Section Ten – Rachel York
She enters the room with her laptop and places it open atop the television. She’s washed her face and hands. I can smell the mint of toothpaste and a hint of perfume. She smoothes her dress over her hips.
“I might smell now, but I don’t want to change.”
“You don’t smell.”
She turns off the lamp and we’re left with the grey glow of the computer screen.
“I want to dance,” she says. It’s nearly a whisper, her head dropping then rising again, “Will you dance with me?”
“I’m awful at…”
“No excuses. C’mon.”
She presses a key on the computer. The music begins softly. It’s Low, their album Trust. Guitar, slow and wide, with lost angel choruses.
She comes up close, taking my hand, her face near mine. Her skin is very pale in the computer glow, a chalk blue that makes her re-applied lipstick darker. I slip my arm around her waist.
“You can’t spin me though, or I’ll puke again,” she says with a wink.
“Okay then.”
“How’re you doing, baby?” Her eyes are searching mine for clues. “Holding up okay?”
“I’m just fine,” I tell her.
Her arms are resting loosely on my shoulders. She lowers her cheek to my chest.
“You don’t even know…” she says. “How much you…I know you’re clueless, that’s why you have to listen to me when I say it. You have to, at least, believe me.”
I squeeze her waist gently in response.
What we do then isn’t really dancing. We hold each other, my feet shuffling between hers as we turn gently in the center of the room. Her slight body against mine, the vague press of her breasts, my hands clasped in the small of her back, forearms on the pronounced ridges of her pelvis. Her arms are around my neck, her face in my chest. I can feel her breath on my shirt.
What we do isn’t really dancing. It’s an excuse to hold each other, to be silent, my body to hers. Her skin is cool, she feels slight in my arms. In a moment the computer screen dims though the music continues, and the room is nearly dark. I watch the shadows on a blank slab of wall, lit now and then by a passing car. I close my eyes.
Sophie lifts a bare foot and drops it atop mine, then steps onto the other. She’s nearly weightless, only her frame has definition like the hollow-boned skeletons of birds. I lift her feet upon mine, one then the other, one then the other, folding my arms around her more tightly.
Lost Angel Choruses
written and performed by Rachel York
Rachel York received her Bachelors Degree in double bass performance, with a Minor in art and design, from East Carolina University. She is a member of the music and word performance trio The Difficulties. Rachel is currently hawking books and coffee at Scuppernong Books, as part of a circuitous route to becoming a full time goatherd.
The Cloud Diary Music Project
We sent musicians a synopsis of Cloud Diary and a randomly chosen scene from among 12 scattered throughout the novel and asked them to respond to the scene, musically or aurally. The piece could be of any genre and any duration. It could be music already recorded, adapted, or written specifically for the scene. Find more information here.
Click here for the full Music Project playlist.