A Sad Song Singing. Thomas B. Dewey

The girl came in and sat at the bar, two stools removed from me. She wore a small white cap at an angle on her head and a white suede jacket over a black wool dress, cut low at the top and high at the bottom, and her nylon knees thrust roundly at the bar facing. She had blond hair that hung straight to her shoulders and down her back. Her face was long, narrow, austere, like an advertisement for a French movie. She smoked with dedication, with slow, deep inhalations, and the hand that held the cigarette trembled from time to time, as, possibly, with a little girl trying to be a big girl.

We were in Tony’s, across the street from my office. I had been there for an hour; she had just arrived. I’d had a phone call about her from my answering service, a sentimental organization, which had interrupted my nightcap because the girl sounded “so desperate.”

“You may tell her,” I had said, “where I am and that I will stay until she comes. From there on, it’s up to her.”

“Thank you,” the answering service had said.

“Don’t mention it,” I had said.

So she had come and sat down and there were only the two of us in the joint, besides Tony, who had heard my end of the phone conversation and stood politely behind the bar now, waiting, while the girl opened her purse and found a cigarette and lit it.

“I’m Mac,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“Well—I—could we talk?”

I shrugged at Tony, who shrugged back and moved away. I tossed off the dregs of my nightcap and swung on my stool toward her.

“Sure,” I said. “We’ll go over to my office.”

“Where is it?”

“Just across the street.”

“Oh.”

“No hurry,” I said. “Finish your cigarette.”

She looked at me directly for the first time, with eyes that were dark and frightened.

“All right,” she said.

And that’s what she did. She sat there and finished her cigarette, methodically, all the way, and snuffed it out when it got down to where it was burning her fingers. Her fingers were slender, like her face, which came to a point at her chin.

I helped her down from the stool. When she stood up, she reached to my shoulder. Her weight had been that of a bundle of dry sticks. I could see now that the clothes she wore were a bad fit, as if they were hand-me-downs, or something she had picked up at a rummage sale.

“My things,” she said nervously.

I had seen her stow something in the booth behind us but had forgotten about it. We went over there and the “things” were a battered suitcase and a guitar case.

“Quite a load you’re hauling,” I said.

“I took a taxi,” she said.

That made me feel somewhat better. I reached for both cases, but she slid ahead of me somehow and took the suitcase herself.

“I’ll take it,” she said.

Its weight seemed to give her no trouble. Carrying the guitar, I opened the door for her, nodded good night to Tony and followed her outside. She hung very close, without touching me except inadvertently now and then with her shoulder. At the street, which was deserted now, though there was still traffic on Michigan Avenue, a block away, she looked in all directions before stepping down from the curb. We crossed over, climbed the front steps and got to my office. When I reached in to snap on a light, she hung back in the hall.

“It’s all right,” I said. “The blinds are closed.”

She came in then, carrying the suitcase, her big eyes taking in the room and a partially exposed section of my living quarters adjoining the office.

“You live here too?” she said.

“Yes. Would you like some coffee?”

“Yes, I would.”

I went through the bedroom to the kitchen to get the percolator, and she came along at my heels, watching.

“It’s just ordinary coffee,” I said, “nothing fancy.”

“It’s all right.”

We went back to the office and I plugged in the pot. She sat on the sofa with the suitcase at her knees and held the handle with both hands, so tightly her knuckles were white.

“You’re a musician?” I said, nodding toward the guitar, which was on the sofa beside her.

“No,” she said. “I sing a little.”

“For a living?”

“Oh no. I’m not good enough.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be alone in that—”

“And I don’t have any songs.”

“I see.”

“Richie has the songs.”

“Richie?”

“Richie Darden—you’ve heard of him.”

“Of course,” I lied. “What is your name?”

“Crescentia,” she said. “People call me Cress.”

“You’re Italian?”

“Yes.” She put

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