A bunch of people were milling around out front smoking cigarettes…or weed. I was certain I smelled marijuana mixed in with the tobacco. One of them was Druker, the guy I’d signed up with this morning.
He lifted his chin as I walked us over. “Hey, what’s up, man?”
“Not much. Excited to get on stage tonight. I know you said there’d be a piano available to play, but any chance there’s a guitar laying around I could borrow for my set, too?”
He tossed the remnants of a cigarette on the ground and covered it with his foot to put it out. “I’m sure I can rustle one up. You want acoustic or electric?”
“Acoustic.”
“Give me ten minutes.”
“Awesome. Thanks.”
Inside, Maddie and I found a booth off to the side of the stage.
“So you’re going to play guitar, too?”
“If they can find me one, yeah.”
“Do you play any other instruments?”
I smiled. “Well, I’m a music teacher, so I know how to play most of them. But guitar is my instrument of choice.”
“I’ve always wanted to learn how to play.”
“I can teach you, if you want.”
She smiled. “I’d like that.”
“What do you want to drink? Your usual wine?”
“Yeah, that would be great.”
“Be right back.”
I went to the bar and ordered a beer for me and a glass of white wine for Maddie. When I came back, some old dude was sitting in my seat. Even though he had to be at least sixty, I felt a pang of jealousy.
Maddie smiled when I approached. “Milo, this is Fretty—with two Ts, not Freddy with two Ds.”
I nodded. “Nice to meet you.”
Fretty held his hands up. He had the raspy voice of a guy who had smoked two packs a day for forty years. “I wasn’t trying to make time with your girl. Druker told me someone was looking to borrow a guitar. He said to find the prettiest girl in the room and give it to the lucky bastard by her side.”
I winked at Maddie. “I guess it wasn’t too hard to find me then.”
Fretty stood. “I got an old Rosewood Martin, if you’d like to take her for a spin.”
“Yeah. Incredible guitar. That would be great. Thanks.”
He held up one finger. “I have one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You let me play while you sing one of your songs.” He reached up and touched his throat. “Damaged my cords and can’t belt ’em out anymore. But I still love to get on stage.”
“Sure. Of course. I picked out three songs. But if you don’t know any of them, we can swap one out.”
The old man smiled. “Trust me. I’ll know ’em.”
Maddie and I listened to four performers, all of which were pretty damn good, before the host called my name—well, he called Milo Hooker anyway.
I met Fretty at the host station, and we decided he was going to join me for my first song. So I got up on stage and walked over to the piano to play while Fretty took a seat toward the back with his guitar, out of the limelight.
“Good evening, everyone.” I adjusted the microphone up a little. “My name is Milo. I’m going to play you a few songs. My buddy Fretty will be joining me for the first one. This song goes out to a very special Hooker in the audience tonight. It’s a song I’ve sung for years, but tonight it seems to have new meaning for me. I hope you all enjoy it.”
I stretched my fingers a few times before playing the first notes of Lenny Kravitz’s “I’ll Be Waiting.” It wasn’t really a song to get the crowd going, because most people weren’t too familiar with it. But that wasn’t what tonight was about. I finally felt like being on stage again, after four long years. To me, singing is an opportunity to say all the things most of us are too chicken shit to spout off in real life. Words are all puzzle pieces, and music clicks them into place to show the big picture. Pretty soon, I knew my time with Maddie would be coming to an end, and I wanted her to know how I was feeling. The lyrics started off explaining how a guy broke a woman’s heart and she needed some time. But the chorus was all about how he’d be waiting for her to be ready.
When I was done, I looked up from behind the piano for the first time and found Maddie smiling wide, but she also had tears streaming down her face. It made my heart so full. I pointed to my own smiling lips and traced imaginary tears down my cheeks. Her eyes widened when she caught on, and her smile grew bigger, if that were even possible.
If nothing else came out of what we’d started on this trip, I’d at least given her a souvenir to remember from New Orleans—the smile she’d longed to have from her favorite photo.