The Disc by Jessica Lévai
"It is one of the great secrets of the universe that the best interpretation of “My Heart Cries the Melody,” from the 1974 musical Sing to the Sun, is not on the original cast recording..."
There’s something about the confidence of the declaration this story opens with — “It is one of the great secrets of the universe that the best interpretation of ‘My Heart Cries the Melody’…” — that immediately grabbed me, pulled me in, made me curious. Curious why THIS was the best interpretation, why the story started here, where the story was gonna take me next. And, from there, the story never let me go — following Shawn’s journey to visit his mom, through their struggled interaction, getting to watch and listen to him share the song with her. A real treat of a story I’m excited to get to share!
—Aaron Burch
It is one of the great secrets of the universe that the best interpretation of “My Heart Cries the Melody,” from the 1974 musical Sing to the Sun, is not on the original cast recording, nor that of the lamented 1993 revival, but on a compact disc titled Greatest Hits of The American Stage 1955-1980, purchased by Shawn Hemmings at a Fuel-and-Go off I-95 in Connecticut one summer morning in 2004. The disc was originally priced at $2.99, but two days after Shawn had been fired from his job as a café’s line cook, the day he was on his way to spend the weekend with (and beg money from) his mom, it was lying forlornly in a bin with a bent cardstock label reading “2/$1!” Its companions in this bin were few, including a collection of Journey’s greatest hits (Volume II) and an audio version of twelve Oscar Wilde poems.
Shawn recognized in this bin and its contents the waning age of the compact disc. Like many young men his age at that time he possessed a fair number of them, and he cringed to think of the space they occupied and money they represented. He didn’t need any more. But he was drawn to the bin nonetheless. He really should bring something home to his mom to make up for his return to the nest. He sifted through the CDs, enjoying the sliding and the clacking noises, and fished Greatest Hits of the American Stage out from against the smudged glass of the bin where its fallen brothers had pressed it. He read the track list and remembered enough of these songs from his childhood. Perhaps upon hearing them his mother would be so moved by nostalgia she wouldn’t ask too many questions about what had happened to him and why. He did not, despite the sale, pick up another disc and thus lost out on the Wilde recording. Pity.
Dumping the plastic bag containing the CD, three mini bags of Doritos and a packet of jerky-like substance on the passenger’s seat, he clacked his seatbelt into position, put the keys into the ignition, and sat there, hands on the steering wheel, contemplating his twenty-four years on earth and the remaining three hours of his drive. Neither were where he wanted to be. He went to culinary school because Beth was there. He worked in her cafe because she asked. It was steady but boring and he kept at it out of obligation and the certainty that he had no idea what else he could do. Likewise, he was headed to his mother’s because he had no idea where else he could go.
Geographically, he was in an area where the radio reception was spotty (more a function of the car’s bent antenna than the signals themselves) and he dreaded a ride full of silence or, worse, the local Catholic radio station. He liberated the CD from its plastic packaging and perched it in the player, started the car, and got back on the road.
As the car gained speed his thoughts did, too. His mother’s voice on the phone had been that hangdog one she used when she was not-angry-just-disappointed. Even without tasting the jerky, his mouth was bitter and salty at the memory. A fat raindrop burst against the windshield with a metallic slap, dank and foreboding. He pushed the CD and it wobbled into the player.
After a few seconds of mechanical grinding the disc found its groove and began to spin. The opening number from Pippin slithered out, dull and tinny.
Track two was the expected Lloyd Webber schmaltz. Track three was a cover from The Wiz performed, he was pretty certain, by a white singer. He had his jabbing finger ready to give up on the enterprise for good when track four began its intro.
At the sonorous broken chords of the first four measures of “My Heart Cries the Melody,” Shawn merged into the middle lane and hit cruise control. The orchestra joined the piano in artificial synthy splendor for three more bars, and then the soprano sang her first line. He settled into the familiar lyrics and, for the first time, felt his body relax.
On the original Broadway album, the one Shawn’s mother owned on vinyl and cassette, Mara Shire performed the song adequately. The recording was technically excellent, even with the analog hiss, but lifeless. He said this once to his mother, and they’d had a protracted, stupid fight over it. The revival album was released on CD, this time with Nelly Collins giving a performance so reedy and campy it drew criticism from the Times and Shawn closer to his mother, who for once agreed with him. But this…
A blaring honk from the car to his left in the fast lane brought Shawn back to the present. He swerved back into his own lane and tapped the brake. More honking from the driver behind him and he hit the gas again. The car lurched. Through it all the song kept playing, now in the second verse, drums and bass undergirding the soprano. Somehow, Shawn crossed the slow lane and pulled the car on to the shoulder. He parked and sat there for the next three minutes and forty-three seconds until the song finished. Finger trembling, he tapped the triangle button. The disc whirred for a moment, and the song started again.
Perhaps upon hearing them his mother would be so moved by nostalgia she wouldn’t ask too many questions about what had happened to him and why.
How many times had he heard it when he was a kid? It was an okay love song, he used to think, a little dull, and forever marked by its association with his mother’s celebrations of insignificant achievements and disappointments. He shook himself and fished the thin insert out of the jewel case, looking for the name of the singer. No performers except the Carcosa Philharmonic Orchestra were listed.
The song landed its final chord, and he pressed the button again. How was this possible? How could it be he never knew what a gem this song was? He was crying, but not in the way his mother would cry at the song. Shawn sat in his cramped old car, unemployed and broke, and wept for the sheer beauty of the music and the voice. The unknown soprano sang of love, and heartbreak, with depths to the music beyond the still banal lyrics. He heard possibility in the rhythm. He heard purpose in the melody. Born in him was the desire to create, to communicate with the world, with anyone, what lived in his soul. An hour ago, he would have told you he had nothing there. Now he was filled with love and need and only through a supreme act of will was he able to move on to the next song on the collection. This was what he needed.
And maybe there was someone else who needed it, too.
He merged back on to the highway while someone warbled “Don’t Cry for me, Argentina” thinly through the speakers. He drove through the rain, and the fog, and then into the purest sunshine of a gorgeous day.
Shawn’s mother still lived in the house he grew up in, a tiny colonial in a cul-de-sac and a perfect metaphor for his adolescent feelings of being trapped. End of the road. Nowhere to go. As he parked the car in the drive he took another look at the street, and saw it anew as a beginning. He reached for the button to pop the CD out of the player so he could take it in, but his hand hung in the air and his fingers curled back. Maybe not. Not now.
He rang the doorbell, backpack slung over his shoulder. The door creaked open, and his mother stared out at him with pursed lips. “Hello, Shawn,” she said.
“Mom.” Shawn smiled at her and swept her into a big hug and wasn’t offended when she pressed him away. “It’s so good to see you.”
“I’m sure it is,” she said and stepped back. “Come on in, we have a lot to talk about.”
He followed her to the kitchen at the back of the house, dropping his bag on the floor. He took the lemonade she offered and they drank in silence for a while. The drink was cool and perfect and he had never in his life been so happy to be in this house.
“So, Beth fired you.”
“Huh?” He shook from his reverie and put down his glass.
“What happened this time?”
He was genuinely moved by her disappointment. It was like music, the music that still sounded in his ears. He would make something beautiful of it. “Mom, did you eat yet?”
“Please don’t change the subject.”
“I’m serious. Have you had lunch? Because I drove directly here…” and he paused, trying to remember the details of his drive, which escaped him. “Anyway, I haven’t eaten since seven. I’m starved. How about I make you lunch?”
“I haven’t done the shopping yet.”
“That’s all right.” And it was. “I’ll come up with something.”
“Shawn…”
He was already moving through her cupboards, exploring her fridge. Eventually she stopped protesting and watched him juggle wrapped leftovers, olive oil, some flour from the pantry. He was humming to himself and his cooking took on the rhythm of the song, the texture. Onion and garlic, sprinkled with dried herbs, came to life.
Twenty minutes later the two of them sat down at the table. His mother took the white wine he’d been using in the sauce and poured herself a tall glass without offering him any. He watched her reaction carefully as she forked her first bite. At first she was stoic, but that soon gave way to something else.
“How’s the food?” he asked.
“It’s… it’s wonderful,” his mom replied. Her tone was surprised and instantly self-conscious. “I mean, sweetie, it’s just been such a long time. I forgot you knew how to cook.”
“And I’ve been wasting my life in that cafe?”
Her smile was thin and fragile, like a cobweb. They each took a couple more bites.
“It’s okay, Mom,” he said. “I was wasting my time. And Beth was right to fire me, but it’s all right now. I know what I’m going to do. I think I’m going to get my own place.”
“A different apartment?” she asked, confused.
“No. My own restaurant.” He let her process that while he whisked the dishes into the kitchen to wash them. “I have the skill. I can do it.” The tinkling of ice in his glass was an arpeggio.
“Your own restaurant? I don’t know.”
He turned on the faucet and threw his head back, waiting for the hot water to come and the steam to billow up. When it did, it carried a melody on it. “But I know, Mom.”
His mother knocked back the rest of her white wine and played with the empty glass. “I wish I knew where all this confidence was coming from.”
He let the sponge float in the soapy water and watched the patterns of bubbles and suds. It was his secret, wasn’t it? But then he remembered the other reason he wanted that CD. His mother was looking at him with hopeful confusion. If he wanted anything else, he’d have to show her. He took a deep breath. “Do you really want to know?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Wait here.” He dried his hands quickly on a yellow dishtowel and went to get the disc.
The sunshine outside warmed and hugged him. He ducked into the oven-like inside of his car and sucked a nervous breath through his teeth. What if the heat had warped the CD? The plastic was hot as he coaxed it from the slot and he blew on it as gently as he could, holding it gingerly between two fingers. With the case and insert in his other hand he slammed the car door with his hip and took his treasure inside.
His mother’s entertainment unit was in the living room. Mrs. Hemmings watched her son find the remote and load the disc into the system like she was observing an ape at the zoo peel a banana. It took several tries for him to line up the electronics just so. He was sweating, probably from the heat outside. Once he got what he needed he waved her closer and she sat on the couch, skimming the disc insert while she waited.
Soft buzzings as the player found the right track. Shawn stepped back, as if to give the music as wide a berth as possible. He was biting his lip, watching for his mother’s reaction, his left heel tapping uncontrollably.
But then the song began, and the tension melted away. The unknown singer’s voice greeted him like an old friend. There you are. I missed you!
His restaurant would have green walls. He could see it already. And a kitchen open to the diners, so once it took off, even if he could hire a replacement chef, he would still show up once a week or so, to dazzle his patrons and revel in cooking for the sheer joy of it all.
Soft buzzings as the player found the right track. Shawn stepped back, as if to give the music as wide a berth as possible. He was biting his lip, watching for his mother’s reaction, his left heel tapping uncontrollably.
Shawn waited for the last sprinklings of piano to fade completely before he opened his eyes to beam at his mother. She was totally still, her eyes focused somewhere in the distance. He couldn’t read her expression. “Mom?” he asked after a moment.
Mrs. Hemmings blinked. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I was somewhere else.”
The floor was spinning away and he couldn’t hold on to it. He tried. “What did you think?” he asked.
“Of the music?” She shrugged. “It’s all right. The girl has a nice voice. Honestly, I haven’t even thought of that show in years. The song’s a little treacly, isn’t it?”
He cracked. He shattered, silently, little pieces of him bouncing against the plush carpet by the sofa. A finger on the hand holding the remote twitched and there was a dry hissing as the CD started up, playing the song again. He fumbled to turn it off and dropped the remote instead.
“I think that a restaurant is a silly idea,” his mother began, picking up the remote and killing the power. Shawn didn’t hear the rest. It took all his energy to collect the pieces and reshape himself to standing. When he had gotten as close as he could, he walked into the kitchen and picked up his bag.
“Shawn?” his mom called from the living room. She followed him to the kitchen, but he stepped neatly around her.
“I gotta go, Mom.”
“Okay.” Her voice was brittle, high, and strained. He shrugged his bag over his shoulder and opened the front door. “But you’ll call. Right?”
“Sure,” he said. The door opened to colorless sunlight, muted day.
“Oh, wait, you forgot your…”
The door shut between them. Shawn went to his car and made the long drive back to his apartment without stopping. The next morning he would beg Beth for his job back, with no success. As for the CD, his mother was removing it from the player when she dropped it and, before she could catch herself, stepped on it.
STORY:
Jessica Lévai has loved stories and storytellers her whole life. After a double major in history and mathematics, a PhD in Egyptology, and eight years of the adjunct shuffle, she devoted herself to writing full-time. You can find her work at Strange Horizons,Cossmass Infinities, and Tor.com. Her first novella, The Night Library of Sternendach: A Vampire Opera in Verse, won the Lord Ruthven Award for Fiction. She dreams of one day collaborating on a graphic novel, and meeting Stephen Colbert. Check out her website, JessicaLevai.com, for links and more.
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ART:
Everin Casey is a multimedia freelance artist and theatrical scenic painter from the Florida/Georgia line currently working in and around the Pacific Northwest. Their work can be found in various households, galleries, and theaters from coast to coast or on Instagram at @everrinart._.
Next Tuesday, we’ll feature a bonus interview with Jessica about this story!
Heartbreaking! Very good!