His guitar playing was like his voice—edgy, a little too fast, his fingers stumbling over the chord changes. But there was something about it all—the moonless sky, the trees bereft of leaves, even the wind stirring the dried stalks of milkweed and Queen Anne’s lace—something that was lovelier and lonelier and more fragile than anything I had ever experienced before. I leaned forward until I stood on the balls of my feet, poised for flight, though I didn’t know that then, and as I listened I felt Angelica’s hand slip into mine.
I began to cry. You have to remember I was so young, and drunk, as full of raw wet emotion as I was of bad wine; but even so there really was something there, I felt it then and years later I knew that I had been right, there really was something about Oliver, and Angelica, and maybe even me; but mostly it was Oliver. Even after all the rest of it, even now, when I think of Oliver that night is what comes to me first: standing in the cold dying grass, with the faint tang of woodsmoke wind-borne from the Orphic Lodge, the stars like cracks in the sky through which I might have peeked and seen all that was to come, if only I had known to look. And Oliver himself, the shadow of the song, singing as though they were the only words he knew
He fell silent, strummed the guitar a few more times, and then cocked his head to listen to the sound die into the wind.
“Oh,” whispered Angelica. “That was wonderful—what is it, that’s the most beautiful song…”
“No, it’s not,” cried someone behind us. I whirled and saw a pale face peering from a tangle of seedpods and dead grass: Annie, the front of her holey cardigan covered with burdock. “Who said you could use my guitar?”
Oliver stood. He brushed himself off and extended the instrument to her. “I’m sorry, Annie. I didn’t think you’d mind.” Glaring, she took the guitar from him and hugged it to her chest. After a moment she plucked at it tentatively.
“Huh,” she said, wincing as the strings jangled. She looked up and for the first time seemed to notice Angelica and me. “There you are. They’re asking for you up at the council fire.”
“I thought you were with Hasel.”
Annie yawned. “I was. But we went down to get something to eat and got caught up in this other stuff. You should come back in, it’s kind of fun.”
“We will—” I started to say, but then saw that Angelica had stepped over to join Oliver. The loose folds of her dress hiked up on a patch of burdock, but she didn’t notice. She had her arms around Oliver and was pulling him to her and he was kissing her, his hands sliding down her back slowly at first, then tugging at the thin folds of cotton until I could hear a faint shirring noise as the fabric pulled from the weeds and tore.
“Hey.” Annie nudged me with the neck of her guitar. “Come on, Sweeney,” she said softly but kindly. “Let’s go inside.”
I stood for another moment, staring, then quickly followed her up the hill. When we reached the Orphic Lodge I turned to look back, but everything behind us had been swallowed by the night.
I woke very early the next morning. It was still dark outside, the windows pewter-colored and edged with a tracery of frost. In her narrow camp bed Annie was a small snoring mound of blankets. Angelica’s bed was empty I lay on my side and stared at the neatly made rectangle with its quilt and cotton comforter and pillow, Angelica’s blue silk makeup case, and the little black box that held all her contact lens equipment. At last I got up. I dressed in the dark and ducked into the bathroom.
Even without the black eye makeup, the face staring at me from the mirror didn’t look sensible at all. At night, dancing in a dark club with gaudy lights arcing through the smoke, I could pass for androgynous and sinister: cropped black hair, gashed mouth, bruised eyes. But the act didn’t play well by daylight. I looked burned out and exhausted and younger than I liked to admit. I threw some water on my face, trying to pretend that made me feel better. I decided to forgo a shower because I didn’t want to wake Annie, and went downstairs.
The lodge was silent and cold and dark. I tiptoed into the kitchen, found some instant coffee and boiled water and drank the awful stuff black. Then I went outside for a long walk, down the hillside and to the edge of the woods where we’d been the night before. I smoked most of a pack of cigarettes and looked for signs of Angelica and Oliver’s passing. Crushed bracken, stray bits of clothing, the lingering smells of sandalwood and smoke. But, of course, I found nothing. Whatever the night might have known of them, the day held nothing—nothing, at least, that it would share with me. Where the overgrown meadow ended I slumped against a birch tree with my head bowed and eyes closed, the cold wind gnawing at my back and the empty windows of the Orphic Lodge gazing down upon me, and smoked my last cigarette.
I spent the rest of the day alone. The whole morning and most of the afternoon skidded by, and I never saw Angelica or Oliver. As dusk fell, I went down to a cheerfully airheaded ecumenical service in the living room, in front of the empty ash-streaked fireplace. The dreaded acoustic guitars were brought out, and a boy played “Embryonic Journey.” Two grad students sang an Elton John song that I hated. Everyone clapped politely, and then to my surprise, Annie Harmon rose and carried her guitar to the front of the room, climbing atop a wooden stool and perching her slender frame there. She fiddled with her guitar until she got the tuning right, pushed up the sleeves of her plaid shirt, and nodded.
“Okay,” she said. She gave a quick nervous laugh, and then began to sing.
She did “Chelsea Morning” and “Been Too Long at the Fair” and “Afterhours”—
—tapping the sounding board of her guitar so that it boomed as she sang in a deep scary voice scarcely above a whisper.