Jasmine

Written: 2/2/22

I’ve always hated jazz.

I happen to own the jazz bar we’re sitting in. It’s situated in the dead of Chicago, several blocks down from the pier. Up for a couple aimless conversations, I wander in at around midnight.

The pianist up front is a skinny, long-fingered man whose head sways as his bony hands batter the piano. The audience seems to be enjoying it. I clench my jaw as the music shifts dizzyingly from time signature to time signature, blotching the bar’s ambiance with awkward notes and chords. Afterward, his bow is followed by a round of eager, rattling applause. I remind myself that it’s alright for people to have preferences in music. But in all honesty, I hate everyone that’s ever performed here—and what I do for a living.

My head hangs over a pallid tabletop as headache-inducing lights flash in the background. I realize it’s getting late, gazing out the only window in the room. There aren’t any stars tonight, just clouds. Exhaust weaving the city and the sky together.

I try to remember a time before I joined my family in Chicago, back when I was studying to become a soloist, dreaming of performing Scriabin and Chopin at concert halls throughout Europe and Asia. I wanted to make something of myself then. I had something to prove.

It was stupid, really. As do countless other dreams, it all eventually fell apart.

I close my eyes. The scenery quickly engulfs my thoughts—the ghostly clattering of voices, the clinking of glasses, the obnoxious trills and peeps of a clarinet.

Suddenly I find I’m in New York, a city that never seems to stop and catch its breath. How old am I—sixteen? Seventeen?

The streets are turbulent as per usual. The sky bleeds a deep violet, the color of a bruise. A siren wails somewhere yonder. The illusion-like structures surrounding me are snake-scale beneath the dying sunlight.

Strangers don’t seem to take much notice as I shove past. My designer shoes snap against the oily streets and my necktie flails behind me as I run. I’m leaving my grief counseling session in a hurry, realizing I have to rehearse for an upcoming performance.

I’m rounding a filthy street corner, stumbling into a hallway saturated with a strange musky scent. Weber Conservatory, reads the letters painted on the textured walls in an ugly bubble font. It’s six in the evening, and I haven’t eaten since yesterday—my stomach burns.

I can hear Beethoven’s Archduke murmuring behind the doors ahead, though it sounds funny; the pianist isn’t there and happens to be a little behind schedule.

A girl stands to block the auditorium doors, checking the time on her watch. She’s wearing plain, expensive clothing, like a kid dressing to impress the grown-ups. Her fingernails are unkempt from biting. Her makeup looks like it’s been done by a child. Though she’s tall and pale, her loveliness drifting to the other end of the hall. She lifts her chin to meet my gaze, beaming.

“Late for rehearsal?” She has a sleepy, raspy voice.

“Well, yeah, so if you could—”

“We should leave,” she interrupts, making me falter. There seems to be something wrong with her. “What are you talking about? I can’t just leave.”

“And we were both thinking of shooting the other guy a text and leaving just now. He probably already thinks we aren’t coming.”

I rethink the consequences of leaving for a moment.

Senseless, we leave the building and have a cab take us to the beach. I don’t know why I listen.

“Fire Island,” she says to the driver.

We eventually arrive, and there seems to be nothing but us and the cold, empty night, our exposed skin burning with the dry tang of the Atlantic air. The lamplights set our faces aglow with scarlet and turn my smile a quaint, porcelain shade of amber.

We sit down, laughing under our breaths for no reason. We awkwardly clamor about our lives before Weber, embarrassing moments from our childhood, staring into the sky—a creamy cobalt. The ocean lurks ahead, various artificial lights misting its waters, its waves smashing against the black searocks.

My hand gathers a fistful of sand. “Would you call yourself a believer in fate?” She asks. Her voice buzzes and repeats in my head, making the stars blink and buildings behind us tremble. I scrunch my nose, trying to think of an answer.

“No,” I reply. “I believe in coincidences, though.”

She tilts her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

There’s something strange about her, as haunting as she already is. I remind myself I don’t even know her name. “Tell me your name first,” I swallow, watching her features shift beneath the lights. It’s like she’s a mirage—a memory.

“Jasmine.”

Jasmine. “Funny. I used to know someone with that name,” I remember. “Well, I just don’t think it’s right to assume everything’s been preordained by the almighty. It makes life a lot more bearable, to think that it’s all spontaneous and doesn’t happen for some sick reason.” A sheepish smile creeps across my face. I turn away.

“I don’t know. What about you?”

I don’t get a response.

The night feels a little emptier. I look back over my shoulder and she isn’t there. My chest sinks.

I relax my hand and the sand from within comes spilling out. Avoiding that counseling session had been a bad idea.

I can’t help but wonder what could have been if she were really beside me, laughing at the stars spinning with contempt above our heads.

My eyes close, and I can hear us performing Beethoven’s Archduke. It’s almost mournful behind its grinning chords. It hums with something strange. Of joy before the gloom of realization.

The cool studio lights wane and quiver atop the piano’s scratched black surface. My fingers dance over the keys, slowing and quickening with her every glance. I look over my shoulder and smile at her. Jasmine smiles back.