~ Amy’s Song ~
Abby finally curled up on the couch after what had seemed like a really long day. All because of this. The mail had finally arrived, she had the day off, and there it was, hot off the press, Tim's new book.
She desperately wanted to know what happened. She knew what wouldn't happen, he didn't marry Amy, they wouldn't work out, and yet, she was so keen to find out exactly how they didn't work out. She'd told him so many times, it could never work. His mind worked like a Disney film, he thought that everything ends with a perfect wedding and a happily ever after. Abby knew better, everything starts with a wedding, and you have to try to organise the happily ever after, often without success.
He didn't understand Abby's kind of love, he knew one kind, the skipping along the beach together kind. Abby was older, more experienced, she knew all the kinds as well. She understood Kate and Ari, she understood Gibbs, his love, his revenge and all his other wives, she understood the love of The Corpse Bride and Bonnie and Clyde, but somehow she'd never understand the stupidity of Romeo and Juliet. She knew that Tim would never grow out of the cartoon romance, and it could never work, but she still loved him, from a distance.
Sometimes she wished, sometimes she thought she could teach him, sometimes she thought things could be different, but every day he walked into the lab looking like a lost puppy who’d been kicked, or a grumpy cat who hadn’t been fed, never like the strong, wilful tiger she needed. She grieved for them, and gritted her teeth and did what she needed to do, he couldn’t do that, he followed her around like a spaniel, then tried to deny it.
Finally, she got to the part of the book she’d been looking for.
They sat alone in a back corner of the dark jazz club, she wouldn’t let him buy her drinks, she wouldn’t touch his hand. He knew it was the last night. They were friends, they’d always be friends, but this is the night the hope died, she was saying it, she was saying nothing, she never said nothing. He pulled together his courage to acknowledge it, as “their song” began, he decided it was time. He took her hand and pulled her up
“One last dance, then I’ll go”
They spun skilfully around the floor to Cole Porter’s So In Love, feeling every word. He knew the words applied only to him, but that she was listening, and he wanted her to remember, he wanted to know. After he’d married a nice blonde who shared his hobbies and took him seriously, and had two sons and an SUV, this song would always be the truth.
The scene passed and moved on to him spending a miserable night alone, while Amy went to happily do whatever Amy did, with no regrets./
Abby went straight to the computer to look up the song. It was not hard to find.
Skilful minor arpeggios played quickly on a very well-tuned concert piano, it sounded dark and had a lovely pull to it.
Strange dear
But true dear
When I’m close
To you dear
The stars fill the sky
So in love with you am I /
Classic Disney Timmy crap… Flattering, but… So perfect, so simplistic, so childish, so… “If she just loved me back it would work” But the singer’s voice was laced with pain.
Even
Without you
My arms fall
About you
You know darling why
So in love with you am I
/
Okay, getting worse, pining, pathetic… not a good sign!
In love with the night mysterious
The night when you first were there
In love with my joy delirious
When I knew that you could care
/
That was sweet, that was really sweet. He remembers when we first met, he still thinks about it. There were tears in her eyes. The agony in the voice grew stronger, fighting for control.
So taunt me
And hurt me/
That’s not Timmy.
Deceive me
Desert me/
Wow.
I’m yours ‘til I die
So in love with you am I /
Every dark, anguished word spoke of the days in which they were written, the days Cole Porter’s beloved wife Linda was dying. After so many years of running, cheating, breaking up, swearing undying love, nursing deathly illnesses, this was the end, and after everything he’d done to her, he just begged her to do the same. And she did, by dying. After being one of the era’s most prolific song writers, he suddenly fell to nothing. He didn’t die for another twenty years, but he never really lived after that. The singer almost cried, Abby did cry.
She jumped up from her chair, she threw on a jacket, then ran out the door, stopping in the hallway, running back for her wallet, then racing to her car. She knew where Tim would be, Tim was a creature of habit, lunch time on a day off, he’d be at his favourite café, a seriously fancy café, but he had money now, and the café culture thing let him be cool and nerdy at the same time, it suited him.
With a single line of mascara running down the side of her cheek, she looked in the rear vision mirror, it almost looked like it was meant to be there, she left it as she drove far too quickly toward the café. Parking illegally, she jumped out of the car, took a moment, a very short moment, to compose herself, then walked in. She ignored the “Please wait to be seated” sign and saw Tim sitting on a couch in a corner. She ran up to him and by the time he noticed her she was on his lap, kissing him desperately.
A few moments later a young and very unlucky waiter wandered over. As soon as he realised who he was about to reprimand, he immediately changed his mind. The establishment’s most famous and profitable customer could do what he liked, but by the time he’d realised, he’d already got Tim’s attention. He smiled from ear to ear when Tim pointed to the girl passionately straddling him and kissing his neck and mouthed the word “Amy”.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Abby is desperate to know what happens in Tim's next book, but she's
shocked by what she finds, and it leads to some very interesting consequences.
Fluffy oneshot. Features Cole Porter's So In Love.
shocked by what she finds, and it leads to some very interesting consequences.
Fluffy oneshot. Features Cole Porter's So In Love.