She mentions New York like someone used to living in the public eye, someone used to having people she’s never met know all sorts of private information about her. And I do know she lived in New York, while she doesn’t know my name. I almost mention we’re connected through Paul Burke, that same manager who thinks performing in tiny clubs is a bad idea, but I suspect bringing Paul’s name into the conversation might spoil the mood.
“You have a good voice,” I say.
“I went to Juilliard on an opera scholarship,” she says. “No one knows that about me unless they read my Wikipedia page. I was one of those kids obsessed with my artistic principles until I got spat out into the world and learned wearing black and sneering didn’t pay the rent.”
She runs through this history like a stump speech, the kind of public-facing tale she’s employed a thousand times to put strangers atease. I enjoy listening, losing myself in her story, while forgetting my own for the moment.
“My first job was on a soap,” she says. “Eternal Flame. Played Brenda Jackson, the town tramp with a heart of gold. I got to live in New York, and it paid the bills and taught me how to learn lines and hit my marks and deal with fans. Brenda was always getting in trouble—two-timing, embezzlement, hanging out with mobsters and spies. She came back from the dead twice!”
Like my father. So much for forgetting what’s been going on in my own life.
“How’d that work?” I ask.
“She drove off a cliff and her car sank,” Freya says, “but a month later, we learned her mobster boyfriend had a boat waiting to whisk her away. I had a summer share in Montauk that August, so the writers needed to explain her absence. The second time around, she disappeared during a Halloween party. She showed up two towns over with amnesia, working as a waitress with a new name and an awful wig.”
“No body, no death,” I say.
“At least in the soaps.”
And sometimes in real life.
I scan the room to see if my father’s returned. I feel the weight of the pint glass in my coat, something tangible, something that could provide definitive proof. “Where’s Brenda Jackson now?” I ask.
“Probably sitting in a bar somewhere, stirring up trouble.” Freya knocks my knee with hers. “Talking to an impossibly handsome young man.”
That, I’m pretty certain, was flirting. And Freya Faith is smoking hot, and I don’t care that she’s twice my age, or that my brother had photos of her taped to his wall when I was barely out of diapers, because she probably has way better options than a production assistant at a public radio station who can barely pay his rent. “Maybe she’s with a mobster,” I say. “Or a spy.”
“You can’t be a spy. Spies need to blend in. You’re too fine to blend in.”
That was unmistakable flirting, and I can feel my face flush.
“Looks as though I have a shy one,” Freya says. “Blancy, do you think this one’s pretty?”
From behind the bar, Blancy raises a single eyebrow.
“If you swing that way,” Freya says, “Blancy’s your guy.”
Blancy flexes a bicep. He isn’t bad looking, but Freya’s way more my type.
“I’m taken,” Blancy says, checking his phone. “At least for the night.”
“My type,” I say, “wears black and insists on artistic principles.”
“A man who listens when I tell a story,” Freya says. “Not bad. What’s your name anyway?”
“Charlie.”
She fishes the cherry from her glass. “Tell me you don’t have a wife and kids at home, Charlie.”
“Not even a cat,” I say.
“Good. Ginger hates cats. And I should pack up and call it a night. Help me with my equipment.”
She played acoustic guitar tonight, so there isn’t much “equipment” to help with. By now, the pub has cleared except for a few diehards and Seton, who continues to watch the room like a cop, but mostly watches me. “Give me a sec,” I say.
Freya follows my gaze. “Whatever you need to do, but this train is leaving in two minutes, and it doesn’t wait for anyone.”
I grab my coat with the pint glass and approach Seton. “Tomorrow’ll be here in a couple of hours,” I say. “I’ll swing by the hospital to see how your mother’s doing.”
