A/N: I like the tone of this chapter. Please comment with feedback. It really makes my day, and I would absolutely love suggestions.
Danny moved to wipe his palms against his side as he approached the bar. The nervous anxiety he felt had certainly diminished while he'd been talking, but it was still there under the surface waiting. It was early yet, only 6:30 by Danny's watch. There weren't all that many people around.
An older woman stood behind the bar, using the lull before it got busy to catch up on little things. Her age was only evident to Danny because he knew her. She still had long dark hair that fell in waves around her shoulders, and there were only a few little wrinkles around her eyes to tell tales. She had an array of silverware in front of her and she was carefully wrapping it with cloth napkins, expertly tucking the folds into themselves. She looked up as he approached.
The silent look of inquiry instantly morphed into a beaming smile when she saw him. "Danny, my dear, so good to see you. It's been far too long." She set aside what she was working on and moved to stand in front of him.
Danny leaned forward against the bar. "Mrs. Calloway, always good to see you. I know it's been a long time." He felt a little guilty. There was a time in the past when Elena and Ed Calloway were like family to him. He looked down at his hands resting on the bar. He didn't really know what to say. He sighed. "I never liked coming here alone."
She reached across the bar and placed her hand on top of his. There was a sad look in her eyes. "Some places are like that, you know, made for couples." The knowing look on her face allayed some of the guilt he was feeling. "What can I get you then?"
"Two fingers of scotch and a white wine." He took his wallet out and laid a few bills on the countertop. "Are you serving any food yet? I may not have thought this through. I came here straight after work with the promise of dinner."
Elena's brows raised a bit as she reached under the counter to retrieve the tumbler for Danny's scotch. She set it down in front of him and smiled. "I can get something together. You here with someone special Danny?" She cast her gaze out across the bar, singling out Mindy. "The pretty girl at the table alone over there?"
Danny turned slightly and followed her look. Mindy was sitting where he'd left her, eyes closed, head moving ever so slightly to the slow melody currently filling the air. He smiled. He knew this wasn't her typical scene, but she was open to it.
For some reason, he'd been certain she would scoff at this place, and immediately begin harassing him about his taste in music and places. As often had been the case with Mindy, she'd surprised him. Openness was the mantra by which she lived her life. The thought warmed him.
He turned back to Elena. She had poured his scotch and was in the process of filling a glass with white wine. "Yeah, she's a …. colleague of mine." He had paused slightly in describing Mindy. They'd gotten into arguments about this in the past. He'd held her at arm's length for so long, and lately she'd been trying to work her way into every aspect of his life.
Elena looked at him shrewdly. "A colleague? Is that all?" She turned her back to Danny and returned the bottle to its place.
Was she more than a colleague? Of course. She insisted they were friends. She'd latched onto his life unexpectedly, inviting him to random things, calling him for assistance, giving him totally unsolicited advice. In the past two weeks he'd been experiencing the inexorable pull of her personality more than usual. "I mean, a friend as well, I suppose."
Elena pushed the two glasses across the bar in front of Danny and slid his money back toward him. "No charge, hon. I'll have something out for you two in a little bit. Is she vegetarian or anything?" Danny was still in his own thoughts a bit, contemplating what had really changed in his relationship with Mindy. He just shook his head. "Well, that's good then. Go have a seat with your friend." She may or may not have added a little emphasis to the last word.
Danny smiled and took the drinks. As he was walking back to the tables, Elena called out to him. "Danny, try and have a good time tonight, and don't be a stranger."
When he got to the table, Mindy still had her eyes closed, head bobbing a bit. He took the opportunity to look at her unabashedly. She looked so at ease. It shouldn't have surprised him. That's how she was. There never seemed to be a situation that she couldn't adapt to in some way. It was a direct contrast to his sometimes rigid personality.
As if she sensed him looking at her, she opened her eyes. "There you are, I thought you were going to run away with the pretty bartender." Her eyes dropped from his face to his hands. "White wine? You do appear to know me."
Danny sat down at the table and positioned the wine glass in front of her. "Ed probably wouldn't be happy if I ran off with his wife." He noticed a barely perceptible shift in her demeanor. Many times tonight she'd been stunned speechless by the things Danny had done or said, but now she had regrouped.
Out in the alley, when he'd pulled her to a stop and gotten unnecessarily close. He'd heard the catch in her breath, the slight squeak when she'd tried to speak. The sound of it had clutched at him, causing his own breath to momentarily pause. She'd cleared it though, and regained her normal composure. That's how it was right now. It was as if she'd decided to stop being surprised by the things he was doing.
She swished around the wine, stuck her nose in the glass and inhaled deeply. "Mmmmm." Seemingly satisfied she tipped it up to her lips and took a sip. "Good stuff, Danny." She sat the glass down on the table. "So, jazz, really? I mean, it's like you're trying to prove me right."
He took a sip of his scotch and leaned back in his chair. "Prove you right about what?"
She leaned forward and placed her arms on the table in front of her. "When I call you an old man. The way you are right now makes me think you've been possessed by the ghost of some charming old guy." She had an expectant look on her face. She wanted him to contradict her. "Seriously, how do you even know about this place? You can't see it from the street. There aren't any signs. If it were the twenties, I'd think you were taking me to a speakeasy or something."
Rather than get huffy, he laughed. "I get it, Min. I really do. If you'd asked my teenage self about jazz I would have told you where you could stuff it." He finished his scotch and sat it down on the table with a little thump. "Ed and Elena are old family friends, or rather Ed was a friend of my father's." The smile slowly faded from his face. He really hadn't meant to get into this. "They had a falling out when I was young, around the time when…." He trailed off. She would know what he was talking about.
He cleared his throat. "Anyway, Ed would always come around and check up on my mom and us boys, just to make sure we were doing ok. When I moved into the city and started college, he offered me a job here, which I desperately needed." He twisted the empty tumbler around on the table, keeping his eyes on it while he was talking.
"I remember the first night I came here. When Ed had told me I could work at his bar, he hadn't said anything about it being a jazz club. Which, by the way, it isn't really. Most jazz clubs are tiny venues with minimal seating and no dance floor. People go there to sit and take in the music, and chat with friends. Ed's always done his own thing though." He looked up at her. "When he gets down here, you'll see. The stuff they're playing now is pretty mellow, but Ed likes to do a little Latin infusion with his jazz. It's really the kind of thing that makes you want to move."
Mindy leaned even further forward on the table, taking another sip of wine. "So, when you got here that first night, you what?" She couldn't help but be intrigued. It was so hard to picture Danny as a nineteen year old kid who listened to Springsteen and Tom Petty, surrounded by jazz musicians.
He laughed. "At first I was really irritated. That first night, there were a bunch of pretentious douches calling each other 'cat' and women referring to them as 'daddy,' but then Ed took the stage." There was an awe in Danny's voice that Mindy had never heard before. For a minute she found herself wishing she could hear it in reference to herself. He looked across the table at her. Caught. She quickly picked up her wine glass and focused on taking another drink.
For a second his train of thought was lost. The way she'd been hanging on his words, looking at him like she'd never seen him before. It was an expression he wanted to see more often. If it hadn't been so dim, Danny would have sworn she'd flushed nervously when he'd caught her staring. She'd certainly looked briefly embarrassed. The warmth pooled in his stomach wasn't entirely attributable to the scotch he'd just drank.
He snapped back from his musings. "Ed sat down at the piano and it was like he was transformed. His fingers flew across the keys pulling melodies from thin air in tandem with the other musicians on the stage." He smiled at the memory. "He came up to me at the end of my shift that night to see how it had gone, and I just stared at him in awe. It was a side I'd never seen before."
Mindy swallowed the last of her wine. "I know the feeling." She set the glass in front of her. "So, is that why you're obsessed with learning to play the piano?"
Danny shifted uncomfortably in his seat, wiping his palms against his thighs. "Well, I suppose. I mean, I would never attempt jazz, but it's a reminder for me sometimes."
Mindy gave him a perplexed look. "A reminder? Of What?"
"This place." He gestured vaguely around him. "Look at it, Min. You yourself commented on how hard it is to find, and yet people mill in and out of here every night of the week, and it's packed some weekends. Ed couldn't care either way though. As long as it does well enough for him to keep it open, it's alright with him. He just wants a place to come and do what he loves every night." The rush of words that spilled from his lips weren't planned. He sighed and looked across the room toward the musicians at the front. "Everyone needs to find something they're passionate about."
Mindy found herself picturing Danny at home, picking out notes on his piano, determined to learn. The image made her feel a little lightheaded. She was really beginning to think she didn't know him as well as she should have.
Just as she was about to voice that, the woman from the bar approached the table. She had another tumbler of scotch in one hand and the bottle of wine in her hand. She set the tumbler in front of Danny and put her hand on his shoulder. "Danny, your food will be out in a minute." She leaned across the table and refilled Mindy's glass. "Are you going to introduce me to your friend?" There was that strange emphasis on the last word again.
Danny stared at Mindy for a minute. She didn't wait for him to introduce her, but rather shifted in her seat and offered her hand to Elena. "I'm Mindy. I work with Danny. You must be Mrs. Calloway. Danny's been telling me about his time here in college."
Elena kindly took Mindy's proffered hand and squeezed it. "Yes, I am, but dear you can call me Elena. Danny never does, even though I insist, but I suspect you'll humor me." Her eyes were sparkling. She looked Mindy up and down as if assessing her. After a momentary pause, a satisfied expression settled on her face. "It's been so long since he's been here. You'll have to make sure he comes around more often. We miss our Danny."
The last of Danny's alpha male façade faded away and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Well, Mrs. Calloway, you see, this is just, we're just…" He trailed off and looked across the table at Mindy. "This isn't exactly her kind of thing."
Mindy picked up her wine glass and took another sip, looking at Danny over the lip. She sat it back down and looked up at Elena. "I don't know, Danny. This place is growing on me. It has character. Maybe we should come here more often." The mischievous glint in her eyes sent a surprising zing of pleasure through him.
"Yeah, maybe we should."