Carla Neggers - Tempting Fate

Lilli had stopped abruptly. “You look cold.” Then she’d pulled off her pale gray cashmere scarf and wrapped it around Dani’s neck for added warmth, tucking one edge up over her mouth and nose.

They’d taken the subway to Greenwich Village, her mother acting so much as if it was a grand adventure that Dani got caught up in her excitement. “Are we going to see Mattie?” she’d asked.

“No, she’s gone ballooning in New Mexico.”

That had sounded fun to Dani, but even her father didn’t like the idea of her getting into a hot-air balloon with his mother. “Can we go to New Mexico?”

“Maybe during your winter vacation, after-” Her mother’s eyes had clouded, her shoulders sagging. “One day we’ll go.”

They’d walked to a section of Greenwich Village where even Mattie, who had few rules, hadn’t permitted Dani to wander on her own. Lilli had plunged down two concrete steps to a heavy, dirty door, its black paint chipped. She’d peeled off a black leather glove and knocked. There was one window, blackened with soot and covered with iron bars, and a sign over the door that said the Flamingo.

A voice yelled for them to come inside.

Even now, so many years later, Dani could smell the smoke inside that dark bar. It had been decorated-of course-with plastic flamingos and fake palm branches. In the dim light, she’d seen her mother’s smile falter.

A black-haired man had greeted her from behind the bar. “You the lady who called?”

Lilli had nodded, looking faintly disapproving, the way she did when giving in to Dani and buying hot pretzels from a street vendor. “You’re Mr. Garcia.”

He was a Cuban exile, he explained. He had played jazz for the tourists in Havana before Castro. A picture of John F. Kennedy hung above the cash register. One of Fidel Castro hung behind the bar; it was struck with darts. Licking her lips, Lilli slid a hundred-dollar bill across the worn bar. Until that moment Dani hadn’t been sure her mother even knew how to write a check; she’d always seemed to pay for things just by nodding. Mattie had insisted Dani learn how to handle money.

“The place is all yours,” Mr. Garcia had said, a sweep of his chubby arm taking in all of the small, empty bar.

Lilli had removed her coat and hat, then helped Dani with the complicated clasps of the dress coat she’d worn for her visit with her grandmother. Her hair had crackled with static electricity as she pulled off the cashmere scarf.

“I’m going to sing some songs,” her mother had told her. “You can sit up at the table by yourself and be my audience. How’s that?”

“Can I have a Coke?”

Lilli smiled. “And pretzels.”

She’d given Mr. Garcia more money, and he’d brought a tall glass of soda and a bowl of pretzels to Dani, who’d sat alertly at a rickety round table, aware that this wasn’t like sitting on Mattie’s front stoop discussing baseball and politics with anybody who happened by. This, she’d thought at age eight, was really scary.

Underneath her coat, her mother had been wearing a slinky black dress. She put on a pair of strappy black high heels that she’d had squished down in her handbag. Dani had never seen the dress or the shoes before.

Mr. Garcia had turned on the microphone and a hot, blinding stage light that at first made Lilli blink and look frightened. “Dani?” she called. “Dani, you’re still here, aren’t you, sweetheart?”

“Yep,” Dani called back.

Her mother had smiled tentatively.

“Remember,” Mr. Garcia had yelled. “If you stink, you got thirty minutes. If I can stand it, an hour.”

Munching on pretzels, Dani had watched, stupefied, as her mother had transformed herself-and the tacky Greenwich Village nightclub-with her singing and dancing. Once she got started, she’d never checked on Dani, and the only reason she’d stopped was because Mr. Garcia turned off the stage light. “I gotta open up the place,” he’d said apologetically. “Besides, you shouldn’t overdo. Wreck your voice.”

Her dress had been soaked with perspiration, and her hair had stuck to her forehead and the back of her neck. Dani had never seen her mother so hot, even after a summer tennis game. “How long?”

“Over an hour.”

“Then I-”

“You’ve got talent, lady.”

“You mean it? I wasn’t awful?”

“You weren’t awful. Come back another day. You want, you can sing for the crowd.”

“But I couldn’t.”

“Nobody’d recognize you-not my customers, anyway.”

“You don’t-”

He’d shaken his head, again reading her mind. “I don’t know your name, but I can see you’re white bread. The kid wanted avocado on her tuna fish.”

“Danielle!”

It was as if Lilli had just remembered she’d brought her daughter along. She’d rushed from the stage and found Dani merrily eating Hershey’s Kisses, a stack of crumpled silver papers piled beside her, along with a half-eaten tuna sandwich, two empty soda glasses and the empty pretzel bowl.

“Are you finished, Mama?”

“Yes, we’ll go home right away before Dad misses us. Good gracious, you’re going to have to learn self-control. Did you like my singing?”

“I liked the fast songs the best.”

“You would. We’ll have to tell Dad you already ate. He-” Lilli had tilted her head back, chewing on one corner of her mouth as she gazed down at her daughter. “Dani, you mustn’t tell anyone about this afternoon. People wouldn’t understand. One day I’ll explain, but right now I’m trusting you, sweetie. Promise me this will be our secret.”

“I promise.” It had never occurred to her not to.

That evening, Dani had thrown up her afternoon’s indulgences. Her father canceled their walk to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center and, unable to believe there could be so much food in one child, wanted to call the doctor. Her mother had persuaded him to wait until morning. By then, of course, Dani was fine.

On their next visit to the Flamingo, Lilli had packed a picnic for Dani and restricted her to one soda. Mr. Garcia slipped her goodies while her mother had sung and danced in her strappy high heels.

After two months, Mr. Garcia had figured out the identity of the lady in the black dress. Dani had heard him raise his fee to two hundred dollars.

“That’s as much as I’ll pay,” Lilli had said, firm. “Even if you broke your promise and told everyone, who’d believe you? Eugene Chandler’s daughter singing in a down-and-out Cuban bar? Paying to sing? It’s just too ridiculous.”

In fact, when she’d disappeared that August, Eduardo Garcia came forward with his unusual story about the missing heiress. The police had questioned him intensely, but he never changed his story: from that December afternoon a week before Claire Chandler died through the following July, Lilli Chandler Pembroke had practiced her make-believe nightclub act once a week or so at the Flamingo.

“Just ask the kid,” he’d told the police.

Finally they did.

Confused and frightened, Dani had told them she knew nothing about her mother’s singing and had never heard of a place called the Flamingo.

So long ago, she thought as she started to reel in her kite, little by little.

As slack occurred, she took in some line and let the kite re-stabilize itself. Then when more slack occurred, she took in a little more line. It was her favorite kite, and she didn’t want to lose it. And she’d promised Ira no more climbing trees. But she wasn’t about to call one of the grounds crew to rescue her kite like some little kid.

It was still high above the trees, steady against the wind.

“Why do you like to sing, Mama?”

She could see her mother’s smile. “You know how Mattie says she feels when she’s in a balloon? That’s how I feel when I’m singing. Absolutely free.”