The Blues Walked In by Kathleen George

Author:Kathleen George [George, Kathleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780822983439
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

THEY SAT AT a small bar near Café Society.

Robeson listened.

Lena had met him to tell him she couldn’t speak at an event he wanted her for because her life was upside-down.

“And I’m going to have to let down Barney Josephson—oh, he doesn’t deserve it, he’s been wonderful to me, wonderful, but the thing is, well, I have another offer and it’s for a club in LA.”

Robeson’s lips tightened. He put his hands up as if to say he was still listening.

“And the divorce is dragging on and on and it’s really . . . ugly. I try everything to see my son. On top of all this I have a friend accused of murder. Josiah. A boy I’ve been friends with for a long time. I know the police have to be wrong.”

Robeson finally nodded. “Many things,” he said.

“Why does everything happen at once?” she asked.

“It’s always that way. I take comfort from the writers.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I played Claudius once. ‘When sorrows come, they come not single spies / But in battalions. First, her father slain: / Next, your son gone; and he most violent author / Of his own just remove: the people muddied . . . ’ et cetera.”

“You’re showing off.”

“Yes. Or Shaw. I always think of the cavalry charge he describes. First one pea hits the window, then a couple more, then the rest rain down like crazy.”

“Showoff.”

“Yes. I know what you’re thinking. I see you. I see what you’re running to. Dreams of Hollywood, huh?”

Embarrassed that he’d seen through her, she looked away. If she got to LA—everyone said it—maybe she’d be discovered for a movie.

“Stay here. The divorce will do whatever it does, not in your control. Work to help your friend. Speak up.”

“I will. I do. I did. I went to the jail to see about a lawyer for him.”

“Write letters, go to the jail again, talk about it. See? Be noisy. Another drink?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to California, aren’t you?”

“I think I am.”

When Joe Samuels from the Courier came to interview Lena on a Friday afternoon in late January about the rumors that she had been offered a job in California, she decided she would manipulate the conversation to fit in what she had to say about Josiah.

They were in her Brooklyn house for the interview.

Edwina, good as always, brought tea and cookies. Samuels, fastidious and slightly pudgy, took one bite of one cookie, looked at the crumbs on his tie, brushed them into his hand, and never took another bite.

Lena said, “I want to tell you about something in Pittsburgh where I was just visiting. A young man I know is in jail. It’s surely a wrongful arrest—”

“Could we save that for later? Your other news is why they sent me. Is it definite you’re going to California? Eyes set on Hollywood?”

She recited the speech she’d rehearsed. “It’s true that I am going to California, but it’s to sing at a new club they’re building out there. It’s called the Trocadero. I mean, I

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