Priya and Emily walked into the Snare, Tony’s bar, the name of which had made Emily laugh. Tony always used to call his snare drum a real boyfriend snare. Whenever he soloed on it during shows, he’d have tons of men trying to buy him a drink afterward, once he’d let their fans know that he was into guys and not girls.
“Which one is he?” Priya whispered, as they walked through the door.
But Emily didn’t have to answer. Rob was at the door in a second and a half. “Queenie!” he said, bending in for a hug. “Your hair is back!” He turned to Priya, sticking out his hand. “And you must be Priya; it’s so nice to meet you. Do you play, too?”
Priya shook her head. “I wish. I’m just an appreciative audience.”
Rob smiled. “Well, I hope we’ll give you a show to appreciate tonight.”
Emily took him in. He looked pretty much the same as he had the night before, but his energy was different, relaxed and keyed up all at once, like he was really delighting in being in this bar about to perform at an open mic.
“You wanna open the show, Queen?” he asked her.
Emily shook her head. “No chance. How about third?” That felt comfortable to her. She’d realized on the walk to the bar that the last time she’d performed all alone was her piano recital in eighth grade. Throughout college, she’d always been part of the group—either with the whole band, or just with Rob. She didn’t want to have to kick things off by herself.
“You got it,” Rob said. “Tony’s got some friends who can start us off. He and I’ll close the show. And we’ll see who else we get along the way.”
“Sounds good to me,” Emily said. She was starting to feel that pre-performance energy. She’d forgotten how it felt—like her whole body was ready, her muscles were alert, her mind was starting to focus. Her blood felt like it was moving through her body faster, oxygenating every part of her, making everything sharper, brighter, louder.
Priya and Emily headed over to the bar, and after they ordered vodka tonics from the bartender, Priya turned to Emily. “Why does he call you Queenie?”
“The first time we met, he called me a crystal queen, and then he wrote a song about me back then called ‘Queen of All the Keys.’ After that, it stuck for a while. And Queen became Queenie. A nickname of the nickname, I guess.” Emily shrugged. She was simultaneously embarrassed by and proud of the name. It was fun to be a queen.
“I’m still not over this,” Priya said. “We’re in the same room as Austin Roberts. And he hugged you. And shook my hand. And called me by name. This is kind of nuts.”
Emily laughed. “He’s just a person like everyone else,” she said. “I always thought he’d be a star one day.”
The two women sat down at a bar table for two as the room started filling up. Word must’ve gotten around that Rob was there. When the bar was packed to the point that people were lining the walls around the small stage, Tony came by to say hi. Emily wouldn’t have recognized him if she’d seen him on the street. In college he had long hair that he’d worn layered and wavy. Now his head was shaved and it seemed like he worked out pretty hard.
“You look great, Tony,” she said, when she hugged him.
“You too, Queen,” he said, looking at her. “I’ve always wondered if you’d pop up again. I searched for you every now and then on social media, but I never found you. I did find a lot of other Emily Solomons, though.”
“I’m not on it,” Emily said. “I’m a psychologist, and I didn’t want my patients to be able to find out too much personal information about me.”
“Huh,” Tony said. “I never would’ve pegged you as a shrink. Well, I’m glad you popped up tonight. We’ll have to get all three of us back together up there. A reunion show minus James.”
Emily nodded. “Sure,” she said. “I bet I could still follow Rob’s lead.”
Tony hugged her again. “Really great to see you, Queen,” he said.
As he walked away, Priya started laughing. “This Queen business is too much.”
Emily laughed, too. “I guess we’re all just used to it.”
The show started. One of Tony’s friends came out with an acoustic guitar and sang a beautiful rendition of “Fire and Rain.” Then another came up, plugged his guitar into the amp, and sang “Bad Moon Rising.”
“Meh,” Priya whispered to Emily. “The first guy was better.”
“Are you covering this for the Times?” Emily whispered back.
“Maybe for the Washington Square News, if the kids’ll accept an article from university staff,” she answered.
Emily smiled at her. Then the room started clapping, and it was Emily’s turn. She went to the bar’s piano and adjusted the microphone.
“Hey,” she said, and listened to her voice reverberate through the bar. “I’m Emily Solomon and I’m gonna play some Tracy Chapman for you.”
She realized, a second after she said it, that she’d used her maiden name instead of her married one. She hadn’t introduced herself as Emily Solomon in years. Consciously made sure she didn’t. But being on stage threw her backward, somehow.
She looked out into the crowd. Because of the way the stage lights were set she couldn’t really see the audience. She knew where Priya was sitting and could make out her shape, sort of. She knew where Rob and Tony were sitting, too, and turned her head in their direction for a second before she started. She’d practiced enough that she knew the lyrics by heart now, and knew what her fingers needed to do, too.
Emily slipped them onto the keys and began to play the intro before she started in about a fast car and a ticket to anywhere.
She thought about the words and thought about the time in her life when she felt them acutely. When she wanted out of her house as her mom was dying, when she wanted out of the situation she and Rob had created in college, when she wanted out of dealing with the pain of her miscarriage the week before. Without even thinking about it, she channeled all that emotion into the music, through her fingers, with her voice. When she got toward the end, as she started singing those insistent be someones, she felt that emotion coming back at her from the audience. When Rob played the night before, the room was riding on his energy. Here, the room was riding on her feelings, responding to her heart. She could feel them transfixed by her, no one moving, no one fidgeting.
When the song ended, the piano resonated for a moment, and then everyone began to clap. Rob got to his feet, and then Priya did, too, as Emily said thank you and then walked off the stage, past where Rob was standing. He reached out and touched her arm.
“It’s a crime that you’re not on stage anymore,” he said. “Come tour with me.”
Emily’s only response was to squeeze his hand, because she knew that if she opened her mouth, there was a good chance she would say yes. She hadn’t realized how much it meant to her to play, to share her music with other people, to make that emotional connection. How much she really missed it, really needed it to feel like herself.
“Wow,” Priya said, when Emily got back to the table. “You’re really good. Like, really good. I had no idea you could perform like that.”
“It was fun,” Emily said. “Want a drink?”
“You really do contain multitudes,” Priya replied. “I’ll take another vodka tonic.”
The women sat together drinking and listening to music, and then it was time for Tony and Rob to close the show.
“So as most of y’all know,” Rob said, “I’m Austin Roberts, and Tony here, the owner of this fine establishment, is my friend from college. So he offered to come up and play drums while I sing my Billboard hit—I still can’t even believe I’m saying that—‘Crystal Castle.’”
Tony whispered something to Rob.
“Oh! And Tony says that our friend Emily—you remember her from her kick-ass Tracy Chapman before—promised she’d come play with us for old times’ sake. Queenie?”
Emily stood up and walked up on stage with them and sat down at the piano.
“You remember the chord progression for ‘Queen of All the Keys’?” Rob said to her off mic. “It’s the same.”
She nodded, not telling him that she’d already figured that out.
The three of them started playing, Rob started singing, and Emily offered some harmony lines that matched the ones she used to sing in “Queen of All the Keys.” It only took them a couple of measures to get their groove back. And then they rocked it. Emily followed Rob’s lead, the way she always did, and listened for Tony’s beat, and the three of them were totally in sync, playing together as if they hadn’t ever stopped.
When the song ended, Rob turned to Emily and mouthed, Please come on tour.
Emily smiled at him and stood up from the piano bench, but he shook his head. She sat down again, not sure what he had in mind.
“Since we’ve got our band back together again, we’re gonna play one more song for y’all, the finale we used to jam to thirteen years ago. So please give us a break if we don’t remember all the words.”
He turned to Emily. “Only love can break your heart,” he said.
She smiled at him, wondering if she would actually remember any of what she was supposed to sing.
He kept going, and she responded without even thinking about it until the duet started in earnest.
It all came back to Emily, almost as if the song had shortcut her brain and somehow appeared in her fingers and in her vocal cords. She stood up, nudging the piano bench to the side with her foot, and was flirting with Rob on stage the way they used to. They were laughing and teasing each other, and then they got to the final bit they sang together, facing each other. They sang about how wonderful life was because they were both in the world.
And Emily realized all of a sudden that the part that came after that was a kiss. Rob raised his eyebrows at her, and a piece of Emily was tempted to nod, to say: Yes, kiss me. To feel his lips against hers again, to turn back time, to rewind to the days before they’d played Webster Hall, before she’d gotten pregnant, before she’d fallen and broken her hand and broken up the band. But she was an adult now, and she couldn’t go back. She shook her head, and instead the two of them hugged, Rob swinging his guitar to the side, so it wouldn’t get caught between them.
“I really am so glad you’re in the world,” he whispered into her ear. “It makes it more wonderful to me.”
“I’m glad you’re in the world, too,” she whispered back. “I really, truly am.”