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“About the ‘House of Clouds’?” asked Ethan, brightening.
She nodded. “It’s really only a rough sketch. Almost a fragment. But it was the ‘moonlit cloud’ that started me off.”
A grin broke out on his face. “Really? Like what? What exactly? That is if you don’t mind sharing it.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s fine.” She recited a few phrases.
I will build a house of clouds,
For all the dreams I’m not allowed
With a canopy of trees
A tapestry of leaves
And deep inside would be a room
Where art and music bloom, for us.
“That’s it,” she said. “But the tune might go something like this.” She hummed a bit, then began to put the first verse to the tune. “You know, a little like that.” She shrugged.
Ethan started nodding. “I like it. It’s good.”
“It has me hooked,” said Zig. “And I don’t even know this poem.”
Ethan and Kate looked at each other and laughed.
After a moment’s consideration, Ethan stood and walked over to one of the guitar cases lined up against the wall. He opened the case and pulled out his guitar. It was his old Martin, the wood darkened and aged, the scuff marks almost integral to the wood pattern now.A friendly guitar, Kate thought. It had seemed that even when her brother had tried it out briefly. Now she found herself itching to try it too.
The thought must have communicated itself to Ethan, because a moment later she was startled to find Ethan handing it to her. “Here,” he said. “Try it out.”
Speechless, she took the guitar from him before she could even think to refuse and placed it in her lap, her hands automatically finding their place, the fingers homing into their positions. Ethan moved to another guitar case and withdrew an old Yamaha, heavy and dark, the shine dulled and completely worn through by the sound opening where his right hand would strum.
She stared at him as he resumed his place on the sofa. He nodded to the guitar he held. “My songwriting bash-around guitar. I’ve had it since I was a teen.”
She smiled. “It’s like an old, familiar teddy bear.”
“Something like that,” said Ethan.
He strummed the guitar and began fingerpicking. Kate found herself following him with the guitar she held, plucking the strings, finding the chords. She realized he was playing the melody she’d just given him, and she began to hum along with the two of them. Soon, he was humming too, eventually sliding into the lyrics she’d spoken earlier. His pitch was lower, but she matched in the upper octave, the two of them blending well, just as they’d done at O’Connor’s, just as she’d always known they would from the first time she’d seen him singing “Suzanne.”
She fell silent when they came to the end of the verse she’d created, but Ethan continued on, throwing out verses, adding “something, something” when a good phrase escaped him, a situation that occurred with increasing frequency, so that eventually she started to giggle, joining Zig’s already loud sniggers. Ethan, unable to help himself, began grinning, and that soon morphed into a laugh.
When his laughing made it impossible to sing, he halted his playing. “Okay, okay, you two. Enough of that.”
“No, no,” said Kate. “It was good, really. I mean aside from the ‘somethings.’”
She laughed again, Zig joining her, while Ethan rolled his eyes.
Zig sobered. “No, really, man. It was cool. You added some good stuff there. It’s different from your usual, but, yeah, it’s good.”
Ethan nodded his head slowly. “And therein lies the issue.”
“What?” said Kate.
Ethan gave her a rueful look. “I think I’ve run out of songs that are suitable.”
“Suitable for that band you write for?”
