The Awakening of Dr. Brown

Chapter 5

Michael Parker. Ethan had forgotten all about the otitus and the follow-up visit he’d asked for. Now, he didn’t know what to say in the face of those accusing eyes. Guilt was heavy in his chest, helplessness a burning in his belly.

“My sister said he was supposed to come back here in three days to get his ears checked. It’s been three days, so I brought him.” When Ethan didn’t respond the woman added with a touch of impatience, “My name’s Tamara? And this here is Michael. My sister is-was Louise Parker, she the one got-”

“Yes- Hello, Michael, how’re you doing today? Those ears feeling any better?” His voice was too loud, too jovial. The amber eyes regarded him in sullen silence.

“I been seein’ he takes his medicine,” Tamara said. Her voice had that strange liquid quality that sounds like tears, so he was surprised, when he was finally able to take his eyes from the boy at her side and give his attention to her once more, to find her gaze steady and her face impassive. “My sister said it was important, so that’s what I done.”

He nodded at Ruthie, who normally would have seen the patient to an exam room and taken care of the preliminaries, to let her know he had this one under control.

“It’s good you did that,” he said as he touched Tamara’s shoulder and gestured with the other hand that she and Michael were to come with him. The tired way she gave the baby a hitch as she fell into step beside him made him wonder if she’d walked all the way from The Gardens carrying the child on her hip like that. “Listen, if you’d like, I can get the nurse or Mrs. Schmidt to take the baby-”

“Oh, no, that’s okay. She ain’t heavy.” But she shifted the burden again, this time to her other hip.

Ethan pulled back the exam room curtain and ushered the three inside. “Okay, Michael, you want to hop up here and let me take a look at those ears?” But when he held out his hands to offer the boy a lift up onto the table, he jerked angrily away.

“Michael, mind your manners,” his aunt hissed, reminding Ethan poignantly of her sister.

“It’s okay,” he hastily assured her, and selecting a scope, squatted on his heels in front of the child. “I can look at him from here just as well. How ’bout it, buddy, you going to let me see what those bad bugs are doing in there?”

For his answer, Michael struck out with one wiry arm and sent the scope flying. It landed with a clatter and slithered across the tile floor.

His Aunt Tamara screeched, “Michael! What you doin’?”

The amber eyes regarded Ethan unflinchingly, searing their grief and anger into his soul.

“Hey,” he said quietly, “I thought we were getting along better than that. I’m the one that’s trying to make your ears feel better, remember? You want to tell me why you’re mad at me?” But he knew. He could still feel those small fists pounding him, right over his heart.

“My momma’s dead.” Michael said the last word the Southern way, drawing it out, almost making it two syllables.

Ethan took a deep breath. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Again the hard little fists thumped his chest, just once, the way they’d done that night, the night Louise Parker died. “You didn’t fix her. You was s’posed to fix my momma up. An’ you didn’t, an’ now she dead.”

A hard knot of pain formed in Ethan’s chest, just where the blow had landed. “I couldn’t fix your momma, son, I’m sorry. I wanted to. I tried very hard to fix her, but…I couldn’t.”

He put his hands on the boy’s thin shoulders, then slid them down to his arms. Michael squirmed, but this time didn’t pull away. “Did you ever want to do something so bad, but you weren’t big enough, or strong enough, and no matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t do it?”

Michael’s gaze wavered. Then, unwillingly, he nodded. When he finally spoke, it was so softly Ethan had to lean close in order to hear. “Can’t…reach the basket. Can’t throw the ball high enough. Can’t throw hoops like Michael Jordan.” His lower lip quivered. The amber eyes shimmered for an instant like guttering candle flames, then spilled over.

Wordlessly, Ethan gathered the little boy into his arms. As he held the trembling body close he looked up and saw Tamara standing there, the round-eyed baby astride a canted hip and a tear rolling silently down her cheek. He watched her, still not speaking, his hands gently circling the knobs of the boy’s shoulders, until she brushed the moisture roughly away with her fingers. This time when she spoke, oddly enough, now that there were tears, her voice didn’t sound liquid anymore. Instead it was a whisper, dry as sand.

“I wanted to say thank you for what you done-what you tried to do for my sister. I know there wasn’t nothin’ you could do. They told us at the hospital. And…I wanted to thank you, too, for what you’re doing for us-all of us-talkin’ to that woman, getting her to fix up our building. Mr. Wilkins, he lives on the floor below me, he was there and he told me how you was the one gonna be talkin’ to her, seein’ we get done what needs to be done. I can’t thank you enough, Dr. Brown. I just wish…” Her voice trailed off and she looked away, brushing again at her cheek.

Ethan didn’t know what to say to her; once again he felt frustrated, fraudulant, unworthy…and trapped. He cleared his throat as he rose to his feet, with Michael still clinging fast to his neck. Inside the fragile chest pressed against his he could feel the heart beating, quick tap-tap-taps that made him think of a bird, some small frightened animal.

Muttering something vague to fill the silence, he set the boy on the exam table and peeled the scrawny arms from around his neck. Clearly humiliated by his lapse into babyhood, Michael sat staring dumbly into a distant corner of the exam room while Ethan busied himself finding another scope, and a wad of tissues with which to mop up tears and a runny nose. For several interminable minutes, the only sound was the rustle of fabric, a muffled sniff.

Then Tamara spoke in her normal liquid voice, but pitched a little too loudly and too high. “Dr. Brown, could I ask you a question?”

Still bent over Michael and intent on his examination, Ethan shot her a glance. “Sure.”

“I heard this rumor? Somebody said you was the president’s kid. That true?”

He straightened up slowly and looked at her, seeing the defensive cant of her head, the way her body was turned half away from him, as if to shield herself. Oh, Lord, he thought, what do I say? He knew if he denied it, it would cause this already grief-stricken woman considerable embarrassment. But there was nothing he dreaded so much as watching people’s faces change when he said yes.

It was instinct-and an overwhelming wave of compassion-that made him speak to her first only with his eyes…silently imparting secrets, imploring trust. He breathed a small sigh and muttered, “Rumors…” as he bent once more toward his patient. Then quickly, before Tamara’s face had time to register even a flicker of disappointment, he glanced back at her…and winked.

He heard the sharp sound of her indrawn breath and the beginnings of an excited, “Hot damn, so it’s-” before he silenced her with a finger touched to his lips and a whispered, “Shh…” His reward was the warmth of her full-blown smile.

“Michael’s doing fine,” he said gruffly, giving the baseball cap a tug. “His ears look a lot better. Make sure he keeps taking the medicine, though. He needs to take it until it’s all gone. And keep his ears dry-don’t want any water in there.”

Tamara was nodding, bobbing from one foot to the other in barely contained excitement. “I will-I been tryin’ to do right by him. He’s my sister’s kid, I don’t want him goin’ to no foster home. But it’s hard sometimes, you know? I got the baby, I can’t take him places like his momma did. She used to take him like, to the park and stuff on weekends-you know, to watch the ball games?” Her exuberance died like a ball running out of bounce, and she finished wanly, “I think he been missin’ his momma some.”

Some… Ethan thought, then, of the black-haired woman with magical eyes, flirting with him around a thin cigar, fencing verbally across plates of spaghetti…toying with him, he now realized. He thought of how he’d wanted to kiss her, lust ripening like summer fruit in the heat of an idling engine…and a little worm of shame coiled and curled inside his belly. This boy’s mother, the anchor of his existence, was dead. This child would never know the warmth of her love, feel her arms around him, ever again. How could Ethan have let himself forget that, even for a moment? She was a witch, that woman, a spellbinder by any name, be it Phoenix or Joanna Dunn.

He made a vow, then, that hereafter whenever he was with her he would be on his guard and no matter how she turned on the charisma, he’d think first and always of this child, Michael Parker, and his mother, Louise.

Something else came to him then, too: he realized that above all else, he wanted Joanna Dunn-Phoenix-to think of her, too.

If asked, Ethan would have denied having an impulsive bone in his body. How was it, then, that he heard himself offering to take a motherless boy to the park?

Tamara gave a little gasp. “You mean it? You’d do that?”

“Sure.” Shaken himself, Ethan shrugged and tugged on Michael’s cap. “How ’bout it, guy? You want to go to the park with me?” Michael swiped a hand across his nose and grudgingly nodded. “All right, then.” He scooped the boy up before he could object and set his feet on the tile floor, then turned back to his aunt. “Is Saturday okay?”

Tamara nodded slowly, still looking stunned. Then, recovering her senses, asked quickly in a high, disbelieving voice, “You sure you wanna do this?”

Ethan didn’t dare answer that. To be honest, his only experience with children was a pediatrics rotation during his internship, and he was scared to death by the idea. Instead he said staunchly, “How about if I pick him up, say, about ten o’clock Saturday morning?”

“You wanna come down to my place? The Gardens?” In addition to disbelief, Tamara’s face now registered panic.

“Sure,” said Ethan with what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

“Uh-huh, okay, I guess that be all right…” She was still muttering dazedly as Ethan escorted them out of the exam room. The last thing he heard as they parted company was a whispered, “Oh, man, I don’t believe this. The president’s kid comin’ to my house.”

“Hey, Michael, I’ll see you on Saturday, okay?”

Michael didn’t reply or look back.

When Ethan rejoined Father Frank and Mrs. Schmidt at the reception desk-Ruthie was in another exam room seeing to a patient-Mrs. Schmidt’s eyebrows were already raised. “Since when do you work Saturdays?”

“I don’t,” said Ethan, scowling at the chart in his hands. “I’m, ah…hmm. I’m picking Michael up. Thought I’d take him to the park…you know. Play catch, or something.”

“Ah-hah.” Mrs. Schmidt gave him a droll look and turned back to her books.

Grinning, Father Frank gripped Ethan’s arm briefly by way of a farewell. “Hey, that’s great.”

“What?” Ethan demanded; he knew that look well.

The priest paused and looked back at him, no longer smiling. “You said you had no clue how those people live? Looks to me like you’re on your way to finding out now.”

“Entrances are hard, hard, hard…

Full of butterflies and-”

With a hiss of frustration, Phoenix broke off in midphrase and twirled half around on her stool.

“You ain’t concentratin’, girl,” Doveman scolded, vamping softly, fingers tickling idly across the keys. “Somethin’ on your mind?”

She shook her head-in perplexity, not denial-and after a moment rose and walked to the windows. Part way there she lifted her hands to her hair, still in its businesswoman’s knot after her lunch with Dr. Ethan Brown, and with one deft twist and a shake of her head, set it free to tumble warm and heavy down her back.

“Your meeting today with those people-how’d that go?” Doveman’s casual tone fooled nobody.

Phoenix snorted. “Well, I know one thing. They don’t want my money. They want my blood.”

Beyond the window the city was a jeweled tapestry laid out beneath a milky canopy-a night sky turned upside-down. I wonder where he goes at night, she thought with sudden irrelevance. Does he have a warm lady waiting for him? Someone to hold him when the sirens wail…to laugh with him in a tumbled bed…

“Can’t really blame ’em,” said Doveman. The music stopped and he turned on the bench to look at her. “So, where do you go from here?”

“I don’t much like being outnumbered a dozen to one,” Phoenix said dryly. She whirled away from the windows and paced back toward the piano, stopped halfway there and flopped down on the couch instead. “So, I picked a spokesman. From now on we do this one on one.”

Doveman cackled. “Lemme guess…a guy, right? Young…good-lookin’…”

She smiled, but for some reason didn’t feel at all amused. “Well,” she murmured, “he is that.”

“But?” And there was something…an alertness in the piano man’s voice. “Somethin’ you ain’t tellin’ me.”

“He’s a doctor-his name’s Ethan Brown.” She paused, watching his face. It took him less time than it had her-all of four beats.

“What-you don’t mean-you’re not tellin’ me, the Ethan Brown? President Rhett Brown Junior?”

Phoenix nodded, smiling, feeling better about it herself, now, enjoying his reaction. “Nothing junior about him, though. Seems like the real deal-his own man, I mean. Different from his father as night from day.”

Shaking his head, Doveman muttered, “You don’t say…Rhett Brown’s boy…” And then, pointing a bent brown finger at her, “You met the president and the First Lady, didn’t you? At that hunger gig down in Texas. You meet the boy then, too?”

“Uh-uh-he says he was in school out in California. Met his sister, though.”

Doveman snorted. “Must be pretty young, if he was still in school five years ago.”

“He said med school-I think that’s later.” Phoenix frowned. She didn’t like to think about how young he was.

“Well-he’s a doctor now, you say. Can’t be too young if he’s a doctor,” said Doveman, as if he’d heard her thought. “So-” he rubbed a hand over his frosting of beard stubble, making a sandpapery sound “-what you plannin’ on doin’ with this young good-lookin’ doctor? Plannin’ on havin’ things your own way with him, I expect?” Phoenix smiled and didn’t answer. The piano man leaned his hands on his knees and leveled a look at her. “Girl, I wouldn’t get too cocky, if I was you. If that boy’s anything like his daddy, he might not be so easy to get around.”

“Well,” said Phoenix carelessly, “I invited him here tomorrow, so you’ll get a chance to see for yourself. Then you can tell me what you think.” She sat up abruptly. “What are you doing?”

Still bent almost double, Doveman paused in the painful process of getting up from the piano bench to give her a look. “I’m callin’ it a night, that’s what I’m doing. You ain’t in the mood, that’s for sure. Girl, all you got on your mind right now is that young Dr. Brown, and how you’re gonna get him into your bed and wrapped around your little finger-among other things. I’ll be talkin’ to you again when you get y’head on straight.”

Phoenix said nothing, but from under her lashes watched him make his slow, stiff way to the iron and chain-link cage that connected the loft to the studio below.

Into my bed? Sure, why not?

She’d thought about it-so what? The passion was there-she’d felt it, like some powerful force rumbling deep below the surface. All she had to do was tap it. She felt a shiver of excitement, now, remembering the rasp of his skin against her fingers…the heat and vitality radiating from his body in waves as she’d stood next to him there in the garage. The strange force she’d felt then, like a powerful magnet, or a vortex, pulling her closer, pulling her…

“Doveman-” He stopped just inside the cage and turned to look at her, one hand on the lever, waiting. She drew a breath and said it. “I told him my name.”

There was a pause, then… “You don’t say,” the piano man said. Phoenix heard his Camels-and-bourbon chuckle as the cage creaked slowly out of sight.

Ethan stood in the shadowy main hall of the old warehouse, converted at who-knows-what-cost into a state-of-the-art studio, watching Phoenix and her band rehearse. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected-nothing magical, certainly, nothing like the adrenaline rush of a live concert performance with all the attendant hype and the contagious excitement of thousands of screaming fans. He felt rather like an explorer hiding in the jungle watching some mysterious pagan rite-utterly fascinated, maybe a little scared. Guilty as hell. He hadn’t expected to enjoy himself so much.

Just watching her-that was the source of a good part of the enjoyment, and most of the guilt. He told himself he wasn’t supposed to be susceptible to the woman that way, that he was on his guard now, that he knew better. It was like telling himself he wouldn’t burn when the flames touched him.

Watching her perform was like watching some incredible spectacle of nature, like an erupting volcano or a lightning storm, or a once-in-a-lifetime sunset. The breath catches, the heart beats faster, and it becomes impossible to look away. In the intervals, talking quietly with the band, she was simply poetry in white leather pants and a silver beaded tank, with her hair knotted loosely halfway down her back, swinging to and fro and now and then catching the light reflected off the silver beads in tiny flashes of blue fire. Her voice drifted to him in uneven ripples, sometimes a husky murmur that made him think of intimacies shared in tumbled sheets, sometimes a scratchy cackle that made the juices rise in the back of his throat as if in response to the smell of bacon frying on a Sunday morning. Then she’d begin to sing, and his heart would quicken and his skin prickle with goose bumps.

The number they were rehearsing was one Ethan hadn’t heard before-which added considerably to his excitement, the incredible idea of being among the very first on the planet to hear a new Phoenix song. This one was classic Phoenix, performed with her trademark driving beat and throat-tearing passion-like all of her best stuff, a little bit sad-about entrances and exits, saying hello and saying goodbye. He would like to have heard the whole song, but he wasn’t to have that chance; she seemed dissatisfied with it and kept stopping and going back over the same phrase, trying new chords, variations in tempo. Her frustration was tangible; Ethan felt it like an unscratchable itch between his own shoulder blades.

He wasn’t sure how long he watched before one of the members of the band noticed him standing there in the shadows and said something to Phoenix. She called an immediate halt to the rehearsal and motioned him over, striding out to meet him and greeting him like a lover, with an arm around his waist and a kiss on the mouth. A quick, proprietary kiss-he barely had time to register her warmth and her scent, the cushiony press of her breasts against his chest, the satin brush of her lips. To register a hot, bright stab of anger: What is this? What’s this for?

But, of course, he knew. The anger passed as quickly as it had come, and was replaced with amusement. It was obvious to him that the purpose of the kiss had been to brand him-stake her claim and state her intentions-publically. A risky move, considering how little she knew him-or, maybe not. Perhaps to someone of her massive self-confidence it didn’t seem like a risk at all.

“Hello, Doc,” she purred, “I see you found us.”

“Wasn’t that hard,” Ethan said. “I had somebody call your business manager for directions.”

“Well, I’m glad you made it.” A smile curled the corners of her mouth, for some reason reminding him of the way she’d looked yesterday in Kaufman’s office with that little cigar between her lips. She bobbed her head, looking behind him. “Where’s that tall, dark and handsome bodyguard of yours today?”

“Tom’s off duty. Carl’s out in the car.”

“Ah.” Her eyes sparked at him from beneath half-lowered lashes. “Well, come meet the band. Hey, guys, say hello to my friend Ethan. He’s a doctor.”

“Hey, Doc.”

“Ethan…”

“Hey, how’s it goin’?”

The conventional greetings tumbled from their lips as she called them off, like a roll call of rock music greats: Ed Cooley on drums; Dan Rowe, bass guitar; Bobby Stubble-field, lead guitar and backup vocals; Max Plotkin, guitar and vocals; and on keyboards, legendary piano man, Rupert Dove.

The formalities taken care of, Phoenix stood back and watched him. Dr. Ethan Brown. She hadn’t had much chance to do that yesterday, she realized; she’d been too busy playing with him. He hadn’t seemed all that real to her then, just a pawn in her own little game.

Now, strangely, he seemed to her the only person in the room who was real. Next to him the others-the members of her band, even Doveman, people she’d known for years-seemed like characters in a play, actors in costume, even cardboard cutouts, static and two-dimensional, while he moved among them in vital and full-fleshed 3-D.

Watching him, she was conscious of an unfamiliar and nameless dissatisfaction-oh, she was too proud to call it longing, or admit that it shook her to her core. Deep in the sequestered recesses of her heart, just for an instant, a light had shown, as if somewhere someone had opened a door-just a crack, no more. And it was she who slammed it shut, trembling inside.

Ah, but he is a darlin’ man, she thought. Too damned beautiful for words. Retreating into the familiar realm of the senses, she gathered the image of him and his smile and chocolate eyes into her mind, curling into it like a cat in a nest of sunshine. Yes, she wanted him, no doubt about it. Her body wanted to know the secrets of his body…all of its pleasure spots and imperfections. Her mind wanted to know everything there was to know about him-whether he wore briefs or boxers, whether he slept in the raw, whether he woke up grouchy or sunny. Those answers she’d have soon enough-the question was not if but when she’d seduce him…how soon she’d have him in her bed.

Seduce. Such an old-fashioned word for a modern concept-the notion that a woman could call the shots, control the pace and decide the outcome of her relationships. Phoenix, of course, would have it no other way. But why, then, did she have this nagging dissatisfaction, this sense that something wasn’t right? It was the same thing with that damned song. She should have had it all down, the control was in her hands, and still it didn’t feel right. There was something missing, some obscure harmony, the perfect tempo… Ah, hell. Sooner or later she’d find it.

This business with the Doc, though…something was missing there, too. She had a vague sense of things she wanted to know, but since she’d never wanted to know those things before, she didn’t even know the right questions to ask. She knew that she wanted Dr. Ethan Brown, and that she’d have him-of that she had no doubt at all. When it came to men, Phoenix always got what she wanted. What made her uneasy was the possibility that this time, maybe having wouldn’t be enough. That getting this man into bed on her terms might not be what she wanted after all. That maybe…

No. It made no sense to her at all.

“All right, guys, let’s call it a day.” She hooked the doc’s arm with hers and gave it a little squeeze as she made a “wrapping” motion with her free hand. Her heartbeat had quickened; she wondered if he could feel it. “Doc and I have some business to discuss. Everybody back here tomorrow morning, okay?”

There was a nice but unexpected solidity to him, she realized as she allowed herself to lean, just lightly, against him-unexpected, perhaps, because there seemed to be no excess flesh on him anywhere. But his shoulders were broad, his bones long and strong-including the ones in his face. For all his beauty, there was nothing even remotely soft or pretty about him. He would be handsome, she thought, even when he was old.

Never before in all her memory had she ever pictured a potential lover-or herself-that way. Old. And that thought surprised-even frightened-her.

During the cage’s slow journey upward, noting the way his quiet eyes took in everything-curious but not awed- Phoenix tried out various seduction scenarios in her mind. And dismissed them all out of hand-first because her instincts told her with a certainty that they weren’t going to work with this man, but more so because even the thought of trying one of her usual scenarios out on Dr. Ethan Brown filled her with an urge to burst out laughing. She would feel-and look-ridiculous, she thought, like a grown woman playing child’s games. Sliding her eyes sideways to study him under cover of her lashes, she thanked God for at least giving her the intuition to know that this man did not play-perhaps would not even understand-games.

But, if that was true, she realized, then she was sailing in uncharted waters. None of the rules and guidelines she was accustomed to living by would apply. For the first time since childhood, Phoenix felt unsure of herself.

The cage clanked to a halt. She unlatched the chain-link gate and stepped out onto the loft, then held it for her guest. He followed without hurry, not warily, but looking around with an undisguised interest she found refreshing. But then, everything he did was like that, wasn’t it? Different, somehow. And it occurred to her that there was only a fine line between refreshing and disconcerting.

“Would you care for something to drink?” she asked as she crossed the carpeted floor to the kitchen, which was separated from the rest of the loft only by a curving, granite-topped counter. How useful are these little conventions, she thought as she opened the refrigerator. The grease that eases us through awkward places… “I have…bottled water, diet soda or beer. Oh-and bourbon.”

“Beer sounds good.” He’d stopped at the counter, she saw, not crowding her, conceding her the kitchen…as her personal space? she wondered. Or a woman’s place? Oh, yes, he was just possibly old-fashioned enough to think so.

She hid her smile in the cool emptiness of the refrigerator. “Bottle or glass?”

“Bottle’s fine.”

She selected a bottle of imported beer for him and one for herself and set them on the countertop. The imported brand required an opener, and by the time she’d located one and successfully popped off the tops, her guest had left his post at the counter to go politely exploring. She followed him to where he stood beside the baby grand, gazing at and not quite touching the keys.

“You play?” She held out a moisture-beaded bottle.

His eyes lifted and bumped hers, and the force in them took her by surprise. Her breath caught audibly, the sound thankfully lost in rustles and clinks and a murmured “Thanks…” as he took the bottle from her hand. She had an idea, then, of touching her bottle to his-a tiny toast…a subtle enough promise, suggestive of either comradship or intimacy-but somehow with this man even that small gesture seemed contrived…silly. Instead, she lifted her own bottle to her lips and drank, shielding herself from his gaze with her lashes.

“Not piano,” Ethan said, answering the question he barely remembered being asked. “Just a little guitar.”

He drank some ice-cold beer that scorched his throat. In that one brief glimpse he’d had of her eyes before she’d dropped the familiar curtain across them, there’d been a sense of something eager and innocent, like a little girl offering a handful of just-picked wildflowers. His response to it had been instant and unnerving-a tightening in his throat, a stinging behind his eyelids. And in its aftermath, a pounding in his blood.

“Really?” Her voice was husky and rich with interest. “Where’d you learn to play? Ever do any singing? Play with a band?”

Laughing, he waved her enthusiasm down-shamelessly flattered even though he was well aware her intent was only to disarm him. “Lord, no-to your last question. To the second, only for my own enjoyment-or chagrin. No, wait-I take that back. I sang a solo once. It was ‘The Cheese Stands Alone’-you know, in ‘Farmer In The Dell’? For Parents’ Back-To-School Night. I was in first grade.” He took another sip of beer, shaking his head even now at the exquisite discomfort of the memory. “I’m definitely not a performer.”

“But,” she said softly, “I think you like to sing. And, you play the guitar. Who taught you? Did you take lessons?”

He shook his head. “Dixie taught me-my stepmom.”

“Oh-of course.”

“Not necessarily, actually. Believe it or not, my dad plays, too. And sings-or at least, he used to, when he was young. It was a family thing. He and his brother sang with my grandmother-for church and weddings and funerals, mostly. From what I’ve been told, they were pretty good. My dad stopped singing, though, when his mother-my grandmother-died. She was killed in an automobile accident, along with my grandfather, before I was born…” He stopped suddenly, frowning at his beer bottle, wondering what had possessed him to make such a speech. It wasn’t at all like him. “So,” he said in determined conclusion, “that’s it-my musical history in a nutshell. What about you?”

She stared at him over the top of her bottle, her gaze guileless-and utterly false. “Beg your pardon?”

“What started you-” he nodded in the general direction of the piano “-on the way to being…Phoenix?”

“Doc, I was born singing,” she said. And she turned from him in sudden and complete withdrawal.