Restless Serenade

Part 4

Part 4

Normally airports excite me. The prospect of travel, a strange land, or someplace you know feels like home. Today is void of that excitement.

I'd just landed at JFK, and already I wanted to go home. I want to go back to my bed, and my kitchen, and my turntable, and most of all my man. Miles had called me late the day he left. I had been wallowing, but I wasn't going to let him know, at least not on purpose.

"You made it!" I'd said, trying to sound excited; happy.

"Yeah lovely, we made it. With a two hour layover, but we made it." he sighed, I could hear him shuffling around, bags crinkling, probably rifling through Al's kitchen.

I was in bed, on Mi's side, my face buried in his squishy pillow. I was listening to "A Hard Days Night", the needle softly scratching every now and then on the old record. I listened to it when I missed him. When I couldn't remember the last time I'd touched his hair, or the last time he'd made me laugh. When I was in Manchester doing voiceovers for four days, I must have listened to it fifteen times. Sometimes I didn't even listen to the words; John sounded so much like Miles, it hurt. It reminded me of him in every way.

"Babeh...are you listening to the Beatles?" he asked with a skeptical edge.

"Yes..." I mumbled into the phone, guilty.

"Miss me already?" he said, soft but teasing.

"Miles Kane, don't you dare mock me. I'm fragile." I scolded him, my heart soaring at his playfulness. He was happy.

"I know lovely, I'm sorry. I wish you were here with us..." he trailed off.

It seemed I'd ruined his good mood. Of course Mi would never tell me anything of the sort.

"How's your boyfriend? Tell him hello for me?" I'd asked, hoping to steer this ship to calmer waters. Mostly so I wouldn't cry.

"Indeed I did, and he said he misses his bambina." I giggled at the nickname.

Alex had given it to me a while ago, yet another drunken night at the bar. We'd sung Sinatra 'till the lights came on. Bambina Belmonte he'd called me.

"Well you can promise him I'll cook for you guys whenever I get there." If anyone loved my cooking more than Mi, it was Alex.

"Don't talk about such things! I'm already starving over here."

"Airplane food not doing it for you?"

"No, and the little prince is passed out, and I don't know where his car keys are."

"Doesn't he have a girlfriend, there should so be food in the house!"

If I knew Taylor well, she had the kitchen stocked with everything from asparagus to animal crackers.

"That's a bit sexist inn' it?" Mi laughed at me.

"Not when a girl's hungry its not."

"True, I'll allow it." he said, matter of fact.

"I'm sorry baby, you know I'd make you something if I were there. Even if it meant knocking down the neighbors door."

"How I miss ya darlin..." he drawled. I could tell he was remembering my antics from long ago, a smile in his voice.

The first time I met Pauline, I was an absolute wreck. Mi had been out all day. Gone to see Alex, doing errands; things that I was in no state of mind to tag along for.

Miles had asked me to meet his mother. And I was terrified.

Miles and I are both only children with single mothers, but his relationship with Pauline, is way different than the one I have with Donna. Miles and his mother are best friends, they confide in each other, talk at least once a week, and share everything. So I had no doubt that before I even met her, she knew everything about me, down to how "cute" my snoring was.