I should have a preamble. Is that enough of a preamble? 😉

Take Your Song With You When You Go

A girl in a pub listening to a guy strum his guitar and sing songs. In her small world, he’s a rock star.

Imagine that he focuses on her. She’s beguiled. No one focuses on her. She’s plain Mary. Mary, Mary, quite contrary. Mary may, you’re so plain.

He’s got an accent. That makes her think he must be different from all of the American boys who disregard her, who overlook her, who don’t see her. Like Ben. She crushes.

He sings a song for her, something old, something she doesn’t know. Something she pretends to like while secretly hating it. “Just a Song Before I Go.”

After his last song, a cover of “Under My Thumb,” Rusty joins her table, grabs her glass of beer and gulps it down, as if he knows she won’t mind because there’s been a precedent set that she’s unaware of. She watches his Adam’s apple bob as he slurps her drink. She’s suddenly not impressed. He slides his gold-rimmed glasses up his nose and grins at her.

His friend joins them. He’s a stocky American with a Midwest accent and sharp canines and a blondish balding head.

“Where you from?” the Irish singer asks.

“Here. Alexandria.”

“She must have money,” his friend whispers, evidently so drunk that he doesn’t realize she can hear.

She stiffens, repulsed.

The Irish singer smiles, nods his head. “You like my singing? I impressed you, yeah?”

Her eyes narrow. “I once had to shovel shit from a pig’s pen. Your singing was just shy of that.”

After money? Hers? Like she has any because she lives in freaking Alexandria? She’s a librarian for cripes sake who lives in a cheap apartment in a building that may have been built before World War II or even I for that matter.

She leaves. She doesn’t wait for a reaction. She’s already miles away, at least mentally. On the street, her phone vibrates. She looks at the display: Ben. Suddenly Ben with his nerdy ways and love of Zelda games, which she just may confess to loving too, doesn’t seem so bad.

“Hey,” she says.

“I learned how to make churros.”

Her heart clutches. He knows just how much she love churros.

“I’ve got some and chocolate sauce and fresh whipped cream. And, maybe best of all, I’m setting up some youtube of Pearl Jam and that Chili Peppers concert at that Irish place.”

She bites her bottom lip. So, she misjudged him. So, he doesn’t have an accent. So, he’s just a boy from Virginia, a nerdy boy who wears sneakers to all events and who loves everything she loves and even makes stuff that she loves because she loves it. Maybe he doesn’t sing, or at least not that she knows of, but he can sure make a good line up of songs.

God, maybe she does love him after all. And, maybe, well surely, he finally does see her.

end

Sascha Darlington

While Mary doesn’t have a good impression of the song, Crosby, Stills and Nash and their exquisite harmonies are something to behold. So we won’t trust Mary on this. She may have discovered love, but she knows diddly squat about music. 😉