Page 23 of A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

“It shows,” she said. And then looked beyond her. “Next.”

Back at the tree, Tuesday huddled up to Ricki for warmth. Tuesday’s teeth were chattering, but she refused to abandon their quest.

“We can’t surrender now. We’re in too deep!” she whisper-shouted. “Life is a funny thing, girl. Just think, if you’d never met Ali, he’d never have painted you, and we wouldn’t be out here catching pneumonia.”

“You know what? I’ve decided that Ali was a mistake I had to make,” said Ricki, shivering. “The universe was like, you wanna keep sleeping with clowns? Let me present you with the king of clowns and have him embarrass the living hell out of you in public so you really learn the lesson.”

Ricki paused, because Tuesday was suddenly, silently tugging on her arm. Whipping her head around, she saw the front door was opening.

A man. So itwasa man. But the darkness obscured his face.

Leaving the door of the stately house open behind him, the guy stormed down the stoop and across the street, headed straight for Ricki. Before she had time to breathe, think, or speak, he was right in front of her. And then shereallysaw him.

She took in his chiseled features. The breathtaking fire in his eyes. It was him.

Mysterious Benefactor was Garden Gentleman.

“Go,” he commanded in a melodic, deep voice. “Stop trying to contact me. Stop staring in my windows. And get out of Harlem, now, while you still can.” His eyes bore into hers, his expression a silent flash of lightning, a force too tremendous to distill into one feeling.

And then he lowered his voice to a desperate rasp.“Please. Go.”

Thunderstruck, she stood her ground and locked eyes with him. And then something shifted. His expression went from alarm to aching tenderness. In one blink, he’d softened.

Ricki felt a punch of emotions in her chest, almost knocking her off her feet. She didn’t know this man, his name, or why he wasso insistent that she leave. Or why, for one unmistakable moment, he’d gazed at her with unbearable, bone-melting sweetness. Maybe he was an unpredictable stranger and she was possibly in danger. But her instincts buzzed louder than that thought. Ricki wanted to go to him, a feeling as sure and natural as surrendering to gravity.

Her whole life leading up to this breath felt inconsequential, sepia tinted: before.

“Go!” he repeated, louder, as if to startle them both back to reality.

Ricki snapped out of her daze. She grabbed Tuesday’s arm, and they fled into the night.

CHAPTER 6

SEXY SEPIA SHENANIGANS

November 25, 1927

Go!” bellowed a furious, burly man with a pencil tucked behind his ear, slamming the front door.“Don’t come back!”

It was a testament to how loud Mickey Macchione was that Breeze Walker could hear him across the nightclub (and in the middle of band rehearsal, no less). Mickey was head manager of Harlem’s swankiest new cabaret, Eden Lounge, and he had a business to run! But he kept getting interrupted by a pushy loser banging on the front door.

It was 6:00 p.m. on Friday, and Eden Lounge was gearing up for the greatest Thanksgiving shindig Harlem had ever seen. Doors would open in two hours.

From Breeze’s vantage point on the bandstand, he could see Mickey’s portly, squat frame waddling through the club in his direction.

“I’m trying to work!” Mickey’s voice was blaring. “And here’s dat filthy hobo again, knocking down the door asking for Breeze. I got a show to put on!”

No,Breezehad a show to put on. But true to his name, he never got ruffled. He couldn’t. As the bandleader of the house band, hehad show-day multitasking down to a science. Whether he was hand-holding a clarinetist whose wife had put him out or chatting up the newspapermen who swarmed Eden Lounge before opening hours, keeping cool was key.

Breeze Walker and the Friday Knights were Eden’s main attraction. Well, after the showgirls, who were a mix of great beauties with iffy talent, great beauties withothertalents, and elite dancers ousted from Cotton Club auditions for being over twenty-one, under five foot six, or unable to pass the “brown paper bag” complexion test. Was Eden Lounge ashamed to pick up the Cotton Club’s castoffs? Absolutely not.

The Cotton Club had white patrons only? Eden Lounge was integrated. The Cotton Club boasted a tasty Chinese food menu? Eden Lounge served slap-yo-mama Jamaican food. The Cotton Club hired monster pianist, paragon of style, and lady-killer-about-town Duke Ellington to lead their house band? Eden Lounge recruited his only rival in all three areas, his buddy Breeze Walker, who, depending on who you asked, was even slicker than Duke.

And his band was tight, too. Breeze had just led the Friday Knights through a rehearsal of his latest hit, “Happy Sad,” but it felt… stiff. Humming to himself, he paced back and forth, tapping out the tune in the air and trying to feel what was missing.

“Breeze Walker!” hollered Mickey, red-faced and barging through the chorus line of twenty-five dancers shimmying in itty-bitty rehearsal rompers.

“Breeze!” He stood in front of him, meaty fists on his hips. “BREEZE!”

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