Page 36 of Twice
“You can playanysong?”
“Try me.”
She smiled. “You were just singing that. ‘Try me.’”
“Yeah.”
She made a deep-thought face. “OK. You’ll never know this one. It’s called ‘Blue Room.’ Ella Fitzgerald sang it. My father used to play that for my mother.”
I’d never heard of it. But I zapped myself back two days, found it, studied it, and had it ready to play the second time she came down the hall and caught me singing.
“Wow, Alfie. You’re really good.”
“Do you want to hear a song? Any song?”
“You can playanysong?”
“Try me.”
“You were just singing that. ‘Try me.’”
“Yeah.”
“OK. You’ll never know this one. It’s called ‘Blue Room’—”
“By Ella Fitzgerald?” I interrupted.
“Wow. Yeah. You’ve heard of it?”
“Uh-huh. I think it goes like...”
Just as I put my hands on the keys, Gianna turned her head and yelled, “Mike! Hey! Down here!”
I swallowed. Suddenly Mike appeared in the doorway. He was carrying a guitar.
“Alfie is going to play this great old song,” Gianna said.
Mike smiled. “Oh yeah? Which one?”
“‘Blue Room.’ I love it. Go ahead, Alfie.”
I looked at their happy, waiting faces. My shoulders slumped.
“I don’t really know it, to be honest. I thought I did.”
They stared with pasted smiles.
“Sorry,” I added.
“That’s OK,” Gianna said. “It’s really old.”
A pause.
“Well. See ya later.”
Off they went.
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