“YOU’RE NOT GOING to believe this,” Rosemary said when Martin returned, blinking in the bright light. “Peggy wants to call off the wedding. She says she’s been thinking about it ever since she went out with your brother. Didn’t I say that was a bad idea?”
“You did.” He poured a glass of water from the tap. “You are a prophetess. The Cassandra of the Bronx.”
“Has he said anything to you about Sunday night?”
“Not a word. But I’ll ask when I see him.” Martin downed the glass of water and retrieved his jacket.
“My parents are going to kill her. Then they’ll kill me, and then they’ll kill you, and then your brother.”
“The streets of the Bronx will run red with the blood of the Dempseys.” Martin cocked his head. “Now that’s something I could write a song about. They’d be singing it from Bainbridge Avenue to St. Stephen’s Green. ‘Oh, the blood of the Dempseys runs red in the streets! On account of a blonde with two dancing feet.’”
“I’m glad you think this is funny.” Rosemary picked up Martin’s glass and began washing it in the sink. “You should see my parents whenever the subject of this wedding comes up. Another disaster for the Dwyer family.”
Martin reached for her hand and drew her closer to him. He kissed her fingers, still wet from washing up. “Rose of my heart, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
She raised an eyebrow and grimaced. Skeptical.
“I sailed on a big boat to ’Merica. We fell in love. We had a baby. And that baby was Kate.” He kissed her hand again. “It’s a very nice story.”
“It leaves out a lot,” she said.
“We had another baby. We stayed in love. That’s still part of the story, isn’t it?”
She ran her fingers through his hair. Jet-black, like Evie’s. She did love him, and that should be enough to make the rest of this bearable: the apartment and Mrs. Fichetti, the long nighttime hours when the girls were asleep and Martin was in the city, all that time when it was just her and her thoughts and no one to talk to. She hadn’t counted on this being such a lonely life. She had imagined that she would be a part of Martin’s world, a world of music and cocktails and men in sharp suits and women in dresses you’d see in the magazines. They’d had that life, both of them, but only for a few months. She still kept the memories boxed up. She took them out and looked them over during the long nights, but lately it didn’t cheer her to think of the life they had lived in the not-so-long-ago. Increasingly she felt cheated by the life she lived in the here and now. A life of rent, utility bills, groceries, a tab at the butcher shop, a husband who had quit a good job.
“I know what you’re angling for with all of this lovey talk.”
“Can’t a man tell his wife how he feels?”
“Of course he can. He just shouldn’t expect anything in return.”
“And what am I expecting?”
“Something that could lead to another crib in the girls’ room.”
“I’m not thinking about babies, not one bit.”
“And that’s your problem. You never think about babies until it’s too late.”
He kissed Rosemary and grabbed his hat. He had been foggy-headed from the heat and shadows of Kate’s room, but now he saw it clearly: no wedding meant no reception, and no reception meant no Martin Dempsey Orchestra. “You’ll talk to Peggy? Set her straight?”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Even if the wedding is off, we can still have the reception, right? No sense in canceling a party. I imagine it’s already paid for.”
“You just tell Francis to keep his distance. I’ll take care of Peggy.”
HARLEM
BY THE TIME BENNY Carter finished his set, Martin was hollowed out. He felt such joy that he had a hand in scripting the wonder he had seen, but it was backed by the fear that he would forever be too slow to catch that train—the one that led to a spot on the really big bandstands. It was always this way whenever Martin saw one of the greats perform. The action on the bandstand was a bracing, eighty-proof shot of inspiration, but it triggered in him a furious despair. It was as if he was being taunted, but not by Benny Carter. No, sir. Carter was a beacon of pure light and hope. He was everything that Martin wanted to be: polymath musician, bandleader, arranger. Martin’s anger was directed at himself, a chastening fire: Why isn’t that me up there? He had wanted nothing his whole life but music, and yet somehow he had settled: one hit song, a seat in Chester’s band, life above Mrs. Fichetti. Is that why he’d left Ireland? Why he’d come to New York? Martin could tell himself that he was still young—not yet thirty—but he had a wife and children and he was just starting to learn that time was the world’s cruelest con man, a master of sleight of hand. You look one way and your wallet’s gone. You look the other and the clock has run to zero: time’s up!
Benny Carter was a reminder—This is where the bar is set, my friend; this is how high you must climb—but he was also a rebuke. Martin was taking his shot with his wedding combo, but compared to Carter’s orchestra on the stage of the goddamn Savoy Ballroom, with the dancers whirling and air-stepping all around him, he had to ask himself: Who are you kidding? A wedding reception in the Bronx, in a roomful of political hacks kissing the arse of your father-in-law? And for that you quit your job? Cheers to him for trying, but how had he banked his future, his family, his life, on that?
When Francis suggested a drink, Martin stumped with him down Lenox Avenue on heavy legs. He knew he had to snap himself out of this funk, but he knew, too, that first thing tomorrow he needed to find whatever work a mortal like him could get to keep the American Dempseys out of the poorhouse. The ballroom bands had finished for the night, and now was the time when players from all over the city came together in jam sessions to see who measured up. Martin and Francis claimed two seats at the bar of a lounge that was just starting to fill and ordered their first round, and when the drinks came Francis paid and offered a toast to his brother, the famous composer.
Martin winced. “So what happened with Peggy the other night?”
“Oh, just a bit of fun,” Francis said.
“You know she’s getting married on Saturday?”
“And I was only showing her what she’s giving up, joining the ranks of the newly wed.”
Martin sipped his drink. “About that,” he said. “Peggy wants to call off the wedding. She told Rosemary she’s not ready to give up… whatever it was you showed her.”
“It’s an impressive sight, I have to admit.”
“Just stay away from her—for my sake. Give Rosemary a chance to set her straight.”
“I’ve no plans for seeing her again. I’m beginning to feel like she was the one using me. Show a fella a nice time, take him dancing and then go back to his fancy hotel—”
“You took her to the Plaza?”