Free September Girls by Bennett Madison Page A

much have the same basic conversation with anyone at all, but I didn’t care. At least she was talking to me.
    After a while she got distracted by the other customers and left me to my own devices and I just sat there, chilling out alone, sometimes tuning in to whoever was singing, some of whom weren’t completely terrible, and other times just drifting into whatever thought occurred to me. More and more of the Girls began to trickle in as the night went on. Some of them tripped the same mild feeling of recognition I’d had when I’d seen Taffany behind the bar, but there was still no DeeDee. Not that I was keeping track, exactly. I hadn’t seen her since the night of the party, and I wasn’t really expecting to see her again. I just wouldn’t have totally minded if I did is all.
    At a certain point during a grizzled local’s drunken train-wreck performance of “Ruby Tuesday,” Jeff plopped himself in the stool next to me. “So what are you going to sing, bro?” he asked. He raised an eyebrow and gave me a big wink.
    “Dude, shut up,” I said. “I told you I’m not singing.” But he was already scribbling new numbers on slips of paper, evidently planning his next showstopper.
    I didn’t think about it at all until a half hour later, when I heard my name being called. “Sam? Where’s my good man Sam?” It was Jimmy. Everyone in the room began to look around. I tried to sink as low in my seat as I could, but I felt a hand on my back.
    “Over here,” Jeff called out. He pushed me from my stool. “We’ve got a winner!”
    I looked over my shoulder and shot him the most deadly glare I could muster. “Dude, go,” he whispered. “Don’t worry. I picked a good song for you. You’ll be fantastic.”
    “I’m going to fucking kill you,” I whispered back, but knew I had no choice. I pushed through the crowd, took the mic from Jimmy, and tried not to shake too much as I awaited whatever fate was about to befall me. The music started to play. I recognized the song.
    There I was. What else could I do but sing? “‘Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone . . .’ ”
    It was “Fire and Rain,” a song my dad had played a million times in the Volvo on family trips, while my mom crooned along in an off-key warble from the passenger’s seat and Jeff occupied himself giving me noogies and wet willies, the dusty smell of the AC filling the car, the sun streaming through the windows, and the scenery whizzing by. I hadn’t heard it in years—I’d never been a fan, and who was this Suzanne person anyway?—but as soon as the first line was out of my mouth I didn’t have to think about it at all, the words came to me without having to follow the bouncing ball on the screen. I could almost hear my mom’s voice under mine in a broken harmony, could almost hear my dad’s reedy whistle as he weaved in and out of traffic. We were all back in that car again, all of us speeding off toward some destination: my grandmother’s house or Hershey Park or camping or somewhere else, anywhere.
    Wherever it was we were going, it was a place where we would still be a family. Like we already were; like we always would be. Until someday—now—we weren’t.
    My turn was over almost before I’d really known it had begun, and when I looked up, I was surprised to see that the audience was still there and that they were all applauding for me. I had been good. Or at least they were doing a good job of humoring me. I handed the microphone back to Jimmy and stepped aside. It felt like I was stepping into my own body after having been gone from myself for a while.
    When I took my seat at the bar, Jeff was looking at me with bemused admiration. “Told you, buddy,” he said. “You’re a natural. Now to pick the next one . . .”
    “Fat fucking chance,” I said. But I picked up the book and started flipping through it anyway.
    “And now,” Jimmy was saying a few minutes later, after a rousing performance of