All Your Pretty Dreams Read Free

he
never did. Ozzie found a high school kid who played until he got
Wendy on the horn. Stumpy took Jonny’s place on accordion when he
left for college. With Stumpy in the band there was no need to step
up. Until now.
    The old man sat by a
picture window that overlooked a stretch of lawn. Claude Bayard
waved him in. The room was bright and warm, very different from his
grandfather’s in the nursing wing. Pictures on the walls, a fluffy
red comforter on the bed, real tea cups, a worn oriental rug over
the industrial carpet. The armchair he sat in looked comfortable
and well-used.
    “ I would get up, monsieur , but the legs
don’t work so well,” he said, motioning Jonny into a straight-back
chair. “Ah, you bring your instrument. Bon.”
    Jonny shook the dry
fingers of the man’s gnarled hand. Wendy was right, he was ancient,
withered below the waist but with a fascinating, deeply-lined face,
large nose, and alert blue eyes below the white-as-snow thatch and
shrub-like gray eyebrows. Before Jonny could wonder if this was all
a giant waste of time, the old man began ordering him to do
things. Put on the accordion, close the
door, show me your finger work, play some chords, what do you know,
we must check the felts for the moths, stand up and play, give it
some power now. He was a bossy old fart
with a French accent but he obviously knew what he was doing. The
hour went quickly.
    The old man pushed back his
hair, looking tired. “You come back tomorrow then? With knowing the
bass chords?”
    Jonny unstrapped the
accordion, heavy old beast. Still pearly but scratched and a bit
tired, it had been his grandfather’s. Reinholt had bought it just
after World War II. Jonny got it officially when he was twelve and
his grandfather retired from the band. Reinholt had been teaching
him to play since he was six.
    “ I used to know all those
chords,” Jonny admitted. “I’m pretty rusty.”
    “ When I was your age I
learned three new songs every night. And played them the next day
with the band.” Claude fixed him with his stare. “You like this
band?”
    Jonny nodded. “It’s the
family— my father and my sister.”
    “ Just three?”
    “ There’s been others but—
“
    Before Ozzie’s children
went into forced service, there had been Al and Toby and Victor.
Some lasted a year, some a month. Ozzie wasn’t the easiest man to
get along with, especially when it came to his band.
    “ He is strict, your
father?”
    “ He loves his band. It’s
his life.”
    The old man put his gnarled
fist to his chest. “Music comes from deep inside. It erupts like a
love affair. From deep in the heart.” Jonny wilted under the old
man’s gaze. “You love the music?”
    “ Yes, I— I love
music.”
    But this music? Could he learn to love
polka after all these years? It would make this summer so much
easier if he could. He promised himself he would try to let polka
erupt in his heart. A bruised, sad place, this heart of his. An
eruption might be the end of it.
    The sun was out when he
stepped out the front door of the rest home. The humidity had
spiked. The cloak of moisture enveloped him. He was sitting behind
the wheel in his Fairlane before he remembered his
grandfather.
    Jonny looked at the sky,
the clouds breaking to display the bluest of blues. The sun warmed
his shoulders where the straps had dug in. He couldn’t make himself
go back inside. He stretched out his fingers over the steering
wheel.
    Tomorrow.

Chapter 2
     

     
     
    If there had been a choice
she wouldn’t have called 9-1-1.
    As it was she already had a
nodding acquaintance with the local cops, thanks to shenanigans by
Alison and Kim, drunk and underage and loud, all on their first
night in Red Vine. She knew the cops would take care of it, the
horrible racket that was keeping her from sleeping. She could hear
it over the rattle of the air conditioner. She would have moved to
other end of the motel but this room was hers, the only one with
working a.c.