Sex Club for Nerds and Geeks Ch. 11

"Is this seat taken?" The food court had barely opened.

She looked up from her plate. "No, help yourself." She returned to eating her dinner.

"I'm Carl. You here for the summer?"

"Yeah." Forkful of food.

"What program?"

"Music." Another forkful of food.

"Great! Sing? Play?"

"Play." Yet another forkful of food.

What instrument?"

"Mandolin and guitar."

"Folk? Classical?"

She gave me an appraising look. "Both, actually," she said, putting down her fork.

"That what you're majoring in?"

"No, English Lit."

"Is there a connection?"

"Not really. For fun, I sing and play in a folk music group. I've always played the guitar and lately I've taken up the mandolin. I've gotten into playing pretty deeply, and I want to sharpen my skills."

"You've never been here before?"

"Never. My stuff and I got here on Sunday afternoon. I spent the rest of the day getting settled and figuring out the one thing I needed to know, which was how to get to Carpenter this morning."

"Then you need a tour. May I?"

She hesitated for half an instant "Sure."

Only when we had pushed our chairs back did we realize that neither one of us had finished our food. "Maybe we should finish eating first."

"Oh, yes, right.

"And I forgot my manners. You introduced yourself, Carl. I'm Martha."

For two hours we walked the campus. She had a map and checked off various locations. I snapped lots of pictures and showed her the athletic facilities, every dorm, and the library. We finished at Lit and I ordered beers.

"What are you studying?" she asked as she settled into her chair.

"I've finished my sophomore year and decided on psychology. This summer I'm working for a psych professor, on a research project. We start the interviews on Wednesday."

"Is that the one I saw an advertisement for? Where they pay a $150 for an hour interview?"

"Yup, that's us."

"We were talking about it after class, nobody knew anything, the ad's not very specific. What's with the mystery?"

"I didn't think we were mysterious."

"Well, sure you are. If somebody offers me 150 bucks for an hour of my time, I think something's up. Since it's university-sponsored, it's probably not illegal or dangerous, but who pays that kind of money per hour?"

"The project is on a tight schedule. If we paid just average, we might not get enough people, and the project would fail. So Professor Draper decided to put up a big number. We've gotten way more responses than we need, so we can complete the interviews in five weeks, six at the most."

We finished our beers and the waiter popped up.

"More than one beer and I'm not sure what country I'm in. I'm gonna switch to iced tea," I said. "What would you like?"

"Iced tea would be nice, thanks."

As we sipped our drinks, I placed my camera on the table.

"How long have you been taking pictures?"

"It seems like forever, but really only since tenth grade. I started out with weird things, stuff that repelled most people, me included, but I never let on.

"Gradually I started to take interesting pictures. When I got here I found out about photojournalism and people like Margaret Bourke-White and Walker Evans."

I changed the subject. "Is your class gonna do any public performances?"

"The instructor says it's the best way to learn, but we only met for the first time this morning. I hope so, I want to see how I stack up against the others. They're pretty good."

Without being asked, the waiter brought the check — they wanted to close up.

We walked to her dorm and into the lounge.

"Will you show me your mandolin?"

She smiled. "It's in my locker at the studio. Come over some time."

I handed her my cell. "Call yourself, we'll have each other's number." She took it, dialed, and her cell chirped.

"Thanks for the tour, Carl." She took my hand, shook it, and strode to the elevator.

*

The 82 pictures were pretty good. Of the 16 that included her, five had characteristics I liked. She had an easy way in front of the camera, unself-conscious even when she had to know I was pointing it at her.

Her Facebook page was more complicated than most. It had the usual personal stuff, but most of the pictures were of her musical group. There was a link to her group's fan page, which had dozens of pictures of groups of old people and kids at summer camps. There was even a video of the five of them talking about their music. Their fan page had more than 100 names. I signed up.

Her status was "in a relationship."

Two of my pictures would be fine as her main picture, but neither of them said anything about her. Two others showed her breasts thrust forward in a way that stirred my loins when I focused on them.

The best masturbation happens when you cum with a particular girl in mind. Martha's tallish, outgoing, interested in herself, has long hair, a nice smile, good laugh, and is interested in what you do.

Was she interested in me? Didn't invite me up. Remember, 3-date rule.

*

After my morning shower, I checked the log and there were now a 141 appointments. I sent out reminders to the Wednesday appointments and, after ten, called the phone numbers they'd given us, as another reminder. None of the nine non-responses would be difficult to replace.

Call Martha? That might seem too interested. But aren't you? Maybe Kate is still interested. It's nearly lunch time, she's probably finished with her classes. How do you know? All you really know is that she's getting an early start on freshman year and that you'd really like to fuck her again. Crap.

Marilyn had the envelopes with the cash to pay the next three days worth of interviews. I decided on lunch at the union. There was a large sign on an easel at the entrance:

MUSIC AT NOON. Every Friday. This Week FOLK AND BLUEGRASS with Guitar and Mandolin.

As I stood there wondering whether I was psychic, my cell rang

"You psychic?"

"Nice to hear your voice too, Martha," I cracked. "What makes you think that?"

"Charlie told us that we had to concentrate on six pieces, because he had booked us for a program at the student union on Friday. It's the first in a series the music department's doing."

"I'm standing in front of the sign right now. They didn't give you a lot of warning."

"Yeah. Sometimes at home, we would get a call to sing at a senior-citizen group and we'd have a quick rehearsal. Same thing, I guess, musicians work under pressure all the time."

"Okay, I'll be there. Can I be the official photographer?"

"I was hoping you'd volunteer. Yes, please."

*

I googled the teacher. Charlie Waddington was pretty well known, had been an artist-in-residence at three universities, toured with over 15 bands, and was in 16 YouTube videos, although he was front-and-center in only three. His Facebook page described his relationship status as "complicated." Most of his links were to things I'd already seen through Google. He didn't have a fan page.

*

The first interview was scheduled for nine. By 8:45 I was at the lab, checking the equipment one last time, fussing with the papers in my desk. I put the pay envelopes in the cash box and locked it in the center drawer.

Anna was stoked.

"Good morning! You look bright-eyed. Get laid last night?"

I blushed as bright red as I ever had. "Uh, well, no, I mean —"

"Just teasing, Carl. C'mon," and she walked into the interview room where she spread her script out.

"Okay, here's the drill. Subject appears at your door, you welcome him, check the paperwork. Then you knock on my door, I say 'come in,' you open the door and usher him inside, then follow.

"I tell him what's going to happen, show him the camera and introduce you as the guy who's gonna record the session from behind the glass. You leave, tap on the window when you're ready, and we begin. When we're done, you meet him out front and pay him. Okay?"

"Got it."

At precisely nine a tall guy opened the door. "This the interview place?"

"Sure is," I said. "C'mon in, sit down. You got the form?" I scanned it for completeness, checked his student ID, and told him he'd get paid after the interview.

I stood up and knocked on Anna's door. "Come in," she said, and I waved him into the room.

Forty-two minutes later we had our first interview in the can. I hustled to the front room, gave him the receipt to sign, and pulled out the cash box. He handed me the receipt, I gave him the envelope with the money, and he turned to go.

"Count it before you leave," I called.

"Why? You're the university, you won't cheat me."

"You just signed a form saying you got $150 from me. Suppose we made a mistake?" He counted the eight bills, grinned, and left.

The ten- and eleven-o'clock interviews went just as smoothly. We had an hour for lunch, so we went over to the union.

"How do you keep your voice so even? I mean, 40 minutes of the same tone, doesn't vary."

"Practice, practice. By next week I'll be sick of the script. It's like being an actor, every show you're supposed to deliver the lines in the same way. But after a while you start doing things just a little differently, just to keep it interesting to yourself. Watch, see how I slip in little changes."

The rest of the day's interviews went well. So did Thursday's. I realized that, after Friday's interviews, we'd have almost ten percent of the whole project done.

Friday's schedule was ragged, with interviews at nine and eleven, followed by two and four. When Anna arrived, I told her about my photo session for noon.

"You wanna cut out early? I can speed up the questions and pay the kid. Who's the girl?"

The color rose in my cheeks.

"Nobody. I mean, I only met her once, she's in the group that's playing the lunchtime music."

"Ooooo, showbiz chicks are easy."

The setup crew had finished by the time I arrived. This side of the large cafeteria had a raised platform and a permanent sound system. I figured that the din from the rest of the room would drown out the music if you weren't sitting within 20 feet of the stage, at one of the tables they'd arranged, so I took a seat at the front just off center, after checking how they'd arranged the lights and the stools.

What looked like an intern from the university's public relations office was passing out a press release, which showed the complete program. She probably thought I was the press because my camera was slung around my neck.

I'd decided to bring this particular camera because I had no idea how they would light the stage. With a mixture of fluorescents and incandescent, who knew what quality I'd get out of the smaller camera?

At exactly noon, six students and what had to be Waddington walked onto the stage and perched on stools, to the polite applause of the nine of us who noticed.

"Thank you for coming," Waddington's Southern-accented voice boomed from the speakers. There was a noticeable drop in background noise.

"Welcome to the Department of Music's first weekly free student concert.

"Today we're featuring folk, bluegrass, and classical music for the mandolin and guitar, played and sung by students of these instruments. Francis, Evan, Helen, Janice, Martha, and Mike are accomplished musicians on one or both of these instruments.

"You're going to hear some songs you may recognize and some that will be new to you. We'll start with Bill Monroe's 'Blue Moon of Kentucky,' which he performed so often on the mandolin."

It started slow, with Evan playing and singing, accompanied by Francis. Then they upped the pace and the other four jumping in. At the end, the applause came from a lot more than nine people, because a couple dozen had moved into the nearby tables.

"And now for something completely different. This next piece is a Vivaldi concerto for two mandolins," played by Helen and Mike.

Mike followed, playing and singing a mandolin version of "Finnegan's Wake," which really perked up the crowd. There was a lot of chair- and table-scrapping after he finished. I looked over my shoulder and there must have been 50 people at the tables.

Janice and Martha played "Serenata Napilitana," something that sounded a little like music for the "Godfather."

Martha was replaced by Helen and she and Janice played an adaptation of a Mozart piano concerto. "This is a very fast-paced version," Waddington introduced, "designed to show off these two players' incredible skills with their instruments."

When they finished, Martha stepped through the applause with two guitars and handed one to Waddington.

"Alright, our time's almost up. You probably know this one," and they launched into a rousing version of Johnny Cash's "Tennessee Flat-Topped Box," taking turns playing and singing as they went. The applause was serious.

"Thanks very much," he said. "Isn't she great?" and he gestured to Martha, who stepped forward, beaming. She curtsied as the applause continued. Eventually everyone exited stage right.

But the audience wouldn't stop clapping, so after a decent interval the players came back onto the stage.

"We only prepared six songs," he said, "so we've decided to improvise from the grab bag that each of us carries around in our heads. Let's call this 'Jam for Mandolin and Guitar.' "

They played together for a minute or so, then each one did about 30 seconds on their own before passing the lead on. The crowd hollered and whistled, but that was the end.

I rushed the stage to congratulate Martha. "You were great! I had no idea the mandolin was so versatile." She introduced me to the others, and to "Charlie."

"You're the mysterious psychological researcher and official photographer we've heard about," he smiled, offering his hand.

"Just a normal guy with an outsized budget," I said, looking him in the eye and shaking his hand firmly.

"You guys were great! I took probably 100 photos. I'll email you when I've had a chance to look them over. Can you give me your email address?" He pulled a business card out of his pocket and handed it to me.

The players were starting to leave when I reached Martha again.

"Can we have dinner tonight? This was really fun."

"We finished our last rehearsal at eleven this morning and then came here. We're pretty strung out and I at least am famished. We'll probably do a post-mortem after lunch, then I'll be ready to do something else, so sure."

"Great! I'll call you around five-thirty."

Anna wanted details. I still had the press release and she scanned it, then whistled.

"They play all this on mandolins? They're such tinny things."

"The instructor apparently has an ear for what the instruments can do. He must have converted the Mozart and Vivaldi for mandolins, it certainly didn't sound like what I expected. It was really interesting."

"And the girl?"

By now I was prepared. "She played the mandolin and the guitar, sang a duet with the instructor at the end, 'Tennessee Flat-Top Box.' It was a lot different than straight Johnny Cash." Anna smiled.

I clicked back into the job. "Thanks for letting me skip out. I hope you didn't have any trouble with him."

"You're welcome. He wasn't a problem. This project is going as smooth as any I've been involved in."

In the hour between the two o'clock and the four o'clock interviews, I called the Italian place up the river and made a reservation for 7:30. It was getting hot again and I wanted the breeze and the sounds of the river.

The 15-minute walk from Ruth's house to my apartment was getting longer and longer, so I called the landlord to see if I could park in one of the spaces behind the building. After agreeing to pay him $50, I had a reserved spot through the end of August.

Marilyn had the envelopes for the first three days of next week. "It's a lot of money, don't run off to Brazil with your girlfriend," she teased.

"You're the only one I'd take that big a risk for," I teased back.

*

"Slight dress code," I told Martha. "Slacks or skirt and blouse. Is that okay?"

"Fine. See you at seven."

*

Second date, right? Or does the concert count as number two? Did you notice a spark between her and Charlie? Are we feeling competitive?

*

"What did you think of the concert?" she asked as we drove north.

"It was great, but it was also strange, hearing something you knew, played in a way you don't expect. And boy can you can sing! You two really belted it out."

"I have never practiced so hard, ever! At home we'd meet weekly, go over the stuff we always sang, maybe try something new Michael thought we could do. If we were together two hours it was a lot, because two of our members went to another school. Since it was usually a month between gigs, we were pretty polished anyway.

"But this was intense! Charlie asked us what songs we already knew. Everybody knew the Vivaldi and Mozart, which blew me away. It's all over YouTube, we'd all watched it. Evan and Francis are deep into bluegrass, so they picked the Bill Monroe piece they liked best. And Mike plays 'Finnegan's Wake' regularly.

"Wednesday and Thursday mornings were intense. After lunch on Thursday we did a full run-through, then broke for dinner, then jammed because he figured there'd be an encore. Janice and I must have played the serenata ten times.

"Charlie said he and I should do the flat-top box because my voice fits with his, which I didn't get at first but everybody else thought was great. We didn't decide what would go first until this morning. Evan was so nervous, but he figured 'do or die' and wanted to get it over with."

You know enough about music to change a CD. It doesn't kill you to listen to contemporary bluegrass and oldies like the Beatles. Being raised a boring Episcopalian means your head is stuffed with choral music. Who knew there were accompanists? You really have lived a sheltered life.

Dinner was terrific. The impending heatwave had generated winds that pushed the gnats away, so we ate unbothered, to the sound of the river rushing by. Afterwards, we walked to a waterside bench.

"Charlie says I've got a good folk music voice. He says it's surprising how many singers can't accompany themselves, they can't handle the complexity. It just seems so natural to me.

"Everybody had a great time. Three of them had never performed publically in a group. Charlie is going to see if we can't do it again. The music department is committed to a show every Friday till the end of the summer, but he says the vocal music program might like some accompanists. We'd all like to do another full program on our own, though."

"The official photographer reports that he has no idea whether the pictures are any good, since he didn't have a chance to look at them. Do you want to go through them?"

"Sure. When?"

"How's now?"

*

After turning on the air conditioner, I downloaded the 103 photos, gave Martha my chair, and sat on the end of the bed and watched as she flipped through them. As always there were clunkers, duplicates, boring or obvious shots, but there were 20 that were worthwhile.

For some reason, half of them involved her.

I was disconcerted that probably the best shot was of her looking soulfully at Charlie as they sang. The expression on his face wasn't much, but she looked radiant. There was at least one passable shot of everyone and two good ones of the group, during the encore. I was very self-impressed.

It was after 11 when we finished culling the photos and marking the ones for uploading to Flickr.

Martha pushed back the chair and stood.

"You have anything doing tomorrow?" I asked.

"No, do —" but she couldn't finish the sentence because I was on her mouth, kissing her.

She kissed back.

"Stay with me tonight?"

"I, I, I shouldn't."

"But you can?"

"Yes, I can, no one is waiting for me. Carl, can we talk?"