My pianist, Ewan, bows his head to me as he walks in and takes his seat at his pink baby grand.
Just like the waitstaff and the bartenders, he’s not allowed to talk while on Aces property. None of the musicians in my band are.
But I get drinks with them now and then outside the club, and I’ve gotten to know them. They’re good people. There’s Ewan, of course, full name Ewan Corne. He has two degrees in classical piano performance and a third in jazz. He retained the personality from his classical degrees—he’s very stoic, quiet even when he’s off the clock, mysterious even. Clean-shaven, perfectly coiffed dark hair. But once he sits down at the piano bench, his fingers milk every color from the eighty-eight black and white keys. He improvises a lot—that’s the jazz degree at work—and no two of his performances are the same, but he always provides a good musical base for the rest of the band.
Brooks Nash plays saxophone. Tall, thin, with a trimmed beard framing his face. He brings a sharp sting to the instrument’s rich timbre when he plays. Offstage, he can usually be seen with a book of crossword puzzles and a flask of honey bourbon. The upright bassist is named Reid Wescott. He’s the opposite of Brooks physically—heavyset with broad shoulders, always wearing a pink fedora and matching aviator sunglasses. Unlike Ewan, he never improvises. Everything he plays is, as he says, come scritto, Italian for “as written.”
The band is rounded out by our newest member, Pierce Pons. He’s young, fresh out of law school. Yeah, you heard me right. He has a law degree and is a practicing attorney at a firm not far from Aces during the day. He’s the only member of the band with a consistent day job, and he’s often late for rehearsals. But he’s phenomenal on the drum set—Brooks thinks that he’s taking out all his stress from his law career on his instrument—and by far the best drummer I’ve worked with.
I walk up to the microphone at the edge of my stage and speak into it. “Good evening, everyone. How are you all doing?”
A few whoops from the dancefloor. And one from the Clubs section.
I squint and see that Harrison—the guy who is technically my guest for the evening—is sitting in one of the green leather wingback chairs in Clubs, casually smoking a cigar. I didn’t know he smoked. I didn’t smell any smoke on him when we were in the lobby together.
Knowing that he’s watching makes the butterflies in my stomach multiply.
“The band and I have a great set for you all tonight. Hit it, boys!”
The band starts out with a jazzy overture that Rouge composed herself. I asked if she could find me a piece that wouldn’t require singing to allow me a few extra minutes at the top of each set to center myself, get into the groove of the music. And Rouge, being the polymath that she is, decided to simply write one. It’s pretty good music and fits in well with the genre of the pieces I have slated.
Once the overture has dwindled down, I approach the microphone and start to sing one of my old standbys. The Etta James classic “At Last.” It’s a great starter. From the moment I belt out the first two words of the song, the audience is hanging on. They know this one, and they like it. Couples start pairing off to dance, while a lot of people just sway in place as they listen.
We kick things up a notch with “I Put a Spell on You.” That gets people moving. “Cry Me a River” by Arthur Hamilton is next, which slows things back down just in time for “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” to liven the pace again. I end the set with the Gershwins’ “The Man I Love.” One of my favorites, and I can’t help directing a few lines of that song to Harrison, whose eyes haven’t left me since I started singing.
I finish the song and the audience applauds.
It’s not an uproar or anything. It’s not that kind of show. I’m glorified background music.
But all the way in the Clubs section, Harrison jumps to his feet and claps.
I bow and then gesture to the instrumentalists. They nod back at me.
I swallow and return to the mic. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be back for more after a while. In the meantime, please put your hands together for the magical fingers of Ewan Corne!”
Ewan begins noodling on the piano. He’s making stuff up, intermingling motifs from the five songs I just performed with some themes of his own. I don’t know what kind of diet he’s on, but he has a crazy amount of energy and usually plays the whole night through while the rest of us take our breaks in my dressing room.
At least, that’s usually where I end up in between sets. Brooks, Reid, and Pierce shuffle inside, tilting their heads to me as if questioning why I’m not following them.
Tonight, I’m going to spend my break over at Clubs.
Harrison’s eyes widen as I approach him. He removes the cigar from his mouth and sets it down on a jade ashtray on the side table next to his leather chair.
He smiles. “You sound fantastic tonight.”
My cheeks warm. “You’re too kind.”
“Do you have a moment to sit?” He gestures to the seat next to me.
I bite my lip. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a smoker.”
He grins. “Neither am I. But I was told I had to smoke to sit here. I’m not much of a dancer, but I wanted to hear your set.”
I take the chair next to him—Mr. Night won’t bother the sister of Rouge Montrose—and smile. “I hope you enjoyed it.”
“Are you kidding?” He beams. “You have a wonderful voice. And you’re so expressive. You’re not just singing the song, you’re…performing. Each of those pieces you sang had a different character, and you melted into each of them perfectly.”
My cheeks are on fire now. “My background is in musical theatre. I try to bring some of my acting training into my performances. But most people don’t really notice. I’m really more of a vibe than a performer to most of the people in Hearts.”
