Secrets; I Tried To Keep Us Together, You Were Busy Keeping Secrets

Blues in the Night

Matt followed a well trodden path up the hill towards the big house perched above him. He shoved his hands in the pockets of the jacket as he moved in a long lazy stride. His short black hair matched the jacket and provided a contrast to his fair complexion. The eyes were perhaps his most outstanding feature, they were expressive of his every emotion and a very striking shade of green. As he made his way up the hill, he found himself wondering about the woman sailor who had chosen to anchor right in front of his house.

What made a woman want to sail alone and why was she here? Certainly, he thought, this wasn't the middle on nowhere, in fact, they weren't too far from Vancouver by either road or sea. But what brought this young woman to this spot all alone. He shrugged off the thoughts as he climbed the stairs to the deck and let himself into the house. He'd probably never know.

He went to the kitchen first to fill a kettle and make tea. While the water was heating, he checked his voice mail and found, surprisingly, only two messages. One was from his road manager who just wanted to get together sometime soon to go over details for next month's tour dates and one from a fellow musician who congratulated him on the recent Blues Award. Neither message was urgent enough to be returned right away and besides, he thought, these few days alone are my time.

When the tea was made, he carried his mug downstairs to the studio with its big windows overlooking the water below. He sat down on a low overstuffed couch, picked up a six-string guitar and started to play.

< 4 >

At first he merely toyed with the instrument, running a slide up and down and picking out series of notes almost like scales. For Matt this was very much akin to the warm up stretches done by an athlete before a game. He found it both relaxing and therapeutic. The guitar almost seemed to cry beneath his skilled hands and slowly the toying became more serious and took real form. The words may come later but he was developing a melody that seemed to haunt him with its need to be played.

After running through the basic melody several times, he paused long enough to drink the tea which was getting quite cool then he crossed to the consul where he turned a recorder on to capture the developing work. When he stood, he glanced out the window and was able to see just the top of the mast of the anchored sloop. His earlier thoughts about the woman aboard flooded back.

"What brought you to my doorstep, hmm?" he mused aloud. He ran the fingers of one hand through his short hair causing one lock to fall across his forehead. He brushed at it ineffectually and went back to the guitar. The boat anchored below and its lone occupant were still in his thoughts and he found the only images that he could conjure were of water and sails. The music took on the fluid but powerful tones of the ocean as the melody really started to materialize.

Two hours later, he finally laid the guitar aside and padded barefoot back upstairs to start some dinner. He placed a couple of small boneless chicken breasts in a spice and white wine mix to marinate. Then he took some brown rice from a canister to cook it. He would then stir fry some vegetables; snow peas, onions, peppers and broccoli to add to the rice for a great side dish to the chicken.

While the rice was cooking, he went across to the large upstairs windows and his eyes were drawn again to the small boat below. He could see the whole boat from this vantage but no one was on deck. Katherine had also put away her laptop by now and was out of his sight below decks starting some dinner of her own. Hers consisted of a can of clam chowder and a sandwich made of thick home baked bread that she had made prior to departing on her cruise adventure. Matt found himself wondering again who she was and why she had chosen this locale for her anchorage.

< 5 >

Katherine was just finishing the few dishes from her solitary supper and was looking forward to a mug of the coffee she could now smell brewing. She intended to work into the evening and so had put a full pot into the coffee percolator. The smell of the coffee was enticing to one other soul that early summer evening.