Troy’s table was front and center, about ten feet away from the edge of the stage. Nick and Troy were already seated at the small round table and had finished their first drinks when Carol arrived about five minutes before ten-thirty. She apologized and mumbled something about parking in Siberia. As soon as she arrived, Nick pulled out the envelope of images and both men told her that they had found the pictures fascinating. Nick began asking questions about the photographs while Troy summoned a waiter. Nick and Carol were involved in an earnest conversation about the objects in the fissure when the new drinks reached the table. Nick had just mentioned that one of them looked like a modern missile. It was ten thirty-five. The lights flashed off and on to announce that the show was beginning.
Angie Leatherwood was a consummate performer. Like many of the very best entertainers, she never forgot that it was the audience that was the customer, that it was they who both created her image and enhanced her mystique. She began with the title song from her new album, “Memories of Enchanting Nights,” and then sang a medley of Whitney Houston songs, according a tribute to that brilliant songstress whose talent had sparked Angie’s own desire to sing. Next she showed her versatility by blending a quartet of songs with different beats, a Jamaican reggae, a soft ballad from her first album, Love Letters, a nearly perfect Diana Ross imitation from an old Supremes song, “Where Did Our Love Go?” and an emotionally powerful, lilting encomium to her blind father entitled “The Man with Vision.”
Thunderous applause greeted the conclusion of each song. Sloppy Joe’s was sold out, including all the standing room along the hundred-foot bar. Seven different huge video screens scattered throughout the spacious club brought Angie home to those who were not close to the stage. This was her crowd, these were her friends. A couple of times Angie was almost embarrassed because the clapping and the bravos would not stop. At Troy’s table, very little was said during the show. The threesome pointed out songs they particularly liked (Carol’s favorite was the Whitney Houston song, “The Greatest Love of All”), but there was no time for conversation. Angie dedicated her penultimate song, “Let Me Take Care of You, Baby,” to her “dearest friend” (Nick kicked Troy under the table) and then finished with her most popular cut from Love Letters. The audience gave her a standing ovation and hooted noisily for an encore. Nick noticed while he was standing that he was a little woozy from the two strong drinks and was also feeling strangely emotional, possibly because of the subliminal associations created by the love songs that Angie was singing.
Angie returned to the stage. As the noise subsided, her soft and caressing voice could be heard. “You all know that Key West is a very special place for me. It was here that I was raised and went to school. Most of my memories bring me back here.” She paused and her eyes scanned the audience. “There are many songs that bring back memories and the emotions that go with them. But of all of them, my favorite is the theme song from the musical Cats. So, Key West, this is for you.”
There was scattered clapping as the music synthesizers accompanying her played the introduction to “Memories.” The audience remained standing as Angie’s mellifluous voice launched into the beautiful song. As soon as she began, Nick was instantly transported to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in June of 1984, where he was watching a production of Cats with his mother and father. He had finally come home to explain to them why he had been unable to return to Harvard after his spring break in Florida. But try as he might, he could not begin to tell the story to his disappointed father and brokenhearted mother. All he could say was, “It was a woman . . .” and then he would fall silent.
It had been a sad reunion. While he was visiting his home in Falls Church, the first malignant polyps had been discovered and removed from his father’s colon. The doctors had been optimistic about several more years of life, but they had stressed that colon cancer often recurred and metastasized to other parts of the body. In a long talk with his suddenly frail father, Nick had promised to finish his degree in Miami. But that was little solace to the older man; he had dreamed of seeing his son graduate from Harvard.
The performance of Cats at the Kennedy Center had been only mildly entertaining for Nick. In the middle he had found himself wondering how many people in the audience really knew the author of the source material for the songs, this poet T.S. Eliot, who not only admired and enjoyed feline idiosyncrasies, but also once began a poem by describing the evening “spread out against the sky, like a patient aetherized upon a table.” But when the old female cat walked to center stage, her beauty faded into wrinkles, and began her song of her “days in the sun,” Nick had been moved right along with the entire audience. For reasons he never understood, he had seen Monique singing the song, years in the future. And in Washington he had wept, silent tears hidden quickly from his parents, when the achingly pure soprano voice had reached the climax of the song..
“Touch me . . . It’s so easy to leave me . . . all alone with my memories . . . of my days in the sun . . . If you touch me . . . you’ll understand what happiness is . . .”
Angie’s voice at Sloppy Joe’s was not nearly as piercing as that soprano in Washington But she sang with the same intensity, evoking all the sadness of someone for whom all the joys of life are in the past. The corners of Nick’s eyes filled with tears and one of them brimmed out to run down his cheek.
From where Carol was standing, the lights from the stage reflected off Nick’s cheek. She saw the tear, the window of vulnerability, and was herself moved in return. For the first time she felt a deep stirring, almost an affection for this distant, solitary, but strangely attractive man.
Ah Carol, how different it might have been if, for once in your life, you had not acted impulsively. If you had just let the man have his moment of loneliness or heartbreak or tenderness or whatever he was feeling, then you might have mentioned it later, at a quieter time, to some advantage. The sharing of this moment might even have eventually been part of the bonding between you. But you had to tap Nick on the shoulder, before the song was through, before he even realized himself that he was tearful, and break his precious communion with his inner self. You were an interloper. Worse, as so often happens, he interpreted your smile as derision, not sympathy, and like a frightened turtle withdrew completely from the evening. It was guaranteed that he would reject as insincere any subsequent overtures of friendship.
Troy missed the interplay between Carol and Nick. So he was quite surprised, when he turned around and sat down after the final applause, to find Nick’s shoulders set in an unmistakable pose of hostility. “Wasn’t she wonderful, angel?” Troy said to Carol. “And how about you, Professor? Was this the first time you heard her sing?”
Nick nodded. “She was great,” he said, almost grudgingly. “And I am thirsty. Can a man get a drink in this place?”
Troy was slightly offended. “Well, pardon us,” he said. “So sorry that the entertainment lasted so long.” He tried to signal for the waiter. “What’s eating him, angel?” he said conversationally to Carol.
Carol shrugged her shoulders. Then, trying to lighten the atmosphere, she leaned toward Nick and tapped him on the forearm on top of the table. “Hey, Nick,” she said, “have you been taking angry pills?”
Nick quickly withdrew his arm and grumbled something inaudible as a reply. He turned away from the conversation and saw that Angie was approaching the table. He stood up automatically and both Carol and Troy joined him. “You were fantastic,” said Carol, a little too loud, just as soon as Angie was within earshot.
“Thanks . . . Hi,” replied Angie, as she walked up to the table and took the chair that Troy had pulled out for her. She spent a few moments graciously acknowledging the praise from people at the nearby tables. Then she sat down and smiled. “You must be Carol Dawson,” she said easily, leaning across the table toward the reporter.
Angie was even more beautiful in person than she had been in the picture on the disc jacket. Her coloring was a dark brown, not quite black. Her makeup, including the light pink lipstick, was muted to permit her natural assets, including virtually perfect white teeth on prominent display when she smiled, to draw the attention. But beyond the beauty was the woman herself. No still photograph could do justice to the natural warmth that radiated from Angie. You liked her immediately.