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Search - Our deal

Our deal
Author: Norman Levy

OUR DEAL Chapter One i COULDNT BELIEVE our luck. It was like being in a movie. The three of us arrived for dinner at seven-thirty. A tuxedoed maitre d sat us on a raised banquette away from the dance floor. He knew our arrange ment, mere diners. The slight elevation gave us a perfect view of the dance floor, bandstand and entire nightclub. The p... more »lace was empty ex cept for waiters fussing about the round tables, filling sugar bowls with rationed cubes, arranging centerpieces, salt-and-pepper shakers fluttering side work. The music stands with CB monograms were still dark, but the lacquered dance floor was gleaming. Suddenly Charlie Barnets men appeared on the band shell, slid behind their music stands and began blowing their way into Chero kee, their hit theme song. Barnet on tenor sax carried the melody. Trombones answered his call. Soon the stage lights brightened, and the entire band was alive, improvising a dialogue of syncopated brass, singing to one another, blowing their brains out, standing and sitting on certain choruses, waving metal hats over their horns to modulate the volume. It was starting My mother, Hannah, was aglow with happiness after a long day 1 on her pins at the bookstore battling with salesmen, ringing the regis ter, wrapping endless 49tf remainders. This was a pleasure earned, and she eased back with it, the brunette waves of her hair shining, her intelligent eyes accepting it gratefully, Philly, my father, winced at the initial horn braying strings would have put him more at ease. The female vocalist, Marjorie Hall, finally brought him relaxation with her ballad. She reached into her own hopelessness could have gone, but what for bringing the lyric up from the middle of her stomach. Its so different without you . . . Dont get around much anymore 7 Han, listen to her. Shes really singing it. My father nudged my mother. Hannah agreed. The voluptuous crooner had touched them both. As I was only eight, her melancholy tone did not arouse me as much as her skintight evening gown. We were in the Cocoanut Grove, a remodeled nightclub on the roof of the Park Central Hotel, twenty nine stories above the war-dimmed city. The tan brick building with Moorish ornamentation was diagonally across the street from Carnegie Hall, occupying the entire block between 55th and 56th streets on 7th Avenue. To the north was an unobstructed view of Central Park to the south, Times Square. The club had been refur bished for contemporary revelers during the spring of 1943 while North Africa was being liberated by the Allied Forces. When Marjorie Hall finished her solo, the band broke out with The Halls of Montezuma and then settled into longing melodies which brought fifteen couples onto the dance floor. The club began filling up in anticipation of the first floor show. Here they come, Han, the two of them. What do you think my father stage-whispered. The big one certainly walks like a queen, but the smaller one could be hiding it better, my mother responded, deadpan, as two men in casual suits neared our banquette on their way to the back stage dressing room. The Bensley Brothers were a riot. Their act was mayhem. They came on stage in standard nightclub tuxedoes and began singing the Andrew Sisters hit Dont Sit Under the Apple Tree With Anyone 2 Else But Me exactly like the Andrew Sisters. Charlie Barnets men were laughing, their instruments at rest. The brothers, Al, the smaller one, and Dick, the taller one, assumed all the Andrew Sisters 7 man nerisms and then some. I could never forget the first time I saw them. I told my mother, I told my father, and now Im telling you. Dont sit under the apple tree . . . which is exactly where Al sat. Dick importuned him not to go march, march, marching home as Al marched off with anyone else but him. Gales of laughter shot from the audience. I wet my pants. I had never seen anything so outra geous or been so happy...

ISBN-13: 9780380852741
ISBN-10: 0380852748
Pages: 308
Edition: 1st THUS
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Avon Books
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

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