Free Thalo Blue by Jason McIntyre Page A

and whatever they’re rolling in those white papers. They wouldn’t understand this anyway.
    Vivian Leland appeared on the cement pad beside him less than twenty minutes after he had made his hurried exit from the living room. Fortunately he had regained his wits by then, and was able to say something, anything, to her.
    She asked him if he hated the music. He told her no, that it was complicated. Someday he would explain it. His voice wavered and he found himself behaving awkwardly. The sun had dipped below the horizon hours before, cooling off the night, but he didn’t think it was yet chilly enough to warrant his lips to become this badly aligned.
    She asked him if he wanted a drink. He told her no, beer did nothing for him but make his tongue fuzzy. He nearly added that he might as well have one though, since his tongue was malfunctioning anyway. But that would have outdone the ‘un-coolness’ of even the peach colored flyers so he stopped himself in mid-sentence. And that, he decided, sounded even more ‘un-cool’ than had he finished the sentence, no matter how bad it would have come out. His mind faltered clumsily and he feared that this conversation could only go badly so he clammed up completely.
    She said something about enjoying the party, then turned to go. He finally closed his eyes and the song in his head strengthened. Everything else seemed to dilute and become less important as he took another deep and patient breath. She was ten feet away, give or take, when he finally spoke again, his eyes still gently closed towards the lapping water.
    He asked her if she ever went out on her dad’s boat, looked at the moon on the water, and heard it sing to her. She turned back and said no, cocking her head.
    He asked her if she ever heard music from ordinary things, but things that were ordinarily beautiful just the same. She said no, and then took another step towards him.
    He asked her, finally, if she would like him to describe the song he heard when he looked at the light of the moon over the lake. She said yes.
     
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    In the wood garden house where Zeb and Vivian found themselves, there was a moth trapped in the wire light fixture overhead. It flapped and swooned but could not find its way free. Vivian still seemed intoxicated by his description of the moonlit waters. He had hummed for her the long drawn out notes he could hear coming from the dark blue sheets rippling with crisp white eggshells and she had smiled peaceably at that. The corners of her eyes, he noted, tilted upward and crinkled a little. She had paused, looked out at what he had been staring at as if to search for those notes herself, and then said that she was getting chilly. As they had walked in the direction of the garden house, he had asked her why she had invited him and she had responded that it was his eyes: You finally looked at me and I could see those brilliant blues of yours. They’re beautiful. You should look people in the eye more.
    They arrived at the shed not long after that, had crept inside and snapped on the light, making the moth above go mad. There was a long wooden bench covered in scattered tools, ceramic pots and torn bags of soil. A dark corner of junk stood opposite, shadows looming from it.
    I don’t like crowds much either , she told him as she leaned her long exposed arms on the bench behind her. But they come with the territory. Mum and Dad both always have guests and it’s just a part of my life.
    She jumped up on the dirty bench then, the spot where her mother spent time repotting white hyacinths and purple mignonettes, her two favorites, which, along with others, populated the short stone barriers, windowsills and pots that swung from light posts on the property. Vivian disregarded the dirty mess the bench made of her white skirt and Zeb liked how the brown color smeared there. Even liked how she ignored that it would never ever come clean again. The white was gone from a skirt that had probably