TURNTABLE
second chance meet cute
It’s my birthday! Enjoy my short story, Turntable (below).
It’s my first visit to the local bookstore -slash- record store -slash- café. When I lived here, no-one could even name one espresso-based drink, including me. I will only be staying in town long enough to get Mom settled in the nursing home and sell her house, but her neighbor kindly invited me to her book club. I figure, at a minimum, there will be wine, and a chance to gather contact information for more of Mom’s friends for when the inevitable happens, so I came here to buy the book.
The first thing I see, though, is a vinyl re-issue of an album we played on repeat in 1991, Out of Time by R.E.M. Impulsively, I grab a copy on my way to the book section.
The books all look like Literature. Whoa. We used to buy Harlequin Romances off a revolving rack in a little store on this block. The book I need today isn’t where the alphabet says it should be, so I search, running my finger over each spine, half-listening to the barista chatting with a customer. Wait. That voice. The customer’s back is toward me, so I idle closer, pretending to browse the records.
He is wearing one of those ubiquitous black puffer jackets. Hard to tell. But the voice rushes me back to singing along with Losing My Religion in his basement, and awkward, touchless goodnights.
Looking sideways, I clock geeky spectacles. Okay, it’s him. In grade twelve, I tried to help him choose new glasses, but he liked what he liked. He’s swapping Tragically Hip concert stories with the barista. Every word he says in that smooth, firm voice gives me pleasant little shivers. I stare at him, hard, until he turns his head. In the second it takes for him to recognize me, I feel embarrassment that I never called him on my past visits home, then hope that it doesn’t matter.
“Hello, Heidi,” he says, as if we’d seen each other last week. I am speechless, but why shouldn’t Rory MacDonald look so great in his beekeeping era? His smile is almost the same, but his teeth are straight now. Gentrification is everywhere. In his gloved hands he holds a copy of the book I need.
I address the barista, gesturing. “Would you have any more copies of that?”
They go to check.
“Hi, Rory,” I finally say.
He looks me over curiously. Am I too much, in my Fluevog boots and red lipstick before noon? I’m rattled. By good old Rory. That’s new.
“Out of Time?” Gesturing at the album I’m hugging to myself.
I carefully choose the shape I make with my mouth. “Nostalgia.” He lifts his eyebrows, warmly amused.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. He’s got the last copy.” I don’t love being ma’ammed, but Rory knows how old I am.
“Oh, too bad,”
“Take this one,” Rory offers. “I can get the e-book.”
“Oh, no. I’ll look elsewhere.”
They offer to order it in for me, but the meeting is three days away, and I need it today if I plan to read it, which is still debatable.
“I’ll get the e-book.” I answer cheerfully.
As if remembering his manners, Rory hugs me, gingerly, around the stiff square record case in my arms. “Good to see you, Heidi.”
His herbal scent reminds me of going to the barbershop with my father. Nostalgia? I could snuff that all day. He pays for his book and exits but is waiting for me on the sidewalk. “Which way are you going?”
“Nowhere,” I mentally add, with you, and walk along with him toward the harbour.
“Do you even have a turntable?” It’s not the first time he’s teased me for being unserious about music.
“I’m cleaning out my mother’s house. There are at least three record players, and maybe one of them even works.”
“Well, I have one.” I wait for him to add, so bring your record over sometime, but he doesn’t.
Now we can see a small slice of the glinting harbour between two buildings at the bottom of the hill. The pedestrian ferry is chugging into the terminal, and he quickens his pace.
“Oh, hey, I need to catch that boat.” He jogs off with a casual wave. I watch him cross the street on the last three seconds of a walk signal and disappear.
That book is so obscure, and the timing so coincidental, he’s got to be in the same book club. I get out my phone to buy the e-book.