by Dale Mayer
Chapter 14
Jessica couldn’t stop thinking about the clubs in town. As soon as she was done with work today, she skipped dinner and headed into town, where she stopped off at the first of two clubs. It was open but not with any live music at the moment. It didn’t really get busy until around seven p.m. She walked to the manager’s office and knocked. Surprised, somebody from the inside called out to come in. She pushed open the door, then smiled and introduced herself.
The manager looked at her and said, “What can I do for you?”
“Hello, I’m a nurse from Hathaway House,” she said. “We have a veteran who’s recovering after a lengthy series of surgeries from service-related injuries,” she said. “He’s a musician and a very talented one at that. He used to play at jazz and blues clubs before he went into the service, and I’m wondering how you run live music at your club.”
“Well, I have a lineup,” he said. “We’re always looking for new talent, of course, but I really need somebody who knows how to play the blues,” he said, “not just any musician. That won’t cut it around here.”
“Got it,” she said. “What I should have done was brought you a tape of his music.”
“Or, if he’s the one interested in the work,” the manager said, “he should have come in person.”
“Oh, of course,” she said cheerfully. “But his rehab is pretty intensive right now, and I just wondered how the system even worked. Like, whether you paid them or if they live on tips alone, and how often, how long the sets are, and what nights he would play here.”
He laughed. “In other words, you’re checking it out for your friend. That’s all cool,” he said, “but, before I’d bring him in as a repeat performer,” he said, “I’d want him up there on that stage, playing in person, before I offered him a chance at playing at night.”
“Understood,” she said with a smile.
Frowning, he tapped his pen on a pad of paper and said, “Like I said, I do have a couple regulars who play here a couple nights. But one of the guys I’ve got now is planning on leaving.”
“When is he leaving?”
“I think at the end of next month,” he said. “I’ve been trying to convince him to stay, but, for two nights a week, it’s hardly enough to keep anybody’s rent paid.”
“I wanted to ask you about that,” she said, settling into the visitor’s chair. “Do you pay them?”
“I do, but it’s for the evening,” he said. “And I’m not telling you how much because that’ll be between me and whoever.”
“And what about tips?”
“The tips are his,” he said. “Some nights you get a lot, and some nights you may not get any.”
“He used to get hundreds, occasionally one thousand in tips.”
At that, his brows rose. “He’d have to be real good for that.”
“Oh, he’s good,” she said. “But, like I said, he’s busy with rehab and currently still using a wheelchair, working on getting into crutches and hopefully walking.”
“That’ll always garner sympathy too,” the manager said.
“And that’s not something he wants,” she said. “Pride is a hard thing for a guy like him.”
“Well, if and when he gets there,” he said, “he is welcome to come by and show me what he can do.”
“That’s great. Thank you.” She hopped her feet and said, “Do you happen to have a card?”
He handed her a card, and, as she walked to the door, he asked, “You sure he’s any good?”
“I think so, but come and see for yourself,” she said. “He’s playing between four and five-thirty on Saturday afternoons at Hathaway House,” she said. “We can’t have him playing all the time because some residents object to the noise,” she said.
He just rolled his eyes at that. “Always one in every crowd, isn’t there?” he murmured.
“Indeed,” she said, “but, nonetheless, for the next couple Saturdays he’ll be playing before dinnertime at Hathaway House.”
“We’ll see,” he said and gave her a dismissive wave.
She took the hint and headed into the main room again. She checked out the area and noted it had a very nice simple stage with lots of seating. She’d been here in the evenings, when the place was standing room only, and remembered that she had really enjoyed the live music. She didn’t remember how long it lasted, but she thought it may have been well past an hour and a half, so that was a concern. But, then again, Lance didn’t have to necessarily play the whole evening. She was about to turn and ask the manager if he ever used multiple entertainers in one evening, when the bartender asked her if she needed anything.
She headed to him and said, “I was wondering about the live music,” she said. “Do you ever have more than one player in an evening?”
He nodded. “All the time. Everybody’s got their own style, and not everybody wants to play for hours on end,” he said. “Usually three hours is max for a gig for one,” he said. “Sometimes we’re open until one or two o’clock in the morning,” he said, “so it depends.”
“Got it,” she said. “That probably explains why the manager didn’t want to talk about money and how much he’d pay someone to be here. It’s not comparing apples to apples.”
“He’s fair, and they do fine,” he said, “and they do well on tips too.”
“Yeah, but what are we talking about—a hundred or two?”
“I’d say seven or eight hundred. I’ve seen some of the guys in here break a couple thousand, and then we have some who are only so-so, and they’ll get a couple hundred,” he said. “And, if it’s a bad night and a big game is on the TV, nobody will be here, and you’ll be lucky if you get any tips at all.”
“So, nothing you can really count on.”
He laughed. “No, nothing you can count on. But, if you’re any good, you’ll have a following, and everybody will show up each Friday and Saturday night like clockwork.”
“Got it,” she said, and, with a smile of thanks, she headed to the second bar, not liking it quite as much. But, with the same information, more or less, she headed back to Hathaway House, sneaking in just in time to grab dinner before the kitchen closed.
Dennis looked at her, surprised. “Where did you sneak off to?”
“I had to run into town,” she said easily, as she reached for a big chicken breast and steamed veggies. “As usual this looks wonderful.”
“It is,” he said, “because Ilse sets up that menu, and she won’t let anybody do anything less than a great job.”
“We see a lot more of her outside of her kitchen too,” she said, “now that Keith’s here.”
“Nothing quite like it,” Dennis said. “Look at you. You’re way more involved than you used to be too.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good thing,” she said with a laugh.
“Maybe, but it keeps you more alive,” he muttered.
“Sure enough.” She smiled and took her plate outside. She was definitely hungry, and now she didn’t know what she should say to Lance because he couldn’t do live performances weekly for quite a while. He certainly wouldn’t want to play in the wheelchair, but maybe he could do it partly in a chair and partly in a wheelchair. But that pride of his. She could understand it though, because she wasn’t sure she would be any different if she was in the same physical shape.
Keeping her thoughts to herself, she went through the next few days until he finally noticed and asked, “What are you so pensive about?”
“Not a whole lot,” she said. “I went in and talked to the two clubs in town.”
He stopped and stared at her. “Wow,” he said. “You do remember the fact that I probably won’t be ready for a couple months, right?”
“You also said I could,” she reminded him.
He nodded. “But I don’t want to feel pressured or pushed into it,” he said. “I’m not sure when I’ll be ready.”
She settled back and nodded slowly. “Of course not,” she replied, “but y
ou did say that I could talk to them.”
Feeling irritable and obviously not quite ready to make that kind of decision, he nodded but left soon afterward.
She sat here, drinking her coffee, wondering if she had been just too eager on his behalf. It was a fault of hers that she had encountered before. She tended to see a way forward, and then she would jump at it, getting things to move in the direction she thought they should. But maybe she hadn’t listened to him enough. Maybe she had done this because she wanted to see him do well, without considering if he was ready to, yet. And, even if he was ready to do well, that didn’t mean he was ready to go in that direction. She groaned, trying to remember the original conversation but struggling.
“Sounds like you mucked it up again,” she said irritably to herself. And, for the next couple days, she and Lance kind of danced around each other, both ignoring this particular conversation. When it came time for his Saturday four o’clock performance, she made sure she was there to listen to the music. She also searched to see if the bar guy was here, but she saw no sign of him. Disappointed, though she really didn’t know why, she sat back and just listened to the music. The crowd was just as riotous as last time, if not even more enthusiastic.
This time, instead of going to dinner with him, she stepped outside and just sat on the deck at her own table. The music still throbbed through her veins, and it felt wonderful. He was very talented, with a gift that he should share with the world. A world that would be blessed to receive it. But somehow he had to both get strong enough to do it and then actually want to do it, which was a whole different story. She’d met all kinds of people who had the talent to do something but just weren’t interested in doing it.
Like going to school with all the top brainiacs, and one was a girl who Jessica knew belonged to the Mensa group. Her IQ was just off the wall. But all she wanted to do was nails, and she became a salon manicurist.
At the time Jessica had been horrified, but the woman looked at her and said, “That’s just your perception. If you didn’t know I was in Mensa, then you wouldn’t care,” she said. “So now you’re judging me for not doing what you think I should do.”
That had stuck with Jessica throughout the years. As she sat here, in the peace and quiet, listening to all the boisterous activity behind her, she was quietly happy.
When Lance reached out to her twenty minutes later, he said, “There’s ice cream, if you want one?”
She turned to look at him in surprise. He had a big ice cream cone in his hand. She laughed. “I ate plenty of dinner,” she said. “No room for more.”
“You didn’t join me for dinner. How come?”
“Oh,” she said, “you looked like you were doing just fine.”
“Is that the only time you come looking for me?” he asked curiously. “When you think I need a friend?”
“Not at all,” she said, getting a little defensive. “I just thought tonight I’d like some time alone, and you had lots of friends around you, and you looked to be happy.”
“I can be happy and alone, and I can be happy and have friends,” he said. “It was nice tonight, and they all seem to appreciate the music. But they didn’t seem to appreciate me before the music, so it feels weird.”
She chuckled. “I can see that, but I don’t think we can blame them too much. People often don’t know what they want or like until they hear it, and then they’re quite surprised at how much they enjoyed it.”
“Maybe,” he said.
Then she realized that he’d traded the wheelchair for crutches. She slowly dropped her legs from the railing and turned to face him. “How is that going?” she said mildly, a head nod at his crutches.
“Slowly,” he said, reaching for a chair and sitting down a little hard. “Very slowly.”
“Any progress is good though,” she said.
“Maybe,” he said, “but, at the same time, it’s change, and I guess I haven’t been all that comfortable with change.”
“I think you’ve done really well since you’ve arrived,” she said impulsively.
He burst out laughing. “Like I said before, you’re a great cheerleader.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t mean what I say,” she said, “because I do.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said with a chuckle, “because it’s nice to know that you’ve always got my back.”
“And apparently,” she said, “I’m guilty of pushing you, and, for that, I’m sorry.”
“You mean, the blues club?” He shook his head. “I told you that it was okay to talk to them.”
“But when I did, you weren’t happy.”
“It’s that whole change thing again,” he said. “It took me a few days to figure it out, but apparently I don’t like change in any form,” he said. “It came up with Shane too. He says that every time he changes my routine, I protest for one reason or another, but it comes down to the issue of change.”
“Of course. When he makes a change in your routine, you have to work different muscles,” she said. “So I’m not sure I’d like that myself.”
“Oh, come on. You embrace new things,” he said, “and that makes a huge difference.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but I’m more the eager beaver. You point me in a direction, and I’ll tear forward to see how far we can go. Unfortunately I’m frequently halfway there before I even give a thought to the prudence of going there in the first place.”
“Whereas, I’m more the plodding tortoise, who can see a path coming up ahead. And it’s a good thing that I can see it, so I have time to prepare for it before I ever get there,” he said, in a wry tone, laughing at himself.
“I think there is room in the world for both of us,” she said. “There’s no competition, and there’s no race.”
“No,” he said, “and that’s a good thing because, since I got here, I’ve not been in a racing spirit,” he said. “So it’s a really good thing there wasn’t actually one to worry about.”
“It’s just a matter of accepting where you’re at,” she said, “and accepting that you’re different and that everybody else around you is different too.”
“We’re back to that cheerleader again,” he said, and they sat in companionable silence while he ate his ice cream.
She looked at it again and said, “Now that you’re done,” she said, “I want one.”
He laughed. “I could go for a second one myself.” She stared at him in astonishment. He shrugged. “What? I’m just a growing boy, you know.”
She snorted at that and said, “Hang on. I’ll go see if Dennis is still around.” As she headed back into the kitchen, he saw her coming, looked at her suspiciously, and said, “Are you trying to rob me of my ice cream again?” He spoke in a mock horrified voice.
“Yep,” she said, “two, please, as Lance thinks he can go for a second one.”
“Boy, since that kid started to eat, it’s like every day he gains more and more of an appetite,” Dennis said, as he busily scooped up ice cream for them. When he handed her two big cones, she grinned a big fat smile and said, “Dennis, these look delicious. You are a master.”
“Yeah, well, remember, I’m not to blame for any changes to your waistline,” he said with a laugh, reminding her of their previous conversation.
“I’ve been so busy lately,” she said, “I think I’ve lost weight.” Off again, she headed back out to the deck.
As soon as he got his hands on his second ice cream cone, Lance smacked his lips and said, “Wow. You know there’s a lot to be said about this place.”
“It seems to be a good place for you,” she said.
“Now that you guys have given me my music back,” he said, “it’s a great place for me.”
And Lance meant it. Having that part of his world opened up again had filled him with so much soul satisfaction that he couldn’t believe it. He remembered all the reasons why he hadn’t even tried to handle musical instruments before, and he knew that he hadn’t been a
t a stage of recovery where it was possible. But now it was possible, and he felt so blessed.
He wished he could play on the piano for a couple hours, just to work on that, but he wasn’t sure if that would be asking too much. He was very grateful for the hour and a half he had every Saturday, but it was just that much harder to ask for more when people were already being so generous. He did bring it up with Shane on Monday morning.
“I don’t know if we can move it to another location or not,” Shane said. “I know it’s on wheels but—”
“Right. It’s in a very public location right now,” Lance said. “Which means, if anybody else wanted to sit down and play, they can’t.”
“Nobody has, as far as I’m aware,” Shane said, “but it’s a good point.”
Monday passed; Tuesday passed. And, by Wednesday, Lance couldn’t resist. He crutched his way to the piano, shifted onto the bench, and just ran a few chords. Within a few minutes he pounded away at the keys. It was all he could do to force himself to stop after a couple songs, but he did and then managed to get his wheelchair and left. But just that much playing had the energy thrumming through his veins and a smile on his face.
Dani saw him later that day, and she asked, “Was that you on the keyboard?”
“Yes,” he said. “Should I apologize? I just couldn’t resist. I wanted to touch the music so badly that I couldn’t stop myself.”
“I didn’t hear any complaints,” she said with a smile, “so it’s a case of making sure it’s not too much.”
He nodded. “It’s nice to know that I could maybe play a couple songs and not hurt anybody’s sense of propriety in this.”
“People will be people,” she said. “The guitar is at least mobile, and you can take it outside. But the piano? That’s a different story.”
“But you got it tuned,” he said, “so we don’t want to waste it.”
She chuckled. “No, we definitely don’t want to waste that.”
By the next Saturday he had already worked out a series of songs in his mind. Most were on his guitar, but then he would flip over to the piano and play a bit. By the time he was done this Saturday night, he didn’t even want to stop. There were several cries for encores, and he played a couple, but, ever mindful of Dani’s generosity, he had to shut it down, even though he had only exceeded his time by five minutes.
