I haven’t missed a Wednesday performance since I first took the stage twelve weeks ago. By now I’m on a first-name basis with the regulars. The bouncer, Kareem—a refrigerator of a man—greets me at the door. I ask him where I can find Karen. He points, and I see her at the bar, working at her iPad.
Karen is the woman in charge, although her authority is limited to giving out time slots and introducing the acts. She looks to be in her midforties and she has clearly made it to this point the hard way. There’s a world-weariness around her eyes, as if she’s experienced things she now regrets. She’s rail thin—without any of the musculature of someone who adheres to a workout regimen.
“Cassidy!” Karen calls out when I approach.
We kiss on both cheeks the way Europeans do, and I wonder if it’s because Karen might be European. Her voice has a trace of an accent, but I’m not sure if it’s foreign or affected.
When we pull away, she scans my body. I am reasonably sure Karen is a lesbian.
“Wow. Look at you. Going to blow the roof off the place before you sing a note.”
“Going to do some Donna Summer,” I say.
She taps her iPad. “I had a bunch of cancellations tonight. If you want to go on at midnight or so, I can give you four songs.”
Sets are at most two songs. Rookies, or anyone who has pissed Karen off recently, only get one. People have been known to offer Karen bribes—usually promises of sex, because none of the performers have any money—for an extra three minutes (and she always declines), which makes Karen’s offer tonight to double my time without any quid pro quo virtually unprecedented.
My first thought is that a midnight set means I won’t be home until after 1:00 a.m., and I’ll be so wired that I won’t fall asleep until two at the earliest, which is not ideal considering I have to be Ella Broden, attorney-at-law, in the morning. But I absolutely hate when Cassidy suffers Ella’s thoughts.
Cassidy is a creature of the night. She doesn’t have anywhere to be tomorrow, and there’s nothing she’d like to do more than throw back a few drinks, listen to some music, and then, as Karen says, blow the roof off the place at midnight.
“Sure. Whenever,” I say.
At the bar, I order a whiskey because that’s Cassidy’s poison. I’m midway through it when I spy a handsome man in the crowd. He’s dark everywhere. Skin, eyes, hair, and dressed from head to toe in black. His smile is borderline dangerous. The kind of man Cassidy would go for in a heartbeat, but who would scare the hell out of a goody-goody like Ella Broden.
I give him my—I mean, Cassidy’s—best “fuck me” smile.
It’s enough to reel him in. He heads right to me, and sidles up so he’s standing wedged between my bar stool and the one next to it.
He tells me his name, but I don’t catch it. When I tell him mine—Cassidy, of course—he repeats it back to me.
“I’ve never seen you here before,” I say.
“I’ve never been. I came here tonight on something of a lark.”
“Are you here to watch or perform?”
“Only time will tell, now, won’t it?”
My new friend calls out to the bartender, “I’ll have whatever she’s having,” like they say in the movies. When his drink arrives, he clinks his glass against mine. “To . . . ?” he says.
I complete the toast the way Cassidy would. “To whatever time has to tell.”
“Indeed,” he says. Then he throws his whiskey back in one gulp.
He looks at me like he’s the devil, urging me to match him. I give in to the peer pressure, although my attempt to be cool is thwarted when I gag a bit as the whiskey goes down.
When our glasses are empty, he signals to the bartender that we’re ready for more by holding up two fingers and spinning them around. We chat for a while, mostly about music. When I ask him to regale me with his life story, he says only that he lives in Brooklyn and that he’s a doctor who most recently worked in Peru with Doctors Without Borders. I consider pressing him for more details, but it’s so refreshing to be talking to a man who doesn’t go on and on about himself that I’m content to allow him to remain mysterious.
He asks about me like he’s truly interested, which is also something of a new experience in my dealings with men. For an instant, his sincerity causes me to consider breaking character, but then I hear myself parroting Cassidy’s bio, at one point even going on about the sunsets of the Oregon coast as if I’ve actually seen one.
The conversation, the alcohol, and his eyes are enough for me to completely lose track of the time. I’m just finishing off my third drink when he raises his hand and shouts out, “Right here.”
My focus shifts to Karen, on the stage. She’s pointing at me. It takes me a moment to realize what has happened, but then it clicks. She’s pointing at him, not me. Mr. Only-Time-Will-Tell has just volunteered to do a set.
He pushes through the crowd and climbs onto the stage. After he makes his way over to the band and whispers his song selection, he returns to the mic.
Some people look lost up there, but not my new friend. He reminds me of a conquering monarch addressing his subjects.
“I’m Dylan Perry,” he says, so at least now I know his name. “This is an old one, but . . . well, you decide for yourselves if it’s any good.”
The cheesy organ lead-in makes me first think that he’s going to sing a Doors song, but then I realize it’s “House of the Rising Sun.” My first reaction is fear . . . for Dylan. Experienced singers know that there are certain songs you don’t cover because they’re so identified with the original. That’s why no one with half a brain tries to sing anything from Queen.
But my concern vanishes the moment he utters the first lyric. He’s . . . dominating. That’s the word that comes to mind. Dominating. Eric Burdon has nothing on him. Dylan surveys the audience as he sings, and when his eyes return to mine, as they do every few seconds, I feel myself flush.
Even before he’s finished, the crowd has drowned him out. So completely, in fact, that I can’t hear my own screaming voice.
“Thank you,” he says, and then I see an almost imperceptible chuckle. Like he’s surprised he’s done as well as he has. It makes me fall for him that much more.
“I’m allowed to do one more song,” he says. “I hope you like this one. It’s also a throwback. From Queen.”
When the bass starts, it sounds like that Vanilla Ice song, but then I realize it’s “Under Pressure.” The crowd is ahead of me, and they’re even louder than before.
When he’s done, Dylan literally jumps off the stage, without any of the basking that some people do. I say a silent prayer of thanks that I’m not following him. In fact, I pity whoever has to live up to that performance.
He returns to the bar stool, glistening in sweat. I have no idea what comes over me—the whiskey or my Cassidy persona taking over—but I immediately pull him into me and plant my lips on his. At first he seems surprised by my aggressiveness, but it isn’t long into the kiss before I feel him taking control.
We make out for the better part of the next few sets. Like teenagers at the drive-in, but with the promise of more to follow. I’ve forgotten all about the stage, when my name—or rather Cassidy’s—is called.