What He's Poised to Do

The radio is playing Billie Holiday, a song called “You Go to My Head.” Sophie knows the song, knows it well. Here, credit is due not her mother but her father. He plays the trumpet, sometimes professionally, and when she was a baby he had been obsessed with American singers. A truck goes by with a picture of a ghost on the side, which reminds her of a line in the song: “Though I’m certain that this heart of mine hasn’t a ghost of a chance in this crazy romance, you go to my head.” She and Joe do not listen to music together very often. Mostly it’s in the car. A radio is never on as they are going to bed or waking up. When she was friends with Peter, they used to listen to music all the time. Peter was obsessed with Smokey Robinson. “These songs tell you who to love,” he used to say. “Whoever you think of while you are listening to these songs, well, that is who you love.” When Peter explained this theory, Sophie saw how brightly hope was burning in his eyes. She could not endorse that hope. Instead, she fell silent and stayed that way.

At the time that Peter had asked Sophie to date him and Sophie had refused, she had told Peter she was sorry, and while it was a lie, it was also a prediction, because that time did eventually come. She thought of him often and was sorry when she did. Now in the car, as she drives to her mother’s house, she wonders where Peter is. He lingers like a haunting refrain. The song ends. Next is another Billie Holiday song, “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.” Sophie sings along. “The memory of all that, no, no, they can’t take that away from me.” She imagines her mother’s voice next. This is becoming quite a play. “Oh, but they can take that away,” she hears her mother say. “Can and will. So be careful.” Her mother loves Joe. He is often the first thing she asks about. “It is so important to pick the right man to marry,” she tells Sophie. When her mother speaks of Joe, she rarely has any irony in her tone.

Her mother picked the wrong man to marry. He had run around, had a child with another woman, and eventually left. And it wasn’t as though there was no proof of his error: his daughter by the second wife lived in America now, although everyone said she was crazy. These were some very real consequences, her mother said, and every chance she got, she told Sophie not to repeat her mistake. Sometimes she even made her voice quaver when she said it, so she sounded like a ghost. “Dooooo not doooo what I have donnnnne,” she said. Again, the pain processed in such a way that it did not become poisonous. The memory of her mother’s ghost voice makes Sophie smile, although she feels a soft thud in her heart at the thought that perhaps the crime has already been committed. The last days have been criminal at many points. She was not able to look at Joe directly during dinner. She was angry at him in the truck. She disparaged him silently while he weighed himself. This is not the way it should be. Joe is kind. Joe will never leave. Joe will eventually fix the car. In “My Man,” Billie Holiday’s lover beat her up and ran around and still couldn’t weaken her devotion. That’s not Joe, not at all.

Joe would be surprised to learn that Sophie knows nearly every song Billie Holiday ever recorded. She knows “Riffin’ the Scotch” and “With Thee I Swing” and “Spreadin’ Rhythm Around” and “That’s Life I Guess.” Joe thinks that she does not know very much about music because she is young. He takes a squinty view of both her facts and her opinions. The night before, in the truck, there was a song that he loved and she didn’t. “I don’t know it or care to know it,” she said. He sniffed and said, “You always have a bone to pick musically.” Sophie was offended. She marked off the distance from Joe in her mind. But now, as she drives, she decides that she loves the sound of what Joe said. She feels like she has been recognized as the virtuoso of some rare instrument. That is what angels should play instead of harps: a bone. She likes the image so much that it relieves the pain of the insult almost entirely.

She drives by the exit she would take if she were going to her office. She has a job that requires her to sit at a desk and decide the fates of others. She would rather sit in her mother’s house, eat some food, have a drink, and talk about her own fate. Her mother never forgets to ask. “And what will happen next?” she likes to say to Sophie. From another mother to another daughter, this could be an overbearing question. But Sophie’s mother does not have an answer in mind. “Sometimes the second step is distant from the first,” she likes to say, waving her hand. What will happen next? It is worth thinking about.