Sing for Me (21 page)

I don’t look at Theo. “I’ve been listening.”

This seems to satisfy. We jump back into the song just as the door opens again and George says that the few folks left are about to leave for good.

Theo looks at me. “It’s now or never.”

You shouldn’t listen to music like that.
I hear Mother’s voice, and Dad’s voice, too.
Boys sow their wild oats. Girls become tramps.

As the other Chess Men gather their instruments and jostle
their way toward the stage, Theo holds out his hands to me. “You’re sure you’re ready?”

Dear God. Am I?

And I believe I hear the answer:
Dear Rose. Yes.

We are alone now, Theo and I. I rest my hands in his, so warm and steady compared to mine.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I say.

Somehow I’m onstage with the Chess Men.

The stage is hotter than I expected. Dustier. It smells of rosin, wood, and brass. For better or worse, it smells of humanity. After the dim, cramped practice room, I can’t see for the spotlight. But I can hear. Oh, I can hear. The few people lingering at the bar are talking and laughing. Glasses clink. Chairs scrape against the floor. The sheaf of sheet music rattles in my hands. Time to bring in the sheaves, all right. I tighten my grip, but that doesn’t stop my trembling. The paper feels pulpy from the sweat that slicks my palms.

Theo murmurs in my ear. I have no idea what he’s saying, but the familiar sound of his voice comforts me. He steers me toward the microphone. Now I see shapes that must be the people out there. Not much else. Once in Oak Park I had a dangerously high fever, and shapes that I knew must be Mother and the doctor moved about my bedroom. It was disturbing then; it’s disturbing now. I keep my gaze up. I stare at the exit, the door opening there, closing again.

You want this. Stay.

Theo says into the microphone, “I’m delighted to introduce Miss Rose Sorensen.”

My name ricochets like a bullet around the room.

From the bar, a man grumbles, “Where’s the Queen?” The question is echoed by a woman.

“The Queen’s taking a holiday.” Theo speaks boldly, like this news is exactly what everyone wants to hear. “Her last proclamation was that her loyal subjects show Miss Sorensen some respect.” Theo smiles at me as only he can. “Miss Sorensen?” He steps back from the microphone, making room for a singer—the singer, me.

I step forward. In the glare of the spotlight, the microphone is a presence, big and bulky, almost a barricade. Theo watches me closely. He lifts his hand; he’s about to touch me. He catches himself in time and lowers his hand. “You okay?” he whispers.

I manage a nod.

Into the microphone he says tonight’s first number is my call. “Miss Sorensen, what’ll it be?”

The sheaf of sheet music trembles. I couldn’t read the lyrics if I tried. What song do I really know by heart? What song can I sing like I was born for it? What song do I sing nearly every night to Sophy? What song will save me?

“Amazing Grace.”
The microphone captures my voice and lets it fly around the room. It’s like I’m everywhere at once. Anyone can grab hold of me or push me away. But this song that I know so well—this song I was raised on—it will bind me together.

The few people left don’t like it. There’s a smattering of hisses and boos. “Don’t tell me we’ve got us a Holy Roller,” a woman says with a snarl. I want to shrink down into myself, become invisible. I’ve only ever felt this way before with Dad. With Dad, it was bad enough. With a roomful of shapes that are strangers, it’s a nightmare.

A hand slaps the edge of the stage. In spite of myself, I look down. Thank heaven I do. It’s Rob. His gray-green gaze pierces even the spotlight’s glare. “Sing, Laerke.” He mouths the words, but I can make them out. “Sing!”

At the sight of my cousin, the nightmare ends and I am restored, ready again. Those strangers out there, they’re not so different from me. They may not know it but they need music in their lives, too.

I turn to Theo. He is telling the crowd, yet again, to give me a chance. “Respect,” I hear him say. He is calling me a lady. He is comparing me, in the most surprising way, to that famous beauty of ancient Greece, Helen of Troy. “You know how Helen of Troy’s face launched a thousand ships? Well, Miss Sorensen’s voice might just do the same. Who knows? You might just go to battle to defend her singing. I know I would.”

My hand slips through Theo’s arm, and I lean into him. Somehow this has happened. We are arm in arm. I am leaning into him. In my gratitude to him—for who he is, for what he has done for me, for what he is doing now—I have expressed my affection on a stage before strangers. The audacity of my act seems to stop time. We might as well be statues, Theo and I. I’m not a betting woman, but if I were, I’d bet that everyone else has gone as still as we have.

Mixed couples might sit at tables or dance together in Calliope’s, but they stay in the shadows or lost in the crowd, doing so. A fling, they might be having, a passing fancy. Not this. A public statement.

I look up at Theo. His expression is unreadable. It could be:
What’s happening here?
Or:
Here’s what I’ve been waiting for all my life.
Or:
So this is how it ends.
From behind us, one of the Chess Men makes a low sound in his throat. A warning sound.

I have to do something. I have to undo this.

I look at Theo again—his beautiful, familiar, dark face—and it comes to me. I’ve been through this kind of thing before with Sophy. When people tease Sophy as if she’s some kind of broken doll, what do I do? I hold my head high as Mother and Dad taught me to. I push through.

I push through now. I do not let go of Theo’s arm. I must not. I hold on to Theo’s arm as tightly as I’ve ever held on to Sophy. Gratitude and affection between two people like us must be made to look like an everyday kind of thing. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to fear. If you, Joe Schmoe or Jane Doe, are upset or enraged, that’s your problem. You’ve never stood where we stand now. You’ve only watched from the shadows. Your loss.

“ ‘Amazing Grace,’ ” I say into the microphone. My hand is still on Theo’s arm. I’m remembering something I learned on Aunt Astrid’s farm: when you look away from an animal, the animal thinks it’s dominant. I don’t dare look away from the people before me. I tighten my grip on Theo’s arm, and then I release him. I pray he understands that this is my signal for
now or never, let’s push through
. Theo understands. Without a word, he goes to his piano, sits down, and plays the first notes of “Amazing Grace.” His fingers render sounds as haunting as anything I’ve ever heard. Time starts again, and it has the signature of a ballad, for this is what “Amazing Grace” is, I realize. It’s a story, just like every other ballad. A love story about God.

I close my eyes and sing the song with all the love I can muster.

We draw the first verse out, Theo and I, delivering it slowly and sweetly.
I once was lost, but now I’m found
. I’m found now,
singing. Ira joins in on his snare; his brush whispers across the drum’s taut skin, sounding very much like soft wind in thick leaves. Jim begins plucking his bass, and the low notes throb as steadily as a strong heartbeat. Finally Dex sounds the clarinet, weaving longing-laced harmony through my melody:

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise

Than when we’d first begun
.

The last words of the last verse. In no time at all, these words are upon us. I can’t bear to open my eyes when I’ve finished singing them. I want to stay wrapped up in the music, which moves through the air all around me as Dex, Jim, Ira, and, last of all, Theo work their way to an end. Theo’s last note lingers in the air long after he’s played it. Only when it fades away do I open my eyes and blink into light that glows around the dark star of the microphone. People are staring at me through the light. I can feel them staring. The silence is so thick now that it wraps around my throat like a noose. I am no Queen. I am a white woman who touched a black man onstage. I am trouble. I am in trouble. I’d run, but the noose holds me here.
Lynching
, I think, and I know I should pray.
Oh, God
is all I can muster.
Oh, God
will have to suffice.

There’s a sharp report—a sound like a shotgun. Another sharp sound and another and too many to count. People are clapping. Clapping hard. They are cheering and shouting for more. Rob is clapping, cheering, shouting loudest of all.

Theo doesn’t give the people time to grow quiet. His hands come crashing down on the keys, and the next thing I know he’s set sail on the first verse of “Blow the Man Down.” Here’s another side of God, another graceful way to sing, to swing. Theo’s
hands are lightning, as are the hands of Jim, Ira, and Dex. It takes me more than a few measures to figure out how to join in. But once I do, I’m hurtling along on a madcap voyage, a deluge of notes splashing and crashing all around me. And from “Blow the Man Down,” we move on to another kind of watery song: “Pennies from Heaven” rains down on Calliope’s, and two couples begin to dance.

This night is a dream, one song after another, until the first set is done, and we take a break.

“How do you feel?” Theo asks me in the dim little practice room. It must be obvious how I feel from the way the Chess Men are smiling at me.
I once was lost, but now I’m found
. I feel wonderful. No, better than wonderful. I feel whole.

“Good,” I say.

Theo pulls out a chair, and I drop down into it.

Dex runs a hand worriedly through his salt-and-pepper gray hair. “She’s tapped out.”

Theo nods, his gaze soft with concern. “You’re not used to this, Rose. Performing takes it out of you, even when you’ve been working toward it.”

“George found the boss and got him here in time to hear the end of the first set.” Jim downs a glass of water and then grins. “The boss wants to hear more. That’s a good sign.”

“Can you keep going, Rose?” Cradling his clarinet like it might break, Dex softly asks this. Dex is the shy one, I’m realizing. For all his talent, you’d think he was the one who’d never been onstage.

I lean toward him, the better to give a reassuring smile. “I’ll be ready to go back out when you are.”

“I’m glad,” Dex says.

Theo beams at me.

“We want you back. You’re our gal, Blue Dress,” Jim says.

Ira adds, “Until Lilah gets her act together.”

Everyone except Theo nods in agreement.

“You’re important for Lilah, and Lilah’s important for you. I understand.” And I do understand, though my heart aches to admit it.

Back onstage, the ache is alleviated. I’m singing again, and they’re backing me up, and I’m listening, too, when Jim, Dex, Ira, and Theo take turns playing solo. With every note, I learn something now. With every number, more people walk through the door and gather around the stage. I give my all. By the end of the third and last set, the Chess Men and I are working together as one instrument. At least that’s how it feels to me. And from the expressions of astonished joy on each of their faces, I think it feels that way to Dex, Ira, and Jim, too.

Though he doesn’t say a word, I know it feels that way to Theo. It’s all I can do to look away from the light of his smile. But it’s rude to ignore this applause, so I turn to the crowd and bow.

At the end of the night, Rob finds me backstage. He flings his arms around me. “You did it!” Rob’s voice quavers with emotion. “If you can do this, you can do anything, Rose!” I thank my cousin. I babble something even I don’t understand, about family and courage and the birthday gift he gave me, the gifts he’s given me over the years—his promises that are whims, his Tarzan calls, his dreams—and how it took someone special, someone like him, to make me sing—

Rob stops me right there, literally clapping his hand across my mouth.

“
You
did this, Laerke. You are the one who got up there. You shared your voice. You made the brave choice.”

Ira, Dex, and Jim are backstage now. They grin at me, nod at Rob. A white towel flashes as Ira mops the sweat from his brow. At some point he must have taken off his tuxedo jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves; the veins in his arms bulge from the hard work of drumming. Dex drops into a chair and starts cleaning the inside of his clarinet with a brush. Jim squats down by an open kit bag, digs out a jar of salve, opens the jar, and dunks his thumb inside like Peter Pumpkin Eater pulling out a plum. Only Jim just pulls out his thickly coated thumb and tenderly massages the salve into the tip. The callus there has split, and so has the nail. Guess plucking away at a bass for hours can do that.

There’s a movement at the door, and Theo enters, his smile lighting up the room.

“What a night!” He’s about to say more, but then his bright smile fades. He’s seen Rob.

But Rob’s eyes are clear tonight. He holds out his hand to Theo, and Theo takes it. They shake hands, man to man. The way Rob might shake with another white man, or, I suppose, Theo might shake hands with another black man.