Note By Note

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I shook my head to clear it of memories. "Oh yes, I remember. Between the end of my time with Giles and beginning of The Kid Rollins Band, Wanda and I had a lot of time together. We were talking about moving in together, maybe more. Then our first album "Sunday Morning" came out and we had a hit big. I tried to give Wanda the time she deserved, but..."

Sophia gave me a comforting hug, "She always said you were the one who got away. 'Oh Sophie child, I had that man, had him good, but I just couldn't get him in the boat. So I cut the line and let him go. As much as I loved him, and Lord knows he loved me, I was not going to be the other woman. He was married to his music and I would not accept being his mistress."

I nodded and smiled, that was Wanda alright. "How's she doing? Is she doing?"

Sophia shook her head, "She passed this Spring, quietly, sweetly, surrounded by a lot of love. Three children, seven grandchildren, and five great grandchildren. And another sixteen step versions of the same. She outlived all four of her husbands. But between marriages she told tales of her 'crazy musician lover who'd stolen her heart as an innocent young girl.'

We talked some more until she said she had to go. I thanked her for finding me and I wished her the best.

I kept hearing the last fragment of a that sentence 'crazy musician lover who'd stolen her heart as an innocent young girl.' There was a song hidden within and I messed around on the piano trying to find it.

I couldn't help but think about Wanda; her husbands, her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Wanda and her family, that didn't surprise me one bit. She simply wanted what she had grownup in - a loving family.

There were many women in my life, but I never married. No kids that I'm aware of - just me and my music.

Irving escorted Sophia out of the studio and I heard the door being secured. I glanced down, the cigarette from earlier was just one long droop of ash.I chose not to light another.

I messed around with those notes again, something was trying to get out. Something about a beautiful girl, sitting at a table - alone. An innocent girl and a musician, a musician who is her lover - or soon will be. And what might or might not transpire, of potentials and possibilities.

I smiled as the notes began to work together. It felt like ballad.

That song - about an "innocent young girl and her musician lover" was released posthumously, at my insistence. It turned out to be a huge hit, one of my biggest. Who knew, certainly not me, I had long passed on.

You might have heard it, a simple ballad for piano, bass, and drums; Wanda My Love.