensity of the moment.
Shirley never forgot that touch. Many nights at the Excelsior that summer she would catch his eyes following her. It made her heart skip. She loved everything about Bud except his inability to reveal his feelings to her. She needed to hear a man say “I love you.” Tom swept into her life that summer, ready to say anything to have her. She married him, hoping to hear those words always. It was later that she realized that one look from Bud said more than every “I love you,” Tom ever recited. Tom’s words came to mean little to her because they meant so little to him.
Shirley has never considered her life sad. It is fullof the joy of children and melodies. Now she had the added magic of serenades that visited her in the night. She keeps these visitations a secret, others would never understand, nor do they need to.
Christmas lights began to twinkle on the avenue reminding Shirley that she had spent the day without food. Hoping to keep her festive mood she began looking for a place to celebrate her shopping victories. The sign announced “Barney’s” and she remembered her brightest student recommending the restaurant. Pamela had impressed Shirley and because of that, Shirley had given her a special gift recently. It was a new song she had been working on entitled “Love Stills Waits.” Shirley was eager to hear another musician interpret the song. However, since the last mysterious moonlight recital, she doubted anyone could match the ardor with which it was played. Besides, while Pamela can remember the nuances of a Bach concerto, she can’t seem to recall where she left the music given to her.
The restaurant, crowded with holiday shoppers and party- goers, had one small booth for her, tucked in the corner. It was an oasis after her day in the malls. She was told by the host that her server would be someone named Michele as she settled into the cozy booth.
From all those years of training Shirley had learned to take in the sounds of a place. She heard obligatory holiday music pouring from the speakers inthe ceiling above her. The noise of clinking glasses, dishes, and voices all blended to create a sound reminiscent of her days at the Excelsior. Lost in reverie, she was unaware of the server until she stood beside the booth.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Michele asked.
Shirley turned and drew in a breath of surprise. She looked into the eyes of the person she had been thirty years ago. Alive, vibrant eyes, sparkling with flecks of gold. Neither woman mentioned the similarity they both felt.
Shirley recovered well enough to order a glass of Cabernet. After it arrived she sat back and closed hereyes. The recorded carols ceased and the peaceful sounds of a piano washed gently across the dining room. Familiar tunes rose and fell with the rhythm and comfort of a gentle tide at sunset.
A new tune wove itself through the sounds of the restaurant. When she realized what was being played she was stunned. It was her song, “Love Still Waits.” How did her song come to be at this place? Michele returned to notice a look of paleness on Shirley’s face.
“Is everthing alright” she asked with concern.
“I am just feeling a bit flushed.” Shirley said. “It must be from going all day without eating.”
“I will go see if I can speed up your order.”
Michele turned to go.“Wait,” said Shirley. “Could you please tell me who is playing the piano?”
“Would you like to meet him?” asked Michele.
“I think I would like that,” Shirley replied.
Michele led her toward the piano. As they neared the baby grand, Shirley’s heart leapt with anticipation. Could that really be him, after all this time? Could the face and hands that had filled so many dreams be real and so close to her? With each step, Shirley made a journey across time and longing.
Sure, he had changed, so had she. After all, it had been thirty years. But that face, that intensity when playing, it was the same. It was the same man she has always loved. Bud was lost in the music, lost in playing her song. His eyes were closed as Shirley approached. Michele stood back, watching. Shirley hesitated. Michele stepped closer and whispered in her ear. “You know, when Bud plays, I love to sit down besidehim and put my hands over his,” she said. “I love to feel the music that way. Why don’t you try it?”
“I once die the very same thing,” Shirley answered. The memory of the fire of the music in his hands came back to her.
Timidly she slid onto the bench. Bud, did not turn, did not open his eyes. He continued to play. She moved her hands toward him shyly. Softly as the brush of a feather she rested them against his skin.
Bud noticed a slight weight and thought it was the soft hands of Michele resting upon his. He played with all his heart and soul. As the last note of the refrain found its way to the farthest corner of the dining room he slowly opened his eyes. He turned with a smile and looked into the eyes of his sweetest memory, the eyes of the woman he had loved every morning and night for as long as he could remember.
He gazed into those gold- flecked eyes he had seen with the eyes of his soul each night. “Shirley.” Bud called her name like a prayer of exquisite redemption. She was just as he had imagined she would be, with one exception. His dreams had never gathered the grace to believe that someday this woman would sit beside him again. He had not the hope to believe that her hands of flesh could touch him where the hands of memory had rested for so many years.
And at that moment, Bud, the man of much music and few words realized, in a moment of clarity, that sometimes the music, no matter how well it was played, or how sweet it may seem, was just not enough. The magic of the music had brought her back to him. But to keep her would take more.
So, with a deep breath, Bud let his words join the melody to complete the song his heart has been playing since that day at Saranac Lake when he first saw her smile. “Shirley, I have always loved you, and I always will. This time I won’t let you walk away without knowing that all the music that has ever made any sense to me came from the melody I heard inside; the melody of you.”
And this night, for Shirley, that was enough.
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