their second course was set down by a waiter with a napkin folded over his forearm and the one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar wine was poured by a sommelier, Rex finally looked up at Rosie.
“Cheers,” he said innocently.
But Rosie was indignant and it bubbled out of her immediately.
She positioned her tiny arms to push her stupid, gold-adorned chair back and leave Rex alone at his expensive fucking table with its boring white tablecloth and its overly formal waiters who bent from the hips with straight legs and backs when you walked by.
“I hate oysters,” she stated a little too firmly and a little too loudly. “And this wine is, like, stupid expensive.”
A pause.
“And so is this stupid tablecloth and this stupid napkin, I bet!”
“Ugh, I think you’re right,” Rex said, finally dropping his shoulders. “Let’s finish this stupid bottle of stupid expensive wine and get out of here. I know a good pizza spot around the corner.”
And just like that, Rosie nuzzled her knees back under the table, finished her wine and found herself ready to be smitten all over again.
As they munched on cheap pizza while expensive wine coursed through their blood, conversation flowed easily between them. Neither Rex nor Rosie had any idea what the other was saying because Rosie was focused on Rex’s deep, dark eyes. And Rex had his eyes locked on Rosie’s expressive, red lips. And just as Rex was about to take the last bite of his crust, Rosie grabbed his hand and whisked him out the door.
“Music time,” she whispered in his ear as she pulled him in toward her on the sidewalk, and then twirled her body around.
They walked a few brisk blocks, and then ducked under the red awning of Ray’s, Rosie’s favorite piano bar. Rosie loved everything about Ray’s. The dark corners and the red lamps at the tables. The smoky scent of cigars and the bottle-lined bar. The sexiness of it all.
She loved that she could never guess who from the audience might stand up and play a tune for the rest of the room. She loved that one minute, a man with quiet eyes and deep wrinkles would be slowly sipping a whiskey neat, and the next minute he was slamming his fingers against the keyboard and filling a room with music. She liked the idea that anyone, everyone, in a given space might have a gift to share.
Rex and Rosie sat in the back with another bottle of wine as, one by one, different members from the audience took a seat onstage and used their entire body to make sexy, full, stunning music. Rex and Rosie searched around the room and tried to guess which patron they thought would perform next. They tried to guess what song might be played. Billy Joel for the man about their age in the rugged baseball hat. Frank Sinatra for the gray-headed man with strong and wrinkled hands tapping his foot in the back. And while they were never right, not even once, Rex and Rosie both opened themselves fully to the game and to each other.
When Rex slid away from the table, Rosie assumed it was to order another round of drinks. But then he was onstage under the foggy red lights. In a thousand-dollar jacket on a five-dollar piano bench. And he looked great.
The crowd sang along to Rex playing “Bennie and the Jets” as he pressed his fingers deliberately but naturally into the keys. And right there, Rosie saw the most important thing she could see in a man. Rex Thorpe had soul—and she could work with that.
So Rosie joined the rest of the room and sang along as her soon-to-be boyfriend moved the crowd and Rosie’s heart into motion.
Rex left the stage after a standing ovation and a familiar handshake from the bar owner. And then Rosie kissed Rex deeply and proudly linked her arm in his as they walked out of the red-lit piano bar.
She didn’t mean to stumble into Rex’s arms when he walked her back to her apartment, but she was drunk with wine and whiskey and new love.
Willow fixated on the second hand of the clock in Mrs. McAllister’s classroom as she waited for school to be over. As she waited for pizza night. Waited for her mother to come around the bend of the parent pickup circle in her rattling blue car with its googly eyes stenciled on the front of it. Waited to spend the night swaddled in fun.
When the three-thirty bell rang, Willow shoved her spelling list into the bottom of her backpack, confirmed that her laces were tied on both shoes and fast-walked all the way to Asher’s classroom. She grabbed her brother’s hand and pulled him toward the parent pickup circle. Then Willow exhaled for the first time all day and locked her eyes on the entranceway.
Rosie was typically late to pick up Willow and Asher from school. She never wore a watch and often found herself in a daze somewhere, completely oblivious to the time. But Willow didn’t want to miss one second with her mother, so she rushed to the pickup circle anyway every Tuesday and Thursday after school. Willow noticed that all of the other moms wore jeans, a T-shirt and dark sunglasses. They drove black or white cars that sparkled permanently. They kept their hair in neat ponytails and never got out of the car to say “hi” to their children.
But that wasn’t her mother. Her mother’s car was bright blue and made loud clanking noises. Rosie had named her car Lili Von after her favorite character in Blazing Saddles. The googly eyes that were stenciled just above the headlights always caused side-eye glances from the other mothers too. But that didn’t faze Willow or Asher. They loved that car and they loved those googly eyes.
After only three games of tic-tac-toe, Lili Von appeared around the bend with Prince blasting out the window. Willow saw her mother’s left knee poking out the driver’s seat window. Her wavy brown hair was blowing around excitedly. Her big brown eyes and arched eyebrows were sticking out above her neon pink, thick-framed sunglasses that were resting on the tip of her nose. Lili Von screeched as her mother pulled up to the curb in front of where Willow and Asher were standing. And almost before the car had fully stopped, Rosie jumped out of the front seat to give each of her children separate, tight hugs.
Rosie looked as cool as she always looked in her cutoff jean shorts and long fur coat even though it was a perfectly temperate fall afternoon. She looked as cool as she always looked with her shoes with the holes in them and her polished red nails. She looked as cool as she always looked with her bright red lips.
“I missed you little noodles!” she said with a full-teeth and full-heart smile as she got back behind the wheel. “Hop in, already. It’s pizza night!”
But just before Rosie got back behind the wheel, she snapped her head around and looked back at her daughter. She tilted her head to the side, pulled her sunglasses down farther on her nose and said, “Cool hair, baby.” She said it quickly and honestly, and then drove off, leaving Willow smiling so big in the back seat.
They hadn’t even reached the edge of the school parking lot when Rosie reached for the volume knob and said to her children the thing she always said on the way to pizza night at Lanza Pizza.
“Let’s rock ’n’ roll.”
And when Rosie said that, she meant it in the literal sense. She turned the volume knob so many revolutions to the right that the speakers started throbbing and the floor started vibrating.
Cymbal. Cymbal. Bass. Bass.
Willow recognized the song right away. It
