It’s a cuckoo day.

Frank sings. That’s how it begins. Frank singing and then a knock on the door, not a buzz. There’s a buzzer beside the door but she didn’t use it. She knocked, the brass lion collapsing onto the wood three times and then waiting. Waiting. Waiting for whatever was to come next.

Come fly with me.

There she was. Out of a dream, out of some other reality I had invented for myself hours before, a reality that had already passed with a shower, dressing, a ride home, stopping at the market for yogurt and a twelve grain. My reality had been alive, lived out, passed on and now, deja vu it was there for me to pick up and replay, do it right. It was a second chance, being done for the very first time.

“Can I come in?” She was as lovely as I envisioned her. She was as lovely as I saw her. She was a story I dreamed of writing and came out the way I dreamt it. Still is. Pure potential.

Stunned. I held the door open, not to let her in but to not let her out of my sight. She took that as an invitation and stepped into the apartment, the kettle shrilling, the lights down low. She still had her gym bag and she dropped it, placed it near the door with her foot and stepped into my world. She was real.

“I’ll have tea if you’re making it.” She turned as she spoke, gave me a smile, a quick one but I caught a lot in the smile, caught her uncertainty and strength, her warmth, the fact that this visit was a whim, her chance, not sure where it might all lead. That was the real potential. She had no idea where it might all lead and so she came to find out. I was with her on that one.

She was I and I was her and I closed the door, not because she was in but because I didn’t want her to get out. The mirrors of my life began to splinter and I saw that reality had become my dreams, that my dreams had vanished only to become reality. What did I have to live for? Everything I wanted was coming to me. Dreams ceased to be. Nothing to work for. Nothing to do but live and dream new dreams.

There was disappointment as I went for the tea. Something had been taken from me. Here was the woman I fantasized over, here she was in my home, her bag by the door, here she was looking at the photos on my mantle, looking at the furnishings in my living room, listening to the kettle beckon, listening to Frank. Sharing my world. In it with me. I was in love. I wanted her to go. I wanted her to never leave.

“I’m Francis.” She had the photo of my niece out, looking at the tender eyes of a four year old, the curls. She put it back. “That’s not your baby, is it?”

I found a voice, there all along. “No, that’s my niece. She’s four. Wacky four. She likes to sing “It’s a cuckoo day.”

“It is a cuckoo day” Francis sat on the couch. “It’s a really cuckoo day if you ask me.”

I put out two cups, one for tea, one for coffee. I tried to remember the last time I put out two cups. “That comes from Frank. Cuckoo day.”

Francis wound her fingers around her hair. She had short hair, shoulder length. But there was enough of the silk to play with. She pulled on it, let it go, pulled, let it go. I watched.

“Sinatra, right?” Francis just held her hair. “One of those songs, he sings. I can’t think which one.”

“Me neither off the top of my head. My niece sings it. Bops around going “It’s a cuckoo day.” Maybe she knows something we don’t”

Francis laughed. A real, genuine laugh. She was glad to be here. Things were progressing along just as she didn’t expect. “Your niece knows a lot I think.”

I brought Francis her tea. She wore jeans, blue jeans and a blouse and the jeans hid her legs, the legs I had first noticed at the gym, long, long before I took in the rest of her. She had worn a black outfit, my personal favourite, her midriff bare and brown skin seeping through into my eyes. Working on the weights, her legs pushing the pounds into the air, pushing and then resting, pushing and then resting, cycles of legs. Her sneakers were tiny and white.

I put milk and no sugar into her tea and she did not question it, only took it and drank immediately. “How’s yours?” she asked.

“I have coffee,” and she nodded in agreement. It all fit. It seemed fitting to be here on the couch with Francis, a girl I knew only in my mind, a girl I wanted to know better, a girl I would know as well as my own heart.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“Do you want me to go?”

“No. Not at all. But that’s not the question.”

“Sorry, can’t answer that.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Don’t know.”

I smiled and understood. I wouldn’t be able to answer any of those questions myself if she turned the table and quizzed me. I didn’t want to answer them and that I understood too, so I let it be. I took in some coffee, waiting.

“You need some photos for your walls here,” she said looking around. I noticed her mug was half full. “I’ll bring some for you and you can look through them.”

“Thanks.” I looked around the room, saw what she saw, not what I saw when I came into my place alone, turned on the lights and walked past the empty walls, seeing the pictures that would be there, not the ones that weren’t there. I saw the space and saw Francis filling it.

“I’d like more tea if you got it.” Her mug was empty and I looked at her with amusement. Barely two minutes had passed since I gave her the tea.

“Sure. I’ll make a pot this time.” I went into the kitchen and put the kettle back on the burner, turning the element up high. I could still see Francis in the living room, standing now and looking at the CDs by the stereo. Frank accompanied her as she browsed. It was no longer a cuckoo day, only a day with normal moments and unnatural ones. Just another day. I got a kick out of it. Frank sang my song.

“I saw Sinatra once,” said Francis. She flipped a CD over and looked at the song listings, looking for nothing in particular to play. She used her finger to go down the tracks, a pointed, fine nail plain, glimmering nail. Elegant.

“Tell me about it.”

“In bed. I’ll tell you in bed.” She did not look up as she said this, only put the CD back and sat down on the couch. She sighed as if she’d had a tough day, was tired, or perhaps bored. Waiting. Waiting for nothing. Living for everything.

“You’ll tell me in bed?” I had no idea where we were going.

“You think I came over for tea?”

“Why not?” The kettle began to roar with the heat. “Why not?” I rested my arms on the bar between the kitchen and living room. “Maybe you heard I make a fiendish cup of tea. Is that possible?” I was delirious. This was happening. Like nothing ever happens, this was really happening. It was liquid.

“No. Bed. That’s why I came. We’ll go from there.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I just laughed, long and hard, thinking to myself as I laughed that I haven’t done this enough, let myself laugh really hard. I haven’t let myself do a lot of things. I haven’t let myself buy photos for the walls. I haven’t let myself cry reading a silly email or talking to my father, wondering if when I hang up he’ll surrender to a stroke and never utter another word- our last conversation, a conversation about nothing but peanuts and whether ice cream can fly across the ocean without melting. Fine words. No tears.

“Where did you come from?” I was still laughing. “What’s going on here?”

“You know very well where I came from. Is my tea ready?”

It was ready. The kettle roar subsided and steam began to pour into the air. I turned off the heat and let water into the pot, remembering to put a cup of the hot water in the pot first, swishing it around and then emptying it. I filled the pot to the top and added a couple of scoops of leaves. No bags. Francis would have to strain it. I left the tea to stew.

“How long have you been going to the gym?” I asked her this as I walked back into the living room. She had her feet up on the coffee table, crossed at the ankle. I could see the skin on her ankle bone, warm, brown. She left it there.

“I’ve been a member there for about... oh, I don’t know, maybe two years. I knew the old manager. It’s changed a lot. New machines. The aerobics stink.”

“They do.”

“You’ve done them?”

“No, only watched.”

“Watched me, right?”

“Maybe.”

“Tell me.” Francis leaned forward. “Tell me now if you’re ever going to admit it. Have you ever watched me. I want to know.”

“I’ve watched you. I’ve watched you intently.”

“You like it?”

“What?”

“You like watching me?”

“I don’t know. This is kind of strange, isn’t it?” I sat down in a chair across from her. Her mind moved like a cheetah.

“Kind of strange? I don’t get it?” Her questions were sincere.

“Francis, what the fuck is going on? Yes, I like to watch you. I watch you when you work out. I like to see you sweat. I think you have great legs. You have skin... skin I want to touch.”

“I Got You Under My Skin... that’s another Sinatra song.”

“I know. I knew that. I know all that.” My head was reeling. “Where is this going?”

“You know where this is going. The tea must be ready by now.” This time she stood and went into the kitchen to pour from the pot. I could hear her clank the metal lid, pour the hot liquid into her mug. The silence of the milk. And then she was back.

“You don’t have tea bags?”

“I don’t know. I just did that, the loose leaves. I wasn’t thinking.”

“I like it.” She sat again, not on the couch but on the windowsill, her behind resting on the glass, her eyes looking at me. She sipped the tea. My turn.

“Do you watch me when I work out?” I asked carefully.

“Yes. Only to see if you’re watching me.” She raised her velvet eyebrows. “That’s the best way to watch.”

“Isn’t that kind of narcissistic?”

“Everything is narcissistic. Going to the gym is narcissistic.” She scratched. “Why do you think they have all those mirrors. To check your zits? Sex is narcissistic. Love is. You are. I am. I get turned on knowing you’re watching me.”

I blurted, “Do you have mirrors on your bedroom ceiling?”

“No. I hope you do.”

“On my closet.”

“Can you see them from the bed.”

“I don’t know.”

“You will.”

I thought about what I was wearing. I could see what she was wearing but I was blanking on what I was wearing. I put my hands on my body. Jeans too, a t-shirt, a button down shirt. I was dressed. Strangely, I felt relieved.

“What if I hadn’t been home now?” I inquired.

“Then I wouldn’t be here, would I? I followed you home, just like a detective. I was watching you. Did you know?”

I shook my head. “No, I had no idea.”

“Well, I like that.” She took in more of her tea and again the mug was empty already, gone in what seemed like time standing still. She came off the windowsill and placing her mug on the end table, moved directly towards me. She kneeled. I knew what was next. I had no idea.

“What do I wear when I work out?”

“I don’t know. You wear different things.”

“What did I wear today? I wore it especially for you.”

“Black.” I saw it in my head. “Black top, halter top. Black shorts.”

“You were watching. Good.” Francis let the shoulders slip from her blouse and I could see black straps, the black straps of a halter top. “Go to the bedroom, Jacob.”

“You know my name.”

“I know your name. I know where you live. That’s all I know. There’s so much more. Go. Now.”

I looked at Francis, looked in her eyes, which looked back into mine, unblinking, large. Serious. I saw her old spirit. She put her hand on my knee to distribute her strength and I found fire, rising and going down the hall to the bedroom. It was dark and as I went I turned on the lights but Francis called for me to turn them out. I did. I went into the bedroom, sat on the bed and waited. I took a breath. In breath. Out. In. Out. At that moment, it was about as much as I knew.

When I was seven I was sent to the store by my mother. She wanted maxipads and being a naive seven year old with a mind more for air rifles and fixing unbroken bicycles, I went with the money in my hands, unsure exactly what it was I was buying. I had no idea. I thought they were napkins. That’s what it said on the box. Who’s having the picnic, I wondered?

I looked over the boxes and the store clerk, a high teen girl, she laughed, laughed hard like I had laughed in the kitchen making tea and talking to Francis. I had no idea why the clerk was laughing. I paid for the pads and took them home. My mother was grateful. I went to the park and got crushed in the mouth with a baseball bat playing catcher. Later, several years later, I learned what the clerk was laughing about. She was really laughing.

This is what I thought about while I waited for Francis in the bedroom.

When she came it was black glitter in the dark. Her workout outfit was shiny, nylon or whatever spacesuit material it was. It was soft. She let me touch it. She let me touch other things. Her body. Her belly. Her legs. Between her legs. I was surprised how easily the outfit came off. My clothes took much longer.

When we came we realized I wasn’t wearing a condom. We didn’t care.

“I saw Frank Sinatra play Maple Leaf Gardens. It wasn’t the hottest event of my life. It’s such a big place for one soul to occupy.”

Francis said this as she played with my fingers, taking each one and inspecting them, as if she was thinking of buying me for her home. Sometimes she would pull the fingers close and kiss them. Sometimes she would put them in her mouth for a second. Just enough for me to feel her tongue and then out.

“He started with You Make Me Feel So Young. He’s old now. He hasn’t got the pipes he used to. But, you know what, he knows he doesn’t. So it’s okay. You forgive him for it and then just listen to what’s still there. No one else have I seen do that. Jagger would never do that. He’s too afraid. Not Sinatra. What you see is what you get and as a fan you appreciate it. You evolve.”

“You can call him Frank. I do.”

“Sometimes I do too.”

I was dazed and sore. We’d made love for three hours, stopping and starting, going back to places we’d left behind and then surging ahead to places we’d thought we’d never get to that night. I found with Francis that we could cover a lot of ground which was beautiful and crazy all wrapped in the sheets, but it took it’s toll. I was certain I had only one more orgasm left in me. We’d save it.

“Tell me what he was like. What did he say?”

“To me. He said nothing to me. He said lots of things to the crowd. We had good seats, but he said nothing to me. He looked at me. I looked back at him. There was eye contact.”

“You saw his eyes, his blue eyes?”

“All I saw was white and black. Concert lighting. It washes out the retina.”

“Why did you go?”

Francis put my hand gently by my side, satisfied. She put her hand on my stomach and stroked ever so softly, just above. “I went because my boyfriend wanted to go. He’d thought I’d like it.”

“Was he right? Who was you boyfriend?”

“I did and I didn’t. I liked Frank. I liked his music. I didn’t like much else.”

I sat up. “Imagine if you could see him in a dark, small club. That you would love. Then it would be just him and the music. And you. And me. No one else.”

“Waiters to bring us our drinks. And a bartender.”

“And the band. Just a small four piece.”

“My boyfriend was the manager of the gym. He was a waste. He hated the show. Stood there and stared, saying nothing. He said nothing after the show. Just drove home and went to bed. He hated it.”

“Maybe he was stunned.” I offered. “Maybe only right now, as we lie here on the wet spot, he is somewhere just getting it, going “Fuck, what an amazing man, what an amazing voice. That was some show.”

“Wally’s dead. But, maybe he is.”

“He’s dead? His name was Wally?”

Francis turned on her side and let her arm drape over me. She ran a finger along my face, feeling each bristle that needed shaving.

“Died in a car accident. We were long over by then but I went to the funeral and cried anyway. It hit me hard. Life is so fragile and then so strong, like cement.”

“Cement.” I was following this conversation. “Life is like cement. You pour it and then it runs to stone, always there, little cracks appearing over time, and then another construction crew comes along, rips it up with a jackhammer and a backhoe and lays all new wet stuff. That dries eventually. Does that fit?”

“Barely,” replied Francis. “Just barely.” She climbed on top of me and kissed me lightly on the lips.

“I take it you’re staying the night?” I asked.

“I just might stay the day too.”

“I have to go see my grandmother.”

“Perfect.” We stopped talking and made love.

And slept.

Nanna took to Francis like a magnet on a fridge. Nanna didn’t get many visitors.

“You sit right here by me, dear,” said Nan. She patted the couch beside her and Francis sat, a bit gingerly I noticed. I smiled at her knowingly and she caught it and sent it back.

“How long have you two known each other?” asked Nanna Mantooth. She had very few teeth for a Mantooth.

“Actually, we only spoke to each other for the first time last night,” answered Francis. She took Nan’s hand in her own “I got a good feeling about your grandson.”

“You and me both, dear. You and me both.” Words whizzed through the air and Nanna held onto the ones she liked best. Francis was her angel.

“He’s a good boy, Jacob,” she continued. “He comes and sees me every week.”

“Nan, that’s not true. Ronald comes and sees you every week. I only come once a month.” I bit my lip as I said this. I felt like a very bad grandson.

“Ronald’s no good. He doesn’t talk to me. He talks, but you know how the things he says float right past you. It’s like a radio in the background while you’re working. You speak to me, Jakey. You tell me what I want to hear. As does Francis.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “Francis has said one sentence to you.”

“Yes, but it was a good one. I heard it. Try and have Ronnie do that.”

Francis laughed. She shifted on the couch and looked about the room. There was less to look at than my apartment. It looked like a retirement home, not a real retirement home where old people went to live out the rest of their years, but a retirement home where old folks went to die. It smelled of sickness and the walls caked with coats of paint couldn’t hide a thing.

Francis picked up on all this. “You’re too close to your birth to be in a place like this, Nanna. Why are you here?”

“I’m so close I’m almost dead. That’s why I’m here. Why don’t you two get hitched? Stop wasting mine and everyone in here’s time. We see you come in. We’ll watch you go. That’s why they put windows in our rooms, so we can see out but no one can see in. Death is scary.”

Francis took her hand again. “It’s not so scary.”

“No, you’re right. It’s not.”

It was my turn to chuckle. The dream never seemed to end. “Nan, we only met last night. How could we possibly get married?”

“You buy the girl a ring, ask her to marry you and take a day off work for a wedding. Lots of people do it.”

“What about a honeymoon?” asked Francis

“Go to Honolulu. That’s where my sister went. She couldn’t stop raving about it.”

“I’m not a virgin, Nanna. Will that bother you?” Francis was so serious about the question, she leaned into Nan’s space for the answer.

“I have to get off soon,” I whispered. “I really do have to get off somewhere or I’m going to be sick.”

“Franny. That’s fine. I’m not a virgin either.” Nanna winked at me and I laughed, the deep laugh from my kitchen and the clerk’s maxipad laugh. Good stuff. Truth serum.

I tried navigating back onto an even keel. “Ronnie should be here to see you tomorrow.” Ronnie always came to see Grandma on Sundays, right before football started. That was his excuse for leaving. Tip a few sentences into the ether, kiss Nan on the cheek, tell her how pretty she looked, eat a candy out of the mint bowl, hit the road. I knew the routine. Been there, done that. Francis took routines to the trash. There would never be a routine again.

Lunch was on. A nurse came into the room and commanded us to roll Nan into the dining room. “Leave the brakes on or she’ll roll away, ” were the instructions. The nurse left and returned with a wheelchair. “Brakes,” she pointed. We grunted.

I spoke. “Maybe we should go, Nanna. We don’t want to interrupt your lunch.”

“I don’t eat much these days. You can eat what I don’t eat.”

“We’ll stay then,” said Francis. “Coachman, bring forth the chariot.”

We stayed and ate a brown bread sandwich with Nan and the old people. When we did leave, many sets of eyes watched us go.

Francis insisted on driving home. She had never driven a standard transmission and wanted to try, try right there outside Nanna’s home. I let her. What could I say?

We stalled and started all the way home. More laughter. Francis wiped her eyes with her sleeves, and kept trying. She could drive for a bit, but if we stopped we were doomed. She’d stall. We’d sit in the road with the flashers going, cars ducking around us, horns honking and us laughing. I kissed her while we laughed. I tasted her tears of joy.

We got home. I drove the last few blocks. My car was furious with us. As we went inside it started to rain outside. We stood in my brownstone doorway and watched the car cool off in the rain, weeks of dirt and dust slipping off the unwaxed paint.

“I’ll have to try again. You’ll take me?” asked Francis.

“Of course.”

The rain fell harder.

And so we made dinner, made dinner naked because we’d had lunch clothed at Nan’s and we were still hungry. It was three o’ clock. It felt like late night. Clouds from the rain blocked the sun and made evening come early. It was Francis’ idea to make dinner naked. She took off her top to make the salad and when I opened the wine to flavour the cheese sauce, I took off my pants. It was the natural extension. Francis joined me with no pants. And no panties. I could watch her legs move while she swayed to the music, more Frank, pulling the lettuce apart. Legs and lettuce are a lethal combination. My shirt came off and my underwear and the rain stopped. I looked at the clothes all over the kitchen floor and laughed. I kissed Francis on the back, every spot, each spot and she shivered with the warm touches. I kissed near her buttocks. More shivers. The sauce on the stove burned.

By my side that night, Francis whispered, “Do you realize how much freedom there is in commitment?”

“Yes,” I whispered back. “I think I do.”

In the morning we went to the gym, not speaking. We didn’t talk during the drive and when we arrived, we used different elevators and different change rooms. We didn’t speak. No touching. No kisses or disclosure from afar. Distance. And eyes.

We worked out, together, apart. And I watched. I watched as I always did, bouncing sight lines off mirrors insulating the gym, watching Francis bend over and touch her toes while I pushed barbells into the ceiling. My knees bent with the rhythm. Fourteen, fifteen times, all eyes on Francis. She never saw me watching. I don’t how she knows I do. She just does. Later, she could tell me the exact times when I was watching, knew where I was in the room, told me what exactly she was doing, what machine she rested on, how many repetitions she was on. She knew.

“I can feel heat.” We came together and spoke when we were stretched, stood by the foyer and leaned against the unfashionable oak walls, dripping sweat. It was a sweet conversation.

“You’re sweating, that’s why,” I said.

“Maybe. Maybe you’re right.” She nibbled my bare arm and knew better. We went home to shower, now together. We talked the whole way home.

I love Francis.

Here is the saddest moment I have ever experienced. Francis was driving our car, driving standard transmission with the grace and ease she did everything in life when she put her mind to it and just let go. I watched her and the road, more her, watched how she did it, saw myself in her movements, the ones she had learned by doing the same thing, sitting in the passenger seat and watching me, taking everything in. And then a song came on the radio, a radio station we never listened to, but it was on somehow, and the song pulled me back, back to a time before I had known Francis. It wasn’t Frank. Frank’s songs never pull me back, only take me forward to the tip of my life. But this song took me back. I can’t tell you the title. Francis will remember.

There was the song, a sad song, a drunk song, and for a moment I stopped seeing Francis’ hand shifting gears and instead saw my past, as a boy. I was sitting in another car, another passenger seat, another year and my mother was driving, driving me to the dentist. It was a yellow car and I was only a boy, unaware of the distances to dentist offices and grocery stores. It was a trip, into the world. I went without hesitation.

We stopped at a traffic light. Just stopped on the red, the only car there. We waited for no one to cross our path. I was away. My mother sighed and I looked at her. I smiled.

“You’re having a little quiet time?” she asked. It was a gentle question.

“Yes, I guess I am.” And then the light changed.

Francis drove into the intersection and there was someone crossing our path, a large man in a small car. It was enough. He arrived at the crossroads late, hitting Francis, hitting her side of the car fast. She took her hand from the gearshift and came into my lap, myself fumbling to catch her, arms tangled in loose seatbelt. The big man was in our car too. Somehow the speed had just let him right in. Breathing stopped and bleeding started.

My Francis.

In my quiet times, I can never find the source to scream in terror and in my dreams I can not either. I awoke from this nightmare, in the dark- hot, wet, tears on my face. Francis did not wake. She lay still, soft breaths, warm. Peace. She would know nothing of the dream until I told her the next morning, told her again with tears and she held me, kissing me, refusing to make sense of it all.

It’s funny how your most terrifying moment can be followed by your most beautiful one.

It’s a cuckoo day.