“Bernhardt Kowalski,” he announced.
“Is that your name or your law firm?” I snapped the card out of his hand.Talent management, it said. Gold words on a nice, smooth card. My mouth was suddenly dry. I took another sip of water. “So you’re a scout and you’re into harassing local musicians. Thanks for coming out.”
“You don’t understand,” he said. “Ilikeyour sound. I think. Not sure I’ve actually heard the real you yet. I think you might have one of those voices, as soon as you hear it, youknow. You know you’re hearing Neko Case or you’re hearing Ronnie Spector.”
“Linda Ronstadt,” I said. “Loretta Lynn.”
“Sure. Look, I’ve been to enough of your shows to recognize you were playing hot tonight. But stilted, somehow, all the same. One of these days, I’d love to catch you sounding like yourself. Are you signed?”
I stared at the card, feeling sick. This was another moment I had imagined so many times. I had been up to full charge from an hour in the spotlight, but now my confidence drained into my boots. I wasn’t prepared for this exchange, had no idea what to say or expect or ask. Alex was still at the grill, peering at me with concern through the pass-through. “I don’t even have a card to give you, Mr. Kowalski.”
He smiled. “Call me Bern. That’s okay. Why don’t you text me from your number—”
“My phone is— I’m trying to see if I can live without being tethered to technology.”
“I wouldn’t recommend that experiment go on too long. Rising stars need to be reachable.”
To me,thatkind of comment was hollow. Music people were like that, weren’t they? Saying what you wanted to hear, seducing you with the promise of a shimmering future. Except I could be seduced in just this way.
“The rest of the band all have working phones,” I offered.
“Good. Have one of them send me the details of your next few shows,” Bern said. “Playing anywhere over the holidays?”
“We have a Christmas Eve show,” I said. The last few years, the girls and I had planned a festive set of seasonal songs and crowd favorites. Always an early show, because the rest of the band had family, travel. I was always good for it, though. Christmas was one of those things that was for other people, for those who wanted things that could be tagged, bagged, and mounted. And if I sounded like Scrooge, the one guy in the movie who doesn’t subscribe to wonder, how do you think I felt about New Year’s and all that raw potential for change?
With Alex in the service industry, the holidays meant serving up Southern Comfort and joy to the lonely folk with nowhere else to be, anyway. But then after everyone cleared out, Alex and I would sip hot chocolate in front of the pub fireplace and talk about them.
This year, Alex had suggested we ask Oona to join in, but I didn’t see any need to mess with tradition, as meager as it was.
“Great,” Bern said. “We’ll just see how things go, no commitments, no pressure.”
He was imagining that I was that sort of person, the phone-less, casual generation-whatever who would be scared off by contracts and formal ties.
Maybe he was right, a bit—but not for the reasons he thought.
“We’ll be in touch,” I said. “Definitely.”
Bern looked me over. He got out his wallet, pulled out a hundo, and handed it to me with a nod toward the tip jar. “Buy a round of drinks for the band,” he said. “Or take your phone out of its clinical trial.”
The bill was already in my hand or I might not have taken it. There was shame in taking money, in needing money. In needing anything.
“Thanks,” I said, dropping my eyes to the silver caps on the toes of my boots.
“Stand up when you’re doing business,” Bern said.
I squinted up at him. He was backlit by one of the hot stage lights.
I stood up. Bern was probably fifty. The scarf at his neck was a deep blue that made you notice his eyes were the same color. There were guys who might wear a scarf the same color as their eyes, and there were guys who would never, and I usually didn’t come up against the first type. But I had to admit that the effect was striking. It had an effect on me, even as he was telling me my own deficiencies. He made me want to prove him wrong.
God, my issues were sobald, sometimes.
“Will you send me to finishing school?” I asked.
“If I have to,” Bern said. “Now in the next set, what if you played something you’ve never played before?”
“That wouldn’t go over well.”
“The audience doesn’t know what it wants, until you show them.”
