‘Never trust a woman when she cries,’ his mother had told him.

The day was all orange and bubbles; the sky a deeper blue than seemed necessary for a Sunday afternoon. His hands were pruning up and peeling back at the fingernails from the hot sudsy sink water while a late-night college radio station played longingly from the stereo in the living room. He regretted that he’d never learned how to properly rise and fall to jazz the way his girlfriend could. Music seemed to be in everything for her—a conversation between her and the wind, her feet, and the earth—even down to the rhythm of her takeout order: ‘Yes please. Thank you kindly.’ He’d never had anything quite like that. Nothing he was truly passionate about.

She’d invited him to one of her shows within a few months of knowing him. It being his first time at such an event, he didn’t even know where to put his hands. Not really. When should he react? Take a slug of his poorly chosen beer? Nod his head? It wasn’t the music itself that made him nervous. Hell, everyone he knew seemed to be making music back then. He’d known at least two mediocre SoundCloud rappers, one of which, admittedly had now gone on to acquire some local fame. But it was different with her. She was bathed in a silver dress that seemed out of character for her, or at least the character she presented herself as in Statistics class. Her bleached hair was slicked back in a braid. But though he couldn’t quite find his footing in the taking of pamphlets, finding seats, and introductions, the way she played gave him permission to be present. He could’ve sworn that the bass was a giant woman in its own right, weeping ‘farewell’ at the touch of her fingers. ‘Farewell and God be with you.’ The way she sang and wove her voice into the deep sea of color and meaning, he watched the crowd physically lean in to unravel every sweet resounding syllable, every slippery rhyme. This was blues: a weighty word he could only tiptoe into—her lamenting world, inescapable for one rare, wondrous moment.

After the show, she was immediately swarmed with people in front of the bar’s shallow lip of a stage. Feeling awkward waiting around, he waved to her and started to exit out into the street to smoke with some of the others. She shot him a concerned look.

‘I’ll be outside,’ he mouthed to her.

Eventually, after bumming a cigarette off someone, and listening to some guy talk about his transformative summer abroad, he heard her laughing and making her way out of the concert hall.

She ran up to him and surprised him with a hug. 

Before he could speak, she asked, ‘What did you think of the show?’

This was the first time they’d had any physical contact, but something about the way she shed her weight onto him, the confidence it must have taken, made it feel special. Perhaps it was related to the linger of tequila on her breath. He wondered if it was common for her to drink before playing.

Later, he learned that she’d always take a single shot before a performance ‘for good luck’.

‘I—yeah. I’ve never really done, been to, a show like this. I mean—I do like this kind of music. I just—you were really great, I mean.’

‘Really?’ she asked, ‘I mean, I got a bit messed up but—’ 

A friend tapped her on the shoulder and giggled something to her. 

‘Hey, we’re gonna keep going. There’s music all over town tonight, if you’d like to come,’ she said.

‘Ah—yeah,’ he said, crumbling the pamphlet in his hand. ‘For sure.’ He knew nothing about drinking, and he knew nothing about music, but he knew he wanted to know her. ‘Yeah! Let’s go.’

Now, four years later, as she cried softly amongst herself in their shared bedroom—just audible under the crescendo of fuzzy, far-off horns—his mother’s words returned to him. His partner was a performer, after all. Maybe this was just her way of convincing him to do the dishes.