“Jesus,” I breathed. “I really needed that.”
Caleb nodded and squeezed my hand.
“Nice room,” he said, and I started giggling.
* * *
—
We had dinner at a hole-in-the-wall Creole joint that Caleb had plucked, unfailingly, out of the maze of uneven streets we walked up and down. He clearly knew the city well.
“I lived here for a year or so,” he told me as we ate. “Then spent a lot of time here over the years.”
“People loved you here,” I said, and he nodded.
“It’s certainly a music city.” The statement was neutral, a throwaway. But his voice held such wistfulness, such regret, that I reached across the table and squeezed his arm. He gave me the barest hint of a smile, then went back to eating.
“I have this idea,” I said. “I want us to play our song.”
“What, like at one of the clubs?”
“No. At the show tomorrow night.”
This was my plan. Use the city that Caleb had once called home to get him back on people’s radar.
“Your show?”
I nodded.
Caleb barked out a laugh like it was a ridiculous idea.
“This city loves you. You have a huge following here. If we took advantage of it…it would be a way of saying you’re still here. And then if you ever recorded any of those amazing damn songs you’ve written, you could put out a new album. If you wanted to.”
Caleb was looking past me, at the street, where people strolled by, arm in arm, or in tour group clumps, or running to catch up, shouting at each other and laughing. A man lit a pipe and sank down to a worn marble stoop, a woman rode by on a cruiser, a tiny dog standing on all fours in a wooden crate strapped to her handlebars, a boy in an army T-shirt paced slowly on a third-story balcony, smoking a cigarette.
Under my hand, I could feel Caleb’s forearm, corded with tension.
“I don’t know,” he said, still looking outside. “I just don’t know.”
* * *
—
The band at Wolf’s Howl had the audience dancing and cheering, stuffing bills into the passed hat. They were doing jazz standards with a kind of rockabilly twist and everything about it was working. The singer was styled like a 1940s chanteuse, with a knee-length red dress, dark lipstick, and a large flower in her perfectly arranged curls, and the rest of the band sported natty suits in varying states of wear and tear, a few with hats. They spun each song out by passing solos among them, and teasing bits of other familiar tunes.
Caleb said this was his favorite “early” club. I took that to mean he had others he liked as the night wore on, because it was already about ten when we got there.
“One-drink minimum,” the guy at the door said, and Caleb’s jaw tightened. I turned to him, but he waved me away and nodded at the guy.
He got a ginger ale from the bar and handed me a whiskey and Coke. He had told me before that it didn’t bother him too much to be around people drinking, as long as he had checks and balances—like Huey, at his place, or me, here. I’d told him, in turn, that I was totally fine not drinking, but I could tell that it just made him self-conscious and annoyed, so I accepted the drink, but I downed it quickly, then popped a mint so Caleb wouldn’t taste it on my tongue when I kissed him.
He was loving the band, drumming on his thighs and tapping his feet, head nodding in rhythm, smiling and clapping at moments he appreciated. When they finished their set, we spilled out onto Frenchmen Street with the rest of the crowd after Caleb paid his compliments to the band, and got a wave of hat tips in return.
“So, you gonna show me your favorite ‘late’ club?” I asked, still bouncing to the rhythm of the last song.
He hesitated, leaning back against the wall, eyes closed, one knee up, his foot on the wall. He looked like an album cover and I fumbled with my phone and took a picture of him.
“Or,” I said, running a hand up his chest, “we could just go back to the room.”
He smiled weakly and caught my hand in his, bringing it to his lips and kissing my palm.
“I wish I weren’t this way,” he said softly. “I wish I could do anything you wanted. Go anywhere you wanted.”
“Don’t. This is perfect. You’re perfect. I’m so happy right now.” I kissed him and he slid his hand around to cup my neck.
Someone whistled and called a rowdy “woohoo” as they walked past. Glass smashed with a tinkle a few doors down. The sounds of jazz and laughter, shouting and the honk of a car horn. The taste of Caleb’s mouth, sweet and dark. Home.