As she dances to the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, she wonders when they took the "night" out of "night club." She whirls in her living room while her mocking boyfriend begs her to change the CD.
No, she says.
How about Harry Connick?
She pauses to sip a drink with an umbrella in it: iced tea with orange juice. She considers.
She has never been to a “night club”like the speakeasies and clubs in old movies. Only clubs. A women’s club when she was a student where women chatted over cappuccinos. Then high-ceilinged warehouses and beer-reeking pubs where rock bands blared. Everybody who was nobody went there. Conversation was impossible. Late nights, confusion, and pasted-on smiles.
Her parents danced to Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra in New York. She inherited their record collection and when the LPs wore out bought CDs.
She taps her boyfriend with the umbrella from her drink.
No, she says. It’s not Harry Connick night.
Wynton Marsalis?
Please. I’m pretending I’m at a ‘40s night club.
In denim capris and my old K-Mart T-shirt?
Oh, it’s Hawaiian night or something.
We could go to a real club. The Rings of Saturn, or the Green Parrot. Capris and T-shirts are fine there.
Are you telling me you’re bored?
No more Tommy Dorsey.
She turns off the CD. She perches on the arm of his chair coyly and says, I’d like to join the Drones Club in the P. G. Wodehouse novels.
Oh, yeah. Leather armchairs, London Times rattling? Where IS that club?
Not here, she says. Okay, let’s go.
Okay.
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