There Is Love

The concert went pretty well. I noticed some missed sharps and flats, but I knew the parents would ignore those. When we played the last song, "We Wish You A Merry Christmas", I stepped off the podium, turned to the band, and gave them the signal we'd rehearsed. They all stood and took a bow and the parents applauded again.

All the kids had put their instruments in their cases and were filing out with their parents when someone tugged on my sleeve. It was Sherry Masterson, a tiny little seventh grader who played the flute. She had a very serious look on her face.

"Mister Rhodes, my mother says she needs to talk to you."

As I followed Sherry over to the people leaving, I was wondering if I'd done something to offend her mother. I hadn't treated any kid different than any other kid as far as I knew. I figured I'd just have to hear what she said and take it from there.

Sherry stopped in front of a woman who made me look at her twice. I didn't remember seeing her before, but there was something familiar about her. Sherry pointed at the woman.

"Mister Rhodes, this is my mother."

Sherry giggled then.

"Her name's Martha."

The woman was smiling, so I figured maybe I wasn't in trouble.

"Hi, Martha. I'm Mark Rhodes, the music teacher. It's always great when I can meet my student's parents. Did you enjoy the concert?"

The woman said she had, then tapped the shoulder of a woman standing beside her with her back to me.

"He's all yours, Mom."

I'd thought the woman was just another parent waiting for her kid. I wasn't prepared to see the woman who turned around to face me.

"Hi Mark. Remember me?"

It was then I knew why Sherry's mother looked familiar. The woman she'd called Mom was Carly.

Carly had changed a little. She still had her dark brown hair, but it stopped at her shoulders now and I could see a few stands of sliver in it. Instead of the long dresses she'd worn in college, she had on a frilly blouse and a skirt that stopped just above her knees. Her smile was the same, but now she had little crow's feet at the corners of her eyes.

"Carly, Carly Johnson? What are you doing here?"

Carly reached down and patted Sherry on the head.

"Martha is my daughter and she called me to tell me about the Christmas concert so I came to watch Sherry play the flute. Maybe I came to see her music teacher too, at least if he might want to see me."

"Carly, I don't know what to say. I love seeing you again. What have you been doing all these years? Are you still singing?"

Carly held up her hand.

"There's too much to say to say it here and besides, it's past Sherry's bedtime. Is there somewhere we could get a cup of coffee and talk?"

The closest place was a Denny's and it was pretty much deserted. I got us a booth and a waitress hurried over with two cups and a pot of coffee. When she left, I looked at Carly.

"I still can't believe it. Except for the shorter hair, you haven't changed."

Carly laughed.

"My mirror would disagree with you, but thank you. So, what have you been doing for the last...let's see...almost thirty-five years now, isn't it."

I started with my service in the Army. Carly teared up when I told her David hadn't made it home.

"God, that's so sad. I didn't know. He never wrote me back and I didn't know who to call to find out why."

"Well, he and I were in the same unit, and I know he didn't forget about you. If it's any consolation, he kept a picture of the three of us in his footlocker. He liked you. He just didn't know how to tell you. He thought you and I were a thing."

Carly dabbed her eyes with a tissue, then smiled.

"At least you made it back. What else have you been doing besides teaching my granddaughter to play the flute."

I told Carly everything, including about June and my two kids. When I told Carly about losing June, she put her hand on mine.

"I'm so sorry, Mark. That must have been horrible."

I shrugged.

"Well, at first it was, but like they say, you have to go on. I've kept teaching and playing session gigs, and I'm doing OK now."

Carly sighed.

"I know what you mean about going on. After you and David left, I tried getting an agent on my own, but nobody in Nashville wanted a folk singer. I looked around and decided maybe California would be better.

"In some ways it was. The anti-war thing was going strong and they liked singers who could mix a little folk with some light rock like John Denver, Kris Kristofferson, and Joan Baez. I never cut a record, but I got an agent and he found some guys to back me up. For about a year he booked me into bars and a few wine festivals."

Carly chuckled then.

"I also married him. God, was that ever a mistake. I screwed up my pills and got pregnant with Martha. Turns out, once I was pregnant with Martha, he decided he wanted a woman who wasn't starting to waddle instead of walk. He didn't pick the first one he saw though. He shopped around. It was easy for him to do that. All he had to do was tell some starry-eyed young girl he could get her a recording contract and she couldn't get her clothes off fast enough.

"Well, I divorced him right after Martha was born, but I got the house and a little alimony so I came out OK. I still had to work to support Martha and myself, but what Daddy said about having a skill paid off. I got a job as an accountant, hired a nanny for Martha, and worked my way up to the senior accountant's job for a publishing company.

"Every summer, I brought Martha back to White House to stay with my mom and dad for the summer. I never thought to see if you were still in the area. When you stopped writing...well, I thought you'd probably forgotten about me."

"Anyway, on one of those visits when Martha was almost eighteen, she met a guy she seemed to like a lot. I never met him but I didn't think much of it. I figured she'd have some fun and then we'd go back to California. What really happened was once we were back in California, he called her every night and they talked for an hour.

"The week before she graduated, she told me she was going back to White House to marry the guy. He was a doctor in the Army at Fort Campbell, and his enlistment was over in July. He'd proposed to her a month before and she'd said yes. We went back for the wedding, and I started thinking about how quiet White House was. Southern California, no matter where you went, was full of cars and people. There were also problems there with crimes and drug abuse. Now that I was going to be all alone, I started thinking maybe moving back to White House was something I should consider.

"When Sherry was born, I flew back to see her, and once I did, I knew I couldn't stay in California. I did go back for a couple of months until I could find a job in Nashville and sell my house in California. I've been living in Franklin since. I still didn't look for you. I thought it had been too long.

"It wasn't until Martha signed Sherry up for the junior high band that I found out you were still here. Sherry came home talking about Mister Rhodes this and Mister Rhodes that, and I asked myself if there could be more than one music teacher named Rhodes in the Nashville area. I finally found you in the Spring Hill phone book about two weeks ago, but I decided I should wait until the concert. I could make sure you were my Mark Rhodes and if you weren't, I wouldn't embarrass myself. I'm glad it was really you."

I asked Carly if she was still singing anywhere, and she shook her head.

"No, nobody wants a fifty-seven year old folk singer. The agents all want young girls who'll go on stage half-naked and sing the same words over and over. I do miss it though. I really wish we'd been able to revive David, Mark, and Carly, but I guess that wasn't in the cards. It would have just been Mark and Carly anyway, so it wouldn't have been the same."

I just wanted to know if she was still singing, but when Carly said she wished the group had gotten back together again, she planted the seed of an idea that didn't come to me for two more months.

When I took Carly back to her house, I walked her to her door and stopped her before she went inside.

"Carly, this probably seems really premature, but could we get together some night for dinner?"

Carly smiled.

"Why would you want to take a fat old woman to dinner?"

I chuckled.

"Well, you are a little bigger than I remember, but I wouldn't call you fat. I'd call you just about right. In case you hadn't noticed, I've put on a few pounds too. I just want to get to know you again. If you're seeing someone, I'll understand when you say you can't."

That invitation turned into Carly and I having dinner every Saturday night for the next two months. At first, we were just two old friends who hadn't seen each other for a very long time and had a lot of catching up to do. After a month though, I started looking forward to those Saturday dinners on Wednesday, and Saturday mornings and afternoons seemed to take forever to go by.

I'd liked Carly a lot in college, but looking at what was ahead of me then, I didn't think it would be right to tell her. I was feeling the same way about her now, but I didn't think she'd be interested in any kind of relationship except as a friend. She'd had one bad marriage and if she'd been looking for another man, she'd have already found one.

The school system always took a week-long spring break at Easter, and I always scheduled a spring concert that put the junior and senior high bands together on the same Friday night a week before spring break. By then, most of the junior high kids could keep up with the high school music and it made them feel good to be included in the full band. That also meant we'd have a gym full of people with a big variation in age. I was writing the program when the idea hit me.

The parents and grandparents always came to the concerts and always applauded what the bands played, but I could see the look on some of the faces before the concert began and after it ended. Before, the look was, "I wish this was over", and afterward, it was "Thank God. If we hurry, maybe I can catch the Tonight Show".

I thought maybe if I gave them some music they could relate to, they'd enjoy the concert more. What could I give them? Well, that's when the idea hit me. There were always a lot of grandparents in the audience, and I figured they and at least some of the parents might remember some of the songs from the 60's and 70's. If I could talk Carly into singing again, we'd remind the older crowd and show the kids what folk music sounded like.

When I told Carly about my idea, she shook her head.

"Mark, those people won't remember. They're too young. Besides, there would just be the two of us."

Well, I'd thought of that too. I had a guitar player in my stage band, and Ricky Dobbs wanted to be a country singer more than anything in the world. He was good enough to play backup guitar now and I'd heard him sing. He wasn't exactly a tenor like David had been, but his voice was high enough if we picked the right key. I was sure he'd jump at the chance. It would give him a taste of what it was like to perform for an audience and maybe make up his mind about the future.

I told Carly about Ricky, and she said she might consider it if we got together to rehearse and the rehearsal went well. I talked to Ricky the next day.

That Sunday, Carly and Ricky came to my house. I'd cleaned out the garage so we'd have enough room, and I'd printed off a sheet of cords and lyrics to five songs. Three were the songs Carly and I used to sing. The other two were by John Denver - "Country Roads" because I knew Ricky already knew it and "Rocky Mountain High", because I figured everybody in the audience had heard it.

Ricky had brought along the electric guitar he used in the stage band because that's the only guitar he had. He was headed back to his car to get the amp when I stopped him.

"Ricky, we'll only use acoustic guitars for this, but I gotcha covered."

I handed him Lucille. Ricky fingered a C-chord, then looked up and said, "Wow. I didn't know a plain old guitar could sound like this. The low notes are loud enough to hear and the high notes are still crisp. The fingerboard is great too. I could get used to this."

The first song we practiced was "Blowin' In The Wind". I picked that because the chords were pretty easy. I explained to Ricky how we'd play it.

"I'll play the last four bars of the first verse and then Carly will sing the lyrics except for the parts I underlined. We'll all sing those. If you think you can harmonize with Carly, go ahead."

I picked the four bars and then Carly started the first verse. Ricky missed the first chord, but he caught up, and from then on he was right on the money. When Carly came to "the answer my friend...", she looked at Ricky and smiled. Ricky looked nervous, but he sang along with her. The second verse, he tried to harmonize with her and did a pretty good job. I added my baritone, and it was almost like that day back in the common area of the dorm.

When we finished, Carly looked at Ricky.

"Ricky, you sing really well. I'm glad you're here."

Ricky blushed, but he said, "Thank you Ma'am".

That first rehearsal went a lot better than I expected. When Ricky left, I asked Carly what she thought. She smiled.

"You remember that first time we sang together? Well, I got the same feeling today that I had that day. I think we should do it."

We practiced every Sunday until the spring concert, and Ricky got comfortable in his role. He sang "Country Roads" like a professional, so we decided he should do it as a solo with Carly and I backing him up on the chorus.

The band concert went well. The bands played each selection as good as I expected them too. When they were done, I stepped up to one of the three microphones I'd put there and connected to the gym PA system, and then waved to Carly and Ricky. They walked out of the gym lobby and up to their mikes. Ricky handed Vicky to me.

"We have a surprise for you tonight. This lovely lady is Carly, a friend of mine from years ago, and this is Ricky, one of my band students. What we want to do is take you back in time to the 60's and 70's, back when life was a little simpler and a lot of the music was folk music. We hope you enjoy it."

Our first song was "There Is Love", and as Carly's clear voice filled the gym, I saw people beginning to smile. Next came "Puff, The Magic Dragon" and I saw most people were smiling.

It went that way until I played the intro to "Country Roads". When Ricky started singing, I saw faces light up and feet start tapping. When he started the chorus, Carly and I stepped to our mikes. While Ricky and I started singing, Carly said, "you know the words so sing with us". Suddenly, the gym was filled with voices -- the people were singing along with us.

When we got to the last song, Carly stepped to her mike.

"This is a song has a lot of meaning to us and I'm sure it does for many of you too. Please sing it along with us."

I played through one verse of "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" so people would know what was coming, and Carly picked up the vocal after that. At first, nobody was singing. They didn't until the part that goes, "long time passing". I saw a few older women singing that. It was the same for the part, "long time ago". After that, little by little, people began to join in and by the verse that starts "where have all the husbands gone", I saw many people at least mouthing the words. I also saw some wiping their eyes.

That song was the end of the concert, so I thanked everybody for coming and said I was looking forward to more concerts next year. I looked at Ricky then.

"Well, Ricky, you did a great job. What did you think?"

Ricky grinned.

"This was a lot more fun than playing in the stage band. Can we do this again sometime?"

I didn't get to ask Carly what she thought because as the people filed out of the gym, a lot of them stopped to talk to us. I'd expected a few people to say they liked what we'd done. We got that and more.

One man and wife, both with white hair, walked up to Carly and shook her hand. The woman still had tears in her eyes.

"That last song... my brother loved that song, so I sang it at the funeral when they brought him back from Vietnam."

Another woman about the same age clasped Carly's hand in hers. "You sing like an angel. I wish my Jack had been here. He always loved all those songs."

There were comments from some of the parents too.

"My mother used to sing that last song to us kids, but I never understood why until tonight. The man sitting next to me said it was about soldiers going to war in Vietnam. My dad was one of those soldiers who didn't come back."

"I hope this isn't the last time I get to hear you three. There's something special about you and your music."

When Ricky left, I asked Carly what she thought.

She smiled.

"I loved what happened tonight. It felt really good, just like when we were in college. I'd like to keep going, even if it's just singing to have a good time. Right now, though, I think I'd love a cup of coffee."

We went to the same Denny's and it was just as empty as the first time. After the waitress brought our coffee, Carly took a sip and then smiled.

"You never said how you feel about tonight. How do you?"

"Well, it started about like I thought it would. I think the people liked the music. When you started them singing along though, I got this chill down my back, just like that first time back in the dorm. It felt natural to be picking out melodies and singing again, like we'd never stopped. If I hadn't known it was Ricky, I'd have thought David was back with us too. That's how good it was for me."

Carly sipped her coffee again.

"So, where do we go from here?"

I shook my head.

"I haven't really thought about that. All I wanted to do was sing with you again one more time. I didn't realize until we started practicing how much I've missed that. I suppose we could...well, I know a couple agents from my sessions gigs. We wouldn't get any record deals, but we might get a few gigs. Most wouldn't pay much, if anything, but we might get some tips here and there. At least we'd be singing together again."

Carly sighed.

"It's too bad David couldn't have been back with us. Ricky did a great job though. Do you suppose he thinks we're a thing, like David did?"

I chuckled.

"I don't think kids that young believe people as old as we are have things. My kids would have thought June and I were crazy if we'd told them we still had sex. I suppose they finally figured it out, but they'd never admit it."

Carly ran her finger around the rim of her coffee cup.

"One of these days, they'll figure out that being older doesn't mean being dead. Don't you miss it? I sure do."

When I looked at her face, she was sort of smiling, but there was something else there because her eyes had a sparkle I hadn't seen since college.

"Yes, I miss it."

"Then why haven't you found another woman?"

I shrugged.

"I don't know, age I guess. I didn't want to be rejected."

Carly reached over and touched my hand.

"I wouldn't reject you, no more now than I would have when we were in college."

"You felt something for me back then?"

"What I felt was a lot more than just something, but my mother told me good girls wait for the man to make the first move. You didn't."

I stared at Carly for a second. If she was saying what I thought she was saying...

"You want me to make the first move now?"

Carly looked down at her coffee cup.

"If you don't want to I understand. I'm not the same girl I was back then."

I reached across the table and picked up Carly's hand.

"Carly, I know you're not that girl, but I didn't ask that girl to dinner that first Saturday night. I asked you, and I kept asking you because I like being with you just like you are. Is that enough of a first move?"