Max yells, rolls. The song builds to one repeating line that Alex solos over.
“I’m burning,” Max sings. “I’m burning, I’m burning.”
Alex’s notes go under and over and under and over.
“Look everyone,” the Cubanistas sing, “he’s burning.”
It’s up to Alex to gather the whole mess like a family: Max’s baying, Gus’s percussion, Emo’s snivelly, choppy horn. But he’s having too much fun.
“I’m burning,” Max yells.
“He’s burning,” the Cubanistas sing.
Alex lands the final chord and releases the room. The club goes blank with noise. The crowd can’t get to their feet fast enough. They yell through megaphones they construct from their hands. Max applauds himself, the band, and Alex.
“Not too shabby,” he says into the microphone, forgetting his accent.
Alex kneads sweat into the denim of his thigh. He blinks toward where his father is, though he cannot see him through the gluten of bodies.
Sonny whistles and stomps. “Good job, Dad,” he says to Lorca.
A young girl looks up. “Are you his dad?”
“He sure is, darling.” Sonny beams.
“Does he have …” Her friends close ranks around her. One of them finishes her question. “… a girlfriend?”
Three pairs of eyes lined in charcoal wait for Lorca to answer. The muscles in his back tense with pride. “Single as a bluebird,” he says.
Onstage, Alex is being tousled and hugged by the Cubanistas. Max makes a show of fending off the audience. Alex is congratulated to the bar, where the trio of girls bluff errands in their purses, fuzz on their stockings.
“Drink?” Cassidy says.
“Whiskey, please.” He turns to his father. His eyes are slick. “How’d I do, Pop?”
Lorca doesn’t answer.
“Pop?”
“You were great, kid.” Sonny pounds his shoulders. But Alex wants to hear it from his father.
“You showboated behind Emo’s solo,” Lorca says. “You should have been supporting him, letting him take the chances.”
Sonny winces. “Come on, Lorc.”
“May we please have the little guitarist back onstage?” Max hums into the microphone. “Leetle guitarist?”
Alex gets his whiskey and goes back onstage, no longer smiling.
Three pairs of charcoal eyes scrutinize Lorca. “Damn,” says the first girl. “I wouldn’t want to be your son.”
12:42 A.M
It gets TOAD away!” Sarina exclaims, before he can answer. Ben’s mouth contorts, trying not to laugh.
12:41 A.M
Sarina’s face is serious. “For example,” she says. “What happens when a frog’s car breaks down?”
Ben taps his foot against the bleacher, thinking.
“Give up?” she says.
He throws out his hands in phony exasperation. “Give a man some time to think.”
12:40 A.M
“Can you do better?” Ben says.
“In my sleep, fella. I’ve got jokes for days.”
12:39 A.M
Ben and Sarina sit on bleachers at the baseball field on Chestnut. A mural of autumn trees stretches over the entire wall of a row home across the street. Their clothes are almost dry. “This public art is getting out of hand,” Sarina says.
“Did you hear the one about the two leaves?” Ben says. “Sitting on a branch together? One leaf turns to the other and says, ‘It’s really windy.’ And the other leaf says, ‘Help, a talking leaf!’ ”
Sarina rolls her eyes. “Major groan.”
12:43 A.M
A breeze bickers around the bleachers. Sarina hugs her coat tighter. “What time do you think it is?”
“It could be eleven or three and I’d believe it.” Ben consults his watch. “Twelve forty-three.”
She asks if he wants to talk about it. He doesn’t answer. A cab slows in front of them. Its driver calls, “You two want a ride?”
Ben waves. “We’re fine, thanks.”
The cabdriver regards them with longing. “Olde City? Northern Liberties? Ten dollars.”
“Christian Street,” Ben says.
“Five dollars.”
Sarina’s feet ache, but a cab ride will end their night sooner than she wants. “It’s late,” she says, hoping he’ll protest. “Maybe I should go home.”
“Can you do two stops?” Ben asks the cabbie.
“I can do anything.”
“Deal.” Ben says. He climbs in and Sarina, disappointed, follows. The cab is lit by strands of jalapeño and twinkle lights.
“So glad,” the cabbie says. “I was about to fall asleep. You two just married?”
“Why would you guess that?” Sarina is pleased.
The cabbie’s face glows red then green. “Friendly talk.”
“Not married,” Ben says.
He answered fast, she thinks. It wouldn’t be hell, being married to her. She knows some things about some things.
“I get it,” the cabbie says. “Won’t commit. Wants to go to the club with her girlfriends. Doesn’t want to be wired to some guy day and night.”
“You got that right, bud,” Sarina says. “Life is short.”
“Call me Martin.”
“Life is short, Martin.”
Ben shakes his head. “Infuriating. Going to the club day and night with her girlfriends.”
“Snorting blow,” the cabbie offers, watching them in the rearview mirror.
“Mountains of it,” Sarina says.
“Guys’ phone numbers falling out of her pockets like rain,” Ben says.
“Like a hurricane,” the cabbie says. “Like that one we had last year. You guys around for that?”
“My car flooded,” Ben says.
They drive in silence. Sarina watches the boarded-up market flash by.
After a while, Ben speaks. “She won’t let me tell anyone. She’s worried what everyone will think. Who’s everyone, I keep saying.”
“The Joneses,” Sarina says.
“Exactly. Everyone is everyone. She said if we divorce, I won’t get any of her money.”
“Well, you didn’t marry her for money.”
“I did not.”
A bus glides toward the jazz clubs on Girard. “Why did you marry her?”
“I married her,” Ben says, “because I thought she was a nice person. That we would have a nice life.” The cab clatters over a pothole. “Turns out, she’s not that nice.”
Martin drums on the steering wheel. “You want to see me do the expressway with no hands?”
“I’m a big fan of driving with hands,” Ben says.
“You’re no fun. I can see why she won’t marry you.”
“I’m a lawyer,” Ben says, by way of explanation.
“Don’t curse at me, buddy.”
“He’s a writer,” Sarina says.
“Cockle-doodle-doo,” says Martin. “A writer.”
“That’s right,” Sarina says. “Cluck cluck. Now, turn on this street, count to three, then stop ’cause we’re there.”
Martin brakes at the archway leading to Sarina’s horseshoe-shaped building. The whiskey has made her optimistic. She smells baking cookies. It is Christmas Eve Eve and she doesn’t have to work tomorrow. No matter what happens she has already had a good night. She points to her courtyard, where a waterless fountain loiters, producing nothing. “Do you see what I see?”
“Oho,” Ben says.
“Race you?”
“Lady, you have no idea what you’re in—”
She takes off. He chases her into the courtyard. She is winning then he is winning then she is winning. He grabs for the strap of her bag. She lunges for his scarf. It is an urgent, silly display. He leaps the wall and is inside the fountain. One of her heels has come off in the race. She hops on one foot while throwing the other heel off.