Marie-Helene Bertino - 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“I’ll read to you, dear.” Mrs. Santiago hands Jill a brown bag of coffee stamped with Daniel’s likeness. As Madeleine expected, she is delighted that she wants to play with another little girl. She comes out from behind the counter holding a leash, on the end of which is a miserable Pedro. “Take him with you. At least he can see some of the outside.”

“Pedro seems blue,” Jill says.

Mrs. Santiago nods. “His heart is broken.”

Pedro backpedals and about-faces, snapping at the leash. Mrs. Santiago asks Pedro what he thinks of a nice walk through the market, a nice walker-oo, wouldn’t he like that, a walkeroni roo?

Sandra says, “Why don’t you marry that dog?”

Madeleine giggles, in spite of herself. Sandra laughs, too. It takes them several minutes to get themselves under control as Mrs. Santiago waits, unsmiling. Sandra dabs tears from her eyes with a napkin.

“Are you finished?” Mrs. Santiago says.

Madeleine says, “Let’s go, Jill.”

“Don’t forget to ask Jill to come to your birthday par—”

Madeleine slams the door.

“You know who should go to London,” Sandra says. “You. You’ve never been anywhere.”

“With all of my spare time.” Mrs. Santiago hoots. “Now that’s funny.”

Outside, Jill asks Madeleine why she will hang out with her all of a sudden. “Did you want to get away from that crazy lady? One of my aunts forces me to read the Bible to her while I comb her hair.”

“That’s weird,” says Madeleine.

“Do you live at Santiago’s?”

“I live on Ninth Street in the market with my father.”

“Where’s your mother?” Jill slaps her forehead. “Oh right! She’s dead.”

“This is where I leave you,” Madeleine says.

Jill blinks several times. “I thought you were coming over.”

Madeleine is already legging down the street. “Later skater,” she calls over her shoulder.

“You’re just mean!” Jill calls to her retreating figure.

Madeleine extends her middle finger above her as she and Pedro gallop toward home.

Outside the Red Lion Diner, a girl wearing an expedition coat and pajama bottoms yells into her cell phone that he’d better be coming to pick her up, not whenever he feels like it, but right the hell now.

The lobby no longer has arcade games, but it does have a pay phone. Lorca punches in the number. He holds a plastic container of sausage Mrs. Santiago gave him in thanks for returning her dog. The pajama-ed girl paces outside the window where Lorca stands, listening to the line ring. She wants the person on the other end to explain exactly what kind of asshole he thinks she is. She speaks with the matter-of-fact cruelty of a Northeast girl. They’re making young people younger. Or else Lorca is older than he’s ever been.

Fiinally, a woman picks up. “Mongoose’s.”

“I’d like to speak with Mongoose.”

“He’s not here. May I ask who’s calling?”

“When will he be back?”

“He went up the street for sandwiches.” The voice inhales sharply. “Lorca? Is that you?”

“Yeah.” Lorca closes his eyes. “It’s me.”

Her tone changes to repentant. “Lorca? How are you?”

“I’ve been better.”

“He’ll be happy you called,” she says. “I’ll tell him as soon as he’s back. Take care of yourself, Lorca.”

He hangs up. The sudden, quiet lobby. The walls are blue with deep yellow flecks. Lorca smells syrup and weak coffee. Inside the glass doors, families sit at plastic booths eating eggs. A waitress borrows a ketchup bottle from one table to give to a family whose food has just arrived.

There he is five years ago, untattooed, fiddling with the knobs of the booth’s personal jukebox. It is his first date with Louisa Vicino, snake girl at The Courtland Avenue Club, and he had to bring Alex because the kid threw a tantrum. Louisa doesn’t seem to mind. It is going well. In the car ride over, she and Alex discovered they both like Ray Charles and Swiss cheese with no holes.

“When they say vanilla shake”—Louisa studies the menu—“do they mean French or bean? I like bean but not French.”

“Me too.” Eleven-year-old Alex readjusts himself on the plastic seat so he can sit higher. Lorca is certain his son doesn’t know the difference between the two kinds of vanilla. Alex detests Lorca because he won’t let him play guitar, but detests being without him even more. Louisa is the first woman his father has allowed him to meet, albeit by force. She is an extension of his father ungoverned by obligatory familial resentment. Alex is free to be fascinated by this full-hipped woman who carries a purse the size of a fist and who declared in the car, “Anyone who doesn’t think Ray Charles is the best is a chump.”

They order milkshakes. Lorca wants to play Ray Charles on their personal jukebox, but it is broken. Sweat blooms in the fabric of the only button-down he owns.

The Courtland Avenue Club is a combination strip club/bowling alley, a glowing, neon dome you can see from the highway. Louisa dances three times a night and works shifts at the bar in between. Lorca has never seen her dance, and doesn’t want to. Her mouth is still red from the outside cold. Lorca likes how her chin moves when she is emphatic. “I didn’t finish college,” she says, “but I want to take classes. In what I’m not sure.”

The milkshakes arrive. She swallows a strawful, then turns to Alex. “How is it?”

He thinks about it. “Good.”

“Mine too. If you can flip a spoonful of it over and it doesn’t drip, it’s good.”

A tray of food arrives for the family next to them. The waitress slides each plate onto the table as the family oohs and aahs.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Alex says.

“Hurry up,” Lorca says. “We have to get back to the club.”

Alex runs off. Louisa stacks a pile of creamers. “You’re rough with him.”

“I’m real with him. He’ll grow up knowing what’s real.”

“Or he’ll grow up hating you.”

Lorca feels the day falling off a cliff. “So,” he says, “how does someone get into the snake lady business?”

She allows him to change the subject but registers it with a tilt of her pretty eyebrows. “The original snake lady is a friend of mine. We were dancers together, legitimate dancers, in a burlesque show. She said it would be easy money. She was right.”

“How do you get them to stay on you?”

“Practice,” she says. “I hold my arms in the tank and they wind around.” She pantomimes holding her arms in a tank. “When I come onstage, the snakes’ heads are down by my hands. I shimmy around, show them to the boys.” She sways in the booth to demonstrate. “Then, I go like this.” She gyrates on the diner seat. Lorca’s neck warms. “They crawl around my belly and legs. I do splits, shimmies, the whole shebang. The snakes are pros. They’re the stars and they know it.”

“The whole shebang.” Lorca is getting a sad feeling. “Do you mix it up every time?”

“I do not,” she says, “mix it up.”

“What kind of future is in snake dancing?”

“It supported my friend for years,” she says. “She’s quitting because she has cancer and she wants to be with her kid, but if she didn’t, she could have done it indefinitely.” She reacts to his grimace. “I like it, Lorca. It’s fun.”

“Fun,” he says. “Do the snakes have names?”

“They have names.” She seems less willing to share their names than to talk about the dancing.

“Give.”

“Don’t laugh,” she says. “Hero and Leander. Like the Greek myth?”

“I know like the Greek myth.”