“There might be other performers there.”
“Then they’ll be thinking how much they want to be up there on stage with you.”
“You’re great, you know,” she says, sighing. “I never used to be like this. Ilovedto perform. I want to find that love again.”
“You will,” I say. “I have no doubt you will. And Summer?”
“Yes?”
“The people who care about you won’t judge, and the people who do? You don’t care about them.”
“You’re right about that.”
“Of course I am. Where is it?”
“The open mic night?”
“Yes.”
“At a place called Barella, on Saturday.” A tentative note of hope creeps into her voice. “I’ve invited a few friends, but there’s still space?”
I want to say the words as badly as she wants to hear them. Promise to be there, to listen, to support. The chance to be there for someone is a responsibility, but it’s not heavy. It’s liberating. Knowing you’re needed and wanted, needing and wanting someone in return.
But I can’t do that for her until I know I’m in control of myself. “I’ll be there if I can,” I tell her. “If I’m ready.”
“That’s okay. I know you… have to figure things out.”
“I am, though. Day by day.”
“Good,” she murmurs.
My gaze settles on the newspaper I’ve tossed onto my living room table. I reach for it. “Do you have your copy of theTimes?”
“Yes,” she says. “I stuffed it into my bag from work. Let me get it…”
I open it up in the meantime. Scan the pages. “Open page twelve,” I say. “Let me make the world bleak for you.”
She laughs again. “You don’t make the world bleak. You make it fun.”
“Well, I’m happy you can see it that way.”
“I can. Oh, there was something I read that made me think of you right away…”
“Large Bird Awareness Week?”
“Very funny,” she says, voice light. “No, it was about Bergdorf Goodman. Made me think of the dresses you sent me.”
“I remember.”
“Anthony, do you really do that a lot with dates? You made it seem so commonplace.”
I run a hand over the back of my neck. “I’ve done it before, yes. But not with many women.”
“So you don’t have a personal shopper there, ready to whip out the latest styles for your dates on short notice,” she says. She’s teasing, effortless warmth in her voice.
It softens my own. “Summer, I picked them out myself.”
“You… you didn’t ask someone to do it for you?”