Disclaimer: none of these characters belong to me; they belong to Shoot the Moon Enterprises and Warner Bros to whom I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to take them out for a spin and bit of light humour.
"Some Enchanted Evening", All rights reserved: Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization
Lee Stetson slipped into the Arlington backyard that had become his second home. Out of town on a mission for the last fortnight, his car had practically driven itself here from the airport. Glancing in the kitchen window, he could Amanda with her back to him, mopping the floor. He grinned. "Still so housewifey," he laughed to himself.
He tapped lightly on the glass, but ,unusually, got no reaction from the slim form inside. Amanda turned so that he could see her in profile and he realized her lips were moving. Was someone else in the room? He'd thought Dotty and the boys were out for the evening, but who was she talking to? He craned his head to peer around into her family room, saw no one and turned back to tap again. As he did so, she pushed her hair back over her ear and he caught sight of the thin strip of metal in her hair that told him she had headphones on, and he glanced down to confirm the Walkman clipped to the waistline of her jeans. "Agency tapes" he thought to himself "Wonder what language she's trying to learn now?"
He slipped around to the back door and slid inside trying to keep as quiet as possible so as not to startle her. Amanda's back was to him and she was moving the mop back and forth across the floor in a slow rhythm that didn't seem like it was actually cleaning the floor much. Lee knew enough to know that when Amanda had something on her mind, she cleaned, so perhaps this mopping wasn't so much about cleaning the floor as helping her process something.
It was at that moment that Lee realized Amanda had begun to hum as she mopped. "So not Agency tapes then" he smiled to himself. Lee watched as Amanda continued to sway in time with the music only she could hear, the mop acting as a dance partner and then suddenly she began to sing along, her low voice filling the small kitchen.
"Some enchanted evening
You may see a stranger,
you may see a stranger
Across a crowded room
And somehow you know,
You know even then
That somewhere you'll see her
Again and again."
Lee caught his breath at how sexy she sounded, singing in a world all her own, still oblivious to his presence a few feet away. Had he ever heard her sing before? He had no idea she had such a beautiful singing voice. He thought for a moment. He'd heard her singing Christmas carols of course, and occasionally singing along with something on the car radio. She often hummed as she worked, but the more he thought about it, the more he was certain he had never heard her just simply sing and he'd certainly never imagined what a torch singer voice she had. He leaned back against the family room sofa and let her throaty tones flow over him.
"Some enchanted evening
Someone may be laughing,
You may hear her laughing
Across a crowded room
And night after night,
As strange as it seems
The sound of her laughter
Will sing in your dreams."
As Amanda continued her slow dance with the mop, Lee was suddenly transported back to his childhood. Unlike a lot of his hazier memories, this one sprang on him like a Cinemascope movie. He was four years old and he was supposed to be in bed, but he'd heard his father come home and he'd wanted to see him. Sneaking down the stairs, he had looked through the banisters to see his parents slow dancing in the living room, Ezio Pinza's voice coming from the radio singing this South Pacific classic. His mother had been wrapped in his father's arms and they had been looking at each other with a look of such tender love that even his four-year old self had known not to make a sound.
"Some enchanted evening
When you find your true love,
When you feel her call you
Across a crowded room,
Then fly to her side,
And make her your own
Or all through your life you
May dream all alone."
The song had ended and as they drew apart, his mother had seen Lee huddled against the banisters. The look of love she had been giving his father widened to include him and Lee had known he was not going to get into trouble for sneaking out of bed.
"Look who got up to say hello" Jennifer had whispered, turning Matthew so that he could see their small sandy-haired son peering down at them with huge hazel eyes so like his own.
"Hey sport! What are you still doing up?" Matthew had jogged up the stairs and swept his tiny son up into his arms. Lee could still smell that distinct smell of musk and tweed that has meant safety as he snuggled into his father's neck. "Let's get you tucked back in again". As they went up the stairs, Lee had looked over his father's shoulder at his mother standing at the bottom of the stairs watching her two favourite men. "Goodnight sweetheart, sweet dreams."
As the memory faded, Lee became aware that Amanda had stopped singing and was now leaning back against the kitchen island, staring into space. She had pushed the headphones back around her neck and watching her profile, Lee suddenly realized she was staring straight at the kitchen window where he had just been standing, a look of such dreamy longing on her face that his heart almost stopped in his chest. He would swear he hadn't moved, that he hadn't even breathed in the last few seconds but as if she knew he was there, she slowly turned to where he was standing a few feet away. In that instant, he knew she didn't really think that it was him, that it was some sort of figment of her imagination she had summoned up from wishful thinking.
He held out his hand. "Amanda, I need you". If he had thought she was beautiful before, he was stunned by the transformation as the look of love he had seen his mother give his father reappeared on Amanda's face.
"Lee".
With a sob, his wife has flown across the room into his arms As she drew her head down to hers, his last thought as their lips met was "I am the luckiest guy alive" and then realized he could hear the last few words of the song coming from the headphones still slung around her neck.
"Once you have found her,
Never let her go.
Once you have found her,
Never let her go!"