Val tilted his head in appreciation and moved offstage.
“It’s hard to say no to Val,” Jim said. “Especially when he gives me the best villa for nothing.”
The audience laughed and Jim took to the stool in the center of the stage. Val’s house band moved into place behind his friend. A stagehand produced Jim’s guitar and set a glass of water on the table beside him.
Jim ran his fingers over a few chords and the room grew silent.
“I’ve been singing for my meals for nearly thirty years.” He strummed the guitar again, stopped.
The crowd laughed.
“I’ve performed in concert halls, auditoriums, stadiums . . . but none are better than venues like this . . . where I can play, chat, and feel like I’m in your living room talking crap about the neighbors.”
The keyboard player knocked back a few notes and stopped.
“Have you ever had a neighbor, hotter than your girl?”
The keyboard played again, and this time the drummer played with him.
“Oh, baby, it’s a bad thing when your girl finds out.”
The keyboard, drums, and now a bass prepared for Jim’s opening.
“That you have ‘The Baby Next Door Blues.’”
Jim leaned into the mic, hit the first note, and wrapped the audience around his chubby little finger.
Val had heard him many times, sometimes in his own living room. But here, onstage and in his element, Jim vibrated.
Val found himself watching Margaret. Her hand tapped the top of the table to the beat of the music; her lips mouthed the words to one of Jim’s most famous songs.
The song dipped low, wound its way to a high note, and finished with a round of applause.
Margaret was the first on her feet, and one of the last to sit down before Jim moved to another hit.
Val wound his way through the tables until he found the sweet spot in the back where all the notes could be heard in full stereo. Jim helped design the acoustics, making sure there wasn’t a corner missing anything critical. But here, in the center of the room, Val could hear every note as clear as an early morning bird greeting the day.
The second song moved faster than the first, two horn players added flavor to the music.
When the song was over, and the audience calmed down, Jim looked over the crowd. When his eyes landed on Margaret, Val felt his pulse jump.
Was she nervous? Did anything make the woman numb with anxiety?
“Have you ever met someone in your life and said, hot damn . . . if only I was twenty years younger?”
“Try thirty,” Michael Wolfe countered from the floor.
Jim tossed his head back and laughed. “I met this sassy, sweet thing only a few hours ago. If her voice is as sexy as her dress, we’re in for a treat. Let’s hear it for Meg Rosenthal.”
Margaret took the stage as if she’d done it so many times before. Val found himself mesmerized. Jim slid a hand around her waist, kissed her cheek. She lifted a leg and batted her lashes at the audience.
“Go girl!”
Val heard the call, but didn’t note where the man who yelled it was.
Instead of moving to the microphone, she blew a kiss to Jim before moving behind the keyboard. “Do you mind?” she asked.
Ruben lifted both hands and stepped away, giving her space. One of the stagehands moved forward and tilted the mic to the level of her lips.
“So what are we going to sing, baby girl?” Jim asked.
Margaret placed her fingers to the keys, ran through a couple of familiar chords. “It’s baby girl now? What happened to your future wife?”
Jim’s grin lit the stage. “Honey, if you were my wife, I’d be dead before morning.”
The audience laughed.
Val found himself enjoying the banter.
Margaret found Jim’s eyes, danced her fingers over the keyboard, letting everyone know she knew her way around the instrument. “Something fast and sweaty, Jim?”
Jim pulled at his collar, let her run the show.
She slowed the tune, made the room sigh. “Something slow and sensual?”
It was Val’s turn to tug at his tie.
“Baby doll, you pick, and I’ll just try and keep up.”
Margaret lifted her hands, rubbed them together, and started. “I think you might know this one.”
It took two chords for the audience to recognize the tune. “Ever been to San Francisco, Jim?” She kept playing.
Jim closed his eyes and waited, as did Val, until Margaret leaned into the mic and took command of the first few lines of “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay.”
Jim let out a whoop of approval and sat on the dock with her. When Margaret left her home in Georgia, the glassware in the room rang with the pitch-perfect tone of her voice.
They bounced between lines in the song like they’d done it before. The rest of the band sat back and listened.
It was Margaret, Jim, and a lone piano. They harmonized with the chorus, let each other take center stage for a line, then gave it up to the other for the next.
Her voice easily bounced over the ending notes to the song, bringing it home with both of them pleasing the audience.
Everyone stood, and Jim offered a hand to Margaret as she stepped down from the platform the keyboard was perched on.
The woman glowed.
Jim kissed her again, squeezed her waist, and walked her offstage.
“Baby girl, you can sing with me anytime.”
She’d just belted out one of her favorite songs with Jim Lewis and lost herself in the music. Meg couldn’t stop smiling.