2 a.m. at the Cat's Pajamas Read online

  “Friend,” Sarina says.

  “He’ll have to go.”

  “I’ll wait outside,” Ben says.

  “No one will be allowed to wait outside,” the officer assures him.

  He opens the door and lets people go one by one. The crowd steals glances at Madeleine as they heave toward the door. Ben takes Sarina’s hand to steel them against the current.

  “Wait,” he says. “This can’t be the end.”

  Sarina searches his eyes as if in them she has misplaced a set of keys.

  Madeleine wants to tell them to hurry it up but her teacher’s pained smile stops her. It is the one she uses when a student struggles for an answer, to tell them she believes they have it in them. Even Madeleine knows to stay silent. If you are anything other than humbled in the presence of love, you are not in the presence of love.

  “Keep me updated on the status of your everything,” Sarina says, and releases Ben’s hand. The space between them fills with other people.

  2:30 A.M.

  A serious-faced boy approaches the bar, where Madeleine and Miss Greene wait to be interviewed. “Do you remember me?”

  Madeleine nods. “You’re the guitarist.”

  “I’m also the son of the guy whose club you helped close.”

  Madeleine shifts her weight to her right, leading foot. She will spring through the club and out the quilted door if shit goes down.

  “Girl.” He reaches out an arm to pin her. “No one’s mad.”

  “Your dad is.”

  “He’s always mad.” The boy grins. “How did you end up here?”

  “I snuck here,” Madeleine says, “because I wanted to sing.”

  His eyes register recognition but when he speaks, his tone is unfriendly. “Why?”

  Madeleine is too tired to be tough. “Because they never let me sing at church,” she says. “Or at assemblies. Or anywhere. It’s always Clare Kelly. They say she’s the best singer in school, but her phrasing and pitch are bullshit.”

  “Madeleine,” Miss Greene warns.

  The boy works something over in his jaw. “You should worry less about whoever-the-hell and more about the fact that you can’t pace yourself. You almost blew it in the first verse.”

  Madeleine knows he’s right. “Will you teach me?” she says. “I can sing while you play.”

  “How old are you?” he says.

  “Fourteen.”

  He spits on the ground.

  She is unaccustomed to wanting someone’s approval and can’t shear the desperation from her voice. “Nine,” she says. “But my birthday’s in two days.”

  “I don’t play with children,” he says.

  One of the officers emerges from the back and calls her name. “Screw off then.”

  In the back room, an officer named Len Thomas assures her that there will only be a few questions. A man she does not recognize takes the chair next to her. “I have some questions, too.”

  “Mr. Vega, this is not appropriate.”

  “Call me Sonny.” He winks at Madeleine. “I won’t make a peep.”

  “Name?” Officer Thomas begins. “Address and age?”

  “Who do we know?” Sonny says. “Who’s your family?”

  “My father is Mark Altimari,” Madeline says. “He used to be a vendor on Ninth Street.”

  “That’s not it.” Sonny frowns.

  “Mr. Vega,” Officer Thomas warns.

  “Madeleine Altimari,” she tells him. “Eighteen South Ninth Street. Aged nine years and three hundred sixty-three days.”

  “How did you come to find yourself here tonight?”

  “It’s a long story,” she says.

  Officer Thomas’s eyebrows jolt toward the ceiling. “I’ve got time.”

  “I climbed out my window and walked.”

  “You walked from Ninth?”

  “It’s not that far if you take South all the way,” Sonny says. “Who’s your singing teacher?”

  Madeleine turns to face him. “I don’t have one.”

  “You sing like that with no teacher?”

  “My mother taught me.”

  Underneath Officer Thomas’s collar, a flush of red. “Mr. Vega, in many courts of law what you are doing would be considered interfering with police procedure.” He turns back to Madeleine. “What you’re saying is that tonight you climbed out of your window and walked across the city, to this club, got onstage, and sang of your own volition?”

  “I wanted to sing,” Madeleine says. She is not afraid of police officers. Her only fear is roaches. At home on a recipe card labeled MISCELLANY, under NEVER SHOW UP TO SOMEONE’S HOME EMPTY-HANDED and DON’T TRUST A GIRL WITH NO GIRLFRIENDS, were the words: DON’T TRUST COPS.

  The cop looks baffled, but the man named Sonny seems satisfied. “Your mother must be a great singer,” he says.

  “My mother is dead,” Madeleine says. “Rose Santiago takes care of me.”

  Sonny leans back in his chair, beaming. “Bingo.”

  Officer Thomas makes furious scratches onto his pad.

  Madeleine waits for Miss Greene to be interviewed at the front of the bar, where young people smoke and curse. She finds a cigarette in the front pocket of her vest. The young guitarist strikes a match and lights it for her.

  “All right,” he says. “I’ll teach you.”

  She chokes on an inhalation of smoke. “I don’t have any money.”

  “I don’t care about money.”

  She offers her hand and they shake.

  “What’s it like to be born on Christmas?” he says.

  She thinks about it. “It sucks.”

  Sarina and Madeleine walk to Market Street to find a cab. A car slows next to them; its passenger-side window descends and through it Principal Randles calls their names. “I’ll drive you home.” Her tone is official, as if she is announcing the results of CYO games over the PA.

  “No, thank you,” Madeleine says.

  “I can’t have you walking by yourself,” the principal says.

  “We would love a ride.” Sarina climbs into the front seat and gives directions. The principal turns the heat higher and adjusts the vents so they point to Madeleine, who climbs into the back.

  “Seat belt,” the principal reminds her.

  The girl sighs and clicks her belt into place.

  Sarina eyes her boss, who wears lipstick the color of cotton candy. “How lucky you happened to be driving by.” A satiny dress peeks through the opening of her coat. Are those pearl earrings? The principal does not seem willing to explain. Sarina is not willing to explain either, so they are even.

  They drive in silence. Crisp lawns, an overturned plastic Santa.

  “Is that ‘Wonderwall’?” Principal Randles says.

  Sarina’s phone is ringing in the bowels of her bag. She doesn’t recognize the number and dumps the call into voice mail.

  Madeleine sulks in the unlit swell of the backseat. “Why do you hate me so much?”

  “Madeleine,” Sarina says. “That’s not polite.”

  They stop at a red light. In a store window, a sign promises furniture sales in the new year. Principal Randles clicks on her turn signal. She clears her throat. “It was hard to be young with your mom.”

  The light changes to green. They have almost reached their apartment complex.

  Madeleine can feel the principal staring at her in the rearview mirror but refuses to acknowledge her. She is no longer a student at Saint Anthony’s.

  “Your mother,” the principal says, “used to shrug whenever someone else would. Even on television. If someone on television shrugged, she shrugged.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Madeleine’s eyes widen. “I do that, too.”

  Principal Randles taps the steering wheel. “There you go.”

  “Count to seven,” Sarina says. “Then stop because we’re here.”

  “Merry Christmas.” The principal brakes. “See you after the holiday.”

  “Madeleine is
expelled,” Sarina reminds her.

  The principal activates the emergency brake. Her voice is punctured. “Come in after the holiday,” she says. “I’ll unexpel you.” She swerves trimly into the street and drives away. Sarina and Madeleine watch her, breath pillowing in front of them.

  “I guess that’s a happy ending,” Sarina says.

  “I guess.”

  Sarina pauses at her door. “Good night, Madeleine. I expect I’ll have to tell Mrs. Santiago about this in the morning.”

  “Good night, Miss Greene. I expect she’ll blow her fucking lid.”

  Madeleine climbs into her window. She counts thirty beats, then runs the stairs to the roof. The cars on the Second Street Bridge launch over the river, blowing their staccato horns. The rush of the El, a swelling of cymbals. The big sky over the stadium is lit by morning stars. The shivering hump on the wire becomes a glissando of crows that fly toward the statue of Saint Anthony. There they part into three flapping factions: one takes the alleys on Ninth, one heads toward the river, one goes west to hop the El. Who can be certain which way is faster? You can’t say you know a city unless you know three ways to everywhere.

  Madeleine swings her legs over the edge of the roof. I sang on a stage. She is close enough to high-five Saint Anthony but doesn’t because no matter what kind of thrilling night you’ve had, you do not bother saints this way.

  3:15 A.M.

  Sarina, it’s Georgie. You’re probably sleeping. I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to say … Pepper, get down! I’m happy you came over tonight. And. I realize you’ve had a rough time but … you seem great. I’d like to go to that crochet class you mentioned. We could have dinner. Stop eating that, Pepper. I won’t be good at it, but I’d like to go. The last thing I made was a birdhouse and the hole was so small birds couldn’t fit. They’d stick their beaks in and try to wiggle through but they couldn’t. It broke my heart. Not even those tiny birds. The ones that hop all over the sand at the shore. What are they called? Sparrows!

  4:00 A.M.

  “Age?” Len’s pen is poised over his notebook.

  Alex chews gum, his expression blank. “Twenty-one.”

  “Come on,” Len sighs, looking at Lorca.

  “Twenty-one,” Lorca says.

  Len lets Alex go and he and Aruna Sha sit cross-legged on the club’s floor surrounded by their attending pack of jawing teenagers. Alex preens amid their compliments. The Main Line kid yammers about a show at Ortlieb’s when John Coltrane literally set the house on fire. He uses a tone that implies Alex will never be as good as Coltrane, to temper the effect Alex is having on their friends. Lorca has been around guys like him for years. The jawing gives him away. It’s the mark of someone who can’t play. No one with chops yaps about it. They’re humble because they’re in service. They know they have to practice when they are filled with love. When they are filled with bile. When the sun is out and everyone with a palpably alive soul is on the beach, they are in wood-paneled dumps, practicing. Until they ruin any chance at being substantial and there is no soul on earth who will have them.

  Through that, you practice. What hurts most, you do again. Away from the living people you practice for. Toward the shaking, fleeting thing you only let yourself half-believe in. Most times you do not find it but in search of it, you practice, scared of your ability to be so wholly alone. You don’t have time to boast or judge.

  If this is the life his son wants, Lorca can at least help him as much as he can. He stands above the group and addresses the Main Line kid. “Literally?” he says. “Burned the house down?”

  The kid’s smirk recedes. “Not literally.”

  “You were good tonight,” Lorca says to his son.

  “I showboated Emo’s solo.”

  The kid pipes up, but Lorca interrupts. “You didn’t showboat.”

  “Well, I did.”

  “I’d tell you,” Lorca says, “if you did.”

  “Can I play here again then?”

  Len calls another witness to the back room. “Probably not here,” Lorca says.

  “Jazz is a dying art form anyway.” The Main Line kid makes this statement to the screen of his phone as his thumb jabs the keyboard.

  Lorca ignores him. “Mongoose is going to take you. It’ll be weekends to start. Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday brunch. Rehearsals once a week. You won’t have time to hang out with …” He looks at the kid. “You won’t have time for much else besides school. If this is okay with you, I’ll tell Mongoose.”

  “It’s okay with me,” Alex says.

  “You were good tonight,” Lorca says. “But you have to get healthy.”

  Alex beams. He tells his father he will.

  Lorca turns to the Main Line kid. “John Coltrane never played Ortlieb’s. He was dead for a million years by the time that joint opened. He did play here, though. Plenty of times.”

  The kid’s face falls off a cliff.

  Len is finished with his interviews. It is time for the club to clear out.

  “Get what’s important to you,” Lorca says.

  The boys shoulder their guitars, Max grabs his hair grease, Gus carries the model airplane, finished except for the racing stripes. They smoke outside while Lorca and Len finish up in the bar. Lorca turns off the overhead lamp and closes the door to the back. He still wears the T-shirt and jeans from the day before when all he had to worry about was replacing a drum set.

  “It hasn’t even been a day.” Len rips a new citation from his pad. He seems in awe of Lorca’s inability to keep himself straight for twenty-four hours. “I was just here this morning. Did I not make it clear?”

  “You did everything you could,” Lorca says, locking the back room. He kills the lights in the hallways and bathrooms, the wall lights, the bar lights. He lowers the heat. The floor will have to stay a mess until whatever day he is allowed back in. He hoists the broken Snakehead over his shoulder, wincing at its upsetting, multiple sounds, and joins the others outside.

  “The Daphne girl has moved on.” From Max to Gus. Sonny points to where the girl in yellow heels is huddled over the model plane with Gus—Gus explaining something as she nods, intently.

  “That’s what they call a safe bet,” Lorca says.

  Len and the officers nail the doors shut. The last of the witnesses turn back when they hear the splitting wood echo against the corroded windows on the street. Len hammers a nail into the door while clenching the next one in his teeth. Lorca stands to the side. He has time to consider what is happening, to repent or beg or search for loopholes. But instead he thinks about the way Louisa says the word experiment. Ex-spear-iment. He watches his son whisper into Aruna’s ear. In the darkness, the river gasps.

  CLOSED DUE TO VIOLATION OF CITY LAW.

  Len pockets the hammer and motions for the officers to leave. “Take care, Mr. Lorca.” He walks toward his car and pauses. “I’m sorry you lost your club.” The back of his collar is still not fully folded over his tie. Lorca wants to reach out and fix it. Len checks his seat belt twice before pulling out and swerving around Gray Gus, who is reasoning with the airplane’s finicky remote control. The blue switches and red knobs that should convince the plane into the air fail to get a response. Gus raps on it.

  Lorca says, “Alex knew exactly where Max was going in every song.”

  Sonny coughs, refolds the sleeves of his trench coat. “The kid is good.”

  “You have to rehearse to get that good,” Lorca says. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  Sonny blinks. “I would not.”

  “Maybe it’s time for a vacation. Throw our rods in the car and drive down the coast.” Lorca calls to Alex. “You want to go fishing?”

  “Sure,” Alex says.

  Sonny frowns. “Whose car?”

  The plane is alive. It taxis down Front Street to the end of the building where it dies with no ceremony. Gus fiddles with the control pad.

  “That’s too bad,” Daphne says. A rhinestone
winks on each of her painted nails.

  They decide to go to the Red Lion Diner. “We’ll walk up Girard,” Max says.

  “The alleys are faster,” Sonny insists.

  “Your ass the alleys are faster,” Max snorts. “You want to get there today?”

  The party walks ahead, leaving Gus and Daphne alone with the grounded plane. Gus tries switches, hoping for a new development. Teetering on her heels, Daphne lists what she will order when they get to the diner.

  “The biggest omelet they have,” she says. “Mushrooms and cheese and sausage and broccoli …”

  “And gravy?”

  “Gravy and biscuits and a waffle. They’re going to need two men to bring it to the table. And a basket of fries.”

  “A suitcase of fries, darlin’,” Gus says.

  “A wheelbarrow.”

  “It’s a shame,” Cassidy says. “My first day was my last day. Did you hear that little girl? How do you learn how to sing like that?”

  Max pauses in his argument with Sonny. “You don’t, angel. You get born like that.”

  Behind them, where he walks with his son, Lorca realizes there will be no club to open in the morning. A relief he did not anticipate unrolls in his chest. “I’m going to be around more now,” Lorca says.

  “All right,” Alex says.

  “So, how’s school?”

  “Not good.”

  Celebration behind them. Gus has found the right combination of switches and buttons and the plane has roared to life again. It races toward them and tries a leap but cannot achieve the sky. It takes a jagged, desperate run.

  Sonny squints. “Bring her nose up!”

  Gus glares at the control. “I know, bring her nose up.”

  “Get her up, old man,” yells Sonny. Then he mutters to Lorca, “He has to get the nose up or it won’t fly.”

  Daphne believes in the plane. When everyone else is certain it won’t succeed, when the other girls turn toward the direction of ham and coffee, she raises her arms in a V. “Go, plane, go!”

  The plane opts for different tacks but none of them gets it airborne. Its skin shakes with effort. Just when it seems like it has given up, it performs a successful hop into the air. It feathers higher, clearing the group. They wheel around to watch it ascend.