“Give me Burt, I’ll give you five dollars.”
Larry tossed Burt to her. She caught the tennis ball, clapped her hands around it, then opened her hands.
Burt was gone. In her hands was a five-dollar bill. She held it up as the crowd roared and she looked at Larry. “Got change for a five?”
Larry followed her look to the coffee cup and then broke up with amazement and poured out the contents:
Five silver dollars.
They made the trade. Larry came away five dollars richer, and the folks were having the time of their lives.
“Now, what about Burt?” Eloise looked around, dug in her pockets. “Burt? Burt?”
Mark, a college student sitting in plain sight of everyone, noticed his computer case jiggling. Eloise was quick to notice it too and pointed, directing everyone’s attention. “Burt!”
Mark reached down, unzipped the case, and out hopped Burt, bouncing back to Eloise, who caught him and held him up for her big finish. That was all, folks. As the whole house rose to their feet, applauding, she doffed her hat, swept it before her in a big bow, tossed Burt into her hat, and put it back on her head.
Megan and Myron passed around the tip cans, and the dollars and coins piled in. Eloise went around the tables greeting, shaking hands, thanking the folks for coming.
“Hi. What’s your name?”
“Sandra Connelly. This is my husband, Ted.”
“Wonderful to meet you! Hi. What’s your name?”
“Mike.”
“Julie.”
“Christopher.”
Eloise shook their hands. “Wonderful to meet you!”
“Fantastic show! Incredible!”
“Hi. What’s your name?”
The man handed her a business card that read “J. Arnold Harrington, Theatrical Management,” and bore a Las Vegas address, an e-mail address, and phone numbers. “I’m Arnie Harrington. Will you be performing here tomorrow night?”
A hint of thrill brightened her face. “I sure will.”
“Okay. I’m crunched for time right now, but maybe we can talk tomorrow. Could we do that?”
And here came that thrill again, right to the surface. She broke into a grin. “Okay! That’d be great!”
She had to move on, shaking hands, saying hello, glancing back as he smiled at her. Megan and Myron were still moving around the room accumulating tips, mostly in bills.
Arnie watched Eloise Kramer moving through the crowd and shook his head, whistling in wonder. “Dane has to see this.”
chapter
16
Corporal James Dose was serving well in Afghanistan and was a little disappointed to learn that his tour of duty overseas had been cut short for minor medical reasons. Before he knew it he was Stateside, finishing out his army hitch at Fort Lewis, Washington, not far from his family in Tacoma. Given all this, it was time to get the family together for dinner and announce his engagement to Jennifer Long, a gal he’d been courting since high school. They gathered at the Quay, their favorite steak house on the shore of Puget Sound, and James had the ring in his pocket.
The dinner would end abruptly. He would never get a chance to toast the occasion.
Dane took one look at the poster in McCaffee’s front window and stopped dead in his tracks.
Arnie was clearly disgruntled to have to look back. “What?”
Dane’s eyes moved across the girl’s face. The Gypsy had become a clownish hobo, but those eyes and that smile were unmistakable. “I’ve met this girl.”
Arnie looked in through the window and could see the place filling up. More folks were coming from up and down the street even now. “Can we talk about it inside?”
Eloise Kramer. How could it possibly be?
“Dane! We’ve got to get in there if we want a table.”
He turned from the poster and followed Arnie through the door into McCaffee’s, a quaint cubbyhole of clamor now filling with a hodgepodge of people, all ages, urban to organic, having thirty different conversations as they crowded the tables and lined up at the order counter. Posters of Scarlett and Rhett, Bergman and Bogey, Cagney, DiCaprio, Buddy Holly, and Elvis decorated the sand- and rust-painted walls; ceiling fans spun lazily over their heads; drink, dessert, and sandwich menus shouted in loud, colored chalk from a blackboard behind the counter; coffee machines ground, tamped, spewed brew, and spit steam; servers were scurrying, and everywhere, in every direction, were cups of coffee, cups of coffee, cups of coffee.
Arnie found a table near the front window and tossed his hat on the table to stake a claim on it. Dane removed his coat and draped it over his chair, then stood a moment to size up the room. The open floor where the magician would be doing her act was several tables distant. He and Arnie would be watching over and through bodies and heads. And the noise in this place! If Eloise Kramer could sell her stuff in here, her whole approach to performance had to have changed drastically.
Arnie draped his coat over his chair and sat. He patted the table. “C’mon, sit down, sit down.”
Dane sat in his chair, elbows on the table, hands clasped under his nose, still looking around the place.
Arnie leaned in, trying to be heard above the ruckus. “You wanted a fresh start, right? That’s what you told me. You’re thinking about producing, promoting new talent, maybe putting a show together yourself.”
“And so?”
“So that’s what we’re doing tonight. You’re out of that house for a change. You’re circulating, you’re living, you’re scoping out new possibilities. Are you listening?”
“Arnie, she’s a street magician. She was busking out on the sidewalk illegally, freezing her buns off and fumbling… . I had to show her the right way to do a Bentley count.”
He looked at Dane crookedly. “Are you sure you have the right girl?”
There were things Dane could say: “Well, if I do, things have really changed.”
And there were thoughts he wouldn’t share with anybody: She’s just a young girl minding her own business, it’s not her fault, I don’t even know her, I’ve been off my medication for more than a month now so hopefully she won’t bother me, and I have to remember—remember!—that I’m an emotional train wreck.
Eloise Kramer? Where’d she get that name?
Arnie was talking. Dane caught the tail end: “… I like what I saw and I’m not saying she’s the best thing since sliced bread. I’m just saying you might find her interesting. She might spark some ideas, that’s all.”
Dane found himself nodding in agreement and made it a point to relax. Why not enjoy the evening, have some fun? He scanned the big chalkboard. “So let’s get some coffee.”
Seven o’clock. The lights blinked and the restaurant clamor quieted to murmured phrases, the distinguishable tinkling of spoons, the occasional creak of a wooden chair. Dane and Arnie craned like everyone else, watching that center floor, scanning around the room, wondering where the magician would make her entrance. In the lull, the girl named Megan made one final dash across the floor to bring someone their order just as the guy named Myron, having served a table, was heading back. They passed each other in the center of the floor, Megan obscuring Myron from view on one side, Myron obscuring Megan from view on the other, for an instant. When they continued on, reopening a gap between them, music started, jazzy and rhythmic, and …
There was the Hobett, spinning into place, then moving to the music, worn old hat on her head, hands in the pockets of her oversize, trampish coat, and a teasing, mischievous look on her face. She danced lithely into a bow to half of the house, then the other half, sweeping her hat in front of her.
It was a great opening, something Dane wasn’t expecting. He shot a quick glance at Arnie, who raised an eyebrow back at him.
The magician produced a bright yellow tennis ball from her empty hand, got it bouncing, and jazz-danced with it in a dazzling display of technical polish and energy, legs, arms, and coattails flying as the ball, seemingly with a mind and energy of its own, bounced, veered, rolled, and rebounded along with her. Every eye in the place was glued on her, incredulous.