I feel my heart hammering. My sweat-soaked shirt clings to my arms and back. I can smell her Aqua-Net.
“Metro!” Nancy shouts over the cheers. “Love it.”
The cries of “Joie, Joie, Joie,” grow louder, joining the rhythm of feet stomping. Looking across the stage, the yards of pocked hardwood, I see hundreds of flickering flames in the audience. Jonathan stands next to me, his hair tossed carelessly across his face.
I catch AnnMarie’s attention, and nod.
She walks out onto the darkened stage. Cheers erupt, louder now.
Nancy slides out onto stage. She presses her body against the mic stand and strokes it, slowly, up and down.
I follow, grabbing my guitar.
Then Jonathan flows onto the stage as if dreamwalking.
Pulling my guitar over my shoulder, I stand, legs apart, knees bent, ready. The people are waiting. I feel them. They’re about to feel me back.
Jonathan draws up behind his keyboard. Spreading his fingers over the keys like wings, he draws in a deep breath.
The lone keyboard begins, strong and invigorating. The lights blaze on.
The audience’s roar of recognition bellows across me.
You can’t imagine what that feels like, Kenny. The sound. It touches all of you—reaches so far into your past it might even raise the dead.
That’s waiting for me again. Onstage. Waiting for us, Kenny.
It shoulda been you, Sammy. You promised. Why’d you go and get yourself killed?
Then the phone rings. Expecting it to be Nancy or AnnMarie getting back to me, I grab it before Jonathan looks up from the keyboard.
Instead Ron’s inviting us to a birthday party for Michele, that enigmatic chick we used to run into all the time at Tanya and Randal’s, and then after that, until we didn’t. She’d been Jonathan’s first candidate to replace Amy here in Chicago. Before he met Jennifer.
Ron made sure I knew she wanted Jonathan to show up at the Gingerman tonight, around ten.
Jonathan’s still at his keyboard, drawing his finger to his thumb across his forehead. He hasn’t moved in almost two hours.
Sorry, Michele. He’s not going anywhere tonight: too busy putting on a show. The fraud.
When it’s pushing nine thirty, the night has settled solidly on Chicago, and I decide it’s time to leave for Michele’s party, which I’ve not told Jonathan about.
He’s been pretend-singing while I’ve really been ignoring him, drinking a vodka on rocks. I rise from my chair.
“You going to the Gingerman?” Jonathan asks.
“Gingerman?”
“Yeah. AnnMarie left a message earlier. Birthday party. I wanna go, but I’m starved and need a shower. I’ll hook up with you guys there.” He spins on his stool, pulling his hair into a ponytail and then letting it go. It flares out.
“I’ve … no,” he says, holding up a hand like a cop stopping traffic. “Later. Later.”
I hate it when you don’t act the way you should.
• • • • •
The jukebox at the Gingerman plays “Guns of Brixton” while a pinball machine, stuffed next to the hallway leading to the back bar, rattles and beeps. The high stamped-tin ceiling exaggerates the odd angles in the main bar. A dark, burled art-deco bar with three billowing, clouded mirrors takes up most of one wall. Art nouveau mirrors and sconces hang from the exposed brick walls. A stand-up piano collects dust silently near a bay window. Zines and handbills litter the sill. All the wooden tables are covered with gouges and cigarette burns.
It’s full for a cold work-night, and I can’t find our party among the bikers in leather jackets and the Goths with their hair dyed black or dark rust. The goths are only starting their evenings here before heading on to Smart Bar, Metro, the Wrigleyville Tap, U-Bahn, or even Club Lower Links.
Looking around, I move through the rickety tables and the smoke trails rising from ashtrays. The smell of stale beer hangs above everything.
Then I hear Nancy laughing from near the back.
They’ve pulled a few tables together and have already drained a couple pitchers of beer. Nancy’s toasting with someone. Ron, camera hanging from his neck, is talking to Randal at the far end. The table is finished off with AnnMarie, Michele, and a few people I don’t recognize.
After pouring myself a beer, I sit next to Nancy, near the birthday girl. Michele wasn’t the usual Tanya hanger-on. She wasn’t in need of anything, not vulnerable, older than most, not especially good-looking, but very stylish—tonight in a white leather dinner jacket with a ruffled red men’s shirt, her hair slicked back and pinned with rhinestone clips. It never made a lot of sense to me why she was around.
Two women I’ve never seen before show up, and the birthday girl gets up to hug them.
Nancy leans over. “Jonathan coming?”
“Said he was.”
“Oh,” she says. “Too bad for you.”
“Too bad for me?”
“You were using that special fantasy x-ray vision men have to see what’s under her clothes. No Jonathan—no competition. But now …”
“Actually,” I say, “I was trying to figure out if Ron’s ever going to get her to model for him.”
“You’re lying. But nah,” she says, “not for Ron. For Jonathan, she’ll strip. Model naked for him all night and the next morning.”
“Speaking of whom,” I say, “we need to talk.”
“She’s exactly what he needs,” she says. “A new habit.”
“Hey, hey,” I hear Kenny say right behind me.
I turn. “What are you doing here?”
“Glad to see you too,” he says. “Lynda told me.”
“Lynda?” I ask. “She’s in LA.”
“She came into Borders today,” Kenny says, brushing the bangs out of his eyes. “She’s in town for some shoot or other. Mentioned you’d be here. Came over after I got off work.”
“She’s going to be here tonight?” I ask.
“That’s what she said a couple of hours ago,” he says, sitting down next to me.
“The more the merrier,” Nancy says as her smile grows mischievous.
“Uh-huh.” Today’s going from strange to freakish.
“So what did everyone say about ‘Fantasy in Black’?” he asks.
Under the table, I give his shin a quick kick.
“Ow, fuck!” He yanks his leg away.
“What’s the matter?” I ask, glaring. “Leg cramp?”
“Yeah. Cramp,” he says.
“Need more liquids,” I say. “Here, have a beer.”
Then, looking like a Victorian vampire, with a short forest-green cape flying wide off the shoulders of his coat, his long hair flowing behind, Jonathan strides in.
As he pulls up a seat at the table, the birthday girl taps out a cigarette. Jonathan draws his Zippo, and by the time the cigarette touches her lips, his fire waits. She inhales and glances at him from the corner of her eye, winking.
“Always,” he says.
He’s wearing that damned impish smile again, which means something’s up, and he’s itching to spring it on us.
I don’t like this at all.
Jonathan grabs Nancy’s and AnnMarie’s wrists. “Right before I came. I was working on an idea for our new single. Got the lyrics. Still working on the melody. It doesn’t quite work yet. But …”
“What?” I ask.
He leans back. “Might be better than ‘Joie.’”
“Some of us hate your idea of drama,” Nancy says, looking directly at me. “Makes them … nervous.”
Kenny turns his glass in circles and stares at the rings of moisture it leaves behind.
I want to tell Kenny that this doesn’t change things; I stop myself from reaching under the table and stroking his thigh to reassure hi
m.
“It was like … poof, there it was,” Jonathan says, slashing his hand out. “Right after I got off the phone with Jennifer.”
“Jennifer?” I ask.
“The Jennifer?” Nancy asks, looking genuinely surprised for a moment.
His eyebrows jump up and down, his expression pure Cheshire cat.
“How’s she been?” Nancy asks.
“Oh. Started a West Coast office for Les Femmes,” he says. “She’s in Chicago, visiting for however long.”
“What does …” I start asking. “Does this mean you’re going out with her again?”
“Oh, no. I burned that ship, to cinders, years ago. You of all people should know that. I’d like to say hi, though. Grab a quick ‘Hey, how are you?’ cocktail before she goes back to Seattle.”
“Do you think you can?” Nancy asks.
“Absolutely. If it ever happens.”
Kenny slams his empty glass on the table. “I’m outta here.” He leaps up and starts pushing through people toward the door.
Everybody at the table stares at me.
I raise my hands and shrug, shaking my head.
What, has everyone picked today to lose his mind?
Quickly getting up, I go after him. Pushing a Goth chick to the side with my arm, I clamp my hand on his shoulder. “Hey—”
He freezes. “Hey what?”
“Let’s get a shot.”
“I’m leaving.”
“First,” I say, “let’s have a shot.”
“I’ve already told everyone in Vices. That’s done. They’re expecting—”
I twist him around to face me. “So he talks about a song. One he says doesn’t even work. So what?”
“You haven’t told him.”
“It’s not so simple for me. There’s the band—”
“Fuck you,” he says and tries to push past me. I clamp onto his arm.
“Let’s get a shot,” I say. “We need the girls. I gotta get them behind this first. Then him.”
He tries to yank his arm free from my grip, can’t, and then goes limp.
I turn him toward the bar. We belly up to the curving dark wood top, and I order two Jägermeister shots. He’s staring straight ahead at the freezer painted with the Jägermeister emblem—a green stag and cross on an orange-gold background. The bartender pours out the two shots from a frosty green bottle, fresh from the freezer.
“To us,” I say, holding the glass up in toast. He taps my glass, and we down the Jäger. It’s sweet and sharply herbal. I feel the cold changing to warmth as it hits my belly.
I spin my shot glass and then pin it to the bar with my palm.
“Nothing’s changed,” I say.
Holding his shot glass over his mouth, he lets the last couple of drops fall on his tongue. “What about this new song?”
“We’re doing ‘Fantasy in Black.’”
“His new song.”
“His song? What song?” I ask. “He said he has an idea for a song. One he said didn’t work. In other words, he has no song.”
“What if he gets it to work?”
“What if?” I ask. “Oh, no. Too many broken promises. I’m not going to let him lead me on like that again. No. We’re doing your song, no matter if he finishes whatever he’s talking about or not.”
“Great,” he says, with less enthusiasm than I expect.
“No, mister, we’re in this together. You’ve gotta stand by me to make this work. The way we planned,” I say. “You’ll sing for Mercurial Visions. Period. I only need time to tell the girls the right way. Bear with this. Don’t walk away, Kenny. Not now. We’re too close.”
He hasn’t looked up.
“Jonathan can’t pull it off,” I say. “He hasn’t written anything good in years. I won’t deal with his on-again, off-again, prima donna crap anymore. I can’t partner with a man like that.”
His noncommittal nod gives me very little confidence, and his slouch less.
I lay my hand on his shoulder. He finally looks at me, and I can see he wants to believe me.
“Trust me,” I say. “He’ll let Jennifer come between us again, as always. He’s done.”
Kenny pops his lips. He looks vulnerable and unsure of what to do.
I lean back. “This is a big move. For both of us. We need to do it right. Just hold tight for now.”
I order two pints and watch the streams of amber filling the glasses. With Jonathan’s ex back in town, breaking it off with him probably got much easier. She might take care of it for me.
In the bar’s mirror, I watch some people slither between the tables to our group. No one I know. The birthday girl hugs them.
“Let’s go back,” I say. “Show ’em nothing’s up.”
“I’ll”—he points to his beer—“finish this here.”
I squeeze his forearm. “Stop thinking about it. Come on. Have some fun.”
Lynda appears in the mirror near our table in back. After a moment, Ron points toward my reflection in the mirror, and her eyes find mine. She slides through the tables toward us, hips and shoulders rolling as if she were on a catwalk, her long, curly red hair bouncing with each step.
Bad time for catching up.
She comes up from behind and hugs me, placing a quick kiss on my cheek.
“Surprise,” she whispers in my ear. “Didn’t think you’d see me this soon, did you?” She mouths “hi” to Kenny.
He waves two fingers back.
“Actually,” I say, “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again.”
“Really?” she says. “We’re trapped. We move in the same flow. We can’t help but keep meeting each other.”
“So,” I say, “is that a good or bad thing?”
“Does it matter?”
“Possibly.”
“My, you’re grumpy.” She pulls out a cigarette. “Light, mister?”
Jonathan’s Zippo isn’t around to beat me this time, so I reach over to the napkin caddie, pick up a book of matches, and strike one for her.
“How’ve you been?” she asks.
I tell her everything’s just dandy, and she believes me, and her cheeriness, when things are so obviously not well, irritates me. That’s so like her—unaware of what’s outside her bubble of self. No wonder I didn’t care if you came around again or not.
“So,” she says, “why haven’t you called all this time? You said you would.” Her green eyes flick playfully.
“You always called me,” I say. “Whenever you felt like company.”
Right then, Nancy steps between us.
“Scott,” she says, “you’ve got to come convince Jonathan to play ‘Joie.’”
“What?”
“On the piano.” She points to the stand-up piano near the bay window.
“That thing doesn’t work,” Kenny says, dismay spreading across his face.
“Bouncer says it does,” Nancy says. “Come on. Michele wants him to, and he’s being such a little shit.”
“I’m outta here,” Kenny says.
“Look, Kenny,” I say. “Tomorrow we’ll start getting things set for your next project.” I wink. No need to look so lost and unsure. We’re not breaking up, here.
Nancy grabs one of my arms, Lynda the other. They drag me back toward the table. I barely resist. They’ll see how bad he is now. It’ll make selling “Fantasy in Black” to them all the easier.
“Singer Man,” I say, “what’s this about you not wanting to play?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “Really.”
That smirk he’s wearing says he’ll do it. He only wants us to make a big production of it.
“You’re being a shit,” Nancy says.
“Another cocktail, anyone?” he says, holding up his glass.
“You’re going to disappoint the birthday girl,” I say, offering her up with my open palm.
She lets slip the merest smile.
You do that, girl—stroke his ego.
“I’m out of practice,” he says. “I haven’t played that song for ages.”
“Never stopped you before,” I say.
“Oh, come on. You haven’t simply played it for us in,” Nancy says, “well, ever. You can start tonight.”
He reaches out for the pitcher of beer. I pin it to the table. “No more drinking until you play.”
“Playing for drinks now. How low I’ve come.”
Everyone looks expectantly at him—except the birthday girl. Aloofly, she sips her martini.
Leaning over the table, he pushes his face into her gaze. “Do you want me to play?”
“If you’d like,” she says with fake indifference.
“I’d like,” he says.
He strides over to the piano, followed by the rest of the party, including Michele. Once there, he cracks his fingers.
Michele stands next to him. Her fingers graze his shoulder.
Crossing my arms, I stand back to let him show off just how bad he’s gotten.
Chapter 50
Daydreaming
—Jonathan—
Sitting in front of the piano at The Gingerman, I feel the birthday girl’s fingertips grazing my shoulder. With everyone watching me, it’s as if I am onstage again. Caressing the keys, I let this sensation sink in. I miss this so damned much.
Then a fleeting half-hope, half-fantasy of Jennifer walking into the Gingerman right now, as I’m about to play “Joie,” slips through my mind, making me catch my breath.
“Are you going to play?” Nancy asks, “or only tease us?”
“Trying to remember how it goes.” I purse my lips. “A prelude.” I splay my fingers, slowly, over the keys and then tinkle out a clumsy “Chopsticks.”
“How wonderful,” Nancy says. “Brilliant interpretation. Never have I heard better.”
I shift to the “Moonlight Sonata.”
“You’re disappointing the birthday girl,” Scott says.
“The keys were dusty. I needed to clean them off first.” Stopping, I listen intently to the sound of Jennifer’s voice on the phone announcing she’s back in Chicago.
A Perfect Blindness Page 34