‘Orange was the colour of her dress, then blue silk’


A Short Story
By EK

# 1

Nola opened her eyes instinctively just after seven o’clock only to realise that this was not her bed. She stood up and looked around. He was still fast asleep. She got up quietly put on her orange dress and closed the bedroom door behind her. The living room was spacious and opened up to a big window overlooking the street outside. Two half-empty glasses of wine were laying on the table next to a silver ashtray full of cigarette buts. One of the glasses had her lipstick marks on its tip. He head felt heavy; suddenly she wanted to know the exact time of day, and day of the week and even month and year of her life. She went by the window and leaned her head over to the glass. A suited man got into his car, slowly un-parked and drove off. Nola looked at the large empty parking space and started crying.

As she was leaving, she stopped and stood by the doorway to look up in the sky. It was a clear sunny morning.

# 2

Sun has given its way to rain. It is absolutely pouring it down and she is running n down the street. She is soaked, her hair is wet and sticky; her dress almost transparent; you can see the lining of her hips and the shape of her beautiful breasts. And she is carrying shopping bags, loads of them. Her legs are delicate and a small pond of rain-water forms around them as she walks into the coffee shop. First thing she does, takes a pack of smokes out of her tiny bag and lights up a cigarette. I mean she does not even look around. She has no acknowledgement for anyone else. She is looking outside where the rain keeps falling and people keep running. A few minutes pass like this. Quietly people are staring at the rain outside. Its sound is arguing with the music coming from the shop’s old stereo. Then she slowly turns around, picks up her bags and walks over to the counter. A cup of steaming coffee is what she is having, and another cigarette. It had been such a warm, sunny afternoon she is thinking, she despises rain. Romantic-dreamer’s stuff, that’s what she thinks about rain. Herself is not into romance; her heart was once broken by a romantic dreamer you see. Now it’s all about different things.
What if she is actually only pretending to hate rain and fairy-tale stuff? No, it can’t be. Charles spots a gentle whisper of sadness floating around her exquisite face.Suddenly the rain stops and the sun is back at all its glory. She stands up and walks out the door. Just like that. She has not even touched her coffee.

As she is passing by the window the sun strokes her from the side. She is wearing blue silk underwear, underneath her orange summer dress.
Charles is sitting at the corner, by the window thinking about jazz. He feels inspired by her. He takes out a notebook and starts putting down musical notes. Notes that reflect sudden changes, like carelessly strolling under the sun then suddenly running through thick autumn raindrops. Sun appears, and then disappears only for rain to follow again. It’s all tense but beautiful. Then she enters and the notes calm down as a gentle piano melody caresses her eyes and flows down her neck and then hips and legs only to land on the tiny pond of raindrops underneath her feet. Her beauty now takes total control of the piano that is waiting to speak out at the end of Charles hand and draws out herself. Then come the thoughts, his and hers intertwined and gradually the tempo rises as she refuses to accept that she actually loves the rain! Or maybe not. It’s a struggle of one end of the piano with the other, notes flying back and forth; could she be like him or has she forgotten how to fall in love? The piano does not have time to answer as she gets up and walks out, the sun is out again and as it caresses her a sad, whispery melody is born and immediately lays to rest in Charles notebook. He closes it and smiles. He gets up and walks out of the door. It smells like rain.

# 3

The blue parrot is a small jazz club in downtown Manhattan. It was established in 1959 when Jazz burst into the music scene and was flourishing in similar small bars all around New York. During its golden years in was a good club that regularly hosted some legendary acts including Theolonius Monk and Dexter Gordon. It is safe to say that it has known better days. The sole proprietor of the Blue Parrot is an otherwise ordinary Japanese man that comes by the name of Ioko. The circumstances under which the ownership of the place was passed onto Ioko remain somewhat mysterious but needless to say he has an unrequited passion for Jazz. He is also a fair boss. Ioko arrives at the club every night around eight. After making sure everything is running smoothly he has a habit of sitting at the end of the bar sipping whisky and eating peanuts, quietly overlooking things. Charles plays piano at the Blue Parrot four times a week but Wednesdays are his favourite nights. Especially when it rains. Ioko likes Charles’s gentle piano-playing style and is especially fond of the melancholic tunes that Charles comes up with, especially on Wednesday nights.
The place was almost full, buzzing with life. Couples having intimate conversations gently sipping their drinks under the candlelight, tourists enjoying un-pronounceable cocktails stuffed with tiny paper umbrellas, loners lost in their thoughts and groups of careless friends. As Charles was getting ready to come on he was sitting at a small table on the left side of the stage enjoying a playful version of ‘Staircase to the Sky’ brought to life by the Mat Patheny trio. Ioko waved at him with a delicate movement of his hand to come over.
‘What’s up boss?’ Charles asked as he stood next to Ioko at the end of the bar.
‘Come, sit next to me. What do you think of Mat?’ he asked. ‘I must have heard that tune a million times, but nobody does the solo trumpet just like Mat ahh?’
‘He does have his way, that much is true.’ Charles turned around to look at the stage when he noticed she was seating at the bar. It was her. Just sitting at the Blue Parrot bar having a drink with a guy. Charles looked at her and smiled. ‘You know something Boss? Life has a funny way of showing off how kind it may be sometimes.’
Ioko looked at Charles and then looked at her and said nothing. He was not a man who liked to mix up in other people’s business.
Charles grabbed a box of matches and a pen from the bar. He flipped open the cover and inside he wrote his name, a place, a day and a time. He then walked straight up to her and as she was taking a cigarette out of a packet he gave her the matches looked at her straight in the eyes and then whispered something in her ear. Nola said nothing back. Not even when her date asked her what it was that the piano player had told her. She stayed until closing time drinking gin ‘n tonics pretending not to be paying attention at the music. That night Charles played exceptionally well.

# 4

‘So what the fuck am I doing here?’ Nola said as she sat directly opposite Charles near the window. It was the same window where he first saw her.
‘Don’t ask me that question.’
‘Why not?’
‘I can’t answer that for you.’
‘I thought you had all the answers.’
‘Well, you thought wrong. Do you drink coffee?’
‘I guess I do.’ Charles remained annoyingly peaceful. He kept his eyes on Nola’s face. He studied every single aspect of her face. After all, it was an exquisite face. ‘I mean I would if I stayed.’
‘Stay.’
Nola looked outside. People where flooding the streets. People with briefcases, shopping bags and mobile phones rushing off to somewhere important. She turned around and said ‘So your name is Charlie and you play the piano ehh?’
‘That’s right’
‘What else do you do then?’
‘I watch old black & white films. Any kind but Westerns are my favourite kind. Especially old John Ford- Westerns.’
‘Why Westerns?’
‘I don’t know really, I like vast open plains. That huge emptiness of the country, the true freedom. The sense that one can truly control their fate even if it is by holding a gun.’
The waitress approached the table behind Charles and looked at Nola. ‘Can I get you anything to drink mam?’
‘Black coffee’ she gently whispered. She took a pack of smokes out and lit one.
‘The world’s not black & white anymore Charlie’
‘I know, it seems there aren’t any vast open spaces left either. But you can still carry a gun at least.’ Nola smiled. She suddenly felt comfortable, relaxed. Charlie seemed to transpire to her a certain calmness she had not felt for a long time.
‘So how come you became a piano player?’
‘I played the piano forever but I always did it on the side. Then a few years back something happened to me. I returned home one night to find a fire had burned down the building where I lived. I was left with nothing. All my belongings were gone. Right there and then I thought about what it was in my life that defined me. And that was playing the piano, not a lot else.’
And so they went on talking. She did not say a lot, but she liked what she was hearing. What was it that defined her? What where the simple yet so important traits that defined who she really was? Charles kept looking at her straight in the eyes throughout. Maybe just maybe, it could be this piano player she was having coffee with.

# 5

Nola walked in the 7-11 shop sometime after 10.30 to buy milk and cigarettes. An orange fluorescence sign indicating ‘OPEN ALL NIGHT’ was flashing at the front of the shop, the ill-fated light reflecting inside. As she walked past the corridor with the DVDs she stopped to have a look. Five minutes later she picked out a film and walked over to pay. The Indian man behind the counter smiled at her when he saw the DVD and said ‘That’s a good choice!’ ‘Thanks!’ She replied smiling back. At that exact point Nola felt happy, she felt in total control of her life. Then, a hooded young man holding a shotgun burst into the shop shouting. The Indian man pulled a gun he kept loaded underneath his desk he hoped he would never have to use in his life. Shots were fired. She was just in the way. She was holding a copy of John Ford’s ‘The man who shot Liberty Valance’ when she fell on the floor

# 6

Like any other Wednesday night the Blue Parrot was half-full. Ioko was seating at the end of the bar sipping whiskey and eating peanuts, quietly overlooking things. He just loves Wednesday nights. Charlie got on stage and sat by his piano. He had never heard from her again and he decided not to do anything about it. ‘Maybe someday’ he thought. He played the piano gently and after a standard set of songs he started playing a tune that was unfamiliar to Ioko’s ears. It was called ‘Orange was the colour of her dress, then blue silk’. Ioko thought it was the most beautiful piece of music he had ever heard.

The End