Tuning the Guitar Player

[9]

Whatever modest expectations I had for the massage store were brutally torpedoed once I got a look at their stock. All weird, suggestive microphone-shaped rods from China which needed to be charged via USB. I’d returned several such items to Amazon in quick succession for almost instantly breaking and looking nothing like their advertisements. Granted, I had a renewed conceptual interest in the most vigorous options in the store. But the actually decent products were several steps above how much I wanted to spend on something like this. Besides, the worst of my discomfort was ignorable and transitory. Running a few floor testers sufficed. Parsley watched what I was doing and mimed the actions.

Ultimately, I figured one of those little wooden knob rollers met at the junction point of cheap enough, plausibly effective, and not requiring half-assed, cut-rate electronic components. I made sure that Parsley saw me carefully cover my mouth when I coughed. Not that I suspected she might carry some mysterious guitar germs. She at least lived among people before now. But it was a good behavior to encourage in the presence of my relatives.

After paying and slipping the massager into whichever bag wasn’t the heaviest, I led Parsley around to the front. My nose beneath my glasses throbbed like a flesh beacon. A piercing ache threatened to burst to the surface. I didn’t get headaches all that often, but my mom and aunt regularly complained about tension ones, sinus attacks, spells that left them with blurry sight for hours, and straight up migraines. Mom made it clear that having me was her remedy for all that. Not that it earned me an inordinate amount of kudos. Giving birth to me remained a nebulous, life debt obligation.

I wasn’t really a mom, was I? Even though I was responsible for my wide-eyed, cute guitar. I didn’t go through the sickness to announce her presence. No weeks and months of regular checkups and concerned monitoring of my health. Passed over the whole hospitalization to make sure it was a safe birth. No late-night crying I had to sit through without enough sleep. No years of lingering, looming uncertainty. But… I held her hand and explained the world around her. She learned how to use the restroom and how to act around people. I comforted her, and we played a game. I made sure that she was protected from the dangers around her and within. What did that make me?

Parsley snuggled close and balanced the weight of all we were carrying. I slowed and let her appreciate a curious array of stores and sights she’d never seen. She drew in a sharp, noticeable breath when we passed the place where you could create and customize your own stuffed animals. It was painfully overpriced, but I noted the location and made a mental reminder that we could at least stop by again sometime. The lingerie store next caught her attention to a curious degree as she glanced between me and the photographed models in the window. I contemplated whether she was comparing us. Not a competition I wanted to even be in the running for.

Soon after, she asked, “How many places like this are there?”

I had no earthly idea about numbers, and no easy access to my little phone at the moment. Best guess, I responded, “Hundreds in this country, if you’re looking for something like this. A lot of them are closing though, because of people’s preferences and costs. But there are so many smaller ones out there. A couple stores or just one. In the world, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how many places there are like this.”

Her eyes widened, and she struggled to conceptualize hundreds. She definitely understood it as a big number. I worked on giving her a frame of reference. An easy one was right beneath our feet. The tiles had a repeating pattern of three rectangles meeting over and over again in 45° increments. Quickly eyeballing it, I could estimate well over a hundred from one end to the other. She did her best to process the hundreds of shapes laid out at our feet. From there, it wasn’t too difficult to help her understand that roughly ten times that would lead into the thousands, but I also leaned heavily into trees, especially big ones, having leaves on that scale.

Reminding her of one of my computer wallpapers with a vast stream of starlight nudged her into thinking on an even bigger scale. Maybe talking about grains of dust and dirt was a little bit too far, but I wanted her to know that the world was immense and remarkable. Although dropping the information that millions of people lived in this region and billions all over the planet while she was still figuring out what a country and region were may have been too much, too quickly.

I gave my girl a fast track to an existential crisis. She clung to me protectively and none of the remaining shops on this end of the loop drew her attention. I just hoped I hadn’t broken her. Stroking her hair gently felt awkwardly cliché, but if it helped...

She leaned into my touch with her eyes shut as I guided her back to familiar territory and the entrance we used when we arrived. I checked if she needed or wanted anything before we exited. Particularly, I was thinking about whether another restroom trip would be due once the most recent meal worked its way through. Parsley gave it some quick thought before resolving, “Just you, mom.” My tear ducts started to get surprisingly active, like being assaulted by the first pollen tsunami of spring, but I kept everything to a few light sniffles.

Outside, we made our way to the locations that I passed along to my aunt and uncle so that they could find us. It had a couple of bushy trees that Parsley could scrutinize for those lingering numbers. When we sat down, I took the first quiet opportunity to rotate my head around in slow circles that didn’t leave me dizzy. My neck sounded more like crunchy cereal crossed with a mortar and pestle. Kind of like when I used to accidentally lose myself in certain phone games past 3 AM and wake up as a creaky statue, having contorted my body into the most convenient position.

The steady rotations were immensely helpful, even though every inch of my still-unfamiliar body throbbed in ways that weren’t fun. As I sighed, I felt soft, small hands settle on my shoulders. Pars pressed into a place on my shoulder and vigorously manipulated the muscle. Too vigorously! I had to ask her to go easier as she swiftly apologized. The manipulation inspiration apparently came from a small video playing in the corner of the massage shop, along with assumptions from several photos on merchandise boxes. She wasn’t bad, and I didn’t want her to stop, but I had to model what I wanted on her. My rubs were immediately appreciated as we traded touches of relaxation.

While not a complete fix, this at least seemed to quell the worst of the pain before it fully erupted. We had plenty of time to experiment on one another before I saw my aunt and uncle’s black car pull to the curb. The ease with which they recognized me was a sticky mixture of relief and uncertainty. They waved to Parsley and assumed her name was some fancy California version of Paris. How did she fit into my life?

How did the world see her at this very moment? What was her history? Did she have one? Perhaps that was why invisible bitch was so eager to propose undoing what had been done. Remove the piece that didn’t fit anywhere. Well, she fit with me.

My aunt looked weird to my normal sensibilities. She had on a classy white outfit instead of her usual striped sweats. Furthermore, if I had to judge her on sight, she looked more like when I was a kid than recently. Dark hair, long nails, and made-up lips. We were greeted warmly as she opted to take care of our bags. My uncle wore his thickest glasses and had a mottled white and blonde beard attached to sparse hair at the top of his head. No difference there.

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It wasn’t bad that my aunt looked younger and more energetic than usual; the problem was I had no idea what may have caused it. Did having a nephew devastate her so badly that time kicked her in the behind? The effects of our massage therapy on each other started to revert in me, so I didn’t have the depth of focus to dwell on all the butterfly effect possibilities. This also meant that the kibitzing and gossip my aunt heaved in my general direction went answered with my lowest level of energy and a tight wall of apathy. Pars smiled and rested against me with curious expressions and smiles instead of the kind of questions she would ask me.

I made it clear while we were waiting to keep secret the whole guitar thing along with the other weirdnesses of the day. Her careful reticence was amazing though.

Their house was unchanged from everything I remembered. Little brick garage off to the side. It was painted a pale lemon tone, close to off-white. Pure white neoclassical columns flanked a sitting area on the porch. I found Pars giving the colonnades a suspicious look as my aunt and uncle unlocked the front door. Despite being modest, I knew that the property bordered on a seven-figure value. California things. At least they originally purchased it when things were more reasonable.

Plants, pastoral lithographs, and Indian sculptures covered their usual patches. After a short hallway was the kitchen with an island range and stove and a large vent looming above. This kitchen always felt like it would’ve been at home in the 1970s, and the two of them never had any interest in updating it. Their pool glimmered through the back sliding doors. The dining area had a large flat screen on the back wall because this was my family. Food and entertainment. Bread and circuses. My uncle’s rustic den led off from the right while the bedrooms were clustered on the left. I guided Pars to the guest bedroom to drop off what she was carrying. My aunt hauled the rest.

The bed felt even more massive with my new dimensions. And I still managed to slam my knee into the massive, oak footboard. As usual.

Pars attempted to organize all the bags and examined the dresser in the corner. I sprawled them on the side and spilled out everything. She had her eyes glued to me as I folded all the clothes, separated them by which were hers and which were mine, set the songbooks in a special pile, put the starter game aside, tidied up the junk, and figured out a convenient method of lumping everything else together.

But I made sure to show her good behavior by hanging up the clothes in the closet. She actually took over for me halfway through. Not perfectly though, as she yelped and lamented dropping one of the blouses when trying to fit it. Calmly, I picked it up for her and set it where it should go.

Once all that was done, I scooted and jiggled my way onto the faux velvet gray comforter. It was an immediate infusion of bliss to just lay there and let the surrounding pillows absorb me. The weight and occlusion of the Grand Double Tetons trapped in place by a bra didn’t exactly foster the highest level of relaxation and comfort though. I stared at them, and they quietly attended to their boob matters. Not like I could effectively evict them or anything else. Taking off the bra might’ve helped, but I wasn’t yet prepared for the ramifications of my liberated wild stallion tatas.

From the side hallway, my aunt checked in with us and thankfully confirmed that soup-making was still a part of her language, despite the striking changes to her presentation. Anything hot and therapeutic was welcome. Taking a bracing shower also sounded like a good idea, despite and because of how it might feel now.

It didn’t take long for the comfort of the pillows to make Parsley desperately sleepy. Visions of groggy kittens, implanted by the Internet, drifted through my mind as her lids sunk and sealed. I went back to gently brushing her hair, and the serenity of her whole presence soothed all the crazy things I should’ve been wildly fearful about.

I hummed a light melody as her breathing settled into a slow, deep rhythm. Every shift of her body and every breath that passed her lips was a quiet relief. Irrational fears within me imagined that even flow turning ragged or halting altogether, like elderly relatives I sat with in their final moments because mom just couldn’t deal with it. So, I had to.

Each time she kept breathing was both a relief and the cusp of the least likely worry. Crying came so close to the surface that my eyes briefly got blurry beneath my glasses before I wiped them clear. To push it away, I kept up the melody and struggled to assign lyrics to the emotions.

Playing Pars wasn’t an option, but I could make music all on my own. Theoretically. Not that I’d been anywhere close to successful lately. But for my girl, I would try the hardest.

A truly heartfelt moment that managed to slip into a Disney movie provided the rough, emotional skeleton for what I wanted to sing. None of the same lyrics though, or a freaking Demon Mouse would hunt me down for even imagining something similar to its property.

You are a part of me

In joy and yearning

Ever seeking, boldly learning

What this world can hold

Staying safe from cold

No tears to be shed

Just hope to see

On our crystal thread

We’ll always be

No doubt whatsoever

Your hands in mine

And bind forever

Every moment of our lives

It wasn’t very good. First efforts after a long, dry spell never were, especially with my head and muscles still throwing a temper tantrum. But it was my best effort as a start. Furthermore, Pars wore an expression of contentment, absorbing her own private lullaby. Plenty of appreciation and accolades for me. I took that as a sign to lean back and enjoy the comforts of the guest bed. Glancing across the room at the drawn drapes, a frown wove its way into me as I scrutinized what I was seeing.

A dark silhouette of a man crossed from the left side and settled in the middle. That shouldn’t have been too weird. My aunt and uncle had a gardener who sometimes came along to deal with the yard. The demeanor of the shape was what struck me though. It didn’t feel like it was outside working or relaxing. Rather, my sense was that it was focused on the two of us with harsh malice. I slowly, carefully sat up, so as not to unsettle Parsley from her nap. The mountain range didn’t shift that much.

Approaching the drape, I prepared to toss it aside and give my best point and look of accusation at whoever might be looming at the window. Unfortunately, when I opened them, nothing was on the side grass, facing the neighbor’s house. Pulling the drape back unveiled no suspicious shadow or dark presence. The area that I was standing in felt desperately cold, despite the relative warmth of the day. My arms and hands blazed with sharp intensity while a frozen veil fell across them. I clenched every available muscle and thought about what mystery girl Nadia told me about a song. Parsley’s naptime ditty would have to suffice with as many wild, rambling lyrics blindly tacked on to get to an appreciable length.

Whether that worked or not was debatable, but the oppressive, frigid mass cleared, and the room started to feel better. I returned to the bed with a blanket from the closet and gently laid it across Parsley. She didn’t shift or shy away from peaceful slumber. Meanwhile, I hawkishly watched the window while trying to allow my mind to rest.