I may have posted this before.  If so, then it is revised.  Story is finished and submitted.  It’s one I believe in.

 

Nancy (With the Laughing Face)

 

Dimitri heard the saxophone as he walked to the barn, the summer grass crunching under his feet.  Chip was behind the barn, a makeshift floodlight propped to read the music, playing to the cornfields rustling in the summer night.  A young girl sat curled in a wobbly mesh bottomed lawn chair feeling every note. “Play another.” She said. “Play Nancy.”

 

“Nancy, you like that one?”  Chip asked, not looking back.

 

“You play it better than anything else.”  She said.

 

Chip played.   Dimitri leaned against the barn door and the melody flowed into the barn a pensive, rushing current. He watched Chip, eyes closed playing easily, swaying, consumed.  Dimitri looked away, saw the gently swaying corn drinking in the  self-crushing loss and betrayal of the notes.

 

When finished the girl said  “That’s your best one.  When you play that, I can almost see Nancy. I wonder who she was.”

 

“I have no idea.”  Chip answered. “John Coltrane played it.”

 

“It’s y…your best.” Dimitri added from the doorway.

 

“Hey.”  Chip said.  “Are the guys here?”

 

“In…in the car.”  Dimitri motioned with a thumb.

 

The girl pulled on Chip’s sleeve.  “Who’s your friend?”

 

“Dimitri from football.  This is my cousin Mimi.”  Chip gestured to the girl and handed her the saxophone.

 

The girl pulled Chip down and whispered loudly.  “He’s handsome, like you.”

 

“So you say.”  Chip laughed. “Put the sax away, will you?” Dimitri stared at his feet as the girl left.

 

“Dude.”  Chip laughed.  “Could you be more embarrassed?  She’s like 12 you know?”

 

“No…nobody ever said that.”  Dimitri stammered.

 

“Oh, please.  Girls never told you that?”

 

Dimitri shrugged, risked a look.  “Sh…should they?”

 

“What do I know?” Chip dismissed him.