Surrender 01 - Surrender

in his family because Emily figured it would take at least another fifty years for his dream to materialize. Still, his optimism, though misplaced, had turned out to be her salvation because aside from occasionally providing musical accompaniment to ancient silent movies that were the passion of a bunch of equally ancient movie buffs in the West Village on Monday nights, this was the only real employment she had.
    She tried not to dwell on that, or on what in hell she was doing playing piano anywhere.
    Unfortunately, as of late she found herself unable to think of anything else.
    What am I doing here? she’d find herself musing, and always at the damnedest times.
    It was a great question if you were studying existentialism. If you were trying to put food in your belly… not so good.
    Besides, that kind of thinking changed nothing. Only she could do that, but how?
    “How?” she muttered as she moved into her last hour of ruining more of what had once been perfectly acceptable music and now was pluperfect crap.
    It was important to remember that the Tune-In was most of the reason she could pay her bills. Without it, without Nola paying half the rent, she’d be in deep trouble.
    Another glance at her watch. It was five after one.
    Emily launched into a too loud, too fast, too everything rendition of “New York, New York . ” She played a lot of old Sinatra stuff. Not that she didn’t like Sinatra. She did. Or she had, before this. The problem was that what the Tune-In patrons wanted was strictly Las Vegas Frank. None of the soft ballads, the sophisticated lyrics of Classic Frank.
    So what? she thought, her lips compressing as she segued from pounding out “New York, New York” to a tinkling rendition of Tony Bennett’s “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” “Chicago” would come next. Nothing like ending the night with a tour of the USA and then, mercifully she was finished until next Thursday.
    The entry door swung open. Three already lit middle-aged guys entered the Tune-In on a gust of cold, damp wind.
    Wonderful.
    It was raining. That meant the always late bus would show up even later by the time she headed home. Bad enough to travel at two in the morning, but now she’d have to stand on the corner waiting for who knew how long.
    Emily’s jaw tightened as she played a glitzy intro to “Chicago.”
    This was not a good night. None were, not really, but this was stacking up to be bad. The rain. The cold. The fact that not one person had put so much as a dime into the open tip jar she kept on top of the piano. The twenty singles that were already inside it were hers, bait money for people to add a bill or two.
    Fat chance.
    Not good, no, and she knew that her rapidly deteriorating attitude wasn’t helping, but—
    “Hey, baby, how you doin’?”
    Emily looked up. She saw a stained shirt hanging over a huge belly, and above it, a hand clutching a bottle of beer.
    “I’m fine,” she said brightly.
“I got somethin’ I wanna hear. Noo Yawk, Noo Yawk.”
    “This is my last set, sir. I don’t take requests during my last set.”
    Gus, her boss, was at her end of the bar polishing glasses with a towel that gave new meaning to the color “gray.” He looked at her, eyebrows raised. Emily shrugged and kept playing. Yes, she’d made up the rule on the spot. So what?
    “Your last what?”
    “My last set. Of tunes. And I’m not accepting request.”
    “Thass your job. To play what people wanna hear.”
    He was right. It was. The correct response to make was Yes, of course, I’ll play that next…
    “I told you, this is my last set. No requests.”
    “Gus?” the drunk said with indignation. “You hear this?”
    Gus put down the glass and the towel and folded his arms over his chest.
    “Play what the man wants,” he said in a hard voice. “That’s what I pay you to do.”
    He was right. Absolutely right.
    “Thass right. Gus pays you to play what I wanna hear.”
    The drunk grinned. Leered. Pointed his bottle of beer at her for emphasis.
    That was when it all went bad.
    Maybe somebody jostled his arm. Maybe he was a little unsteady on his feet.
    The bottle tilted.
    Ice-cold beer poured over Emily’s head and straight down the neckline of her dress, her silk dress, one of the few still-decent things in her closet, stuff she wore only for work.
    Gasping, she shot to her feet.
    “You,” she sputtered, “you—you stupid jerk—”
    The drunk laughed. Gus shrugged, as if what had happened