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What an extraordinary thing, an unexpected and somewhat generous reunion for the three of them. The light remained, just slipping behind the shadows of the buildings along 73rd Street, and James stayed perched in the window to enjoy the last bit of lingering twilight. Carly approached him and removed the telephone, where it sat precariously in the windowsill and threatened to topple over, to become a mess of multicolored wires and cheap black plastic on the street between the Langham and the Dakota.
“You look happy. It must have been good news,” she said.
“Maybe not entirely unhappy. It was interesting news anyway.”
She swished elegantly and everything, her hair and her cashmere cardigan, and her fuzzy lambs wool slippers, fell perfectly into place as she sat down in the overstuffed chair across from him, like a sphinx settling in to be entertained. “Are you going to make me guess?”
“I’m going to work with Art again and help him do a song for his new album.” James carefully swung his long legs out of the window and cranked the pane shut.
Carly beamed. “That sounds like more than interesting news, love. You always enjoyed working with him. And you sounded so nice together on your album. I love your voices together.”
James smiled and crept over to where she was sitting in the chair. “This is the real news. It’s not just me. It’s Paul too. Taylor, Simon, and Garfunkel.” Seeing the palpable thrill on her face, he brushed her hair back with his hands and tried to look serious. “Just for one song. Just for fun. We’re not a trio. We never have been.”
“Oh, I know, I know! You told me the story a dozen times!” She held up her hands. “We’ve all seen them over the years, on Paul’s tv specials and things. Do you think they’ll still have the magic, especially with something new?”
He shook his head and stood up. “Whatever magic they have, I don’t think it’s something they can lose. It’s always been something that found them,” he replied, and went to the kitchen to look for something to eat.
On the way to Paul’s spacious Central Park West apartment, less than five blocks from the Langham, James began to think about proximity. After all, Art had grown up only blocks away from Paul in Queens; James had been back and forth between two polarizing worlds of north and south and yet now was Paul’s neighbor. Carving his own path, as was his way, Art trekked across the world, and was welcomed in Los Angeles, and when he finally returned to their city, he moved across the park, rather than next door. Was that move to show them, or specifically Paul, that Art could be among them but stand on his own?
Still, they had all found each other in the messy cafes of the Village in the 60s where they learned to work the crowd and work the microphones and become real singers. And they found their way back to each other in some sense now, with Paul letting James in to their world again. Life really was a series of awaited accidents. Hadn’t Art told him something similar back when Paul was in England?
With his guitar case in hand, cap pulled low, he wasn’t sure what to expect. No one would have known, in the on-again, off-again public make-up and break-up of his former partner and his partner’s former partner. Knowing Paul, there would be food, and that was a good thing, since James always came to a session hungry. The lights were low, almost off, in the hallway and wide corridor and momentarily he wondered if he had gotten it wrong and was supposed to be somewhere else entirely. He knocked tentatively on the door, and after a moment, just pushed against it to see if it would open.
The door swung wide and there were Art and Paul in the dim main room, both dressed in frumpy sweaters which tickled James, they were such creatures of habit. At the piano, Art’s light head almost became one with Paul’s dark one, and even though he had no idea what they were discussing, maybe baseball scores or maybe why even two people blessed to live a life of love couldn’t figure it out together, James wanted to turn around walk out. Maybe make a grander entrance so he didn’t feel like a prowler in a famous person’s tableau.
But Paul saw him first across the foyer as he raised his head and let out a sigh and gestured with his hand to Art. And Art, who already had the small shape of a smile on his face, like a contented child who was understanding something for the first time, looked up and burst into that ear to ear Artie grin. “JT!” he called out and beckoned James excitedly with both his hands.
Art pounced on him when he finally moved into their space. James had always thought of Art as a pretty cool customer, introverted and intellectual and strange as they came, in a bewildering and glorious way. So it was a pleasant surprise to be hugged so warmly by someone that he held true affection and deep admiration for. James, with those two sides warring in him constantly, the New England classicism of his mother and the laid back southern charm and manners of his father, accepted graciously.
“It’s so good of you to be here!” Art enthused. “This will be so fun! We haven’t actually sung together since that last time in New York.”
“Before you guys made it big,” James said. He looked in the direction of Paul, who wasn’t looking at him, or them, as the case more accurately was.
Art laughed and clasped James’ hand. “Before you made it big!”
James smiled. “Well, look at us now. We’re all pretty big, I guess. And hey, who would’ve thought, we both ended up with a Simon.”
Paul had that look on his face, like he was ready to cut someone in a seedy back alley in Hell’s Kitchen. As much as he adored the guy in most ways, James also didn’t want to cross him. He had the will power to freeze someone out, to stab you and stride away without another thought, and then turn around and be the sweetest guy you had ever known. James got whiplash from this. Things in his own brain were swirled and topsy-turvy. He preferred his friendships to be lasting and long-promised, for there to be equal affection on solid ground.
“He didn’t end up with a Simon,” Paul said.
“No.” James quickly corrected himself. “Of course not. That was just a joke.”
Art made a frustrated face at Paul and said, “Hey, cool it. You’re being friendly today or not?”
“I’m just grumpy.”
“I can see that and so can James. Come on,” Art cajoled and rubbed Paul’s arm. “I’ll put you in a good mood if you play nice and lay down some vocals.” His voice had that warmth in it, brown sugary, like the comforts of home, and James couldn’t help but smile with familiarity, though he knew it wasn’t home for him.
Outwardly Paul seemed to soften in the face of Art’s placating. “I’ll be friendly.”
“I know that Shelley’s gone.” Art knocked playfully into Paul. “But you know, I’m here, aren’t I?”
Paul looked dangerous again. “I said I’ll be friendly.”
“You could at least try,” Art said. “Or fake it. Whatever it takes. For me.”
“I don’t fake it. And especially not for you.” Paul had stepped closer to Art now, and they were almost breathing the same air in the little space between them. Back when they first met Art had said to James that Paul was a turned-on guy and they had sparked and brought each other to life. Would that spark also consume them? Leave them in ashes? The outcome appeared to be only one or the other and it left James as jumpy a marionette whose strings had been cut.
The smile on Art’s face was dangerous too, wolfish. “No,” he said. “You don’t, do you.”
Embarrassed by them, as he had been since that day on the side street in the Village fifteen years ago, James went about removing his guitar from its case and tuning up. It wasn’t because they were guys, and guys who he had known since they were young, and superstars in their own right. As close as you could be to them, there was always that feeling of being outside their magic circle. That feeling, as if they built a great wall around themselves that first day they sang, and to keep the foreigners out, they made it strong. Every moment was a private moment, every glance exceedingly not casual. James knew that couldn’t really be true - friends laughed with people they liked, friends showed affection and care. But with Art and Paul, it all seemed as significant as a marriage proposal, as weighty as a divorce decree. No matter how hard their wills clashed and how fiercely their hearts became entangled they were off limits. They probably actually wanted it that way.
Luckily they had already talked about which of them was singing what verse, who was singing what harmonies. Having only been there for the beginning of the love story, James had no desire to see the famous Simon and Garfunkel tempers in such close quarters. They worked through some of the arrangements that Art had developed and James could only sit back in wonder when Art and Paul sang Paul’s verse on the same little mic.
After two hours, without saying anything, they decided it was time for a break. Art slid over to the piano and played around with a few of the harmony lines while eating a croissant.
“He’s hopeless,” Paul said, meeting James in the kitchen. “Getting croissant crumbs and greasy fingerprints all over my fucking piano!” He yelled the last part and Art looked up and grinned and gave Paul the middle finger.
“For such a fastidious guy, he was kind of messy with food back then too.”
“Really?”
James nodded. Pizza left on plates by the bed that started to smell after a few days in the hot, air condition-less room, half-finished bottles of beer lining their rickety old kitchen table. “Do you know one time he made himself a sandwich and set it down because he started talking about the inherent mathematics of the harmony game and then he forgot about it and made another sandwich an hour later? And we only found the first one when a line of arts were marching down the hallway from the kitchen!”
Paul clapped his hands in delight. “I’m glad you got his messiest years.”
James narrowed his eyes and tried a joke. “Paul, I’m pretty sure you got his messiest years.” It was a risk given how irritable Paul had been all afternoon, especially with him. He hoped for a parachute to appear and rescue him, to provide a soft landing.
“Well, it’s not a competition now, is it?” Paul asked with a small shrug.
In an instant, even with years of knowing behind them, and some pretty incredible hours, days, journeys and adventures, James saw it. That omnipresent insecurity clawed its way to the top of the stairs, like the trek up from the stifling basement at Gerde’s, and shone out on its own stage, bare and vulnerable for Paul. As a man with deep felt compassion residing within him, though he would never understand this odd tug of war triad, James shrugged back. “From the first time he sang with you, it never was. It never could be.”
Paul huffed out a breath. “Thanks. Sorry I’ve been such a dick,” he said. “There’s just something about Artie, you know?”
James was about to say something else because he wasn’t sure he knew what Paul meant, how could he ever be sure. But Art stopped playing and wandered over. He slid his arm easily around Paul’s shoulders and squeezed. “You ready to get back to it? I thought of something good for that last part you wrote, Paul, about the rise and fall. You want to hear it?”
They settled themselves in at the piano and it wasn’t time to join them yet. Their choices were too fresh, their give and take too delicate. James ate a croissant, they were so flaky and buttery, and then in a show of self-restraint, cut off a half of a second one. Over at the piano, his friends were whispering about something and Art’s face was turned into Paul’s shoulder. Excusing himself to a room that paid him no mind, he shuffled to what was Paul’s office and used the telephone to call his messaging service. There were a few requests from his manager about doing a television interview and one message about calling Carly, which he filed away to do on the next break. She would be clamoring for some gossip and James knew he would just smile into her sweet, heavenly face and say, “Come on now. They’re my friends.”
From the other room he heard a badly played rendition of the opening of Great Balls of Fire. When he rejoined them, Art sang, “I want to love you like a lover should,” while Paul attempted to pound out the rock n roll classic. Art stood up and did his very poor version of cutting a rug, as they used to call it.
James cleared his throat. “That sounds great. You two should do that one,” he suggested.
Art laughed and did that self-conscious thing where he ran his hand through his hair and touched his ear, then his face. Paul played a thunderous slide down the keys and banged out a final, off-kilter chord. “Maybe on the next album,” Art said.
“Maybe we’ll get him on the bill for our reunion tour,” Paul chimed in.
Art’s face changed then. Something more serious and consequential settled over his soft golden features when he looked over at Paul. “That would be amazing, Paul,” said Art. There was of course something, always something, in way Art moved, or looked, or called Paul’s name. Well, James just hoped, whether it was for now, or for the future, or for forever, they could find some way to leave their troubled world behind. That they would control their spark, use it for illumination, and not for disintegration.
“Should we try the opening again?” he asked, turning back to them.
Art moved his left hand just a fraction from where it rested on the top of the piano, so close to Paul’s that maybe they were intertwined. “Good place to pick it up,” Art agreed and he slid away, a reluctant tug to the backwards work of changing two into three.