A bright shaft of light swept down in a gleaming slant.
“I’ve never seen the curtains open,” he said, turning to her. “Lucille was, I don’t know, she didn’t like too much light. Actually, she didn’t like any at all.” He looked at the flowers. “Lucille didn’t like flowers either.”
“Why was she so unhappy?” Sara asked.
“I don’t know,” Abe answered. He faced the window. “Nice street. So, what do you think of the place?”
“I like it,” she said.
He moved to the piano and put down the music he’d brought. “I was hoping you’d sing again.” Before she could answer, he placed the music on the music stand. “I put them in the order I think they should be sung,” he told her. “I mean, if it were an act.”
She started to say no, to repeat once again that it was impossible, but he sat down and placed his hands on the keyboard. “Ready when you are.”
“I can’t,” she said.
He looked at her sternly. “You have to,” he said. “You have to, Samantha, or you’ll”— his eyes appeared almost to melt in the intensity of what he said—“or you’ll give up on everything.”
Tentatively, she stepped over to the piano, looked at the music, and began, singing softly at first, her eyes meeting his briefly, then leaping away.
She finished four songs before he said “Okay, that’s enough for now” and lowered the top back over the keys. “What you need is an audience,” he told her. “Feedback.” Before she could respond, he plunged ahead. “I don’t mean a full act. Just a few songs for a few people. The late-night crowd.” He smiled. “How about tonight?”
She felt her stomach draw into a knot.
“What’s the matter, Samantha?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I have to stay . . .”
“What?”
She shook her head.
“Hidden,” Abe said. “Isn’t that what you told me when I offered you a job? That you couldn’t take it because you had to stay hidden?”
She nodded.
“Who are you hiding from?”
She turned away, but he took her shoulders lightly and drew her back to him. “Some guy after you? Boyfriend?”
She shook her head.
“Husband?”
“No.”
She tried to turn away again, but he held her more firmly. “You in trouble with the cops, something like that?”
A short, aching laugh broke from her. “No,” she said. “Not the cops.”
“Who, then?”
A small wall seemed to give way inside her. “My father-in-law,” she answered quietly. “He’s a bad man.”
“Who is he?”
She shook her head adamantly, and he knew absolutely that she would not reveal the name.
“Okay,” he said, “but bad man or not, you can’t hide forever. And besides, you have to make a living, right?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “So here’s what you do. You come in around midnight. There’ll be just a few people in the place. You’ll sing a few songs. Just for the regulars. No advertising. Nothing to draw attention to you.” He didn’t ask her to accept or refuse the idea, but simply rose, walked to the door, then stopped and looked back at her. “It’s what you want more than anything, isn’t it?” he asked. “One more stab at singing . . . or maybe just . . . happiness?”
She settled her gaze upon him in a way she hoped did not make her appear broken, did not ask for pity, but just a chance to make it work. “Yes,” she said.
ABE
Where had that word come from?
On the walk back to the bar, he realized that he’d not thought of happiness in years, that happiness was like childhood, a place he could not return to or recapture in the present. A dark wonder settled over him as he recognized that he couldn’t actually remember the last time he was happy, though he suspected it had been the years during which he’d tried to make it, have his own group, cut records, tour, be
For a moment he considered his talents. They were few and modest. The greatest one, he decided, was just the talent for going on.
SARA
She wasn’t sure why, but suddenly all the reasons she should keep her head down only made her want to lift it more. She knew that to show up at McPherson’s, even if only for a few songs before the usual crowd, was dangerous. You never knew who might wander in. Certainly Labriola himself never frequented such places. It would be far more likely for Tony to show up, probably alone, taking the off chance that she might have returned to her old life. It wasn’t likely, of course, and yet it was something she had to consider.
So why had she not simply refused to do it? It would have been easy to do, and as she stood by the window, staring down at the street, she imagined having done just that. Abe would not have pressed the issue. He would have taken her refusal at face value and left the apartment with no further word.