She was a jazz singer and she played the piano. She played with a soft hand and a warm butter voice that I could only just barely hear over the French hustle of a packed Friday night crowd. She wasn't tall, but she wasn't short either, and her hair was straight and short and looked wild and refined at the same time. Her slender frame swayed on the bench while she sang, and her head bent at the neck with her eyes closed, and if you'd take the time to lean in and look at her face you'd know, at least in those split moments she was singing somewhere else. Anywhere. In a palace maybe. To a duke after making love all night. Wherever she wanted to be, she was there when her eyes closed and she was happy. I could tell from the smile she sang through.
Lindsay had talked her up on the metro over to the Twelfth. "She's fantastic," she gushed when I pried to know more. "It's this girl from my writing class."
"Not Olivia?" I jabbed sarcastically.
"No," she jabbed back, "not Olivia. She's a bit older, this one. Oh! She's fantastic! Like really good."
"I like older. What's her name?"
"Her name's Kerry. She's forty."
"Forty?"
"Yes, forty. Four-tee. That's right. Or maybe thirty-eight, but she's still up there. You would never think it to look at her though. She looks my age."
"Well, you could be forty," I said squinting. "You could pass for it anyways."
"Shut-up. Ass." And she put her fist into my arm with some strength, while her mother looked on covering up a laugh with her hand.
The French Hole or whatever the place is called is one of those cozy abodes with a small frame on the street (just a window and a door). It's skinny, but the thing reaches deep into the building like a catacomb. There's the bar, then the old-timey weathered upright with Kerry wailing away. Past her there's a jumble of closely huddled tables and chairs that we have to slink by in a single file to get to. It's a packed house tonight. The only standing space is behind Kerry and her keys in what's little more than a wide Parisian hallway that's shoved precariously between two walls in the 12th.
Then there's Kerry. That sweet dandelion of a woman. She's everything I'd hoped for from Lindsay's words. Hell, she's even more so. She's wearing a quaint faded white rural dress printed in small blue and red and yellow flowers that are faded too and pulled in close together and everywhere from her knees to her short tight sleeves. Her hair's straight brown and cut above the shoulders, and her jawline's crisp. She's cinnamon brown with freckles and red lipstick, and she looks two, maybe three years older than myself.
She's so pretty when she sings because she's somehow always smiling. It's an immediate entrancement with her, I can't stop looking. If it's not her face, it's her fingers. They foxtrot slowly on the keys to a bluesy jazz rhythm. While we stand waiting, I find myself staring. Lost. My look, but not my mind though. My eyes are dazed and blurred and notice movement without response. Like a pair of empty observation windows. That's because everyone's looking inside now at the ballroom, and the whole party seems to come together, and the fingers become dancers on a floor of white-black checkered marble. And they sing me a whole story. With pen and paper in hand, I write it all down in my mind's eye. Something tells me to remember this. Remember how beautiful this is. Her voice. Her neckline. The faded dress. The old piano, and this place and this city that I'm in. The smell of Parisian night. I should remember all of this, or at the very least not forget it.
It's all in a stare. I catch myself and tell my eyes to blink and look away so I turn to the three girls. They're staring too.. "She's real good," I say. "I think I love her."
Lili clicks her tongue. "You'll love anything," she says.
"Yeah, who don't you love?" asks Lindsay. We're not loud so only we hear, and Lindsay's mom just barely, but listen she does. I can see her lean in.
I say, "Definitely not you two, but Momma Lindsay you're a doll."
"Right answer," she chimes in. "I hope you like to eat." And a man alone at a table offers us seats.
[stop]
Kerry is the reason why
most wise men don't have wives
and if they do
they have mistresses too
or at least always a wandering eye.
She may be poor
but she's free
and she sings
oh, she sings
she's what every man is looking for.
She is the timeless beauty
the wiltless flower
that old favorite playlist
on endless repeat for hours
and hour by hour stays true
she is the fruit that does not sour.
[stop]
