Page 63 of Sing For Me

I first showed up in the studio on Wednesday night. Actually, I tried to show up Tuesday. But I left Lenny under the bed, and just sat parked out front on Riverfront. I stared up at the building, my hands sweaty on the steering wheel. Then I started my car up and peeled away. I told myself I was too tired, it was too late.

I was too scared.

But Wednesday, Eli showed up at L’Aubergine.

He handed me a package in a paper bag, looking as nervous and excited as a boy handing a girl a valentine.

“What’s this?” I asked, too surprised not to take it. “A sandwich?”

Eli gave me a side-eye. “You work in a restaurant, Reese.”

He was right. It was too heavy for lunch, anyway.

“Open it.”

Todd had been walking by and was standing next to us with his hands on his hips, openly waiting as if this was his present.

“Todd, don’t you have a shift to get ready for?”

“Oh…right,” he said, looking deeply disappointed.

When I looked down at the prep tables, Rufus looked up, like he’d just discovered something interesting on the ceiling.

I jerked my head toward my office. “Come on.”

“Oh, uh, you don’t have to open it now.”

“But I want to.” I pulled Eli by the elbow inside.

But when I pulled the paper off the package, I frowned. It was a tape recorder. “Eli—what?” I laughed. “Where did you find this?”

“One of the artists in my building makes art out of old tapes. She smashes them up and glues the ribbon all over her canvasses. But she told me she got into playing them too.”

“Is she the one who dresses like Madonna?”

Eli had told me about all the artists in the Waterfront Block. He talked about them affectionately, like they were his kids.

“The same. There’s something in there too.”

I squinted through the little plastic window. There was a tape inside.

“I have to get back upstairs,” Eli said. “But play it when you have a minute. If you want.” He looked nervous. But then he’d leaned in and given me a peck on the cheek before disappearing. I reached my hand up as if I could still feel him there.

When I pulled the tape out, I saw Eli’s writing scrawled across the front of the tape.

YOU’RE ONE OF THEM NOWit said on the front, and on the back, (I SAVED A SPOT FOR YOU).

I stuck it back in the recorder and hit play. It was a mix tape he’d made for me. All the singer-songwriters he knew I loved. My heroes. Joni Mitchell. Billie Holiday. Sinéad O’Connor. Adele. He knew I had all these albums already, both in vinyl and on my online streaming player. But to have gone to the trouble to make me an old-fashioned mix tape?

My stupid heart felt like it was going to explode.

That was the night I forced myself to go upstairs to the studio. Not just the control room, but the live room, on the stool. I didn’t have to sing, but I had to bring Lenny.

Just in case.

But soon I found myself sitting at the mixing table, playing with the equipment, just for fun. Just because Joni and Billie and Sinéad and Adele wouldn’t have hesitated.

As I fiddled with the sliders and buttons, I wondered for the hundredth time where Eli had gotten a table like this on such short notice. Even Simon would be impressed, I knew, if he’d have stumbled across it. His had been a piece of shit, though he acted like it was his baby. He once yelled at me for touching it without asking him, and when I’d yelled back he’d stormed out of the room. The whole rest of the session he’d cut me off at practically every line of the song I was trying to get through, nitpicking each note I apparently didn’t hit.

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