“You’re a man in a hurry, sure enough. But sometimes you get where you’re aiming when the time is right. Not when you want.” Jaden tapped his cigar on the ashtray. “My advice to you, young man, is enjoy the ride. Now enough of this talk. I don’t know about you, but I came here to hear some good music.”
“Before we start, there’s one more thing.” Angelo lifted a printed sheet off his desk. “Just got off the computer before you showed up. Fifth of August. Mark your calendar. Third row center.”
“So where’s mine?”
Angelo pulled the page away from Jaden’s outstretched hand. “Soon as I see your two hundred and fifty bucks.”
As Jaden reached for his billfold, he told Colin, “We’re joining Chick Corea at the Live Oak Bank Pavilion.”
He felt his heart surge. “Can I come?” He caught Angelo’s hesitation and added, “I can pay my way.”
Angelo said, “I’d be happy to have you join us, but that’s a lot of money, especially for someone your—”
“I’ve made almost eight hundred thousand dollars. It’s just sitting in a money market account.”
He felt Jaden’s chair begin to make little jerking motions, and realized the man was laughing.
Angelo said, “Run that news item past us again.”
“Naw, we know all we need to for the moment. Get back on your computer and see if there’s another ticket. Once that’s done, we got all night to hear how themanhere made his fortune.”
It was well after midnight when they finally called it quits. Jaden offered to drop Colin at the academy, claimed it was almost on his way home. Jaden’s ride was a slate grey BMW 740i, and their talk was about Corea and his music. When Jaden pulled into the academy’s semicircular drive, he cut the motor and said, “You do that gentleman a world of good.”
“He’s been great, introducing me to jazz.”
“Angelo lost his wife to cancer, oh, must be close to a dozen years ago. They couldn’t have kids. Since then he’s spent too much time on his own. My wife and I tried and tried to get him to go out, see lady friends who’d love to share his autumn years. He always says the same thing. Once you know heaven, it’s hard to come down to earth.”
“I can’t imagine what that must be like,” Colin said.
The space between them was flavored by cigars and whiskey and the echoes of good music. Jaden asked, “You didn’t have much of a home life?”
“My mother died when I was four. My father … I don’t like talking about him.”
Jaden’s only response was to puff out his cheeks, blow softly, then, “You need to find yourself a role model. People who can show you the other side of the coin. What it means to love. Be fulfilled by a good relationship.”
Colin thought of Arnold and Sandrine. Roland and Regina. Ethan and Alexi. Even Mira and Lucas, on their good days. “I have that.”
“So the next time the shadows start gnawing at your nights, you take a good long look at what they have. What keeps them alive and in love and in sync.”
It was the first time Colin had ever heard an adult talk about shadows like that. “Thanks for letting me come to the concert. It means a lot.”
Jaden’s teeth flashed in the night. “Little man, Arnold and I, we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
CHAPTER37
When he told Celeste about it several nights later, she laughed out loud. “You spent the evening listening to music with Jaden Barrett? If that don’t beat all.”
“Who is he?”
“Jaden Barrett is one of the highest paid divorce lawyers in the Southeast. He clocks out at over a thousand dollars an hour.” She chuckled. “I wonder who he billed that time to.”
“I thought …”
“What?”
“All they talked about was poker and horses. And jazz. I thought maybe he was a bookie. Or a professional gambler. Something.”
“He’d probably agree with the gambling element.”
