“Four Strong Winds”
(IAN AND SYLVIA)

I WAS WEARING one of my brand-new Honest Ed’s scoop-neck T-shirts (three for $4.99), and Ethan had been looking at me funny ever since I’d come in. I’d bought them the previous day at the store’s end-of-July “Super-Duper Summer Steals!!!” sale. The top was tomato red, and Grady approved of it, but now I was worried. Was it too much—too little, too tight, too “hoochie”? The scoop didn’t scoop much, but it still scooped.

Ethan came right up to me after the first set. “You’ve got a blotch on your chest.” He pointed to the middle of his own chest. “It’s green. Other than that, you look nice.”

He hadn’t talked to me in days and this was it? I took it as an apology and decided to forgive him his many transgressions.

Rachel nipped over. “He’s right. Here.” She handed me her makeup compact and beetled back to her table.

I opened Rachel’s mirror and gasped. There was, indeed, a green blotch on my chest. “I’m marked!” I fumbled with the chain clasp. “God’s punishing me for being a fake Jew!” I caught Ethan’s eye before he turned to help me with the chain. I’d lingered over the word fake hoping that he would grasp the fact that I knew I had made a mistake. Again.

“Nah.” At least he smiled as he handed my necklace to me. “God is punishing you for buying fake gold.”

Neither the chain nor the star was very shiny anymore.

Ethan, for once, didn’t roll his eyes. Instead, he reached under the counter for a tea towel and dotted it with liquid detergent before handing it to me. “Why did you get it?”

“I bought it when I thought I was Jewish and everything.” Again I paused, letting the import of the word thought sink in. “And it was a star, and I bought it from David.”

“You bought something from Dodgy Dave? Oh, honey…” Rachel was back. She was making an espresso, but there were tears in her eyes when she headed back to her customer.

“What, what?” I turned back to Ethan.

“Don’t mind her. My dad says that the last ring she got was from Dodgy Dave. It was as fake as the proposal.”

“Oh, I feel bad. She was doing better.”

“Don’t. Rachel’s great, but she’s a crier. That’s just how she is.” He shrugged.

He looked all sensitive and sweet and, well, seriously cute, what with all the shrugging and almost smiling. That thought was followed by instant guilt until I reminded myself that we were no longer brother and sister.

“How about I walk you home tonight? Just to keep you safe from Dodgy Dave?”

I felt myself turning the color of my top. “Sure, that’d be nice.”

“Great. Then I’ll let you in on a secret.”

“What? I love a secret!”

“Tyson’s dropping in for a short set with my dad.”

“Really!”

“Yup, wants to get one in before he and Sylvia head off to New York again.”

“Just think of it.” I sighed. “Both of my fathers onstage at the same time!” I took off just as he tossed the wet towel at me.

Secret or not, the word must have got out, because the place was packed within minutes. Rachel and I were racing back and forth to the espresso machine all night.

I didn’t even see him until he touched my back. Somehow, he had snagged a table to himself. And in my section.

“Cassidy! Hi, hello! Are you here to see Tyson?”

“No, I’m here to see you. You look especially pretty tonight.”

My back was warm from his hand.

“I was hoping to show you the Minc Club tonight. Can you join me for an after-hours coffee? I’d like that very much.”

Ohmygod. Ohmygod. This was definitely a date! He was here asking and everything!

“I’d love to.” I felt thirty.

The rest of the night flew by. Even when my two “dads” got onstage and sang a couple of songs together, it seemed to be over in a minute. Time only stopped when they ended with “Four Strong Winds,” with Mr. Goldman singing harmony like the last time. The crowd went berserk again, and I started tearing up. I was turning into Rachel. I didn’t know what it was about that song, but it tore me up as soon as the first chords hit the air. I gave my head a shake and cleaned my station and my tables in record time. Thank God Ethan had warned me about my splotch.

Ethan.

Cassidy was waiting by the door for me, but I couldn’t see Ethan anywhere.

“Coming?” He extended his hand.

“You bet.” One last quick glance around. The guys were milling about the stage. Big Bob was chatting to Mr. Tyson, and Rachel was crying in their general vicinity, but no Ethan.

I did, however, hear a plate clatter to the floor just as Cassidy held the door open for me.

I did not look back.

The Minc Club was way different from the Purple Onion and even the Bohemian Embassy. It was just as smoky but way snazzier. Snazzy was my new favorite word. For starters, the furniture matched, and the patrons looked more slick. Everyone seemed to know Cassidy. I felt older, taller, on his arm. We had barely sat down when a waitress appeared. Cassidy ordered a cappuccino for me and an espresso for himself. The waitress was so gorgeous and big in the chest area that I felt myself shrinking into my chair. Plus she was flirting with him. In the middle of all her furious eyelash batting, she asked him if he wanted a little “extra” in his coffee, which seemed to annoy him. She ran right off to get our orders.

I was glad that he was annoyed with her.

People were looking at us. That felt good, except that I had to make sure to hold in my stomach the whole time.

When our coffees arrived, Cassidy raised his cup to me. “So, Toni, what do you think of it? Do you like it?”

“Oh yes, it’s very…much more than…quite a bit more…”

“Cool, sophisticated?”

I nodded at him.

“I’m glad you like it. A girl like you deserves only the best.”

I was definitely writing Betty first thing in the morning. I’d apologize my brains out and then tell her all about this!

“How old are you, Toni?”

Uh-oh. Was he worried about our potential—okay, very real—age gap?

“Sixteen. But I’ll be seventeen real soon.” Cassidy raised an eyebrow. “No, really—in September. How old are you?”

“Older.” He smiled.

There was music playing in the background, even though there was no one onstage. They must have had a very expensive sound system and someone working it. It was jazz, good jazz. Joe would love it here. I would bring him here the minute he got to Toronto.

Cassidy was asking me about my progress on my quest when an unusual-looking gentleman walked up behind him and placed his hand on Cassidy’s shoulder.

“My boy.”

Cassidy made to get up, but the man kept his hand on his shoulder. “Sit. Relax. Who is your gorgeous companion?”

It was completely understandable that the man got that part wrong, because even though he was wearing the most beautiful suit I’d ever seen on anybody, he also wore black sunglasses. I mean, the club was already darker and smokier than the Onion was, and he was wearing sunglasses! And then, when it hit me, I was flooded with shame.

“Toni, this is Mr. Marcetti from Detroit. He owns a piece of this place.”

Mr. Marcetti smiled and extended his hand in the right direction and everything. “An insignificant portion, dear child. I am a good friend, a benefactor, if you will, of Cassidy’s.”

“I’m very pleased to meet you, sir.”

“I think I may have mentioned that Toni is on a quest to track down her parents,” Cassidy said.

Cassidy had talked about me? To his benefactor? What was a benefactor? That was like family, right?

“Ah yes, the orphan girl. I am very sorry for your troubles, young lady.” He smiled right at me. “Please order anything you like, on or off the menu. My treat. And I would be so pleased if you could both attend one of my parties.”

A party? A real party?

Cassidy looked away.

“All the best people come. Who is your favorite musician?”

“Mr. Tyson, sir, Mr. Ian Tyson.”

“Oh, Ian frequently drops by.”

“Toni works at the Purple Onion, Mr. Marcetti.”

“Ah. And when are your nights off, if I may ask?”

“Sunday and Monday nights, and Wednesday is a half shift, sir.” Was that too much information? “Are they very fancy parties? I don’t have very fancy clothes…”

Cassidy just put his hand on mine, and I shut up.

“Not to worry.” Mr. Marcetti bowed his head slightly. “It’s been a rare pleasure. Cassidy, I’ll leave it with you then.” Mr. Marcetti left us but continued to stop at tables for a word here, a word there. He didn’t bump into a single thing. The man was a miracle. And he had very nice manners too.

“Wow. Isn’t he just…wow?” We were on our second round of coffees.

Cassidy kept smiling at me. I seemed to amuse him—a lot. That was a good thing, or at least it must have been, because he would also reach for my hand every so often. I worried that he could hear my thumping heart every time he touched me. It made me crazy nervous. “I have never seen a blind man move so well. ’Course, I only knew the one, Emmet, back in Hope? Well, he had the glasses and the dog and the cane, but poor old Emmet wasn’t anywhere near as steady on his feet as your Mr. Marcetti.”

“What?” Cassidy stroked the top of my hand with his thumb, but he looked kind of distracted as he did it. “Toni…”

“Yes, Cassidy?”

He didn’t say anything for a bit, and I didn’t feel I should say anything again for fear of breaking the mood or the moment or whatever we were having.

“It’s late. Time for a young lady to go home.” Again, he slipped a five-dollar bill into my hand. “I’m afraid I have to stay.”

“But I can walk. I know my way around the—”

“It’s too late.” He shook his head. “Please, I need to know you’re safe.” And then we both got up and he was going to kiss me, yes he was. A girl, even an orphan girl who pretends she doesn’t have any fantasies, well, except for that one, can tell these things. He wanted to kiss me, and I wanted him to kiss me. It would be my first kiss. I’d been waiting practically my whole life for my first kiss. I needed to be kissed. I held my breath and closed my eyes and…he did not kiss me. Instead, he brushed a stray strand of hair out of my eyes. “Take a taxi.”

I could have sworn he was going to kiss me.