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He shrugged and took a sip from his beer. He nodded to her bottle and glass. “Nothing on tap appealed to you?”
She gave a wry smile. “More like the young college student’s skill didn’t appeal to me.”
Her dad laughed. “Yeah, Carly started at the beginning of the semester. She does Tuesdays and Thursday nights.”
A month and a bit, then. Long enough. “Someone needs to show her how to fill a beer glass.”
Her dad’s eyes were filled with laughter. “I think her mind’s on other things.” He nodded in the direction of the stage.
Kate rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t she know that tips are linked to service?”
“I don’t think it enters her mind,” he said and chuckled. “Or that she has a problem with tips.”
No, Kate supposed she didn’t have trouble with tips. Still, it wasn’t her concern.
A figure loomed over them. She looked up. Ethan.
“Hey, Frank,” said Ethan. “Thanks for coming.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” said her dad. “You know that.”
“Still appreciated, though,” said Ethan. He slid out the chair on the other side of Kate’s dad and sat down, her dad clapping his back. He looked at Kate and nodded to her, tipping his hat back a little. “Hey.”
She forced herself to nod back, ignoring the knots in her stomach. Her father glanced over at her. “Oh, this is my daughter, Kate. Kate, this is Ethan. He’s been playing here at the pub since late summer. He’s staying over at the Zigler vacation place at the lake.”
She flushed, her fair complexion betraying her as always. “Uh, we were in college together,” she said in a low voice. “I think,” she added impulsively and looked away.
“We were. Same year,” said Ethan. “I think,” he added a beat later, a hint of amusement present.
She glanced over at his face. Was he mocking her? But his face was impassive. Neutral.
“Really?” said her dad. He studied Kate. “I don’t remember you mentioning him. A musician of his caliber, I’d have remembered that.”
“I didn’t really know him,” she muttered, as Ethan said, “We had a few classes together.”
“Did you read that Browning poem?”
Kate looked up. Ethan dropped the book on the table and slid into the chair beside her. Many of the seats around the classroom table were vacant. He’d chosen that seat. She nodded her head, gave him a tentative smile, but he was too busy taking out his laptop to see her nod. She cleared her throat. “Yes,” she said, her voice sounding strangled.
“What did you make of it?”
“Uh…” She bit her lip, all the thoughts and inspiration she’d had when reading the poem vanishing under his attention.
“I’m a real fan of EBB, are you?”
It took her a moment to understand that he meant Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but then she nodded and was about to open her mouth when Caro took the seat on his other side.
“What a mad poem,” Colleen said. “She’s the biz, old Liz.”
Ethan looked over at Colleen, nodded and grinned. Colleen took up her thread, talking about form and shape and illuminating areas of discourse, or something like that, when all that Kate had felt was the music of it, the images it had created, both so interwoven with the words. The experience had been so powerful that she’d thought that maybe, just maybe, her choice was the right one, going to Somerton.
“Oh, it’s a pity you didn’t know each other better back then,” said her dad. “You two would have had so much in common.”
Kate wouldn’t look at Ethan, fixing her eyes on her father instead. She gave him a wan smile. “Hmmm,” she said. Her father returned her gaze with a puzzled expression.
Ethan remained silent for a moment. “What did you think of the second song, then, Frank?”
Her dad looked over at Ethan, the brief puzzlement gone. “I loved it. I can hear your influences, there, son. There’s no mistaking Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and CSN.”
