“You’ve been here, what? A week? I’ve been seeing him around the neighborhood for years. He scowls every time he sees me.” She put a protective hand on Austin’s shoulder. “I saw him take his cane and beat the hood of a cab last year when it honked at him forjaywalking. He could be a dangerous kook. I’d really rather that man not spend any time with my child.”
“What’s all this about?”
Patrick had eased, unannounced, into their little circle.
Austin’s face brightened. “Dad! You came.”
Patrick high-fived his son. “Of course I came. Can’t miss the best Christmas party of the year.”
“I thought you had dinner with a client tonight,” Gretchen said.
“More like drinks and appetizers. And the restaurant was only a few blocks away.”
“How nice,” Gretchen murmured. Kerry almost laughed. She could tell the woman was totally pissed to see her ex.
Gretchen took a sip of her martini. “I was just telling Kerry that I don’t like our son spending time around that homeless man. He seems deranged.”
“Oh, I don’t think Heinz is deranged. And look, it’s not like Austin has ever been alone with him.”
Austin tugged at the hem of Patrick’s Harris tweed sport coat. “Dad, there’s Murphy. And he brought his banjo.”
Claudia had Murphy by the arm, dragging him toward the living room fireplace, where a chair had been set up in front of a roaring fire.
“Everyone!” she announced. “We’ve got a treat tonight. Murphy Tolliver has volunteered to get us in the Christmas spirit by playing his dobro.”
Guests drifted in from the dining room, glasses and plates in hand, and formed a semicircle around him. The room grew silent as all eyes were trained on the musician.
Finally, Murphy looked up and cleared his throat. “Uh, what d’ya’ll want to hear?”
“Play ‘Frosty the Snowman,’” Austin piped up.
Laughter rippled through the crowd and the awkward silence was broken.
chapter 17
Murphy closed his eyes and positioned his large, chapped hands on the flat bridge of the dobro. He was still for a moment and looked almost prayerful. His fingers were like Jock’s, thick and calloused, with dirt under the nails that no amount of scrubbing would ever entirely erase.
But then, his fingers flew over the strings. Kerry looked down at Austin, whose eyes were alive with excitement. Patrick was watching him too, and for a moment, he glanced over at Kerry and grinned.
From “Frosty the Snowman,” Murphy plowed without stopping into “Jingle Bells,” and then, with a nod in Austin’s direction, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Finally, he paused and looked up, his cheeks pink with excitement or embarrassment, Kerry couldn’t tell which.
The room erupted in applause, and he ducked his head. Their hosts had drifted into the room and stood in front of the huge Christmas tree that dominated the rest of the room. It was strung with what appeared to be thousands of tiny, twinkling white lights.
“Murphy, can you play something, I don’t know, like maybe the kind of music you might play back at home?” John asked.
“You mean like bluegrass, country, something like that?”
“Whatever you like,” John said.
Murphy’s hand began patting out a beat on the dobro’s neck and a minute later he started playing the first notes of “I’ll Fly Away.” Soon, everyone in the crowd was clapping and tapping their feet.
“More!” someone called out.
For the next fifteen minutes, Murphy performed a virtuoso one-man concert, following up with bluegrass standards Kerry had grown up listening to back home in the southern Appalachian Mountains: “Man of Constant Sorrows,” “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” and “Orange Blossom Special.”
More applause, cheers, and hoots of approval from the guests.
Following that, he rested his hands on the dobro and took a deep breath. Claudia, who’d been standing close by, beaming her approval, handed him a bottle of beer. He took a long pull from the bottle, then wiped his perspiring brow with the back of his hand.
