Constance Read Free Page B

booth, then signaled the waitress and stood a moment gazing at Eddie Castrol through her ridiculous spectacles. He was grinning at us now. Iris walked off. I ordered a martini. Again I looked over at this man who reminded my sister of Daddy. His skin was like parchment, bleached white in the spotlight’s glare, but he could play piano all right.
    He was aware of my eyes on him. He leaned forward, head down, cigarette between his lips, poking at the keys like a bird digging worms, and shifted into of all things
Moon River
. Nobody else was listening. He played it very slow and moody. Too sentimental for me.
    I drifted into a reverie. I saw my sister in the arms of this lizardy man. I imagined him feasting on her plump soft heavy body like some kind of animal. It was a disquieting thought. He ended the set before she came back and with some abruptness stood up from the piano and crossed the room to thin applause. He had my full attention now. I lit a cigarette, it was that kind of a night. He slid smoothly into the booth beside me and introduced himself. He then turned toward the bar.
    —Where’s that girl gone now?
    It was the waitress he wanted. He grinned at me over his cigarette. He then made short work of a large gin and called for another. Lush, I thought. He swallowed gin like it was water.He leaned in and confided that he wouldn’t be here if the money wasn’t so good.
    I turned away.
    —Don’t embarrass me, I said.
    I was cold to him. I had nothing but disdain for this seedy man and this crummy joint my sister worked in. If it hadn’t been for her I’d have walked out. He lifted his hands as though to say: So what are we to talk about? And I thought: Yes, what
are
we to talk about?
    —Iris told me you write music.
    I was making conversation, nothing more. He pursed his lips as though he were about to kiss something and gazed at his gin with lifted eyebrows. Was it such a complicated question?
    —Yeah, I write stuff, he said at last.
    —
Stuff?
I said. I reached for another cigarette. I was not at ease. I suspected that the jagged thing he’d been playing when I came in was his stuff. I edit stuff, I said, stuff that others write. You think your stuff’s like my stuff or is my stuff different stuff?
    He lit my cigarette then dropped his eyes but there it was, I saw it again, that bent grin of his. I’d amused him. I hadn’t meant to, but I was gratified all the same.
    —You want to talk about it? I said.
    He was from Miami. His father introduced him to chamber music when he was seven years old. He’d gotten into the Juilliard School but he didn’t last long. I asked him why and he said he could go faster on his own. I laughed a little. I didn’t believe a word of it.
    —So tell me something, I said.
    —Sure.
    —What are you doing in this dump?
    I caught him by surprise. I got a bark of laughter out of him. He laid his hands flat on the table. He had the thinnest, most spidery fingers I’d ever seen, yellow at the tips. Perhaps that’s why he reminded Iris of Daddy.
    —Dump is right. I’m only here for your sister.
    He knew it wasn’t true and so did I. He needed the money, pitiful though it surely was. But I played along.
    —You’d do that for Iris? She’s only here for you.
    —She thinks we have a future.
    He gazed straight at me as he lit another cigarette.
    —Don’t you?
    —Oh, come on, baby. You know my situation.
    —I know you’re married. Baby.
    He wasn’t abashed at all. Clearly he’d decided there was no point being anything other than straight with me. He drank off his gin and leaned in toward me and there was something of the shark in his expression now.
    —And you? he said.
    He had both elbows on the table. He was grinning. My glass was empty. He was a lanky loose-jointed man and his hair was oily. There were webs of tiny lines spreading across his cheekbones from the corners of his narrow black eyes. I looked around for the waitress, also for Iris returning. I’d