What You See in the Dark - Manuel Munoz [7]
For the second number, after small but prolonged applause, the girl almost turns her back to them to look at her boyfriend as he begins the first notes. Everyone sees him motion her to turn around, reminding her that she has an audience, and so she positions herself in a sideways posture, a little awkward, but it is clear what is going to happen. She needs to face him, and the notes off the guitar sing to the audience in a prolonged introduction, the melody immediately familiar to some, others needing to wait for the words. It is clear what is going to happen: they are going to sing to each other, her boyfriend a little hidden in the dark, away from the half-moon of the spotlight. And now everyone has something to privately admire: the shape of Dan’s muscular thigh perched off the stool, tapping in tune; the girl’s still-trembling hand on the microphone; Dan’s superb coordination over the guitar strings; the girl’s narrow, beautiful waist. They begin singing the song and right away the people who need the words remember the Everly Brothers and their shiny innocence, their politely combed hair. But tonight, “All I Have to Do Is Dream” comes over as a different song altogether—not two brothers and teenage heartbreak, but a more adult, public affirmation. The girl wavers but stays on the slow, hopeful tempo, watching her boyfriend, who sings back to her in a surprising tenor. This is love. This is what it is supposed to be like—a handsome man and a girl who comes from nothing, and now everything changes because he has arrived. A girl becomes a woman, devoted at last because her man has exhibited the courage to be tender. That’s the way you hear the song, as a shopgirl in a small city, and you see that it all depends on who is listening and why, who grasps a date’s hand in the dark as the song goes on, who knows what the words were actually saying.
Just two songs. Nothing worth the grand pronouncement of an advertisement in the paper. He was a better singer than she was and even played the guitar, but he stands away from the circle of spotlight and allows her to take her bows. “¡Bravo!” call out some of the Spanish-speaking men. “¡Bravo!” As if they understood every word, as if they didn’t notice Dan Watson making a proprietary motion around her delicate waist when she moves toward the back of the cantina. They cheer her all the way out, for just two songs, as if she has fulfilled whatever promise the advertisement in the newspaper suggested, her embrace of the microphone, of them, the dark beauty of her skin, her face, her voice.
After the tables are stacked, the dancing begins, a lot of ballads in both English and Spanish to keep the mood going, the women falling into their men’s arms, heads on shoulders and eyes closed. You do the same to your date, his shoulder too thin to carry your defeat. People could think you were in love with this boy, maybe imagine it was something close to that girl and the bartender, resonant and tremulous. But you can only close your eyes in disappointment that the smell of the neck you’ve nestled into is of Ivory soap, of Prell shampoo and no cologne, one of the Everly Brothers and not that man. Sweet pronouncements have their place, but no man should be singing about a broken heart, about longing. He should be there to fix it, the way Dan sang tonight, the words saying one thing but his thigh on the stool saying another, his longing a stage act because he already has what he desired.
With your eyes closed, you think of what it will be like to go back to work at the shoe store, working alongside that girl, how hard it will be not to seem jealous