My house nearly has an ocean view. That’s what the agent said when I bought it several years ago. Nearly. If the house were three stories instead of two: ocean view. Three blocks further west: ocean view. She said the phrase as if to imply that I was close, so close, to a standard of attainment that I obviously didn’t quite grasp. She was right. I didn’t care about an ocean view. Partially, that was due to my education. The French don’t like to look at the water, except in August.
Still, I bought the house—an Eclectic Revival cottage with a catslide roof and eucalyptus trees in the front yard—when several others would have been just as suitable. And when I signed the papers, the agent said that I had been both wise and lucky, which led me to believe she’d had a hard time interesting anyone else. Indeed, the house would have been small for a family. “So many people don’t realize there’s no reason to buy space you don’t need. Yet,” she was quick to add. I suppose it’s possible she just didn’t realize that I was on the other side of yet, that I was at the end of something—a marriage, in this case—rather than the beginning.
At least I can say that I’ve never had cause to regret the house. Though I don’t have an ocean view, every day I do see people walking to the beach. There’s something salubrious in just that. The zinc-tipped noses, the sandals and oxfords without socks. The easy conversations tossed over shoulders, the striped sun umbrellas and towels.
In fact, I was watching a young man walk two spotted dogs in bandanas past my window when the phone rang the morning after the composer’s birthday party. It was Max Steiner.
“How do you feel this morning?” Steiner asked. His tone suggested he’d already written two scores and a sonata.
“I don’t remember giving you my telephone number,” I said. “Does that answer your question?”
“But obviously I have your phone number,” he said. “I did not think you would mind speaking at home.”
“It’s an honor, actually. Did I tell you that last night?”
“Like you, I am somewhat unsure what we spoke of last night. Nevertheless, upon reflection, I believe it to be perfect.”
“You believe what to be perfect?”
“Your song, of course.”
The song. The ridiculous song. I tried to massage back my headache, to find a little lucid space to think. “By the piano?” I said, dismissively, as if my tone of voice might sway him away. But then—all the more ridiculously, since it wasn’t even my song—I couldn’t help myself. “You said you didn’t like it, though, didn’t you?”
“I believe that I said it was too lonely. The reason I do not often drink is that my mind becomes too literal. Loneliness, of course, is the perfect subtext for a lullaby.”
“That may be,” I said. “The problem is I don’t remember any of it.”
“None?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“You made it up on the spot? Impressive.” Though a click in his voice suggested he wasn’t feeling very impressed.
“I must have channeled something in the house,” I said.
“I would not say that,” Steiner said. “But it’s quite all right. I remember everything perfectly. Isn’t it . . .” And he began to sing. His voice was bad by any standard, but the words were exactly right. The moment should have been funny—the unexpected call, the deeply accented performance in which “the snow covered the vindow.” Only I was too afraid to laugh. Truly, I was afraid. Who would care, really, if that song ended up, improbably, in a picture? Who would even know? Yet my chest clenched.
“That’s impressive,” I said when he’d finished.
“Naturally, I don’t forget music.”
“Naturally.” There was a pause on the line, and I realized just how ill I suddenly felt.
“But I have forgotten,” Steiner said. “Why were you at the party?”
“I came with Paul Weyerhauser.”
“Yes, yes. That was it. How do you know Paul again?”
“We met in Italy,” I said, feeling too dizzy to lie or deflect. “Almost thirty years ago now.”
“Is that right?” he said. “Fertile soil, I suppose.”
“It didn’t seem so at the time.”
“I mean only that he met his wife there too, after all.”