Petar shrugged. “Nikki, remember what they called us? Petnik?”
“Petnik!” She laughed. “Oh my God, Petnik.” Rook reached for the ice bucket and filled his own glass, wondering what the hell it was about scruffy waifs with sad, soulful eyes that attracted women. What was this magical allure of underachievement and unruly hair?
After a main course of memory lane conversation and Nikki’s fifth cell check of messages from the precinct, Petar came out of his self-absorption to observe that she seemed preoccupied. Nikki set down her fork, leaving a perfectly good duck fat tater tot still speared on it, and napkinned her mouth. The clouds that had parted for her rolled in on a new cold front. She told Petar about the new development in her mother’s case, pausing only for the plates to be cleared before she resumed.
To his credit—for once—Petar listened intently and without interruption. His face sobered and his eyes grew hooded by an old sadness. When she finished, he shook his head and said, “There’s no such thing as closure for you, is there?”
“Maybe I can close the case someday. But closure?” She dismissed the entire concept with the wave of a hand.
“I don’t know how you got through it, Nikki.” He rested his hand on her wrist. “You were very strong then.” Rook signaled for the check.
“Maybe strong is what broke us up.”
He smiled a little and said, “And not me cheating?”
“Oh, right.” She grinned. “That, too.”
On their way out, Nikki excused herself to the ladies’ room and Petar thanked Rook for the nice meal. “You’re a very lucky guy, Jameson Rook,” trilling the R, a remnant of the accent. “Take this the right way, OK? I honestly hope you’re luckier than I was. I could never get through that protective wall of hers. Maybe you won’t give up.”
In spite of himself, Rook had to admit maybe he and the old boyfriend had something in common, after all.
The April air had chilled overnight, and as they waited Sunday morning on the empty sidewalk outside of NEC’s Main Conservatory Building to meet her mom’s former professor, Nikki could see vapor trails from Rook’s nose. It reminded her of Lauren Parry’s breath inside that freezer truck, and she turned away to watch a bus roll by on Huntington Avenue. Then they both heard bouncy synthesized music followed by a man’s amplified voice singing the Flashdance song “Maniac.” The two of them turned all around, searching for the source.
“He’s up there,” said the gray-haired woman approaching from the bus stop. She pointed to an eighth-floor open window in an apartment building behind the NEC residence hall, where a black man in a red long-sleeved shirt and matching black leather vest and fedora sang into the mic of his karaoke machine. “That’s Luther.” She waved up to the window, and Luther waved back, still swaying and singing, his booming voice echoing off the face of the building. “Every morning, when he sees me, he auditions like this for the Conservatory. I told him once we don’t do pop, but he seems undaunted.” Professor Yuki Shimizu extended her hand and introduced herself.
The three of them ascended the foot-worn marble steps and entered through hallowed wooden doors into the vestibule. “I guess you know NEC is a national landmark,” said the professor. “The oldest private music institution in America. And no, I wasn’t here when it opened. It just feels like it.”
As they signed in at Security, Professor Shimizu said, “Pardon me for staring, but I can’t help it. You look just like your mother.” The old woman’s smile filled her entire face and warmed Nikki. “Take that as a supreme compliment, my dear.”
“So taken, Professor. Thank you.”
“And since it’s my day off, how about calling me Yuki?”
“And I’m Nikki.”
“Most people call me Rook,” he said. “But Jameson’s fine, too.”
“I’ve read your magazine articles.”