Why choose them for the code?
That recital lived clearly in her memory. She recalled her stage fright, and making
only one mistake in her fingering, which (for the first time) she had not let shake
her confidence. And what else? Oh, yes! Her mother was so proud of her that night
she celebrated by taking Nikki out for dinner—and letting her have her very first
drink. They’d gone to the Players, where her mom was a member. The club sat only a
few doors from their place but carried a grand history and specialness to Nikki. Her
mother asked the bartender to go in back and unlock her private wine locker for a
special bottle. When he uncorked it and left, Cynthia drank down the water from
Nikki’s glass then poured her daughter some of the celebration wine. Her mom only
allowed the sixteen-year-old a half glass. To Nikki, it was brimming.
Heat checked her watch and stood. The new warmth that flowed through her came from
something more than revelation, more than closure. She felt a connection.
Nikki put on her coat and stepped out.
The bartender’s hair had gone white over the years but he still remembered Miss
Heat, same as he recalled everyone who ever had been a member or honored guest at
the Players. If George had been working the Grill Room when Samuel Clemens knocked
cue balls around the billiard table that still lived there, he would have memorized
every shot, quip, and bawdy curse from Mr. Twain.
He got his keys off the hook above the bar sink, and as he led Nikki to the back, he
said, “I still see your dad come in from time to time. Although not so much since…
” George’s brow fell. He left it there.
In the back of the room, past cases of hard liquor and house wines, built-in
cabinets filled a wall. “Here we go,” said George, “the private stock.” Each
cupboard, the size of a small gym locker, was marked by an oval brass plaque etched
with the member’s name. Nikki recognized a lot of them; most belonged to famous
actors, but a few to composers, journalists, and novelists. They weren’t arranged
alphabetically, but the barkeeper knew where each stash resided, by heart. He fit
the key into the door of the locker labeled “Cynthia Heat” and stepped back.
Discreet to a fault, George smiled and said, “I’ll leave you to do the honors,”
then melted away to the Grill Room.
Heat opened the door and found no wine. All the locker housed was a solitary bottle
of beer: Durdles’ Finest Pale Ale. A banner on the label read, “Now crafted in
America at Brewery Boz, South Street Seaport.” Nikki lifted the bottle and saw her
name on the envelope it had been resting on.
She ran the pad of her forefinger over her mother’s handwriting and opened the
envelope flap, which Cynthia Heat had left folded but not sealed.
The note to Nikki was short. She absorbed it with surprise, at what it said and at
the unexpected sense of closure she’d always believed could never come. The words
under the signature at the end of the note made her eyes cloud with tears: “Always
remember Mom loves you.”
She left the beer, took the note, and departed with one fewer loose end, and then
some.
Nikki’s quad protested as she stretched on the mat at her gym early the next
morning. The soreness from the physical ordeal of the past weeks, coupled with
skipping workouts and sleep, made her feel like an out-of-shape slug. Heat smiled
through her grimace, thankful she belonged to the only gym in Manhattan without
mirrors.
When Bart Callan came in, he was grinning, too. “You weren’t kidding, Heat. This
facility is bare-bones. I expect to see Rocky Balboa working a side of beef.”
“I like it this way. No frou-frou, no posers. It’s come to work, or stay out.”