Jazz Funeral

or something except for the badge she was waving with her free hand.
    “Police. Let us through, please.”
    The woman who’d bitten him had wound up to hit the cop, but she’d quickly seen she wasn’t big enough to win in a fight with that one, and stepped back. Nick wondered if she’d sue for the elbow whack he’d given her. People sued him for breathing, and had for years.
    When the biter gave up, the fight went out of the crowd. The sudden meanness that can come from too much beer had passed, and the more accustomed mellowness had slipped back home. Couples who’d stopped dancing to join the fray were starting again to twirl and two-step.
    Nick said, “First time I’ve ever been rescued by a woman.”
    The cop grinned. “It’ll cost you one autograph.”
    He couldn’t help it, he liked her. She was a nervy damn broad.
    Proctor said, “You okay, Nick?”
    “Except for a bitten neck. The skin isn’t broken, is it?”
    The cop looked, standing close yet remaining professional. He liked having her that close. He wasn’t used to big women—and she was definitely big, not just tall. There was something about it he liked—something vaguely maternal. He’d never go out with a woman that overweight, but still, there was something.
    “Looks okay,” the cop said.
    “Shit,” said Nick. “This is the last time. I’m never doing this again.”
    “Never doing what?” asked the cop.
    He wasn’t sure. Never going back to JazzFest? Never going out in public? He was tired of feeling like a prisoner. How the hell was he supposed to live?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    “Officer! Officer Langford!”
    Skip looked around to see a very distressed young man waving frantically. He looked worried and upset in that exaggerated way only those under twenty can look—she knew it usually meant they’ve missed a question on an exam or something equally earthshaking, but it made her want to hug them and play Mom.
    She waved and walked over. “It’s Langdon,” she said, “but thanks for remembering my face.”
    “Oh. I, uh …” He seemed not to know what to say.
    “You’re Flip Phillips, aren’t you?”
    He nodded. “Melody’s ex.”
    It was all she could do not to laugh. High school kids and their “exes” were so wonderfully dramatic about their three- or four-week relationships.
    “I saw Melody,” he said.
    “Here? Today?”
    “A few minutes ago. See, I knew she’d come today to see Ti-Belle sing. So I cut school to come find her.” He looked extremely pleased with himself. Skip was willing to bet he’d never cut school before in his life and wouldn’t have done it today if he hadn’t convinced himself it was necessary for the greater good of the human race. This one was no Ferris Bueller, but he seemed pretty smug about bringing off such wildly criminal behavior. Skip was happy for him; he seemed a young man who had far too many rules in his life, most of them of his own making. Wrinkles seemed his only vice. Even now, in the most casual of settings, he wore a button-down shirt—wrinkled but correct to the point of stiffness.
    He put his hands in his pockets and looked down at his shoes. “I’ve been feeling really bad about what I did.”
    “Dumping Melody?”
    He winced. “I wouldn’t exactly call it that.”
    Skip was rapidly changing her assessment of him—beginning to think he had a great career ahead as a white-collar criminal. He was enjoying his first foray into the forbidden, and proving to have great capacities for denial. She wondered if he’d think of a way to describe cutting school without exactly calling it that.
    “I wanted to talk to her and tell her I was sorry. I guess. I don’t know—I just wanted to see her. To be sure she was okay.”
    Skip nodded.
    “Well, I didn’t see her at Ti-Belle’s set. There were a million people there, and anyway, I was looking for the wrong Melody. She’s completely different now. See, later I was just standing around, looking over the crowd, still trying to find her, and I see these knees—”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    He was blushing slightly. And becomingly. “There was this girl I saw with gorgeous legs—they reminded me of Melody’s—so I was, you know, checking her out. And she had Melody’s scar. Melody has a little crescent-shaped scar on her right knee. So I think, Melody’s legs, Melody’s scar, holy shit! And I look up and the girl does a double-take and starts running.”
    “It was Melody?”
    “Well, yeah, it had