Lorca palms his son’s shoulder. “Come outside with me and smoke a cigarette.”
Alex blanches at his father’s touch. Laughter shivers through his friends. “I’m fine, Pop.”
“Alex,” Lorca says.
Aruna says she’ll come too, but Lorca stops her. “You will stay here in this bar while I go outside to speak with my son.” He leads Alex through the vestibule where well-dressed people fight their coats off. He rattles his pack, but Alex doesn’t want one. The Second Street Bridge is lit in green and red. Alex is taller than him but would be no match for a gust of wind.
Lorca remembers what it’s like to be sixteen and feel bigger than the city. “You coming by on Christmas?”
Alex doesn’t meet his father’s eyes. “Of course, Pop.”
He has practiced this aloofness, but Lorca knows he cries at movies if an animal is injured. “I’ll cook. Roast chicken.”
“Since when do you cook?” Alex says.
“Since never.”
“Will Louisa be there?”
Lorca kicks at the grass snarling out of the sidewalk. “Louisa left me.”
“She told me,” Alex says.
In the doorway, one girl asks another if there’s a cover. “Beats me,” her friend says.
“There’s no cover,” Lorca calls out.
They stop, blondes in tweed coats, and glare at him.
“I know you don’t like her,” Alex says. “But can I bring Aruna?”
“It’s Christmas. Everyone’s invited.”
“I keep forgetting it’s Christmas.”
“You and me both.” Lorca smells the brine of the river. The swipe of his son’s cheap cologne. “A cop came by this morning and told us that unless we pay thousands of dollars the club will be closed.”
“Sonny told me,” Alex says.
Lorca sighs. “I guess he told everyone.”
Alex stiffens at the word everyone. “All the same to me,” he says. “Not like I can play here anyway.”
Lorca has again said the wrong thing, forcing up the wall between them. A pummeled feeling leans against him. In every apartment on every street in this city there are better fathers, but not one of them has a more gifted son. “How old are you?” he says.
“Sixteen.”
“How old?”
Alex spits. “Sixteen, Pop. I get it. I’m too young.”
“Alex.” Lorca’s gaze is even. “Someone might ask how old you are tonight and if they do, what do you say?”
Alex swallows hard. “Twenty-four.” If he celebrates, his father will change his mind. He innately knows his father’s moods and tendencies the way you know on a flight, even with your eyes closed, that a plane is banking. So he races to the door. His hand slips on the handle because his body won’t let him go as fast as he wants.
His father calls his name.
Alex turns back to the man smoking on the sidewalk. Please don’t take this away from me. People jostle by while he hangs in the doorway, waiting for his father to speak.
“Don’t get cocky,” Lorca says. “I’d go with twenty-one.”
Alex vanishes into the club, leaving his father alone on the street.