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

Lorca says, “Alex knew exactly where Max was going in every song.”

Sonny coughs, refolds the sleeves of his trench coat. “The kid is good.”

“You have to rehearse to get that good,” Lorca says. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Sonny blinks. “I would not.”

“Maybe it’s time for a vacation. Throw our rods in the car and drive down the coast.” Lorca calls to Alex. “You want to go fishing?”

“Sure,” Alex says.

Sonny frowns. “Whose car?”

The plane is alive. It taxis down Front Street to the end of the building where it dies with no ceremony. Gus fiddles with the control pad.

“That’s too bad,” Daphne says. A rhinestone winks on each of her painted nails.

They decide to go to the Red Lion Diner. “We’ll walk up Girard,” Max says.

“The alleys are faster,” Sonny insists.

“Your ass the alleys are faster,” Max snorts. “You want to get there today?”

The party walks ahead, leaving Gus and Daphne alone with the grounded plane. Gus tries switches, hoping for a new development. Teetering on her heels, Daphne lists what she will order when they get to the diner.

“The biggest omelet they have,” she says. “Mushrooms and cheese and sausage and broccoli …”

“And gravy?”

“Gravy and biscuits and a waffle. They’re going to need two men to bring it to the table. And a basket of fries.”

“A suitcase of fries, darlin’,” Gus says.

“A wheelbarrow.”

“It’s a shame,” Cassidy says. “My first day was my last day. Did you hear that little girl? How do you learn how to sing like that?”

Max pauses in his argument with Sonny. “You don’t, angel. You get born like that.”

Behind them, where he walks with his son, Lorca realizes there will be no club to open in the morning. A relief he did not anticipate unrolls in his chest. “I’m going to be around more now,” Lorca says.

“All right,” Alex says.

“So, how’s school?”

“Not good.”

Celebration behind them. Gus has found the right combination of switches and buttons and the plane has roared to life again. It races toward them and tries a leap but cannot achieve the sky. It takes a jagged, desperate run.

Sonny squints. “Bring her nose up!”

Gus glares at the control. “I know, bring her nose up.”

“Get her up, old man,” yells Sonny. Then he mutters to Lorca, “He has to get the nose up or it won’t fly.”

Daphne believes in the plane. When everyone else is certain it won’t succeed, when the other girls turn toward the direction of ham and coffee, she raises her arms in a V. “Go, plane, go!”

The plane opts for different tacks but none of them gets it airborne. Its skin shakes with effort. Just when it seems like it has given up, it performs a successful hop into the air. It feathers higher, clearing the group. They wheel around to watch it ascend.

“You’re still going, though,” Lorca says. “To school?”

Alex grins. “Still going.”

“That’s a start,” Lorca says.

The plane gulps, goes higher. It shakes off its panic. The body stills, the buzz settles into itself and becomes a hum. Gus’s face reddens. Daphne jumps in her heels, cheering. Everyone is cheering.

Lorca whistles. “Look at that.”

He and his son watch the plane in the sky.

Ben dozes on the Market-Frankford El platform, head tucked into his coat. Below, in the parking lot of a discount food store, a streetlight shines on one lone car.

He’ll sleep here until the first train of the new day erupts into the station. Once seated, he will rewind the evening and begin playback with the moment he, shaking himself out of his coat, saw Sarina Greene. No, beginning with the afternoon phone call when the name Sarina Greene uprooted him. No, beginning way before that, with yellow chiffon and his brother’s majestic Mustang.

In her kitchen, Sarina adds cherries to a bowl of vanilla ice cream. She wants to finish Sunshine the Dragon before she falls asleep. She is almost at the end.

It is cold on the platform but not unbearable. Everyone in the city is dreaming, their refrigerators stacked with holiday platters covered in aluminum foil. It is Christmas Eve, Ben realizes. Tomorrow he and his parents will eat Chinese food and watch television in their slippers. His brother will call and he will tell him he spent the night walking the city with Sarina Greene.

The station clerk appears on the platform and lights a cigarette. “Shouldn’t be long,” he says, about the train.

Ben nods, nestles farther into the coat.

“Look.” The clerk points.

With only a few pages left, a stray thought pulls Sarina out of the book.

Many years before, at a party for something she cannot remember, she and her father are sent to the store for candles. Her father hoists her into his arms and carries her away from the celebration. The bristle of his cheek. The keys rattling in his free hand. Balloons on the mailbox. Sarina feels lucky to have a father who can carry her with one hand. At the doorway, they frown. The day has turned stony and cold. Sarina does not have her coat, but getting it would send her back into the house, sifting through aunts and kids’ toys and junk. Her father says she doesn’t need it.

“But, Dad,” she presses. “What if it rains?”

Even as a little girl, such a worrier.

“If it rains,” he says, “we’ll get wet.”

In the lot below the El platform, a shopping cart rolls down an incline toward the parked hatchback. The cart’s progress is slow but unhindered. It is gaining speed.

The clerk exhales smoke into a cloud the shape of a horse. “That cart’s going to hit that car,” he says.

Ben watches (Sarina closes the book) and can hear the ambition of the cart’s wheels carry it down the broad swath of asphalt. (Sarina turns off the lamp.) “No,” he says. “Everything is going to be fine.”

Madeleine knows the jig is up. Miss Greene will be coming by to rat her out, so as Mrs. Santiago uncovers the coffee machine and fires the burners, Madeleine comes clean. She explains the apples, the expulsion, the lice. She orbits Mrs. Santiago, a chattering binary star, while the woman shovels pastries from box to case. Miss Greene, the guitarist, the unexpulsion. She skips the part about the stolen apple. Pedro circles her circling Mrs. Santiago. The three-partied planetary system moves to the table where Madeleine, emptied, waits for her punishment.

Mrs. Santiago stirs her espresso, deep in thought. Finally she speaks. “This”—she points to Madeleine, then to herself—“is not going to work unless you are honest with me. Do you understand?”

“I do,” says Madeleine.

“I don’t think you do. I will not be able to handle you not being honest with me. That will break me.”

Madeleine squirms in her seat. “I stole an apple.”

“Is that all of it?”

“Yes,” Madeleine says.

“Is it?”

“I promise.”

“I believe you.” Mrs. Santiago nods. “Now you must sing for me. Sing,” she says. “Now.”

Madeleine stands. She places a steadying hand against one of the display cases and the other on her hip.

I hear music, mighty fine music

Neither the previous night’s excitement nor the fact that she hasn’t eaten breakfast shows up in her voice. It is stronger than it was onstage. She trills. She thinks about pacing.

Mrs. Santiago’s head plumps, sheathed in sweat.

Madeleine quiets. “Do you need water?”

“Sing!”

Madeleine builds to the big finish. She lets the note warble for an extra few measures.