Sonny leans against the bar, arms crossed. “The good news,” he says, “is that Christmas has come to The Cat’s Pajamas. It’s like a holiday card in here. Cassidy hung them. The mouth on that one. I sent her to get dinner before we open.”
“The bad news?”
“We’ve lost track of Max. He was here, now he’s not. He’s not at his place and he’s not answering his phone.”
“Do you understand that he is the bandleader of the Cubanistas?”
“Do I? I do.”
“Does he understand that we can’t have the Cubanistas play when the lead Cubanista is not here?”
“Like I said, he won’t answer his phone but when he does, I will certainly ask him. Did you call your uncle?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“No. But I thought of another option.”
“I’m all ears.”
“We could sell the Snakehead.”
Sonny’s hand instinctively moves to protect the guitar hanging over the bar. “Not an option.”
“If we want to keep the bar, we have to make sacrifices.”
“Your father would roll in his grave,” Sonny says.
Lorca pulls on the beer and stares at the guitar. The S-holes, dashing mustaches. The neck and body the color of syrup.
“Who would even buy it, Lorc? Who has that kind of money, or loves guitars that much?”
Lorca doesn’t answer.
“There is one more update,” Sonny says. “And I don’t know if this is good news or bad news. I say it’s good news, with bad aspects. Louisa’s in the back.”
“Why would that be bad news?” Lorca halts in the doorway. “You didn’t tell her.”
“She guessed!”
In the back room, Louisa sorts through a box of paperwork. She is always more petite than he remembers. For a moment, he lets himself believe he is still her boyfriend and they are having one of their Sunday night disagreements.
“Is he ever going to clean that up?” she says, gesturing to Gus’s half-constructed plane.
“He’s making progress,” Lorca says.
“What’s this?” She holds up the citation, the color of prison jumpsuits.
“Something I’m taking care of.”
“I’m not here to lecture you. I’m here to get my check and leave.”
“It’s good to see you, Louisa. I’ve left a few messages for you. You get any of them?”
“Is my hair different from the last time you saw me?”
Lorca’s throat goes dry.
“I cut it,” she says. “And dyed it.”
“I’m not perceptive, Lou. We know this.”
“I’m a minor character in my own life.” Her eyes fill. Lorca thinks he will go to her, put his arm around her, but he doesn’t move. She waits for his reaction and gets none. Her gaze sharpens. “Alex told me you won’t let him play.”
“I’ll lose my club if he plays.”
“He’s going down a bad road,” she says. “You’re choosing not to see it.”
The desk phone rings.
Louisa selects her paycheck from the stack and slams the folder shut. “Good-bye!” She disappears into the hallway. “Best of luck!”
“Lou. Wait.” He picks up the phone. “Hello.”
Someone on the other end clears his throat. “Lorca, it’s Mongoose.”
“Hang on.” Lorca covers the receiver. “Louisa!” He hears her wish Sonny a merry Christmas. “Come on!” The heavy thud of the front door closing. He leaves the phone on the desk. The hallway is dark and long and empty. “Louisa?” His voice echoes against the walls as if he is asking himself her name.
6:00 P.M
Madeleine unlayers by the door to her apartment. The day’s dressing and undressing has exhausted her. She unleashes Pedro, who conducts a cursory study of every bookshelf base and table leg.
In the bathroom the toilet wails: Clare! Claaaarrrrrre!
Madeleine has learned to pre-announce her arrival in rooms to give the roaches time to scatter. “I am in the family room!” she cries. “I am walking from the family room to the bathroom!”
She switches on the bathroom light and closes her eyes for three beats. She lifts the back lid off the toilet, uses the watering can to fill the basin, then replaces the lid. The toilet quiets.
“I am walking from the bathroom to the kitchen!”
In the kitchen, she fills a bowl of water for Pedro and turns the kettle on.
The voice of Nina Simone drifts in from her father’s bedroom, remorseless as cigarette smoke. It grows louder. Madeleine’s father will adjust the volume ten to fifteen times during a song, sitting in arm’s distance of the player, surrounded by his library of vinyl and books. There are three record players in the apartment and no milk. One of her father’s jazz books would have an entry on The Cat’s Pajamas. Why hadn’t she thought of this? She could sneak in there, but she must be quiet, like cancer. Madeleine’s father insists on silence. Except for bringing his meals, she doesn’t disturb him.
She opens his door and breathes in: pecorino, Havarti. His mussed bed near the window. He dozes on one of two camel-colored chairs in the center of the room, clasping each arm as if in sleep he might take off. His chin rests on the collar of his satiny sweater. By his elbow, a tube of pills. It is possible he changed the record in a dream. Every day the line between his reality and sleep blurs more. Every day more roaches.
Madeleine sees the book she needs: History of Jazz, Volume Two. She tiptoes across the room and coaxes it from its place on the bookshelf. Nina Simone goes on singing, unaffected.
Black is the color of my true love’s hair.
The record skips.
Black is the color
Black is the color
Madeleine lunges toward the record to move the needle but miscalculates the distance. Nina Simone yelps. Her father stirs, issuing a blubbery command.
The color
The color
Madeleine fixes the needle too late. Her father’s eyes launch open.
Who is this girl, Mark Altimari wonders, flapping big eyes at him? He bats at the coffee table for his glasses and secures them over his ears with shaky hands. His daughter comes into focus.
“Madeleine.” His expression sweetens. “Where have you been?”
“In the other room.”
He invites her to sit in the other chair. The song changes to a faster one. Nina Simone says there’s a lot of trouble with a brown-eyed handsome man. “Have you heard this one before?”
Madeleine nods.
“Can you hear it? Should I raise the volume?”
“I can hear it.”
“You’d like this recording. It has your singers and your stand-up bass. Wonderful stand-up bass player … I don’t remember his name.”
Music fills the space between them. Mark wants to take the pill that keeps him awake, but not in front of his daughter. Instead, he flirts. “There’s a lot of trouble with a brown-eyed handsome man. In your travels have you found this to be true?”
This is Madeleine’s favorite game. His role is to ask silly questions and hers is to answer as if he is serious, neither one acknowledging the other conversation that goes on wordlessly around them, in which some other, better version of themselves say: Isn’t it nice to be father and daughter?
“Oh yes,” Madeleine says. “Once I lost both my arms in a wrestling match to meet a brown-eyed handsome man.”
“That is a lot of trouble!” He folds his hands, pleased. “Are you enjoying school?”
“Yes,” she fibs.
“Good. It’s in your blood, you know.”
“What’s in my blood, Dad?” Madeleine speaks carefully, not wishing to disturb the tenuous crochet between them. She does not swing her legs.