Sing for Me

by Karen Halvorsen Schreck

  “And for you, not water.” Rob sets another drink before Zane. Rob doesn’t choose to comment on his own drink. He takes a gulp, bangs the glass down on the table, and grabs my hand. “Compared to you, Laerke, she’s a crow.”

  “Don’t.”

  “I’m not kidding!” Rob squeezes my hand. “That throaty voice just doesn’t compare.”

  Zane shakes his head. “That throaty voice is memorable. Who are you kidding, Rob? Rose isn’t a fool. She knows a good thing when she hears it. But Rose is a good thing, too. She’s her own good thing.”

  Rob leans over and touches his forehead against mine. “Now, that’s truth with a capital T. You just have to believe it, Laerke.” He draws back, clinks his glass against Zane’s, then mine, and takes another drink. In another gulp, he’s drained his glass.

  I tell Rob to take it easy. Even Zane tells Rob to take it easy.

  “I’m celebrating my new job, remember?” Rob slugs back some ice, noisily chews, and swallows. “Here’s to the future!” He clinks his empty glass against mine. “You have a future, too, Laerke. You wait and see.”

  The Chess Men are back onstage. Lilah Buckley is not.

  The clarinetist fiddles with his instrument’s reed. The drummer taps his finger repeatedly against the taut skin of his snare. The bassist plucks at strings, adjusts the tension. Theo positions and repositions his hands on the piano keys, but he doesn’t press down.

  “Remember what I said?” Zane gives me a meaningful glance. “Complicated.”

  Rob and Zane go to the bar. I sit alone at the table. The crowd is growing restless and noisy, but I stay still and quiet, waiting for the music.

  Finally Theo lifts his hand and plays a single note on the piano that no one can hear above the rising din. He plays the note again. The audience gets a little quieter. When he plays the note a third time, I am able to make it out. It’s a rousing sound now, a call to action. The other Chess Men watch Theo closely. He plays the note yet again, and this time he puts a bit of bounce into it. There’s something hopeful about the sound, the action. It catches everyone’s attention. The Chess Men settle into their instruments. They talk back to Theo’s single note. There’s the whisper of the drummer’s brush against the snare. A lingering tone from the clarinet. The bassist plucks a pattern that stitches it all together. And suddenly the music expands. A singer would be nice, but she’s not necessary—at least not right now. The Chess Men are carrying the melody just fine by themselves.

  “I’m not going to sit this one out.” Rob is just returning to the table, but he doesn’t bother to sit down. He sets his half-empty glass by mine, then weaves his way onto the dance floor. There’s a flash of strawberry-blond hair as a woman whirls into his arms. Away they go into the crowd.

  Zane, back as well, asks if I’d care to dance. When I decline, he turns to another woman sitting just behind him. She nods her curly head and they’re off, the drag in his step only adding to the distinctive grace with which he sweeps her in a circle.

  Is it my imagination, or has Theo seen them, and in seeing them, seen me? He’s looking in this direction.

  And now his eyes meet mine. His hands falter on the keys. My hands tremble in my lap. His lips shape my name. Not Miss Sorensen this time, but Rose.

  Rose. He says my name again.

  I want out of here.

  There before me, painted on the wall just to the side of the stage, is an arrow pointing toward the ladies’ room.

  Somehow I make my way between tables and chairs, people and more people. I reach the sign. I follow the arrow down a dark, empty corridor to the ladies’. I push the door open, and Lilah Buckley stumbles into my arms.

  Even in the dim light, I can see that her eyes are glittering with something besides excitement. Her beautiful face is wet—not with tears but with sweat. She looks through me, pushes past me. With her hands pressed to the walls on either side, Lilah Buckley slowly makes her way down the corridor, keeping a difficult balance. The back of her lovely crimson gown is drenched, dripping, as if it’s been dragged through a puddle or fallen into the toilet.

  She can’t go onstage like this. She’d embarrass herself. She’d embarrass the Chess Men. For her sake, for their sake, for Theo, I say her name. But Lilah Buckley continues her unsteady progress down the corridor.

  I rush to her side, touch her thin arm. There are bruises there, on the inside. She stops walking, but she doesn’t turn to look at me, even as I babble about her state of disorder. She leans toward the stage and the spotlight’s glare, moth to flame.

  “Miss Buckley, your dress. It’s—”

  “Fix it.”

  The Queen, the strongest player on the board, has given an order to a lady-in-waiting. Me.

  I obey. I bend down and lift the hem of her dress. I wring water from it until a small puddle pools at my feet, and then I smooth out the train. The wet stain is still apparent, dull, dark brown, just the color of dried blood, compared with the original crimson sheen.

  “Maybe we should tie it up. Just a bit,” I say.

  Her eyes are closed, but she nods. Only her hands pressed against the corridor’s walls keep her from falling.

  I knot up the back of her dress and the sides; the front, too. The knotted portions lift to the middle of her calves, hiding the creeping stain. Otherwise, the length of the dress drapes elegantly, just touching her slim ankles. She is wearing golden sandals. Her toenails are painted a red so deep it’s nearly black. The audience will savor this glimpse of what was previously hidden.

  But there are bruises there, too, on the inside of her ankles, creeping up her calves. What if the audience sees those?

  Lilah Buckley doesn’t care, or she doesn’t think to care. She mumbles her thanks, wavers, then takes another step forward, and another. In this way, step by faltering step, she weaves her way toward the spotlight.

  I stand, knees cracking, and watch her go. When she turns and disappears up the steps that lead to the stage, I return to the ladies’ room.

  It’s not a class act. It’s cramped, dark, and dank; it smells of ammonia and worse. A quick look tells me that the toilet is clogged. Iron stains the sink. Cigarette smoke clouds the mirror so I can’t get a good look at myself. I can, however, hear the music faintly through the bathroom’s heavy door. Lilah Buckley is singing now. Her deep voice is breathtakingly unpredictable in its harmonies, yet she’s hitting every note just right, perfectly complementing the rest of the band. A genius. That’s what she is. One of those rare, once-in-a-generation voices. Right up there with Billie Holiday. Right up there with Mahalia Jackson, though Mahalia Jackson’s star shines in an entirely different constellation.

  I see the needle on the floor beside the sink then. And, beside it, the syringe.

  I have a sense of what this means—but only the vaguest sense. Rumors and whispers.

  Those bruises.

  I feel sick.

  I lean over the sink, turn on the tap. Rusty water chugs out. Filth swirls—black flecks of dead bugs and who knows what else. I bow my head, the better to concentrate on the music. A few minutes pass as the water gushes, cleansing the pipes. I clear my throat, clear it again. The only music I can hear is the water, splashing cleanly now into the sink. I start humming. I plug the drain and plunge my hands into the cool, rising water. Words fill my head:

  I’ll fly away

  in the morning . . .

  This comes out of nowhere, out of me, this hymn. It was inspired by a slave song, Pastor Riis told us when we sang it a few Sundays ago. I can almost taste the words, smooth and succulent as a peeled and pitted plum, sweet gold pouring out of me, filling this dank room like light. I swirl the water in the sink, and the feeling of sickness subsides.

  I sing the song again, remembering the first time I tasted sound. It was a few years before Sophy was born. It was spring. A window was open in Aunt Astrid’s kitchen. Somehow I was perched on the sill. My bare feet dangled against the house’s rough wood siding. I opened
my mouth and breathed in the spring air. It tasted good—wet and clean. Birds sang in the tree before me, and their sounds began rolling from my tongue. Chick-a-dee-dee-dee, chick-a-dee-dee-dee. Cuckoo, cuckoo. Birdsongs perfectly echoed, note for note, refrain for refrain, until it seemed the birds were singing back to me. I wanted to climb the tree and join them. I wanted to pour my voice into the bright blue bowl of sky. I wanted to fly away.

  For months afterward, Mother has told me, I sang birdsongs. Then I filled the house with nursery rhymes and hymns. Then Sophy was born, and I sang for her. And then I sang only for her, and for Rob, and for God. And then Theo heard me sing.

  The bathroom door bangs open, and I splash the front of my blue dress nearly as badly as Lilah Buckley soaked the crimson back of hers.

  The cigarette smoke has cleared. I glance in the mirror and glimpse a flash of strawberry-blond hair. It’s Rob’s dance partner, blotting her damp face with a dainty handkerchief. She flicks on a switch I didn’t see, and the bathroom is illuminated with lambent, amber light. Must be a short in the wiring. Rob’s dance partner and I blink at each other through the flickering glow. She’s about my age, maybe a year or two older. Her bright green dress brings out her green eyes, which are topped by brows the same brilliant color as her hair. She has freckles, a pert nose, a Cupid’s bow mouth. Her hair is done up in the latest fashion. Carefully crimped, the shining locks curve in gentle waves against her cheeks. I didn’t think to pin up my hair tonight. My wet hands drift self-consciously to my own brown bob, bluntly cut by Mother with our kitchen sheers. I drip more water on my dress. There’s no towel with which to dry my hands. At a loss, I plunge them into the sink again.

  “You sounded so pretty, singing away in here.” Rob’s dance partner smiles. “I could hear you through the door. Guess you didn’t know you were that loud, huh?” She presses her handkerchief to the back of her neck. Her smile turns rueful. “Aw, your dress got all wet. Sorry about that.”

  “It’s all right.” Flustered, I search for something to say, mumble, “That was my cousin you were dancing with.”

  “Huh. He’s a good dancer. Said he’s looking for fun, nothing more, though. Aren’t they all?” The woman snaps her gum. “You okay, kiddo? You don’t look so hot.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “If you say so.” She sidles past me, inhaling sharply at the sign of the offending toilet. “Oh, well. Nature calls.” Without further hesitation, she goes into the stall and closes the door.

  I pull the plug on the sink. I do not let myself look down at the needle and the syringe on the floor. I watch the last of the water swirl away, then press my cool wet hands to my throat, which still feels warm and full from singing. In the coming early morning, I will sing again for Sophy. I will sing in a whisper so as not to wake her. If she is dreaming bad dreams, I will sing her dreams sweet. I will remind myself that I can still, always, at least do this. I can sing the way I should sing, to whom I should sing, the songs I should sing.

  The stall door bangs open. This woman must have a penchant for dramatic entrances.

  “I love this song!” she exclaims. “They’re playing it on the radio all the time now. But no one plays it like the Chess Men.” She hums along to another song I don’t know. She’s flat on every note, which makes the sound endearing. Humming, she gives me a friendly wink. “Ready to head back out there? Your cousin is saving me a seat. Bet he’s got one for you, too.”

  Before I can answer, she links her arm through mine. “I’m Dolores Pine, by the way.”

  I tell her my name, and we’re out the door.

  Dolores and I make our way through the dancers. I don’t look at Theo as we pass in front of the stage. I keep my eyes on Rob and Zane, who are sitting at our table again. Zane holds his head in his hands as if it’s a heavy weight. As Dolores and I approach, Rob pats the empty seat beside him. I sit down. Rob smiles blearily at me. Dolores sits next to Zane, who doesn’t look up.

  Dolores jerks her thumb at Zane. “What’s up?”

  Rob shrugs. “Not him, that’s for sure. Something come over you that last dance, Zane?”

  “My leg hurts. That’s all.”

  Zane says this to the table. His pant leg is hiked up to reveal the metal brace that sheathes his thin, pale shin. I’ve only seen his brace once or twice before. Usually he’s careful to keep it covered.

  Dolores clucks her tongue. “Maybe you should rest up a bit?” She grabs a nearby empty chair and drags it over to Zane. “Why don’t you put your foot up? Take the weight off. It might help.”

  “I can take care of myself.” Zane looks embarrassed. For the first time, I realize that he has something in common with Sophy. He wants his condition to be accepted, not coddled. “I think I’m calling it a night,” he mutters.

  “I can see why, what with the way Buckley’s singing now!” Rob leans into me. “Oh, I wish it was you up there, Rose. You wouldn’t put me through this, would you?”

  Dolores says, “I heard your cousin singing in the bathroom. That voice of hers is something else.”

  “Sure is. And this is jibberish.” Rob glares in the direction of the stage.

  Lilah Buckley is singing skat. I’ve only heard one other person sing this way, Louis Armstrong, and I only know it’s called skat because the radio announcer said so. Once, during a recording session, the announcer said, Armstrong dropped his lyrics on the floor. The record producer encouraged Louis to keep on singing without the lyrics, so he sang the chorus in nonsense syllables. He improvised the sounds with perfect timing, using his voice like an instrument. “Scat gives a song flavor,” the announcer said. “When it’s good, it releases emotions so deep, so real, they’re unspeakable.”

  I think that’s exactly what Lilah Buckley is doing right now. Accompanied by the Chess Men, her nonsense sounds make perfect sense to me.

  “Bleet, blat, bloop.” Mimicking Lilah, Dolores leans across the table to give Rob’s wrist a reprimanding tap. “You still owe me a drink for that dance, buddy. And here I thought you were a gentleman, true to your word.”

  “Jiminy. Where are my good manners?” Rob stands unsteadily and heads to the bar. Zane lifts his head from his hands, gives Dolores and me a curt nod, and limps to the bar, too.

  Dolores frowns after him. “He’s hurting.”

  “He usually doesn’t complain. It must be bad.”

  Then the thought flashes through my mind: if Zane is leaving, maybe I could go with him. I’m more than ready to go to bed. I’m more than ready to sing to Sophy. I stand, crane my neck, search the place. No sign of Zane. I drop back into my chair. Never mind. It would be out of his way to take me home. And with him feeling so awful, it wouldn’t be fair of me to ask him for a ride.

  Rob returns to the table and clinks his fresh drink against Dolores’s. Lilah Buckley has shifted from rapid skat to a slow ballad, yet another song I don’t know. I listen to her voice, strong and powerful, fragile and broken, all at the same time. Theo’s playing responds to her, encourages her, lifts her up, as do the rest of the Chess Men.

  Beneath all this courses the ongoing current of Rob and Dolores’s slurred exchange. Rob is speaking of his dreams, his new job, law school, a practice of his own someday, and the money that goes along with it. Dolores is speaking of her dreams, her new job—against all odds, she’s just finished school and gotten her first full-time nursing position at Mount Sinai Hospital. A family—they’d both like to settle down and have one of those, one day. Rob wants a single, perfect child. Dolores wants many. She doesn’t care if they’re perfect or not.

  What do I want? I can’t think for the music, which is winding down now. Which is ending, it appears. Theo is at the microphone again, bidding us all good night. Lilah Buckley has already left the stage.

  “Good riddance,” Rob says drunkenly. He lifts his glass to his lips. Before I can stop myself, my hand shoots out. I snatch the glass and dump the liquor on the floor.

  “Hey!” Rob blinks, astonished.
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  “You’ve had more than enough.”

  Rob glowers. “If you’re so sure about that, guess you’ll need to find another way home.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  I stand, grab my coat from the back of a chair, and move through the crowd. I am going to put one foot in front of the other until I come to an El stop that will take me where I need to go.

  At the door, I glance back at the stage. This time, Theo’s the one watching me walk away. I gasp as he waves. “Wait!” he calls into the microphone. And then he whistles the opening measures to “Blow the Man Down.”

  I clench my jaw, suddenly, inexplicably furious. I turn toward the door. That was between us. That was not his to share. One foot in front of the other, I walk right out of Calliope’s. It’s the darkest hour of an early February morning, and a cold sleet is falling. I can hear the distant rattle of the El. I will head in that direction and find some sheltered place to wait until it is safe to ride.

  “I guess you turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight?”

  Dolores. She’s followed me. Rob stands swaying behind her. Others are stumbling out of Calliope’s, too. Dolores wraps her arms around a lamppost and sways back and forth as people surge around her.

  “She turns into worse than a pumpkin. She turns into a prune. I mean, a prude.” Rob fumbles in his pocket. He draws out the valet ticket, looks dazedly around. “Who gets this?”

  I point at the valet, huddled in a nearby alley. Rob waves the ticket, and the valet dashes over, takes it, then dashes off.

  Rob grins. “This is living. My ladies, your coach approacheth.”

  Dolores laughs, swinging around the lamppost again. “Our coacheth, you mean.”

  Rob joins in laughing, his breath a puff of smoke in the cold air. He gives me a quick look and explains. “Dolores needs a ride home.”

  “I’m not riding with you, Rob.” I look at Dolores. It takes her a moment, but finally she registers me. “And you shouldn’t, either,” I tell her.