“That’s why I don’t care about scaring you.”
Maybe Mom intuited that I didn’t want Malcolm to see the piano just yet. She brought us a small cooler with four Cokes on ice and a plate of cookies.
We sat for a while, watching, and no one got in or out of the van.
Eventually Malcolm said, “They can’t have a toilet in there.”
“Maybe they’re catheterized like I was in the hospital.”
“Cops aren’t that dedicated.”
“They might be if they came from Manzanar.”
“What’s Manzanar?”
I told him everything I knew about it from what I’d read in the library.
He said, “Sometimes I think it’s good to be white.”
“Sometimes?”
“Most of the time, I’d rather be Samoan. You know, from Samoa.”
“Why?”
“Those guys are like six-four, weigh like three hundred pounds, but they have such smooth moves, you’d think they were dancers in another life. I’d like to be huge and strong, but graceful.”
“Maybe you’ll be a Clydesdale in your next life. Anyway, Samoans look white to me.”
“Everybody looks white to you. What do you think those cops in the van are saying about us?”
“ ‘What a couple of geeks.’ ”
“I do believe you’re psychic.”
We remained on the porch for quite a while, and when Malcolm got up to go home, I said, “Don’t come back till Monday, and then bring your axe.”
“Why not till Monday?”
“I’m spending all weekend at the keyboard getting back into shape.”
“Bring my saxophone, huh?”
“Bring your axe.”
“You say potato, I say po-tah-to.”
“Get out of here.”
He descended the ramp, stopped on the sidewalk, and turned to me. “Man, I’m glad you’re back.”
“I’m not back yet,” I said, “but I will be.”
I sat on the porch by myself for a while. On the hour, a paneled van turned the corner at the west end of the block and parked behind the tan Ford in front of the Jaruzelski place. The two vehicles were identical. After a minute or two, the first van left. Shift change.
88
Maybe there’s a law of nature that your life can only go down so far before there’s a rebound. I could make a case that when I didn’t die in the bomb blast, when I only lost the use of my legs, that was my personal-best down, and that things started turning around for me—and for my family—when I learned that I would still be able to pee in the same fashion that I had peed all my life, except always from a sitting position henceforth. That Friday, we began to catch some good breaks.
Mom got a call from a booking agent who hadn’t wanted to handle her but now offered her an audition at a place called Diamond Dust, at 4:30 the next afternoon. It was the swankiest nightclub in the city, and she assumed they might want her for two low-traffic nights, maybe Mondays and Tuesdays. The agent said, no, this was for lead singer, five nights a week, working with a fourteen-piece band. The club had changed hands, and they were looking for an even classier image than what they already had.
The agent said, “The way they want to run it is kind of unusual, but I’m sure you can cope. They want to hear ‘Embraceable You,’ ‘A Tisket, A Tasket,’ and ‘Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy.’ ”
That evening at the dinner table, a grim possibility occurred to Mom. She put down her fork and said, “Oh, no. What if this is because of Tilton?”
Grandpa looked up from the delicious chicken lasagna that Mrs. Lorenzo had brought with her in the move. “How could it have anything to do with Tilton?”
Shaking her head, frowning, Mrs. Lorenzo said, “That man.”
“The bombing was a nationwide story,” my mother said. “He’s a fugitive. Maybe I’m worth the job only because I’m the fugitive’s ex-wife. Maybe they expect I’ll bring in a lot of curious idiots who think I’m Bonnie to his Clyde.”
“I hate that movie,” Mrs. Lorenzo said, “except Gene Hackman. He’s going to be somebody.”
“Diamond Dust,” Grandpa said firmly, “isn’t a place that pulls publicity stunts. They’re serious about their music. Anyway, if that was it, then they’d want you only for the low-traffic nights.”
“I guess maybe,” she said, but she sounded doubtful. “How would a place like that even know about me?”
Grandpa threw up his hands as if in exasperation. “They saw you at Slinky’s or somewhere else and realized you far out-classed the venue. Don’t second-guess your guardian angel, girl.”