A Little Night Music by Kathy Hitchens Read Free Book Online Page A

created under wrinkled cotton and simple wood buttons snagged Jon’s imagination, so much that he almost didn’t hear her say yes.
    “Half hour, tops. Any longer and Macy will have us ordering Mardi Gras beads to toss at the rich, topless wives of upper-crust New Orleans.”
    Another New Orleans reference flew over Jon’s head but he picked up on the them-versus-us tone when Elli bumped up against the subject of money. As a musician’s family, the Lerouxs couldn’t have had a lot but if the visions were what he thought they were they didn’t need much.
    For joy like that, Jon would gladly surrender his Madison-Avenue life.
    Too bad happiness like that only happened in the tall tales of a southern family.              
     
     
     
    “She comes every day about this time. Best smile on the planet.”
    Jon ushered Elli into his apartment first then followed behind to gather up the litter trail of notes his landlord had begun sliding under his door—all messages of increasing agitation to call James. The most recent read: I’m not your secretary. Get a fucking phone! Jon wanted to wipe his ass with them, but in polite company decided to drop them discretely into the wastebasket.
    “This is a great old building,” said Elli, surveying the high industrial ceilings and brick walls on the street and alley side.
    “Not much for air, though,” Jon apologized. He beat the window unit a few times for show then opened the adjacent window to the fire escape. Never had he felt so uncomfortable in the space. “It’s better out here.”
    Jon crawled out first to help Elli through. His peripheral vision caught a wave of green. In the alley, in a green dress, he saw Elephant staring up at him, the same white flower in her hair she gave him every afternoon. He waved her up.
    Elephant shook her head, her expression pinched.
    “Someone I want you to meet,” Jon called down to her.
    Still, she shook her head.
    Elli had slipped off her sandals, those red toenails against the red iron of the fire escape setting off a four-alarm blaze beneath his collar. When her head had safely cleared the window sash and there was no further need to have her hand, Jon found it hard to let go. It felt as natural there as the middle G in a harmonic series.
    Jon glanced down three stories. The green fabric disappeared around the building’s corner.
    “That’s strange.”
    “She must be shy.”
    “ Least shy kid. Ever.” Jon stared after her, hoping she’d reappear. “Maybe she had to be somewhere.”
    “Maybe she wants you all to herself.” Elli sat on the window ledge, legs kicked out, relaxed.
    “Without a trumpet, I’m nothing. Girl can dance.”
    Jon settled on the fire escape, back to the alley, wrists hung casually off his knees. The slight breeze teased the cotton hem of Elli’s dress, a fortunate perk of his vantage point.
    “I didn’t see much in there but a suitcase,” she said.
    “Didn’t bring much.”
    “Not in the way of something you can touch.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Oh, you came with lots of baggage. None of it the kind with leather handles.”
    He should have known bringing her here would drum up questions he didn’t want to answer. It should have bothered him that there was no way out of the conversation but thirty feet of sliding red ladders, but it didn’t. For once, he didn’t try to swallow the past back into some hardened I-don’t-give-a-shit veneer of half-truths and delusions.
    “I don’t have a plan. I wake up like I’m supposed to be somewhere, my heart’s pounding as if I’m late for the most important meeting of my life, and it never quite stops when I remember I’m not. It feels like my other life continued on without me, and I drifted here. The Lotus gives me somewhere to be, something in my control, something that doesn’t make me feel like a shell of my other life.”
    “What’s your other life doing right now?”
    A bubble of distaste surfaced. Jon let it go in a