own. He only took a two-chorus solo before he led her in for the last verse with a gentle nod, and smiled broadly as he ended the song with a gentle whisper of melody high up the keyboard.
For a moment there was silence before everyone remembered to breathe. Then the place just went nuts.
Olivia stood there for a moment with an increasingly fearful expression on her face, then turned, and with everyone cheering, she ran right out of the club as if the devil were at her heels.
“Interesting way to end a performance,” Dom observed as he leaned on his bass. “Damn good vocalist, though.”
Olivia’s singing haunted me the rest of the week. I wished someone had taped it.
The following week, she didn’t show up on Tuesday, and I was sure the girl had either got it all out of her system, or had completely freaked herself out. More than one regular asked if “that interesting singer” was coming back. Even Harry inquired if we were going to hire her.
Wednesday noon found me downtown to get my passport renewed, so I took a walk over to Union Station, to see if she was there. Street people are creatures of habit, staking their turf and guarding it jealously.
No sign of her, so I grabbed lunch in one of the fast food joints in the underground city, that maze of interconnected office buildings stretching from the train station all the way up to Dundas Street.
Back at Union for a last try, I got no glory, but some old guy was hawking one of those street newspapers homeless people sell. I’d seen him there the previous time I’d encountered Olivia.
“I’m looking for a girl—”
“Isn’t everyone?” he interrupted with a broken-toothed grin.
If he was looking to sell a paper, bad comedy wasn’t going to get him there.
“This is a particular girl,” I said patiently, “maybe five-foot-two, pretty, big eyes, long dark hair, wears a navy duffel coat and a black toque. Not your average street person. Know who I’m talking about?”
The guy looked purposefully down at the sheaf of papers under his arm. I got the message and forked over a tooney, twice what the paper was worth.
“She’s here most days. The cops did a sweep of the area, and she skedaddled like all the other panhandlers. Odd one, though. She spooks kind of easy.”
“When is she usually around?”
“You ain’t a cop, are you?”
“Do I look like a cop?”
He cocked an eyebrow at my stupid question.
“No,” I sighed, “I’m not a cop. She’s just someone I met.”
His grin told me he’d imagined a meeting far different from the reality.
“If she shows, it might be around three, maybe three thirty. The evening rush is usually pretty good.”
After that, I felt I’d committed myself to sticking around.
From up above at street level, you can see the open area where Olivia had her spot. In order not to spook her again, I hung out up there, occasionally checking to see if she’d arrived. Luckily, the February weather was a little more moderate that day than it had been, because I had to wait until nearly four o’clock before the black cap and red scarf were directly below me. Her outstretched Tim Hortons cup with two quarters in it jingled loudly when she shook it.
Okay, I’ll admit it. I snuck up on her. It wasn’t hard, since most of the traffic at that time is headed into the station. I forced my way upstream and came at Olivia from her blind side. When I gently touched her shoulder, she flinched as if I’d struck her.
“Hello, Olivia,” I said, smiling to look friendly and harmless.
“What are you doing here?”
“I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your singing last week. We were all hoping you’d show up last night and sing some more.”
“That was a stupid thing for me to do!”
“Why? You were really good.”
“That’s not what I meant. Now leave me alone.”
When I didn’t immediately disappear, she demanded again, “Leave!”
I smiled. “Let me buy you a cup of coffee. You’re shivering.”
“No. I’m busy.”
“How about a coffee and a ten dollar bill, then? In the time it takes to have a coffee, you won’t make that standing here.”
The dirty white running shoes she had on looked pretty soaked. I think cold feet swung the deal.
“Okay,” she finally said. “Where?”
“How about just inside the station? That way you won’t have far to go when we’re finished.”
I bought her a large double-double and a toasted bagel. We went over to the seats where you wait for the local trains.
Olivia wolfed down the bagel. While she chewed and sipped her coffee, I waited patiently, trying to figure her out.
Toronto has a lot of street people. It’s part of our city’s shame. But something about this girl didn’t seem quite right.
I put her age at well over twenty, far too old to be a runaway. She also didn’t have that spaced out look of the alcoholic or druggie. With her torn jeans and ratty coat, her appearance wasn’t the best, that was for sure, but her hair wasn’t dirty, and she didn’t smell. She knew I was studying her but kept her eyes averted.
As the last bit of bagel disappeared, she licked a dab of cream cheese off her finger, and I spoke. “You sing really well, you know.”
Her head stayed steadfastly down. “I do?”
“Couldn’t you tell by the way the audience reacted?”
She shook her head and gave me a sidelong glance. “I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Why?”
“Can’t tell you.”
I took another tack. “If you ever came back again, what song would you want to sing?”
She took a long time to answer. The flow of people around us had increased as the downtown office towers emptied for the day. If she’d wanted to bolt, there would have been little I could have done to stop her, and she had to know that.
“Cole Porter. I like Cole Porter.”
“What song?”
“‘Just One of Those Things’.”
“You like that one?”
She nodded. “I used
