Girl in Pieces

Every so often, when I take coffee mugs to the shelf behind the front counter, I sneak looks outside the window at Riley. He’s been off shift for a few hours, but he hasn’t left yet. He’s installed himself at a table by the front window, a thick paperback in his hands. Steam rises from the cup of coffee wedged on the windowsill next to him. He banters with the Go players at the next table. He compliments an old hippie woman on her knit hat as she passes by. We don’t speak to each other at the coffeehouse; we follow Julie’s rule. So here he is, sitting out front until the open mic starts, when he’s allowed to come in and set up the stage for the performers and emcee the show.

This is my first open mic at the coffeehouse. When Riley comes in, he’s greeted warmly by everyone at the tables and he walks around like he owns the place, which I guess he sort of does. From behind the counter, I watch him check amps and adjust the mic, things he’s done a million times in his life. He looks at home on the ramshackle stage and there’s a moment, when he presses his mouth to the microphone and murmurs Check, check, check, that my heart starts to stutter at the way his husky voice travels the room. He soft-sings a few lines of Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue” and everyone in the audience gets very, very quiet. But then he stops and stoops down to the amp to adjust the levels.

Riley introduces the first act, a hip-hop poet who prowls the lopsided stage, waving his arms and slouching his hips. “He’s like a fuckin’ cheetah on acid,” Temple says dryly. He scratches his belly and chest incessantly and drops bitches so much that one woman trying to drink her latte and read her paper shouts, “Oh, please stop him already!”

He’s followed by a waifish girl with a pixie cut who reads horrible poems about hunger and war in a childish, thin voice. An older woman with hair to her knees and thick ankles peeking from her tie-dyed skirt lugs her bongos onstage; she’s actually pretty good. She plays intensely, her grayish hair fanning behind her. The pounding of the drums is so hypnotic, even Linus comes out to the front counter to listen.

Riley sits on a chair just off the stage. He jumps in front of the mic and asks the crowd to give a hearty welcome to a nervous high school trumpet player whose forehead gleams under the bright ceiling lights. Riley dims them, casting the coffeehouse in an amberish light. The trumpet player’s hands shake; he plays something sultry that makes me think he and the bongo player should join up. At the break, I collect empty cups and glasses. The tub is almost full when I notice Riley helping a young woman in Docs and a sleeveless black tee adjust the mic. Her black skirt looks like it was cut with scissors; the hem hangs unevenly. Her hair is black and spiky and her face is lit with contempt. She looks like she’s my age. Her dark eyes take stock of the room. I haul the tub to the dish area and then go stand by the counter again. Riley’s leaning down, whispering something in the girl’s ear. She laughs and kind of curls her head away from him. My heart stops. What was that?

Temple and Randy catch the look on my face. “Uh-oh,” says Randy smoothly. “Somebody’s got a jealous streak.”

“Don’t worry about it, Charlie,” Temple tells me, patting my shoulder. She’s got henna tattoos on both hands today, swirling designs that wind around her knuckles. The minuscule bells hanging from her ears tinkle as she shakes her head. “There’s nothing there. She’s been playing here since she was, like, eleven.”

Linus comes out from the back, wiping her hands on a dish towel. Her face lights up when she sees the stage. “Oh, man! Awesome. Have you heard Regan yet? She’s gonna blow you away. Riley loves her.”

Temple keeps patting my shoulder. Riley’s never said anything about this girl.

“Ladies and germs,” he murmurs into the mic. “Please welcome back True Grit’s favorite troubadour, our own sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, Regan Connor.”

Applause fills the café. There’s an eerie wind-down as the room gradually silences and grows attuned to her presence. When the café has stilled, she attacks the golden acoustic guitar with single-minded purpose, her fingers flying. She stands as though she’s staring a bulldozer down, her legs planted hard on the stage, one knee bent. Her voice is reedy, scratchy, and divine; she can control it enough to suddenly shift to a whisper or a growly bark.

You can’t break me down, she sings. You can’t cut me clear.

On the sloppy stage in the dim light she looks exuberantly defiant, and her words have rough, girlish hope. The crowd is rapt. Some people have their eyes closed. I look back at her, flooded with envy. She’s my age and so confident. She doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks. Her voice is threatening and silky, floating over everyone in the café.

Regan is transporting the room; I watch them, one by one, fall for her.

You can’t break my heart, she cries, breathy and furious. You can’t own my soul. What I have I made, what I have is mine. What I have I made, what I have is mine.

When she’s through, the audience roars; even the hip-hop poet shouts, “Dang, dog!” Riley uses two fingers to whistle; his eyes are wild with light. I look from Riley to the girl and then back again, anxiousness pinging inside me.

I’m always losing things.