musical notes * [Nell]

Nell flicked her fingers against the plastic-covered records that were arranged inside the old orange crate, on her knees in the middle of the attic floor. She’d taken this chance to explore her father’s mansion, him busy discussing something with one of his associates. Normally, she wasn’t one to snoop, but she considered this a special case. This was her father. It was strange, the fact that she could recognize these vinyls. Not only the names, but the actual records, could remember her mother carefully handling them all before dropping them onto the phonograph. She didn’t have her mother’s records, however—she didn’t take anything when she ran away. But she did buy the vinyls she could remember, the operas whose arias she knew by heart. ”What language is that?” she’d asked her mother when Madama Butterfly would play and her mother didn’t really look at her, she seemed to always look through her. “Italian, sweetie.” Nell grinned, as if she didn’t notice that her mother’s eyes never met hers, as if she didn’t notice that the woman’s attention had always gone to her sister when she entered the room. “I know some of the words! It’s Spanish’s twin!” The young girl in her Mary Janes had looked so enthusiastic about it, and her mother had smiled.

And now sifting through her father’s classical collection, she thought of what her mother might have wanted to say. “But I bet the Spanish language is a better twin to Italian than you are to Tilly.” Nell didn’t know whether or not she had come to terms with that yet, the fact that her mother hated her because she effectively killed her own sister in the womb. Talking to Josh about it had helped, but there was always a lot of healing to be done. Even when the depression had passed, and she could do things she used to enjoy again, like eating, and not sleeping in…there was always that sadness from her past. ”So this is where you’ve gotten to.” Nell felt like a deer in headlights for a moment before she turned her attention to her father, the man leaning against the doorframe and looking as intimidating as ever. He didn’t seem mad. Of course, he was almost impossible to read. ”You don’t listen to these anymore?”

He lifted off the doorframe and seemed to consider the box for a long moment. She remembered his almost-smiles when he’d come home from work to hear his records on, Mia coming in and kissing him before handing him a glass of wine. ”I gave you that Puccini for Christmas,” he said, and it was odd, talking about a time before he had abandoned her again. Water under the bridge, she thought to keep the bitterness at bay. He’d come back again. They were at peace. Or at least, they were tired of always fighting and always losing everything. The two found common ground on their fatigue with their family and their callous indifferenc. ”Did you ever get a record player?” A smile twitched to her lips as she stood and brushed her jeans off. Even the attic floor wasn’t dirty. ”Nope,” she said. ”Never really had room. But since I have the new apartment…” Nell shrugged. There was definitely more room in there than there had been in her studio apartment. She was sure she had a table she could put a phonograph on.

”I’m going out for a drink,” he said, and this was like a casual dismissal. Nell didn’t think he’d have invited her along, even if she had been of age to drink. It was ironic, considering she’d been serving drinks ever since she was seventeen and yet she still couldn’t drink herself. She wasn’t a bartender anymore, however. Another example of irony—she was now an assistant at a daycare. Funny, these things. They parted ways soon after she returned the crate to its place, and she drove back into the Hollow, away from mansion country. She didn’t want to go home, since she was pretty sure Josh wouldn’t be there, and so she decided that now was as good a time as any to get a phonograph. Nell had been to the music store quite a few times to build up her collection of unplayable records, so she knew where exactly to find it. A part of her wanted to go and get coffee, feeling like she may have formed an addiction to it during her depression because the temporary boost kept her going, but she wanted to head to the store before she forgot.

The winter air nipped at her, and she pulled her pea coat tighter around her body, the red scarf around her neck hitched up to cover her cheeks. She smiled and waved to the owner as she entered, speaking a few words to him before going on her mission. Nell didn’t know exactly where to look for a phonograph since she hadn’t been in there before to look for one, but she figured there was one section that was worth a look. She walked down it to see a familiar face. ”Hola, Ravi,” she greeted cheerfully, pulling at her scarf so that it didn’t muffle her voice. ”Fancy seeing you here. What you up to?” She tilted her head as she looked at the record in her hand. ”Vivaldi? You like him?” Nell was certain her father had one in his collection, but she didn’t like classical as much as she enjoyed opera. It had worried her the one time her father had caused a hysteria by pointing out such similarities to her mother and almost broke up her relationship with Josh thanks to the fact that mental illnesss had frightened him. Luckily, he found the answers and figured that it was worth staying with her, even though there was a possibility that mental illness was genetic. That’s why the her clinical depression had scared her—what kept her from the psychotic depression her mother had? ”I’m looking for a phonograph. I just have a bunch of records lying around, looking pretty. Figured I might as well do something with them.” She smiled as she thumbed the vinyls, not realizing that Ravi hadn’t returned the record because he…well, couldn’t.

Nell hadn’t noticed the struggle of Ravi versus Record, and so merely assumed that he’d planned to buy the one he’d tucked under his arm. And then she thought that he was just being goofy, which many people tended to be. Everyone was weird. She liked that. At his greeting, she merely lifted her eyebrows and gave him a half-smile. She paused a moment as her eyes read the soundtrack and laughed. ”Miami Vice fan?” she asked quizzically, trying to fix her scarf that it didn’t suffocate her, merely drape around her neck. ”What part of New York is he from?” She was from New York herself, and she had an accent to show. After returning there for the trial, she realized she was one of the few, actually. Accents weren’t that common, but after spending time in Canada where there were subtle differences, they became noticeable. It surprised herself whenever she pronounced an ‘o’ that she really was at home in the city. She couldn’t say that she didn’t miss the comfort of that sort of belonging, of being from a city with people like her, but she much preferred Canada. It was where she made a better life for herself, it was where she’d pretty much colonized.

Playing with the ring on her finger as had become a habit since receiving it from Josh, she sucked in air between her teeth and winced. ”Ooh, a cold rejection for Vivaldi,” she said. ”I’m sure he felt that one. Why turn him down?” She wasn’t questioning why he wouldn’t like Vivaldi, because everyone had their own tastes—she was sincerely interested in hearing what drew him to other music. After all, she knew of his interest in it, and so it was something she wanted to hear him talk about. Well, she’d actually like to hear him talk about anything. ”Why thanks,” she told Ravi in response about the phonograph. ”That would be fantastic actually. What kind of records do you have?” She couldn’t necessarily brag about her own, it wasn’t that impressive, but she held everything she owned dear. Nell was used to having next to nothing, what it was like to struggle—for those kind of people, every single thing, no matter how small, was invaluable. Nothing was taken for granted, especially records that had a sentimental value to her. At one time she may have rejected the idea of enjoying opera because of her mother and the idea of becoming like her, but she was slowly becoming more confident in the fact that she was her own person. She was not her mother, her father, or her family—she was Nell.

And Nell spread her arms as if showing off an invisible screen when he questioned this sudden decision. ”I was thinking of taking the whole museum display down, yanno. They’ve just been looking pretty and that’s it.” She dropped her hands to her sides and slapped her jeans. ”It wasn’t really a split decision. It’s one of those things that you think about before going out, and then get distracted from, and then remember when you get home. My babies have been lying around collecting dust, really.” That’s always what happened with her. If it was more of a priority, she would have been determined to get it, but it wasn’t really tops on her things to do. The Wind boy preoccupied himself with the vinyl and she observed him with curious brown eyes. ”What in the world…?” she asked as she shifted her weight to the side and watched Ravi fumble with the record. She caught the ink scrawled across his hand, and shook her head. ”Here, let me get that.” Nell took the vinyl in her hand and slipped it back in with its cousin records, wiping her hands together as if finishing a particularly ardurous job. ”What’s on your hand, anyway?” she asked, knwoing that a lot of people wrote down to-do lists or little reminders of things they had to do. Never worked for her, of course, considering the fact that if she closed her hand it would just get smudged unless it was Sharpie. Nell continued to look around, wondering if hse should ask for assistance with the phonograph. ”So how’ve you been, vato?”