“You sure? You might like it.”
For a split second, Marion considered the idea. “No thanks. Not my thing.”
“I dig it. Whatever floats your boat.” A quiet minute passed, then Sassy sighed. “So lame that I’m freaking out. I’m just real uncomfortable in small places.”
“Maybe you could sing,” Marion suggested. “Distract us.”
“Far out.” The guitar thumped as it was taken from its case. “It’s a little tight in here, but I’ll try. How about ‘Sunny Afternoon’? You know the Kinks?” She plucked the opening descending notes then began to sing.
She had a pretty voice. Light and expressive. There was nothing wrong with the Kinks, but Marion preferred the way the song sounded when Sassy sang it.
“Do you know ‘Bus Stop’? Seems boss for today,” Sassy said, then sheplucked the opening notes, putting Marion in the mood. “Bus stop, wet day, she’s there, I say.”
She seemed more confident now. Maybe it was the Valium, or maybe it was the music.
Marion breathed slowly through her nose, smelling damp polyester and musty carpet, and she let Sassy’s music bring colour to the darkness. She’d heard all the songs before, but she’d never really listened. And didn’t the kids say that it was “all about the lyrics, man, all about the lyrics”? Marion thought she was starting to understand.
“What a romantic song,” she said at the end.
“Yeah. True love. My mom and dad had that.”
Past tense? “That’s wonderful that you were raised that way.”
“I wasn’t really. My mom died when I was six. But I know they had it, because my dad never even looked at another woman after. Cool fact: the Beatles just put out a song about her.”
“Your mom?”
“?‘Lovely Rita.’?” Her voice was wistful. “That was her name.”
“I don’t know that one.”
“It’s from the new record,Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It goes like this.”
Eventually, Sassy laid the guitar back into its case, and Marion opened her eyes. Her vision had adjusted just enough that she could see Sassy’s shape across from her.
“Thanks for the music. It was a nice way to pass the time.”
“But we’re still here,” Sassy groaned. “Oh! I just remembered. I have Cheezies. Want some?”
Marion couldn’t stand the things. “No thanks. I have Tic Tacs, if you’d like.”
“Mm. That sounds perfect,” Sassy replied.
Marion reached across the darkness for Sassy’s open hand, then she tapped some mints into it. “We should do something to distract ourselves.”
“I’m in. Got any ideas?”
“How about Twenty Questions? I’ll ask you something, then I have toanswer the same question. Then you ask me a different question, and you have to answer it as well. You have to be honest in your answers. Get it?”
“Right on,” Sassy replied. “Lay it on me.”
“I’ll go first,” Marion said, thinking. “What was your favourite subject in school?”
“That’s easy,” Sassy said. “Music. Oh, and English. Poetry. I love poetry. ‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both…’?”
“Robert Frost,” Marion said. “Beautiful.”
“I wish I could think up lyrics like they thought up poems.”
