Peril

ABE

He waited until the lights went on in Samantha’s apartment. Then he turned and made his way back to the bar. As he walked, he replayed the events of the last few days, how she’d shown up out of the blue, the way she made him feel. He didn’t know whether anything would come of it, but who ever knew if anything would come of anything, or if what came would last, or even be all that good? But what the hell, he thought as he turned onto Twelfth Street, all life really gave you was a chance not to fuck it up.

At the bar Jake was counting the receipts and Susanne was clearing the last of the tables.

“She done good,” Jake said. “The crowd really seemed to like her.”

Abe nodded, then glanced over at the now-empty tables, recalling how conversations had trailed off during her first song, fallen silent for the last two. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah, they did.”

Jake and Susanne left a few minutes later, and Abe returned to the piano and played Samantha’s closing number, remembering the way she’d sung it, how she’d made the lyrics seem like the sum total of what a person could learn.

He’d just played the final chord when he heard the door open at the front, realized that he hadn’t locked it after he’d let Jake and Susanne out.