“Broadway show tunes?”
“Could be interesting.”
“Symphonies?”
“Well, maybe not symphonies.”
“Not until you’re twelve, anyway.”
“I’m no Mozart,” I said.
“I wondered when you’d start being hard on yourself.”
“Maybe I’m not anyone, not Mozart, not Cole Porter or Doc Pomus or anyone who can write good music. But I’ve got to try, don’t I?”
“You’ve got to try,” he agreed. “And you are someone.”
We went on like that for a while, and as he was about to go home, I said, “You have a penlight?”
“What do you want with a penlight?”
“I’ll tell you sometime. I just need one.”
“I can get you one.”
“That would be swell. Maybe tomorrow?”
“Yeah. I’ll get you one tomorrow.”
91
The following day, having the sutures taken out of my back hurt, though not as much as getting blown off my feet by a bomb. The doctor declared himself pleased with my progress, and I said that I was happy with it, too, though in fact I didn’t think I’d made any progress and didn’t expect that I ever would, at least not as far as walking was concerned.
With my father loose in the world, Grandpa didn’t want my mother taking the bus to work or walking alone any distance, and he didn’t trust the reliability of taxicabs. That same day, he fronted her the down payment for a used car, a 1961 Buick station wagon the precise soft brown of a chocolate Necco wafer. For a wagon, that car had cool body styling; and because my wheelchair was collapsible, Mom would be able to stow it in the back of the wagon and take me places with her.
Having been invited the week before, Mr. Yoshioka came to dinner that evening, bearing an immense bouquet of roses that must have been difficult to manage on the bus. He admired the Buick, which was in tip-top condition even though it had sixty thousand miles on it. Over dinner, when I suggested that he should buy a car for himself, he replied that he’d never had the time to take driving lessons.
“Besides,” he said, “I would miss walking to work. I have taken the same route for so many years that every building and every crack in the sidewalk and each of the many details along the way is like an old friend.”
“But when it rains, you wouldn’t have to get wet,” I said.
“Ah, but the rain is a special friend, Jonah. It has such a soft voice, and if you talk to the rain, it always agrees with anything you say.” He hissed like falling rain does, but he made a word of it: “Yesss, yesss, yesss, yesss. It cannot make the sound of no. The rain is a most agreeable companion.”
Mrs. Lorenzo clapped her plump hands quietly, quickly, as might a delighted little girl. “That’s such a lovely thought.”
Mr. Yoshioka was excited to hear about my mother’s new job, and he said that he would like to see her opening-night performance.
“You best wait a week,” Mother told him. “My rehearsal with the band is tomorrow. The first week, we’ll be on a kind of shakedown cruise, finding our best sound together.”
After dinner, Mr. Yoshioka hoped that I might play the piano, but I pretended that the discomfort of having the sutures removed would prevent me from being my best.
The pedals worked as well by foot as they always had, and Grandpa Teddy played three of his favorite Jimmy McHugh tunes, while Mom stood by him to sing them: “On the Sunny Side of the Street” and “I Feel a Song Coming On” and finally “I’m in the Mood for Love,” all with lyrics by Dorothy Fields.
Mrs. Lorenzo and Mr. Yoshioka sat on the sofa during that little performance, and the tailor’s dark eyes shone with enchantment.
After the third number, he said to Grandpa, “If I cannot see your daughter tomorrow night, then I must come to see you.”
“I’d love to have you as my guest,” Grandpa said. “But next week or the week after. This week, there’s a big convention, the hotel’s very busy through Sunday. Already a month ago, the restaurant where I play had booked every reservation available.”