The First Warm Evening of the Year by Jamie M. Saul Page B

most of it was business: copy to review for a voice-over I was doing for a charity benefit, studio time, but not too much, breaking up the rest of the month, a handful of days in midtown. Lunches with accounts, with my friends. Drinks, dinners into the weekend, people who didn’t know about my being Laura’s executor, and a few dates with those who did. I was surprised by how much I wanted to talk about Shady Grove. Not about Marian and what I was feeling for her—some of these same people knew Rita or knew people who did—nor any of the things that Alex and I discussed, and certainly not Laura’s death. I wanted to talk about the day I spent in Shady Grove. I liked remembering that, even the night when Marian and Eliot and I went out to dinner, in spite of the awkwardness. But there was no one to tell these things to.
    I was experiencing feelings that until recently I’d been unfamiliar with. The nestling anticipation, the restiveness and indecision. It wasn’t at all unpleasant, not all of it, anyway. I enjoyed the uncertainty.
    Sunday afternoon, while it rained outside, I was alone inside my apartment, in the room I used as an office, and decided to assemble the stereo system Laura had left to me. It was quite impressive, top-of-the-line twelve-inch steel turntable, a tone arm that rode across the records at a gram and a quarter, a powerful amplifier, two speakers that must have been custom-made and were huge by today’s standards. It all looked much too expensive for something Laura would have owned when she was a student, and too outdated to be available when she was older. I assumed that it had belonged to Steve.
    And then there were the record albums. Two dozen of them. In their original sleeves. Collections of American standards by legendary songwriters, sung by legendary stylists, spinning at a civilized 33 1/3 rpm.
    It was music I had always liked and had always listened to, and while I had no great rush of where or when I might have listened to these particular songs, I assumed it was somewhere in New York City with Laura.
    I decided to play one of the cuts. An hour later I was sitting on the floor, sipping a whiskey and water, and still listening to the music Laura had wanted me to hear, and when I finished my drink, I turned up the volume and continued listening while I cooked my dinner, then listened to more music while I ate.
    Songs of and about love. Love at first. Love at last. Love again. Conquering love. Surrendering to love. Brazen about love. Secret about love. Happy, beguiled, and through with love. The wit, the clever rhymes, the tight melodies and harmonies, and not a verse or lyric that was new to me; but until this night I’d never considered all of the anguish and enjoyment, conflict and delight contained in their scores. When the music stopped, I wondered why Laura had wanted me to hear them.
    I wondered if Marian knew why, and would this be the excuse I needed to call her—or just send her an e-mail.
    Would I have sounded foolish? And why should I care what I sounded like?
    I’d have said, “I was sitting around thinking about you and thought I’d listen to the love songs Laura sent me. I thought you might know why?”
    And Marian would ask: “Why you’re thinking about me?”
    â€œWhy Laura left me all these love songs.”
    While Ella Fitzgerald sang “In the still of the night” and gazed from her window at the slumbering moon, I gazed from my own window, and felt like someone in love.
    While the stereo kept playing that warm, honey-butter sound on vinyl, and the tone arm floated across the steel platter like a memory, I wondered if that was all Laura had intended to leave me, the solitude of reminiscence.
    I t was dark outside by the time I’d turned off the music, washed my supper dishes, and poured myself a second drink. I sat in my office, no longer trying to figure out hidden meanings and intents, just