I could see October was listening to the song too, and I felt relieved when I spotted Cal and Diego walking up the driveway, because I didn’t want to be alone with her and all my leaden, Martin-tinged emotions.

I walked out to greet Cal just as a big Mercedes SUV pulled up. A tall, light-skinned African-American guy got out and then helped his wife out of the passenger side. Cal embraced them and introduced me as his oldest and best friend. They shook my hand and told me their names, but I’m terrible with new people and names, and a second later I couldn’t recall what they’d said.

We went inside; more cars pulled up, and before I knew it the house was filled with people talking and drinking and messing up October’s beautiful antipasto board without ever telling her how incredible it looked. They took her talent for granted. Or, as she might say, they missed the point. Even Cal seemed to miss it. But October didn’t care. She didn’t do it for them. She didn’t make interesting and beautiful things so that people would notice and tell her how interesting and beautiful they were. She did it because it moved her to do so. She did it for the doing itself. That’s what art is to her. Doing. Living. The expression of oneself in action and in creation. You know that old question about if a tree falls in a forest but nobody hears it, does it make any noise? October was the art equivalent of that. If you make something and nobody ever appreciates it, is it still art? I would argue it most certainly is. October would surely argue the same.

The only good part of all the socializing and mingling was that I couldn’t hear the mopey guy singing anymore.