Sing With Me
Tessa Gray sings along to the radio. A habit that Jem thinks is adorable and needs to be encouraged.
The 21st century was soaked in music. The world had a soundtrack that played out of car radios and over the PA systems in stores. It was profoundly distracting to Jem who couldn't ignore it the way that everyone else did. He paid attention to music and found himself thinking about the store's musical selections instead of the grocery shopping. But radios and ipods and speaker systems mean that music was always available and he loved that. There was a radio in the kitchen of their apartment. A battered thing with all the buttons labeled in Russian but it worked. Tess would flick it on, choosing stations seemingly at random, when she did housework.
Then she sang along.
One of his favourite discoveries since they'd been married was that she could sing. Not well, not really and she only sang along to the radio but she sang. Her taste swung wildly. He couldn't figure out what the common thread was that connected the things she liked. She sang the way she read, widely and a little erratically but with passion.
She sang along to Queen and David Bowie. She loved Marvin Gaye and the Supremes. She turned Beyonce up, much to his chagrin. She knew all the words to nearly everything by the Beatles and she danced to Buddy Holly. She liked songs with too many words. Poetry set to music. Poetry set to sound at least, Jem wasn't always convinced music was the best label for some of it. She didn't seem to care if the melodies were repetitive or the rhythms simplistic. And for all that, music that he found grating was suddenly charming because she was singing along. She spun around the kitchen, a wooden spoon in hand, singing about not hurrying love and he found himself adoring the song as much as the girl.
He learned Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel first. He knew that she liked it and he fussed with the arrangement for days. It was one of the very few songs that was saved on her phone to be listened to on demand instead of when it popped up on the radio. He listened and he practiced when she was away. It was meant to be a surprise.
He played it for her one night when they were sitting in the living room. She had a book on her lap and her hair tied up. He sat across the room from her and watched her. It had been a cute game in the planning but now, the music flowing he realized how much he wanted it. He wanted her to say yes so badly. It took her a minute to place it and she tilted her head in a question.
"Sing with me," he said stopping in the middle of the song and lowering the violin.
"I don't sing," she said.
"You sing all the time," he said. "You're really very good."
"You're a liar," she said. "I don't make dogs howl but that is a long way from very good."
"I'm not asking for Rossini," he said. "Sing with me. I know you know the words."
She hesitated. Not saying yes but not saying no either. He stood up and came to sit down beside her so he could make his eyes wide and put his chin on her shoulder when he said, "Please?"
"I'm not good," she warned.
"You're amazing," he argued and then dropped his voice a little, "Sing with me."
That she agreed to made him laugh and bound up to regather the violin. He started the song again settling back on the couch beside her. Her nervous smile was so sweet he almost stopped playing so that he could lean in and kiss her. When he got to the part where the lyrics were meant to start he looked at her and she joined him. Her voice was quiet and tentative but sweet. Grinning while playing the violin wasn't impossible but he missed a note or two as her voice rose with a crescendo. The tentative edge started to drop away. She didn't look at him and she was blushing but she didn't stop. He kept the music soft so that he could hear her.
As the final notes died he did lean in and kiss her.
"Amazing," he repeated and she started to say something that he knew would be self deprecating so he put a finger against her lips, "Thank you, that was wonderful."
"What else do you know?" she asked him.
"I've got some Rossini, if you want to work on the high notes," he joked and she pushed him just a little, shaking her head. His voice was serious when he said, "I can learn whatever you want me to."
"You hate pop music," she accused.
"I don't hate all pop music but I hate even the terrible stuff less when you are singing it," he said. "I think I would even love that song about California Girls if you were singing it. Tell me your favourites, I can learn them."
She leaned over and kissed him and said, "Play that one again."
"Will you sing again?" he asked. They were nose to nose. He couldn't not smile at her. He couldn't remember the last time he'd made music with someone else. It might have been playing with his father in Shanghai almost a century and a half before. Through the self-consciousness, he thought maybe she was as delighted with it as he was or maybe she was just delighted with his delight.
"Play me a song James, I'll sing with you," she said.
He brought the instrument back up and sat so that he could see her. This time, as she sang the same lyrics again, she held his gaze. The music rose and fell in the room around them as she sang loud enough to be heard over the violin. It wasn't flawless, she stumbled over a lyric, he missed a key change because he was staring instead of concentrating but it was, in that moment, perfect.