She frowned. “I think, in another life, she and I would have been together.”
Reg blinked, then laughed awkwardly. “That’s some depressing shite.”
Her face burned. “I just meant…” What had she meant, exactly? “I want to find someone exactly like her who loves methe way she does. I want to work with her forever. Or at least see her every day. Ideally, we’d live together.”
Reg chuckled. “I hope this is your way of saying you have a crush on her, not internalized homophobia that’s gonna haunt you for the rest of your life and prevent you from ever finding true happiness.”
“Um, no,” Ronnie said. “The first one.”
He looked relieved and let out a deep sigh. The foot massage he was giving her felt nice. “Talk to her. Relationships don’t have to be murky. They can be straightforward and out in the open. You don’t have to sneak around.”
She hadn’t experienced a healthy relationship like that. She had never brought a partner home to her parents. Maybe Nev would be the first, if that was the direction this was headed.
Reg was right. She should find out.
“Call Maude,” he said.
“I will.”Eventually.
Tuesday night Nev picked her up and drove her to a theremin concert at the Anglican church. The woman playing the theremin was a middle-aged white woman in a yellow sundress and a grey shrug. Without smiling, she raised her hands in the air like she was a conductor and the audience was the orchestra. The instrument was a metal stick protruding from a wooden box plugged into the wall with a bright orange extension cord half-hidden by a rug. Her hands hovered, one at chest-height, the other a little higher. One was closed, as if pulling an invisible string, the other open, pushing something away. It reminded Ronnie a little bit of the tai-chi she had seen older people doing at parks near the beach.
The audience watched, transfixed, as the woman used her hands to make the instrument, which must have been some kindof receiver, howl and warble. The sound was more like music than Ronnie had expected it to be. It was actually pleasant, like watching a magician play an invisible harp. It sounded like a flute or a bird, mixed with a synthesizer. It peeped and trilled, but most of all it whooped and whipped up and down the scale like a slide whistle.
Most impressive, though, were the times when the musician hit clear single notes, on key, not pitchy at all, without a trace of a slide into true. She must have known exactly where the notes were in the air, the way violinists know where to put their fingers on the strings. Precision like that took practice.
During the intermission, concertgoers milled around the church cemetery at dusk.
“My dad likes you,” Ronnie said.
Nev pulled overgrown grass from around a random headstone. “Oh?”
“He respects you.”
Nev lit up, then offered her the pack.
Ronnie shook her head. “We’re quitting, remember?”
“After this one.”
She held out her hand for the lit cigarette, then stubbed it out. “The pack.” Nev handed it over reluctantly. Ronnie threw it in a waste bin. “Healthy living from now on. We’re reformed.”
Nev said nothing, continuing to weed the gravestones from the 1800s, revealing willow trees and winged death’s heads, angels of death.
“Looking for anyone?”
“No.”
“Are you asexual?” Ronnie asked.
“Not as far as I know. Why?”
“My dad was wondering.”
Nev snorted. “You told him.”
“What?”
“That we spoon. Is he creeped out?”
