magic music

MUSIC MAGIC
Joyce Peterson
When the sound of the flushing toilet died out, Mabel called up the stairs, “Ted do you want to go for a walk? There’s still plenty of daylight.” She heard footsteps coming down the stairs before she got an answer.
“Honey, why don’t you go on ahead? I had a hard day at the office. I just want to sit down and read the paper.”
She knew that would be his answer. She had heard it often enough in the past 40 years. In the beginning, when they first bought this house, she understood. The house had been a fixer-upper and Ted had always been the fixer-uppee. But the house became marketable after a few years and Ted kept it that way, but he balked at taking on the debt of a better house.
His job had been much like the house, it paid a living wage but Ted had not moved up in the company. He was still doing the same job he did when they married.
She wondered, if the fact that their few walks together had been, for the most part, silent ones, was the reason they rarely happened. There was not much to talk about. They hadn’t had children and they had just a few close friends. Ted wasn’t the social type so, they and their friends knew as much about each other as they wanted. He also wasn’t a gossip. Every time she tried to tell him something she had heard about friends or neighbors, he would ask, “Are you sure that isn’t just gossip?”. When she had to say “No,” she didn’t finish telling him anything. Since she had never liked being thought of as a “gossip”, she refrained from telling anything even to her friends.
Mabel knew they had a comfortable life, she knew Ted loved her. She always remembered those two things whenever she started to wonder how they could have stayed married for so long. The College News they received, occasionally, let them know that some of their graduating class had been married three or four times. Many of them hadn’t even bothered to get married but were living together. That was another thing she liked about Ted. He was a firm believer in marriage.
As she started her walk, she felt in her pocket and pulled out the little hand held radio that had kept her company for so many years. She had shopped for a new one a few years ago. Then something magical happened, the little radio started to play all the old songs, even some of the newer ones, she liked. Some were songs her Father sang, some were ones that reminded her of her Grandfather. They were always musical songs with good lyrics, not those that screamed at you or talked at you, nor did they have ugly words. However, some of the new songs were OK and the station seemed to know which were which. When she had thought she should get a new radio to take on her walks, she couldn’t find her station on any of the ones she saw. She decided to keep her old friend.
She didn’t turn the radio on until she passed their neighbor’s house. She had caught herself singing along with some of the songs when she knew all the words. She had a feeling that the new neighbors already thought that she and Ted were a little “different”. She didn’t want to encourage that thought.
When she crossed into the next block, she turned it on and put it back into her pocket. She listened for a while, then heard a delightful tune that brought pleasant memories. She thought it must have been from an old Fred Astaire musical, one that she had seen only in a re-run on TV. The title, “Change Partners and Dance with me,” reminded her that was how she had met Ted.
In her freshman year at Daysworth College, a small school in Ohio, she had joined the Chorus. She sang a reasonable alto. The Choral Director thought they would all sing better if they got to know each other. He arranged a dance for them in the gym and encouraged them to dance with each other though they were still strangers. Mabel hoped it would be a dance where they could all do their own kind of dance. She danced with the first boy that asked her even though he was only tall enough to look into her mouth, after all, she was 5’8” tall. Luck would have it that the first dance was a waltz and her partner put his arms around her. However, when he started pressing himself too close to her, she pushed him away.
That’s how she met Ted. She saw him heading in her direction. He was about her height with brown hair. He wore thick rimmed glasses so she couldn’t tell the color of his eyes until he got close enough. His eyes were so blue she could see the sky blue color through his glasses. A silly thought had passed through her head, “If we ever had children, they would have to have brown hair and blue eyes since that’s what we both have.” She felt herself blushing as she saw the newcomer reach out to tap her partner on the shoulder.
Her partner looked around when he felt the tap. He pulled her closer. “Find your own girl,” he told Ted.
“I just did,” Ted told him in his deep baritone voice.
Her partner immediately loosened his grip on her, “Sorry, she didn’t tell me she was here with anyone,” he apologized.
Ted took her hand and gently pulled her toward him. “Now you know,” he said.
When the other boy left, Ted took her in his arms. Her first thought was how comfortable his embrace was. “Thank you, “ she told him.
“My pleasure,” he answered. “You looked like you needed rescuing.”
That was the start of their romance, although there were many other dates, with other people, for both of them.
While listening to a succession of songs coming from her pocket, Mabel felt the warmth of that first meeting. Then she heard a song to which she knew a few words. It was one she had heard her Grandfather sing. He had a beautiful singing voice. She remembered that, if her Grandmother was in the room when he started singing, “I wonder why you keep me waiting, Charmaine,” Grandma would leave. Grandpa called after her, “Sorry, Molly” and then he would sing softly, ending with, “I wonder if you ever think of me, too. I’m waiting, my Charmaine, for you.” One time Grandpa stopped singing to explain, “I keep forgetting your Grandma doesn’t like that song.” Since it happened more than once, Mabel always wondered whether he was teasing Grandma or reminding her of something from the past. Mabel had never found out.
The songs coming from her pocket had gone through many that were ones she liked but had no idea as to the accompanying words. She thought of them as dance music. Then, she heard one to which she wished she remembered all the lyrics. However, when she thought of the day that the song brought to mind, was only the rain coming down as Ted rode beside her on his bike. He had sung out, “Raindrops keep falling on my Head,” then he called out, “Let’s stop at that bus shelter up ahead.”
Mabel nodded and turned into the shelter. After they parked their bikes outside, they sat down on the bench that had been provided for bus passengers. They both laughed when Ted had to wave on a bus that stopped, expecting passengers.
“I’ll never forget this day,” Mabel told him.
“Neither will I,” Ted as he took something from his pocket. It was a jeweler’s box from which he took a ring, holding it between his two fingers. He took her hand. His speech was mumbled as though he had rehearsed what he was going to say but still wasn’t sure of himself. “We’ve been going steady since we started our Junior year last August. We’ll be graduating next . I want to…to.. You have to know I love you even if I don’t say it often enough…”
Mabel interrupted him, “No girl can hear it enough, Ted, but I’m comfortable with your saying it as often as you do.” “Darn,” she reminded herself, “there I go with that word again. Love should be more than comfortable. It should be…” She looked at Ted who was still holding the ring.
Ted continued in a hurry as though, if he didn’t finish now, he never would, “if you say you’ll marry me, I’ll tell you ‘I love you’ every day for the rest of my life.”
“I’ll marry you,” she told him. “I’ll expect you to live up to that promise.” He had lived up to his promise every day of their marriage. He said “I love you” every morning as he kissed her and left for work.
Mabel was still reminiscing over the proposal when she heard the song “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” coming from her pocket. She tried not to cry but couldn’t hold back the tears as she thought of a very sad period, a few months later, when a girl from one Ted’s classes asked him to help her drive back to her home in Pennsylvania on Spring Break. Ted had an Aunt who lived in the same town. His Aunt was quite elderly and in poor health, so he had agreed without discussing it with Mabel. When she found out, she gave him back his ring without letting him explain.
She had spent a miserable month of trying to keep a firm hold on her anger but hoping that Ted would call, until someone knocked on her dorm room door. When Mabel opened the door, she recognized the girl who said, “Mabel, I just found out that you aren’t seeing Ted anymore.”
Mabel didn’t open the door any wider. She had no intention of asking the girl in, but looking as stern as she could, she asked, “So?”
The girl pleaded, “Please, may I come in. I don’t think we want to discuss this in the hall.”
Mabel opened the door wider and waved the girl in without a word.

My name is Shira Narbonne. I’m sure you know I’m the one who asked Ted to help me drive back home on Spring Break. You’re lucky to have such a great guy in love with you I just wanted to tell you he may fail more than our Psych class if you two don’t get back together.” Shira stopped talkling when she saw the look on Mabel’s face.
“How can I talk to someone who isn’t here? He never apologized, he…he…” Mabel stuttered.
Shira reached out and took Mabel’s hand. “Do you know why I needed someone to help me drive back home?” She asked as they both sat down on the bed.
Mabel shook her head. “I guess I never gave him a chance because he didn’t ask me before he told you he would go.”
Shira took a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed her eyes. “I had just got word that my Father was very ill. I was so upset that I was afraid to go alone. I knew Ted had an Aunt who lived in my home town,” she explained.
Mabel began to feel remorse setting in. “I’m so sorry. Is he…”
Shira sniffed. “I’m so glad I went home. I was there for Mother when he passed.” Mabel put her arms around the other girl who had started to cry.
“I heard you hadn’t come back with Ted. Now I know why you were so late.” Mabel had begun to understand.
Shira wiped away her tears as she pleaded, “Please make it up with Ted. He just isn’t interested in anyone or anything but you.”
Mabel hugged the other girl. “I’ll do that,” she said, “Believe me, I’ll do that.”
The little radio started playing an old song she recognized. She sang along, “Who’s sorry now, who’s sorry now…”
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The music had changed to something that made Mabel take a few dance steps until she thought she was losing her purse strap from over her arm. Instead, someone had sneaked up behind her and was trying to steal her purse. Her radio was playing “I’ll Never Smile Again” when, suddenly, the young perpetrator knocked her to the ground. She was only there a second when the thief landed beside her. He got up in a hurry and ran.
Mabel looked up to see Ted leaning over her. “Are you all right?” He asked as he helped her to her feet.
“I’m think I’m OK,” she murmured as her mind checked her physical condition. When Ted put his arm around her, she snuggled up close to him and that old comfortable feeling took over. “I’m really comfortable…I mean fine, now.” When the little radio started playing “Try a Little Tenderness”, she put her arms around him and hugged him.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
“You’re my hero. You rescued me from the bad guy,” she told him. “By the way, what are you doing here?”
“After you left, I sat down to read the paper. The weather section said there might be rain later. I figured you would be walking the way we did when I went with you a couple of times. I brought an umbrella.” He picked it up from the ground so she could see. “I just gave the bad guy a few smacks with it.” A few raindrops fell as he was speaking.
“Does this remind you of anything?” Mabel asked him.
Ted grinned as he raised the umbrella over the two of them. “I don’t have a ring with me but if I did, I’d ask you to marry me all over again.” He put his arm around her and started them on the way back home.
Mabel pulled him closer. “And I would say ‘Yes” all over again.”
When the music from her pocket began repeating the tunes that had caused the memories on her way out, she started to recount all of them for Ted. When she got to the one where Shira came to beg her to make up with him, they were in front of the next door neighbor’s house.
Ted asked, “Do you remember what I told you when you came to tell me that you were sorry?”
The little radio must have recognized its cue because it started playing as they sang, harmonizing, from the front of the house next door until they entered their own front door, on, “It Had To Be You”.