She has a look, "I say," doesn't quite belong today.
I was sitting in the Clinton pub with Kath, a girl I saved from the rain.
She was wandering the street with a head injury that looked so dizzy and lost that I took her home, fed her and lent her some of my clothes.
Wipe dry and tidied up, she looked like a movie star and it turned out the club where she wanted to go was the place she used to sing, but no one, including Kath, seemed to know exactly then.
Our service staff seems sympathetic. She could see Kath being sad.
"Maybe you should talk to Roy," she told us, "he knows everything about this place.
Who do I love.
She pointed to an old man sitting at the end of the shop tending to a beer.
I gave her a big tip and watched as she returned to the bar, patted Roy on the shoulder and showed us the way. I smiled back at him and raised my glass.
He nodded, knowing that free beer was coming. For a few seconds, he sat at our table, smiling at the two of us, his hands full of a glass full of drafts.
You know, ma'am, you look like a girl who used to sing here in Thirties. Her name is Kitty Madison.
Kath smiled gently to the old man. "Is it right?"
Okay, I started going around here to polish shoes outside when I was ten just eighty-eight weeks ago.
Happy birthday, she whispered. Hope you have more.
You look very much like her, he said dreamily, betting you can sing too.
A mischievous gaze glittered her eyes. Do you want to hear anything?
His eyes are wet. Kitty Kitty once had a signature song.
She put her hand on his and began to sing:
You come to me from nowhere
You took my heart and found it for free
Great dreams, great plans from nothing
Make every hour as sweet as a flower for me
Tears rolled down the face of the old man. Kath seems interested. Are you alright, Roy?
Are you her I don't know how, but I certainly know that no one else has that vibration and those nuances in their voices.
I looked at Kath and she transformed. Somehow, the vulnerable person, the girl who lost her appearance, disappeared and she was a Siren, pulling all the light out of the room and into her soul.
It only had a moment, a fraction of a second, but Roy also saw it and let out a small groan.
Kath started to tremble and pale. She stood up shakily.
I stood up to stabilize her, but she made me tremble and staggered towards the washroom.
The more I waited, the more she called, I returned.
I alarmed. Are you sure you are okay?
She stopped nodding and smiling. I watched her walk.
I never saw her again.
The waiter searched in the bathroom and the back hall was deserted, but there was no trace of Kath.
I can forget that my last look. My long-drawn gaze returned, partly smiled, and then she disappeared, out of my life forever, laughter brightening on her lips.
It seemed somehow unfair, and late at night, her face often turned to haunt me. I wonder if she is real, and if she is, where the world is hiding her.
I sat all night long in my apartment in the Flatiron building, overlooking the city lights. In the background, one of Carla's rake records coming from Thirties is playing and Kitty Madison is singing her song:
You come to me from nowhere
You took my heart and found it for free
And if someday you should return to nothing,
I will wait, hope you will bring your love to me.
And I'm still waiting, hoping she will find her way back to me.
