Deanna Quinones

Deanna Quinones is a professional copywriter, book festival organizer, library trustee, former bookseller, and unrepentant book addict. Born in Brooklyn, raised in Nutley, and now living in Morristown, NJ, after 20 years on the West Coast, Deanna contributes writing to film festival programs and food blogs.

There’s Magic in the Night

The notification popped up just as she was walking back to her car after book group, toggling over to Maps to pull up directions for home. The night air was colder than she’d expected, stepping from the warm cocoon of the dinner table with its litter of empty wine bottles, pumpkin pie-smeared plates, laptops and notebooks, and the resounding laughter that always ended the night with this knot of old friends who knew everything there was to know about each other.

Except this.

How this quiet ping and beckoning little red circle could stop her in her tracks, despite the chilly air biting at her bare fingertips. How the sight of his name, briefly flashing on the screen, could make her vision tilt, just for an instant. They wouldn’t even know his name if she mentioned it to them: Jake. There was no Jake in their atlas of Rosalie’s life. There was her husband, her children, her mom, her siblings—those names were easily accessed from years of stories, Facebook posts, milestone birthday parties. The book club girls knew all the main characters in Rosie’s story.

Except Jake.

Who was now, suddenly, absurdly, present on her phone screen. Waiting.

Was there an emergency? Had another of their mutual friends died a sudden and tragic death? They’d already lost Andrew and Kerry and Finnegan. There couldn’t be more.

Had someone in his family died or been injured? Why would he contact her if they had? Did he need help? Was he coming to town and wanting to see her? No, it was nothing like that. He was just making contact, running a light hand down her back from the safe distance of a three-state divide.

Rosie got into her car and cranked up the heat. She buckled her seat belt and stared out into the night. It would take nearly an hour to get home and it was already late. She should start driving. The notification sat quietly, waiting for her attention. Picking up the message would take only seconds, and she knew she’d be distracted thinking about what it might be if she didn’t check it before she got on the Parkway. Oh, just open it, you dummy, she scolded herself.

Tap. Click.

A voice memo.

Now, that was unusual.

Tap. Click.

A quiet rush of air, maybe his hand pulling back from the phone, and then the first gentle note from a nylon string brushed by his fingers. A slight build to a lush chord, and then his voice …

Screen door slams

Mary’s dress sways…

An immediate flush rises from under her coat collar and Rosie sees that the message is seven minutes long. Seven minutes and three seconds. Of Jake, singing to her. The unmistakable sound of that acoustic guitar they bought in Barcelona.

Like a vision, she dances across the porch as the radio plays

Roy Orbison singing for the lonely

Hey, that's me, and I want you only…

A cheap room in a youth hostel, cheap Spanish wine thrumming in their veins, the dripping facades of Gaudi’s visions and the gleaming lights of Las Ramblas keeping them off balance as they recovered from jet lag and reveled in this utterly foreign adventure. He’d called her his muse. Just once, but it had seared itself in her memory.

Each night they tumbled into a different bar and fell into the trance of flamenco dancers feverishly stamping, clapping, and glaring across small stages, smoke hazing the air, as the perspiring musicians soared from gentle notes to thumping cascades of sound, their instruments seeming lit from within under the gleam of the colored lights.

Each day spent searching the maze of cobblestone streets in search of the perfect guitar. He longed for an Alhambra, handmade, constructed from a single piece of wood. He didn’t aspire to Spanish-style playing, but oh how he coveted the lines and lure of those beauties. He sampled and strummed, lifting the rumble of his voice to wrap around the warm, round sounds that met his fingers.

So you're scared, and you're thinking

That maybe we ain't that young anymore

Show a little faith, there's magic in the night

Could she sit there, for seven minutes and three seconds, awash in his voice and the ancient song of that gorgeous guitar? Could she delay her arrival, pushing through the front door seven full minutes (and three seconds) later than she would have, without a trace of that magic on her face, on her skin?

Well, I got this guitar, and I learned how to make it talk

And my car's out back if you're ready to take that long walk

Rosie tilted her head back and closed her eyes. She listened closely for the whisper of his fingertips along the strings. She sank back across the decades and rested her head on his shoulder, inhaled his scent, and felt his voice vibrate along her spine.

And I know you're lonely for words that I ain't spoken

But tonight we'll be free, all the promises'll be broken

She mouthed the familiar words along with him but made no sound to compete with his. In the hushed sanctuary of her car, the tender notes of a Spanish guitar slipped beneath her skin, layer by layer, until they skimmed the one that had once pressed against Jake’s, while his voice—that voice—finished the lines of a beautiful song, meant only for her.

Lyrics to “Thunder Road” ©Bruce Springsteen