"Hey, my name's Domino. What's yours?" I sound like I'm in kindergarten.
The girl smiles and turns the right side of her face away so that I see only her left. "I'm Katy."
I swallow, unsure of myself. "You don't have to do that, you know."
Her brows pull together in a question.
"You don't have to turn your face away like that."
Katy curls her fingers around her thumbs and glances down.
I'm drowning here. I haven't had much social interaction outside of Greg and Dizzy in the past year, and I have no idea how to amuse this girl. "I've never played the piano before, but maybe we could try it together?"
She points to her scar. "I don't have much of an ear for music."
I cover my gut and laugh once, hard. "Oh, my God. That was really funny." While the other girls drape themselves over the people at the bar, slowly inviting them to certain corners of the room, I motion Katy toward the piano. I'm three steps away when a girl dives in front of me.
"What do you think you're doing?" she snarls.
Heat rushes to my cheeks. "I was going to play the piano with one of our customers."
The girl looks to the ceiling and groans like I'm a complete moron. She has a mustache she's trying to hide under a layer of powder. "You touch only the things you've helped pay for." She flicks her hand. "So go away, little dog. Go sniff somewhere else."
I turn to Katy, trying to maintain a smile. "Umm, maybe we could just talk?"
"That girl reminds me of my sister." Katy watches the girl stride away with visible repulsion.
"Your sister sounds like a swell person."
This time it's Katy who laughs.
I scan the room, looking for a place that we might talk. When I don't find an available spot, I nod toward the bar. It's mostly empty now so we can grab two stools.
For two hours, Katy and I chat about her school and her dad and her affinity for buttermilk biscuits with honey. We talk about anything she wants, really. And it feels nice. I certainly don't want to talk about myself, so this arrangement works perfectly. But after a while I notice Katy's eyes veering to the other girls. The ones offering guitar solos and massages and tango dance lessons. If I don't do something, I'm going to lose her interest. And her bronze coin. But what can I do? I don't have access to any of the instruments the girls bought, and even if I did I wouldn't know how to play them well enough. Then I remember what Madam Karina said about using my gifts.
"Cain, do you have a pen I can borrow?"
Back when I still attended school, I was pretty good with a pencil in my hand. And I can't help wondering how much better I'd be after learning graffiti art. It's different, sure, but it's still translating a picture from my head onto a canvas.
Cain looks at me for a long moment, and then gazes at the curtained door. He seems afraid to lend me a pen, but that's crazy, right? After hesitating, he meanders over and drops napkins and a pen a couple of feet down. I have to stretch to get them.
"He's cute," Katy says.
"He doesn't really talk."
Katy grins mischievously. "I don't need him to talk."
I give her a scolding look like we've been friends for years. She giggles into her soda, the one Cain brought her after she laid a silver coin on the sticky bar. Holding the pen in my right hand, I study the napkin. I have no idea how I can compete with the entertainment behind me, but I'll give it a shot.
I look once at Katy, decide what it is she wants most in this world. Then I draw. My tongue slides between my lips as I concentrate, and I keep my head down, working. She talks as I work, and I prod her with more questions. My drawing is sloppy, and my hand aches to replace that cold lifeless pen with a can of spray paint. I'd paint the entire room with her name if I could. Make people notice her in a good way.
I'm halfway through the drawing when the singing stops. For the last two hours, three girls have shared the microphone, one after another. I assume they shared the expense and that's why they all got a turn. Now someone new steps up. A fresh, upbeat song starts on the jukebox, and I turn to see Poppet tapping her fist against her thigh in time to the beat. The lyrics begin, and Poppet starts singing an Adele song.
Katy cringes beside me, probably without realizing it, and the other girls start laughing. At first, their jeering is quiet. Then it grows louder, until you can hardly hear Poppet's voice over the taunting.
"Shut up," a girl coughs under her breath.
"Tone deaf," another one says, louder.