Operaville: The Story So Far

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One

I am on the Flanagan deck, where Colin and I are conducting a war with Mother Nature. With mid-June temps edging into the 80s, Colin has decreed that not one ounce of stain strike that deck in direct sunlight. This means a day-long dance in which I hopscotch from one surface to the next, following the squares of shade meted out by house and tree.

            I am utterly behind schedule. The clock edges past six and I am still on the upper deck, applying a second coat that simply has to be finished today. And Maddalena Hart calls to me. I foxtrot our thousand-bristle brush across the final foot of plank, unscrew it from the broomstick and drop it into a bucket of water. Then I race downstairs to my car, grab my evening clothes and retreat to the back of the house, where the hillside offers some visual shelter.

            That’s the thing about working in the mountains: you can get away with stuff you wouldn’t dream of doing in the city. I remove every stitch, grab a hose, brace for the shock, and crank the spigot. I give myself a thorough soaking, then I use my work shirt as a towel, drying off as much as possible before I start in on the evening wear.

I am trousered, shirted and ready to go when I pass by a large black pipe and hear the sound of descending liquid. Uh-oh. This is the sound of a toilet flush. Looking up, I see a small window with a light on.

I run up the steps to the driveway, toss my work clothes in the back seat, and am just pulling out when I see Mrs. Flanagan’s silver LeMans in the garage. I discover our 82-year-old client at the kitchen window, and give her a friendly wave. She waves back, wearing a smile that is equal parts flustered and amused.

A half hour later I am NASCARring along the sweet swath of Interstate 280, the fog drifting over Crystal Springs Reservoir like an army of cotton balls. My refrigerator-level AC has finally deactivated my pores, so I drop in at the Burlingame rest stop to assemble my dress shoes and tie. I pull into the Civic Center garage with minutes to spare, sprint up the urine-smelling exit and circumnavigate City Hall, the frigid municipal wind blow-drying my deck-hair. I arrive at the side entrance of the War Memorial Opera House and give a wave to the spry, ginger-haired gentleman who serves as my gatekeeper.

“Billy! Hi.”

“Mister Siskel. Go on through. Delores is hosting tonight.”

Four of my favorite words. With her cutesy black-Irish features, youthful figure and actual personality, Delores forces me to keep an eye on my dirty-old-man alarm system. I cross the south hallway to find her in the press room, talking to the usual vaguely European assholes.

“Oh! I went to the Los Angeles premiere last autumn. They have a new artistic director. Dennis McClintock. Used to be with Glimmerglass?”

I have never heard one of these industry whores actually talk about an opera. They chatter like a squad of thirteen-year-old girls in a cafeteria. Delores has spotted me and is giving me one of her profoundly genuine-seeming smiles.

“Mickey! Let me find your ticket.” She shuffles her envelopes, poker-style, and hands one to me. “Oh, and the info sheets are tucked into the programs.”

“Fantastic. Thanks.”

I head for the coffee and add a ridiculous amount of cream to bring down the temperature. I know it’s Mozart, and staying awake is not a problem, but I want Maddalena’s voice to stream along my synapses on wide-open channels.

Delores leans over my shoulder. “By the way, Mickey, you know you could have a second ticket, right? It’s been five years – you’ve definitely passed the test!”

“To be honest, Delores, I am surrounded by people all week. If I can go on pretending that those tightwads at San Francisco Opera just won’t give me a second ticket, I may continue to use this as my personal retreat.”

She swats me with her envelopes. “No, Mister Siskel! You may not have a second ticket, and please stop asking!”

“Thank you. I mean, curse you, you miserly press relations… person!”

Her eyes light up, then she looks closer and develops a concerned expression.

“Oh, um… You might want to check your forehead.”

I head for the mirror over the refreshment table and discover a slash of golden stain over my left temple. I dip a napkin into my coffee and manage to scrub it away. The chimes go off in the hallway, so I head out, whispering a thanks to Delores.

There is not a square inch of the War Memorial that I do not adore. The gilded florets that look down on the cavernous lobby. The red-carpeted steps that lead to the auditorium; the scroungy standing-room-onlys shuffling for position behind the back row. The Olympic-sized gold bricks that cover the north and south walls. The spiky gardenia of chandelier that shuts off in a dazzling spiral.

My ticket says row L, fantastically close. I wait next to my aisle seat until my row fills up, then sit down and applaud the conductor, Patrick Summers, he of the silver mane and ruddy complexion, who should probably be astride a horse in an Eastwood movie. The burgundy curtain rises to the heavens.

Cosi fan tutte is the ultimate romantic farce. Rascally bachelor Don Alfonso scoffs at his youngers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, as they brag on the beauty and fidelity of their fiancées. He then concocts the juiciest of wagers: the two will pretend to leave the country, then return in disguise to test the faithfulness of the other guy’s chick. Make this a mid-century American film, and the women are tempted but not won; the assembled cast laughs and smiles for the final scene as someone plays Cole Porter. In the hands of Mozart and his librettist, da Ponte, things are never that comfortable.

The folks at SFO have gone for a modernized production. The purists hate these kind of things, but then I hate the purists. The sneaky fiancés traditionally come back as Albanians, all facial hair and Middle Eastern robes, but here they’re long-haired ‘70s-era rockers. The baritone wears skin-tight leather pants, a copper-colored duster and no shirt, revealing an impressive set of abs and an eagle tattooed across his chest. The supertitle translator is in on the joke, as well. When one of the sopranos catches sight of their weird-looking suitors, she asks, “Where are these guys from? Haight-Ashbury?”

Speaking of sopranos, I have found myself in a kind of sonic heaven. They have paired Maddalena with a Dorabella whose mezzo is forceful and vibrant, a perfect match. Equipped with Mozart’s harmonic magic – long passages of girl-on-girl singing – the two are sending out chill after chill to give my spine the beat-down.

And then there’s Maddalena, and since I do go on about her, perhaps I should give you a summary of her talents. Her voice is huge, and powerful, but never forced. She manages to maintain the buoyancy of the category known as lyric, showing a gymnastic agility that should be impossible for someone with such a broad, buttery tone. Her delivery comes with impossible ease, her tone spinning into the audience like a million tiny Frisbees. And her top notes are absolutely secure, the dynamics of her phrasing always thoughtfully dramatic. She also has that rare ability to appear as if she’s simply talking – as if we should all go around singing our conversations – when in fact she is launching pyrotechnic displays of sound that mere mortals may only dream of.

What’s serving to intensify my obsession is the present-day clothing. They have dressed her all in white – befitting Fiordiligi’s chaste attitude – a flowing pantsuit with a long jacket that flits here and there with her movements, revealing contours that one might not expect from an opera singer. The generous knockers, yes, the stout ribcage (an occupational hazard) – but the ass on this girl! Medium to generous, as befits a diva, but possessed of a round shape and firmness that would give your average construction worker hours of material. Throw in those oversized emerald eyes, a head full of blonde Monroe ringlets, and those inflatable, flexible lips that they emphasize for every album cover. By the time she arrives at the big second-act aria, I’m already a mess, my heart on a platter, waiting to be frappéd by her performance. But more on that later.

At the end of three hours, I head downstairs for my pre-drive restroom stop, stopping at a portrait of Renata Tebaldi from 1968 (in Andrea Chenier) to run my thumb across her name plate. Maddalena has been compared with her, and don’t go thinking that I disagree.

[Track 1]

On the drive home, I pop Maddalena’s rendering of Dvorak’s “Song to the Moon” into the cassette player (it’s an old car), and then I cleanse my palate with some AC/DC. I picture the modernized Ferrando and Guglielmo onstage with Angus and Malcolm Young, as young opera fans flash their tits at the stage.

The drive is long but not difficult. Mozart to me is like crystal meth, and also I have my nightscapes. My favorite arrives at Stanford, between the satellite dish and the linear accelerator. The surrounding land is a green vale, dotted here and there by live oaks and cows, painted silver by three quarters of a moon.

Twenty miles later, I’m approaching the evergreen mountains behind Saratoga, speckled with the lights of houses belonging to the rich – who spend most of their daylight hours denying that they’re rich at all. But this is a previous lifetime, and I’m just passing through, into the long ascending stretches of Highway 9. The deer population keeps me alert, chewing on the roadside grasses perilously close to the asphalt.

The final directions are a little complicated. Half mile past the fire station, first Ped Xing sign to your right, through the gate with the combination lock. After that it’s a full mile of downhill dirt and gravel, the rain channels beating up the suspension, and finally the much-anticipated left-hand sweep that signals home base, ancient orchards to the right, cabin of Trey the Fish to the left. I park between two redwood trees, take a moment to breathe the mountain air, check out the moonlight sliding through the trees in dull metallic streaks, then reach back in for my program and make my way to the steps.

“Ahwuff!”

“Jesus!”

It’s Katie. She’s on all fours in the entryway, and, yes, as my eyes adjust to the dark I see that she is wearing a dog suit: floppy black ears, big round nose-cap, and a furry white beagle onesie with built-in paws and a springy spike of tail.

“Pretty cute, Katie. Could you maybe call next time so I don’t have a freakin’ heart attack?”

“Hawroof!” She shuffles forward and leaps on me. I pat her on the head and she pants her approval, then adopts a cartoony growl-voice. “Mrrickey bring bone? Katie want bone!”

“No Katie, I didn’t bring you a bone. Now let’s get inside and…”

She snarls (as menacingly as a four-foot-ten blonde can) then pads her way down to my crotch and snuffles around like she’s hunting for kibble.

“Urrh! Bone!”

“Oh! Okay. I getcha.” I drop my program on a filing cabinet, undo my belt and drop trou to reveal that yes, the dog has given the man a bone. She gives my dick a few exploratory licks and then engulfs it with a messy, dog-like blow job. I grab her floppy ears and endeavor to get into the spirit of things.

“Katie, you sexy bitch!”

“Haroomph!”

After a minute she pulls away, circles around and raises her tail into the air. “Rrowf!” she says, what sounds like a canine command.

Ah, thinks I. I believe she wants to do it doggie-style. Access is a bit of a puzzle, until my initial butt-squeeze reveals a pair of large buttons. I quickly undo them and pull up the panel, revealing Katie’s round, plump cheeks. I dip a hand between them to find that she is well-lubricated, then I insert a finger, enjoying the vision of her bare pussy in the moonlight. My cock is about ready to launch itself right off my pelvis, so I take it in hand and guide myself home. It’s a grand feeling, but her tail keeps whacking me in the face.

An hour later, we’re back to human form, entwined beneath a couch blanket as we enjoy a small summer fire. I cannot usually tolerate such lengthy stretches of personal-space invasion, but Katie fits into the curve of my frame as if she were designed for the purpose. She also has this natural taste and smell that I never tire of, augmented by spearmint gum, vanilla shampoo, milk-white skin, bubble-gum nipples and labia – she is my candy girl. Too bad she’s so fucked up, but it’s really not her fault.

“How was the drop-off?” I ask.

“Oh God. Same old shit. I thought I was getting away clean, but then he calls me and says that Sara needs her Hannah Montana sweatshirt. ‘Just pull up,’ he says. ‘I’ll come to the car and get it.’ Always trying to get us alone together, like I find him so fucking irresistible I will me mesmerized by his manly presence and decide not to divorce him. For seven years I told that asshole we needed to work on our marriage, for seven years he didn’t do a goddamn thing, but now, now that I’ve left his sorry ass – now he desperately wants me back. Oh God, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so pissy. But you shouldn’ta got me going.”

I stroke her hair, the way she likes me to.

“Y’gotta dump on somebody. It may as well be me.”

She gives me a kiss. “Thanks, honey.”

“As long as you’re bitching about other men, I could listen for hours! It’s just the price of admission. And what a show you put on tonight.”

“I’m a creative little slut.”

“What do you say to popcorn and a movie? They’re playing an old Hitchcock.”

She gives me that priceless, impish smile, eyes the color of a spring sky. “Sounds fab, honey. You’re a great fuck, ya know?”

“Thanks.” I give her lips a proper chewing and head off to the microwave.

I have a life-long habit of dating brunettes, so it’s still a surprise to find this golden-haired creature sitting on the edge of my bed, doing her best to work out the morning tangles. She is a small sun over my nightstand.

The hour is another thing. Ungodly. Fifteen minutes later I am re-awakened by a toothpaste kiss, and wet hair that smells like peaches. I do my best to smile, and then I assemble enough clothing to ward off hypothermia and walk her out to her car. The morning is sharp and beautiful, lemon slices of sun cutting through the trees. A pair of Steller’s jays wing in front of us to carry their squabbling to a small madrone. I lean Katie against her car and do some more work on those lips.

“So I was wondering… where did you get that outfit?”

“Our church did a production of ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.’”

“I was fucking Snoopy? Good grief!”

“Yeahbaby.”

“This is Charles Schulz, spinning in his grave.”

She bites her lip. “I better go. Air kiss?”

I wrap my arms around her back, lift her into the air and apply lips liberally, then I spin her a couple of times so we can look like a scene from a screwball romantic comedy. Or Cosi fan tutte. Then she’s gone, up the road, down the mountain, off to pick up the kids for church. I must be a good fuck, for all the trouble she goes to. And I am profoundly impressed at her ability to compartmentalize between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

I indulge in a couple more hours of snoozing, but it’s not going to be more - I’ve got too many ideas circling my bloodstream. My agenda begins with a long sit on the pot as I read every shred of SFO’s program, including a seriously well-written piece on the friendship between Mozart and his librettist, da Ponte.

Second is a long soak in my most excellent clawfoot bathtub. I am a connoisseur of luxury soaps, and this morning I am breaking in a French-milled Shea butter bar with the deeply sweet aroma of linden blossoms. Over the next two weeks, this scent will suffuse the entire cabin. I lather it between my hands, hold the suds to my nose and then begin with my left foot before the water gets too high.

After that I’m raring to go, so I keep the breakfast simple: two pieces of toast with butter and strawberry preserves, followed by fresh-ground Ethopian coffee. I head to my writing table, positioned before a window view of my twin redwoods, to the right a deep hollow covered in madrone. To the left is the cabin of Trey the Fish, with yet another topless woman flouncing on the deck. I make a mental note to thank him. I position myself before a circle of books – a Mozart biography, Grove’s Book of Operas and the SFO program (the cast page covered with written-in-the-dark scrawls) – set down a spiral-bound notebook and pick up a cheap powder-blue stick pen. I don’t play any music, because already I can hear Maddalena singing.

[Track 2]

If you were a singer in Mozart’s company, you really couldn’t lose. He would write the role to accentuate your strengths, and dance artfully around your flaws. Thus was created one of the scariest roles in the canon: Fiordiligi of Cosi fan tutte, her stunning rollercoaster vocal lines inspired by the awesome high and low registers of Adriana Ferrarese.

It’s quite possible, however, that that’s all she had. Other than Fiordiligi and a few productions as Susannah in Le Nozze di Figaro, Adriana had a pretty lackluster career. This came from two important shortcomings: she couldn’t act, and she couldn’t do comedy.

Aha! you say. (Go ahead – I’ll wait.) So why was Adriana so successful in the decidedly farcical Cosi? Excellent question, and here’s your answer: because Fiordiligi is the square peg, holding firmly to her church-girl principles even as all around her are screwin’ around. This custom-crafted role came about either through good fortune or because Adriana was sleeping with the librettist, da Ponte. The torridness of the affair (owing largely to the married status of both participants) doubtlessly contributed to the libretto’s conflicted views on love and fidelity.

Regardless, given the way that Mozart treats Fiordiligi as his own personal yo-yo, any normal soprano should be forgiven for not being entirely up to the part. Fortunately, we’re not talking about normal sopranos – we’re talking about Maddalena Hart. Hart’s easy top notes are the stuff of legend, and her bottom end is not to be disregarded. For recorded evidence, note the low sobbings at the denouements of Boito’s “L’altra notte” (Mefistofele) and Dvorak’s “Song to the Moon” (Rusalka) from Hart’s Favorite Arias album. The depth of these passages has won the singer much-deserved comparisons to Tebaldi.

[Track 3]

Naturally, it’s not just having the notes, it’s how the notes are deployed. Many a singer has come to these clifftop drops and landed on the low notes with all the tender sensitivity of a professional wrestler. Hart manages to make the descent more deftly, like a hang glider, dipping her toes to the precise mid-point of the pitch before catching the next updraft. Not once does this seem like work, and not once does she lose her supremely intelligent sense of dynamic flow. Hart often creates the impression that none of this is so unusual, that these are just everyday conversations that decided to take wing.

Since my rough beginnings, I have made major strides. I am now able to complete a review in a matter of one longhand draft, one computer draft and a final read-through. Considering the fact that I’m not getting paid a cent, this is good. I head for my blog, Operaville, paste in the article, and then I go to the SFO site to shop for a photo. The images there are sharp, and beautiful, and provocative. I always feel like I’m cheating, like I’m applying Chanel No. 5 to a pig. This time I settle on something comic: rocker-dude Ferrando hauling Fiordiligi over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, her mouth open in a gasp of surprise. Maddalena is so freakin’ gorgeous all the time that it’s hard to catch her being cute. I download the image to my desktop, upload it to the blogsite, add the IDs and photo credit, and press the magic Publish button, committing my words to public consumption.

I celebrate by preparing my slow-cook goulash, an olio of red peppers, onions, cabbage and potatoes over a bacon stock, and spice it with oregano, cayenne pepper and some pomegranate molasses that I discovered in a high cabinet. While that’s brewing, I sit on my porch in the twilight treeshade and light up a cigar – a low-priced maduro from Honduras. I have set my computer to let out a chirp when anyone responds to my blog, and am pleased, halfway through my smoke, when DD rings in with her first comment. She’s like clockwork, that girl. I finish the cigar, consume a bowl of the goulash with a dollop of sour cream, and respond to a text from Katie that reads, simply, Arf! (I respond with U r 1 fine piece of tail.) Then I mix up some mango nectar with yogurt (a trick I picked up from an Indian friend) and park it next to the computer.

DevilDiva: You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a modernized opera these days. I take it from your review that this doesn’t bother you?

Mickey: I always wanted to start a jazz band called Swing a Dead Cat. But yes! As long as a modernization makes sense, I’m all for it. Whenever possible, opera should be fun.

DD: But infidelity, illicit sex, the fickle ways of love -–how can a modern audience possibility relate to these things?

M: Funny!

DD: Thank you for not responding “LOL.” I hate that shit.

M: OMG!

DD: Smartass. But I’m afraid these progressive ideas of yours will never do. Opera is nothing but an excuse for fusty 70-year-olds to impress their friends and obtain valuable tax writeoffs. Fun is utterly out of the question.

M: Sorry. I had fun, and I make no apologies. And the thing with the rockers? Hilarious.

DD: Yes, the Haight-Ashbury joke. Audiences love that stuff. It is a bit unsettling, though, how often they laugh at the supertitle before you actually get to the line. I once had a director who brought in students for dress rehearsal and instructed them to laugh at the funny supertitles right when they appeared on the screen, just so we could get used to it.

M: Good idea!

DD: But darling! Let’s talk about this segue from the historical to the musical, from Ferrarese to the way Maddie handles those intervals. You are a magician, my dear. You are a singer’s dream. If I ever get a chance to sing Fiordiligi, I’m definitely using that hang-glider visual. Why are you not writing for Opera News?

M: A late start. I am the Satchel Paige of opera criticism. And alas! I turned down that scholarship to Julliard.

DD: Okay, I’ll go along with the mythmaking process. “Siskel left a promising career in professional tennis to write a blog about opera.”

M: Hey! I’ve got a pretty decent serve.

DD: Okay. But tell me, honestly. Is Signorina Hart really that good? Or are you just buying into the hype?

M: Sometimes I read the stuff I have written about her, and I think, Come on! You’re going too far. And then I see her again, I hear her again, and I realize that I am not exaggerating at all. It’s this combination of intelligence and vocal power. Intoxicating! I find myself holding my breath when she’s singing. And you’ve read my other reviews – I’m really not a gusher.

DD: No. You’re amazingly even-keeled. And fair. So, did you discover anything new about her?

M: You’re really digging today.

DD: Hey, if you want to be the best, you study the best.

M: Okay. You know how most opera costumes entirely obscure the body? Décolletage excepted?

DD: God yes! When I’m doing Mozart, I feel like a freakin’ parade float.

M: Modern dress, of course, is much more revealing, much tighter to the silhouette. And this first-act pantsuit… It turns out that Maddalena Hart, in addition to killer top notes, a beautiful passagio, and a divine sense of phrasing, has an incredibly fine ass.

I sit there for a couple of minutes, and I’m getting nothing. This is not unusual. Out here in the boonies, I am a prisoner of ancient dial-up technology. Perhaps a squirrel is sitting on the wire. I have half a thought that I got a little too saucy, but DD and I have “gone there” before, so I can’t imagine she would take offense. I take a break to clean my dishes. When I return, sure enough, she’s back.

DD: Sorry. Life intercedes. So why no mention of derrieres in the review?

M: Do you not recall the phrase, “…her bottom end is not to be disregarded”?

DD: That is so bad, on so many levels.

M: I save the R-rated stuff just for you, honey.

DD: You do recall that this is a public forum we’re chatting upon?

M: You kiddin’ me? I’m counting on this stuff to get me some page-views. In fact, I think I’ll plug in a search tag for “Maddalena Hart’s ass.”

DD: Yeah, operatic porn is big these days. And what kind of sleazy readership will that get you?

Cordell: Somebody call?

M: Cord! Good to hear from you.

DD: Time for Diva to Di-part, hon. But one last thought: I think you’re in love with Maddalena Hart.

M: Well who isn’t?

C: I’m in love with her, and I’m as queer as a three-headed monkey.

M: Cordell! Nice bon mot.

C: Thank you. I saw an Oscar Wilde play last night.

DD: Ciao, belli.

M: Buona notte, signorina divina.

C: Not break up this little love-huddle, but rocker duds? They really did that?

M: You woulda loved the shirtless baritone.

C: Please! I’m strictly about the art. Can I get a photo?

M: Ha! I’ll smuggle you one from the website.

C: God bless you, young hetero.

Two

The Olsen house lies near the southern tip of Skyline Boulevard, at the far reaches of a well-organized mountain community. After a confusing series of forks, I pull onto a hilltop hosting three large homes under a canopy of live oak. The center house, rather Frank-Lloyd-Wrightish with all its natural touches, is one that we did last summer. I recall a terrifically hardy species of lichen that took forever to pressure-wash, as well as impractical white carpeting that we had to cover with adhesive plastic runners. But we must have done a good job, since we’re now putting in stakes with their next-door neighbors.

            The Olsen estate is an assemblage of blue-gray boxes – pretty jarring next to the chaparral, but they’ve done their best to soften it with modern sculptures and fountains. My favorite is a jumble of steel rods at the entryway that seems to represent a pair of figures in erotic embrace. I find Colin piling equipment along the front steps, his early-Dylan hair bobbing and weaving as he moves.

“Ay! San Franciskel. Right on time as usual. You are a marvel of punctuality, my friend. Ready to spend the day on your hands and knees?”

“It’s my natural position.”

He joketh not. Our clients, a geeky software exec and his intermittently sexy wife, are inordinately fond of their deck. They insist on preserving it with an organic mineral-based stain so benign that it must be reapplied once a year. It feels more like we’re sautéing the deck in teriyaki sauce. But I’ll give them this: at twenty years of age, their deck is in immaculate condition.

The process is one royal pain in the tuckus. A glacial drying time means that we must wait three days between coats. It also means that, after laying the stuff down, we have to crawl around wiping up the excess with rags. The rags must then be deposited in buckets of water, lest they inspire spontaneous combustion. You don’t even want to whisper the word “fire” in these parts. This very mountain range has hosted three major blazes this year, and it’s only June.

Our starting point is the back deck, which offers one of the best views I’ve ever seen: a steep grassy downhill that disappears into mile after mile of evergreen mountains, followed by the faint low buildings of Santa Cruz (the white-steepled Holy Cross Church) and the Pacific Ocean. I take a mental note to take occasional viewing breaks; in the throes of labor, it’s easy to forget.

I position my trolley – a flat wooden board with wheels – set down my paint tray and fill it up with stain. Then I screw my thousand-bristle brush onto my broomstick, dip it in and start laying it down. Colin takes up shop at a walkway, three feet down, that rings the edge of the deck. We’re separated by a long limestone bench, but still in easy conversing distance. Colin is a painfully social creature, and not about to pass up the opportunity for a chat.

“Have a good weekend?”

“Yes. I saw Maddalena.”

“Ah! Is this a new one?”

“This is a soprano.”

“Ah yes – the one you’re so keen on.”

“That’s the one.”

“Did she fulfill your every desire?”

“All that I could ask for and not be arrested.”

“Well! Much as I appreciate a fine voice, I hope you’re having occasional meetings with actual women.”

“Oh, I did. Katie popped in on me.”

“Ah! The blonde midget. Guerrilla booty call?”

“Dressed in a dog suit.”

Colin replies in the long-voweled manner of the titillated Brit: “No-o-oh!”

I answer in the falsetto voice adopted by every American boy who grew up watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus. “She’s a saucy little bitch, she is!”

“Well I wish she would have a word with my number three. Fantastic woman – absolutely passive in the sack. May as well be inflatable.”

I stop, mid-dip. “You actually call her ‘number three’?”

“Not to her face. But she knows she’s number three.”

“Really.”

“How’s a girl going to improve unless she knows her ranking?”

“I wish I had your cojones.”

“Is that some sort of Spanish dish?”

“Yes.”

Colin is a committed follower of Burning Man, a group that assembles a small city in the Nevada desert each summer for the purpose of burning a giant man. One of the offshoots of the group’s libertarian leanings is a population that practices poly-amory – committed couples who give each other permission to screw around. Colin refers to these types as “polys,” and I cannot help but picture horny men and women dressed as parrots. It’s clear that he means this expression dismissively, which is pretty funny coming from a man who numbers his girlfriends. On the other hand, my dismissal of Colin’s approach has less to do with principles than laziness. I have a hard enough time managing a single booty call; I wouldn’t know what to do with a harem.

“So this Katie sounds like great fun, actually. Why don’t you get involved with her?”

“She’s too busy going through a terrible divorce.”

“Ah, yes. Nuclear fallout.”

He works his way around the corner, but returns to work on some side panels. It’s been a half hour, but he takes up the conversation as if we haven’t missed a beat.

“Anyone else in the picture?”

“I have this online pal, DevilDiva, who claims that I’m in love with Maddalena Hart.”

“Ah, yes. You do wax poetic. But that’s sheer fantasy, correct?”

“Yes. I do not believe in the celebrity fuck.”

“I know who’s in love with you, mate.”

“Who?”

“This DevilDiva.”

“Really.”

“Classic female stratagem. She accuses you of being in love with Maddalena Hart, because she wants you to say, ‘Why of course not, DevilDiva – I’m in love with you.’”

He delivers this with a swooning passion that truly cuts me up. I gotta say, it’s good to have a boss with a sense of humor. But I’ve got no answer for his hypothesis.

“Well!” says Colin, happy to have planted a seed. “I’d best fetch the rag-box. Hellish job, this, but we do need the work, eh?”

I repeat his favorite mantra. “It’s a slog.”

Colin abandons me at lunchtime to go wrangle up some new clients. I have no complaints, because him dealing with the clients means I don’t have to deal with them. All I want to do is work. Besides, as much as I enjoy our gossip sessions, Colin has a bad habit of micromanaging.

It’s a warm day, and with no one around I can take off my shirt and collect some rays. I slip into the rhythm of the work, and am pleased when I reach that state where I can think without thinking.

A few hours later, I have reached the shaded steps near the garage, and am about to slip my T-shirt back on when I hear a door. Misty Olsen stands on the top step in an elegant ensemble: chocolate-brown dress, gold earrings, a copper-colored scarf. Misty is the epitome of the mousy brunette, but like I said she can be unexpectedly sexy. Something about my midway-dressed state puts a weird charge in the air. She gives me an embarrassed smile.

“Hi. I’m meeting Mac for a fundraiser in Los Gatos.”

“You look good,” I don’t say.

“Oh,” I do say. “Have a good time.”

“I hope you finish soon! It’s got to be hot on that deck.”

“That’s all right – I’m in the shade now.”

“Well. I brought you a Coke from the garage. I’ll just leave it on the ledge here.”

“Oh. Thanks!”

“Well… Bye.”

“Have fun.”

Truth be told, I’m pretty well-stocked. Colin once had a scary brush with heat stroke, so he’s pretty insistent on throwing Gatorades at me. But still, as soon as Misty drives off, I go for that Coke. Soda isn’t even all that good for hydration, but when you’ve got one fresh from the fridge, little beads of sweat on the can – oh, there’s nothing like it.

Clients of contractors should understand this. I know you’re paying good money, and honestly there’s no time that Colin and I aren’t shooting for the highest quality, regardless. But with this single 50-cent Coke, Misty has purchased gratitude and loyalty, and a good feeling that will enable me to work that much harder on her deck.

As it turns out, I need every edge I can get, because the finishing slog is brutal. In the shade, the deck drinks up very little of the stain, which means more wiping. But I’ve got no choice; I’ve got to finish this first coat or our schedule will be all screwed up.

Finally, as the sun lowers over the ocean, I finish the last few planks. I take care to get all the rags into the water-buckets, and I take a look down to discover that I am a complete mess. So here I am stripping off again, a little spooked at Misty’s previous entrance. I use the few remaining rags for an all-over wipedown, then I take my softball gear out of my cleverly concealed duffel and get all suited up. I may be utterly destroyed at all available joints and tendons, but it’s time to play.

I cruise the familiar downhills of Highway 9, locked in on a Giants game, the delicious roll of Jon Miller’s baritone, Tim Lincecum casting his usual spell on opposing batters. I arrive in time to get in a few warmup tosses and then we’re playing. Truth be told, I have my best games when I am utterly exhausted. I think it’s because I truly couldn’t give a shit, and there’s something about apathy that makes for good softball. I am retired to second base these days, and the position suits me. During twenty years at shortstop, my fondness for diving brought fair-to-middling results – the throw to first is just too long. But at second I’ve got all the time in the world, time to gather myself, get to my feet (or at least my knees) and make that throw.

Tonight, however, I am merely the sidekick. Doug, the Japanese fireplug with the surprisingly wide range, is nabbing everything. He feeds me two perfect double-play balls in the first three innings, and in the fifth we are offered the chance to achieve the unthinkable. With men on first and second, the batter strokes a hard grounder that brings Doug into the baseline. He tags the lead runner and flips it to me at second. In the slow-mo nature of moments like this, I know immediately what’s up: we’re going for a triple play. In his rush, however, Doug has tossed the ball too far from the bag. Instead of stretching for it, I try to pull it back toward me for the throw to first, and it drops to the dirt.

At the end of the inning, I join Doug on his trot to the bench.

“Sorry, man. I could have stretched for the double play, but I could see that look in your eyes.”

“Oh, you read me right. Triple play or nothin’. You don’t get too many chances at greatness. And I totally choked on that flip.”

“A little excitement is a dangerous thing.”

We call our team the Bums, and we too often play like it. At 47, I am a master strategist (at 47 I have to be), and it drives me crazy, the stupid things we do on a regular basis. Like Marcus, our blowhard left fielder. Good with the glove, impressive arm, no more brains than a sack of caramels. Gets up with the bases loaded, one out, and rolls one down the line for an easy third-to-first double play. Hit that ball anywhere else on the diamond and you’ve got at least a run.

We lose by the usual brutally small margin, and I walk with Doug to the parking lot.

“Kids still small? No one in college yet?”

Doug chuckles. “The oldest is four. The youngest is still in diapers.”

“Good. I’m tired of finding out my friends’s kids are graduating Princeton.”

We walk a few feet in silence. I take note of Doug’s new-style softball backpack, two bats pointing skyward in their holsters. He looks like Clint Eastwood, riding into town with a pair of shotguns. Doug is my only teammate anywhere near my age – maybe 38. Thank God, because all these youngsters make me feel like an alien.

“How’re things with you?” he says.

“Oh, same ol’. Lotsa work, which is good. Couple of operas. Occasional bouts of sex.”

“Ha! You make it sound like boxing. You oughta be a writer.”

“I’ve thought about it.”

I haven’t told Doug about the blog. Hell, he’s the only one who knows about the opera thing at all. The field lights blink off. I have to slow down while my eyes adjust.

“I have the feeling that something extraordinary is about to happen. I have absolutely no basis for this. But you get these… signals.”

“I get those. Until I choke on the throw to second.”

“Ah, but what I’m envisioning is even bigger than a triple play.”

“Nothing’s bigger than a triple play.”

“Welp. Here’s my car. See ya next week.”

“See ya. And for God’s sake, clean off that nasty arm of yours.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Sixth inning. Grounder to my right. I take a full-on dive. The ball ticks off the edge of my glove and heads for center field. My throwing arm lands on a gravelly patch of dirt. In the dim light of the parking lot, I touch my arm to my softball pants, leaving a Rorschach blotch of red. I laugh. It’s good to be a guy. It’s good to bleed.

Three

For once, my opera-day schedule is devoid of adventure. A half-day pressure wash above the Lexington Reservoir, top of a freakin’ mountain, it’s hard to believe that places like this exist. Much as I hate driving that dirt road to my cabin, I cannot resist the chance to get myself clean. So I take my clawfoot bath, sunlight ticking in through the madrones, doll myself up in the usual black suit, then pick out a striped burgundy tie that Katie gave me.

            So I’m all moussed up and back on Interstate 280. It’s pretty hot outside, so I’ve got the AC blasting away like a Wagnerian tenor. I slip in a Foo Fighters cassette to give myself some audio contrast, and I’m feeling good.

The luxury of time allows me to scout the curbside parking spaces, and I nab one just outside the Civic Center garage, with a meter that stops nicely at 7 p.m. I arrive at the press room a half hour before curtain, and I relish the chance to sit on a couch with a coffee as I scour the program. This one’s got a vastly entertaining piece on the life of Alexander Pushkin, although the language drifts into that neo-Dickens that opera writers feel obligated to adopt.

Just across from me is a television monitor showing the stage. They’ve given the production a full-size title screen, a Russian village in the style of Chagall, Yevgeny and Tatyana drifting overhead, accompanied by a flying cow and a violin. I’ve always wondered if they use this monitor just to track the show, or if they force late-arriving critics to sit here and watch the first act on TV. Fortunately, I have yet to test the system.

I finish my coffee and article and head for the refreshment table, where Delores has arrayed a fine selection of crackers and spreadable cheeses. It’s good to be a critic. Delores is occupied with her twenty-some guests, so I finish my munchies and slither into the hall.

Tchaikovsky is such a mixed blessing he’s almost a frappé. The orchestrations are lush, the vocal lines soaring and graceful, but he’s certainly in no hurry to tell a story, and not overly fond of quick tempos or jaunty rhythms. I saw Joan of Arc last year, and it literally put me to sleep. “How could you possibly make Joan of Arc boring?” you ask. Mostly by following that brilliant Russian tradition of keeping all the action strictly offstage. That way, all the characters can gather to discuss it after-the-fact. It’s like skipping the football game so you can get to the exciting post-game wrapup.

Pushkin was hardly innocent of this himself ; his works are more dependent on social commentary and descriptive details than plot. But somehow his verse novel inspired Tchaikovsky’s most entertaining opera. Perhaps because the composer and his co-librettist, Shilovsky, preserved much of Pushkin’s language and were happy just to skim the cream from his story. They didn’t even call it an opera, opting for the phrase “lyric scenes” and trusting that their audience had already memorized the original novel.

The cast is certainly promising. The title singer is Jesus Cortez, a Venezuelan baritone who came up through SFO’s residency programs and is threatening to become the company’s biggest find since Anna Netrebko. Playing Lensky, Yevgeny’s best pal, is Ramon Vargas, a tenor who utterly knocked me out in last year’s Elixir of Love. That pure, lyric – dast I say Pavarottian – tone, delivered with such ease, and a remarkable level of comfort on stage. With the two of them, the papers are calling it “the world’s first Latino Tchaikovsky,” but of course at the opera it’s just another night.

The most preposterous role is Tatyana, a teenager who is rarely played by anyone under 30. It takes at least that long just to develop the required vocal skills. But for once it’s not Maddalena’s singing that’s impressing me so much as her acting. I’ll save the details for later, but her handling of the Letter Scene is a revelation.

It’s a traditional production, sometime in early 19^th-century Russia. They’ve outfitted her in a white country dress with floral patterns in blue. Her honey-blonde hair hangs long down her back. She’s gorgeous, as usual.

At the end of the act, I’m entirely wired on the performance. I’m loitering between the lobby and the south hall when I find a woman in a beaded silver-blue dress advancing my way. It’s Delores.

“Mickey! I’m so glad I found you.” She hands me a blue envelope. “Sorry, have to run. Ta!”

She heads off to the lobby, leaving me feeling like the straight man in a Neil Simon play. I open the envelope to find a photographic note card portraying a collection of pineapples, mangos and bananas in Mozartean gowns and waistcoats. The caption reads Cosi fan tutti-frutti. Inside is a handwritten note in a smooth cursive.

Would love to talk with you about your writing. Please meet me at Jardiniere one hour after curtain.

Grazie – Maddie

I scan the walls, looking for hidden cameras.

The rest of my evening is its own rather enjoyable brand of hell. I need to take in enough to support a reasonably intelligent review, but how is one bit of it going to penetrate my brain when I know that I will soon be talking to Tatyana herself? (She turns down Onegin, standing in her regal scarlet ball gown, nicely married to royalty, every woman’s dream revenge for a first love scorned. And yet, she is heartbroken.)

The worst part is that post-performance hour. I understand all the cleanup, undressing, meetings with friends and fans, but it leaves me with sixty absolutely unkillable minutes. The ushers are eager to clear everybody out, so all I’m allowed is my visit with Miss Tebaldi and the adjacent men’s room. Five minutes. After that, I figure it’s a good idea to fetch my car and re-park it nearer to my final destination. Ten minutes. Then I take a stroll around City Hall, but it’s getting cold. I am downright euphoric to find a copy of the Bay Guardian, sitting alone in its box, and I make my way to the bar to sit and read.

Jardiniere is like the most elegant retro-‘60s Eichler living room you’ve ever seen. Entering the double glass doors, you encounter a wide curve of staircase to your left. Straight ahead is a horseshoe bar with cut-glass ornaments, and along a brick wall to your far left you’ll find a series of long, straight couches with square leather cushions, the seating enclaves marked off with armchairs and glass-topped coffee tables.

The hostess, a young brunette dressed in black pants and shirt, leads me to one of these couches, nicely sheltered by the bottom of the staircase. Looking up, you can see dining-room tables next to the upstairs railing, patrons peering over as if there’s some kind of a show down here. A nice-looking redhead in the same black uniform perches on an ottoman and takes my order, a lemon-drop martini. But no appetizer. I’m hungry as hell, but I don’t think my stomach would be able to handle it.

The place is pretty full, but not packed. It’s hard to figure the demographics – locals? business types? tourists? – but the clothing and hairstyles project a general air of wealth. I open my paper and pretend to read, but the final fifteen minutes are horrible. Every voice that jumps out of a conversation, every opening of a door yanks on my strings. I feel like an actor doing his first Hamlet. I can’t pull this off! They’ll never buy it. What’s my first line? Oh shit. Why couldn’t Maddalena Hart remain in the comfortable realm of mythic figure? What the hell does she think she’s doing, fraternizing with commoners?

She’s wearing blue jeans. Black pumps, a gray suit jacket over a black blouse. And a gray fedora with a silver band. She stands in the open area, looking around, and her gaze settles on me. She smiles. Why the hell would Maddalena Hart know my face? Perhaps I’m mistaken, perhaps I’ve got myself thinking that every woman who comes through that door is a diva. But here she comes, and those enormous green eyes cannot possibly belong to anyone else. I rise from the couch and I manage not to fall on my ass. She smiles and takes my hand. I hope I’m not sweating. I hope my breath doesn’t stink.

“Mickey!”

“Hi.” One word, two letters. That’s all I’m going to venture.

“Excuse the film-noir hat. I don’t exactly have a Britney Spears paparazzi problem, but we are near the opera house, and for some reason the hat seems to throw them off.”

“Oh. Yes. I…” Three words. I’m useless.

She nods toward the armchair. “May I?”

Silly question. She can sit wherever she wants. She can set fire to my hair. What am I, the armchair police?

“Yes,” I say. “Please.” Okay. That was pretty good.

She sits down and crosses her legs. Her face is very large. That sounds odd, but I have heard that it’s advantageous for performers to have large heads. I’m sitting across from an album cover. Cripes. The waitress arrives and asks about a drink. Maddalena is wearing pink fingernail polish. She dangles a hand over her knee. Her hand is very white.

“Whatever he’s having.”

“Lemon-drop martini?”

“Ooh! Yes.”

The waitress leaves. Maddalena studies me, as if I’m supposed to say something. She has heavy eyelids, a sleepy look. Bedroom eyes. Lauren Bacall.

“Lemon-drop, Mickey? Isn’t that a little gay?”

“Well, I’m… I guess… Sweet tooth.” I’m pathetic.

She runs her left ring finger along her lips, done up in a subtle pink, almost mauve. Her lips are almost as pillowy as on the album covers, with those little crinkles at the edges. Her speaking voice is husky, tired from the night’s work, though clearly soprano, her accent that enunciated American that verges on European. No trace of her native New York.

“God, Mickey. How do we get you past this celebrity thing? I know there’s a real person in there, and I want to talk to him. But you’re all decoupaged into place, like I’m talking to a Rodin. Would it help if I farted?”

“I’m… sorry?”

She leans forward and lowers her voice. “Opera singers have tremendous control. It’s all in the diaphragm. Backstage at the Met, we have competitions. Watch out for that Samuel Ramey. If he’s had cabbage or Brussels sprouts, he has been known to fart the overture to Giovanni.”

It’s that last image that gets me. I chuckle.

“That’s it?” she says. “A little snort? This is some pretty top-notch material, buddy.”

I attempt to sip from the lemon-drop, and I realize what a precarious vessel is a martini glass. But the sweet and the cold of it does me well.

“I’m sorry. It’s just… you’re stupendous. You’re everything I…”

Maddalena places two fingers to my lips. “No! Don’t even start. I know exactly what you think of me, so… just… No!”

Maddalena Hart’s fingers on my lips. I’m going to pass out. She sits back and gives me a sly smile, a little wider on the right. She flicks her tongue along her front teeth. I’ve heard that singers do this, always adjusting the equipment.

“I get more flattery than a person should. There’s a certain pressure, having to answer to all that admiration. As for tonight’s performance, I’d rather read about it on your blog.”

The waitress arrives. Maddie gives her lemon-drop an appraising sip.

“Mmm. The citrus feels good on the throat. And, where was I? The blog! The level of understanding, so much more important than flattery. It’s like this: I’ve been reworking Fiordiligi with my voice coach, Luigi Corazonne. I do this every few years; it keeps my performances fresh. So I asked the staff at SFO to gather all the reviews for me. I wanted to see what kind of impression I was making.

“Most of them? Garbage. Either critical for all the wrong reasons or favorable for all the wrong reasons. Drives me insane. But way down at the bottom I find a printout of your blog, and I am mesmerized. This historical/critical hybrid, I’ve never seen anything like it. And all these connections between Adriana and the role. We all know the basic story, especially the loony tessitura, but I have never seen all the threads drawn together like that. The affair with da Ponte. The custom-composing by Mozart, Adriana’s lesser-known shortcomings.

“I felt like I had never fully understood why the part was written that way. And your description of the drops – the hang-glider, the toe-dipping. That was so affirming, because that’s the flaw in almost every Fiordiligi I’ve ever seen. I was so determined not to stomp those notes. Visualization is drastically important to me, and now I have this lovely image to help me whenever I sing the part.

“I’ll tell you, Mickey, most of the critics out there are so damn sure that they know everything about opera, and never do they land on something like that. It’s all bluster. When did they all give up on learning? I didn’t. You didn’t. And no offense, but I get the feeling that your operatic knowledge is anything but encyclopedic. But maybe it’s the humility, the not knowing, that opens the way to discovery. Where did you come from, Mickey, and how do you come up with this stuff?”

Maddie Hart the opera star is tapping her finger into my chest. I cannot force a word past my mouth. I’m an imposter. She immediately makes matters worse by taking off the fedora and unpinning her hair. She shakes it out with a hand and lets it settle along her shoulders, revealing subtle gradations of platinum, straw and sand. An elderly woman in a black sequin gown creeps up from behind, program in hand.

“Ms. Hart? I hate to interrupt, but you were fabulous tonight! Could I trouble you…?”

She hands Maddie the program and a pen and waits as she signs the cover.

“Thank you so much!”

“Thank you for coming to the show.” The woman walks away, and Maddie turns to me with a smile.

“You see what I mean about the hat? It’s like an invisibility cloak. But opera singers have the most well-behaved fans in the world. I would hate to put up with those obnoxious movie fans. I asked you a question, young man!”

She slaps me on the knee, another injury to my sense of reality. In doing so she leans forward, allowing me a generous view of her cleavage.

“I’m sorry. What was the question?”

She gives me a broad stage laugh. I can see the little wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.

“Let me rephrase it. How did you arrive at this unique approach to critiquing opera?”

“Oh. Well… I…” Hell. I was just going to have to tell her the whole mediocre truth. It has to be some sort of felony to perjure yourself to a diva. I take a deep breath.

“Absolute ignorance. I came to opera late in life, with little musical knowledge. So I listened to everything I could get my hands on, and I read everything I could. But still, it wasn’t enough. I had to see it firsthand, but I couldn’t afford the tickets. I have this friend who works at a community newspaper, and she said the local performing groups were always offering her free tickets, whether she wrote about them or not. With print media dying off, and arts coverage being hacked to pieces, they’re desperate for any recognition they can dig up.

“So she told me I should start a blog about opera, and request comps from the regional companies: Opera San Jose, West Bay Opera, Mission Opera. If they gave me any trouble, she could vouch for me. But they gave me no trouble at all. Fortysomething guy, corporate demeanor, no problem.

“After that, however, came the real puzzle: how was I supposed to write about these operas? I didn’t have enough expertise to offer much of an opinion about the singers. Or the production values, or the directing. So I covered my tracks with research, and I discovered that almost every opera ever created has some fascinating backstage story. So I connected that to my reviews, and I came up with something that was, at the least, entertaining.

“The rest is in the details. I had my newspaper friend hack up my stories until I became a decent writer. I learned to upload photos, and made sure I got the credits right. I double-checked the calendar and ticket info. Then I sent an email to the opera to make sure they read it.

“A year later, I began to find my reviews being quoted on singers’ websites, and on the season brochure for West Bay Opera. I sent a query off to San Francisco Opera and was absolutely shocked when they gave me tickets for the entire fall season. The second production was Figaro, with Maddalena Hart as the Countess. But that’s the story. I’m an imposter. I snuck in through the back door. And now I’m sitting here talking to my favorite singer.”

“Favorite singer?” she says. “Or most famous singer?”

“Absolute favorite.” I’m about to tell her the car story, but I decide that it would be too much. “How far back in my blog did you read?”

She gives me an embarrassed smile that takes off twenty years. (Perhaps embarrassment is a youthful endeavor.)

“Okay. You got me. I searched your blog for every reference to me, and I didn’t read about any other singer. But I was pressed for time! Honestly!”

I raise an accusing finger. “Aha! So you are a soprano.”

Now that our flaws are on the table, the conversation rambles freely, and it’s easier to forget the golden identity of the person with whom I am speaking. And I have always found this to be true: find two people with a passion for opera, and the time melts away. In this way, Maddalena Hart is everything I have wished for: an intensely focused performer with a need to constantly poke and prod at the secret meanings and nuances of her craft, to do anything to increase her understanding and sharpen her skill. I try my best not to sound like I’m interviewing her, but I do pick up some tidbits that are bound to pop up in my review.

Maddie and I close down the bar, and we find that my car is parked directly behind hers. She opens her door, tosses her bag and fedora inside, and turns to receive whatever farewell I might offer. The lights of City Hall strike the low overcast and fall over her in a soft mist, spelling out the brighter tresses of her hair, glimmering in the corners of her eyes. Even if she were not Maddalena Hart, I would be in love with her. I take her hand and bring it to my lips. Being a diva, she knows how to accept this, with a smile and the subtlest dip of her knees.

“I can’t even tell you,” I say. “So I won’t. Thank you for appreciating my appreciations.”

“Thank you, Mickey. I can’t wait to read your…”

Maddie stops and looks down, rubbing her eye as if a piece of dust has landed there. She looks up with tears on her cheeks.

“Don’t ever stop writing, Mickey. You do lovely work.”

She kisses me on the lips. Then she gets in her car, gives me a wave and drives off. I wave back. Maybe five minutes later, I remember to get in my car and start it up. I doubt very much if I will have a problem staying awake.

On the lips. I wait until I can see the Stanford dish, and then I play “Song to the Moon.”

Four

            “Continue straight for the next fourteen miles.”

            There’s no way I could have written that review last night. And this morning, I didn’t really have the time.

            “Continue straight for the next thirteen point eight miles.”

            But between Maddie and Tchaikovsky and the Latino Brothers Karamazov, I have enough raw material for a novella, and the first paragraph is pounding on my mental front door like an angry landlord. Write me! Write me!

            “Continue straight for the next thirteen point six miles.”

“Hey, Larry. Any chance you can get this bee-acch to shut up?”

            “Oh, sorry.” He hits a button on his navigation screen. “After a while, you don’t really hear it anymore. It’s just like being married – and you so totally didn’t hear that from me.”

Between the wife, two daughters and what you might call an actively present mother-in-law, Larry is gynecologically surrounded. But he’s got a fantastic degree of patience and a wicked sense of humor to help him deal.

            Despite the over-persistent vocals, the navigator is a fascinating little gizmo. I watch the little dot that is us as it crawls past the junction of I-280 and 92.

            Me, I’m a terrorist. I’ve got this gorgeous little nugget of plastic explosive sitting in my pocket, next to my cell phone. It’ll only work if I find the right target, and the right time. Larry’s not it. As father of two rambunctious girls and builder of Silicon Valley startups, he’s got way too much on his plate to keep track of my musical obsessions. We are alike in so many ways, but we are outfitted with vastly different lives. I leave the explosive where it lies, and I keep the conversation light.

            “How’s Calypto?”

            “Pretty good. Still in the development stages. But our investment capital is super-solid, and I got a nice deal on the new facilities.”

            Larry’s sort of a CFO, although his companies are never quite large enough for him to cop to the title. Gotta love the names. The first was InSync, one letter away from a boy band. Next was Expedion, three letters away from an online travel site. The new one, Calypto, sounds like a foot fungus suffered by Harry Belafonte. But I shouldn’t make fun. I’m the one who gets the logo golf shirts when the companies get sold.

Carla and Linda are in the back seat, maintaining a heavy chatter. The subject, as usual, is education. It seems like every one of their kids is headed for college, so they’ve become experts on the new generation of SAT scores, the balancing of tuition costs with scholarship offers, the all-important question of How far away? and the more important question of Why didn’t we have our kids further apart?

            “Oh! The campus. No kidding – it was actually named one of the top ten best-looking campuses in the country. Gorgeous. And I really do think she’ll prefer going to a smaller school.”

            “Still playing ball?” asks Larry.

            “Amazingly enough. All these young punks tryin’ to push me out, but they didn’t count on my craft and guile.”

            Larry laughs. “Sounds a lot like Silicon Valley. Oh, geez. I better reactivate the bee-acch.”

            He presses a button and gets immediate results.

            “Turn right, Sneath Road exit, two point four miles.”

            “Well, at least she’s got a new song.”

            We’re into the North Peninsula – Colma, Daly City, South San Francisco – about two-thirds along my opera commute and deep into Cemetery Central, where the dead outnumber the living. We swing through the arched gates of the military cemetery and find infinite rows of white crosses – enough to fill a stadium. Our arrival, as usual, finds the place in rare form, fresh flowers everywhere, small American flags planted at five-foot intervals. It’s not really our choice – Mom’s birthday just happens to be May 31 – but it’s nice that the place always looks so festive.

            We take a left and spiral up the hill to the cemetery’s central feature, an enormous flagpole surrounded by commanders, privates and sergeants. Her stone is modest and horizontal, etched with the words Grace M., wife of LCDR Harold J. Siskel. It’s funny that she’s lodged in such a boys’ club, but she certainly put in enough time as a Navy wife to qualify.

            After sixteen years, we have all developed our rituals. I brush away the grass clippings that have fallen into the engraved letters, then pull out any roots invading the edges. Carla manages to find one of the military-issue flower holders – a metal cone attached to a stake – plants it into the lawn and works an arrangement of roses. They come from her house and Linda’s house, descendants of the bushes from my mother’s garden. I would leave the house late in the evening and use my car key to cut off a blossom for my date. My favorites were orange with swirls of yellow; they smelled like citrus and vanilla. A year after she died, my father discovered an enormous purple iris in the center of the garden. “Don’t know where that crazy thing came from,” he said, but of course we both knew where it came from. My mom had planted it the previous spring, even as the cancer moved from her colon to her liver.

            Sixteen years later, we are beyond much need for reminiscing, much more apt to sit around Mom’s name and talk about the kids, the jobs, the A’s, the Giants, our much more entertaining cousins – sort of the same stuff we would be telling her about, anyway. In California, it’s second nature to steal ideas from other cultures, and in this my Scots-Irish clan is very Latino, very Dia de los Muertos.

            A few minutes later, we have entered our quiet phase – each of us, perhaps, trying to bring up an image of her face, wondering what she would have looked like if she had attained the old age she so richly deserved, and trying to recall what life was like before we learned how to pronounce the word “metastasize.” Linda retells a piece of the family liturgy, how she took a walk on Mom’s beloved beach, the day of her death, and found that someone had written the name Grace in the sand. I follow with one of my own, Mom’s habit of pointing out her favorite women to Dad and saying, “If I die before you, you can marry her.” One of those women was Sharon, who eventually became our stepmother. How we decided that the siblings should meet every year on Mom’s birthday, and visit her gravesite. And then it gets quiet again. I shuffle a hand into my pocket and pull out my grenade.

            “Last night, I had a date with Maddalena Hart.”

            My principal target is Linda, she who retains an innocence that can break your heart. She lets out a gasp (God bless her) and looks at me with wide eyes.

            “Oh my God! Isn’t she that opera singer? What do you mean ‘a date’? You mean you got to meet her?”

            “She asked me to meet her at a bar after the performance. We talked for three hours.”

            My next respondent is big sister Carla, who is most up-to-date on my opera life. “Wow! That’s like… Wow! Were you nervous?”

            “I was pathetic!”

            “Was she nice?” asks Linda.

            “Nicer than I could have dreamed.”

            I realize that this level of celebrity gossip is too good not to make use of, but my bragging has left me feeling a little tawdry. I already miss the sense of anticipation, the lump of explosive that I have now squandered.

            “Hey!” says Larry. “I think I saw her on PBS once. She’s kind of a babe!”

            “Oh Larry!” I protest. “Maddalena is such an amazing artist that I would never even notice such a thing!”

            And now we all laugh. Because siblings know better. And now I feel less tawdry.

            We head across the freeway for lunch and pie at Baker’s Square, and by the time I get home I’m beat. That lead paragraph is still parked on my brainstep, ringing the bell like a Jehovah’s Witness with a quota. I, however, am too tired to lift a finger, so I take a swan dive onto the bed and I don’t get up.

            Is there anything worse than the overlong evening nap? When you get up it’s dark outside. At first you assume that you’ve landed somewhere deep in the night. You feel this awful regret over the loss of time, and then you realize that it’s eight o’clock and you have an entire Saturday night in front of you. Then you hear the sound of a car pulling down the dirt road and stopping at the end of the drive. And then, for a long time, nothing.

            I stumble from the bed, fully clothed, and peer out the window. Katie’s out there, but why hasn’t she knocked? In the faint light from her dashboard, I can see that she has buried her face in her hands. I make my way outside and cross the front yard, redwood twigs snapping under my bare toes.

            When she sees me coming she waves me off, as if she wants me to go back to the house and pretend I’ve seen nothing. Yeah, right. I open her door and kneel on the ground so I can pull her to my shoulder. She doesn’t look like she’s been crying for long, but the moment she pulls the key from the ignition, it all comes out.

            “It’s okay.”

            “No it’s not,” she sobs.

            “I mean it’s okay to cry.”

            So she does. This may sound odd, but there’s are few things more beautiful than a crying woman. Because this is real, this is what matters. I suppose this is one reason that I love opera. All that raw emotion.

            Five minutes later, I grab her weekend bags and head for the living room, where she gives me the full account. Katie has landed herself in a nice little torture chamber. Given no choice but to move out of her house (she mentions police visitations, implies abuse), she moved in with her sister’s family. This means Katie and her two daughters stuffed into a single room, this means imposing on a sister with her own children to raise – but this is the only way she’ll be able to get the teaching degree, and be able to support the family on her own. This afternoon, as I was dining with my sibs, Katie’s sister was giving her the dreaded speech:  “You need to make plans for moving out.”

            Katie sits on my couch, nursing her nose with a Kleenex. “I can’t stand being in that house! I can’t breathe, I feel so bad – but what else can I do? I have to think of my girls.”

            I have no answers, but that’s not my job. I’m the safe harbor, the weekend retreat. I toss a Duraflame into the fireplace and light it up.

            “Have you eaten? Can I make you something?”

            She waves a hand. “I had some McDonald’s. But I brought some brownie mix. Can you make me some brownies?”

            “Sure.” I pour some red wine and hand her the remote.

            “Make sure you undercook them by a couple minutes. I like them nice and gooey. And bring me the mixing spoon. I want to lick the leftover.”

            She gets into this bossy mode sometimes. But that’s okay. She spends every day on a carpet of eggshells, so I don’t mind her roughing me up. Besides, I’m still pretty fuzzy from my nap, so clear instructions are helpful. Amazingly, I have everything the brownie mix demands – one egg, cup of milk, baking powder. I pop the tray into the oven, then I run a finger through the mixing bowl and lick it off. Yowza!

            We spend the next hour consuming the entire tray, along with a full bottle of Cab. Katie’s feeling good, and kissing my ear. I warned her about that. It drives me insane, and should only be undertaken with serious intentions.

            “Mickey? I want you to make it all go away. I want you to destroy me.”

            She pulls my hand inside her shirt. She’s a nipple girl, and can sometimes reach orgasm with nothing else. Between red wine, luscious brownies and Katie’s tits, all thoughts of Maddalena Hart and that first paragraph have escaped my mind. Now it’s my turn to be bossy.

            “Go to my bedroom, take off all of your clothes, but don’t get on the bed just yet. I’ll be right in.”

            “Oh-kay!” She hops up and strips, leaving a trail of laundry as she crosses the room.

            I race outside to the car and dig around until I find a brand-new dropcloth. When I return to the bedroom, Katie is seated on a chair, wearing not a stitch, legs daintily crossed. I open the plastic packaging, unfold the dropcloth and spread it over the bed.

            “Lie down, honey – face to the mattress.”

            She squeals and takes her position, the plastic crinkling beneath her.

            “Now close your eyes and don’t open them until… Well, you’ll know when.”

            I dash away to the kitchen, where I pour an entire quart of olive oil into a pot and warm it to the temperature of a hot tub. Then I take the pot to the bedroom and slowly empty its contents over Katie.

            “Oh my God!” she moans. “That is so… That is so…”

            I strip off and saddle her butt so that I may embark on a full-body massage, working every muscle from head to toe. I manage to keep this going for a half hour, as Katie maintains a rumbling moan beneath me. My muscles are getting a little sore, but I don’t care. My cock becomes so rigid that I can no longer ignore its pleas, so I insert myself into Katie’s pussy as I continue to massage her back. I didn’t actually think I could do this. The inside/outside rubdown has an immediate effect on Katie, whose moans are growing in pitch and frequency.

            After a few minutes, I get another idea and run outside, erection bobbing like a diving board, to dig up a box of rubber gloves. Katie is mightily curious about my disappearance, but it helps that she’s halfway to a coma. I pull her hips until that gorgeous white bubble-butt is pointed skyward, and insert one, two, then three fingers into her pussy, her breathing working into an excited pant. Then I pull on a glove and insert a finger into her anus. She tightens up, putting some impressive pressure on my second knuckle, but then I put my ungloved hand back to work on her pussy, and soon she’s accepting my multiple intrusions with glee. I’m a freakin’ gynecologist, and a minute later Katie is bucking.

            She collapses, my hands still inside of her – but I’m not done. The word was, after all, “destroyed.” I pull a butt plug from my nightstand – a beginner’s model, three inches long – and work it into her asshole. Then I collect some oil from her calf, slather up my dick and re-enter her pussy. After all the attention, she’s hot as a sauna, and I have to stop for a second before I go spurting out all the fun. From behind, I can fuck her in standard doggy fashion as my pubic bone pushes against the butt plug, sending both pistons in and out of her at once. She starts ramming her ass back against me, slamming the headboard with both hands and screaming all manner of high-pitched, unintelligible filth. That’s what I like about the woods. Nobody hears. Except for Trey the Fish, who’s probably shocked that a 47-year-old gets this much action.

            Katie comes violently, then yells at me to keep going, and thirty seconds later is coming again, letting out a series of glissandos that would make Maddalena proud.

            I can take no more. I pull out, stand up on the bed and jerk off as Katie waves her much-abused ass at me. I shout as loudly as I please and send sprays of semen over her back. Then I collapse next to her and rub the whole messy vinaigrette into her skin.

            “Destroyed?”

            She turns, eyes wide with energy. “Y-yes.”

            “I’m going to pour you a bath, honey.”

            “Mickey?”

When I look at her again, she’s crying, but I think I know what she’s trying to say.

“You’re gonna be okay, honey. Just hang in there.”

I kiss her, fill the tub with hot water and bubble bath, then I carry her from the bed and settle her into the water, like a baby at baptism.

The straw-colored sun at my bedside. Fifteen minutes later, she’s back, fully dressed, damp hair, ready for church. I walk her out. She looks tired. Destroyed. I give her a kiss and say, “The next step. That’s where you keep your focus. Just get to the next step.”

“What is the next step?”

“Pick up your kids, take them to church. And don’t let them blackmail you.”

“Right. Thanks for last night. It was a nice trip.”

I kiss her again and watch as she drives away, raising a parade of dust. I would tell her that I love her – because I’ve been where she is, because I understand. But I won’t.

My third wake-up comes early: ten o’clock. The lead paragraph is back, knocking at my cerebellum like a Girl Scout with a cart full of cookies. Still, I’m going to insist on the ritual. I have some new soap that I’m dying to open. French-milled with Shea butter and mango butter. It lathers up in a yellow cream, with a ripe tropical smell. I raise my hands to my nose and take it in.

Twenty minutes later, I’m at my writing table. Across the way, Trey the Fish is setting up for a party. He’s an international spear fisherman. No kidding. I went to one of his barbecues and found myself chewing on a zebra-stripe manta ray from New Zealand. But even exotic grilling and topless women will not stay me from my appointed rounds.

[Track 4]

I first learned the immortal Letter Scene from Tchaikovsky’s Yevgeny Onegin through recordings. I had little idea of the text, or the context, but I loved the passion of its vocal lines, the uplifting breeze-like woodwinds, the life-transforming back-and-forth of the character’s monodrama.

Which is why my first encounter with an onstage incarnation was so unsettling. The regal music was there, as were the dramatic vocal lines, but the supertitles stripped away all the mystery. Basically, you had a teenage country girl attempting to write a crush letter to her hunky new neighbor, and tormenting herself with a night-long oscillation. “OhmiGOD! What do I do? I mean, like, if I tell him and then he doesn’t like me, that would be like a totally wicked bummer! Does he love me? Does he not love me? Argh!”

The biggest news about SFO’s production is Maddalena Hart’s innovative approach to this scene. Hart manages to take Tatyana’s irritating indecisions and paint them with a tennis-match conviction – as if every flip-flop is, in fact, a solid, committed step in the advancement of her argument. She does this by delivering each new flight with a distinct attitude, expression or movement, helping us to step inside the actual crazymaking mindset of a teenage girl, for whom each new thought marks an entirely new direction in the course of her life, on par with the discovery of Relativity. The ride is vastly entertaining, and brings a palette of new and vivid colors to Tchaikovsky’s legendary scene.

I had a chance to talk with Ms. Hart post-performance, and she confirmed my impression. Every few years, she refashions her roles, going back to square one and seeking new revelations about her characters. With the Letter Scene, she began with the translation, imagining how each sentence would feel, mapping out her reactions, and using certain keywords as guideposts. She wanted to be sure not to have the same exact feeling or reaction more than once. Hart also credits stage manager David Cox, who designed a choreography of movements to go with these reactions.

And now for the history. In 1877, as Tchaikovsky embarked upon the project, his sympathies stood firmly with Tatyana, whose first confession of love meets with a heartbreaking failure. Although Onegin handles the situation with sufficient tact – saying that he can offer nothing more than a brother’s love – he later proves himself a crass, shallow schmuck.

During the composition of the Letter Scene, Tchaikovsky found himself in the exact position of his title character. He received a crush letter from a former pupil, Antonina Milyukova, a young woman he barely remembered. His dismissal was much more brusque than Onegin’s, including an instruction for Antonina to “quell her feelings.” After completing the Letter Scene, however, he reconsidered his rude behavior and decided to make up for it by marrying the girl.

This was a huge mistake. Tchaikovsky quickly discovered that he was repelled by physical contact with a woman, and celebrated his honeymoon by hurling himself into the Moscow River. The anticipated pneumonia failed to arrive, so instead the couple separated. Tchaikovsky paid her off at the rate of 6,000 rubles a year. Despite all of this trauma, he finished Yevgeny Onegin in the span of eight months.

Despite bearing three children by another man, Antonina refused a divorce. Sixteen years after the wedding, Tchaikovsky was caught flirting with a duke’s nephew. A court of colleagues issued a secret missive ordering the composer to kill himself. His death, soon after, was blamed on the ingestion of tainted water. More recent biographers conclude that he was, in fact, carrying out the court’s instructions. Antonina outlived him by 24 years, drifting from one asylum to the next.

The creation of the Pathetique Symphony, one of the most melancholy pieces of music ever written, is often credited to Tchaikovsky’s lifelong struggle with his homosexuality. The piece debuted in 1893, nine days before his death.

I upload a photo of Maddalena in her Letter Scene nightclothes, wearing one of her well-designed expressions: utter radiance, her eyes raised to the light as she considers the possibility that Onegin’s feelings might be equal to hers. Her hair looks like spun gold. I press Publish, and I take a beer out to the porch. I’m surprised to find that it’s only midafternoon. Trey’s party is going strong, a dozen rascally young guys, a trio of girls, drinking and laughing and eating God-knows-what from God-knows-where. The road is packed with vehicles; I’m not sure if I could get out of here if I wanted to. Then I remember that I forgot to set my computer’s response-alarm. When I go back in to check, DD’s already there. That girl really needs to get a life.

DevilDiva: Um… Hello? Am I reading this right? You met Maddalena Hart?

Mickey: Yeah, I did.

DD: All right, you’ve earned your coolness points for playing it low-key. But please! A few details for the groundlings?

M: She liked my Cosi review, so she asked me out for a drink. I’m still a little in shock. Three hours! We talked for three hours.

DD: Did you sleep with her?

M: OMG! You little drama queen. Are you trying to create a viral rumor?

DD: Couldn’t hurt your numbers, honey. So what was she like?

M: I told you I didn’t sleep with her!

DD: I sorta meant, ya know, personality-wise.

M: Doh! Charming as all hell. So much as I imagined her that it sort of surprised me.

DD: You were surprised by the lack of surprise.

M: Exactamente.

DD: Looks?

M: Well, no one’s as perfect in person as they are on stage. But I rather like the little flaws. Less goddess-like, more human. Those eyes, though. Wow.

Cordell: I find that her eyes are even better in person.

DD: Jesus! Am I the only one who hasn’t met her?

C: I’m a voice coach, honey. I meet ‘em all. But I wanted to thank you, Mickey, for that story about Tchaikovsky. I’ve heard little bits of it, but I’ve never seen it spelled out in such a beautifully tragic arc. And the secret suicide command! Is that new?

M: Yes, it is. It was discovered in somebody’s archive, and reported in a biography a couple years ago. Of course, it might also have to do with the increasing openness about homosexuality.

C: Amen for that. Meanwhile, so glad you got to meet Maddie! She is a delight. A bit mad-making sometimes, how neurotic she gets about the details – but that’s what makes her the best.

DD: Yes, and now I have an additional reason for disliking her. She’s met the legendary Mickey Siskel.

C: Maddalena is not our only green-eyed soprano. Mee-ow!

M: I’ll meet with either of you, anytime. I shan’t forget my roots, now that I’m hangin’ with the stars.

DD: You got a deal.

C: Come up to Seattle and see me sometime.

M: Thank you, Mae West.

I have successfully given birth to the lead paragraph, and everything that follows, and once the gang leaves the comments page I realize what a weekend I have had, and how exhausted I am. I dial up a baseball game – one that I have no intention of watching – and I collapse on the couch.

Hours later, I awake, and I realize that I’ve done it again: the accursed evening nap. It’s dark outside, a whisper of sunset still in the heavens, and Trey’s party is down to a handful of smokers, a string quartet of glowing orange tips. I notice that the baseball game has become a soccer match, and that my computer is running its screen-saver, a labyrinth of colored pipes building and unbuilding itself on a gray background. I roam across the room, hit the space bar to clear the plumbing, then click the refresh button on my comments page.

Mad Huntress: You are a poet. I have never heard the story of Antonina and Pyotr told so well. It is excruciatingly sad. I’m certain that Ms. Hart had a splendid time speaking with you.

Five

One thing I love about our decking business: I’m always discovering little enclaves of civilization that I never dreamed existed. Today I stand atop a sunny hillside next to Summit Road, ten miles east of Highway 17. Looking at the uninhabited mountains to my north, it’s easy for me to imagine that I’m in the middle of nowhere. Fly a chopper over that ridge, however, and you will find the million-plus inhabitants of Silicon Valley.

            Colin is a magnet for UK clients. Today’s deck belongs to a Welsh couple, high-tech immigrants who seem intent on re-creating their agricultural homeland. The fenced-off slope beneath the deck plays host to two horses, four goats, and a quartet of peafowl – two cocks, two hens. As I’m off-loading the pressure-washer, I look across the property to find one of the cocks perched on the branch of a pine tree, thirty feet off the ground. I never knew that peacocks could get to such heights. Nor that they produced piercing calls that could eat your brains out. I’ll bet that’s real popular with the neighbors.

            Colin’s in a hurry to get to another client, so he sets me up with Gatorade and beef jerky and heads out. The message is clear: I am to stay on-site with my survival rations and get this deck cleaned up.

            The job presents immediate obstacles. A small balcony means that I have to set up the washer just below, start up the engine, then climb a ladder, wand in hand, and hop over the railing. Performing the precarious trip back down, I recall Colin’s favorite cautionary: “Now don’t go breaking your neck. That would be horrible for business.”

            The shaded balcony railings are thick with moss, and already my clothes have developed a layer of pond scum. Things get worse on the main deck, where the cracks are filled up with dog fur and dirt from wintertime puddles. Running the stream into the cracks, I am blasting myself with black muck.

            Fortunately, it’s a sunny day, so it’s simple enough to ignore my evolution into a street urchin and enjoy the vista. I am forever delighted by the landscapes that accompany my work, and I laugh when I think of all those years I wasted in cubicles.

            With the assistance of Colin’s generous provisions, I am able to work straight through, and am about to turn the corner onto the last run of railings when I come face-to-face with an enormous peacock. He has perched on the railings and raised his tail feathers in a regal display.

            I am half-dazzled and half-petrified. Understanding this posture as a mating ritual, I fear that the peacock has taken me for a rival, or worse, a potential partner. The majority of my concern lands on that long beak, which looks like it could be razor-sharp. This was not in the company guidebook.

            This calls for a jerky break. I back away, switch off the engine and head for the cooler. There’s still a little ice in the water, and that first swallow of red-punch Gatorade is a fantastic sensation. I grab a strip of jerky and plop myself on the grass next to the driveway. The two goats – ugly, ugly creatures in the grand British tradition – stand at the fence watching me with soulless eyes, stretching their necks between the wires to nibble on the grass.

            Once I am sated, I look back toward the deck to find the peacock still there, feathers at attention. I extend my break a little further by going to my car and checking my cell phone. There’s a message. The voice is young, female and nervous.

            “Umm… Geez. Hi, Mickey? This is Delores, from San Francisco Opera? We’ve got a bit of a crisis here, and we were hoping you could help us out. Could you possibly meet Ms. Hart this evening? Um, tell you what. If the answer is yes – and I really hope it is – just give me a time and location and I’ll look it up. I’m really sorry for intruding like this, but I figured at the least I shouldn’t go around handing out your phone number. Well. Thanks.”

            This is the single most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard. Give her my Social Security number, my credit cards, my left kidney, what the hell do I care? I text her back: Coffee Society, Stevens Creek Blvd., Cupertino, 6 p.m.

            The response is immediate: Thanks. I return the cell to its nest and I look to the railing. Goddamn peacock still in place. Goddamn peacock about to meet up with 2600 pounds per inch.

            I’m screwed. I’ve got the station wagon packed and ready to go, but it’s 5:30, which leaves me barely enough time to get to the coffeehouse. Problem being, I’m a mess, and I’ve got no change of clothes. Perhaps I should just show up naked. I take off my Wellies (the Brit term for galoshes), revealing a distinct line across my calf between mucked-up and not-mucked-up. Well, screw it. If this is truly a crisis, she’ll have to take me as-is.

            The Coffee Society is a habit that goes back to my previous incarnation. It’s part of the Oaks Center, one of the few survivors from the early-‘70s trend of landscaped outdoor malls. The buildings are modestly proportioned, topped with clay-tile roofs, marked by beamed overhangs, pebbled walkways and fountains. And oaks, lots of oaks. The specimens out front are old, sprawling live oaks that give the place the feel of a private university.

            The Society resides in an airy space with angled, open-beam ceilings that give it the feel of a mountain chalet. The south and west walls are made entirely of glass, providing a good view across Stevens Creek Boulevard to De Anza Community College. The college supplies the place with lots of students and a young, funky energy to go with the laptop techies and the groups of immigrants who gather for boisterous chats. The college also provides artworks, currently a collection of airbrushed celebrity portraits that includes a gigantic painting of Heath Ledger as The Joker.

            Although my cabin has turned me into something of a recluse, I still come here to fight off cases of lead-block (the inability to come up with that all-important first paragraph) or to digest a Sunday paper. I also have the occasional need for a really well-done cappuccino, and the Society is one of the last places in the Valley to get one. My favorite source is Caleb, a slim twentysomething baristo with curly blond hair and a ready supply of rhetorical jibes. When I arrive looking like a kelp monster, I’m an easy target.

            “Didn’t I make it clear that this establishment has a dress code?”

            It’s easier to play along than to explain myself. I adopt an abject expression.

            “I’m very sorry, sir. But a group of ruffians made off with our washing machine.”

            “Russians you say? Damn those Russians! I suppose you’ll want your regular?”

            I slam the counter. “Yes! And I want it now! And a banana!”

            Caleb mutters into his T-shirt as if he’s wearing a wire. “Suspect is ordering a banana.”

            I hand him my money and switch to the pick-up counter so I can watch the production. He pours the standard rosetta figure in the foam, but first he mixes cocoa powder into the espresso, which gives the image an extra sharpness. The effect is almost a little Van Goghish.

            “I’m waiting for a diva,” I say, attempting nonchalance.

            “Aren’t we all?” He hands me my drink and dashes off to the next customer. I head for the patio, a railed-off area out front. I’m barely four sips along when I spy a silver Lexus with Tatyana at the wheel. Since when are prima donnas on time?

            And how does one greet a superstar when one is covered head-to-toe in algae and dog fur? The quandary is eliminated when Maddie virtually trots to the patio and lassos me with a hug.

            “Hi Mickey.”

            “Hi Maddie. I’m sort of… I’m filthy.”

            “Don’t care.” She’s not letting me go. This makes me oddly uncomfortable. All I can see is that pile of lush hair, the straw, the wheat, the honey. I think she’s afraid to let me see her face. Is she crying? Do I have another Katie on my hands? I hope to God Caleb’s watching this.

            “I’m sorry,” she says. “All I was sure of was that I needed to find Mickey and give him a hug.”

            “That’s okay. Can I ask…?”

            She finally pulls back so I can see her face. No redness, no sign of tears, but a tightness in her features, a pinched anxiety.

            “No. I can’t. Can we go for a walk somewhere? I need to walk.”

            “Sure.” I give a longing glance to my half-finished cappuccino. Maddalena Hart fits her fingers into mine, and I lead her across the street to Memorial Park.

            The park is a magnet for waterfowl, particularly Canadian geese. The resultant glut of fecal matter necessitates a chemical treatment that turns the water hunter green. We walk the asphalt path that circles the pond. I seem to be compensating for Maddie’s silence by relating a rambling story about duckherding.

            “I just didn’t think that Mama and her kids should be wandering around next to an intersection, so I decide I’m the freakin’ Duck Whisperer and I start walking them back toward the pond. We’re halfway across the field – and I’m feeling like I need some really tiny cowboys on the backs of dachshunds – when some five-year-old kicks a soccer ball at them. I coulda wrung his little neck. And then finally, when I get them to the pond, this big old mallard comes out and pecks Mama right in the forehead! And I’m thinking, Jesus! These animals are savages. So I scare him off, and I manage to get them to another pond, but then I’m thinking, Do we have any business pursuing these St. Francis fantasies? Are we just screwing with Darwin? Do we have any idea that what we’re doing is helping at all? Maddie, really – are you okay?”

            We stop at the entrance to a gazebo. Just across a narrow channel of water is an amphitheater of terraced lawns. They do free Shakespeare there, and it’s pretty cool, watching a play across a moat.

            Maddie looks at me as if she has no idea how I got there.

            “It looks nice over there. Let’s go sit on the lawn.”

            “Okay.”

            We settle on the third terrace. I sit with my back to a low wall. Maddie takes off her silver-gray jacket, sets it over my dirty shorts and lies on her side with her head on my lap, looking toward the gazebo. She’s wearing a gauzy mauve blouse, the fabric done up in stripes of different widths. I work up the nerve to run my fingers along her hair, the way I do with Katie. I feel like I’m breaking a law, like a commoner daring to touch the queen. She sighs and takes a long breath, and sighs again.

            “Even here, even in my escape, I end up at a theater. It’s beautiful, though.”

            In my head, I’m trying to pull up the calendar on the SFO website. I saw her on Friday, then probably a Sunday matinee.

            “When are you singing again?”

            Another sigh. “Never.”

            Oh no. Not on my watch. But I remind myself that she’s a diva – literally, a drama queen – and given to exaggeration. I spread my hand across her forehead and use my thumb and ring finger to rub her temples. It’s a trick I learned from my ex.

            “What happened, Maddie?”

            She hums contentedly. “Won’t tell you. But keep doing that. It’s divine. I love you.”

            Exaggeration, I repeat. But Maddie Hart just told me she loved me. Jesus. Bring on the kryptonite. I focus my superpowers on the tips of my fingers. I can’t remember the last time a woman gave me a massage. I have become a healer. I will soon have rock singers, ballerinas and movie stars lined up at my cabin, seeking asylum. Maddie speaks as if she’s dictating a dream.

            “I realize you’re a fan, a devotee, and that I am taking complete advantage of your feelings for me. But I had to get away, and I… I can’t tell you right now.”

            “Okay.”

            Just over the gazebo, I see a groundskeeper dragging a square of chain-link fence over the infield.

            “Maddie, I do have one… obligation.”

            I take her to a grassy mound just above the bleachers, and leave her there while I fetch the car. I give her a clean dropcloth to serve as a picnic blanket, and a stain-speckled Giants sweatshirt in case she gets cold. Then I take my bag to a nearby men’s room and change into my uniform (wondering why I didn’t change into it before – duh!). Maddie’s eyes light up at my return.

            “Well! Mickey Siskel leads a double life.”

            I adopt a baritone radio voice. “Effete opera critic by day, at night Mickey Siskel becomes Softball Man!”

            “Yeah and you’ve got the tights for it, too. Nice codpiece, by the way.”

            “Round these parts we call it a cup.” I demonstrate by rapping my knuckles against it. “You wouldn’t want me to go castrato on you.”

            She gives me a stage laugh, a Merry Widow laugh. Pure manna.

            “Of course not. I don’t need the competition.”

            I descend to the field, feeling like a doctor abandoning his patient. Doug’s doing his pre-game stretches along the right-field foul line. He gives a look past my shoulder.

            “Jesus! Who’s the babe?”

            “I’m not sure if you’d believe me.”

            “Supermodel? CEO?”

            “Biggest opera star in the world.”

            “You’re shittin’ me.” When I don’t say anything, he gives me a serious look. “Wow. You’re not shittin’ me.”

            “Nope. Hey, let’s warm up.”

            I have this ham instinct that kicks in when someone comes to see me play. Where a normal person might get nervous, I get phenomenally good. With Maddalena Fucking Hart in the stands, I am destined for greatness. On the first pitch of the game, their hitter strokes a ball up the middle. I’m heading that direction when the ball glances off our pitcher’s glove and heads toward the spot where I started. I stop and sprawl back toward first to knock the ball down, then I grab it with my bare hand, lunge forward and backhand the ball to first just in time to beat the runner. Maddie’s soprano whoop fills the field. I clamber to my feet and give a small bow.

            At the plate, I take a pitch down the middle and push it a little too much toward right, causing it to elevate. I am so focused on hitting line drives, I’m muttering curses as I jog toward first, until I realize that the right fielder has stopped, that the ball is rolling toward the duck pond, on the other side of the fence. I try my best to fake a home run trot, pointing a finger to my one-woman fan club as I cross home plate, and make a mental note to never try that again. The temptations of Lady Home Run can be as fatal as Delilah, especially to a leadoff hitter, and this one was just a glorious mistake.

            Four-for-four, two double plays (one started, one turned), five RBI, four runs. We win handily, and on the last play of the game I sprint into right field to catch a shallow fly over my shoulder. Much to my chagrin, my soprano audience lets out a resounding “Bravo!” I suppose it’s payback.

            After running the line of hands at the pitcher’s mound, I climb the steps, bag in hand, and she greets me with a hug.

            “You’re so good!”

            “Thanks.”

            “Ooh. You’re bleeding.”

            It’s the scab from last week, which I probably re-opened on that first play. I blot it against my thigh, adding to my collection of Rorschachs.

            “Occupational hazard.”

            “God, Mickey. You’re so butch, I’d swear you were latent.”

            “If that were true, I probably wouldn’t go to the opera so much.”

            She grabs my hand, which still puts a shock through me.

            “I don’t want to stop, Mickey. I don’t mean this in… the usual way, but… could you take me home?”

            I’ve had enough of being cowed by royalty. My answers are getting clearer.

            “Yes. Anything you want.”

            “That’s what I like to hear.”

            I’m careful to explain to Maddie about my cabin, so she doesn’t think I’m abducting her. She makes me stop on the dirt road at the first overlook, where the lights of Silicon Valley look like a patch of luminous gladiolas. I’m trying to ignore the gasoline smell of the pressure washer, the piles of decking supplies, the dozens of empty Gatorade bottles, but I suppose if she can hug a man covered in algae, she can put up with a few alien odors. But that’s the part I’m not quite getting. Why does Maddie Hart seem to have so much faith in me? She’s behaving as if she’s known me for years.

            When we pull in at the twin redwoods, Maddie wanders toward the orchard, where the full moon is painting the field in silver. She stands at the edge of the road and reaches up with both arms, as if she’s greeting an old friend. Her hair creates a dazzling silhouette. As I come behind her, she takes a deep breath, drawing in air with the entirety of her frame, and she does the most remarkable thing. She sings. She sings the opening lines of “Song to the Moon.” In person, without an orchestra, the sound is rough and raw. It is the voice that I have depended on for a thousand small salvations, contained within this physical vessel, this woman I have spent the evening touching and talking to. She approaches the refrain and I close my eyes, anticipating Dvorak’s ethereal turn, the musical equivalent of moonbeams, expecting my heart to collapse right here in the field – and then, suddenly, she stops, turns, and laughs.

            “I’m being a very bad girl, singing in the cold air.” She gazes back toward the moon. “But how could I not?” Then she turns back to me, notices something, and reaches out to touch my face. “Mickey? You’re crying. Does that song make you cry?”

            “When you sing it.”

            She places a hand against my cheek. “Good answer. Now let’s go inside before I do further damage to myself.”

            I collect her bags from the car and walk her up the steps. I soon have her settled on the couch with a glass of pinot noir and a plate of macadamia/white chocolate cookies. I light up a couple of Duraflames. She twirls a lock of hair with a finger, which I guess means she’s comfortable.

            “If you don’t mind,” I say, “I’m tired of being filthy in your presence. I’m going to take a bath.”

            She smiles. “A bath? Not a he-man shower?”

            “A bath. Would you like to watch TV?”

            “No thanks. A little silence would do me well. In San Francisco, they don’t have silence. They’ve outlawed it.”

            In the bathroom, out of Maddie’s presence, I can feel myself aging. My 47-year-old body has suffered much abuse. But the water and the mango soap are magical, and soon I’m feeling better. I slip on a pair of jeans and a golf shirt and return to the living room.

            She’s asleep. I should have expected it. Whatever affliction has driven her my way is exacting a toll. She is curled sideways, her head on the arm of the couch, her jacket folded across the adjacent armchair. I take a blanket from my closet and drape it across her, pulling it up to her shoulders.

            I fully expect to lie awake for hours, riding the celebrity buzz, but the body is wise. I’m two pages along on a biography of Rossini when my eyes begin to droop. I switch off my bedside lamp and drift away.

            Next to me, something is moving. I squint at the ceiling, pull my arms under me and roll over. It’s Maddie, in striped yellow pajamas.

            “Mickey? Are you awake? Are you conscious?”

            I’m self-conscious. Because I tend to sleep in the nude. But I notice that she’s lying on top of my comforter, so we still have one degree of separation. A whisper of light seeps through the windows. I’m guessing it’s six, six-thirty.

            “Um… Hi.”

            “Hi.” She’s wide awake, full of energy. “I owe you an explanation. But I can’t tell you unless you’re fully conscious.” She taps a fingernail against her teeth, perhaps the habit of a reformed chewer.

            I rub my eyes, throw out my arms and stretch everything else, gaining an immediate preview of all the aches that will follow me for the rest of the day. I manage to generate one-half of a smile.

            “Shoot.”

            “It’s those goddamn minor characters. I’m rushing through costume changes, making my way to the stage, running parts through my head, and I pass the green room, where I see Monsieur Triquet and Olga and they’re playing cards with the techies and laughing, and I’m thinking, Why do I have all this freaking stage time? This is crazy! Why am I doing this impossible thing? I have placed myself in a position where the Sunday afternoons of thousands of people, the day’s wages of a couple hundred musicians, ushers, administrators, et cetera and a notable percentage of the local economy depends on my doing this horribly difficult thing. Stepping onto that stage is like a bungee-jumper stepping off the platform. Every instinct of self-preservation tells you that you are putting your trust in a thin elastic band – your training, your memorization, your rehearsals, your stage skills – to prevent you from becoming a messy smudge on the rocks below. But I do it. I take that leap and these sounds fly from my mouth and I fill the artificial soul and emotions of this fictional character. And I do understand that I’m very good at what I do, but sometimes I don’t really understand how I do what I do. What I’m afraid of is…”

            An idea lands on her satellite dish, her eyes widen. She grips my shoulder.

            “When I was a kid, I would watch these cartoons where the character, let’s say Daffy Duck, would be thrust out over the edge of the cliff. But he wasn’t aware of it, so he would just hover in mid-air. However, the second he looked down and realized where he was – that’s when he would fall. (Of course, part of the joke was that Daffy kept forgetting that he was a duck, and could fly.) But here’s the lesson: it’s not the gravity that makes you fall, it’s the realization of gravity.

            “On Sunday, during the final act, for the briefest of moments, I realized that I didn’t know my next line, and for just a moment I froze. Jesus, bless him, saw my predicament and bought me a second by kissing my hand. Then the conductor, Donald, slowed the tempo just a bit – a grain of sand, but just enough for me to recall the next line and smuggle it into the flow of the music. I’m sure that no one in the audience knew a thing. But for me, for just that one lightning-flash, a chink opened up in my little world, and through that chink I glimpsed the enormous void of gravity and impossibility that underlies everything I do. It scared the hell out of me.”

            I fully expect her to break into tears, but this is not a crying thing, it’s something closer to the brain. Anxiety. Fear. She tucks her head into my shoulder, I wrap an arm around her as best a civilized-but-naked man can, and I stroke her hair. I am Mickey, who solves all problems by stroking hair. We lie in pools of faint light for fifteen minutes. Maddie’s breathing slows to a regular pace and she says, “Mickey? Could you make me some breakfast?”

            Last Thursday’s inspired round of grocery buying has left me in good stead. I lay down a base of sausage, wait till it’s sizzling in grease and then slice in some onions, red potatoes and Yukon gold potatoes. When everything’s fried up, I stir in six eggs, and dish out our portions when they’re still a little undercooked. When I deliver it to the coffee table with a pre-sliced grapefruit and fresh-ground coffee, Maddie looks at me as if I’m Onegin, and I’ve just said yes.

            “My God, he cooks too. Why have you not been snatched up by someone?”

            I laugh. “That requires an answer of Wagnerian length. I’ve got a simpler question for you, though. When do we need to get you back to the opera?”

            She gives my query a long, thoughtful blink. “Thursday. My final performance.”

            “As Tatyana.”

            “Tata, Tatyana. Then I start on Mimi.”

            “Really?” I take a forkful of my scramble and chew.

            “I’m a little old for Mimi. I have to find a way to use that.”

            “Oh come on, you’re not…”

            “Of course I am. A singer spends her entire life playing teenagers, being constantly reminded of how old she is. And then, when her career is just about over, they let her play the Marschallin. Finally! Someone her own age. But then that scares the hell out of her, and she wants to go back to playing the teenagers.”

            I point a fork at her. “You are involved in a weird industry.”

            “Indeed I am.” She takes a sip of coffee and gives a satisfied sigh.

            “So I take it,” I say, “that by recruiting me as your rescuer, you have given me responsibility for getting you back on that stage.”

            “This is what I do. When my cup of stress runneth over, I gleefully share it with others. I’m lucky to have an occupation where I can get away with this.”

            “So you’re in my hands? I can do with you what I will?”

            “That sounds a little provocative, but yes. I give you the reins.”

            “Are you a hiker?”

            “Yes. I started to look like Montserrat Caballe a few years ago, so I hired a personal trainer. She works me so hard that a critic recently made flattering remarks regarding my derriere.” She gives me a look that threatens to melt me into the floorboards.

            I pretend to take a long time chewing a recalcitrant pepper. I really have no good response.

            “It’s all right, Mickey. It’s more than all right. It made me feel 14 years old. Maybe that’s why I thought you could save me from the Daffy Duck Syndrome. And I was right. Last night, watching you hurl yourself around the infield, that was… thrilling.”

            “I’m a ham.”

            “Oh, and I’m not? Maybe that’s why we understand each other. Now do your job and find me a way out of this labyrinth.”

            I take a swallow of coffee, relishing the bitterness as it spreads over my tongue.

            “After breakfast, you will take a long bath in my clawfoot tub. You will use the mango soap, which is produced by Valkyries in Valhalla. You will keep the window open so you may gaze upon the madrone forest. Then you will put on some hiking clothes – because today, you will be put to the test. Am I clear?”

            She spoons a chunk of grapefruit into her mouth and smiles. “Sir yes sir.”

            As Maddalena bathes, I step to a spot just east of the twin redwoods and manage to work my cell phone up to two bars.

            “Micko? What’s up, lad?”

            “Can’t come in today. Really sorry.”

            “Under the weather, are we?”

            “You remember our agreement about days off?”

            “Throwing-up sick or a fantastically gorgeous woman.”

            “That last one there.”

            Colin’s voice goes up an octave. “Really? Anyone I know?”

            I consider keeping this to myself, but I don’t see how I can. The man is going to spend the day sweating on a deck on my behalf.

            “Maddalena Hart.”

            I don’t need to see his face to know that Colin is beside himself. His answer is packed with incredulous vowels.

            “No-o-o-oh! Really! Egad, friend. You’ve hit the fucking jackpot. Well, you give her a couple of… you tell her I said hello. And do let me know what’s up for tomorrow.”

            “Thanks, Colin. I owe you several favors.”

            “By the way, one of the peacocks has disappeared. I hope we didn’t scare him off with all the noise.”

            I know I shouldn’t say anything, but I can’t help myself. “Maybe he couldn’t handle the pressure. I’d better see to Madam Diva. Ta!”

            “Ta! You devil.”

            Relatively speaking, Big Basin State Park is right in my neighborhood, so it seems like a good place to start. We begin with the main trail, where we gawk at monstrous redwoods whose birthdates end in B.C. After a stop at the snack shack for granola and bottled water, I lead her to the trail, a half-mile uphill followed by 3 1/2 miles down. The final half-mile follows a creek banked in thick stands of fern and moss, then takes a right-hand jog to Blackberry Falls.

            The falls make a modest drop of 30 feet, but the aesthetic qualities are absolutely premium. It’s got a wide release point, ten feet across, and the water that doesn’t make it to the big drop funnels off to the sides, running in silver rivulets along walls furred with moss. It’s very Celtic fairytale Midsummer Night’s Dream, and of course Maddalena, perched on a wide rock next to the receiving pool, gives it an operatic context.

            “Lucia di Lammermoor. The fountain, haunted by the woman whose corpse was left there by her jealous lover. I think Lucia was in love with that story; I’ve always played it that way. I think she was in touch with the other side. And then the other side came over and got her. You know, you can go crazy just doing that role. Often during the Mad Scene I fall into a kind of semi-conscious state, and finally click back in at a reception three hours later, my stage director waving a hand in front of my face and saying, ‘For God’s sake, Maddie, where are you?’”

            I have found yet another charming quality. In her blue jeans and plaid shirt, Maddie shows no sign of the fish out of water. I also notice something about her teeth. They are a little bigger and out-front than they should be, giving her just a taste of the chipmunk, making her smile easy and accessible.

            “I’m amazed you don’t all go mad. Like that soprano in Tales of Hoffman who’s told not to sing or she’ll lose her life.”

            “Antonia. Eesh. How awful. You know, I was a pianist first.”

            “Really?”

            “I was a hyper child. Smart but unfocused. Today they would pump me full of Ritalin. Instead, they gave me piano lessons. I found out I was good at it. But I certainly didn’t love it. I only loved the part about being good. But I stuck with it, all the way through a bachelor’s degree. I wasn’t good enough to do concerts, but I had just enough vocal training – choirs, madrigal groups – to make a good accompanist for singers. They really appreciated that I understood what was going on with the vocals, the spots where I needed to back off, or wait on an entrance, or a sustenato.

            “One of them was a tenor named Ray Atlas. He went on to a wonderful career in Europe – even landed a tour of Les Miserables. Occasionally, when we were rehearsing, I would make reference to parts of an art song or aria by singing them. ‘Okay, on this part – la la la la – do you want me to take a pause,’ et cetera. One time he stopped me, mid-phrase, and he said, ‘You need to sing somewhere. You’ve got a lovely voice.’ I thought he was just being nice, or flirting – but the next day I saw a flyer on the auditions board for a community production of The Sound of Music. And I thought, What the hell.

            “The Mother Superior. A little odd for a 23-year-old, but I had the right sound for the part. We had a three-week run, and the audiences seemed favorable. ‘Climb Every Mountain’ is quite the show-stopper, and I got really addicted to the applause. After the final performance I’m hanging out by the stage, talking to some friends when this man comes up. He looked very professorial: balding, spectacles, tweed coat. He said, ‘You need to sing opera.’ And I said, ‘Well thank you!’ and we talked for a while and I didn’t think much of it.

            “When I woke the next morning, the phrase You need to sing opera was sitting on my nightstand like an impatient housecat. I was pretty well-versed on the local voice teachers – being one of their pet pianists – and I called the most charismatic of all: Dr. Charlene Archibeque, six-foot-two blonde, former fashion model, sometimes called “Big Bird” by her students (but never to her face). Dr. A was personable, but dead serious when it came to music. I had not had time to prepare anything, so I took something that Ray was working on – Don Ottavio’s “Dalla sua pace” from Don Giovanni – and sang it up an octave, as I played the chords on the piano.

            “When I finished, I turned to find Dr. A wearing a very puzzled expression, as if my head had just sprouted forget-me-nots. She excused herself, dashed down the hall and returned with a colleague, Dr. Sharkova. Then she looked at me and said, ‘Again.’

            “When I finished, the two of them exchanged a glance, looked at me with two very uncharacteristic grins, and the next thing I knew I was in the counselor’s office, sorting through applications to MFA programs. I ended up at the University of Houston, got my degree and began to play the regional opera companies. Three years later I won the Met auditions, and a year after that I made my debut singing Rusalka. Which explains my freakish attachment to ‘Song to the Moon.’

            “So I owe it all to two men who told me I needed to sing. And here’s the difference, here’s what I tell my students. I played piano because I was good at it, and I enjoyed the approval. I sing opera because I love opera. And I’m good at it, and I enjoy the approval. And the dresses. And the money – did I mention the money?”

            She lets out a laugh that rings off the walls. It’s good to see her take a step out of her funk, and it occurs to me that she has told that story (which she has doubtlessly told many times before) more for herself than for me.

            I peer at the angle of the sun and say, “We’d better get going. And it’s all uphill, baby.” I take her hand and pull her to her feet.

            “That’s okay,” she says. “I’m tough.”

            “Big talkin’ diva. Hyah!”

            I don’t really know any diva-worthy restaurants near the park, so I drive over the hill to Saratoga. My old reliable is Bella Mia, an 1894 Victorian that’s been dolled up like a layer cake in tiers of sky blue, navy and white. It sits in the village, a strip of shops whose curbside trees are forever wrapped in Christmas lights.

            Since we are royalty, a parking spot opens up right out front, and soon I am escorting Maddie to a table on the patio, separated from the sidewalk by a picket fence. I love sitting here. I love watching the villagers walking their labradoodles, the slow parade of Mercedeses and BMWs and landscape trucks. I sit across from Maddie as she digs into a basket of pastry bread and a spicy blended butter. After a day in the woods, she looks pretty roughed-up, but she looks healthier. It’s like stripping the paint from a beautifully varnished armoire and discovering that the wood underneath looks even better.

            All through dinner – mozzarella-stuffed chicken for me, shrimp rigatoni for her – I sense a buzz in the air. For a Tuesday, the place is pretty packed, and I can feel the attention being progressively focused on our table. Saratogans are more immune to celebrity than most. Two arts venues bring famous musicians through on a regular basis, and the old-money culture frowns on fawning. So no one makes an approach – at least, until we receive our espressos con panna. I see Maddie’s green irises lift from her drink, and I turn to discover an elderly couple, leaning on our fence like friendly neighbors. The man is tall and gangly, with a head of silver hair and a fin de siecle moustache. The woman is slim and cute, a lady who will never lose her girldom no matter how old she gets. The man speaks in a voiceover baritone.

            “I’m sorry to interrupt, but my wife and I saw your Tatyana the other night and we just wanted to thank you. It was magnificent.”

            At this point, Maddie becomes a slightly different person. Public Maddie. Overly pleasant, effusive Maddie.

            “Thank you so much! I always wonder how it’s coming across.”

            The woman laughs. “How could you ever wonder about that?”

            “This is my wife, Jeri,” says the man. They exchange handshakes all around. “I’m Leigh Weimers. Used to write a newspaper column.”

            “Yes!” I say. “I was in your column. Turkey on a Volvo.”

            “Ah!” says Leigh. “Turkey on a Volvo.”

            The women look at us very blankly.

            “Up on Skyline Boulevard,” I say. “I saw a wild turkey, sitting on the hood of a Volvo.”

            “This is Mickey Siskel,” says Maddie. “He’s an online opera critic.”

            “Oh-hoh!” says Leigh. “Dining with the enemy.”

            I think I am realizing what I like about Leigh. He is exceedingly comfortable in his own skin, and he’s obviously used to talking to celebrities. If Maddie weren’t here, I think I’d be hitting him up for some tips.

            “Mister Siskel has the good taste to adore my singing,” says Maddie. “To a soprano, there’s no quality quite as attractive.”

            “Say,” says Leigh. He pulls out a pencil and a steno pad, which after all these years must be permanent appendages. “Give me your website. I’d love to see what you wrote.”

            “It’s operaville dot blogspot dot com,” says Maddie. “He combines his reviews with historical tales about the composers. It’s delightful.”

            “Can’t wait,” says Leigh. “Well, we leave you to your drinks with a hearty ‘Brava!’”

            “Brava!” says Jeri.

            “Grazie,” says Maddalena Hart. “I would take a formal bow, but I’m sort of trapped.”

            “Bye!” they call, and continue down the street. Maddie watches them go, then turns to me with a smile.

            “Did I do all right?”

            “Yes. Gracious. Not too effusive. Friendly, witty.”

            “You’d be surprised. I had a colleague, ten-year veteran of the big houses, and I heard her arguing with her admirers. ‘Oh, no, I wasn’t very good tonight, I had so much trouble with that one part in the third act, blah-blah-blah…’ I had to take her aside and tell her to stop insulting the judgement of her fans. Even if they’re wrong, just smile and say thank you.”

            “I think I know someone like that. But no, I give you an A-minus.”

            “Minus?”

            “Are you insulting my judgement?”

            “Oh, you’re good.”

            “I just want to give you something higher to shoot for. Have you ever been to a laser show?”

            “No.”

            “Well, you’re about to. Let’s get our bill.”

            “I’ll get our bill.”

            “Bless you, diva.”

            “Prego.”

            I saw a flyer for the Cosmic Concert on the Coffee Society bulletin board. I couldn’t believe it was still around. In the ‘70s, my bored high school self went quite often, and rarely in a non-altered state. It took place in the De Anza Planetarium, where Maddie and I are lined up with an assortment of college students and aging hippies. We filter into our reclining seats and gaze at the star-spangled dome as the laser-master creates a menagerie of ultrabright shapes and patterns to a rock and roll soundtrack. I am amazed to find that many of the pieces are the same ones I saw thirty years ago: the B-52s’ “Love Under the Strobelight” with spinning red telephones, Bowie’s “Space Oddity” with a drifting green astronaut, Yes’s “Roundabout” with the equivalent of an indoor fireworks show. My pupils are officially on overdrive, and I feel Maddie’s fingers wrapping my hand, her hair brushing my cheek, her lips brushing my cheek. My nerve endings are performing Swan Lake, and I know any second I will wake up.

            After the show, I’m tempted to drive to Maddie’s car – which is parked just across the street – and ask her to follow me up the hill. But I don’t think I could bear the separation. Also, she might wise up and drive back to San Francisco.

            So we drive the mountain. The streetwise deer come out to say “How you doin’?” We slip into that mode where nothing need be said. We’re descending the dirt road, nearing the first overlook, when Maddie takes her hand off my shoulder and searches the controls on my dashboard.

            “Where’s the heat on this thing?”

            She hits a button and finds her own voice pouring from the speakers. It’s “Song to the Moon.”

            Her smile blossoms like a morning glory at sunrise. “Pull over here.” So I do. She says, “Keep the song on and turn the headlights off.” So I do, and I join Maddie in front of the hood. There’s a spread of grass on the turnout, and the lights of the Valley are laid out before us like a Cosmic Concert picnic blanket. Maddie holds out her hands and I take the invitation. We dance to Dvorak, we dance to the song of my resurrection, in the dark and cold mountain air. When the tape pushes forward to “Sombre foret,” Maddalena Hart comes closer and closer and I kiss my diva for all I’m worth.

            There’s a third cabin on the property, but it’s hardly ever occupied. Apparently, it’s being rented by people who never vacation. The previous renter assembled a fire pit, using stones salvaged from the nearby woods. Maddie and I sit on a log, caretakers of a vigorous blaze, doing our best to roast marshmallows on the tips of bouncy coat-hanger rods. I consume my latest victim - blessed with a suntan worthy of a bikini model – and I decide that it’s time to ‘fess up.

            “May I tell you my story?”

            “I expected you might,” she says, and takes my hand. “I give you the downbeat.”

            I steer a ship’s-captain gaze over the flames to find my subject, a third up from the horizon, three percent on the wane, a wisp of cloud crossing its beacon.

            I didn’t have much of a calling, but I went to college during the Reagan era, so I ended up in business school. Finance. I was a very social creature – president of my frat, an athlete, not unattractive. My guidance counselor said, You’re good with people – go into stocks. You’ll be good with the clients.

            So I did. Didn’t even need a master’s. He was right, I was good, and it was certainly the right time to get in. Weathered the early-‘90s recession, got into tech stocks, surfed my way into the Clinton boom. I married a co-worker, Allison – marvelous girl, beautiful, sexy, smart as a whip. We bought a house in south San Jose, we were in excellent shape. It was time to start a family.

            We couldn’t. Seven miscarriages. We got pregnant, but poor Allison couldn’t hold them. She quit her job, thought that might help. It didn’t.

            Our reactions were a little cross-gender. Each of our miscarriages hit me like a steamroller. Deep depressions that lasted for weeks, couldn’t even get out of bed unless I had to go to work. I saw each one as a real, living baby – a creature that poops its diapers and giggles when you make a face – so each one was, to me, a genuine, visceral death. Allison seemed wholly unaffected, as if these were not deaths but failures, part of a process. She wanted to try again, as soon as she was able, for as long as it took.

            After seven, I couldn’t do it any more. And neither one of us wanted to adopt. That might seem selfish, but I think it takes a certain kind of couple, with a certain mindset, to take that on. We were wise enough to know that we were not those people.

            For a few years we went on as a childless couple. People do this, we said. People live fulfilling lives without children. I was always the wiz kid at the brokerage, always on the edge of things, so it was natural for me to get into derivatives. It was very creative. I was helping to invent entirely new ways to produce revenue; sometimes it felt like I was pulling cash out of the air. But a few years down the line, when the inventing part was over, I came to realize that what I was doing had no real value. I wasn’t producing anything that was any good to society. I was only using this mathematical sleight-of-hand to make a stacked deck even more unfair, to make filthy rich people even richer.

            I decided that I wanted out. With no children to provide for, and Allison back at her old job, I thought I deserved a little time to lift my nose from the grindstone. I met Colin at a barbecue. He told me that he was starting a deck-staining business and needed an assistant. I had always done all the work on our house myself – including painting the exterior and staining the deck – and, in fact, had found it to be excellent therapy. So I took Colin’s card.

            Allison didn’t like it. She wanted us to be a power couple; she wanted us to keep piling up money and play the games of the elite: Junior League, charity boards – maybe the opera. We fought for a month, non-stop, viciously, noisily. I’m surprised the cops never showed up. She called me a lazy, self-absorbed piece of shit. I called her a money-grubbing bitch.

            I summarily quit my job and began working for Colin. I adored the work. I loved the ache in my muscles, the long, quiet hours, the spectacular views. There was even an element of voyeurism, getting to invade all these private spaces, to see how other people lived. And mostly, I loved the concrete-ness of the product. We took these graying, sun-baked, moss-covered wretches, cleaned them up, stained them over and made them into beautiful objects. I pictured our clients coming out for their morning coffee, seeing their shiny deck through the kitchen window and thinking, Maybe I’ll eat breakfast outside.

            As I got more into the business, I realized I needed a more appropriate vehicle. I bought my sister’s station wagon. It had already suffered ten years of child abuse (so to speak), so I certainly didn’t have to worry about being nice to it. For years, I kept discovering bits of its previous life: a Spiderman action figure under the passenger seat, a pack of bubble gum tucked under a seat cushion, an empty juice box next to the spare tire. The only thing I didn’t like was that the stereo didn’t work. But after hot days I was certainly grateful for the air conditioning.

            Eventually I moved into an apartment. I let Allison have the house. But that wasn’t enough. I learned from mutual friends that she intended to ruin me. She hired an expensive attorney and took everything: assets, bank accounts, my BMW. I have no idea why she deserved any of this, but it’s amazing what a good lawyer can do. His most astounding move was to use the miscarriages as an example of the pain and suffering she had to undergo during the marriage. My lawyer (the big overpaid jagoff) had no answer for this. The settlement included alimony – alimony! – and I was soon on my way to bankruptcy. An actual bankruptcy, however, might have put an end to the bloodletting, so they left me barely enough money to live on. And to twist slowly in the wind.

            The apartment was now too expensive, but Colin was moving out of his cabin and told me what a deal it was. I really wasn’t sure about the location, but I was getting used to driving mountain roads, so I thought, What the hell. It seemed like a good time to get away from civilization. On a Sunday in July, I made a trip to the cabin and unloaded my first wagonful. When I got back in, the car wouldn’t start. I checked the battery terminals, the wires, made sure the alternator belts were tight. I tried the ignition. Nothing. So there I am, beset by all these doubts about living in the woods, and already I’m stranded. As the full weight of this thought struck me – accompanied by the baseline depression I was already living with – I could feel the life force seeping from my limbs. It wasn’t sadness, or anxiety – those carry a certain emotional vigor. This was me, an empty shell, nothing left. This was the bottom.

            I sat there in the driver’s seat for a long time, in something like a psychosomatic coma. Couldn’t move, couldn’t lift a hand, didn’t have enough energy to swear. Allison had finally got me. I pictured her somewhere, holding a voodoo doll, gleefully raising a pin.

            Some time later I noticed the fuse box, just behind the parking brake. I was just ignorant enough about cars to see this as a possibility. I slid off the cap, and behold! two fuses that appeared to be loose. I pressed them back into place and, holding on to the thinnest thread of hope, I cranked the ignition.

            The engine did nothing. But the stereo came to life! And out of the speakers came this song of indescribable, ghostly mournfulness. I had no idea about the words – they sounded Slavic, maybe Hebrew – but I could hear the pleading, the unbearably beautiful sadness. And the voice. I had the usual pedestrian ideas about opera – that snooty thing that had nothing to do with real life. But this voice, this woman, was so much the opposite. The voice was big but intimate, confiding. I’ve been there too, she said. I know how you feel. I imagined her as the mother of my miscarried children.

            Then the orchestra began to well up, and the woman’s voice rose to these long, sustained notes. I felt the sound strike me at a point just beneath my eyes, and I sat there in my car, sobbing. A minute later, the woman sounded like she was pleading for her life, and then, suddenly, that was the end. Another song began, and I cranked the ignition, and it started!

            I find Maddie trying to suppress a smile.

            “‘Song to the Moon?’”

            “Sitting in that tape player, all those years, waiting for someone to reconnect that fuse.”

            “Me?”

            “Yes.”

            She folds her hands beneath her chin.

            “You know, sometimes I get this idea that what I do has no relevance to real life. Sort of like your derivatives. But then, someone tells me a story like that. But I never dreamed that I faith-healed a car!”

            “Well,” I say. “It turns out it was the starter. Apparently, before they completely die out, they can still work every fifth time or so.”

            “But only if you’re playing the right aria.”

            “By the right singer. No. I don’t give you complete credit for restarting the car. But you did restart me. In any case, I headed right up the hill, having no idea that I was driving to a tune called “Somber Forest,” and I took it straight to my mechanic in Los Gatos. Colin was nice enough to give me an advance so I could get it fixed. All things considered, I remained at the low point of my life for perhaps ten minutes. So I guess I can’t complain. You want another marshmallow?”

            She gives me a close-lipped smile. “I want another kiss.”

            I’m 47, and I’m not dumb. I begin at the upper right-hand corner of those luscious petals and I work my way across, taking my time to dip my tongue in between. This will be no surprise to aficionados of opera, but Maddie is very talented with her tongue. Keep that in mind the next time you see Rigoletto and you hear Gilda whip out a really wicked rolled R. Ten minutes later, I finish with a kiss on the tip of her nose. She speaks without opening her eyes.

            “So that’s when you became obsessed with the opera.”

            “Yes. That’s also when I dreamed up my devious, terribly involved plan to find the woman who sang that gorgeous aria and make out with her.”

            She opens her eyes just barely and gives me a grin. “You are so lucky it wasn’t Joan Sutherland.”

            It’s early morning. We’re at Hobee’s, an American diner with a California health-food attitude. I’m staring down a scramble and realizing it’s almost exactly the one that I make at home. Am I in a rut? I laugh at the question before I’m even done thinking it. Maddalena Hart the international opera star sits across from me, the sharpness of her grapefruit juice producing two or three of the expressions that she used in the Letter Scene.

            “Have you seen Rusalka?”

            “Nope.”

            “So you don’t know the context of ‘Song to the Moon’?”

            “I considered it magic. You don’t want to come too close to magic, or you’ll scare it away.”

            She takes a sip of coffee and folds her hands, assuming the demeanor of a newsanchor. I can’t get over her hair. Even after a rushed shower and a drive down the hill, the honey, the wheat and the straw tumble to her shoulders like the hair of an angel. I’m back to the album cover.

            “Rusalka is a water nymph who lives in a lake, and she falls in love with a prince who comes there to swim. She goes to the witch Jezibaba, who agrees to turn her into a human, but there are a couple of catches. She must win her prince’s love without the power of speech, and if she fails she will be accursed forever. Before her transformation, Rusalka sings to the moon, asking it to tell her beloved that she longs to hold him in her arms. At the end of the song – those desperate final passages - she pleads with the moon, ‘O do not disappear! Do not go!’”

            It’s not becoming for a man to be so constantly enchanted by a woman, but any attempt at artificial coolness would be lame. So I accept my fate and go the other direction.

            “Are you real?”

            “Full-gonzo water nymph, baby. Hum a few bars of the Habañera and I disappear.”

            “O do not disappear!”

            “You’re funny. For a prince. And I’ve met a few. So how come, last night, you didn’t put the moves on me?”

            “I thought I… Didn’t I put on some moves?”

            “You know you could have…”

            “I had my suspicions. But… Damn. You’re probably going to insist on the real answer, aren’t you?”

            She gives me a solemn nod. “That’s what I’m asking.”

            I want to get this just right, so I look away from the hair and the eyes and the famous face. A trio of overdressed Japanese girls stand outside, taking part in a serious rund of chatter.

            “Oh God, don’t make me say the word ‘vulnerable.’ ‘Vulnerable’ is the word of cowards. Let’s say ‘susceptible,’ ‘fragile.’ That’s what you are, and a proud hunter does not like to knock off easy targets.”

            “As opposed to a Mad Huntress?”

            “Yes. And… You mean a little too much to me, Maddie. Frankly, I worship you. I’m not ready to carry you down from the heavens.”

            “I’m not a diva, Mickey. I’m not a goddess, or a siren, or even a water nymph. And it’s the nature of the business that I don’t always have the time for a standard romance. In fact, for now this it. I’m off to Seattle first thing Friday. I don’t have a different man in every port. I kind of wish I did. But I had a feeling about you, Mickey. You’re one of the good ones.”

            Her anxious expression melts into wistfulness. She puts a hand on my knee and smiles.

            “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to rain on our parade. It was so sweet of you to offer me distractions, to tell me your beautiful story. To romance me. To kiss me. And I’m going to tell Speight Jenkins to use lasers in his next Ring Cycle.”

            “Spate… who?”

            She laughs. “Sorry. Opera singers are so presumptuous. He’s the general director in Seattle. And he’s nuts! Believe me, he’ll consider the lasers. But Mickey… I’m certain I’ll see you again. I guess what I’m saying is… What I’m saying is Yes! Be a little rude next time. I can take it.”

            I slip a hand under her hair, around the back of her neck, and give her a messy, highly inappropriate kiss. She settles back against her chair, eyes half-closed.

            “Yeah. Like that.”

            I walk Maddalena Hart the opera star to her Lexus, parked on the street behind the Oaks Center. I wave her off down the road, and I get in my car, and I head for the hills. Colin leaves his paint-tray to greet me, looking like a proud father.

            “Behold! Mickey San Franciskel, diva debaucher.”

            I accept a brisk handshake.

            “No debauching, but yes – a remarkable weekend. Thanks for the day off.”

            “Absolutely no problem. I will expect the same during my impending affair with Jennifer Aniston. But I will be needing some details.”

            “Of course! Why don’t I start on these steps, and I will shout my story in your die-rection.”

            “Splendid!”

Six

The Campbell Little League complex is situated right up against Hamilton Avenue, a busy suburban arterial, and offers the occasional sight of a home run hopping through traffic like a wayward frog. But it’s exactly the cramped feel – two fields and a refreshment stand crammed together like urban brownstones - that gives the place its atmosphere.

            I enter through a gap in the chain-link fence and am greeted by the sight of my nephew Kyle straddling the mound. Playing the field or standing at the plate, Kyle gives me the kind of jitters that perhaps only a blood relative could feel, but on the mound he is utterly unflappable. He nods at the catcher, brings those skinny legs together and chucks the ball homeward, not like a pitcher but like a kid throwing a ball. No blazing fastball, but he’s always around the plate, and has a three-quarter arm slot that produces a natural downward spin. He gets a lot of grounders.

            Right now he’s just warming up, so I continue leftward to the main attraction: one-dollar hot dogs, with an impressive buffet of condiments. I fix one with mustard and onions, another with ketchup and relish, and head for the main bleachers, nicely shaded by a wide awning. I find sister Carla high up, chewing nervously on sunflower seeds.

            “Hey!” she says. “Already stocked up I see.”

            “You kidding? This is dinner. And, well, lunch.”

            “That Colin works you like a dog.”

            “We thought of that for a name, actually. ‘Deck Dogs.’”

            Carla shifts quickly into update mode. She’s quite good at this. Perhaps she was a broadcaster in a previous life.

            “He’s doing well. It’s a good hitting team, but we’re still tied. At the plate, he ran out an infield single and flied out to right.”

            “Hey, as long he’s hackin’.”

            “Yep, he knows the rules. Called third strike – the floggings begin.”

            I suppose you need a sick sense of humor to survive parenthood. I like their priorities, though. They’d much rather Kyle go up there and hit something than wait for a walk the way some players do.

            “Uh-oh,” says Carla. “Here comes trouble. This kid hit one onto Hamilton last time. Hopped all the way across, like a…”

            “Wayward frog?”

            “Ha! Yes. Missed all the cars at least.”

            The kid’s huge, twelve years old and taller than me. What are they feeding these mutants? They’ve got a runner on second, so Kyle’s coach signals for an intentional walk. Catcher Jack stands up and receives three outside pitches, but on the fourth the batter takes a lackadaisical swing-and-miss.

            “Uh-oh,” says Carla. “I heard about this.”

            Kyle throws another outside pitch, and the kid takes another nothing swing. Kyle looks confused.

            “What’s that about?”

            “This kid gets walked all the time, so the coach told him to swing a couple times to add to the pitch count.”

            “Well, that’s pretty bogus. I say – drill ‘im!”

            “Shh!” says Carla. “Last week, some coach ordered up a beanball.”

            “Really? Wow.”

            “They’re a little touchy about it.”

            Kyle’s coach calls time-out and meets him for a conference. When play starts again, catcher Jack remains in his crouch.

            “Uh-oh,” says Carla. “I hope they know what they’re doing.”

            “I guess the temptation is just too great. I just hope he pitches it outsi-”

            I’m rudely interrupted by the sound of metal on cowhide. The ball screams over the left field fence and strikes a large tree right in the midsection.

            “Ah, man!” says Carla.

            “Crap. Shoulda drilled ‘im.”

            “Shh!”

            “Overgrown freak.”

            Monster Kid lopes around the bases and is mobbed by his teammates as if he has just clinched the World Series. Carla chews some more sunflower seeds, probably gauging how upset her son will be at this latest turn of events. I take the chance to sample the sweet alchemy of mustard, onions, bread and pork parts.

            “So,” she says. “What’s it like, being famous?”

            I swallow. “I really wouldn’t know.”

            She reaches into her bag and pulls out a folded piece of newspaper. It’s the society page of the San Jose Mercury-News. The headline reads Lambs Eat Pasta with Lions.

And performers dine with critics. International diva Maddalena Hart was seen al-fresco’ing Tuesday night with local opera critic Mickey Siskel at Saratoga’s Bella Mia. We can only assume that Siskel’s review of Hart’s performance in SF Opera’s Eugene Onegin was favorable, but according to former Merc scribe Leigh Weimers, he really had no choice. The divine Ms. H was even more divine than usual. LW also recommends Siskel’s blog, www.operaville.blogspot.com, which offers a unique blend of critique and tales of the composers.

            “Holy crap! I’m famous.”

            “And you just got two hot dogs for two dollars,” says Carla. “I don’t think life gets much better. Oh! Kyle’s up. I told him I would videotape his at-bats.”

            My curiosity gets the best of me, so I make a stop at the Saratoga Library. The place was built three years ago, and is pretty much a biblioparadise. The computers are shiny-new, and situated around circular tables that offer generous pie-slice portions of personal space.

            I pull up my blogsite, check the bottom of the Onegin review and find 27 comments. Holy crap. Most of them are names I’ve never seen, requesting details of my time with the diva. They may as well be asking for my spare kidney. I do give a brief, vague account to Cordell – who has certainly earned my trust – but the only person who might rate the nitty-gritty is strangely absent.

            Seattle. Seattle.

            My straw-blonde sunrise returns to kiss me awake. She’s delicious, chewing on something vanilla to go with the minty toothpaste. Still, it’s harder than usual to produce a smile. I grunt, force myself out of bed and pull on a pair of jeans. Outside, it’s already warm – our usual early-summer hot spell – but Katie is bundled up nonetheless, a white parka over a blue turtleneck. I lift her into the air and plant a kiss on her lips, but she’s not buying it.

            “Is something the matter?”

            The best way to lie is simply and directly. “No. A little existential funk.”

            “Poor baby.” She trails a finger around my lips. “Maybe you’re having your period. I’ll say a prayer for you.”

            “No. Sing a hymn for me.”

            “You got it. And it’ll work, too. I’m an excellent singer.”

            “I know. I’ve heard you in the tub.”

            I hold her aloft and carry her to the door. She gets in and beckons me forward for one last smooch, throwing in plentiful tongue just to make sure I’m paying attention. Before she even rounds the corner I’m headed for the house, stumbling through the living room, hurling myself back into bed.

            Long, long hours later, I’m soaking in the tub, threatening to turn myself into a prune. Maddie’s in Seattle. Probably starts rehearsals Monday. But what now? Receptions with donors? Dinner with friends? A booty call with a Northwest critic? I wouldn’t blame her (the smell of Katie all over my sheets), but I take consolation in what I’ve seen of my fellow critics. Even when they’re hetero, they’re not exactly appetizing.

            I don’t even bother with breakfast. I start up the coffee, boot up the computer and discover 25 more strangers on my comments page. It’s like a fucking Mardi Gras in there. No Mad Huntress, but there at the bottom, at long last, is DevilDiva.

DD: Bruh-thuh! What the hell is going on here? Did you marry the bitch?

M: Any chance we could talk in private?

DD: Well, since you’re the instant celebrity, I guess I’ll have to be the courageous one. My email is…

Real-name revelations are not forthcoming. Her email address begins with DevilDiva@. I flip over to my email account and ring her up.

M: Thanks. Cyberspace is getting a little wacky.

DD: You’re more popular than a celebrity porn site! So I surmise that you’ve been doing some fraternizing with Madame Hart? How exciting is this getting?

M: We were spotted by a retired journalist, who sent an item to the local daily. Apparently, opera fans read newspapers.

DD: Who knew?

M: Maddie was experiencing some performer’s stress and decided that I was the one who could help her out of it. I still don’t understand why. I’ve really done nothing to earn her trust.

DD: Maybe she had to trust you. Maybe she’s working on instinct.

M: Well, she’s right to trust me. As a performer, she already means the world to me. And now, as a person… She’s incredibly genuine, which has to be such a hard quality to maintain when you’re such a public person.

DD: Hmm, you’re beginning to wax poetic. Do I detect something romantic?

M: Okay, well, yes. I’m trying to be careful with the details – and believe me, you’re the only one I’d say anything to, but yes, it was pretty freakin’ romantic.

DD: (Sigh) My Mickey, in love. I think I’m jealous – but I’m not sure which one of you I’m jealous of.

M: So you would consider going lesbo to further your career.

DD: Why not?

M: Did I mention how glad I am that we’re not discussing this on a public comments page?

DD: Prude!

M: Harlot!

DD: And quite the circus it has become.

M: I’ll tell ya. It’s not like Maddie gets hassled in public a lot – only twice, when I was with her. But she certainly leaves a wake.

DD: Celebrity is a powerful force. Enjoy the ride, baby. Will you be seeing her again?

M: She’s due back at SFO in the fall, but right now she’s off to Seattle to do Bohème.

DD: Mimi?

M: Yep.

DD: Well, even if it was one-tine-only, you’ve got one hell of a story.

M: Yes, but I’m also human.

DD: Meaning?

M: I call it the Plateau Syndrome. Five minutes after reaching a new level of achievement, we spot the plateau just above us and begin the yearning process all over again. We are the grasping species, the species with opposable thumbs.

DD: Keep grasping, baby. I gotta head for a voice lesson. Keep me up-to-date, okay?

M: You got it. Thanks for being my confessor.

DD: My privilege. Ta!

I’m about to go for that cup of coffee, but when I flash back to the inbox I find a strange name: Michael Sinclair. And here’s what he has to say:

Dear Mickey: It’s not often that I receive a recommendation from Maddalena Hart! But I scanned your blog and I must say I’m impressed. I run a website called theoperacritic.com, and although I’m based in New Zealand, I publish reviews from all over the globe. I would love it if you would be my West Coast stringer. I don’t pay anything, but I do have good relations with all the major companies, so you’d be able to get press comps in San Diego, LA, Portland, Seattle – even Vancouver B.C. if you feel adventurous. And it’s no problem if you’d like to keep running your reviews on your blog, as well.

Let me know what you think. I’d love to have you on board.

Cheers – Michael

I drift off toward the kitchen, I pour a cup of java and I swear I see letters spelled out in the steam.

Seattle.

Seven

My own behavior puzzles me. This is clearly a pleasure trip, but I am treating it like work. I have shunned the spectacular vistas of the Oregon Coast for the inland cruise of Interstate 5. I am treated nonetheless with gorgeous scenery, running past a bright-eyed Mt. Shasta, sliding downhill into southern Oregon to find the triangle of Mt. McLoughlin knifing into the twilight. I take note, and drive on.

            The budget is tight, so I sleep at a rest stop on the flat farmlands north of Eugene. I am well-equipped, having folded down the back seats and installed a small mattress. The final stroke is a paper dropcloth, taped over the windows for privacy. I sleep well and wake to a bickering Mexican family, seven idling semis and a series of green foothills that could have been shipped in from Scotland. In the Northwest, breathtaking landscapes are a dime a dozen, but I don’t feel like I have earned them yet, so I sneak away to the restroom for a Handi-Wipes catbath and a change of clothes.

            The second day goes quickly; by late afternoon I have sighted the Puget Sound and, five minutes later, Mt. Rainier, a white fist bursting from the horizon. Entering the strip-mall stretches of Tacoma, I spot a Motel 6. I pull in, make my arrangements and head for the pizza parlor next door.

            I am not ready to be a tourist – not till after my work – so I spend the next day right there in the neighborhood, taking a dozen laps around the pool and hanging out at a surprisingly lavish Starbucks. A brief nap, dinner at Denny’s, and I am ready to get myself prettied up.

            Not that I’ve made any changes. It’s the same black suit I wear at SFO, only now it’s been cleaned and pressed. The same black dress shoes, only now they’ve been shined. The tie is old, as well, but it’s got a history. An old friend got married three years ago. The bride told the groomsmen to show up in black suits and shirts, then handed us mint-green ties, each in a different pattern. I fix it in place with a silver pin given to me by my father at my own wedding. I pull out a stainless steel case and fill it with cards bearing the address for my blog and a photo of Maddalena playing the Contessa in Figaro.

            But here’s the strange part: I have not told Maddie that I’m here. I don’t know why.

            It’s a glorious day in Seattle, and the skyline is everything the brochure promised. Maybe a third the size of San Francisco’s, but better organized, like the figures in Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. I-5 slings itself into the center of this grouping, and immediately I take a left-side offramp to Seattle Center. Following my emailed directions, I head for the Experience Music Project, a Frank Gehry building that looks like a giant baked potato covered in aluminum foil, take a right and find the parking lot. I pass through a forest of metallic palms and follow a walkway into a large central square. Inside a concrete bowl, the Seattle Center fountain performs tricks for a ring of onlookers. To a classical soundtrack, a 50-foot spray gives way to 50 smaller sprays, running around the bowl like the backing flock of Swan Lake. I’m early, so I stay a few minutes to enjoy.

            McCaw Hall was built a few years ago at the same site as the old opera house. Accustomed to the historical auras of San Francisco’s War Memorial and San Jose’s California Theater, I find the modernity of Seattle’s a little jarring. Passing an artificial creek – a thin sheet of water trickling over ridges in the walkway – I look up to find a towering wall of glass, a terrarium of opera patrons milling about on three different levels.

            I enter the lobby to find myself beneath a most puzzling piece of art. A tall blue construction ladder has been crumpled into a series of bends and folds and dangled on wires, then used as a skeleton from which to hang a phantasmagoria of industrial objects: monkey wrenches, heating ducts, bubble wrap, shipping pallets, motherboards. It’s like a frozen explosion in a hardware store.

            I head for will call and pick up my tickets, then I climb the wide front steps to the second-level balcony, a spread of chocolate-brown carpet the size of a football field. I pick up the smell of coffee and track it to a most welcome sight: a circular table hosting three urns of Starbucks’ best, ringed by a convoy of silver boats holding cream and sugar. It turns out to be a good-faith construct, suggesting you drop in a buck for each cup of java. Seattle rocks.

            At the sound of the five-minute chimes, we funnel into one of five different entrances and descend into the orchestra section, a field of plush navy blue seats. The balconies drop down on either side against walls lit up in blood red. The broad proscenium is free of ornament, just an enormous burgundy curtain.

            Even as a late starter, I have seen a dozen Bohèmes, and I’m beginning to notice the fine details. In the final scene, when Schaunard the musician enters with food for his companions, his inventory usually includes a garish prop-fish, which adds to the impending hi-jinks. This time he enters with a bowl containing pickled herring. He does, however, bring the traditional baguette, which will soon be used as a sword in a mock-duel. Perhaps this is an overlooked aspect of opera: we see the same works so often that we can bicker over the micro-traditions.

            Otherwise, the production is pretty standard.           The singers are magnificent. Rodolfo the poet is played by a black tenor, Vinson Cole, which in 21^st century Seattle raises nary an eyebrow. Cole is a local favorite, blessed with a lyric instrument that carries just a tad of that vigorous spinto edge. The Marcello is fantastic, a young American with a robust baritone that fills the hall. (Although he is given not a single aria, I have decided that Marcello is the secret lynchpin to this opera, and have learned to appreciate anyone who does him justice.)

            The Musetta is nearly spectacular, a tall, willowy redhead with a voice unabashedly high in its aspect, like the playful soubrette roles of Rossini and Donizetti. The brilliance of her tone gives the emphasis to Musetta’s flirtatiousness – which is really her occupation, since she’s a courtesan.

            Maddalena is Maddalena, but in a rather intriguing fashion. I will make you wait for the details, but I will say that she plays Mimi with three different voices: a Mozartean lyric for “Mi chiamano Mimi” and the famed meeting with Rodolfo; a slightly heavier, late-Verdi lyric for the tollgate scene (the couple’s last attempt at happiness before Mimi’s consumption takes over); and, I swear, a dark, Wagnerian soprano for the low, ominous lines – the “death tones” – of the final scene. This evening-long descent is astounding – and it’s also astounding that Maddie continues to astound me.

            The best operas continue to reveal new treasures even after multiple viewings; my latest discovery in Bohème is a line that I have never noticed before. In the death scene, Musetta is warming a bottle of medicine over a lamp, and she sings, “Oh, don’t let the flame go out.”

            The finale is roundly ovated by an auditorium of weeping opera fans (Puccini being lord and master of the lachrymal glands). I find myself feeling proud, either of Maddie or for Maddie.

            The crowd seeps away like a river seeking tributaries. I stand at the edge of the second-level balcony with coffee number three. The question of the moment is, What now? How does one go about stalking a diva?

            I stop a passing usher and say, “Excuse me, do you know how I would reach Jennifer Lim?” (Jennifer’s the press contact, the only name I’ve got in my arsenal.)

            The usher conducts a little internal info search. “She’s probably at the VIP reception. Are you press?”

            I stare dumbly at my folder. “Yes, I guess I am.”

            “I would bet that you’ll find an invitation in that folder. Just go to those stairs, up one flight, and you’ll be right at the door.”

            “Thanks.”

            I dig out a white square with the invitation. I hand it to a high-society blonde – one of those 62-year-olds who looks vaguely 35 – and pass into Valhalla.

            The reception room is actually pretty plain, a high-ceilinged space with walls in yellow fabric and tall, narrow windows that offer views of the parking garage across the street. There are perhaps 50 patrons milling about, many of them standing at tall tables, and a center table offering a spread of luscious-looking fruit. I am much too nervous to eat, but when a waitress comes by with a tray I take what turns out to be a white chocolate truffle with key-lime filling. Life as a VIP is good. Another coffee would make me explode, so I head for a table holding glasses of white wine.

            I work myself into a neutral position, like an airship avoiding sharp edges, and pick up an interesting conversation to my right. A large man with a velvety baritone is speaking with a thin man possessing a pair of stylish narrow spectacles and a pronounced kinetic energy.

            “I don’t even know why they bother with it anymore,” says the thin man, with a crisply enunciated tenor. “I could sing the goddamn thing myself. ‘They call me Mimi, I don’t know why, tee-hee.’ Oh God it’s so fucking juvenile, but the hoi polloi eats it up like butterscotch pudding.”

            The large man answers calmly. “They love it because it’s the most beautifully sculpted aria ever written. Screw the words! Look at the structure of it, map it out. It’s glorious.”

            “Bosh!” says the thin man. (Do people really say “Bosh”?) “At least Bizet owned up to his excesses. His melodies are openly melodic, for all to hear. Puccini’s always trying to nudge it this way and that, like he’s saying, ‘Look! I really am an artist!’ And hey, Turandot I’ll give you. Fanciulla, Gianni Schicchi, Suor Angelica. But Bohème? Tripe. Triple tripe.”

            “Don’t condemn something just because it’s popular, Larry.”

            “Oh, Cordell…”

            That’s where my eavesdropping clicks off, because how many Cordells would be floating around Seattle? I walk over and wait for a half-second pause in Larry’s thesis.

            “I’m sorry, but… is your name Cordell?”

            The man turns my way, revealing a wide, gentle face outlined by a neat silver beard.

            “Well yes, it is.”

            I extend a hand and derive maximum enjoyment from my next line.

            “Mickey Siskel.”

            Cordell ignores my hand, grabs me by the shoulders and gives me a big smack on the cheek.

            “Mickey! In the flesh! Larry, this is the best goddamn opera blogger in the universe. His stuff is so insightful. You would love it.”

            Once released, I extend a hand to Larry and am relieved when he simply takes it.

            “Well, Mickey!” says Cordell. “What on earth brings you here?”

            “I’ve been promoted. I’m the West Coast stringer for a web site based in New Zealand. So I thought I would take an opera vacation.”

            Cordell laughs and bats me on the shoulder.

            “Oh, Mickey. That’s nonsense.”

            “Bosh,” says Larry.

            “Folderol,” says Cordell. “You’re here to see Maddalena.” He turns to Larry. “He’s dating her, you know.”

            Larry arches an eyebrow. “Really.”

            “Well, no,” I say. “Okay. Twice. We went out a couple of times in San Francisco. She’s probably forgotten all about me. She doesn’t even know I’m here.”

            Now Cordell arches an eyebrow. “You didn’t tell her you were coming?”

            “What kind of boyfriend are you?” says Larry, who is clearly enjoying himself. “Why, if I was a diva, I’d be incensed!”

            “Larry,” says Cordell. “You are a diva.”

            “I prefer to think of myself as a prima donna.”

            “But honestly,” I say, trying to keep up. “I am not Maddie’s boyfriend. She just needed some help, that’s all.”

            Larry gives me an appraising look. “That must have been one hell of a review you gave her.”

            At this point, the only thing I can do is give up. “Fine. And you may as well be the first to know, Maddie’s pregnant with my child. We’re having an enormous Episcopalian wedding in January, and all of this will be revealed in a thrilling second-act aria.”

            Shocked that a hetero could produce something so creative, Larry and Cordell fan me with gales of laughter. We are interrupted by a man who resembles a toned-down Andy Warhol, striking a glass with a fork. This is Speight Jenkins, Seattle’s artistic director. The room grows quickly attentive.

            “Greetings! I am generally sent up here to tell sob stories and ask you for money, but tonight I’m going to let the arts speak for themselves. Please welcome our Marcello, Nicolai Janitzky.”

            Nicolai strolls out in a blue pinstripe suit and clasps his hands together over his head.

            “Our Musetta, Gabriella Compton.”

            Gabriella appears in a slim yellow dress with diagonal slashes of cream. Her hair has gone magically short.

            “Our Rodolfo, Vinson Cole”

            Vinson enters in brown cords, a white turtleneck and a black leather jacket. He accepts his favorite-son outburst with a boisterous grin.

            “And, back after a brief bout of consumption, our Mimi, Maddalena…”

            The last name disappears in a melee of shouting and applause. The way that opera people react to this woman is almost frightening. She enters in a gown of copper-colored chiffon, every bit the diva, her mousy brown Mimi-wig replaced by the familiar honey tresses. She smiles and holds a hand over her heart.

            “And now,” says Speight, “I will retire until the next time I am called upon to beg you for money.”

            Speight receives a mix of laughter and sarcastic applause. The four singers disappear into circles of well-wishers, and I go back to Cordell. Larry has absconded.

            “Seriously, Cordell, it is a thrill to meet you. I really appreciate the way you’ve encouraged my little experiment.”

            Cordell places a hand on my shoulder and fixes me with blue-gray eyes. “There are so few opera writers who are not completely occupied with showing how G.D. clever they are. I would bet that most of them don’t even like opera. But Mickey, your passion and humor and humility are so refreshing. I always come away with some new insight to share with my colleagues. You are a hidden treasure, and I feel compelled to announce your presence to the world. I’m also rather fond of that Devil Diva.”

            I’m relieved to be out of this thick stream of appreciation. “She is a kick, isn’t she?”

            “She really sasses things up. Uh-oh. The queen approaches.”

            Maddie storms our way, followed by every eye in the room. I am much relieved (and just a tad disappointed) when she jumps into the arms of Cordell.

            “Professore! It is so good to see you. How are you? How’s Dennis?”

            “Oh, um, Dennis is gone.”

            She breaks their embrace and holds him at arm’s length. “Oh, I’m sorry. What happened?”

            “Got bored of me, I suppose.”

            “Oh!” Maddie laughs and immediately covers her mouth. “I’m so sorry! I thought you were saying he died.”

            Cordell chuckles. “Oh! God, I must work on my phrasing.”

            “Always the voice coach. I…”

            I’ve been standing here like a mannequin, waiting for the moment of recognition, but now that she has registered my presence, the room goes into that trendy special-effects mode where everybody freezes in 3-D while the protagonist wanders the room undeterred, stealing people’s drinks, squeezing women’s knockers. Maddie’s eyes grow wide with alarm, she puts one hand to her hair, and then she simply turns and walks away. She stops at the far end of the room, hidden from view by a circle of elderly women.

            Cordell and I stand there and watch in silence, until social necessity demands that he say something.

            “I… I don’t know if I have ever seen anything like that.”

            “It wasn’t exactly a glowing review.”

            Cordell covers his mouth and coughs nervously. “I’ll… Maybe I’ll see if I can have a word with her.”

            “No. Don’t, please. You’re right. It was rude of me to just show up like this. She’s got much more important things to worry about, and I put her in a bad position.”

            “Well. Perhaps a bit. Listen, though. I need to chat with a few people – a matter of keeping the voice students knocking at one’s door – but I won’t be more than half an hour. Promise me you’ll stick around, and I’ll take you to Belltown for a drink. I have not begun to pick your brain.”

            I scan the crowd, every single one of them a well-dressed mystery. “Okay. I’ll sit here and read my program.”

            “Good boy.”

            My reading is completely ineffective. The words bounce off my eyes and fall into my wine, forming a white verbal fuzz. I am rescued by Jennifer Lim, who finally figures out my identity and quizzes me about the New Zealand website. Before I know it, Cordell has arrived at my shoulder.

            “All right, young Rodolfo, let us away to some fine booze.”

            “Falstaff!” I exclaim.

            “Prince Hal!” says Cordell.

            “Well. We both know our Shakespeare, at least. Thanks, Jennifer.”

            “Thank you,” says Jennifer. “Come back for The Flying Dutchman.”

            “I will,” I say, meaning not a word of it.

            Cordell takes me by the elbow and we flee the room. “I know a divine little bar on Second Avenue. And don’t worry, it’s not one of those bars.”

            “Ha!”

            We walk past the artificial creek and into the great square. The fountain is done with its dancing, each of its sprays locked in a steady outpour, colored blue by a ring of muted spotlights. We stop at a waist-high wall.

            “I never tire of this crazy thing,” says Cordell. “I always like to check in after a performance. Something about the water helps the music settle into my brain. Well,” he claps me on the back, “I’ll be seeing you.”

            He walks away, in the direction of the Space Needle. I assume it’s some kind of gag, but he keeps going, disappearing into a dark walkway.

            “Cordell? Cordell? Where the hell are you going?!” At this point, I am suffering serious abandonment issues, and I feel the need to express them vocally. “What the bloody fucking hell is going on here!?”

            “Really, Mickey. It’s a family park. Watch your mouth.”

            I turn to find a blue water nymph, wearing a hooded cape like a goddamn princess. She attacks me with a kiss.

            I escort the internationally famous opera singer Maddalena Hart into Belltown, a former industrial zone now filling the city’s constant need for hip new neighborhoods. We discover a bar called Balls, whose every table is constructed from the glass-covered play area of an antique pinball machine. We settle next to a machine featuring circus figures: the bearded woman, the strong man, the lion tamer.

            “This clown looks alarmingly like a Pagliaccio I worked with in Baltimore.”

            I’m still a little unnerved by my deliverance, so I take a first sip from my microbrew. It’s a light hefeweizen, but it still delivers a pleasant bite.

            “So,” says the diva. “Do you forgive me?”

            I take a long look at her, glowing in the red light from the bar. She’s still wearing the copper gown.

            “What for?”

            “For the gross snub. For the Cinderella-at-midnight.”

            “I took my chances.”

            “You certainly did, you bad boy.”

            “I thought you just hated me or something.”

            Maddie laughs, her mouth open like a puppy dog’s.

            “Or something! Or something! Here is Ms. Hart, being the friendly performing arts professional amongst the important Seattle donors, and suddenly here’s Mickey Siskel, hunky opera critic softball stud with the sad eyes that can’t decide whether they want to be blue or green. But that’s not how it happens. It happens like this – “ she squeezes my name into one-syllable bullets of sound – “Mickey! Mickey! Pheromones attack like killer bees. I am fighting this urge to tear the clothes from your body. The conflict between desire and obligation becomes so intense that Ms. Hart locks up – Maddie Hart, who has negotiated a thousand social minefields, who has improvised her way out of a hundred onstage catastrophes. I freaked out. So – fight or flight. I chose flight.”

            “You wanted to tear my clothes off?”

            She seems to have difficulty with this question. She chews on her lip, then grabs my necktie and yanks me forward so she can scour my mouth with her tongue. Then she pulls away, pats my tie back into place and says, “Yes.”

            I like this game very much, so I decide to play along. I take a long swallow from my beer.

            “So, Mimi. When does Rodolfo get a look at that fine white ass of yours?”

            “Ooh!” She squirms in her seat. “I would really like that. How’s Wednesday?”

            Double-take. Double-take. “Wednesday? Really?”

            “Sadly, yes. Right now, I shouldn’t even be doing this. If we did that, we’d be looking at some major lack of sleep, and I’ve got performances Sunday and Tuesday. I can’t take the chance.”

            “Wow.”

            “It’s the opera life. Constant health paranoia. The human voice is a fickle instrument. I wish I was a nice sturdy cello.”

            I gaze at the pinball ringleader, top-hatted, redcoated, frozen in a grand gesture.

            “It’s not the wait so much. I had only planned a certain amount of time and money for this trip. I gotta get back.”

            Maddie sits back and taps a fingernail against her teeth.

            “Former nail chewer?”

            “Oh,” she says. “Terrible. I can’t help you on time. Wednesday is non-negotiable. But Wednesday is the Fourth of July, you’ll recall, and I think your boss should show a little respect for his new country.”

            I laugh. “I’ll be sure and tell him that.”

            “But money-wise, I think I can get you free lodging, and a little spending cash.”

            “Really?”

            “That is, if you know anything about staining decks.”

            “Boy, do I.”

            I am now the exiled boyfriend, and a bit of a CIA operative. I spend a second night in Tacoma, and then, following detailed instructions, I tootle northward up the Kitsap Peninsula to Bainbridge Island. I end up in a jolly little harbor town called Winslow, where I head for the waterfront, and a brick coffeehouse called the Pegasus. I order an Oregon chai, settle onto a chair and give my La Bohème program a prominent place on my table. (This is my “tell,” or my “marker,” I forget my film noir lingo.) A short while later, I am overshadowed by a bald, burly man in a motorcycle jacket and riding chaps. He’s got a finely trimmed silver goatee, the kind worn by operatic villains. Perhaps Sparafucile, the hired assassin from Rigoletto.

            “I’m guessing you might be Mickey Siskel.” His voice is remarkably clear and resonant, a high baritone that would do well for a radio DJ.

            “And you are most likely Bill Harness.”

            “Good to meet you,” he says. “I find it hard to believe that Maddalena Hart is acting as my general contractor. Perhaps Placido Domingo will do my taxes.”

            “I think Maddie could do anything she sets her mind to.”

            Bill gives me a crafty smile. “Especially when she’s in love.”

            “She… She said that?”

            “No. But I’m familiar with the symptoms.”

            “Oh. Okay. Should we get going?”

            “No, no. Finish your drink first.”

            “That’s why I got it in a paper cup. I’m feeling pretty restless.”

            “That’s another of the symptoms.”

            “Okay. You got me.”

            I walk with Bill to the parking lot, then drive behind him as he leads the way on his Harley. We stay along the eastern edge of the island, the Seattle skyline peeking through the trees, and pull to the side just before the road swings left. Straight ahead, down a steep decline, is a beachside park spotted here and there with tents and RVs.

            Bill takes off his brain-bucket and walks me through a gate in a split-rail fence. Past a wide front lawn is a sprawling ranch-style house with conspicuous Italianate touches: a Romanesque arch over the front door, a statue of Cupid next to a fountain, and a wysteria-covered arbor supported by scalloped pillars. Across from the main house are four small cottages, painted in shades of pastel.

            “Nice place,” I say.

            Bill smiles. “We like it. It’s the Villa d’Umbra, an home for wayward opera singers. Maestro d’Umbra was Gabriella’s voice teacher. Once worked with Puccini. Passed away five years ago and gave me the task of running his estate.”

            “Gabriella?”

            “Musetta, yes. She’s certainly my Musetta.”

            “She’s amazing.”

            “Preaching to the choir, son. That girl saved my soul. I’ll tell you about it sometime when we have six or seven free hours. Meanwhile, why don’t we visit the patient?”

            Bill leads me behind the house to a sprawling field covered in wild grass. At the far end is a low line of cedars, and beyond that the Puget Sound. There’s something vaguely unusual about the field – some man-made presence.

            “That’s it,” says Bill.

            “Umm…” I shade my eyes and look harder. “That’s what?”

            “We call it Maestro’s labyrinth. Although I’m proud to say that I built it myself. Let’s get closer so you can make it out.”

            Twenty feet further, we arrive at a small circular deck.

            “People get the wrong idea about labyrinths,” says Bill. “They’re not designed to get you lost. That’s a maze. Labyrinths are designed to get you found. By forcing you to focus on a tightly proscribed path. Maestro had his students walk it before each lesson.”

            The circular deck is, in fact, a starting point. A narrow walkway of planks leads away and then veers into a series of loops and meanders that seem to culminate in a second circle, capped by a belvedere. The reason I couldn’t see all of this before is that it’s gray with age, and is blending with the surrounding vegetation.

            “They say that the center of a labyrinth is the meeting place of heaven and earth. I always know when Gabriella arrives there, because she celebrates by bursting into song. And that is not a sound that one is likely to miss.”

            “Not at all.”

            “We put some sort of sealant on it, but obviously we’ve let it go far too long. Maddie tells me you’re just the man to bring it back to life.”

            “At last count, 600 decks.”

            “Egad! In any case, we can take a trip to the store later to get the stain and any necessary equipment. But if you’re up for it you can start right away, because I borrowed Cordell’s pressure washer. Cordell is rather fixated on that thing, actually. He says it’s that final spurt when you shut it off; it reminds him of ejaculation.”

            The image sends me into a fit of laughter. “Oh my god! I know exactly what he means.”

            “Well,” Bill chortles. “I suppose you’re familiar with the equipment. Both kinds.”

            “That I am.”

            It’s a sunny day, small clouds scudding along like a herd of white bison, and I am full of energy. After loading my clothes into the guest cottage, I don my oldest pair of shorts and the Wellies (feeling very fortunate that I decided to bring them along) and I set to work. The wood is fully oxidized and mossed up, creating a marvelous transformation under the spray. I wash the labyrinth in the same way that it’s walked, and I do feel a sense of its meditative powers. At the end of four hours I’m finished, and I celebrate at the meeting of heaven and earth by breaking into the cooler of beer that Bill has generously delivered.

            It’s only four o’clock, and Bill is off on errands, so I decide that it’s time to get to that review. I pack a notebook, a couple of pens and Grove’s Book of Opera and take a drive to the Pegasus, where an enormous iced coffee offers all the right categories of refreshment.

            I’m not usually into public writing – being prone to distraction – but the Pegasus has a tree-shaded back patio, and if you crane your neck you can see the sailboats in the harbor. The seclusion enables me to lay down a sloppy-quick first draft. The number-one cause of writer’s block is the attempt to write golden prose on a first foray, and I swear I’m at my best when I’m at my worst.

            What happens next causes me to believe that I have become one of those people who can conjure people from thin air simply by writing about them. Out walks a tall, willowy woman with freckles and short red hair.

            “How did I make out?”

            “Musetta!”

            “Marcello!” she sings, and laughs. “I didn’t want to interrupt you, but it looks like you’re wrapping up.”

            “Yes. Pull up a chair.”

            She sits across from me in blue jeans and a green T-shirt, and extends a hand.

            “Gabriella.”

            “Mickey. But… how do you know me by appearance?”

            She smiles shyly. “Maddie was pointing you out at the reception. Acting like a little schoolgirl. She’s got a thing for you.”

            “Yes. I get a lot of that. And I wish someone would explain it to me.”

            Gabriella taps a finger on her temple. “This may be hard for you to understand, but even though we do this glamorous thing, it’s still a J-O-B. And afterwards, we’re normal women, and we’re attracted to certain men for all the same inexplicable reasons as other women. Apropos of nothing, the deck looks fantastic.”

            “Thanks! Wait till I get some stain on it.”

            Her eyes settle on the high evergreen ridge above the harbor.

            “It actually makes me a little sad. Maestro loved that labyrinth. He was 97 when he passed away, so I can’t be too sad, but… I miss him.”

            “He must have had a profound effect on you.”

            “Oh! Everything. When Puccini was dying of throat cancer, he hired Maestro to demonstrate vocal lines to his students. So really, every line I sing in this Bohème comes directly from the composer.”

            “Wow.”

            “I’ve got several of Maestro’s old scores, with notes from Puccini in the margins.”

            “Can I see them?”

            “Sure! I’ll show you tonight. But only if you tell me what you wrote about me.”

            I laugh nervously. “You remind me of this Jewish lady in Palo Alto. She comes up to me at intermission and says, ‘So, Mister Opera Critic – what do you think?’”

            “Nice try, Mickey. Now tell me what you wrote.”

            “Man! You’re tough.”

            “All sopranos are tough.”

            I take a sip from my iced coffee.

            “I wrote that your voice has a shimmering brilliance, and I like the fact that you sing Musetta with an unabashedly bel canto canary-voice, an approach that is needlessly underrated.”

            She slants her eyes at me. “And yet my signature role is Tosca.”

            “Really?”

            “Yes. Too many sopranos are bent on being Butterfly or Tosca or Aida all the time. They seem to view Musetta as some kind of audition for those heavier roles, so they try to turn her into a goddamn Brunnhilde. Let’s face it, Musetta is a high-priced hooker, and utterly superficial – so why not sing her that way? And later, when she takes off the courtesan stage-face and turns into a true and caring friend, the contrast is that much deeper.”

            “Like a well-weathered deck.”

            “Huh?”

            “I mean - absolutely!”

            “Let me tell you a Maestro story. Puccini was obsessed with America. That’s why he turned Pinkerton from a Dutch sailor to an American sailor, why he inserted the Star Spangled Banner into the score for Butterfly. And why he wrote The Girl of the Golden West. When Maestro came to the United States, he felt like he was living out Puccini’s cowboy dreams. And why he built an Italian ranch house, for God’s sake, and put those split-rail fences in the front yard. So one time I asked him, ‘Why doesn’t Fanciulla del West get produced more often?’ And he said, ‘Because the soprano must have eight balls.’”

            She says this with a deep Italian accent and the face of a basset hound.

            “You are quite the mimic.”

            “Maestro’s voice is part of me. I hear it when I’m performing.”

            I lean back and hear Gabriella singing Musetta’s Waltz – the final cadenza, ending with one of those marvelous accelerating trills, like she’s cranking it with a gas pedal.

            “So where does Bill fit in?”

            Gabriella lets out a chirp of laughter, just like Musetta.

            “I get that a lot. He was a tenor. Sang Trovatore at the Met. But his career was cut short by family tragedies. The last of those tragedies left him a mess, and that’s when I met him. My voice was the light at the end of his tunnel. I needed his tragedies. I needed something to feel when I sang. This Hell’s Angel phase is only a couple years old. When his hairline got down to that Friar Tuck thing, he said, ‘Screw it, I’m shaving it all.’ When he saw how cool he looked, he sorta bunched that together with all his emotional scars, and next thing you know he’s buying a Harley.”

            “I like the combination. I do some of that tough guy/sensitive guy thing myself. It really messes with people.”

            “Well I can’t wait to see your review. Maddie says they’re like little opera poems.”

            I raise my hands like I’m fighting off giant mosquitoes. “Pressure! Pressure!”

            “Do Lucia di Lammermoor and then talk to me about pressure, buddyboy.”

            “No thank you. Speaking of, do you know of a library hereabouts with computers?”

            “Bosh! We have a computer at the villa. Especially if you’re going to write nice things about me.”

            “Gabriella, if I wasn’t so gaga for Mimi, I’d be asking you to dinner right now.”

            “Actually, I’m taking you to dinner.”

            Bill has a light Italian dinner waiting for us: chicken parmigiana, bowtie pasta with herbs and butter and assorted greens with raspberry vinaigrette. Afterwards, I grab a cup of coffee and retreat to the computer room. Here’s what I come up with:

            Doria Manfredi was a teenage housemaid at Giacomo Puccini’s villa in Torre del Lago. In the summer, when it got too hot, she would do her ironing in the evening, as Puccini worked on Fanciulla del West. One evening, the composer took a break to enjoy a cigar, and had a brief chat with Doria in the garden. Doria lost her father early in life, and probably enjoyed the company of an older man.

            Elvira Puccini heard the voices beneath her window and made an enormous assumption. She became convinced that Doria was staying late in order to make love to her husband. Her suspicions were not entirely unfounded; Puccini’s philandering was well-known. Elvira fired Doria, and spent the autumn publicly denouncing the girl as a slut. What’s worse, everyone believed her. Puccini tried to get his wife to stop these accusations, but with no success. On Christmas morning, Elvira confronted Doria at mass and threatened to kill her.

            Haunted and sick, Doria purchased a bottle of mercuric chloride, a corrosive disinfectant, and swallowed three tablets. The stomach cramps began immediately, followed by five days of riveting pain. In her suicide note, she asked for revenge on Elvira, and clemency for Puccini, who had done nothing wrong.

            The town gossips disagreed, and concluded that Doria had died of a botched abortion. The authorities ordered an autopsy, to be conducted in the presence of witnesses. The autopsy revealed that Doria died a virgin.

            For a composer who gained his greatest success in the tender destruction of his heroines – Butterfly’s hari-kari, Tosca’s leap from the parapet, Mimi’s slow wasting away – this murder-by-rumor must have been a crushing blow. It’s interesting to note that his two remaining prima donnas – Turandot and Fanciulla’s Minnie – remained alive at the final curtain.

            The first of Puccini’s beloved victims – Mimi of La Bohème – was apparently based on a friend from his own starving-artist period in Milan, a friend who also died young. In Seattle Opera’s production, soprano Maddalena Hart portrays Mimi’s decline in a profoundly intelligent fashion, using concrete musical choices to play on the heartstrings of her audience, almost on a subterranean level.

            [Track 5]

            Hart is well-known for the range of her roles – from the creamy lyricism of Manon and Figaro’s Contessa to heavier figures like Lady Macbeth and Tosca. As Mimi, she begins with a shimmering lyric tone that accentuates the optimism of “Mi chiamano Mimi” and the duet with Rodolfo, “O soave fanciulla.” By the second act at the tollgate, as she and Rodolfo fight off the specter of her sickness, her tone is more of a lirico spinto, darker, edgier. By the finale, with its ominous lower range and monotone “death lines,” Hart’s voice is as deep and sultry as a mezzo’s. It’s almost as if Seattle has hired a trio of identical sopranos to play three different Mimis.

            [Track 6]

            Seattle’s Musetta, Gabriella Compton, achieved a similar end by using utterly opposite means. Known to possess a palette of tonal colors almost as expansive as Hart’s, Compton intentionally limits herself to a light Rossinian lyric, which emphasizes the superficial charms that make Musetta, after all, so much fun. This serves to increase the contrast between Musetta and Mimi, and to make it that much more poignant when the superficial courtesan reveals her true self, a dedicated and loving friend. Among the Parisian artists of La Bohème, Friday’s performance offered a virtuosic display of vocal painting.

            As I punch the review into my blog – accompanied by a photo of Musetta comforting Mimi on her death bed – I hear a startling sound, and I look out the window to find Gabriella, her hands raised to the sky. Having achieved the center of the labyrinth, she has burst into song. I search my data banks and come up with the Ave Maria from Otello.

            The comments crew is a little slow in responding. Perhaps they have all gotten lives. A half hour later, as I’m composing an email to Colin requesting a vacation extension, Cordell chimes in.

C: Mickey! I am amazed at this story – even more amazed that I have never heard it before. And with your thoughts on coloration you are once again yanking thoughts from my subconscious and giving them definition. I thank you, I thank you.

M: Fantastic meeting you in person, Cordell. And thank you for that special delivery at the fountain.

C: Ha! I picture myself as Rigoletto, hauling Gilda in a burlap sack. Anything I can do to help out a couple of lost heteros. Oh, and try not to think too much about that pressure-washer thing.

M: Every time I shut it off, I get the urge to light up a cigarette. Seriously, though, thanks for letting us use it. That extended wand is a real back-saver.

C: Oh, length is always good. (I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.)

            Another 45 minutes go by. I have discovered an antique pint of ice cream in the freezer. I think it’s mint chip. I am just about to dig in when the chime goes off again.

Mad Huntress: Great. Your Doria story has me crying all over again. Perhaps this is payback for all the weeping I will be causing tomorrow. Your insights are as brilliant as ever – and yes, my tonal intentions were just as you described. I cannot wait to see you. I cannot wait. Did I mention I cannot wait?

M: Bless you, Huntress. I am your happy prey, and your ecstatic listener.

Cordell: Shew! Getting a little thick around here.

M: Screw you, old man!

C: Promises, promises.

            The weather over Sunday and Monday is overcast but not wet, absolutely perfect for decking. I assemble the proper combination of trolley, tray and thousand-bristle brush and set to work. During my breaks, I find blackberries going purply ripe on the vine, and I spot several garter snakes. I even manage to catch one, until he employs that lovely garterish trick of urinating himself.

            At seven o’clock on Monday, I arrive at the meeting of heaven and earth. I stand before a three-foot center plank, sweep it with a second coat of golden tan, turn to take a full survey of my finished product, and I sing “The Joker” by Steve Miller.

            On Tuesday, the final day of my Maddiefast, I take a drive toward the Olympic Mountains and split off north to Port Townsend. It’s a divine little town, with a shopping district of historic brick buildings. I check in at a restaurant for a meal of grilled trout.

            Wednesday rises under patriotic sunshine and I wake at six, wired by hormones. The only thing to do is hike to the Pegasus for a cappuccino, but it turns out they’re closed for the holiday. So I hike along the harbor to the ferry station, watch a couple of ships come in, then make my way back to the villa. When I return, I find Bill on the front lawn, wearing white shorts and a white golf shirt like a cast member from Gatsby: The Musical. Having seen him only in riding leathers, I find this pretty amusing.

            “Mickey, old boy! Help a bruthuh out, would you?”

            “Sure.”

            “I need to lay out a croquet course for the party.”

            “Croquet? How Kennedyesque.”

            “By the way, the deck is astounding.”

            “Glad you like it.”

            “I want you to accept this.” He hands me a bill featuring Benjamin Franklin.

            “No, no really, I was happy to…”

            “Not my money, Mickey. The foundation’s. And, this little barter of ours saved me a thousand bucks. And, you probably need gas money to get home.”

            “You are right on all counts.” I fold Ben in two and stick him in my pocket.

            We manage to construct a decent course and give it a trial run, having no idea of rules other than shooting the ball thingies through the hoop thingies. Having some facility with the striking of balls, I give Bill a sound thumping. As I strike the ball thingy against the final stake-thingy, I turn to discover Maddalena Hart, the opera star, ascending the front walk in a white sundress and one of those goofy, floppy wide-brimmed hats. She stops three feet away, fixes me with an irritated stare, and holds out a hand.

            “Give me that mallet.”

            I stand there, blank.

            “Now!”

            I hand it over. She takes it and tosses it over her shoulder.

            “And they say opera singers can’t act.” She gives me a lengthy kiss, then peers at something past my shoulder.

            “What’re you looking at, Harness?”

            “A woman in love,” says Bill.

            “Maybe.”

            “How was the opera?” I ask.

            She smiles.

            “Fantastic! But you saw the cast. Nothing but blue-ribbon performers. Makes things so easy. But let’s see your work.”

            We walk through the courtyard and around to the back. She lets out a gasp.

            “Darling! It’s magnificent. It’s… golden.”

            “Golden tan,” I say. “Cabot stain. A blue-ribbon performer. I’ve never quite been able to figure out, but it makes old redwood look like new hardwood: oak, pine, maple.”

            “It’s like a big piece of Celtic jewelry. Is it too early to walk on it?”

            “Not at all.”

            “Come with?”

            My answer surprises me. “No. You should walk it alone. You’ve got a lot of Mimi to shed. One thing, though. When you get to the center, you have to sing something. That’s what Gabriella does.”

            She laughs. “Great! More performance anxiety.” She gives me a kiss and steps up to the first circle. Bill comes up next to me.

            “She walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies.”

            I can play this game. “And all that’s best of dark and light meet in her aspect and her eyes.”

            “You,” says Bill, “are the luckiest man on Earth.”

            “I know.”

            “Uh-oh. More guests. I’d better go play master of ceremonies.”

            [Track 7]

I watch Maddie until she achieves the center and sings the first section of Doretta’s Song (more Puccini). After several smooches under the green pods of the wysteria, we return to the front yard and encounter a majority of the cast: Marcello, Colline, Rodolfo, Musetta, Schaunard, Speight Jenkins, plus Cordell and a young friend. We while away the afternoon drinking planter’s punch, dining on finger sandwiches, deviled eggs and chocolate chip cookies, and playing a drunken bastardization of croquet. Groups of two and three take off at regular intervals to walk the labyrinth, and every few minutes we’re treated to a new aria. Marcello and Rodolfo sing the entirety of that famous duet from Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, and Maddie leans over to whisper the title: “Au fond du temple saint.”

            The sun is nearing the jagged tips of the Olympics. The members of the party break into squads of three and four and car-pool to the harbor, where we navigate a few lengths of pierage to a mid-sized yacht called the Cavaradossi (the name of Tosca’s painter-lover). Bill takes the wheel, backs us out of our moorage and steers us into the Puget Sound.

            Maddie and I find a bench and settle in, alternating between dreamy gazings at the Seattle skyline and old-school teenage makeout sessions. The mist and wind make it a chilly spot, but the seclusion is well worth the price.

            As the sunlight fades into stripes of orange and royal blue, we slip into a long channel north of the city and join the nautical equivalent of rush hour traffic. We pass through the city of Ballard, wait for a good long time at the Fremont drawbridge and pass under a soaring span between the Fremont and Queen Anne hills. Trying to orient myself, I recall that the southern side of Queen Anne abuts the Seattle Center and its lovely new opera house.

The water widens to a lake, and it seems that we are sailing directly into the city: the downtown skyscrapers and Space Needle to our south, Capitol Hill directly before us, and the I-5 bridge, taking its long shot north toward the University of Washington. In a citifed sort of way, it feels tremendously cozy, a sensation intensified by the wide field of boats, shuttling into place like Christmas shoppers in a parking lot. Directly to the north, pedestrians mill the fields of a park, bursting forth here and there with do-it-yourself explosives. Maddie pulls me to the prow, the wind whipping through her hair.

            “This is Lake Union. Man-made. There’s a tremendous lake on the east of the city: Lake Washington. They dug a channel from there to the Puget Sound, and Lake Union was a lovely little by-product.”

            “It’s gorgeous here.”

            “Wait’ll you see it with fireworks. Speaking of…”

            She leaves her words dangling like a through-composed aria (trust me on this) and leads me to a side door, which opens on a set of steps descending to a cabin lined with wooden panels and bunks. Maddie nudges me inside, then locks the door behind us.

            “Okay,” she says. “I have an unusual request. I want you to stare at my chest.”

            “Really.”

            “Stop looking at my eyes! Pig.”

            I do as instructed (why the hell not?), bending my knees in order to bring Maddie’s tits to eye level. She slips a hand behind her back, undoes the clasp of her bra then slips it out through the top of her sundress.

            “Now,” she says. “Don’t touch until I say so.”

            She releases the straps from either shoulder and slips the dress slowly down. Her breasts are medium-sized (half a casaba), milk white, modest enough that they have retained a pleasantly round shape. Her aureolae are peach, size of a Kennedy half-dollar, her nipples pink and distinctly erect. She crosses her arms beneath them, holding her dress at waist level, then cups her hands beneath each one, offering them like gifts. I am going mad taking in visual information.

            “Do you approve?”

            “Bravi!”

            She smiles, her face flushing.

            “Then touch them.”

            I run my pinkie around a nipple and then cup a breast in my palm, taking in the warmth, the spongy texture. I do the same with my left hand, then I bring her breasts toward each other and take turns sucking each nipple between my lips.

            Maddie takes in a gasp of breath. “I will give you three hours to stop that. You can be rough with them, if you want.”

            I squeeze a breast, then I stuff it between my lips as deeply as I can, using the suction at the back of my mouth to pull at her nipple.

            “Oh Jesus!” she sings. “Oh fuck! You’re good.”

            After a minute of this and other manipulations, I take a time-out to enjoy Maddie’s lips. I’m surprised to feel her hand on my crotch. I grab her hair, run a tongue into her ear and whisper, “I think it’s time for you to meet someone.”

            “Yes,” she says, and kneels on the floor.

            “Now, don’t touch until I say so.” I undo my belt and lower my pants. My penis is about as hard as it gets, glowing white in the faint light from outside. Maddie brings her face inches away and runs her eyes along its length. Now I know how she felt, this sense of being observed but not touched.

            “My,” says Maddie. “It’s lovely.”

            I am of average size, but blessed in matters of aesthetic quality. My dick looks like the one in the textbook.

            “Thanks,” I say. “I got it from Mom and Dad on my birthday.”

            Maddie is panting; her breath is wafting over my cock.

            “May I?” she asks.

            “Be my guest.”

            She places a finger at the tip and runs it all the way to the base, then circles the shaft with her fingers and runs them back to the helmet.

            “You can be rough with it, if you want.”

            She tightens her grip and strokes downward, which feels divine. Then she leans forward and kisses the tip, pulling it slowly into her mouth like a crescendo sustenato (trust me on this) till I’m four inches gone. Then she clamps down with her lips and swirls that virtuosic tongue all the way around. Ec-stasy. Out of / body. She squeezes my balls and pulls my cock all the way in. Jesus Christ, Buddha, Krishna and the Seven Dwarfs. I am fucking the album cover.

            Then I hear a gunshot, and I see colors: emerald, lavender, cherry. Maddie pulls me out and giggles. “Fireworks.”

            “Should we go see them?”

            “Don’t you want me to finish you off?”

            “It takes me a long time to come, honey.”

            “Ooh!” she says. “That could prove beneficial.”

            “Smart girl. I truly hate to say this but, Unhand my penis!”

            She gives my dick one last kiss and addresses it as a separate personage. “Bye, honey. See you soon.”

            I try my best to tuck myself back into my boxers, and am grateful to know that it will be dark outside. Maddie has quickly reattached her bra, and is redoing her lipstick.

            “Are we ready?” she asks.

            “One last thing,” I say, and I give her ass a squeeze. She returns the favor, and we re-enter the civilized, fully clothed world to explosions of blue and gold.

            It’s me and Maddie Hart, walking the loops of the golden labyrinth. The moonless sky winks at us through pinholes in the dark blue fabric.

            “So extraordinary, watching the fireworks against the hills of the city. I’ve never really seen anything like that.”

            “It really was beautiful,” she says. “And absolutely brilliant of Bill to cook up that bratwurst for us.”

            “Good thing we both had one. Otherwise one of us would have bad breath.”

            We attain the center. She turns to me and grins.

            “Are you going to sing something?” I ask.

            “No. I’m going to take you to our cottage and strip you naked.”

            We’re there in seconds, and take turns removing each other’s clothing. Maddie’s body is just as I had dreamed: white skin, luxurious curves, a modest layer of fat to make her fleshy and grippable. I lay her down on my bed and I introduce my tongue to every square inch, working from face to breast, down her abdomen to her kneecaps and back to her pubis, covered with a down of blonde. I pull her legs apart, place a thumb on either labium and part them like the petals of a flower. I’m running my tongue along her clitoris when she places a hand on the top of my head.

            “Ooh! Okay. There I’m a little sensitive.”

            I back off and reinitiate by blowing air on her, then giving little flicks with my tongue. I run my tongue between her labia, gathering her musk, and then I happen upon the key combination. I take a labium into my mouth, then use suction to run it in and out between my lips. Maddie begins to moan. I insert a finger, then two, and she begins to gasp obscenities. Then her legs start to quiver, she begins to pant, and yells her way into a bucking orgasm. I am inundated by a rush of moisture; she grabs my head with both hands, signalling me to slow up. I run my tongue all around, as if I’m licking a wound. A minute later, as her breathing subsides, I rise onto my elbows and wipe the fluid from my face.

            “Maddie! Brava!”

            She pulls me forward and gives me a sloppy kiss.

            “Is there anything you’re not good at?”

            Funny she should ask. The penis is a fickle instrument, and right now, distracted by all the focus on Maddie’s privates, mine has decided to go on strike. These are the joys of being a fortysomething male with a circumcised cock. Sometimes the erection doesn’t come back. Katie and I have worked up a repertoire of nasty maneuvers to get around these occasional bouts – mutual masturbation, private porn shows – but you can’t just pull out the whole freak show on a first encounter. I really don’t want to sacrifice the romance quite so soon.

            “Mickey? What’s the matter? Are you… disappointed in me?”

            I curl up next to her and kiss her on the cheek. “Now let’s not even start that. It’s just one of those things. I find it’s best to go with the flow.”

            “But I’m leaving tomorrow,” she says. “And I so wanted to fuck you.”

            “Stay here,” I say. “We’ll try in the morning. It’s all right. This is a great start. I enjoyed feeling you explode.”

            She smiles. Good. She has purchased the gambit.

            “That was awful nice.”

            I spend some time spooning, fondling her breasts, and we drift off to sleep.

            I wake in the morning with my cock in Maddie’s mouth. I’m erect, which gives me hope, but there’s something about her eagerness that loads me up with anxiety, and my cock subsides. (“What the hell is wrong with you?” I want to ask him. He’s like an ornery, ill-performing employee who refuses to be a team player.)

            I talk Maddie into the kind of gynecological finger-bang that I performed on Katie, hoping that the sight of my digits surrounded by that broad white ass will inspire other parts. The nastiness of her position brings Maddie to another orgasm, but not to the fucking she had so looked forward to. What’s worse, the clock is running; we have to get to her hotel by noon.

            We both take quickie showers, bid our farewells to Bill and Gabriella and take the ferry to Seattle. I’m grateful for the crossing, which gives us the luxury of some stillness amidst the rush, a chance to stand at the rail and slip back into the romantic gestures of yesterday. I drive into the circle at her hotel – in the middle of the downtown retail district – and kiss her for as long as I can. Tourists stream past, completely unaware that I am kissing the world’s best opera singer. I decide to ignore my failure completely; I thank her for a wonderful visit, I tell her that she’s a lovely woman, that I am crazy about her, and that I will see her again soon. I lead her to the elevator – one of those exposed, glass-walled models, and I watch her rise to the heavens until the lobby ceiling cuts her off.

            I’m not due at work till Monday, so I take the ferry back to Bainbridge and drive the long loop of 101 around the Olympics. In the tiny town of Sappho, near the northwest tip of the contiguous U.S., I stop at a roadside stand and buy a bag of Rainier cherries, yellow orbs with streaks of red. I chew them down, one by one, and toss the pits out the window.

            Heading toward a town called Queets I spot the incredibly late nine o’clock sun hovering over the Pacific and take down the last cherry, having long before lost my taste for them. I feel my blood vessels filling with regret. Call the male gender silly, but penetration matters, completeness matters. I had a chance to be inside of Maddalena Hart, a goddess with whom I may be in love, and I failed. I am the grasping, opposable-thumbed homo sapien, and I don’t care about the plateau under my feet, I want that one up there, just out of my reach. This will bother me all the way down the Northwest coast of the United States.

Eight

The drive around the Olympic Mountains is more of a chore than I’d expected. I end up sleeping on a roadside just north of the Columbia River, near Ilwaco (seriously, where do they get these names?). The next day, the drive down the Oregon coast is sunny and straight, but once I enter California I’ve got a major dilemma: keep driving or face another showerless night.

            My general grubbiness wins out; the last hundred miles is murder. First I have to crawl the stoplights of 19^th Avenue through San Francisco (despite the fact that it’s two in the freakin’ morning) and then I have to drive 280 to San Jose with both windows open, singing along with Melissa Etheridge’s Brave and Crazy album, and slapping myself between songs. And then, I have to drive to my cabin.

            By the time I pull in to the twin redwoods, I am in a virtual dreamstate. I stumble up the steps like I’m dragging a dead body (Rigoletto again) and take a swan-dive onto the couch.

            Still, astoundingly, I’m awake. And here is why: all the way home, I have thought of nothing but my non-functioning dick, and finally I have landed in a spot where scientific research is possible. Not only that, in my current position – my face scrunched against the couch cushion – I am looking directly into the regions beneath my coffee table, where lies a DVD titled Conversations in Cum. This groundbreaking documentary records the efforts of Sir Harry Broadstaff, who manages to interview and film a series of eager, buxom models while fucking them. For whatever reason, the sight of a randy twenty-year-old trying to assemble cogent sentences as her producer’s schwanz slides in and out of her pussy (duly recorded by regular downward pans) is enormously stimulating. Who says men can’t multi-task?

            And this I know about my own physiognomy: I achieve my most vigorous erections precisely when I’m nearly dead to the world. So I roll myself onto the floor, take the DVD from its case and crawl like the dog that I am to the player. Soon I am naked on the couch, stroking a film of Vaseline over an enormous stiffy. Maestro Broadstaff is conducting three varieties of intercourse with a stuttering, eye-crossing, lip-chewing brunette from Arizona.

            Take that, o ye gods of erection! But it’s not enough to just get the hard-on. After my irritating failure with La Diva, I’m determined to keep this one going. I work myself toward the point of ejaculation – can actually feel the sperm working its way up my shaft – and then I back myself down with light, calming strokes.

            Then I fall asleep. When I awake, Sir Harry’s got a Romanian redhead, taking his broad staff from behind as she discusses the political significance of Vaclev Havel. The power-nap has diminished my erection not a whit. I work it harder, like a tennis player approaching the net, then slowly back it off. It’s now gaining that special brand of rigidity that comes from long-term stimulation.

            And then I fall asleep. This time it’s a slender Italian woman with long black hair, the young Cher without the schnozz. She steps into the room, spots the producer’s cock and says, “Now that’s what I’m looking for!” She’s wearing a little black dress, the kind you see a fancy fundraisers. I’m expecting the standard fellatio, but instead she takes ahold of the penis, positions it beneath the hem of her dress and slides her way down.

            This one is so good that I can almost feel it myself. She bucks and slides, throws her head back, grabs at her small tits. It's all too much. I put my hands around her hips, I reach underneath to grab her ass and then I gush inside of her for a long, long time. She lets out a husky shout, shakes on my dick like a madwoman, and then I fall asleep.

            The area around the cabins plays host to a healthy population of Steller’s jays. They are always raucous, but this morning they seem to be coming through in hi-def. When a cold draft sweeps over me, I discover that some idiot has left the door open. I stumble to my feet to close it; the sudden motion alerts me to the fact that I need to pee. Remembering little bits of my nocturnal jackoff, this seems logical.

            I take the kitchen route to the bathroom, and open the door to find that someone is already. A long olive-complected arm is draped along the rim of my bathtub, a stream of raven hair hanging to the floor. A pair of black almond-shaped eyes; a fetching smile.

            “I have to say, honey, when you decide to open a bed-and-breakfast, you go all out. The clawfoot tub, the mango soap. This view! And that prefab erection. Best pillow mint ever.”

            This would be my ex-wife.

            “Hi Allison. What the fuck do you want?”

            She grabs her tits and points them at me like six-shooters.

            “The fuck I wanted, I already got.”

            “Yes. Mind if I pee?”

            “Ooh! And a free show with my bath.”

            I flip the lid and soon have a healthy stream bubbling the water. The ease of my lewdness bothers me, but perhaps shamelessness is the one luxury of hating your ex. Alley places her pretty little chin on the edge of the tub and makes a show of watching.

            “Mmm. Firehose.”

            “Pressure washer,” I say. I give a final shake and dab the tip with a square of toilet paper.

            “And so neat!”

            “Well, as long as you’re going to narrate my fucking day for me, this is me taking a shower.”

            She adopts the tense whisper of a golf broadcaster. “It appears that Siskel will now be taking a shower.”

            I’m not trusting the warm water to last, so I rinse myself down, turn off the taps and lather myself from toe to shoulder. After two days on the road, my fresh bar of gardenia soap is a little chunk o’ heaven. I stand there for a full minute, feeling like a human potpourri, then I restart the water and rinse it all off. I advance through the shower curtains to find the last ounces of water circling the bathtub drain. As I proceed to razor, toothbrush and comb, the smell of coffee progresses from hallucination to aphrodisiac. I stop by the bedroom for a pair of jeans and enter the living room to find a fresh mug of java perched atop the case for Conversations in Cum. I ease onto the couch, locate a Giants game on the tube, and an inning later find myself served with a plate of bacon, eggs and home-fried potatoes.

            “Well! What’s the occasion?”

            She sits in an armchair opposite me and crosses her legs. She’s back in the little black dress.

            “I receive goodness. I give goodness back.”

            “Says the woman who strapped my balls to the hood of her Beamer. Oh, wait – that was my Beamer.”

            She grants me a close-lipped smile.

            “Really, honey. Such old news. And I sent your balls back to you a long time ago. Married a rich lawyer? A rich lawyer who fucks around on me every chance he gets?”

            “Business trip?”

            “Vegas. Where he’s got hookers on speed-dial.” She whistles a stream of air over her cup. “Meanwhile, I’m expected to represent our power-couple corporation at the Villa Montalvo dinner, where every available dick is guarded over by some botoxed old-money harpie. And you know how I get when I’m not being properly serviced. Imagine my good fortune, finding your front gate wide open.”

            “Shit!” I slap my forehead. Leaving the gate open could be grounds for eviction.

            “Hakuna matata, honey. I locked it behind me.”

            “This pains me to say, but… Thank you.”

            “You’re welcome. But why were you spanking the monkey, honey? Is it so hard for you day-laborers to find companionship?”

            I’m not about to despoil Maddalena’s name.

            “The women on the DVDs are not so high-maintenance.”

            Allison sets down her coffee and chews on a fingernail. This is the closest she gets to expressing actual emotion.

            “Sad to say, I’ve got to agree with you. Some of the heinous bitches I meet in Saratoga… It was pretty awesome, all that cum you shot into me. Wow.”

            The thought of it draws a hand to her crotch. She opens her legs and hikes up her dress, revealing pussy lips the color of tawny port and a patch of black pubic hair shaved into a heart.

            “Nice work.”

            “Jing-Jao at the salon. She’s the best.” She runs a manicured finger along her slit and dips it inside.

            “What do you say, ex-husband? Fuck the woman who fucks the attorneys? Strike a blow against The Man?”

            My cock is instantly hard. (I really gotta have a talk with that dick.)

            I wave a hand toward the rug. “Why don’t you give me a show, porn queen? Money-grubbing slut? Carnivorous bitch?”

            As my language gets worse, her fingerwork gets faster.

            “Ditch-digger,” she hisses. “Welfare mother. Blue-collar piece of shit. Why don’t you take a good look at the ass you gave up to be a dick-stainer?”

            She crawls onto the rug, pulls her dress slowly upward to reveal her tight little cheeks, then reaches underneath to bury two fingers in her hole. I don’t know why this mutual loathing makes such excellent foreplay, but I am grateful for any mojo that comes my way. I yank off my jeans, take my dick in hand and rub the tip along her entrance before jamming myself inside. Allison lets out an aristocratic shriek, grabs two fistfuls of rug and slams back against me. I am filled with luscious hate.

            If Allison is the antidote to my impotence, Katie is the antidote to Allison. I am condemned to using the next woman to get over the last woman, an endless circle of humping.

            With Katie I am as tender as possible, spending a long time kissing, a long time caressing, and a long time bringing her to an oral climax. After that, we assume the friendliest position possible, sitting on the floor, facing each other, our arms around each other’s backs. After a half hour of this slow squirming, I experience a quiet orgasm, leaking into her as I shiver in pleasure. It’s about as nice of a fuck as one can have, and by now I have thoroughly recovered from the Seattle fiasco.

            Katie has brought along some lovely foodstuffs: two New York steaks, fresh asparagus and one complete pineapple, accompanied by a bottle of Pinot Noir. Afterwards, we sit on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and watch Roman Holiday, which we have both seen several times.

            “How was your trip?” she asks. “Did you see the opera?”

            “Yes. It was great. Beautiful drive, too. Really wore me out, though.”

            “Did you meet anyone up there?”

            Katie is on the trail. Women are amazing at this. But I have put some thought into it, and I’ve decided not to divulge anything until I’m a little more certain about Maddie.

            “Yes! I ran into Cordell. He’s a voice coach, one of the regulars at my blog site.”

            Katie is not swayed. “Because it seems a bit much, going all the way to Seattle for an opera. I know you’re a fanatic and all, but I just thought… there might be some other reason.”

            She’s already jumped from bloodhound to pit bull. This could be trouble.

            “No, I just…”

            “Because you promised me. You told me if some other woman came along, you would tell me. I need to know these things.”

            Pit bull to prosecuting attorney. I am so screwed. I place the popcorn bowl on the coffee table.

            “Okay. Yes. I’ve started seeing someone.”

            “Oh.”

            The tight-lipped response. She stares at the television and taps a tattoo with her foot.

            “Is she pretty?”

            “Does it matter?”

            “Just… curious. Is she nice? What does she do?”

            “She’s an opera singer.”

            “Mm-hmm! So you went to Seattle to see her sing.”

            “Well… yes.”

            We settle into a compressed silence. Gregory Peck pretends that the monster inside a statue has bitten off his hand. Audrey Hepburn screams.

            “I saw a documentary on this. Peck didn’t tell Hepburn he was going to do that. That’s why her response was so…”

            “What’s her name?”

            “Maddalena Hart.”

            Katie’s eyes get bigger. “Isn’t she the…”

            “Yes.”

            “Holy shit.”

            Now that I’ve got her semi-catatonic with my star-fucking, I feel the distinct need for a visit to the ‘loo. I take a good long time, and afterward I give my prick an examination. The head is showing spots of pink and purple from all the activity. This used to freak me out as a teenager (when most of the abuse was self-supplied). I take five minutes washing my hands; I return to an empty living room and the sound of ignition. I dash outside just in time to see Katie’s headlights streaming around the bend.

            I’m really not sure what I will do about this. Continue screwing my ex-wife? But I do have a half-bowl of popcorn, so I sit back down, drink some pinot noir straight from the bottle, and abandon the movie for a replay of the Giants game. I already know that we won (a three-hitter by Cain), so I’m guaranteed a happy ending. What more could a man ask for? The loneliness is deafening.

            My cell goes off. It’s a text message. An unknown number, a strange area code.

            How was the trip?

            I save the number as Maddie and hit Reply.

            Exhausting. How was yours?

            Claustrophobic. Felt like one of Papageno’s birds.

            How could you not love a woman who goes to the trouble of texting Papageno on her cell phone?

            U R Fantastic.

            In what way?

            All of them.

            It’s silly, it’s juvenile, but that’s what text-flirting is all about. An hour later, the Giants are into the seventh inning, and Maddie and I are still at it.

            A pair of headlights sweeps across my windows. I come to the front porch to find Katie’s car parked across the drive. I walk slowly into the clearing, not knowing what to expect. Katie gets out and peers at me over the roof of her car. The tension builds until she bursts into motion, running across the clearing. She lands at my chest and begins to sob. I slip a hand into my pocket and turn off my phone.

Nine

Somehow, Colin manages to live alone in a 1908 four-bedroom Victorian with a one-acre backyard. I pull in under a shade tree and walk the long drive, discovering oversized body parts on dropcloths: an arm here, an arm there, two legs, torso, a world-beating rack. I find Colin and some other guy on the hedged-in porch, applying paint to a five-foot-tall head. She looks like Sacagawea as drawn by Diego Rivera, all Aztec cheekbones and wide brown nose. The eyes are enormous white diamonds with green irises.

            “Micko! Meet the goddess of Joyism, Iluana.”

            “American Indian?”

            Colin gives her a long study.

            “I suppose so. You recall the Camarena deck?” He holds up a can of Cabot stain, a reddish brown hybrid we call Coco Ray. “Oh, and this is my helpmeet, Greg.”

            Greg is a bald man with an egg-shaped dome. His skin hangs basset-like from his face, and shakes when he talks.

            “A million small suns. Helpmeet - wonderful word. A million small… Iluana, the helpmeet of a million small suns, flies with Coco Ray to the conference of contrabands.”

            “Hi,” I say.

            Colin laughs. “Sorry. Greg’s in riff-mode. He’s a poet. He gets hooked on these phrases and has to speak them all day until they sprout a poem.”

            Greg’s eyes get wide, like someone’s just shot him with a taser. “Like an oyster working a pearl.”

            “Wonderful,” I say.

            “A million small suns.”

            “Exactly.” I turn to Colin. “Could I fetch the sprayer? I have to get to a softball game.”

            “Oh! Certainly. Carry on, Greg.”

            “A million small suns,” says Greg. “Preposterous.”

            The paint sprayer is next to the garage, freshly cleaned after some clogging issues. Colin begins the briefing.

            “Let’s see, you’ve got the gate code…”

            “Check.”

            “Cell phone for Mrs. Atkins?”

            “Yep.”

            “Gave you the layout of the deck – oh, and don’t forget that little porch out back. They’re on vacation all month, so it’s up to you as far as the schedule, but whatever you do, avoid the sun! Morning, evening, whichever you prefer. I trust you completely, my friend. And if anything comes up you are utterly on your own. You might be able to smuggle a text onto the playa, but it would probably take me too long to respond.”

            “Have a great time,” I say. “I expect some naughty stories.”

            “If nothing happens, I’ll make something up.”

            Colin and I maintain a handshake professionalism, but for occasions like the annual Burning Man sendoff I use the he-man hug.

            “Have fun.”

            “Thanks, pal. And thanks for handling this job. It does help the old cash flow.”

            “No problem.”

            I pick up the sprayer, loop the hose over my shoulder and head off.

            “Ta!” says Colin. “No fuckups!”

            “Ta!”

            Greg pokes his head out of the hedge.

            “A million small suns!”

            “Bye, Greg.”

            We’ve got a couple of new infielders, so I’m back in left field, which is kind of nice. It’s relaxing to turn off the brain and just go fetch the ball. I’ve been doing pretty well (for an old fart), but the infield commits a couple of bobbles and soon the virus is hitting the whole team. I have no idea why such things are contagious, but they are. My centerfielder is chasing a base hit when he steps on a bald spot and goes down like he’s been hit by sniper fire.

            “Okay!” I shout. “I think we’ve got enough for the blooper reel now!”

            Famous last words. I’m chasing a flare down the line, trying to get a lower angle on the ball, when my feet get tangled up and I go down like I’ve been hit by a shoestring tackle. The ball clanks off my glove and falls to the grass.

            “What the hell!” says Doug. “I’ve never seen you do that.”

            I adopt the rumbling baritone of sports documentaries. “It was the end of a brilliant playing career for Mickey Siskel.”

            “Yeah, right. Get up there and get a fucking hit.”

            We are a much more talented team than our opponents, but that never stopped us before. We’re tied in the top of the seventh when someone lifts a lazy fly to my left. Something in my gearbox goes off by an inch and the ball clanks off my glove again.

            Oh no, says my body. Not this time, you fucker. I follow the ball down, slapping at it with various appendages as I crumple to the ground: the left elbow, the right hand, a ricochet off both knees, bada-bing. Now I’m crawling, and I manage to slide my glove beneath this last bobble just before it hits the grass. Lying flat on my stomach, I raise my glove to show the umpire, and he signals the out.

            “Well,” I say. “That was entertaining.”

            Doug is laughing up a storm. “You probably saved a run. The runner couldn’t decide if you were going to catch it or not, and he got all brain-locked.”

            “That’s what I’m talkin’ about.” I tap a finger to my temple. “Stragedy.”

            We eke out the winning run and slither away like a man smuggling the ugly girl out of the bar. I’m feeling just as unsettled as my glovework, driving into the suburban night, gathering stray thoughts at the stoplights.

            At the left turn to the 85 onramp, I flash on my early July doubleheader: the ex-wife and the booty call. Allison’s quick fadeaway is neither surprising nor disappointing. Her mojo-resuscitation act was like chemotherapy: a little is effective, but too much will kill you.

            As for Katie, I suppose this is the nature of booty-call arrangements. They survive on the understanding that they are not real relationships. When they go on too long, or become too regular – when they begin to take on the appearance of relationships – they are bound to scuttle themselves on the next sandbar. She stayed that night, she kissed me goodbye in the morning, and I haven’t seen her since. Desperate as she is for any candle in a dark existence, I think she was able to ignore her growing attachment, but when she came up against a mythic figure like Maddalena Hart, she decided it was time to quit. I’m sure she’ll be in church this Sunday, rationalizing our Saturday nights as a sinful mistake, feeling the kind of warmth that does not emanate from a pew. I don’t deserve to, but I miss her.

            I come to a stop at Prospect and Saratoga-Sunnyvale, the dark mass of the Santa Cruz Mountains looming across my windshield, and I’m thinking what a lonely man I have become. Thankfully, the decking business is booming. But when it’s this busy, Colin and I tend to split the jobs, so even there I’m losing companionship. I try not to go home too early, because the solitude around the cabins is pretty thick, and it’s not like you can dash to the corner for a late-night coffee.

            Thanks to softball, tonight’s schedule is just about right; it’s 10:30 and I am pulling up to Saratoga Village, my final stoplight before the long, slow rise of Highway 9. It is precisely at this right-hand turn, each and every night, that my thoughts turn to Maddalena.

            September 23. That’s when Guillaume Tell opens at SFO. That’s when I am guaranteed of seeing her in the flesh. Left alone without my usual supporting cast, I find myself aching for her. Silly, poetic thing to say, but that’s what it feels like – a deep-tissue bruise, a separated shoulder. I am hopeful, nonetheless, that her two-month, three-opera stay will give us an idea as to what, precisely, we will do with each other.

            Meanwhile, I subsist on a diet of text messages. Neither of us are fond of phone calls, which are just close enough to actual contact to max out the frustration level. But these little tapped-out thoughts are okay. I am surprised at their power.

            At the turnoff to Sanborn County Park, my cell shakes against the cupholder. Being a performer, Maddie keeps a night-owl schedule, so one-thirty Eastern is nothing unusual.

            Did you win?

            Barely.

            A W’s a W, bebe.

            Comedy softball.

            God I miss u.

            Just another month.

            Loooong month.

            Don’t worry. It’ll seem like 15 mins.

            Oh sure.

            Trust me.

            How’s Mathilde?

            Rossini’s tough! Especially GT.

            She always seems to catch me on Highway 9, so I have learned to type by touch as I navigate the curves.

            Front gate.

            I don’t dare text on the dirt road, however, so I always let her know when I’m about to go into cyber-silence. For some reason, Trey the Fish has reattached the lock on the wrong side of the gate. I have to yank it over the crossbar to catch some light from the highway. I return to the car to find Maddie's signoff:

            Drive carefully! Never know what night creatures you may encounter.

            Thx honey.

            I switch on my brights and follow the usual tracks: the short first climb, the sandy straightaway, uphill past the hiking trail, the long gravelly downhill, the tricky outcroppings of rock. Approaching the first overlook, I catch a flash of red reflector, then a bright sedan, then a woman in a white pantsuit. I crunch to a halt, sending up a cloud of dust that follows me as I jog into my high-beams and lift her off the ground. She lands laughing.

            “Gotcha.”

            “I thought…”

            “They wanted me here early. Some sort of… Oh who cares? Kiss me!”

            I kiss her until all deep tissue bruises and separated shoulders are absolved, and then I hold her tight as she hums in my ear. When I open my eyes, I see the lights of Silicon Valley spread out like a million small suns.

            “A million what?”

            “Nothing. Poetry. God it’s good to see you.”

            I have thoughts of showering, of pouring Maddie some wine, maybe scraping together some dessert. I recall that I have peanut butter. What can you do with peanut butter?

            Maddie has other ideas. She nudges me like a border collie working a sheep, driving me across the living room, to the edge of my bed and over. She yanks at the layers of my softball gear – pants, sliding pad, athletic briefs – until she unearths my cock. She works it over with her tongue until I’m sporting a grade-A hard-on. Then she hops off the bed, removes her pants and readies herself to hop onto my dick, which is now limp.

            She looks at me. “Is it all right to yell?”

            “Yes.”

            “Neighbors won’t mind?”

            “No.”

            “FUCK!”

            She stands to give her diaphragm more room, and delivers her next three notes with an impressive amount of volume.

            “Fuck! Fuck! F-U-U-U-U…”

            I’ve got my hand clamped over her mouth, an arm around her waist. She’s still yelling – I can feel the force of her breath against my palm.

            “Maddie? Honey? Ya gotta stop, Maddie.”

            It takes her a few breaths to calm down, and then she peels my hand away.

            “Why?”

            “Because I am not going to explain to the opera fans of America how it was that the end of your singing career was inspired by my limp dick.”

            She takes in a hissing breath that might be a rising indignation, then lets out a little burst, like the first puff from an air compressor. That’s the hole in the dike; the rest is a flood of wild, rolling laughter that sweeps me along in its wake. Two minutes later we are flat on the bed, pantsless, trying to stop before we asphyxiate ourselves. After that we grow silent, and I think I know why: we’re both afraid that the next utterance will send us right back into the water.

            Maddie curls across the bed, grabs my dick and gives it a stern look.

            “Why don’t you like me? Everybody else likes me.”

            This isn’t as funny as it should be. I am drowning in frustration.

            “When you got home from your drive, did you masturbate?”

            “Yes.”

            “And?”

            “Hard as Wagner.”

            “Wagner is hard. I’m so sick of this.” She releases my idiot cock and leans back on her elbows. “Sadly, this has happened before.”

            “Really?”

            “I’m a pretty intimidating figure. La Diva! Tenors and penises cower before her. Christ.”

            “Sorry.”

            She leans up and gives me a kiss.

            “If I was smart, I would sleep only with men who know nothing about opera. But don’t worry about it, honey. Please don’t. Well. I gotta go.” She hops off the bed and fetches her pants.

            “Huh?”

            “My boy-genius stage director. Jose Maria Condemi. He’s one of those fucking morning people, and like an idiot I agreed to meet with him at nine o’clock. No way in hell I’m accomplishing that from here. I’m awfully sorry, Mickey. I feel like I ambushed you. But I had to at least see you. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I adore you.”

            “I adore you.”

            “Now put on your pantalones, Dimaggio, and walk me out.”

            I lean her against the hood of her Lexus and kiss her like a lover should.

            “Thanks for surprising me.”

            She taps a finger on my chest. “Your assignment: don’t touch that thing. Get a lot of sleep, and be here at seven tomorrow evening. I’ll bring dinner.”

            “Nice.”

            “I will think of something.” I give her a last kiss and watch her drive away. When I get back inside, I open a beer and crash on the couch. I have a visual flash of Maddie giving me head and my dick starts to stiffen.

            “Oh fuck you. You had your chance.”

            I turn on the TV and search for the most non-sexual shows I can find. The Disney Channel. Murder She Wrote. The McLaughlin Group.

            My sleep is pretty spotty, so I spend much of the next day napping on the couch as a classical station lulls me in and out of slumber. I manage to take an afternoon hike through the madrones, and then I head for the bath so I’ll be presentable for La Diva.

            She pulls in exactly at seven and parks in my front yard, which is really just dirt and tree droppings. I meet her at the door and give her a kiss. She seems excited.

            “Hi. I need some help loading up.”

            She opens the back door of her Lexus and hands me a couple of wardrobe bags on hangers. I attach them to the curtain rods over the living room drapes. A few trips later, we are adrift in a sea of clothing. I sit on the couch expecting some sort of explanation. Maddie hitches her thumbs into her jeans pockets, surveys the landscape and says, “So. Who do you want to fuck tonight?”

            “Ummm… pardon?”

            “I have just pilfered a hefty portion of the San Francisco Opera wardrobe department. Any lyric soprano you’d like. We’ve got Violetta, Gilda, Mathilde, Manon, Micaela…”

            “Ooh.”

            She flashes an amused smile. “Oh! Micaela. That’s interesting. Okay. Here’s what I want. Lose the coffee table. Leave the armchair. Round up some candles. Then just relax, watch some TV. This may take a while.”

            She fetches a bag reading MIC ’06 and leaves for the bathroom. I close all the blinds and curtains, lean the coffee table against the far wall, pull the rug to the center of the remaining space and position the armchair atop that. Then I set four large candles on an end table and add an incense holder with a stick of patchouli. A half-hour later, as I’m dozing through an episode of Seinfeld (George as a marine biologist), the kitchen door closes, and three knocks resound from the other side.

            “Two minutes! Light the candles.”

            [Track 8]

            I light the candles and incense, setting the room in a hazy orange glow. I sit on the couch, an expectant audience. Maddie gives another three knocks and enters. She wears a long gray skirt with petticoats, a white rectangle of apron descending from the waist. Above that is a white blouse with puffs at the sleeves and a chocolate-brown leather corset. Her collar is open, revealing just a hint of cleavage. She wears her hair tied up in a blue scarf, flowing out the back, and her face is marked with swipes of dirt, as though she has been on an arduous journey. She speaks in clear, unaccented English, but the formality of her tone implies a 19^th-century European.

            “Thank you so much for taking me in! These travels have been much more difficult then I expected. It’s very gracious of you.”

            She listens for a moment, as if someone is speaking to her, and then smiles.

            “Oh! Well, you see, I am on a quest of sorts. I am trying to find my beau, Don Jose, who has taken up with gypsy smugglers. His mother is quite ill and… May I sit? Thank you.”

            She settles rather properly on the armchair and takes a sip from an invisible glass.

            “Thank you so much. Yes, you’re right, it is quite dangerous. I’ve never really done anything like this.”

            Another attentive pause.

            “Oh, well. I… care for Jose quite a lot. We grew up on neighboring farms, and we played together as children. And I remember this one day. I was twelve. I was beginning to… develop. I was walking back to the house after milking the cows. Jose was working the fields. It was hot that day, and he had taken off his shirt. He waved to me; I went to lean against the fence and talk to him. He continued to work as we spoke. I could see the muscles moving in his arms, like the strings of a guitar, and the way the sweat shone on his back.

            “I don’t know if it is proper to describe what it was that I was feeling. A tingling. Like the tickle on your skin when your clothes rustle in the wind. Only this… tingling seemed to emanate from beneath my skirt. I wanted so badly to reach down and rub myself, but of course I could not. And watching Jose, I recalled something I had seen two days previous. A bull approached a cow in the field and, amazingly, he stood on his hind legs behind her. I had heard of such things, but I had never seen the mechanical aspect, the way the bull’s tube of flesh slid in and out of the cow’s backside. I tried to be disgusted, as I knew I should, but I was fascinated by the beauty of the design, as if these two dancing animals had rehearsed all their lives for this one performance. And that same tingling beneath my skirts – though why I should feel this way about a bull and a cow I do not know. I almost could not keep my hands off of myself. That Sunday, in church, I prayed for God to remove these temptations, or at the least to let me understand them better.”

            She stops for a moment; her thoughts seem to drift. Then she squints her eyes and purses her lips.

            “I detest gypsies! Filthy, ignorant animals. You see, I always thought that Jose and I were rehearsing. I suppose that I loved him. But I was a terribly shy girl, and I did not tell him a thing. Before I knew it he was in the army and off to Seville – Seville, that evil place. It was there that he met this Carmen person. I do not know what he sees in her – she’s not even pretty. But now… Now I have what it will take to win him back. If his mother’s sickness is not enough, then I will simply have to give myself to him. I am ready, I love him, and that should be enough for God. Just the thought of it… just the…”

            She reaches inside her blouse, brings out one white breast and tweaks her nipple, arching backward. Then she opens her eyes and smiles.

            “Everyone at home believes that I am a good girl, but I have spent years walking by the field with the bull and the cow, and… well. I know, sir, that your wife is away at her sister’s, and I hope that you do not think that I am taking advantage of circumstance, but I wonder if you… if you would show it to me.”

            It takes me a moment to realize that I have been drafted – that I am the kindly farmer who has offered her lodging. I stand and shuck my shorts, revealing a hardening but untrustworthy member. She giggles.

            “It is not so large as the bull’s, but it is much more handsome! Here, I have brought some oil with me. Perhaps you’d like to rub it? I have heard that men like to do such things.”

            She pulls a small vial from her skirts and hands it to me, then dashes back to her chair as though I were the bull in her story. I pour some of the oil into my hand, apply it to my dick and make a good show of stroking it.

            “Ooh!” Her eyes squint in pleasure and she places a hand over her skirt. “It’s that… feeling again, that tingling. Only now it’s unbearable. Are we… Are you sure that we are quite alone?”

            I nod.

            She looks around nervously, then slowly gathers her petticoats until, in a narrow gap beneath all the layers of clothing she reveals her pussy. She opens her legs further, displaying the moisture coating her labia, then reaches down to rub her clitoris and dip a finger inside.

            “Oh! Oh! I see now why I have wanted to do that for so long! What an incredible sensation. I think it is time…”

            She closes her legs, reaches into her skirts and extracts a large black dildo, made to look as realistic as possible.

            “I hate the gypsies, but they do occasionally prove themselves useful. This one was a peddler of novelties, and he sold me this, a life-cast from the erect member of a Zulu warrior. ‘Even though you may not yet want to join with a man,’ the peddler said, ‘this will give you an idea of what it feels like. And you won’t get babies.’”

            She spreads her legs again, pushes her petticoats aside and inserts the black cock. The sides of her entrance cling to the dildo as it slides in and out. Micaela moans.

            “Oh! It feels so good. I want Jose to fill me like this. Sir, oh sir, please. Be my Jose. Put your thing inside me. Show me how it feels.”

            I leap from the couch, take her hand away and push the black cock in and out, faster and faster until Micaela’s eyes begin to bug out. It’s the filthiest thing I have ever seen, and it’s divine. I take the dildo and throw it to the floor, take my cock in my hand and I am inside of her, aloft on a cloud of petticoats.

            “Oh, Micaela, you feel so good.”

            “Jose! Jose! Je’taime Jose. I will love you forever.”

            The layers of identity are getting pretty deep. I am the middle-aged farmer banging away at the lost little girl as the pretends that I am her soldier-boy. Carmen could never be this hot – she’s too fucking obvious. I sink into the illusion and continue pumping Micaela into the armchair. I hold myself deep inside of her as I drive my tongue into her mouth, then I stand up and order her outside. I push her against the Lexus and I lift her skirts so I can surround my dick with that plump white ass.

            Then I’m on the ground, redwood cones digging into my butt as Micaela bounces on top of me, all of our parts delicious hidden beneath her petticoats. She takes off her scarf to release her hair. I find myself shouting a long string of yesses as Micaela begins to sing. She looses a top note into the trees; I can feel the vibrations all the way down to my dick and it’s too much. I explode, gushing into her. Micaela screams; the sound echoes off the hillsides. I grab her by the waist and continue to empty myself out, then I roll beside her. We spend the next five minutes laughing, kissing and smiling, leaves and sticks and God-knows-what entwined in her hair.

            “Micaela! You are a bad, bad girl!”

            “You knew that all along; that’s why you picked me.” She kisses me and snuggles her face against my neck. I roll onto my back and see the moonlit sky, jagged silver patterns sketched across the treetops. A jetliner skates across, flashing red and white signals.

            My non-existent neighbor snuck in while I was away and left an old picnic table next to the fire pit. I am high on sex and feeling ambitious, so I construct a pyramid of aged logs, douse it with lighter fluid and soon I have a raging fire. So raging, in fact, that Micaela and I are forced to sit on the opposite side of the table, digging into the baked lasagna that Maddie picked up at Bella Mia. She has decided to keep the costume on for a while.

            “So this monologue. Did you rehearse that?”

            Micaela wipes her mouth with a napkin and kisses me just beneath my earlobe.

            “That is the kind of well-developed backstory that any decent soprano should come up with. Really, it’s the one part of the opera where we get to be the creators. The backstory builds the character, the nature of the character affects the musical and dramatic interpretation, and those interpretations determine the flavor of the production as a whole.

            “The critics, bless their hearts, have always said that my Micaela has a little more umph than most, and now you know why. I don’t buy the hapless innocent. This is a girl who ventures into the mountains all alone, knowing full well that there are murderous gypsies up there. She wants Jose, she has always wanted him, and she will do just about anything to get him away from Carmen. My backstories are not usually so explicit, but you can bet there’s a lot of suppressed sexuality there, and it’s not out of the realm of possibilities that she would put her virginity on the line. When you picked her out of the lineup, I thought, Well shit, this is a piece of cake.”

            “The corruption of the girl next door.”

            “Oh yeah.”

            “Elena Mendez.”

            “Pardon?”

            “Girl next door. Used to lay out by her pool, which was just visible from my window.”

            “Pervert.”

            “Oh yeah.”

            “When you men see all that innocence, you just want to go in there and mess with it.”

            “I get the feeling Elena wasn’t all that innocent. Not from the looks of that bikini. What was that aria? Was that the famous one?”

            “‘Je dis que rien ne m’epouvante.’ Yes, the famous one. And she sings it at that very point in the opera, on her way up the mountain. Little did we know she had just spent the night banging a farmer.”

            We enjoy a long laugh, and then we return our attentions to the lasagna, which is extraordinary. After Maddie finishes, she lifts my right leg over the bench, straddles me, takes a draught of wine and swirls it into my mouth. When we’re done, her eyes are half-closed and dreamy.

            “Having you inside of me, I can’t tell you…”

            And she can’t, because she’s crying. I settle my head against her chest until she recovers. She wipes her eyes, laughing.

            “I’m sorry, honey. I guess I was really anxious about this.”

            “Me too.”

            Once the floodgates have opened, there’s no stopping us. Being a professional, Violetta is an expert cocksucker. Manon is into full-body massages and having her toes licked. Susannah is a saucy little wench who enjoys filthy language and (much to Figaro’s surprise) anal sex. Donna Elvira keeps slapping Don Giovanni in the midst of intercourse. The Celtic priestess Norma is a tender, generous lover who likes it on top, surrounded by banks of candles. Lucia is a fucking maniac, speaking in tongues, changing position every two minutes and constantly referring to Edgardo’s tool as a dagger. The Queen of the Night brings along whips, handcuffs and (much to Papageno’s surprise) a strap-on dildo.

            And Rusalka. In a pool of deep blue light, the water nymph plays with her newly granted human body until she brings herself to a slow, quiet climax. She does the same with the body of her prince, holding and licking his staff for long minutes, then spreading herself open and inviting his entrance. After shuddering to a wordless climax, she sings to the moon as the prince continues to stroke slowly in and out.

            The following evening, the woman who is all of them returns home after a day of errands and appointments. She looks a little frazzled, her hair tied up in a bandana, her face lined and weary from the heat. She greets me with a hug.

            “So,” she says. “Who do you want tonight? I’ve got Mathilde, Desdemona, the Marschallin…”

            “I want the opera singer.”

            “Oh. Tosca?”

            “Maddalena.”

            She looks at me in the filtered shade and gives me a smile that grows and grows.

            “Excellent choice.”

            The next day is our last before she begins rehearsals. Regardless, I decide that it’s time I get to that deck. Maddie invites herself along (“After all, you’re always watching me work”), and sits in the shade with a cooler of beers and a book.

            The Atkins house is a veritable mansion, built on a steep, sunny hillside far back in the Santa Cruz Mountains. After a few back-and-forths with the pressure washer, I conclude that the deck is completely hidden from neighboring roads or houses. I head for the far corner, out of my diva’s vision, and remove every article of clothing, save the Wellies. Then I return to my work as if nothing is awry, following a pair of planks all the way down. The mix of sunlight and mist on my privates is intoxicating, but what I’m really after is audience reaction.

            Making my full frontal turn, I find that the joke is on me. Maddie has planted a chaise lounge at the center of the adjacent deck and is lying there absolutely starkers, like a plus-size model at the Playboy mansion. She gives me a little wave to let me know that I’ve been had. I raise my wand, sending a spray that catches the breeze and settles on her radiant white contours. She spreads her arms as if welcoming a lover.

Ten

           

            Excepting the actual Burning of the Man, the most popular Burning Man event is Critical Tits. Three thousand women bare their breasts, hop on bikes and ride across the playa. The men are sworn to polite behavior, but inevitably there are gawkers and photographers. Applying his usual savoir faire, Colin has devised a way to satisfy his visual appetite in exchange for a useful bit of sheep’s clothing. Armed with a gas-powered outboard margarita blender, he and his cohorts station themselves near the course and offer up free refreshments.

            “We’ve got this thing down to an artform, really. Every year we move closer and closer to the finish line, so as to catch the comely females at their thirstiest. We had to wait a devilishly long time, but once they arrived they came in droves! At one point, we must have had three hundred. Or six hundred, depending on how you’re counting. I was like the happiest fucking dairy farmer in the contiguous 48. Eventually we ran out of ice and cups, so we simply bent the young ladies over backwards and mixed the margaritas in their mouths. One large-breasted lovely allowed me to drink directly from her mouth as I fondled her humongous knockers. F-u-u-u-uck!”

            We are re-doing the Deck of the Cursed. We laid down the original two coats a couple years ago, and spent most of our time mollifying our female client’s paranoid fantasies. All of which came true. Wide stretches of peeling paint and freckles of black mold. I have labeled it a “mystery deck” – one of those decks that suffers from some environmental malady we are simply not equipped to diagnose. Regardless, we are here to supply a free restaining, and I’m kicking in my labor at no charge to Colin.

            Colin is a freakishly fast stainer to begin with, but the memory of all those breasts has kicked him into overdrive. He reaches the final five feet of the final three planks and swipes them over in about two seconds.

            “Well, mate, why don’t you head out? I’ll clean up the equipment. I wouldn’t want to keep you from your international singing sensation. How are things going, by the way?”

            “We’ll need a much bigger deck for that story.”

            “Oooh!” says Colin, twisting the vowel into lascivious ribbons. “Lots of dirty, filthy sex I hope?”

            “With several different women.”

            “Really!”

            “All of whom are Maddalena.”

            Colin hops over some planks onto a concrete step, the beginning of his escape route.

            “You’re being a Sphinx, my friend. But perhaps I should wait till another day for the answer to the riddle.”

            “You’re absolutely right. I’m off!”

            “Ta! And thanks again for, er, volunteering.”

            “I suspect we’ll be making this an annual occasion.”

            “Heaven forfend!”

            It’s awfully amusing to have a boss who uses “forfend” in a sentence. I dash to my wagon, make a three-point turn and climb the driveway.

            I am determined to fine-tune my routines, so I have brought along a pack of Handi-Wipes for a cat-bath at the Burlingame rest area. Fortunately, tonight’s opera is casual-dress, so I’m able to settle for blue jeans and a rugby shirt. A half-hour later, I pull into the lot with my VIP parking pass and make my way across the Lefty O’Doul Bridge to AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. I follow the Habitrail of walkways and escalators until I come out before an ocean of seats along the first-base line.

            My next instruction has me a little baffled: Report to shortstop. That’s just a little too close to my childhood fantasies. I wander lower, past the gateways into the box seats, then I spot a queue next to the dugout watched over by a guy in a blue security jacket. Ah, thinks I, this is where the dream ends. But then I see that Mr. Beefy is simply giving the patrons a hands-up over the transom. Onto the field!

            So I’m standing in the on-deck circle, peering up at the stands like I always knew I would, someday, and I take a tentative walk toward the infield. Three Mexican kids rush down the third-base line and slide across home plate. What manner of anarchy is this? I find myself in front of the pitcher’s mound and I figure, Why the hell not? I ascend the hill, place one foot next to the slab and lean forward, holding an invisible ball behind my back. My catcher signals for the curve. Uncle Charlie. The Yakker. I give him a nod, then straighten up and bring my hands together, eyeing the runner on second.

            “What are you doing?”

            A winsome blonde has ventured onto the field. Too late. The pitch must be made.

            “World Series, game seven, bases loaded, up by a run. This is my seven-year-old fantasy. You didn’t appear till I was twelve.”

            She waves a hand toward the plate like a game-show model. I make a dramatic delivery, square up my feet and snap my head toward right field.

            “What?” says the blonde.

            “Home run. We lose.”

            She swats me on the shoulder. “What kind of fantasy is that?”

            “Future opera critic. I had an early passion for tragedy.”

            “Give me a consolation kiss, then.”

            “Honey! I’m a professional athlete on national television.”

            “Good! I need some crossover exposure.”

            I tip back my Giants cap, I tip back Maddie’s Giants cap, and give her a hearty smooch. A nearby picnicker says, “There’s no kissing in baseball!” and we walk away laughing.

            She brings me to shallow left, where a pair of low-slung camping chairs proffer ice-cold beers from their respective cup-holders. An adjacent box holds two jumbo hot dogs loaded up with sauerkraut, plus a bag of peanuts.

            “My God, honey, if we could just have sex right now, I’d have all of my favorite things in the universe, all at once.”

            “I get the feeling the management would frown on that.”

            My mind flashes back to a night game at Candlestick Park, the Giants’ old stadium. When the occupants of the left field bleachers look skyward, pointing and giggling, I follow their fingers to a mostly-clothed couple in the desertlands of the upper deck, fucking like bunnies.

            “Honey?”

            “Oh, sorry.” I join her in sitting down, and I tip the first swallow of beer into my mouth. It’s a hefeweizen, my favorite.

            “Do you realize that Omar Vizquel and Barry Lamar Bonds may have possibly trod upon this very spot?”

            “That’s why I prepared this.” She holds up a Zip-Lock bag containing a granular red substance.

            “You’re giving me dirt?”

            “Dirt from this very infield.”

            I lean over to kiss her again. “You are the greatest of all women who ever trod the Earth.”

            She flashes her best curtain-call smile. “I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”

            “Only you and my mom.”

            “Good company.” She puts a hand on my cheek. “I’ll be right back. But don’t wait for me. Eat that hot dog before it gets cold.”

            I assume she’s off for a bathroom break. I sit back in my chair and start in on my dinner as David Gockley, the opera’s general director, appears on the giant DiamondVision hi-def scoreboard. He says the usual stuff, everybody around me stands and I see the face of Maddalena Hart, ten stories high over the centerfield bleachers. She nods at her cameraman and starts into the Star Spangled Banner. I look behind me and spot her behind home plate, a silhouette against two small spotlights. Then I realize the better view is on the scoreboard. I picture myself scaling those five-foot-tall lips.

            I’m quickly into another flashback. Placido Domingo doing the honors at an Oakland A’s playoff game in 1990. His approach is remarkably straightforward, delivering two immediate messages: I’m respecting your country’s song by not messing with it, and my voice is so awesome it’s going to sound great regardless.

            Maddie takes the same approach, her shimmering vibrato drifting over the bay, but when she strikes the word “home” she launches a Rossinian cadenza, endowed with skipping scales and a long, accelerating trill. It’s a satire, really – a comment on thousands of pop-star showoffs. For those who haven’t yet gotten the joke, she takes a lengthy pause, and a wheezy inhale, before releasing the final three notes. The crowd responds with equal parts laughter and applause.

            The camera follows her as she walks across the diamond and (I suddenly realize) toward me. I turn and greet her by bowing and kissing her hand. She smiles and talks through her teeth.

            “Such a ham.”

            “Says the queen of Hamsylvania.”

            She bursts out laughing. “Damn you!”

            We sit and sip our beers.

            “Awesome cadenza.”

            “Merci.”

           

            Tonight’s offering is a live simulcast of Saint-Saens’ Samson et Delilah. I’ve already seen it; it’s perfect for a stadium audience. Enormous sets, lots of action and sex sex sex! The score delivers a brand of exoticism that just drips with sensuality. The voices are strong – especially Olga Borodina, who does such a great job with the seduction scene that you kinda forget she ain’t exactly Miss Universe.

            In a lot of ways, I prefer this vantage to the fancy orchestra seats. For one thing, the spectators here are allowed – nay, encouraged – to talk, and shout, and cheer. The Chronicle has handed out placards with SAMSON on one side and DELILAH on the other. My favorite reaction comes when our heroine first broaches the subject of hair-cutting. Some guy in the lower boxes yells “Don’t do it!” In the temple scene, a troupe of sinewy male dancers charges through a tribal rite, wearing the kind of butt-revealing loin cloths that tips off the presence of a gay stage director. Three college kids clear out a spot near the left-field line and do their best to mimic their moves. They’re pretty drunk, but I gotta say, they’re doing a good job.

            In the center of this comedy, I sit upon the consort’s throne as the city’s most beautiful woman kisses me and hands me peanuts. The national anthem has succeeded in revealing her true identity, so every few minutes we receive autograph-seekers. The amateur opera fans are even more polite than the serious ones; I think they’re even a little afraid of her. The sweetest are a young mother and her eight-year-old daughter, who demonstrates her aspirations by producing a few artful screams to the music coming from the simulcast.

            “You’ve got some real power!” says Maddalena. “You could be a great singer.”

            The girl hides her mouth with her hands and giggles as Mom guides her toward second base.

            “You are so good,” I say.

            “Part of the job. Besides, you think I sounded like an angel at that age? I know of certain home movies that could easily be used for blackmail. Ooh! Get ready. Here comes the big demolition.”

            As Samson grunts and roars at his pillars, a gray-bearded black man lofts a football into deep left field. His teenage son receives it on the warning track as the temple falls. Something about this is perfect.

            I am an acolyte of Willie Mays, so it’s impossible for me to traverse the front plaza without touching Willie’s statue for luck. He has just completed that enormous swing and is dropping his bat, his feet already churning. I grab on to one enormous shoe, and immediately hear a baritone voice.

            “Excuse me, sir, could you please keep your filthy hands off the statue?”

            I turn to discover Joe, who I met a year ago in a pre-opera lecture. Joe is a higher-up at a huge firm in Silicon Valley, but he is one of those rare individuals who is interested in absolutely everything. His willingness to fill in at the last minute has made him my primary emergency opera date. He repays this seeming rudeness by treating me to overpriced post-opera absinthe at Jardiniere. One night we spotted Deborah Voigt sitting at the bar after a performance in Un Ballo in Maschera. It took Joe 15 minutes to convince me to go up and pay my respects. She was delightful, and the most famous opera singer I had ever met.

            “Joe! Did you like it?”

            “It was fantastic! I especially like all the detail you get with that high-def camerawork. It’s like watching a movie of the opera. Oh! This is my wife, Carye.”

            Carye is a cute, bright-eyed blonde with a bird-like face. She pulls a hand out of her jacket and offers it to me.

            “So you’re the one who’s been culturifying my husband. It’s very reassuring to meet you. Last-minute trips to the ‘opera’ tend to make a woman suspicious.”

            Joe smiles. I spy a familiar set of green irises in the middle distance and brace myself for a most delectable introduction.

            “And this is my girlfriend, Maddalena. You may remember her from earlier.”

            Maddie chooses that moment to whip off her ballcap, unleashing her blonde mane, then shakes hands with Carye.

            “No!” says Carye. “The national anthem? That was fantastic.”

            “Wait a minute,” says Joe. “Maddalena Hart?”

            “God’s gift to the opera,” says Maddie.

            Joe is very quiet for a moment (a rarity for him), then he manages to get back onto his rails.

            “You don’t know. Maddalena Hart this, Maddalena Hart that. You don’t know how ceaselessly he talks about you. But this! This is going too far. Did he stalk you?”

            Maddie treats us to her best Die Fledermaus laugh. “Quite the opposite. I pestered poor Mickey till he could not refuse me.”

            “And you can just imagine what a fight I put up. Restraining orders, heightened security…”

            “We’ve been insufferable ever since.” She sneaks a hand behind me and gives my butt a good squeeze.

            Carye’s eyes get bigger. “Come to our place right now. It’s my birthday, and we’re having some friends over. They’d get such a kick meeting you!”

            “How’s your schedule?” I ask.

            “I’m okay,” says Maddie.

            “Okay then,” says Joe. “Andiamo!”

            “He learned that from an opera,” I say.

            We tail Joe and Carye to Pacific Heights, manage to find a parking space around the corner and take an elevator to their apartment. The interior is white, white and white, and the windows offer a stirring cityscape, the Golden Gate peering in from the top left corner.

            The friends turn out to be co-workers from Macy’s, where Carye heads up the fragrance department. They all seem pretty comfortable with the surprise celebrity, and it’s no wonder. I recall Joe telling me of a release party for Danielle Steele’s new perfume that featured Sir Elton John playing piano in the living room. Joe is much more excited about Maddie. He interrogates me in the kitchen as we select from 27 different bottles of vodka. I choose one shaped like a skull.

            “How does this happen?” asks Joe. “I thought you had to be a fellow celebrity. I thought they had to give you a special card.”

            “You know? I’ve been asking myself that same question for three months now. I often feel that I am the victim of some extended prank. Really extended.”

            He drops a twist of lemon into my martini. “How’s the sex? Do celebrities do it differently than you or I?”

            “Apparently, they do it much better. We had some problems at first. I had to learn to stop respecting her so much.”

            Joe takes a sip from his martini and smacks his lips. “Mmm! This one’s made from apples.”

            “I thought vodka was a potato thing.”

            “Nope. It’s the process that makes it vodka. The vegetable matter doesn’t… matter. But the respect thing! That makes a lot of sense. I have had the best sex ever” – here he switches to sotto voce – “with women I didn’t even like. With Carye, it took a long time to get to that point. I liked her too much. She had to sort of give me permission to mistreat her.”

            “Talking about me? Talking about me?” It’s Carye, her eyes glimmering with wine.

            “About how I do not deserve such a goddess!”

            Carye turns to me as witness. “True?”

            “Absolutely.”

            “Mickey, do you play piano?”

            “Not a whit.”

            “Good! Get in here and play piano.”

            “Absolutely!”

            I give Joe a look, enter the dining room and head for the upright. I really don’t play piano, but I do play excellent fake piano, which is an entirely different thing. I rumble my left hand over the low keys, then chime some random chords with my right, spacing my fingers so it looks like I have some clue as to what I’m doing. Then I twiddle some trills over the black keys, which sounds very modern-art-hall, and smash a seven-fingered amalgamation over the middle range. Carye chooses this moment to jump onto a kitchen chair and broadcast a not-unpleasant shriek, something like what might be produced by an impassioned seagull. I respond by taking several cat-like pounces up and down the keys and she follows suit, sending out a series of staccato yelps like a Wagnerian chihuahua. She finishes with an extended so-called top note as I thread a cartoonish arpeggio all the way to the high notes, rising and walking as I play. I stop for a split second, give Carye a nod and bang down the final chord to her siren-like whoop. The Macy’s girls let loose with a chorus of screams, but none is louder than Maddie’s laughter. Once we settle down, it is up to Ms. Hart, of course, to provide a critique.

            “That was the most inspired, enthusiastic, intense, whimsical – excuse me, I’m running out of adjectives – sophomoric, antiquated, brilliant piece of crap I have ever witnessed.”

            “You heard her,” says Carye. “I’m brilliant!”

            “Yo-Yo Ma!” yells Joe, raising his appleish-tini.

            An hour later, the party is even drunker, and being taken over by Joe’s new Wii gaming center. I’m at the back of the crowd, fascinated by the levels of simulated reality. A familiar pair of lips descends upon my neck.

            “I hope to God that’s Maddie.”

            “Oui,” she whispers. “Follow me.”

            She leads me to the master bedroom, then heads back to the door.

            “Please lock, please lock – ah! It locks.”

            She wastes no time but kneels in front of me and takes down my pants.

            “Well! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

            She takes me deep into her mouth, gives me a long, slow suck and then smiles.

            “You used the word ‘girlfriend’ in a sentence. Women love it when you use girlfriend in a sentence.”

            “It’s always a bit of a surprise, the first time. It just sort of pops out.”

            “‘Boyfriend,’” she recites, then gives me a lick. “I am sucking my boyfriend’s dick in his friend’s bedroom.”

            “Now in French!”

            “Je suis sucer mon ami de dick dans son ami de chamber à coucher.”

            “When you put it that way, it sounds dirty.”

            She takes me out and tickles my balls with her fingers. “We probably haven’t much time, honey. When you feel like you’re getting close, I want you to pump this thing into my mouth like you’re fucking me. I want every drop.”

            I look sideways to find us framed in a closet-door mirror, and it seems that much filthier. A few minutes later, I hold my diva by the ears and stroke into her like there’s no tomorrow. I hear a roar of applause from the living room and imagine that it’s for me.

Eleven

Familia. You don’t ask questions. You do what familia tells you. When the old man says go north with your cousin, you do it. And you end up in hell, with a gringo boss who learned his Spanish in the wrong place and talks like a gay Castilian. And a hundred degrees of heat, and these pinche hooked knives that tear your hands to ribbons. But you shouldn’t have lied, you shouldn’t have said you had worked the vineyards. And you shouldn’t have raised your hand when jefe Cathtilian asked for volunteers to work on Sunday. But it’s time-and-a-half, and it’s la familia. It doesn’t make it easier, but it does make it inevitable, and that’s something.

            Esteban worked his way down the rows, pulling his boxes alongside. A strange yellow smoke had been drifting over the gold-grass hills all morning, making it hard to breathe, and his baseball cap was soaked through with sweat. Still, at least he was alone, and he didn’t have to listen to ranchero music, or that boom-boom German nonsense. Give him norteño, Flaco Jimenez on the squeezebox, or that hot Puerto Rican salsa. Esteban was a man of rhythm, a man of action; he would dance with the Cuban bonitas on Miami Beach, to Celia Cruz and Poncho Sanchez.

            He looked up and discovered, much to his surprise, that he had only two rows left. After that, he would sit down with his treasure: two Tecate cervezas, sealed in a Zip-Lock bag filled with ice, and a spicy lingua burrito. Just the thought of it quickened his hands.

            An hour later, Esteban held the last clump of pinot grapes and pretended he was a caballero castrating a bull. As the testicles dropped into his box he let out a joyous grito. He ran to a sprawling oak on the hilltop, opened the Zip-Lock and nearly cried as the ice-cold fluid struck his throat.

            After he finished his burrito, Esteban felt the long hours of work pummeling him to the ground. When he woke up, the yellow smoke was rolling over the hill like smog. He stumbled to his feet and realized that he had to pee very badly. Without the presence of the other workers, Esteban saw no reason to hide behind a tree, so he raced into the golden grass, pulled down his shorts and released a great yellow stream.

            Someone giggled. Esteban let out an “Ay!” and turned to see a lady on a horse. Then he realized he was facing her with his pendejo hanging out, so he spun back around. He thought of pulling up his shorts, but then he would wet himself, so he waited anxiously for the stream to subside, all too aware that the caballera was now looking at his brown buttocks, out there in God’s daylight. He shook off the last few drops, pulled up his shorts and tried to adopt a casual demeanor.

            He half expected the lady to be gone, but still she was there, wearing a strange grin. Her mount was an enormous creature the color of straw, making him almost disappear into the grass. The woman lifted herself up, dismounted and walked his way. Esteban had an urge to bolt, but the woman was beautiful, like no one he had ever seen, with blonde tresses that went from honey to straw to sand, and white skin, and large green eyes. Her clothing was like something out of a movie: a long white dress, a corset of chocolate brown with braided patterns in gold. The corset was pulled tight by a web of laces that pushed her breasts upward; half of their surface was laid bare to Esteban’s eyes. Her hair was strewn with flowers and ribbons, the sleeves of her dress puffed out like the shirt of a pirate, and around her head she wore a copper band, festooned with etchings of oak leaves and birds. He had seen some of these things on the folklorico dancers back home, but never in such perfect array, like the clothing of an angel, like a dream. Is that it? he thought. Am I still asleep? Oh let it not be so!

            It wasn’t. She came near, speaking as she approached, but although Esteban knew un poquito de Ingles he did not know this. The rhythm was formal, like a march, and her words were marked with the lisping sounds of his boss’s Spanish. But words were not really needed; the caballera placed her hands against Esteban’s chest, giggled sweetly and brought her thick lips to his. He had kissed a chica before, but never like this. She slipped her tongue into his mouth, and he found his tongue pressing back. It was very odd and exciting. He felt his thing growing in his shorts, and he worried that this would scare the woman away, the way it scared Maria Sanchez. But when the caballera drew back, it was only to undo the laces of her corset.

            He had never seen anything so white. The nipples were like the pink sugar cookies his abuelita would make on Sundays. He took one of her breasts in his hand, and when he nibbled on the tip the caballera let out a gasp of pleasure.

            His member was painfully stiff. When the lady knelt to unzip him and take him into her mouth, it was too much for him and he burst. He expected her to be angry, but instead she kept sucking, swallowing his seed and continuing until he was hard again. She motioned for him to lie down, then she spread her skirts and crouched over him, bringing his cock to her opening.

            This, then, was Esteban’s first time, and now he understood why the older muchachos spoke so endlessly of the wonders of puta. It was like a liquid fire wrapped around his cock. He wished he could see what it looked like, his staff disappearing into the caballera’s white body, but there was something just as stimulating about this mysterious force beneath the pile of skirts, the dreamy look on the lady’s face as she rode him.

            This time he was able to last much longer. Soon the gringa was shaking, and moaning, and letting out gritos of her own. He took her by the waist and exploded into her. As his body subsided, he lay back, leaking into her depths as the yellow clouds drifted across the sky. He fought the urge to sleep – he wanted so badly to stay with this pleasure – but inevitably he fell back into slumber.

            Esteban woke to the sounds of a scuffle. When he saw white men in green uniforms he did what his cousin had told him and immediately sought cover. He climbed into the low branches of the oak and peered around the wide trunk to see the men leading the caballera away. Another man led the horse by its reins.

            Esteban waited fifteen minutes, then walked carefully to the other side of the hill, where he found a dirt road. He could see the fresh tracks of the horse, and the bootmarks of the uniformed men. He followed them downhill until he came to a small valley where everything had been burned to black. All that was left were the charred trunks of trees and the smoldering remains of small structures. He followed the track of the fire as it climbed the opposite hill and beyond, where the burning grass sent up menacing plumes.

            Esteban decided that this was the most he would find out this day, so he turned back uphill toward the vineyard. He stepped upon something that let out a tiny whoop, and found a square of metal, scorched black. He turned it over and found fancifully lettered words in English: Renaissance Pleasure Faire. He had no idea what these words meant, so he tucked the sign under his arm and kept walking. Perhaps he would ask his cousin.

Twelve

Running water. Have to pee. Running water. I puncture the wall of sleep and come out the other side, a newborn babe to September 21^st, longing for the womb. I feel a dream squirming in my back pocket; I try to pull it out and discover that I’m wearing no pants. Damn. I’m almost certain that it was a good one.

            Have to pee. Running water? I hear low, off-key whistling, and I know she’s in the bathroom. I’m not about to give her another free show, so I head for the front door. Trey the Fish is off to the Caymans, and there’s only one other car in the clearing, my old BMW. Doubtless she uses it so she can beat it senseless on my dirt road.

            I trot down the steps, naked, head for the golden grass of the orchard and release an arc of golden spray. The question in this rare position is, what do you do with your hands? I opt for freestyle, placing a fist on either hip and letting my dick fly solo. This provides a plentifully proud posture to my pissing. Man! Shouldn’t have had that last Tecate. Ah well. Let’s go face the beast.

            I pull on a pair of boxers and head for the bathroom. She’s rinsing the shampoo from her hair.

            “Greetings, former wife! What the fuck do you want?”

            I suppose this has become a pet greeting, because it fails to get the least rise out of her.

            She pulls a wet strand from her face. “I already got what I wanted.”

            “Nice hot bath?”

            “Nice hot screw. Jesus, pal, take a look at your own dick once in a while.”

            I peek inside my boxers and yegods she’s right. St. Peter is sporting those pink and purple splotches along his helmet, a sure sign of female chemicals.

            “I don’t know how you do it, honey, but when I arrived last night you were sound asleep with a raging boner. I managed to administer a blow job and a chick-on-top without waking you. What was really hot was, you kept crying out in Spanish: ‘Dios mio!’ ‘Chingada muchacha!’ I think you even said ‘Ay caramba!’”

            She starts snorting, which finally sets me off.

            “Shit! You can’t… You can’t fucking do that! I’m… I’m…”

            “In love? Whipped?”

            “Taken! Spoken for! Closed for business! Jesus. I’m not even safe in my fucking sleep. What the fuck is your problem?”

            I’m getting pretty loud, but Allison is the coolest evil bitch in North America. She runs a fingernail along her knee as she gives my question serious consideration.

            “My problem… is that I dumped you and married John for the express purpose of playing high-society monopoly. It turns out that John has all the money, but none of the personality. And you! You go out there with your little piece of pseudo-intellectual Internet crap and bag yourself a diva, effectively leapfrogging me by four or five levels. You won’t even let me have this, you shit!”

            She snaps her mouth shut and stares forward. It may just be a trick of light and steam, but I could swear I see a tear rolling down her cheek. For this I should send out press releases, for this I should run up the road seeking witnesses. My ex-wife, the Typhoid Mary of childbirth, crying.

            “I didn’t try. That is apparently why it worked. I found something I liked and told everyone why I liked it. Pretty goddamn simple.”

            “Thanks bunches, Dear Fucking Abby.”

            That’s better. “Fine. But really, I can’t fuck you anymore. So please behave and I’ll make you some breakfast. You like huevos rancheros?"

            She gives me a witchy smile. “I’ve already had your huevos.”

            I can’t help laughing, and I immediately feel guilty. But dammit, it’s funny. Despite my best efforts, I sometimes like my ex-wife.

            I manage to toss together some eggs, thin-sliced taters, refried beans and green peppers and dare to call it Mexican. I leave Allison on the couch with that and a Mimosa. She looks as hot as ever, god damn her, but I really have to see about changing the combination on the gate.

            I head in for my toilette and reappear a half-hour later as a pirate: tri-corner hat with plume, necklace of shark’s teeth, black satin sash, billowy shirt, cheesy fake cutlass, black leather boots halfway up my calves. I am one fuccan buccaneer.

            “Shiver me timbers!” says Allison.

            “Thank you, I think. I have some top-level access to the SFO wardrobe department.”

            “‘Pirates of Penzance’?”

            “No, but excellent guess! ‘Il Pirata,’ by Bellini. A rather groundbreaking little opera, actually.”

            “Tell someone who cares. I’d better get going. Thanks for the loan of the penis.”

            “Apparently, that’s the reason I’m here.”

            She stands to give me a kiss on the cheek. “Poor pirate. Everybody wants his dick.”

            And she is gone, into her/my Beamer and up the road. That was way too easy. I take a scan of my desktop, pocket the keys and wallet, and take the radical move of forsaking my cell phone. Nothing more annoying than anachronistic pirates.

            We meet at the Coffee Society in Cupertino and leave the Lexus at streetside. She waves a hand along her costume. “So what do you think?”

            “Luscious as always. Especially the copper band. Kinda surprises me, though. I expected something regal and operatic. Maybe Queen Elizabeth herself. Is there an Elizabethan opera?”

            “Rossini wrote one. In fact, he took the overture and used it for The Barber of Seville. But darlin’, I get enough of those one-ton dresses. I thought something in the merchant class would be more comfortable.”

            “So you’re slumming.”

            “You got it, baby.”

            “Shakespearean, please?”

            “Thou speakest true.”

            “Splendid!”

            When I was younger, the Renaissance Pleasure Faire resided in Marin County. The setting was an oak forest spiced with bay laurel, and it felt about as British as California gets. A decade later they moved it to Casa de Fruta, a weird sort of rest area/agricultural fun park 40 miles south of San Jose, and I had no faith that it would have the same atmosphere. It sits in a cradle of hills covered with that golden grass that evokes vineyards and Steinbeck, but certainly not Jolly Old England.

            I was entirely wrong. Once you enter the main gate into the merchants, alehouses, jousting matches, strolling musicians and period-talking geeks, the grass hills and the dry heat fade from your attention. They also managed to find the same potpourri of oak and bay laurel to satisfy my scented memories.

            Maddie, of course, is a massive hit. Having learned her acting by performing Shakespeare, she interacts with the vendors and barkers on their own time-machine level. Having no such talent, I have found a cheesy dodge. When in doubt, I recall every bad pirate movie ever created and channel the dialogue.

            One of our merrier encounters comes at the dunk-tank, where a foole sits upon a board, awaiting a soggy fate should a patron strike the bullseye with a “cannonball” (a softball wrapped in duct tape). The foole incentivizes his clients by hurling insults. A pirate and a gorgeous lady make an irresistible mark.

            “What hempen homespun have we swaggering here? ‘Tis Johnny Depp’s homely stepbrother!”

            I enlist for five balls. Sir Don Rickles ups the ante with each toss, a strange blend of Elizabethan and Hollywood.

            “Thou lump of foul deformity! Try thy inconsequent skills.”

            “I’ll be sendin’ ya to Davey Jones’s Locker, y’scurvy dog.”

            Ball one. Inside.

            “He speaks, yet he says nothing! Do ya feel lucky punk? Well do ya?”

            “Ahr, ya landlubbin’ scalawag, to the plank with ye!”

            Ball two. Outside.

            “Aw-hahaha! You whoreson cullionly barbermonger – your purpled hands do reek and smoke. Hasta la vista, baby!”

            “I’ll be puttin’ the black spot on ye, ya lily-livered sprog!”

            Ball three. An inch too high.

            “Methink thou art a general offence, and every man should beat thee. You can’t handle the truth!”

            “I’ll have ya keelhauled, ya traiterous squiffy.”

            Ball four. One inch low.

            The foole is about to release another volley when he breaks character. “What the hell is a squiffy?”

            “A buffoon,” I reply.

            “Aye, that’s good.”

            “Thanks. Did a little research.”

            “Do you mind if I use that? I’ve got this… pirate thing tomorrow.”

            “Oh, by all means.”

            “Hold!” says Maddie. “Enough of these… futuristic mutterings. And thou, thou rapscallious varlet, thou has picked thy every joust from the pocket of the Bard. Thus far, I spy thee A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard the Third, Romeo and Juliet, Sir Clint of the East Woods, King Lear, Julius Caesar, All’s Well that Ends Well and Jack Nicholson. Thou hast not one unplagiarized thought in thy puny little melon.”

            The foole gives Maddie a cold stare and says, “How foul and loathsome is thine image.”

            “Taming of the Shrew.”

            “Avast!” I shout. “Now ye be talkin’ to me wench.”

            “Oh-hoh!” he says. “Verily, good sir. Better to insult the man who now doth possess only one ball!” He takes a deep breath and launches into a stream of invective from (I am told) Henry IV, Part One. “Why, thou clay brained guts, thou knotty pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow catch!”

            “Ahr!” I rejoinder, and release a blazing fastball.

            Strike one. The board collapses and sends my rival into the drink.

            “Down to th’depths with ye. May the sharks dine on yer cockles and muscles.”

            The foole stands in his tank, squeezing the water from his hat. “I desire that we be better strangers! Let’s meet as little as we can.”

            Maddie plucks a five-dollar bill from her cleavage and drops it into his hands.

            “As You Like It.”

            The front man hands her our prize – a bracelet of dried flowers – and she slips it on. As we walk away, the foole is already working on his next target.

            “Ho, look on that fellow! All that is within him does condemn itself for being there.”

            “Macbeth,” says milady.

            I smile. “Thou art a lady of extravagant wit.”

            “I thank thee.”

            “And one sexy bitch.”

            “Ahrr!”

            A little bit later, we arrive at the mead counter, where a lady of enormous endowment is one sneeze away from falling out of her cups. The man in front of me, a duke in a stylish black waistcoat, receives his drink and takes much leisure slipping his tip between her jugs. This is a long Ren-Faire custom, and the ladies seem to welcome it so long as it fattens their purses. I order up two meads; the lady sets them on the counter, along with her mammaries. I turn to Maddie and ask, “May I?”

            “Certainly.”

            I deliver my gratuity and am about to pocket the remaining dollar when Maddie snatches it away.

            “My good man!” she calls. Her target is a strapping college kid with a floppy peasant-hat.

            “Yes mum.”

            “I wonder if thou wouldst sit upon thy counter.”

            “Beg pardon, mum?”

            “Thy bum, sir, upon thy counter!”

            He raises his hands in surrender, turns around and hikes himself up, presenting a pair of slim buttocks in black pantaloons. Maddie tugs at his waistband, slips her dollar inside, then sends him off with a spank.

            “I thank thee, sir.”

            She takes her mead and walks away. The womenfolk deliver a rousing applause. But then, applause and Maddie just seem to go together.

            An hour later, we’re sitting on a bale of hay, watching a troupe of theatrical combat artists. They’re quite good, and also loud. They’re finishing up the show with a sword dance, blades interlocked as they pace in a circle. I feel bad for the thickness of their costumes, and the heat, and the exertion. They are clearly suffering for their art. But I feel just as bad for myself, and these militant yellowjackets, who refuse to leave my turkey leg.

            “Damn these wretches!”

            “Dost thou… oh! Permission to forego Elizabethan?”

            “Certainly.”

            “Thanks! My tongue is worn out. Are you familiar with the bee-and-switch?”

            “Amazingly enough, no.”

            “Take a hunk of turkey – don’t be stingy – and place it on that bale in front of us.”

            I do as she says. Sure enough, the yellowjackets gather for a convention over my discard.

            “Given the choice between being swatted at or not being swatted at, the bees prefer to take their lunch outside the war zone.”

            “Thou art a wonder, and a gift to all mankind. Zounds! Thy magic crystal doth emanate with strange… emanations.”

            “God! Who writes this stuff?” She pulls her cell phone from its leather holster and flips it open. “Well! What witchcraft be this? It’s from you.”

            She hands me the phone, which reads, Hi Maddie. Are you having fun?

            “Odd! But I left my, um, magic crystal at home.”

            At home. I see Allison driving to the vista point at the top of Highway 9, watching me drive past, then returning to my cabin. She spots the cell phone atop my desk and sees the potential for large quantities of mischief. She may be an evil fucking bitch, but she’s consistent. All that talk of high-society jealousy must have re-invigorated her instincts.

            “Hmm… My ex-wife.”

            The phone goes off again. I am so screwed. I have to show it to her; it’s her phone.

            Isn’t it odd that some other woman has Mickey’s phone? And that she’s sitting on his couch, across from a love note addressed to Don Jose?

            “Your ex-wife has access to your cabin?”

            “Yes. I left the gate open one night. I think she saw the combination. If I hadn’t mentioned it, she’s a psycho.”

            “Yes, you had. Oh! Another one. This is quite a little show.”

            I see from Don Jose’s calendar that he went to see you in Seattle at the end of June. How odd that he was still fucking me on July 7.

            “Well!” says Maddie. “Isn’t that lovely? And so specific!”

            Maddie’s amused tone is reassuring. I might even get out of this unscathed. Allison’s previous crimes have given her a complete lack of credibility. The phone shakes again.

            But why should you believe me?

            “Precisely,” says Maddie. “God, Mickey, I think you need to get a restraining order.”

            Another buzz. Maddie hits the button, begins to read, then peers closer, squinting. Her face bunches up, like someone who has just bitten into a lemon, and she looks at the screen again. She clamps a hand over her mouth, looks at me with wide eyes, then drops the phone on a hay-bale and walks away. The sword-dancers finish. The audience applauds. Maddie disappears into the swirling crowd.

            Katie and I were involved in our parting session, face-to-face on the living room rug, our limbs bundled together like a tangle of yarn. I noticed our reflection in an old mirror that I kept stowed against the wall. I saw my phone on the coffee table. I knew this was our last time. I flipped open the phone, and motioned for Katie to look into the mirror. I pressed the button. It was such a beautiful shot that I never had the heart to erase it. The line of digits above the phone reads 0707. I can assume that Maddie knows what this means. The photo disappears as another message flashes in.

            I hope you’ve enjoyed my little presentation.

            I am dying to respond, my thumbs are itching with curse words, but at this point I’d only be feeding the fire. I pocket the phone and head off into the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, feeling like I’d like to take a match to the whole fucking thing.

            I spend the next hour in a desperate wander, all the worse because I am not certain if Maddie wants to be found. I recall passing a bellydancing performance, a leathermaster’s shop, an African import booth with hand drums and marimbas. Meanwhile, I’m conducting a mental review of the haybale fiasco, like a football coach reviewing game footage. I think I actually gave a decent performance, but I never stood a chance. You can’t deny a photograph.

            I am standing behind a crowd, watching a man juggle large wooden blocks while standing on a loose tightrope. He looks a lot like me. The village drunk staggers by with a quintet of sexy bitch pirate girls who look like they could toss you into a stew and eat you for Thanksgiving. He looks a lot like me. I continue along the dirt thoroughfare as a maker of toy catapults takes aim with a tiny water balloon.

            The jousting arena is bright and dusty, the shaded bleachers packed with onlookers. The knights have finished their battles and made way for long-haired equestrian maidens, clad in sexy leather dresses dotted with jewels and weaponry. One of them floats past on an enormous creature the color of straw. The rider is slim, with long, dark hair, an olive complexion, a brilliant flash of smile biting down on a ruby-crested dagger. She looks a lot like Allison.

            I find Maddie at a nearby pen, stroking the muzzle of a black horse. She seems to be talking to it, likely recounting all of my sins. I approach with cautious steps and think it best not to speak. She raises a pair of eyes gone red with crying and gives me a listless nod. This is so not the woman I came with. She folds her hands together and lowers her gaze to my shoetops.

            “I am stranded, Mickey. I have tried to think of ways I could just be gone from here, but I can’t. So here’s the thing: you and I are over. Some women give second chances. I do not. This… fierceness surprises people, but it’s a tradeoff. I trust people completely, until they betray that trust. And then I leave.”

            She sniffles, and takes a breath.

            “So here’s how we get home. I have an IPod in my purse. I’m going to sit in the back seat of your car, and listen to music, and you are not going to talk to me.”

            “But I…”

            She slaps me on the arm, hard. “Not a word! You cannot possibly explain away…. You have no chance of forgiveness. I can only appeal to your sense of decency and… and your love of opera. I have to open in two days, and I am under enough stress already. Consider it your duty to get me to my car, so I can get home, so I can get myself onto that stage. Now go. Walk. I’ll walk behind you.”

            I march to my car, not daring to look back. I open the door for her, and I drive for an hour and a half without speaking. She’s right. I do this as an opera fan, because the rest of me is dying. I pull in past the Coffee Society, and I park next to her Lexus. I look at her. She gathers her things, takes off the IPod, and looks at me. I pull her cell phone from my pocket and hand it to her. She snaps it into her holster.

            “Goodbye,” she says. And she’s gone, into her car, backing up, off down the road.

            For a long time, I stare at my dashboard. Then I look up and see dancers, a whole room of teenage girls in tights, running through ballet moves with their instructor. The logical thing is to go get a cup of coffee. But then I notice the flare of white fabric at my wrist, and I realize that I’m a pirate.