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Brandon watched, half concerned, half curious. The temperature had probably dropped another five degrees in the last hour. I realized he didn’t have his car to climb into.
“My dad works here most weekends,” I told him. “I’m going to say hi before I walk home. It’s a good place if you want to wait for your car.”
He furrowed his brow. “Wait, what? Are you staying until the end of the set?” When I shook my head, he shook his back. “You’re not walking home by yourself. It’s not safe.”
I tried to protest, but Brandon laid a hand on my arm.
“I won’t try anything,” he assured me. “I promise. Besides, I’m pretty sure this guy will kick the shit out of me if I do. Right, man?”
Charlie didn’t reply, just glared at Brandon and waited for my response.
Brandon raised his hands. “See?”
I sighed, but couldn’t mask my smile completely. “Just come in, then,” I relented.
And so, we walked into the club to meet my father.
Nine
Nick’s was the kind of place where I had grown up doing my homework perched on the stained bar top before it opened and helping band members lug instruments in for sound checks. The slow pace rarely drew more than ten or fifteen patrons at a time, but that also meant that no one cared about anything but the music. There was nothing like it anymore in the bustling parts of Manhattan, where all the jazz greats once started out. The Blue Note was a Disneyland ride, but Nick’s still had the gritty hint of urban underbelly that always inspired good music.
Brandon followed me into the bar, gingerly stepping around clusters of tables, chairs, and barstools in a way that made me wonder again just how long it had been since he had gone anywhere that didn’t offer box seats, VIP reservations, or valet parking.
The club tunneled narrowly like a wormhole into the basement of a Brooklyn brownstone. It was lined, on one side with small tables and red vinyl bench seats that likely hadn’t been replaced since the late seventies, and on the other with a worn bar top and stools. Stale alcohol practically glazed the air, along with occasional whiffs of Charlie’s cigarette smoke whenever the front door opened. At the back of the club was a tiny dance floor in front of an even tinier stage just big enough to hold Dad’s jazz quartet.
I slid onto one of the benches, where I wouldn’t distract the band while they finished their set.
“Do you want a drink?” Brandon asked, still standing in front of the table I’d chosen.
I shucked my outerwear, scarf, and gloves. “Um…sure. I guess. Macallan Twelve with a splash of water. Just tell the bartender it’s for me. He won’t charge you.”
Amos, the willowy trumpet player from Trinidad, was the first to notice me with a wave while Doug, the bassist, grooved to a solo. The drummer was new. As usual, Dad was lost in his own world at the piano.
He was the same as always, his slight form clothed in his typical performance attire: worn black pants and a white button-down rolled up at the elbows. I used to tease him that he looked like a waiter in that outfit, but he always shrugged and said that classics never go out of style. His floppy brown hair, gray at the temples and the base of his neck, matched the trim mustache. Eyes closed and head low, he bobbed to the rhythm set by Doug and the drummer, his fingers floating up and down the keys in velvety riffs.
I closed my eyes to listen, just as I had done all my life. It didn’t matter how long I had been gone—I wasn’t home until I heard my dad play.
“They’re really good.” Brandon sat down and slid my whiskey across the table. He draped his coat over the back of his seat and took a drink of something dark brown. “The piano player sounds like Bill Evans.”
“That’s my dad.”
I smiled at Brandon’s double take between my father and me. We didn’t resemble each other other much. I had my grandfather’s flaming hair, my grandmother’s olive skin, and my mother’s green eyes. But Dad and I were both small, and I had definitely inherited his love of music.
“Well,” Brandon remarked as he took a sip of his drink. “So much for stereotypes. I can’t imagine him picking up garbage.”
I shrugged. “Some people do just have day jobs so they can do other things.”
Raising me had prevented Dad from ever pursuing his music to the fullest—well, that and a few other vices. He’d had some offers over the years to play with some of the greats but always turned them down. But though he couldn’t take a little girl on the road with him, it didn’t mean his heart wasn’t one hundred percent dedicated to those black and white keys.
“Did he teach you to play?”
“A bit. I’m nowhere near as good, though.”
Brandon nodded as Dad launched into a short solo. His hands dipped into spontaneous trills that were as smooth as water in a brook. The song melded into another, and we listened without speaking for a good fifteen minutes.
I was content just to sit; I didn’t like talking to people when I was at a show, and especially not when Dad was playing. At the end of the last song of the medley, Amos said something to Dad, who then found me, mustache stretched over a grin.
“I think you’ve been discovered,” Brandon said.
