Last Night at Chateau Marmont Read Free Page B

Only when he’d murmured the final drawn-out “hallelujah” did the crowd react: they clapped, whistled, screamed, and almost uniformly jumped out of their seats. Julian appeared embarrassed, sheepish, and after an almost imperceptible bow, he began to walk back to his bar stool.
    “Damn, he’s good,” breathed a young girl to her date at the table behind them, her eyes fixed on the piano player.
    “Encore!” called an attractive woman who clutched her husband’s hand. The husband nodded and echoed her call. Within seconds, the cheering had doubled in volume and the entire room was demanding a second song.
    The bartender grabbed Julian’s hand and pulled him back toward the microphone. “Pretty amazing, isn’t he, guys?” she yelled, beaming with pride at her new discovery. “What do you say we convince Julian here to play us one more?”
    Brooke turned to Nola, feeling more excited than she had in ages. “Do you think he’s going to play something else? Would you ever believe that some nobody sitting at a random bar on a random Sunday night—the guy who’s there to hear someone
else
perform—can sing like that?”
    Nola smiled at her and leaned in to make herself heard above the crowd. “He is really talented. Too bad he looks like that.”
    Brooke felt as though she’d been personally insulted. “Looks like what? I like that whole scruffy thing he has going on. And with a voice like that, I think he’s going to be a star one day.”
    “Not a chance. He’s talented, but so are a million other people who are more outgoing and a whole lot better-looking.”
    “He’s cute,” Brooke said a little indignantly.
    “He’s East Village–gig cute. Not international-rock-star cute.”
    Before she could leap to Julian’s defense, he returned to the bench and began to play again. This time it was a cover of “Let’s Get It On,” and again, somehow, he managed to sound even better than Marvin Gaye—a deeper, sexier voice, a slightly slower rhythm, and an expression on his face of intense concentration. Brooke was so lost in the experience she barely noticed that her friends had resumed their chitchat as the promised free pitcher of beer made its way around their table. They poured and swallowed and poured some more, but Brooke couldn’t take her eyes off the disheveled guy at the piano. When he walked out of the bar twenty minutes later, bowing his head to his appreciative audience and offering the smallest hint of a smile, Brooke seriously considered following him. She’d never done anything like it in her life, but it felt right.
    “Should I go introduce myself?” she asked everyone at the table, leaning far enough forward that conversation couldn’t continue.
    “To whom?” Nola asked.
    “To Julian!” This was exasperating. Didn’t anyone else realize he’d already stepped outside and would soon disappear forever?
    “Julian, the piano man?” Benny asked.
    Nola rolled her eyes and took a swig of beer. “What are you going to do? Chase him down and tell him that you can overlook his potential homelessness as long as he’ll make sweet love to you atop his piano?”
    Benny began to sing. “Well it’s nine o’clock on a Sat—Sunday, regular crowd shuffles in. . . .”
    “There’s a scruffy man sitting next to me, making love to our friend Brooke,” Nola finished, laughing. They clinked beer mugs.
    “You’re both hysterical,” Brooke said as she stood.
    “No way! You’re not following him, are you? Benny, go with her. Piano Man could be a serial killer,” Nola said.
    “I’m not following him,” Brooke said. But she did make her way to the bar and, after digging her nails into her palms and changing her mind five times, she finally worked up the courage to ask the bartender if she knew anything else about the mystery performer.
    The woman didn’t look up as she mixed a batch of mojitos. “I’ve seen him in here before, usually when we have a blues or classic rock band