“How could you not be, in his line of work.”
“Yeah, well—he chose it.”
“Did he?” I said. “Maybe it’s like singing—maybe he’s compelled.”
“True, but, still, yeah, no—when I was a teenager, maybe I would have gotten up the courage, but now? They’d try to have me committed.”
“For real?”
She sighed. “You’d get it if you met them. They’re all about gravity.”
I glanced over at her wistful expression, her deadpan eyes—despite the topic, I could tell she was having fun and it made me darn happy.
We dined early in a Thai place in the rough part of Venice, one of those mini-malls that break up the homeless tents. It was easy to talk to her about the past, my personal past, my mother’s breakdown, being raised by my uncle. I told her I knew what it was like to have high-achiever siblings—my sister was a hotshot attorney. I told her driving Lyft was a temporary thing to put me through some college courses, but this veered dangerously close to the lie, so I spun a big yarn about the few music articles I’d written for fanzines a zillion years ago, trying to make myself sound like the professor of song, and of course I came off like a pontificating doofus. She took it all in, not quite trusting but taking stock.
“You’re a real city guy,” she said, “but you don’t seem as cynical as some I met.”
“It’s a daily battle,” I said, “you’ll see. You’re still a tourist.”
“I know. Actually, more like an impostor.”
“How do you mean?”
“Sometimes…I wonder if I’m just having a lover’s quarrel.”
“With who?”
“Myself? My family? The East Coast? It hits me in the middle of the night. Like, you think you’re gonna shake off your old self like a lizard skin but—” She stopped herself and shook her head.
“Yeah,” I said, “it’s more like the new lizard has to make peace with the old lizard and then walk around wearing the old lizard like a top hat.”
She smiled, then said, “That…is a really dumb image, Adam,” and we laughed and hers was the most bubbly, the most musical laugh I’d ever heard. Then she blurted, “Come on, Adam—you gotta tell me what the LP thing’s about. You got me hooked; it isn’t fair!”
I measured the dose. “An old family friend, my late uncle’s friend,” I said carefully, “his son was the guitarist in that band.”
“Did you know the son?”
“A little bit, when I was a kid, he was a teenager—and…he died young. Anyway, the father found this old LP and…ya know…just wanted to see if I could find out anything more about his son’s high school band.”
“So you’re doing this research, like, just as a favor to the family friend?”
“He’s really old, he’s in his nineties. His health isn’t good. I’m just trying to gather a little info—as a gesture, digging through some old newspapers and stuff. The sad thing is I sincerely doubt I’ll turn up anything.”
She gave me a funny look and said, “That’s…really honorable,” but I could tell she only half-bought the half-story.
“The reason I couldn’t tell you,” I went on, “is I promised the dad I wouldn’t go advertising what I was up to—he’s weirdly cagey about it.”
“I understand,” she said, but her expression said she didn’t.
In an effort to regain composure, I flagged the check, then I said, “You ever been swing dancing?”
She shook her head no. “I’m a terrible dancer.”
“There’s this awesome place just down the coast here—”
She wagged her hands in protest. “Oh, no, no, I don’t know how to do all those steps.”
“There’s no steps, it’s easy. I mean, the basics are easy—the guy leads, anyway. We’re like, minutes away—Rusty’s. You’ve gotta let me take you there.”
“Someday,” she said.
“Someday? What about carpe the diem?”
The place was an old Elk’s Lodge off the Ballona Wetlands, hot and packed inside with the full Saturday night crowd, a live jumpin’ jive band and plenty of diehards in full forties regalia. We took a big red velvet booth and she scooted in next to me, tasted her first cosmopolitan and swayed her shoulders to the music. Actually, she looked like she was having the time of her life, gawking at the extreme nostalgic Hollywood fakeness of it all, but also kind of dazzled, knocked out by the musicians playing to the swinging crowd.
“Look at those sax guys! Nobody’s watching them but they’re going crazy. That would be my kind of gig!”
After much coaxing, I got her out on the floor; she turned beet red being swung around, burst out laughing when I tried to dip her. Then we were out on the club’s balcony letting the sea breeze cool us and we faced each other—the warm summer night blew her hair around wildly but the compassion in her blue eyes held steady—and then she wrapped her arms around me and said, “Kiss me, mystery man,” and it happened with the big band playing in the background and the crescent moon shining down upon us.
When we separated, she touched my lip and said, “Does it hurt to kiss?”
I said, “Hell no,” and pulled her close.
Back at my place we fell onto the frameless mattress and wrestled and rolled around in kisses and heavy-lidded smiles, grappling before she stopped me and said, “Wait, wait, wait.”
“Okay.”
She breathed out. “Can we take it slow? I like you.”
