When she brought back the Dewar’s-rocks, he was reading the racing news, but as she approached, he set the page aside and smiled up at her. “Thanks,” he said, and then after a beat: “You know who I am?”
It struck her as kind of sad the way he asked it. Hesitant, like he had heard no too many times lately, as if each denial of his fame cut the lines deeper into his face. She felt sorry for him. Wished it were twenty years ago. But it wasn’t. “Yeah,” said Maggie, smoothing out the napkin as she set down his drink. “Yeah, I remember. You’re Devlin Robey. I seen you sing once.”
The lines smoothed out and his eyes widened: you could just see the teen idol somewhere in there. “No kiddin’!” he said, with a laugh that sounded like sheer relief. “Well, here…” That ought to be good for a twenty, Maggie was thinking, but as she watched, Devlin Robey pulled the cocktail napkin out from under his drink and signed his name with a flourish.
“Thanks,” said Maggie, slipping the napkin into her pocket with the tips. Maybe the twenty would come later. At least it would be something to tell Kathy Ryan if she ever saw her again. She started to move away to another table, but he touched her arm. “Don’t leave yet. So, you heard me sing, huh? At Paradise Alley?”
She told him where the concert had been, and for a moment she thought of mentioning her letter to him, but the two suits at table nine were waving like their tongues might shrivel up, so she eased out of his grasp. “I’ll check on you in a few,” she promised, summoning her smile for the thirsting suits.
For the rest of her shift, Maggie alternated between real customers and the wistful face of Devlin Robey, who ordered drinks just for the small talk that came with them. “Which one of my songs did you like best?”
“ ‘I’m Afraid to Go Home,’ ” said Maggie instantly. When he looked puzzled, she reminded him, “It was the B side to ‘Tiger Lily.’ ”
“Yeah! Yeah! I almost got an award for that one.” His eyes crinkled with pleasure.
Another round he wanted to know if she’d seen him in the beach movie he made for Buena Vista. She remembered the movie and didn’t say that she couldn’t place him in it. It had been a bit part, leading nowhere. After that he went back to singing, mostly in Vegas. Now in Atlantic City. “They love me in the casinos,” he told her. “The folks from the ’burbs go wild over me-makes ’em remember the good times, they tell me.”
Maggie tried to remember some good times, but all she found was stills of her and Kathy Ryan listening to records and talking about the future. She was going to be a fashion model and live in Paris. Kathy would be a vet in an African wildlife preserve. They would spend holidays together in the Bahamas. “You want some peanuts to go with that drink?” Maggie asked.
At two o’clock the Red Lion was closing, but Devlin Robey had not budged. He kept nursing a Dewar’s that was more water than scotch, hunched down like a stray dog who didn’t want to be thrown out in the street. Maggie wondered what was wrong with the guy. He was rich and famous, right?
“Are you about finished with that drink? Boss says it’s quittin’ time.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m a night owl, I guess. All those years of doing casino shows at eleven. Seems like the shank of the evening to me.” He glanced at his watch, and then at her: the red velvet tunic, the black fishnet stockings, the cleavage. “You’re getting off work now?”
The smile never wavered, but inside she groaned. Tonight had seemed about two days long, and all that kept her going was the thought of a hot bubble bath to soak her feet and the softness of clean sheets to sink into before she passed out from sheer weariness. So now-ten years too late to be an answer to prayer-Devlin Robey wants to take her out. Where was he when it would have mattered?
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Thanks anyway, but not tonight.” Maybe ten years ago, but not tonight.
The one answer she wouldn’t have made back when she was Devlin Robey’s vestal virgin turned out to be the only one that worked the charm. Suddenly his halfhearted invitation became urgent. “I’ll be straight with you,” he said, with eyes like stained glass. “I’m feeling kind of down tonight, and I thought it might help to spend some time with an old friend.”
Is that what we were? Maggie thought. I was twenty-five rows back at the concert; I was on the other side of the speakers when WABC’s Cousin Brucie played your records, and while you were airbrushed and glossy, I was wearing Clearasil and holding the fan magazine. We were friends? She didn’t say it, though. If Maggie had learned anything in seven years as a cocktail waitress, it was not to reply to outrageous statements. She shrugged. “I’m sorry,” she said, thinking that would be the end of it. Wondering if she’d even bother to tell anybody about it. It wouldn’t be any fun to talk about if you had to explain to the other waitresses, bunch of kids, who Devlin Robey was.
“At least give me your phone number-uh-Maggie.” Her name was signed with a flourish on his check: Thank you! Maggie. “I get to the city every so often. Maybe I could call you, give you more notice. We could set something up. You’re all right. You ever think about the business?”
No. Show business offered the same hours as nightclub waitressing, and besides she couldn’t sing or dance. But Lana Turner had been discovered in a drug store, so maybe… After all, who was Maggie Holtz to slap the hand of fate? She tore off the business expense tab from the Red Lion check and scribbled her name and phone number across it. “Sure. Why not,” she said. “Call me sometime.”
She patted the autographed cocktail napkin folded in the pocket with her tips, wondering if Richie would like to have it for his scrapbook. Or maybe she should put it in his baby book: the guy I was pretending to make it with the night you were conceived. Two scraps of paper; one for each of them to toss. She figured that would be the end of it.
It wasn’t, though. Four nights later-four A.M.-the Advil had finally kicked in, allowing her to plunge into sleep, when the phone screamed, dragging her back. She’d forgotten to turn on the damned answering machine. She grabbed for the receiver, only to reinstate the silence, but his voice came through to her, a little swacked, crooning “I’m Afraid to Go Home,” and she knew it was him.
“Devlin Robey,” she said, wondering why wishes got granted only when you no longer wanted them.
“Maggie doll.” He slurred her name. “I just wanted a friendly voice. I got the blues so bad.”
“Hangover?”
“No. That’ll be after I wake up-if I ever get to sleep, that is. Thought I might get sleepy talking about old times, you know?”
“Old times.”
“I lost big tonight at the tables. I played seventeen in roulette a dozen times and it wouldn’t come up for me. Seventeen-my number!”
She caught herself nodding forward, and forced the number seventeen to roll around in her memories. Oh, yeah. “ ‘Seventeen, My Heaven Teen,’ ” she murmured. “That was your big hit, wasn’t it?”
“I got a Cashbox Award for that one. S’in the den at my place in Vegas. Maybe I’ll show it to you sometime.”
“Wouldn’t your wife object?”
She heard him sigh. “Jeez. Trina. What a cow. She was a showgirl when I married her. Ninety-five pounds of blonde. Now she acts like giving me a blow job is a major act of charity, and she’s in the tanning salon so much she looks like a leather Barbie doll. Not that I’m home much. I’m on the road a lot.”