Esi Edugyan - Half-Blood Blues

I coughed against my hand. ‘So what you secret, Paul?’

He lift up one shaky eyebrow. ‘It’s no secret. You let them come to you . A jane doesn’t like to be pushed.’

‘It don’t hurt if you look like a Adonis, neither,’ Chip smiled.

Paul shrugged, chuckling.

‘You both off you nut.’ But I was smiling some too, now. That was the damn czech, I guess, eating its way through my liver. ‘I ain’t no Adonis, buck.’

‘Sid got a point.’

‘That is a point,’ Paul agreed. He cleared his throat, glanced up like he just realizing he sitting at a dark bar in a shuttered club and he ain’t changed his shirt in two days. He run a thumb under his bleary eyes. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Okay. First thing you need to understand, janes don’t make any sense. None. If they’re mad at you, it means they’re interested. Or maybe they’re not. If they ignore you, it means they’re not interested. Or maybe they are.’

I nodded, blinking. ‘Okay. They make no sense. Got it.’

Chip poured me another two fingers. ‘And you got to make them feel they special .’

‘Sure,’ Paul nodded. ‘You need to make them feel like you’re listening to them. Like you’re getting to know the real dame.’

‘And you got to buy them stuff, buck. Dames like presents. You ever known a dame not to like a present?’

Paul nodded. ‘Dames like presents. It’s true.’

‘You got to get her thinkin of you before she think of the kid. That the trick.’

‘That is the trick,’ Paul said, nodding sagely. ‘Yes it is. Whose turn is it?’

‘Pass that old bottle over, brother.’

‘I think it’s my turn. Isn’t it my turn?’

But I wasn’t hardly listening. Cause Hiero come out through the heavy red curtains from backstage, the left side of his afro pressed flat like he been sleeping. His horn was hooked over his forefinger, the thing gleaming like a outrageous jewel.

And, hell, Delilah come following him through. She was laughing, teasing, batting her damn eyes at him sort of foolish like, like she ain’t realized we sitting here. The kid turn up one side of his mouth, as if he got a cramp in his jaw, as if he embarrassed. Then he just pursed his lips to his trumpet, blown a huge high C, sliding down the scale hair by hair till he got to the bottom. His notes so damn hot they smart you ears.

He paused, put a hand to his eyes, stared out at us. ‘What you doin over there?’

Paul start to laughing. ‘Don’t you mind it,’ he called back.

‘We talkin bout you,’ said Chip with a sloppy grin.

I flushed.

I was watching Delilah up there onstage. She was wearing that gold headwrap from yesterday, its sequins glittering like a million eyes in its folds.

‘Ain’t that somethin,’ I murmured. ‘She look like a queen.’

‘More like a fortune teller,’ said Chip.

‘A misfortune teller,’ said Paul, laughing silently.

‘Aw, you both crazy. She lookin good.’

Chip fixed me with a baleful eye. ‘That there look like a mound of garbage on her head, brother. You think she’d wear that if she ain’t got to?’

I blinked. ‘What?’

‘Open you eyes, buck. That dreck on her head’s a gift.’

‘What?’

‘You don’t recognize that fabric?’

The bronze shimmer, the winking sequins — it hit me then. That drab curtain we drawn over the green room’s window. I tried to still my face. But I so overwhelmed with disappointment and irritation that I could feel my old cheeks creasing up.

‘What the hell,’ I muttered. ‘So we got no curtain now?’

‘Kid nailed an old tarp up,’ Paul smiled. ‘It works better. Cuts out more light.’

Chip belched. Then again.

He done pour the dregs into my glass when I wasn’t looking — that awful grit that cling to you tongue like bayou mud — and I started gagging, coughing back into the glass. Chip whooped. ‘Go on, buck,’ he grinned. ‘Polish her off.’

Felt so cross-eyed, it like I going blind. Holy hell.

The kid was squealing his way along them damn scales, squawling and brapping up and down, up and down again. Like to make you skin crawl. I closed my eyes, opened them. The walls was shifting ever so slightly.

Chip grunted. ‘I goin to the john. Don’t mess with my cards.’

Paul ain’t even stirred.

Delilah was reaching down, taking off her heels. She stood barefoot on the boards, and I was astonished at how short she suddenly was. Like a kid , I thought bitterly.

‘I need to talk to you,’ Paul said quiet-like. He lift up his head, and his eyes look very clear, very pale. ‘Sid? Hey, Sid.’

‘I listenin.’

‘I need help.’

‘Damn right you do. You and Chip both.’

He shook his head. ‘No. I’m serious. I need help.’

‘I told you,’ I said, leaning emphatically forward with each word, ‘I-take-Inge-but-not-Marta. Marta-ain’t-my-speedbuck.’

‘I left something at the flat,’ he muttered, ‘something I’m desperate without. I can’t go out for it. But I can’t ask anyone else either.’

‘Ask Hiero. He the one to make you dreams come true.’ I scowled, staring across at him still walking up and down them scales. Delilah was leaning back on the piano, just watching him work.

Paul give me a confused look. ‘Hiero?’

I was thinking of that advice they give me. Of what a jack can give as a present to make a girl swoon. Hell. I ain’t giving her no damn rag for her hair , that for sure. I got to make it meaningful .

‘You listening, Sid? Sid?’

My mind swum back through its fog. ‘You left it back at the flat.’ I nodded. ‘Sure. What was it again?’

He lowered his face. I known then he ain’t said what it was.

‘If it that important,’ I said, ‘get Delilah to fetch it. She goin out still. Or if it too embarrassin for a jane to see, hell, there still old Ernst. What the problem?’

Paul was nodding slow-like, but his eyes was tense, unconvinced. I ain’t asked why not go for it hisself, blond and blue-eyed like he is. It was fear. I known that. I wasn’t sure why Paul was talking bout it and then it struck me.

‘Hell,’ I said. ‘You want me to go for it? You want me to go, I go. Just tell me what I lookin for.’

Paul’s face lit up with relief. But just as quickly he fell to brooding. Slowly he begun shaking his head. ‘Naw, Sid. I can’t ask you to go out there.’ But he set a unsteady hand on my shoulder, looked at me a long time.

‘Then ask Delilah. She ain’t goin mind stoppin in at the flat.’ But I known by the set of his mouth, the way it slunk back at its corners, he wouldn’t never ask her. Paul got this iron core. Ain’t much ever move it. ‘You reckon her coat do the trick?’ I said impulsively. ‘That it ain’t too flimsy? It kind of cold in here.’

Paul shook his head like to clear it. ‘What?’

The kid was still squawking up and down them scales. Jesus hell.

‘Delilah’s coat,’ I said. ‘You reckon it warm enough for her? She come from Paris in the summer and all. It look a little flimsy to me. She got to be freezin in here.’

Paul’s shoulders was slumped. ‘I don’t know. I guess. Who couldn’t use a new coat?’

I nodded firmly. ‘I been thinkin that too.’

All a sudden Hiero, up there on the boards, twist into a hopping melody so fresh I ain’t recognized it. Naw, I did know it: Empty Bed Blues . He was playing Empty Bed Blues , but doing it so coy it ain’t sound nothing like itself. It come out flirty, girlish almost, and he left small gaps where a singer’s voice should be.

Delilah looked surprised, charmed, her lips half open. She took a few lazy steps forward on her small bare feet. Staring up at Hiero, she raised her arms, hitching her shoulders to her ears.