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

  “Everyone will be thrilled to see you. What changed your mind?”

  Everyone. Sarina hears the bell that signals the end of lunch. Through the window, she watches her students return dully to the yard. She injects her voice with an improbable amount of positivity. “I wanted to be in the company of adults.”

  “I’ll help you find some.” Georgie laughs, no doubt holding a fistful of roots, orbited by an adoring, whimsically colored cat. She is the kind of woman who is endlessly in from the garden where she has been cutting chives. “When was the last time we all saw each other? It’s sad if you let yourself think about it.”

  “So sad,” Sarina says.

  “You will call if you are running late?”

  “Of course!” She hangs up the phone.

  In the yard children from several grades seem to be playing a game called Everyone Is Dying and There Is Chaos. One of them, an official-looking boy, barks orders, while someone else yells “Mark” over and over. “I’m dead,” a little girl says, before another voice corrects her: “You’re not dead if you’re talking.” Through it all a kindergartener keeps up an impressive, enduring wail.

  The game heightens as several kids scream contradictory directions. Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark!

  Unless they really are dying, Sarina thinks, not rising from her desk.

  1:00 P.M.

  Madeleine sulks through the backyards of the row homes that border Saint Anthony’s, past the market dotted with shoppers, to where Beauty Land sits, painted an unnatural pink, on a stretch of paved lot.

  Darla Henshaw, junior hairdresser and default receptionist, is on the phone warning a client they can squeeze her in but the shampooers are already backed up. “Be ready to wait is what I’m telling you.”

  Madeleine hands Darla the piece of paper. Darla reads it as, in her ear, the client has her say. Darla says she gets it, it’s hard all around, then hangs up. “Christ, Madeleine, lice?”

  At the back of the salon, Vince Sherry, owner of Beauty Land, instructs his client to cover her eyes. He sprays her head in patient, liberal strokes. When the mist settles, he unwraps a stick of bubble gum and admires his work. “You’re done, gorgeous. You look like three million dollars.” Then he yells toward the front, “Who has lice?”

  “I got expelled,” Madeleine tells Darla.

  “For having lice?” she says.

  “For punching a boy.”

  “Madeleine punched a boy because she had lice!” Darla yells.

  “The lice is unrelated,” Madeleine says. “It’s not my lucky day.”

  “No kidding.” Vince appears at the desk. “You got lice and expelled. I wouldn’t buy a lottery ticket.”

  Darla holds out a plastic bag. “Your scarf and hat. In here. We’ll wash them.”

  Vince leads Madeleine to the bank of sinks and lifts her into the last chair. “Lice means you have good hair.” He selects the particular shampoo from a top shelf and gestures to the older women who surround them; helmeted, curlered, flipping through brightly colored magazines. “These women would kill to have enough hair for lice.”

  When he is finished washing her hair, Vince escorts Madeleine to his station. He pumps the chair several times so she can see herself in the mirror. “We’ll cut it, too,” he says. “You’re due.”

  Darla hovers nearby. “You’ll never believe what they found in some reject’s apartment in University City.” The phone at the front desk rings. She leaves to answer it with an aggravated sigh.

  Vince snips around Madeleine’s ears. He was her mother’s best friend and had promised to cut Madeleine’s hair until she turned eighteen. Thin and mustached, he is the type to dart in place, several irons and dryers firing at once. Before the city’s laws changed, he cut hair with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, cottony ash inches from Madeleine’s cheek. Now, he chews gum while participating in an argument he’s been having with Darla for as long as Madeleine can remember. The smell of him, conditioning crèmes and piney talc, has such a leveling effect on her that when she encounters these scents in other places she grows immediately calm.

  Darla is back. She speaks so everyone in the salon can hear her. “A fucking alligator and a tiger.”

  “You didn’t hear that,” Vince says to Madeleine. Then, to Darla: “An alligator and a tiger what?” And Darla says, “Is what they found in this reject’s apartment in University City.”

  The woman in the chair next to Madeleine flips a page in her magazine. “It’s like the punch line to a joke,” she says. “An alligator and a tiger.”

  “What kind of asshole,” Darla asks, “keeps an alligator and a tiger in his apartment?” The ringing of the phone summons her to the front.

  “You didn’t hear that either.” Vince clips and frowns. “What’s up with the expulsion?”

  “Denny Pennypack laughed at me and I punched him.”

  “You got expelled for that?” Vince peels another piece of gum from its pack. “Vicky Randles was so jealous of your mother she couldn’t walk straight.”

  Madeleine never tires of this story. How Principal Randles and her mother went to school together. How everyone wanted to date her father. How her mother could dance better than all the neighborhood girls. How Vince and her father and mother built soapbox cars and raced them in Vet stadium’s wide, flat parking lot. Before they were her father and mother. When they were just kids in snow hats.

  “Mrs. Santiago stopped in to invite us to your birthday party,” Vince says. “How old are you turning?”

  “The God’s honest truth is I would prefer not to be bothered. Mrs. Santiago is so overbearing.”

  Vince straightens up, suddenly livid. “Darla! Where are my tiny shears?”

  “On your table, you drunk SOB! Try opening your eyes.”

  Vince digs through his drawers and Madeleine reads a magazine. On a beach on the other side of the world, people who are famous for who they are related to eat shellfish.

  The woman in the chair next to her clucks her tongue. Her black hair is being highlighted the color of toast, the ends battened into squares of aluminum, making her look like a Martian. “You sound like an ungrateful little girl,” she says. “Mrs. Santiago is a good woman.”

  Darla returns, plucks a pair of shears from Vince’s tray, and holds them up. “What are these?”

  “Those weren’t there before!” Vince says.

  “Your ass.”

  Vince resumes cutting Madeleine’s hair and Madeleine tries not to stare at the woman whose insult has brought tears to her eyes.

  “Don’t mind Louisa,” Vince says. “She’s going through a transitional period. From bartender to question mark.”

  “Principal Randles said I was a problem child,” Madeleine says.

  “Just like your mom,” he says. “Walk the line, girl. Or it’s the strip club for you. And your mother would land right here”—Vince points to a tray of combs—“and beat the snot out of me.”

  “Fierce mother,” the Martian says.

  “My mother is dead,” Madeleine says. This has the desired effect of changing the woman’s smug expression to something resembling pity.

  “She’s Mark Altimari’s kid,” Vince says.

  “Sugar,” the woman says. “I’m sorry. I worked with your mother at The Courtland Avenue Club.”

  “Are you a snake lady?” Madeleine says.

  “I was a snake lady. I work at The Cat’s Pajamas now. Well, worked.”

  “What’s The Cat’s Pajamas?” Madeleine says.

  “A jazz club.”

  “Jazz club?” Madeleine sits up abruptly, sending the magazine to the ground. “Where is it?”

  “Jodi Columbo’s here!” Darla yells from the front.

  “I’m getting washed!” says Jodi. “Then I’m coming to see you, Vince.”

  “I wait with bated breath.” Vince starts the hair dryer. Madeleine can’t hear anything over its din. “Stop squirming or I’m going to burn your ears off.” When her hair is dry he
rotates the chair so she can see herself in the mirror. “Check out that pretty girl.”

  The ends of her hair brush her ears. The coarse bangs.

  “Here’s the deal.” Vince hands her a paper bag. “Take this shampoo home and use it until it’s gone. Every day. Don’t throw it out before you use it all, and don’t think you can skip it and trick me.” He dusts stray hair from her neck as they walk to the front. When they reach the desk, Darla says, “The tiger ate the alligator, is how they found him.”

  Vince says, “The guy with the alligator?”

  Darla swipes at her frosted bangs. “The asshole with the alligator. Only the tiger is still alive and the guy wants it back because he says the tiger and the alligator were his best friends.”

  “Takes all kinds,” says Vince.

  “I’ll say,” Darla says. Then, to Madeleine: “It’s paid for. Get out of here.”

  Madeleine replaces her boots. Vince zips her coat. “Straight home,” he says. “Don’t punch any boys on the way.” He grimaces toward the windows. “Is it getting dark already? It was light for like five minutes today.”

  Darla rolls her eyes. “Welcome to winter?”

  Madeleine leaves. The door slams in bells. Outside on the cracked pavement her breath billows around her. Above her, the painted pink sign bleats against the sky: BEAUTY LAND. She pulls on her mittens and considers her next step.

  In the endless array of mirrors, one thousand Darlas follow one thousand Vinces back to his station. She reads questions aloud from a magazine’s holiday survey. Jodi is already sitting in Vince’s chair, thin hair washed and held in a clip.

  “What would you most like to find under the tree?” Darla reads.

  “I’d like to find some goddamned time to think,” Jodi says.

  Vince says, “A TV that doesn’t go out every time a plane flies by.” He asks Louisa what she wants for Christmas. Louisa says, “I don’t want anything, I’m fine.”

  “You have the disease my mother had,” says Jodi. “Nice-itis.”

  “Is it contagious?” Vince says. “You should rub against Darla.”

  “You know what I want,” Darla says. “You know what I really, really want?”

  Vince says, “Tell us already.”

  Darla speaks with gravity. “I want to see Mark Recchi coming out to get the paper with a cup of coffee in his hand. In a shorty robe. That would make my Christmas. That would make my goddamn year.”

  Vince pauses in cutting Jodi’s hair so he can laugh. “I’d like to change my answer.”

  Jodi says, “How would you know where he lives, Darla?”

  “My cousin has a police scanner,” Darla says. “I know exactly where he lives.”

  A tin of cookies Louisa baked returns from making a revolution around the salon. Everyone is eating cookies.

  Darla nods, approving of the gingersnap in her hand. “I’m writing a novel,” she says. “So many people tell me my life would make a great book. I figure I’ll give it a shot.”

  “Like who tells you that?” Vince says.

  “Like everyone.”

  Jodi says, “You should put Louisa in your novel. Ex-dancer who bakes delicious cookies.”

  Darla considers it. “Louisa would be a good, what do they call it, background character. Not the main one. Main characters are more … I don’t want to say interesting, but more, dynamic? You can be the main character’s friend, Louisa.”

  Louisa concentrates on the magazine in her lap.

  “Maybe I’ll put you in my novel, Jodi.”

  “Give me hair like Louisa’s,” Jodi says, “and a husband who doesn’t speak English.”

  “I will if I can,” Darla says, “but the creative process is tricky. I’m at the mercy of the muse.”

  “I get that,” Jodi says.

  2:00 P.M.

  Cassidy, the new bartender, sweeps the floor. Cigarettes, dirt, stray earrings, a pick, glimmer in the dustpan. When she told Lorca during their brief interview that she was named after the song, Lorca asked what song, and she rolled her eyes and said, “ ‘Cassidy’? By the Grateful Dead?”

  “I don’t know new music,” Lorca said.

  “It’s like forty years old!”

  Cassidy lines up stuffed trash bags by the door. Her hair is brick-colored and she has a way of making every word sound like a curse. “You guys set a fire in here last night?”

  Lorca passes her a bucket of soapy water and a pile of dry towels. “You start there, I’ll start here.” He lowers himself onto his knees. The hammering in his shins begins in earnest, but if he supports himself on one fist, he can manage. He plunges the rag into the water and works it over the corner of floor. The heat feels good on his hands. He moves the rag over the unseen parts of the bar, gathering clots of dust and debris. The work satisfies him and he likes that he can see the result, the wood returning to near its original color. He and Cassidy back toward each other until they meet in the center of the room and he can no longer ignore his humming knees. “You got it from here?” He chucks the rag into the pail.

  Cassidy surveys the floor and nods, content. “Only way to clean a floor is on your hands and knees,” she says.

  In the back room, Gray Gus uses a magnifying glass to paint orderly stripes on the wings of his plane. Sonny reads on his cot in the walk-in freezer, slippered feet pulsing to the jazz coming from an old radio. The very day he and the guys returned from Chicago to help Lorca run the club, Sonny claimed the walk-in for his bedroom. He removed the bottom row of shelves to fit his cot and a night table that held a slim pair of reading glasses and whatever he was reading, these days Chekhov’s collected stories. Sonny is particular in his solos and in his sock drawer. His pants make prim stacks on the shelves; his shirts line the meat racks on hangers. A Dopp kit of soaps for when he half-showers in the kitchen’s industrial sink.

  When Lorca enters, Gus looks up, eyes still narrowed in focus. “Can we talk?”

  Lorca detects a note of gravity unusual for the easygoing drummer.

  “He guessed,” Sonny says.

  Gus replaces the cap to the bottle of paint and wheels his chair up to Lorca’s desk. “I can help,” he says. “I have money.”

  “You have thirty thousand dollars?” Lorca says.

  “Jesus.” Gus pushes himself away from the desk. “I don’t have that much.”

  Sonny marks the page in his book. “I told you it was a ridiculous amount.”

  “I thought you meant, like, a couple hundred.” Gus brushes excess filings from the plane’s body, the remnants from sanding a wing or a door.

  “A couple hundred could not be classified as ‘ridiculous.’ ”

  “Depends on who you ask,” Gus says.

  Lorca leaves them to debate. He hoists two trash bags from the line and carries them outside. By the Dumpster, a dog the size of a standard amp wrestles a milk carton.

  “Dog,” he says. “Come here.”

  The dog abandons the battle and runs over. It throws itself onto the ground to announce its belly. “I know you.” Lorca fishes around its neck to find the tag.

  Ciao! I’m Pedro.

  I have a case of wanderlust.

  If found, please call …

  Cassidy stands behind him holding two more bags. “What’s that?” she says. “A dog?”

  3:00 P.M.

  Already evening is blotting out the city. Shadows web in the alleys on Ninth Street. The illuminated crew houses of Boathouse Row reflect in the unimpressed Schuylkill. The factory near Palmer belches filth toward New Jersey. Clouds flinch across the mackerel sky, bottoms silvered by the retreating sun.

  Vince and Darla smoke in front of Beauty Land while inside, Jodi throws the switch. The sign ignites in pink and gold bulbs. “Should we sing?” Darla says.

  Lorca walks Pedro down South Street, a lightweight rope improvised for a leash, grateful for the errand. There is a phone call he needs to make in private. Even on citation-less days, Sonny has a preternatural interest
in Lorca’s schedule, but the cop’s visit has triggered the full breadth of his anxiety. Where are you going? When will you be back? Sonny asked three times before Lorca left.

  Pedro jockeys sideways, hoping to trick the leash off. He tries contrary directions. He darts through parted legs, leaving Lorca to apologize around the last-minute shoppers. At a Don’t Walk light, the dog whines, pleads.

  “You’re not the only one trying to escape.” Lorca points to a cedar-colored Rottweiler across the street, also trying to rid itself of a leash while its owner is distracted on a phone call. The collar slips off after another thrust and the dog freezes, stunned by success. Then, as if realizing the temporary nature of its fortune, the dog unlocks and gallops down South Street. Muscles beaming, it cuts such a figure that Lorca forgets what he’s watching is dangerous. A little girl points mutely. “That dog is running,” she reports to her mother. The Rottweiler’s agenda is a pit bull puppy waiting at a corner with its owner. Before Lorca can cross, because by now he, Pedro, and the rest of the street have realized the impending danger, the Rottweiler clamps onto the puppy’s neck and lifts it over the holiday scene.

  The pit bull’s owner blinks at the two-canine altercation, unable to speak. The Rottweiler thrashes the puppy with elation. Its owner arrives, bringing new information, that the dog is a she, and her name is—“Grace!” she says. “Drop it.” A police officer is urged through the crowd by worried shoppers. He raises his gun, which has the desired effect of widening his working circle.

  Lorca becomes light-headed. He can’t get clear which dogs are fighting and which are trying to take his club. The dogs in the fight. The dog by his side. The cop with a gun. The cop at the door. These dogs will be okay, he thinks, because they are not real. He is some way making this happen. Isn’t he? These aren’t real onlookers. That isn’t real blood. They will find the money. He won’t lose his club. Louisa will get over whatever mortal sin he committed and call him back. Suddenly, he feels hopeful, helpful.