Original fiction · Chapter 2 of 2
The Space Before the Song
Vicky didn't look at me while the tape played. She put a hand on the desk and listened toward the glass, the way she did when somebody was on the air.
On the tape, Dad said he used to order coffee with sugar because he couldn't say the word black without getting stuck. He didn't like sugar in coffee. The man who ran the lunch counter got used to bringing it that way and would sometimes put the sugar in before Dad even sat down. Dad said it took him three years to ask for what he wanted.
I remembered him bringing his own coffee to work in a dented thermos. He used to tell me it tasted better from home.
Then he introduced the record. He didn't use my name. He said a person he loved had picked it, and that if the person ever wanted to come back to the studio, he'd be there on Thursdays. He left a little space before he played the song.
Vicky told me the tape had never aired. Dad worried I'd hear it and think he was trying to turn something private into a lesson for his listeners. He gave it to her to keep and went back to playing records.
“Do you want me to make a copy?” she asked.
I said yes. Then I asked if there was time to play the song before midnight. She checked the running order and took a pencil to it. I went into the booth while she found the record.
I got stuck on the name of the singer. The red light stayed on. Through the glass, Vicky waited with her finger over a button she didn't press. I took a breath and tried the name again. I told the listeners my father had loved this record because you could hear the piano player turning a page near the end. Then we played it.
I took the chair to my mother's kitchen. The station had switched to static by then. We listened to the cassette on her radio instead. When Dad talked about the coffee, she laughed and said she'd known him for a year before he told her.
I asked if she wanted me to turn it off after the song. She told me to leave it until the tape stopped on its own. So we sat there, with the radio between us, listening to the empty part he'd left at the end.
