BACKBEAT: Chapter 7

Margot blinked awake from the dream. Her heart thumped in her chest, and she remembered only that she was back in Philadelphia—the panic sitting in her chest and stomach was all too familiar; almost immediately the images faded into amnesiatic silence. But she could still feel the sensation of claustrophobia wrenching around her, her desperate—but silent—cry for Geoff to hear her and find her. And to not, because she couldn’t bear the thought of him finding her like that.

She remembered the terrible awareness that sprang into her that night and trailed her ever since then. That she failed Geoff—and herself. It pinched her spirit—her “Margot-ness”—from her and left her with only a crude blueprint of what she once was for reference as she tried to restructure herself. But she didn’t understand why she felt so ruined by that moment. Why it threaded its roots into everything she thought and did every day of her life. Even now, eleven years later.

The raspy-dank taste of memory sat in her mind and mouth. And suddenly it burst around her again and she tasted bile and spoiled cigarette smoke, felt the little alcove pressing around her as she got crushed into it. Her hands were clenched together, pinned them behind her to immobilize her and spread her open.

Oh—Jesus—no—! Please. Geoff—please find me! Please come! Geoff, oh, please, I’m here! Why can’t you hear me?

Margot rubbed her face to get the ring of the words out of her head; thirst chafed her tongue. She threw back the covers and padded into her bathroom; the floor felt clammy against her bare feet. She ran the faucet for a few moments to coax slightly cooler water from the pipes, then filled her cup to capacity and gulped the water down. She returned to bed—but didn’t pull the covers over her again. The air was warm, and she wanted the breeze from the fan in the window to blow away the sticky feeling clinging to her skin.

Sleep was difficult to grasp that night. Her brain flipped through the day and back to her evening with Geoff two nights ago, making her sputter in and out of dozing for quite some time before she finally dropped into thin, scratchy sleep.

And so, with as restless as her mind was, she wasn’t terribly surprised she dreamed about Philadelphia. At least at this level of awareness. Plus Geoff’s reappearance in her life felt like having a phantom return from the past, bringing with it memories and emotions she carefully smoothed into the back of her thoughts like a mason laying bricks. Geoff slipped in and around her thoughts and daily activities in ways both subtle and overt ever since she left—but he stepped from those shadows right into her path two days ago, unavoidable and real, making her bump through the wall and into what sat behind it.

When she was little, she used to believe that spirits would emerge from hiding and her dolls would start talking and having adventures when the clock struck midnight. Once, when she was about seven, she awoke a few minutes before that magic hour, and watched her clock with both excitement and dread. And then her clock changed to midnight—and nothing happened.

It both disappointed and relieved her.

Now she knew that the only ghosts that came out at night were the ones she created.

The night Geoff left on the Thin tour, she lay in bed in the dark and quiet. It wasn’t the first time she slept in the bed alone, but Geoff always came back in a few days, and there wasn’t the scraping sensation of his far-away return, the bewildering sense of elimination from his life. She remembered hearing a dog bark somewhere in their neighborhood, that their house felt whispery. As she listened to the harsh silence of sleeplessness, she began seeing a memory over and over against her mind’s eye.

The image was of Geoff walking next to her on the beach during their first date; the wind was in his hair as he laughed about a colorful kite against the sky. A thick cloud passed over the sun abruptly, and he looked quite precise against the dusty-blue band of horizon and the gray of the ocean. As he tightened the sleeves of his denim jacket tied around his waist, he dodged a wave that slipped up farther than the others, and glanced at her, grinning and merry.

The scene played over and into her, sweet and sad that night, and for the days it followed her in the empty house. Muted, it came to her now, in the quiet of her own bed, as plain and new as if she experienced it only yesterday. And again it looped across her vision as it did all those years ago, as if she were watching a silent 8mm home movie she found in some forgotten, dusty corner of her attic. That was the memory which drove her to call Don and have him help her surprise Geoff in Chicago; it then remained with her long into her move to New York. She felt lonely in the last discouraging months with Geoff and then when he left on tour—and then quite sharply so after her return from Chicago—as the scene wound itself through her mind endlessly so she felt even more hollow and haunted.

When she moved to New York, she knew no one; she had her cousin Charlotte, yes, but the connection was familial and not a friendship—that came later. She felt lonesome and homesick for Geoff and her friends, the simplicity and quaintness of England. A stark contrast to the loud, almost offensive business and grime of New York City. But it wasn’t until he came to see her the following January and she thrust him from her life she understood what it meant to be alone—the sense of isolation and separateness from the people she passed on the street and with whom she worked.

On a whim, about a month after she returned to the States, she applied to Harvard for a Master’s in Business and the university accepted her, much to her surprise. Other than that, she didn’t remember much about the months between her arrival in late Fall and the beginning of Spring—except for Geoff’s visit. Then summer came, and she found that New York felt like an urban Salvador Dali painting; she swore she saw the buildings elongating and melting in the humidity and heat.

She worked long hours—sometimes double shifts—at a small market down the street from the apartment to keep her mind tired and occupied and in a place where all she heard was Muzak. The people were nice—a bit gruff and abrupt, but she learned that was somewhat typical of New York—and she felt comfortable. But none of them interested her enough to pursue a friendship. Then, in late March, the manager hired a quiet and funny young man about her age—Michael. He took Spring and Summer terms off “to give his head a rest”—as he said—as he worked on his Ph.D in Philosophy at NYU.

Michael was tall—an inch or so more than Geoff—slim, wore John Lennon-style glasses, and his curly brown hair always looked as if he needed a haircut. He worked as a checker the same as she, in a schedule often matching hers—long and late and frequent. He reminded her somewhat of Barry in his quiet affability and humor, which was why she both enjoyed and looked forward to working with him—and made her feel a slip of comfort she hadn’t felt in a long time, as well as a small dart of constant longing for her friends in England. Especially so for Barry, sometimes, as his friendship carried a softer warmth to it than she felt with Seth and Angus—and even Geoff in some ways. Which puzzled her—and still did—considering the deeper level of her friendship with Barry didn’t truly start until after Philadelphia, nearly two years after she met him.

Michael lived not far from her, and took to walking her home at night—something she greatly appreciated because, though she lived only a few blocks away and the street was well lit, the shadows at night were unsettling and kept her heart in a wary lump in her throat. The laughter he managed to pull from her made her feel not quite so cut off from herself and who she once was. But she still felt stopped and quiet.

“What’s made you so sad, Margot Lynne?” he asked her one night when they paused at the door of her building. He often called her by her first and middle names in jest, and she liked the way it sounded; his warm South Carolina accent gave her name a gentility that helped her feel softer.

“Sad?”

“Yeah.”

“I—don’t know what you mean.”

He smiled. “I can hear it. Behind your smile and when you laugh. I get this feeling that there’s—or should be—more in them.” Michael stood a moment with her, his smile gentle and hopeful. “Can I—” he stopped, and she heard his flush of embarrassment in the silence that followed; the sulfur light above them was too harsh and strange to see if it spread to his cheeks and ears. He cleared his throat and paused again. “Can I take you out sometime, Margot? A movie or something, maybe?”

She felt suddenly muted. She looked at him for a moment, not certain what she should—or wanted to—say.

“I mean—just as a friend. That’s all.”

“I don’t think so, Michael.”

“Oh,” he said. “Maybe coffee sometime, then?”

She shook her head.

“You could think of it as an extension of our walks home.”

“Maybe,” she said and smiled. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“That’s fine.”

She looked at him for a moment, and then turned and went inside. A few days later, she took him up on the offer for coffee, and he walked her to a little 24-hour diner a block or so past her apartment, and down the street from his. She felt incredibly awkward at first, but in the brightness of the fluorescent lights, the buzz of customers around her and Michael’s kindness and friendliness, she felt far less enclosed within herself than she had in months.

It became a habit of theirs, to go to the coffee shop after work and talk. And it felt vastly good to do so—about everything and anything into which their conversations meandered. Except for England. He asked her a few questions about what she did there, but she kept her answers vague and glossed-over, and he clearly sensed that was the source of her sadness, and left it alone. He teased her about her accent—much to her surprise—one afternoon during a slow time at work and she told him she lived there for four years.

But then, one night in August, as they sat in a booth far in the back of the diner, “Never”, one of the singles from Images began playing through ceiling speakers connected to the corner jukebox, and she sat, frozen and fighting back the sudden burst of tears that desperately wanted to escape. She heard only songs from the 60s and 70s—and the occasional Country tune—when they were there before, and thought herself safe from anything newer.

“Margot?” Michael said, worried and put his hand on hers; it felt warm and strong—and slightly rough. It made the melancholia in her deepen.

She looked at him, the warmth of friendship blown cold and dry inside of her. “I—” she started, but was uncertain what she wanted to say. “I knew them.”

Michael blinked a moment, and then realized what she meant. “Oh,” he said.

“When I was in England.”

“Oh,” he said again, but with more understanding.

And suddenly she found herself telling Michael everything—beginning with how she met Geoff, how good and beautiful and connected things were between them, how much she loved him—and about what happened in Philadelphia (Michael was, at that point, the only person outside of Red Line that knew), then about her accident the following July. How their relationship slowly fell apart afterwards—and finally ended. Then what Geoff told her in January when he came to see her, and what she said to him. She began crying at some point, but didn’t care she was in public—all she felt was a relief from releasing everything she kept knotted inside of her for so long. By the time she finished, it was nearly two in the morning, and she was exhausted.

Michael listened quietly, asking questions only once in a while, and didn’t speak for a long moment after she stopped. Finally he said, “And there’s no chance the two of you could reconnect again?”

“No,” she said. “Not after that. Not after what he did and what I said. And how I made things change.” She began to realize that during the silent months with Geoff, and then quite deeply so in the weeks following his visit in January; she felt its truth as clearly and precisely as if she saw it printed as historical fact.

“It’s not all your doing, Margot.”

“But—” she said. “If Philadelphia hadn’t happened, then things would still be okay.”

“That wasn’t your fault, Margot. And you don’t know that for sure.”

“But it happened to me and then—everything got different afterwards.”

“That’s still not your fault.”

Not realizing the thought was on her tongue, she said, “I miss him so much, Michael. Even with all of that.” She felt new tears press through her. “I should have gone to Salzburg with him. Let him tell me what he wanted say. Given him the chance he wanted.”

He squeezed her hand. “Maybe you weren’t meant to, Margot. Sometimes things have to end even when two people don’t want them to.”

She looked at him a moment, knowing it was true—but at the same time still feeling the harsh regret of not going with Geoff. “I’m sorry, Michael.”

He blinked and the light glanced off the lenses of his glasses. “Why? For what?”

She tried to smile. “For all that. I probably bored the sense of hearing right out of you.”

He shook his head. “Margot—I don’t mind. You needed that.”

“I guess.”

“What are you going to do now, Margot? I can’t see you working at the market for the rest of your life.”

“I don’t know.” She mentioned to him one afternoon about her acceptance to Harvard, but told him she didn’t think she was ready. Or even if it was what she really wanted. Stepping out into a world of her own frightened her terribly, and her small one at the little grocery store and Charlotte’s apartment felt far safer.

“Well,” he said. “It’ll come to you. What it is you need to do.” After a moment he smiled. “How about sharing a piece of their apple pie you like so much?”

Despite the exhaustion and lingering sadness, Margot smiled. “Okay. And definitely a la mode.”

Michael walked her home, and that night Margot slept far more soundly than she had in months. A day or two later he called to ask her to his apartment for dinner.

She didn’t quite know what to say.

“I have a new recipe I’d like to try, and it’s boring to do it for one person. I thought maybe we could rent a movie or something.” Anxiousness threaded through his words, a hesitation that made them sound sweet and young.

After a moment, she felt their warmth and smiled. “I’d like that, Michael.”

“Then—how about six?” The relief and excitement—which she knew he thought he covered—made her smile more.

“That would be fine.”

She arrived at his apartment that night, nervous and uncertain. He lived in a little studio that could have fit inside Charlotte’s already-tiny apartment, but he arranged the furniture in a way that kept it from feeling cramped. She was amused to see he wore dress pants, a button-down shirt and a spindly-looking tie for her, but wore his somewhat frayed-looking tennis shoes. He seemed more tentative than usual, and kept apologizing for how long the dinner was taking, that the silverware didn’t match, that all he owned were plastic plates and cups he picked up from the Salvation Army a few blocks away.

“Michael,” she finally said with a laugh. “I don’t care. I’m happy to be here.” And she meant it. “I don’t need impressing.”

He looked at her for a moment. “No,” he said, then grinned. “I guess you don’t.”

After that, the laughter and conversation flowed with its usual ease, and she found herself feeling far more comfortable and enjoying the evening. They skipped the movie and, after she helped him clean up the kitchenette, they sat on the couch—at opposite ends but facing each other—and continued their amiable conversation well past midnight.

At some point, it suddenly struck Margot how handsome Michael was. She always thought him nice-looking and charming, but in the lamplight and his laughter, he suddenly seemed appealing. There was a pause in their conversation. She set her wine glass down, and moved so she could sit next to him; the nervousness and desire in his eyes mirrored her own. She took off his glasses gently, set them on the coffee table, and kissed him. It was slightly awkward at first, and then, as he realized she truly meant it, his embarrassment disappeared and the kiss’s depth grew. Margot found herself wanting—needing—him in a way that almost frightened her. And yet it also felt like a balm.

Afterwards, she lay with her head on Michael’s shoulder, his arms around her, bathed in the light coming from the lamp by the couch. Michael fell asleep, but she remained awake. She felt safe and as if something inside of her was stitched closed. But there was also a sense of panic catching in her chest.

She wanted to feel the companionship and protection from having someone love her again. And to return it. But it wasn’t something she could reach at the time; the ledge upon which it sat was too far above her head, and she didn’t have the strength to climb up to it. Plus the hurt from her loss of Geoff and what she had with him still sat too stark and new in her heart. And even though she knew, quite clearly so, she was completely severed from him, and was now no more a part of his life than she was before she met him, she still felt as if she somehow betrayed him that night by making love with Michael.

She fought with that sensation—and the dark blast of irony that came with it—while she lay curled against Michael’s warm and sleeping body, its comfort. And, as dawn fingered its way through the blinds, she began to realize she didn’t feel like she cheated on Geoff. Rather, it was more because she began to let him go and take her first small steps into a life without him, it felt like she was somehow dismissing him, giving him a lesser status in her life. She knew it wasn’t true, of course, but it didn’t diminish the awareness. She didn’t feel quite ready for that life, but she knew it was time. And with that thought came a new, thin ribbon of confidence in her.

Finally, around five in the morning, she rose, dressed quietly, and left after leaving Michael a quick note she wrote on the back of the envelope of his water bill. When she saw him the next afternoon as he started his shift, he smiled at her and started one of their usual animated conversations, but she felt quiet inside, and it confused her because it was so different from how she felt the night before.

It continued like that for several days afterwards, until Michael caught up with her as she left work. “Margot,” he said as he caught her arm, “what have I done?”

She looked at him a moment, startled to realize he sensed the shift inside of her. And she realized that the quiet she felt was a new calm, a smoothness she hadn’t felt in along time. “Everything,” she said.

He blinked, confused. “It was that night, wasn’t it? That changed things between us.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand.” She heard resentment filtering into his voice.

“It can’t be more than it was, Michael.”

The disappointment in his eyes raked at Margot. She stood there, on the hot and sunny early evening street and looked at him.

“You came along, Michael, and became my bridge back to the world. I was so lost and raw inside—and still am—but not as much as I was. You helped me cross back into my life.”

Still Michael said nothing, but the growing bitterness in his expression softened.

“But it can’t be anything more than that. My heart can’t take anything more right now.”

“I thought maybe you thought I somehow—because of what happened to you. In Philadelphia.”

“Oh, Michael,” she said. “No. I wanted it. But there can’t be more.”

“Not even later?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Oh,” he said, disappointment quite clear.

“I’m sorry, Michael. But that’s all I can give.”

He caressed her cheek. After a moment, he said, “I understand, Margot Lynne. I’m disappointed, yeah, but I understand.”

She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. They looked at one another a moment. Finally she said, “Michael, whenever you think about me from now on, wonder where I am—know I’m fine and there because of you. Otherwise I think I definitely would’ve been stuck in this market for the rest of my life. I’d basically decided not to go to school in the Fall. That it was a stupid idea because I’d fuck it up like I’ve done with everything else in my life that meant something to me. And then you came along, and all that changed.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “You’re going to go to Harvard, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “You made me realize I needed to.”

Michael smiled as he tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear; the gesture made her feel suddenly tight inside; up until then, it was Geoff’s habitual gesture. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose you do.”

“I love you, Michael,” she said. “And I always will because of what you’ve given me these months. But I’m not in love with you. It’s going to be a long time before I can be that way with anyone again.”

“Can I call you occasionally?”

A part of her wanted to say yes, but a larger part knew their relationship needed to remain within that Spring and Summer. When she didn’t respond, Michael said, “No. I guess not.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “I understand. I love you, too, Margot Lynne. But I think mine was a bit more.”

She put her hand on his and squeezed it. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Margot.” He gently ran his finger along the scar on her jaw.

She kissed him softly and he pulled her into a hug; they stood like that for a long time with the traffic of people and cars and noise flowing around them. She called Michael the night before she left for Cambridge, and their conversation was short and humored—but quiet and with an undercurrent of sadness. She neither saw nor spoke to him again; when she came back for Christmas break, he no longer worked at the market, and a new name was taped above the buzzer for his studio. She didn’t ask her manager if he knew where Michael was.

A motorcycle whined sharply along Highway 26, yanking Margot back into her bedroom. She listened to the far-off hiss of nighttime traffic; the sound brought to her the memory-feelings of traveling with Geoff, of lying in bed next to him, hearing similar noises. Something she would always associate with him—and that time. Then it comforted her; now it made her ache.

She wondered where Michael was, if he received the professorship he wanted at Dartmouth, or if he got his pilot’s license and started a charter business in Montana; he was torn between the two when she knew him. She missed him, sometimes, and even occasionally considered trying to find him, but she never did. Some people, she knew, weren’t meant to cross over from one time into another.

The moment with Geoff on the beach flickered across her vision again. She smiled. That entire day with Geoff felt as if they knew each other for years—and it was simply that afternoon they came to realize their friendship turned into something with far more depth and promise.

I loved you then, she thought. I may not have known or seen it, but I did. Right on that first day. It was always there like the shushing of traffic on the highway. The love. Our love. Even when things were at their worst.

And it was still there; she always felt bits of it throughout the last nine years. She needed only to figure out how to quiet herself and listen for it—and find the bridge that would lead her back into it again. Geoff gave her a possible one with his want of understanding—and forgiveness (his own and the one he gave her) and his reentrance to her life. But she wasn’t sure if the bridge was the right one—or if she even wanted to cross it.

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