OF COURSE, I looked at Ethan in a whole new light. A very uncomfortable one. I mean, he was my brother, and I had all these confusing feelings that were, um, confusing. Since the very beginning, I’d gotten this kind of panicky, fluttery feeling in my stomach whenever he came near me. It must be a long-lost-sibling type of reaction. Or something.
I avoided him for the next two shifts.
This was relatively easy because it seemed that he was busy avoiding me. It was like we were in a contest.
Who cared? Not me.
I got busy obsessing about where I could buy a Star of David. Did Jewish churches sell them? It wouldn’t be big or gaudy, just a discreet little one that I would wear all the time to help me connect to my people. Maybe the pawnshops would have one. I also pledged to go to the Yorkville Library and read up on my new faith. But all that would have to wait until I found out more about my immediate family. If Mr. Goldman was my father, maybe he had met my mother in the clubs in the late forties. But I couldn’t very well ask him. I promised myself that I wasn’t going to go all Tyson on him, not even in my head. I needed hard evidence before I tackled my potential father. That left Big Bob.
I came in an hour early on Wednesday afternoon and tracked him down in the storage room.
“Hey, what’s up?” He was moving sacks of coffee beans from one pile to another. Was he exercising? Maybe the beans needed jiggling.
“Uh, could we talk, uh…”
“Call me Bob. You get all tortured-looking when I see you fumbling around for a name.”
I must have looked stricken.
“Okay, Big Bob then. You can do it. Look, I know they must have had crazy-ass rules about manners at the asylum…”
“Orphanage.”
“Orphanage.” He nodded. “But a coffeehouse is a different species, toots. Even some of the customers have seen you choke when you want to get my attention.”
“I’m sorry, uh, Big, um, Bob.”
“It’ll get easier.” He sighed. “So what do you want to talk to me about?” He dropped a sack at his feet. “Is Grady okay?”
“Grady?”
“She’s not drinking too much, is she?”
Grady tended to over-refresh most days, sometimes with the professor but usually alone. Today, however, she had been clear-eyed and drinking coffee when I came down to say goodbye, so I went with that. “She was just great when I left her.”
He flashed his tooth at that. “So what is it? You need to get off early?”
“No, sir, Big Bob.” I grabbed a sack of beans from one pile and threw it onto the other. “The thing is, I’ve been sort of searching for my roots.” I kept piling the sacks. They were heavy, but it made the talking easier. “And I got this clue that maybe my dad worked in a club called Willa’s, in Gerrard Village, back in the day, you know?” Big Bob stopped heaving sacks. I did not. “Grady said that Willa’s isn’t there anymore, but I was hoping that there might be another place with staff or patrons who might have a connection to it and I could—I don’t know—ask questions, find a clue…”
He took a sack out of my hands. “You’ve had it rougher than most. I keep forgetting that, what with your uptown manners and all. Look, give the Bohemian Embassy on St. Nicholas Street a try. It’s the spot now, and they’re good people in there. If anyplace would have any of the old crew that really knew the scene back then, it would be there. It’s a cool soup of old-timers and beats.”
“Beats?”
“Beatniks.”
“Oh,” I said. Was there, like, a dictionary somewhere for this kind of stuff? “Thanks. Maybe I’ll go tonight after my shift.” I must have been staring at him.
“Anything else, Toni?”
“Well, Grady…”
“Is a gem of a lady, a precious jewel. You can tell just by looking at her. Always was, always will be.”
“Yes, for sure. She’s been really good to me, but sometimes she seems to need to refresh a…a fair bit. I want to be understanding, but…I don’t understand. I know that there have been four husbands.”
Big Bob sat on his pile of coffee-bean sacks, and I followed suit on mine.
“She told you, huh?” He was nodding. “Yeah, she digs you.” He crossed his massive arms, which made the tattoos flicker and twitch. “We were all kids together. Mario, her first husband, me and Grady. We were going to be unstoppable. Grady was destined for Hollywood, Mario was going be in business, and I…” He shrugged.
“Where is Mr. Vespucci now?”
“Well, that’s no secret. He’s in the Kingston Pen, manslaughter. Mario ended up working in his father’s business sometime in the early fifties. That’s when the Mafia really started making inroads in this city. He divorced her, you know.”
“He did?” What kind of business organization was the Mafia? Big Bob had made a face when he said it. Was it a department store, a new bank?
“I think it’s one of few decent things old buddy Mario ever did, actually.”
“And the others? I mean, the other husbands.”
“Well, the next one was quick. He was older and dropped dead of a heart attack in his fifties, but at least he left her 75 Hazelton and a nice cushion, you know?” Big Bob repositioned himself on the biggest pile of sacks. “Then there was Bad News Norton; he owned a pile of clubs here but came up from Detroit. He was rough on her, if you get my drift, and she finally divorced him. And then there was Philip, all good manners and elegance but made Norton look like a choirboy. He put her in the hospital a couple of times before we got rid of him.”
We? Where was Big Bob in this? It was clear as glass that he was crazy about her. Why didn’t he marry her? This was so grown up—and desperately exciting, but it made me feel like I’d been raised in a cupboard.
“Through it all, Grady quietly seeded half the clubs and shops in this village. She was better than a bank. Hollywood’s loss was Yorkville’s gain.” He shook his head. “But it was her loss too.”
“I guess that explains a lot.” I didn’t know what else to say. I cared about these people. But I didn’t understand them. I probably didn’t understand Mrs. Hazelton or Miss Webster or any of the teachers either, but things were a whole lot simpler there—their lives seemed simpler. Time to change the topic. “I’m also wondering about a whole other thing, if you don’t mind. I’m researching the old jazz clubs, and I was wondering if Mr. Goldman would ever have played at Willa’s.”
Big Bob seemed to come back from wherever he had gone to. “Good old Willa’s! Sure, Brooks had gigs there, good ones too.”
My heart beat faster. That was it—bull’s-eye! I didn’t need anything else. But then I surprised myself by asking, “Have you ever maybe heard of a Halina Royce?”
“Halina? Halina Royce? Maybe…can’t be sure. Little blond thing? Yeah, she was sort of…” He shook his head. “But there were all kinds back then. Don’t know what happened to her. I think there was a kid…wait. What’s it to you?”
“Her name is listed on my hospital-release form as my mother.”
“Whoa, I keep tripping over the orphan part. I wish I knew more to tell you. Sorry, but I can’t be any real help on that one. Lots of changes around here since then. Not that many of us old-timers left, you know.”
“No, no, that’s okay. Thanks, Big Bob.”
“See?” He smiled.
“What?”
“Didn’t that come easier?”
“Yes. Sir.” I smiled. “I better start my shift.”
She was kind of what, Big Bob? Insane? The kind to try to kill her child? I got a record three orders wrong that night. I could feel Ethan’s disapproving eyes on me the whole night. Wouldn’t he be sorry when he found out he’d been treating his sister so badly?
My shift ended at eleven, but I didn’t get to the Bohemian Embassy until almost midnight. Even with Bob’s directions, I got lost three times. Each time I fumbled, the area got sketchier and the streets got blacker. It’s the new me, and the new me is going to find the real me. I whispered it as a mantra, and that sort of worked until I got the sense that someone was following me. At one point a gentleman in a red Chevy rolled down his window and yelled out, “Fifteen bucks!”
I walked faster, but he kept on right beside me. “Come on, chickie, you’re not going to get a better offer!”
I stopped breathing.
Then a voice came out of the darkness. “Get lost, jerkface!”
The car took off, and so did I.
“Wait, Toni! Slow down—it’s me!”
Ethan? He got to me in three strides. “Ethan, what are you doing here?”
“You’re welcome, Toni.” He crossed his arms. “No problem, Toni. I live to scare off johns.”
“You knew his name?”
He groaned. “I keep forgetting you were raised in an incubator. A john is a…oh forget it. What are you doing here?”
“Never mind. What are you doing here?”
“You first.”
“No, you.”
“Why are you here?”
“Why are you here?”
Why were we always locked in mortal combat? Why was I always so uppity around him? No, wait, why was he always so uppity around me?
“I was following you. Toronto’s not some sleepy little village. This is a big dangerous city, and you go waltzing off into the night. I’ve followed you a couple of times, especially when we’ve locked up really late, just to make sure you got home okay.”
That stopped me cold. That he cared enough…that he…my head spun. “It’s just what a big brother would do.”
“Huh?”
Oh no! I’d said that out loud? Again? I’d been spending far too much time alone. I couldn’t seem to keep a decent secret. Now what? Well, we were kin, after all. “Okay, so don’t go all holier than thou on me, because this time isn’t like the last time.”
“What, Toni?”
“It’ll actually make sense when you think about it.”
“Toni!”
“Well, Ethan, I have credible evidence that you are my half brother. I believe that your father is probably my father too, and I’m just going to—”
“What? I’ve got nothing to do with Tyson!”
“No, no, no. That was absolutely ridiculous. I see that now. It was a fantasy, just like you said. Point for your side.” My hands were flailing all over the place, and Ethan was tracking them. Get a grip, Toni. “Look, Ethan, please don’t tell him yet, but I think Mr. Goldman, your dad, is my father as well, and I’m going to collect some proof at the Bohemian Embassy. People in there might remember the connections. I am your sister, Ethan—well, half sister, but you know…”
Ethan just stood there, hands on hips and mouth open. “And what kind of harebrained evidence do you have for that? There is no way that my old man stepped out on my mom, no way!”
“You don’t have to get so heated about it.” I crossed my arms to hold them still. “I think your father played at Willa’s.” Then I realized that this rather seminal fact would mean nothing to him. “Plus, I’ve got this major thing for music. My radio is on all the time, and there is an undeniable resemblance. You can’t argue that. There is no use fighting it, Ethan. I am probably your sister.” I said the last bit as gently as I could.
Instead of nodding his head thoughtfully, Ethan shoved his hands into his pockets and just up and walked away, muttering the whole time. “Let it go, Ethan, just let it go.”
Okay, sure, it was a lot to take in all of a sudden. “Wait, Ethan! Where’s the Bohemian Embassy?”
“You’re standing in front of it, third floor.” He obviously couldn’t get away fast enough.
Well, all siblings have their rough patches.