Sammy Meets the NZ Guy

Once through the front door, he just stood there, mouth open, looking up at the ceiling three stories above. He shook his head. "That's amazing," he said softly, as she put the guitar in the stand.

"I love it, she replied. "In the middle of the day, with the sun shining through the windows, it's beautiful." The windows on the front of the house were about one story tall each, two panels high and six panels wide so that it seemed the whole wall was windows. The furniture was mostly wood, as you might expect in a log house, with patterned rugs here and there to cover the hardwood floors. The walls were logs and huge log beams stretched from here to there. A giant stone fireplace filled much of one end of the room, the stones on the inside showing the black of much use. There were potted trees, three or four of them around the room making the inside look like the outside. On the walls were lights, each containing what looked like four candles but were, of course, electric bulbs.

He tugged her hand and looked at her. "This is beautiful," he said, looking around again, then back at her, "but I would have pictured you as a 10th floor condo with exposed beams and pipes, lots of steel and black and white."

"You would have been very wrong," she laughed back at him.

"I would have indeed."

She showed him the kitchen, the dining room with the long and very beautiful hand-crafted cedar table with matching benches and chairs, the utility room with washer and dryer and furnace, not her favorite room at all, and then led him to the steps to go upstairs.

"I really love this part," she said as they went up a wooden set of stairs that emptied onto a balcony that stretched the width of the house and had several doors leading from it. She stopped walking and began gesturing as she talked, her voice very animated as she described the house to him. There are four bedrooms up her," she began. "Right here, at this end is a large guest room with its own bathroom. On the far end is my room, with its own bathroom as well, of course. In between those are two smaller guest rooms with a Jack and Jill bathroom." She could see immediately he was puzzled.

Jack and Jill?" he questioned.

She had to smile at that. "Yes, there's a bathroom between the two rooms with a door from each of them into it. They share that bathroom. Don't they have those in New Zealand.?"

"I don't know but if they do, I don't know about it. Why is it called Jack and Jill?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "But Jack and Jill were two kids that shared things and lots of times the bathroom is between two kids rooms and they share."

"Sounds reasonable to me. The bedrooms share a bathroom." She loved that bedrooms sounded like "beedrooms" when he said it.

They went down the hall to her room and she opened the door and gestured, but he just leaned in and nodded but didn't step across the threshold. She was tempted to pull him in but she did respect his reluctance to be alone with her in her bedroom.

"I love my four-poster bed," she ventured.

"Very beautiful, indeed." He responded.

"And," she continued, pointing upward, "above the two little bedrooms is a storage area since there's no basement."

"Quite nice," was his thoughtful response and, noting his slight discomfort and also wanting to do something else she led him back down the stairs, grabbed her guitar and seated herself in the middle of the couch. "Ah, more singing - wonderful," he added as he slid one of the chairs opposite her and sat down. "And what shall it be?" She began playing and then singing and he quickly joined her with that wonderful tenor harmony again.

Almost heaven, West Virginia

Blue ridge mountains, Shenandoah river

They finished the song and she couldn't help but smile. "How does someone in New Zealand learn all the words to these songs?"

"Well, first of all they don't learn them all, but they know the song and, with someone else singing, it's easy to follow along quickly. And, the harmonies are fairly simple which helps." Now he smiled broadly at her. "It's déjà vu, you know. When I was in school at home, a young lady moved there to go to school as well, and she was from Tennessee and played a guitar and we sang together a lot, even in programs and shows at the school." His eyes drifted off and his face changed completely, a look of sadness masking the expression of happiness he had just had. She didn't say anything and in a moment he continued. "She was killed in a horrible auto accident on the way to my apartment to practice some music for a little show we were going to put on for one of the homes for the elderly."

From the tortured look he had, she was sure she had more than a singing partner for him. Instinctively she reached out and took his hand in both of hers. She gently rubbed as she sought to comfort him. He had a very far-away look in his eyes as he turned to her, leaned in and gently kissed her. She didn't move, very much enjoying the tender kiss from this near stranger. Then he blinked and jerked backward, looking away. "I'm so sorry," he said softly, but didn't pull his hand away.

"For a moment, I was someone else wasn't I?" she responded, "and don't be sorry."

Now he turned slowly to look at her. "Her name was Katherine. She was very lovely."

She wasn't at all sure why she did it but she leaned toward him and kissed him back, the same soft and gentle way he had kissed her. He smiled warmly at her and added, "Let's sing some more."

So, they sang for an hour, mostly soft and gentle songs, some very sad ones as well. They fought their way through Patsy Cline's I Fall to Pieces and Hank Williams Jr.'s I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, struggling a little with some of the words but the melodies and harmonies being sharp and clear.

Finally she said, "Do you sing other things than these?" to which she got a huge smile in reply. He reached out and took her guitar and also took a deep breath.

"You heard my name," he said, "so I'll sing to you." He began picking notes, a beautiful accompaniment and quickly she knew what was coming. In that gentle and gorgeous tenor voice he began so sing, his eyes never leaving hers.

If you ever go across the sea to Ireland,

then maybe at the closing of your day,

She knew that song so well, who didn't and, although she had never been to Ireland, she had seen enough and heard enough about it to know that those who were related to it had deep feeling for the country and its heritage. She was totally entranced as the magical union of his voice and the words seemed to carry her off to that far-away place she'd never been. He sang through the second and third and then the fourth verses, the picking of the notes highlighting his voice and the words as well. Then she could see him take another deep breath as he started the final verse.

And if there's going to be a life here after,

She could see the emotion in his face as well as in his voice as those words, obviously dear to him swept over her and the last two lines were sung, very softly.

I will ask my God to let me make my Heaven,

In that dear land across the Irish sea.

As the last verse ended, there were two tears making their way down his cheeks. "Katherine O'Brien, she was, and I pray she's in that land across the Irish sea." Sammy bent across the guitar and kissed each of those tears away. She didn't care right then if she was Sammy or Katherine, she only knew that he was Malcolm and he was hurting and there was some reason, some karma that had brought him down her street this very night.

Now she took the guitar and laid it on the couch, then grabbed his hand and headed for the front door, him following her lead without a word of question or protest. She went around the house and started up the long hill and into the woods, leading him around trees and bushes, climbing even higher. The house was gone from view and there was only greenery and sounds, sounds that she loved and wanted to share with him. They had gone perhaps 100 yards up the hill when they came to a flat area, a little glade. There was a bench, and animal feeders of every kind there, and grass and even some flowers peeking out around the bushes. She sat down and pulled him down beside her, just looking around and listening. He intuitively followed her lead and did the same.

She talked to the Cardinals high in the trees, chirping out their plaintive song, and even some early crickets that seemed to herald her coming to join them. They sat and listened for 15 minutes when suddenly she put her hand on his leg and a finger to her lips. She couldn't believe they were this lucky as, coming down from higher on the hill was a beautiful doe, heading for the corn that was almost always in the feeder there. They sat motionless, enthralled by its presence. It seemed to look right at them several times but never seemed frightened or spooked. After several minutes it drifted away, moving slowly back up the hill.

"Beautiful," he whispered softly in her ear. And when she looked at him, he was looking at her and not the deer. Her mind was moving swiftly now but she tried her best to slow it down. It was already an emotional evening and she wasn't quite sure what was happening even though she had never felt so comfortable with someone as quickly as she had with Malcolm. She passed it off as the music, but wasn't sure she really believed that.

She was beautiful, he thought to himself, but that was only one part of her. Even with Katherine he had never realized how intimate that just two people, singing together and harmonizing could be. But with her it was. She wasn't Katherine, no one else could be. But, she was Sammy, and he tried to guess what her given name might be. She loved things he loved and she shared them with him, and with only knowing him a couple of hours. A strange connection seemed to be there. He loved those green eyes and the way they looked at him and she hadn't seemed to mind when his mind had wandered away and he had kissed her. In fact, she had kissed him back, twice, one for each tear. He did feel warm inside, the first he had felt that way for over four years, since Katherine had died and he had left New Zealand. He enjoyed that feeling - he enjoyed her just being close by him.

It was getting dark and getting down the hill in the dark would be a challenge so they stumbled their way down in the dwindling dusk and were finally at the front porch. "I do need to go,' he said and she thought she noticed a resigned sadness in his voice. But, he just looked at her for long seconds and she could feel her breathing begin to change. They, very gently, he put both hands on her cheeks and kissed her, not a long and passionate kiss, but just as warm and tender a kiss as she could imagine. Then he backed away and smiled and, even in the dark, she could see his blue eyes sparkling. "But, we'll sing together again, and soon."

She watched him moving down the driveway, then away up the street until the darkness swallowed him completely. She realized she was trembling slightly and blamed the evening chill, even though it was still warm. She thought she might have very pleasant dreams tonight.

She left work at the regular time the next day and wondered if this would be the day they would sing together again, even though it was only the next day. And, she was lamenting her stupidity as she only knew his name and had no phone or email numbers if she should want to contact him. And, he had none of those for her either, she was dependent on him finding her, and she hated that. It just wasn't her nature.

But, when she pulled into the driveway her heart skipped a beat as he was sitting there on the steps, waiting for her. She rolled down the car window. "Hi" was all she could think to say although there were much more and inappropriate words bouncing around in her brain.

"Hi," was his quick reply as he looked from one end of the car to the other. "Very nice," he said, gesturing. "Whatever you do, you must do it very well, aye."

She grinned. "What I do, I think I do well, but what I did best was chose my parents carefully."

He looked puzzled for just an instant, then knew exactly what she meant.

"Let me put the car in the garage and I'll be right back." She zipped around and parked the car and then hurried back to the porch. Cautiously, she took his hand and he didn't resist at all. "Come inside while I change," she said, leading him to the front door and then inside after she had unlocked it.

"You trust me to be alone with you in your house while you change your clothes?"

She had to smile. "Should I trust you," she asked, still holding his hand.

He watched those green eyes and wondered if he could be trusted. Yet he knew that he could because he would do nothing to hurt her. Unless, of course, she didn't want him to act like he was trusted, didn't want him to be a good man. He couldn't think like that - he'd only known her a day, or maybe a lifetime. "Yes, you should." And, of course, she knew she could.

She went upstairs and changed into some very short shorts and a very tight tank top. She checked herself in the mirror and decided she was appropriately seductive and went back downstairs, nearly drowning in the look he gave her. No comment, but his face certainly gave away his feelings and she felt very warm inside.

They talked, and sang some, then talked some more until she finally said, "I have to run to the mall to pick up a couple of things. I won't be gone very long."

To her delight he replied, "May I go along with you?" Soon they were in the Acura, talking some but mostly just being together. She had to watch her driving but she was pretty sure his eyes never left her. She parked in the big lot and as they went inside the mall he took her hand, much to her delight. She felt a little like a teenager but she didn't care. It was fun and she had never really experienced anything like what she was feeling now. She stopped in the drug store to pick up some lip balm and a couple of other things including some clips for the pony tail she often wore. Then, as they were walking along they heard music, what sounded like an electronic keyboard of some sort and, as they turned the corner by the ice cream shop, there it was. Sure enough, an electronic keyboard being played very beautifully by a man with sunglasses who, she assumed, must be blind. There was a little box beside him and she saw it had some money in it, tips from his appreciative listeners.

One song ended and the next began and she immediately recognized it. From the look on Malcolm's face she could see that he recognized it too. She saw his mouth open and he began to sing the familiar words and melody.

Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation

Darkness stirs and wakes imagination

It was Andrew Lloyd Weber's magical song. The Music of the Night, from Phantom of the Opera and her eyes widened as Malcolm continued singing. It was magnificent and the sound filled the mall from one end to the other. The volume was astounding and she could see people beginning to gather around in large groups. She watched as he sang effortlessly with the emotion and passion of the song clearly on his face and ringing from all the walls in his voice. The man at the keyboard was smiling broadly as his hands flew over the keys. She had heard him sing several times now, but never like this and she had a new appreciation of his compassion and caring. He could have totally overwhelmed her voice, but he hadn't. His had merged with hers, almost as equals and she felt like her heart might burst. Then the music softened and the last plaintive last lines were sung.

You alone can make my song take flight

Help me make the music of the night.

There were a few seconds of silence and then loud applause broke out, to the reddening cheeks of Malcolm who nodded his thanks to the crowd, most of whom were now lined up and were dropping money in the box. She saw ones and some fives and a few tens dropped in the box. She was happy for the keyboard player.

"Thank you, man," the keyboard player said, turning his head toward Malcolm. "That was unbelievable. And, I can hear money dropping in my box and I need to share it with you."

"No way," Malcolm quickly retorted. "I was just walking along here with my girl and heard you playing and couldn't resist joining in. I just enjoyed the singing. And good luck to you the rest of the day." He reached out and took the blind man's hand and shook it to more very sincere thank you's.

All she heard was "my girl" except as they were walking across the parking lot toward her car and he sang softly, so only she could hear,

You alone can make my song take flight

Help me make the music of the night

Then they were at the car and inside and she drove to her house. She put the car in the garage and they walked around to the front and sat on the steps.

Out of nowhere he said, "I love your voice when you sing."

Here was this guy whose voice overwhelmed an entire mall saying he loved her little voice, that she was not ashamed of by far, but was nothing at all compared to his.

He noted the strange look on her face. "I mean it," he said. It's rich and warm and pure and all of the emotion and passion and pathos wrapped up in a song is grasped by your voice and comes out with it to be shared with everyone. It's a rare gift."

Looking at him, she could see he was sincere and she tingled a little hearing him say it. And, hearing him say that, she appreciated even more now the way he sang with her, their voices melded together, neither seeking to take away from the other. It was something she was already treasuring about him. They talked more, about singing, about their lives and families, about anything that came into one or the others mind.

But, he stood up, telling her he had to be off and she bit her lip, not wanting him to go. Once more he took her face in both hands, kissing her so gently and warmly that she nearly couldn't stand it. And, as before, she watched him move down the driveway, a final wave and he disappeared into the darkness.

Now she debated with herself. She weighed the pros cons and her own desires. It wouldn't be stalking she decided if she just googled him to see if there was anything about him online. Quickly, once the decision was made, she went to her computer, signed in, went to google and began to enter. She typed m-a-l-c-o-l-m o-'-'s-u-l-l-i-v-a-n n-e-w z-e-a-l-a-n-d and hit enter. Right at the top of the page that came up she saw the headline, O'Sullivan to leave for United States. She read the first line of the article which was dated about four years ago. Malcolm O'Sullivan, the young and brilliant lead tenor of the Christchurch Symphony Chorus and Opera Company is leaving New Zealand to spend some time in the United States. Sources aren't sure why he is leaving although some have suggested it might be related to the untimely accidental death of a close friend. She read more but it just told about some roles he had played and sung, nothing more about him. The other things there were much the same but there was nothing new about his time in the US. The words brilliant lead tenor kept resonating in her head as she shut down the computer. If he was nothing else, he was certainly that. But, what else was he? He had called her his girl so was he her guy? She sighed.

Now two weeks had passed and they had spent nearly every evening together and the weekends as well. They often sang and more often talked, and very often just walked or sat together in her little glade above her house, listening to the birds and watching for the animals that ventured by.

Malcolm was captivated beyond measure, but was so afraid that caution seemed to overwhelm his every wish and desire. He wanted her but was afraid. He knew she wanted him, but he was afraid of that for her as well. One minute, as he stared at those green eyes he wanted to grab her and kiss her so hard she'd never recover and the next minute he was nearly terrified of holding her hand. But, when they sang together, it was heaven for him. It was an intimate joining as their voices blended together and a shadowing of his restraint as he held his voice in check to match hers, much as he held himself in check over his desire for her.