Dreamers ~ Part 3

Muse woke from one world to another, rousing herself sleepily from her flattened air mattress with a futile feeling of hunger.  She didn’t have anything around to eat, and didn’t have enough money to buy anything.  But that was fine.  She had a job, so money and food would follow after.

Her car was the sort of vehicle you’d expect from a woman who used boxes as furniture.  It was 15 years old and rusty, with enough quirks to make a mechanic dizzy.  It was the same sea green as her door in the other world.  Muse got in her car, looked dubiously at the gas gauge (low) before revving it up and driving away toward town.

She knew where she was going but she’d never been there before.  Her employment had been arranged in the city, where she’d demonstrated her abilities for the music shop owner, and was told she’d do just fine.  Just fine was an understatement, of course, for she was the single most talented musician this world would ever see.  It just didn’t know it because Muse was too sleepy and apathetic towards fame and fortune to do anything about it.  The Goddess of Music was going to be paid by a music shop to teach talentless children how to play the piano, and she was fine with it.

Phillips Music Store was on the first floor of a tall building lodged on the corner of Center and 2nd Streets.  A bell rang when she pushed open the door, and a man behind a counter at the far end of the store (which wasn’t very far) looked up.  He seemed vaguely familiar to Muse, and she stared for a moment of puzzlement, trying to place who he must remind her of.  He was dark; skin the brown of coffee with cream and curling black hair that fell slightly over his face.  He wore a pair of thin, wire-frame glasses that made him seem almost bookish, but he had the lips and cheekbones of someone who ought to be in modeling.

It took a moment for Muse to realize that he was staring back at her with the same expression of vague puzzlement.  He said her name uncertainly.

“You know who I am?” she said, surprised.

He closed a catalogue he’d been paging through and replied, “You’re the new piano teacher.”

“Oh.  Yes.  Jocelyn Muse,” she walked up to the counter and held out her hand.  “I suppose Mr. Phillips told you I would be arriving at three.”

“He did,” said the man, accepting her hand.  “Frances Love.  I manage the store for Mr. Phillips.”

She realized then who he was, and that she did know him.  Or rather, she knew of him.  “Love.  I know who you are.”

“I thought you were Muse,” he answered, smiling now with certainty.  “But why are you here?”

“To teach piano, of course.”  He was still holding her hand, and Muse pulled it away, looking down self-consciously.

“Sorry,” he said.  “I meant, I would have expected you to be doing something . . . more.”

Muse smiled faintly.  “My first student should be arriving soon.  Shouldn’t you show me where I’ll be giving lessons?”

He looked for a moment as if he were going to protest her change of subject, but then he relented, stepping out from behind the counter.  “This way.”

Muse followed him through a door at the back, feeling surreal.  She had known that others of her kind lived the same double life as she did, dreaming one life while sleeping the other.  But she had never met one in this world, before.  And Love, of all beings, was the last she’d expect to find living a modest life as a music store manager in a small country town.

She did not think very highly of Love.  She did not know him, personally, but he had a reputation and what she had seen of him the few times their paths had crossed did not contradict it in any way.  He was more Dionysus than Cupid, a goblet of wine almost always in hand, and always surrounded by a harem of mortal females vying for his attention.  He had the same sleepy demeanor as most of their kind, but upon him it was a vague, apathetic sort of insouciance.  His life was a string of revels held at his palace, which was not so far from her cottage in distance but leagues away in taste.

She didn’t dislike him, as he had never given her any reason to, but nor did she like him or ever think about associating with him and his posse of decadent friends.  Some might think she was fitted for that crowd, music being a part of any self-respecting revel, but Muse preferred the quiet life.  Music didn’t need to strut around showing itself off, everyone knew its worth.  Love, she thought, should adhere to the same principle, if he was to be true to his calling.

So it was that she didn’t know quite what to say when faced with Love, wearing glasses, showing her the small room to the back of the shop where she was to give music lessons.  She’d never actually thought about it before, but if she were to picture Love in this world, it would be of some rich Hollywood playboy living a life of endless parties.

“Thank you,” she said, setting her bag on the bench.  She checked the clock on the wall, which was shaped like a banjo, and saw that she had fifteen minutes before her first new student arrived.  Love didn’t move from the doorway.  “Well,” she said, angling towards the piano to hint that she would prefer to be alone.

“Do you live around here?” he asked.

“Only just moved.  I’m a few miles outside town.”

“I live above this shop,” he said, nodding a little towards the ceiling.  “I grew up in a house just a few miles outside of town.”

Muse wondered why she should be expected to care, but made a noise of feigned interest.  It was odd to hear him say “grew up” as none of their kind really grew up in this world.  Some, she’d heard rumor, had memories of doing so, and perhaps this was the case with Love.  It was not the case with her.

“I’ve seen you, a few times,” he spoke again, not seeming to get her hints to leave.  “At the change of seasons, mostly.”

“I’m surprised you recognized me, I’ve barely spoken to you,” she said, and added in her mind; And what’s one more female face in a sea of them, to you?

“You are known for being reclusive,” he replied with a small smile.

“I dislike crowds.”

“You don’t like people?”

“Not in large amounts.”  She allowed a wry smile to show.  “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, as it’s in your nature to love them, the more the better.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” he looked puzzled by her words.  “Love doesn’t require a crowd to be strong.  But I do prefer the company of others to being alone.”

“Because you need people loving each other to survive.  Music exists all on its own.”

“Does it?” he raised his brows, a twinkle of disbelief lighting the brown of his eyes.  “That piano won’t make a sound without somebody playing it . . . and I can’t think of another instrument that does.”

“There’s music in the world that doesn’t come from human instruments,” she said, in what she fancied was a mysterious tone of voice.

The bell above the shop door rang at that moment, and Love turned away with one last smirking glance.  At least, she felt it was a smirk.  He was insufferable.

She put thoughts of him out of her head, then, for her first student had arrived, and music owned her mind for the next few hours.

At six she was done, and was glad of it.  Several of the students’ parents seemed nonplussed that the former music teacher had left and that he’d been replaced by someone so young and “inexperienced.”  Muse found it half amusing and half annoying.  She found the lack of talent frustrating, but not as frustrating as the presence of apathy.  The one type of person Muse could not help was those who didn’t want it. She hoped the next day’s batch of students would be better, and chalked today’s lackluster bunch to it being a Monday.

As she was leaving, Love came out from behind the counter again, and stopped her progress to the door.  “I was thinking,” he said, “that it would be nice to have lunch sometime.”

“Oh?”

He smiled.  “I’ve only ever met one of our kind in this world, before.  She wasn’t very good company . . . .”  He circled the air near one ear.  “I was beginning to fear I’m the only one out and about and sane in this world.”

Muse’s first inclination was to turn down his offer, since she’d never felt the need to associate with him before, but then . . . ”You’re buying?”

“Of course.”

“Maybe sometime then.”  She turned away and headed toward the door.

He called after her; “Tomorrow?  Noon?  That’s when I usually close the shop to have a bite . . . .”

“Alright.”  She pushed open the door and escaped.