2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

1:58 A.M

Still hidden in the coats, Madeleine and her still-flippering heart.

The band returns from break. The young guitarist taps his boot on the lowest rung of his stool and repositions the guitar on his knee. The piano player pulls from his bottle. They start a song that is so familiar to Madeleine that at first she doesn’t recognize it. When she does, it becomes impossible for her to hide in the back. She knows the song and she wants everyone to know she knows the song.

She elbows through the coats and opens her mouth to sing.

No sound comes. Her throat refuses clear passage. She advances into the crowd and stamps her foot to get it going. “Hey!” she pleads. “Come on!” The crowd turns away from the musicians onstage, surprised to find a new show behind them. One face turns and is immediately delighted. It is Ben, holding a beer in one hand, a drink, his wallet, and a pack of cigarettes in another. Miss Greene is there, too. Her eyes grow as wide as the Schuylkill River, and as muddy, and as hard to pass. But Madeleine is finished with rules. This struggle is between her and her nerves. She batters at herself but her voice will not come.

“Make room,” Ben says.

Madeleine pulses. The first verse has passed; the first chorus is halfway over. Still, she cannot produce a sound. One hand hipped, the other keeping time like she has practiced only instead of on the hard floor of her bedroom, her child size nines are rooted on the hard floor of the city’s #2 jazz club.

So Madeleine has followed them here, to sing on this stage. The morning in church, the apple, the lice, collect in Sarina’s mind as she hatches this wild girl battle herself. She decides that one person will get what they want tonight. She takes Madeleine’s hand, leads her to the front, and halts, perhaps waiting for a rational objection to intercede. When none does, she lifts Madeleine onto the stage in front of a microphone the little girl instinctively lowers to account for her humble stature.

“Madeleine,” Miss Greene says. “Sing.”