“What’s this?” Marcos points to the book.
“A dragon,” Sarina says. “… Who joins the circus.” She holds up a picture of Sunshine selling cotton candy. “See?”
Ben, grateful for the chance to flaunt his knowledge, says, “He also has a friend who is a talking peanut named Sky.”
“This is new information!” she says.
“I read it while you were in the bathroom.”
Marcos looks from Sarina to Ben. Sarina to Ben. What is this excitement for children’s ephemera, this allusion to shared time?
Sarina and Marcos had married after a brief, aggressive courtship. He was brawny, cocksure. She was elegant, kooky. He liked the shape they made at parties. As Sarina spent more and more hours in her studio, the brevity of the courting time occurred and reoccurred to Marcos. They were incompatible but he liked her, then and now, very much. Even during the divorce proceedings, she was kind. What is she doing here with this failed lawyer? Marcos recalls Ben’s pale wife, who had a propensity for poly blends. This is a dangerous situation for Sarina, but Marcos’s concern for his ex has a time limit. A nubile redhead waits for him at the other end of the city.
“The Cat’s Pajamas,” he says. “… Is the name of the club … and I must go.” He registers Sarina’s relief. “… Miles to go before I sleep.”
“Whitman,” Ben says.
Marcos throws a few dollars on the bar. “Frost.”
Ben frowns. “I think it’s Whitman.”
“Well, it’s Frost.”
“Don’t mess with him on American poetry,” Sarina says. Marcos beams at her and for a moment, they are still married. Then a redheaded moment takes its place.
“Walk me out,” Marcos tells her, shaking hands with Ben. He knows she won’t want to, but she will. These are the residual obligations of having been married to someone.
Marcos curses when they reach the street. “I hate this weather.” He whistles for a cab. “Let’s go to Mexico.”
“Can you have me back by Christmas?” Sarina says.
“Skip it,” he says. “What are you planning to do for it anyway?”
“My sister’s. Her kids. Baked ziti, I guess. Dry chicken.”
“The sister.” Marcos’s tone is playful. “She single yet?”
A cab brakes in front of them. “Good-bye, Marcos,” she says.
“What are you doing in there?” He jerks his chin to the bar.
“Having a drink with a friend.”
“Is that what you call it?” Marcos gets into the cab and closes the door. The window descends. “Be careful, girl.”
Sarina watches the cab leave. She spent most of their two-year marriage in a bathing suit. He could spend an hour kissing her knees. He was his own kind of gentleman. When they were married he would never have been on a two-hour walk with someone else when she was at home sick.
Marcos’s knife-through-butter certainty has lifted the evening’s scrim. She can no longer act like this is a meaningless walk. She will say good-bye to Ben. It will not be a sorry thing.
As she walks toward him at the bar, Sarina memorizes him. Lanky legs hiked up on the stool as if ready to spring.
His rueful smile stops her. “Annie and I have separated.”
Greg Michaelman is getting married in the morning! He and his friends have been staked at a booth in the cigar bar for hours drinking scotch! Greg has already fielded three phone calls from his fiancée, who is upset for reasons he cannot understand! One of his boys decides they need a picture immediately and produces a camera! But who will take it!
Ask her, someone says, and points to the only girl in the bar, a short-haired stick figure sitting with some jag. They are in conversation but there is no conversation more important than taking a picture of Greg Michaelman and his boys!
“Take my picture!” Greg Michaelman yells. “I’m getting married tomorrow.”
The girl does not hear, so Greg yells again. She turns, pale with anger. Greg feels the scotch tingle darkly in his throat.
“What is it?” she says.
One of his buddies holds up a camera. “He’s getting married tomorrow. Take our picture!”
She accepts the camera. Up close, she is cuter than Greg Michaelman thought.
“You.” She points to Rodriguez. “Scootch in. Act like you like each other.”
Greg feels the bodies of his friends on either side of him. He has been through school and mud with these boys. There is no town better than his college town, so he never strayed. He has eaten breakfast at all of their kitchen counters. He has watched countless games on countless televisions. He has not always been kind. He didn’t show up for Ollie’s dad’s funeral and he ignored Rodriguez’s phone calls after he was laid off. He hasn’t exactly comforted Allison when she’s griped about her weight. He would like her to lose the handful of flesh that hangs over her underwear’s waistband. A flash. The girl takes the picture and Greg Michaelman is certain about one thing: he is going to make Allison Cady happy for the rest of her life.
Sarina hands the camera back to the one with the open shirt, ignores his requests for her number as she walks away. One of them grabs her waist with a rough grip. “Take another one,” he commands. “In case that one’s not good.”
“It’s fine,” she says. “I checked.”
“Don’t be a bitch,” the groom says.
Sarina takes the camera back. Obediently, they cozy next to each other on the leather couch. “Smile.” They oblige. “That’s all?” She frowns. “You don’t want to get closer? Get closer,” she barks. They titter. One of them grabs another’s breast, joking. “That’s it,” she says. “This guy has it.”
More tittering. The groom puts his arm around the guys flanking him.
“That’s nice,” Sarina says, “but why don’t you make out? You’re so close, you may as well. Tongue looks great in pictures. Take your shirts off.”
Their grins fade. They exchange glances.
Sarina keeps snapping pictures. “You cowards. Grab each other’s cocks and let’s go. Jerk each other off so this is worth my while. What I’m looking at is a bunch of worthless pussies and I wanna see cock.”
Ben stands behind her. “You all right?” he says.
The groomsmen jockey away from one another. “Aw, is that all you’ve got?” Sarina chucks the camera into the group. “Show’s over, I guess.” She says to Ben, “Shall we go?”
“Sure,” Ben stammers.
They confirm the buttons and zippers of their coats, replace their hats and gloves, and leave the bar. Cabs clog the street. A sharp honk. Sarina walks ahead.
“You want to talk about that?” Ben says, trailing her.
She blinks. “Talk about what?”
12:10 A.M
Madeleine wakes, palms and armpits damp. For a moment she does not remember the events of the day. When she does she rolls over to burrow deeper into the blankets. Her forehead flattens against the spine of a book.
History of Jazz, Volume Two.
Madeleine clutches it to her chest. Her father! She touches each picture on the cover. A phalanx of saxes. Louis Armstrong, cheeks blazing. Billie Holiday, in the ecstasy before singing. Madeleine flips each page with the care of a scientist. Toward the back she finds the write-up on The Cat’s Pajamas with two (two!) pictures. She forces herself to read the entry before allowing herself a look at the pictures.
The Cat’s Pajamas is a squat outcropping on Richmond Street in the city’s Fishtown neighborhood. It was founded by Giuseppe Lorca in 1963, who passed it down to his son, Francis Lorca, under whose ownership it became a magnet for world-class acts. At one time it was the #1 jazz venue on the East Coast, hosting the likes of John Coltrane, Hampton Hawes, Bud Powell, and Horace Silver, who called the club, “My second womb, the only place to build chops.” Francis Lorca ran The Cat’s Pajamas until suffering a stroke during a late-night hang, literally passing away behind the bar. He willed the club to his son, Jack. In recent days, as jazz’s popularity dwindles, The Cat’s Pajamas does not attract anywhere near the numbers of its heyday, though nearby jazz club Mongoose’s (see pages 156–159) continues to thrive.