Chanteuse on the Loose 

Clayton slipped a one hundred dollar bill into the pewter stein perched on the corner of the polished ebony baby grand piano.

“Play ‘Old Cape Cod’ for me,” he said, his lips curving ever so slightly to suggest a smile despite his somber appearance.

“Are you sure about that? You look more like a Frank Sinatra kind of guy.” My fingers glided over the keys with a flourish as I improvised a melodic transition, bridging the leap from Broadway to standards. I played a few bars of “New York, New York” just to tease him a bit.

He leaned against the piano, casually elegant in his dark Armani suit and silk tie, watching me while I tried to ignore him.

My head felt effervescent, a champagne bubble suspended in the time warp set of the LAWRENCE WELK SHOW instead of this most unusual reality: me, high school music teacher and mother of three, playing a Steinway at a five star hotel, dressed in a seafoam gown that some lucky mother of the bride had been spared, and feeling like a giddy prepubescent teenager. All of this courtesy of the attentions of a handsome, wealthy man, who appeared to only have eyes for me.

The lounge hummed with conversation, accented with sporadic bursts of muted laughter. Everything about the Tafferty was subdued. Heavy burgundy curtains and plush carpeting created a velvety cocoon against the outside world.

“Aren’t you singing tonight?” Clayton asked.

I shook my head. “Too many people. Besides, they’re only interested in background music.”

A familiar voice invaded our cozy twosome. “Not all of us.”

My body tensed to such a degree I thought my arms might snap off. “Jim! What a surprise!” I continued playing as though this was the most ordinary occurrence in the world—how ‘bout those Packers—but realized I had slipped into a medley of children’s songs I used to play every weekend at catechism classes. I switched into Doris Day mode, “Que Sera, Sera,” hoping I could cling to that cavalier attitude.

Jim extended his hand to Clayton. “Jim Adams.”

The noise of the room jangled in my ears, a carousel traveling at warp speed, as I continued playing, playing as though this was a perfectly normal turn of events, reality meeting fantasy with one cataclysmic clash.

Please don’t bury me in this awful dress.

Clayton’s measured look traveled from me to Jim as he shook Jim’s outstretched hand, “Clayton Hayes.” His attempt at a chuckle sounded like he might have dislodged a vital organ.

Nearly frostbitten by the abrupt change in temperature, my words forming ice cubes in my mouth, I managed to speak. “Jim, Mr. Hayes owns the Tafferty—he’s my employer. And Mr. Hayes, Jim is, of course, well, Jim is my husband.”

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