Robert Wade pulled on a black turtleneck sweater and smoothed it down over his flat belly. He turned to look at himself in the full-length mirror of his hotel room...not too bad looking, he thought. A guy always looked good in black.
He was going to the Red Rum bar, in hopes of meeting Chelsea Sutton there.
He'd queered his pitch, he knew, getting all hoity toity about drinking when they'd first met. Well, he was a stickler for not drinking and diving - or driving, come to that! - but now what was he going to use as an excuse for having gone into the bar and "accidently" meeting her?
Well, he'd just say he wanted to enjoy some night life, and didn't they serve Pepsis in places like this?
But when he got to the Red Rum, she wasn't there.
He ordered a Pepsi from the bar, and nursed it for a while.
The bartender - as bartenders did the world over - knew there was a problem.
"Looking for someone, mate?" he asked.
"Well, I had thought my scuba guide might be here," Wade admitted. "Chelsea Sutton."
"Oh, not tonight, mate. She's singing over at the Piano Bar."
His scuba guide was also a professional singer?
"I didn't know she was a professional singer," Wade admitted.
"Well..professional..." temporized the barman. "Not that she couldn't be if she applied herself, I think she's very good. But she just does it for a bit of fun. Do you know how to get to the Piano Bar. It's just further along this street."
Wade finished his Pepsi and went to the Piano Bar.
He entered the room, and, over the loud voices of people talking, could indeed hear the sound of a piano. And there, in the far corner, he saw the piano, and beyond it, the face of a woman, suspended in smoky darkness. Ah...she liked black as well.
Wade went to the bar and fetched his pepsi, then went into a far corner to observe.
Who'd want to be a piano player in a bar, he thought. Even a piano bar. No one was paying attention to the music...she might as well not be there. And from his limited knowledge of music...she seemed to know her stuff. At least, what he could hear of it under the sound of the voices.
The explanation came ten minutes later, when the clock struck 8.
"Okay, everybody," came Chelsea's voice. "It's the top of the hour and I get to sing a couple of songs for you. What shall it be?"
"Downeaster Alexa," someone called out, and there was a chorus of agreement.
Chelsea grinned. "So hard to play without an accordion. Anyone got an accordion handy?"
Surprisingly, Wade wished with all his might, not only that he would have an accordion but that he knew how to play it. But the crowd just called out, "go on then," and she started to play.
"Well I'm on the Downeaster "Alexa"
And I'm cruising through Block Island Sound
I have charted a course to the Vineyard
But tonight I am Nantucket bound
We took on diesel back in Montauk yesterday
And left this morning from the bell in Gardiner's Bay
Like all the locals here I've had to sell my home
Too proud to leave I worked my fingers to the bone
So I could own my Downeaster "Alexa"
And I go where the ocean is deep
There are giants out there in the canyons
And a good captain can't fall asleep
I've got bills to pay and children who need clothes
I know there's fish out there but where God only knows
They say these waters aren't what they used to be
But I've got people back on land who count on me
So if you see my Downeaster "Alexa"
And if you work with the rod and the reel
Tell my wife I am trawling Atlantis
And I still have my hands on the wheel
Now I drive my Downeaster "Alexa"
More and more miles from shore every year
Since they tell me I can't sell no stripers
And there's no luck in swordfishing here.
I was a bayman like my father was before
Can't make a living as a bayman anymore
There ain't much future for a man who works the sea
But there ain't no island left for islanders like me."
As she finished the song, there was silence for some seconds. Then the audience erupted in a cacophony of applause, Wade among them.
