Whitewater Rendezvous

Chaz’s gear in the corner of the tent, after they’d set it up.

“So is there anything in particular you’d like me to play?” Chaz asked Justine as she regained her seat by the fi re.

“How about a few bars of ‘Me and My Shadow’?”

“I can do that.” Chaz unfastened the twin latches that held the case shut and fl ipped open the top. Inside lay an antique concertina, protected by thick eggshell foam that had been custom cut to conform to its shape. The instrument was made of leather and rosewood, and the decoratively fi ligreed plates on each end that held the forty-eight button keys were sterling silver. It looked as though it had been well played but lovingly tended.

“Is that an accordion?” Linda asked, as Chaz removed the instrument and put her hands through the leather hand rests on either end.

“A near relative. It’s a concertina,” Chaz said. “Or squeezebox.”

“I think I’ve only ever seen one of those in the movies, usually in an organ grinder’s hands, or some guy singing on a gondola,” Megan said derisively, but she was smiling as she said it.

Chaz merely smiled at the challenge. “Ready?” she asked Justine.

“As I’ll ever be.”

Justine surprised all her friends with a more than passable time step. Then she launched into a soft-shoe routine that had to have been memorized long ago, for some childhood recital.

They were also all pleased with Chaz’s accompaniment, a four-part rendition of the popular tune played fl awlessly. When the number was over, they all applauded and whistled.

“I will never call you a klutz again,” Megan promised as Justine took a bow and settled back beside her in her camp chair.

“And very nice playing, Chaz,” Pat said.

“Yeah, not half bad,” Megan conceded with a smile.

“Why don’t you give them an idea of what you can really do with that thing?” Sally said. “You know—like that around-the-world medley you did that time.”

“Yeah! Play some more,” Elise urged.

“If you insist,” Chaz said, her eyes on Megan as she launched into a rousing Irish jig, her hands fl ying over the buttons at an astonishing speed.

• 105 •

KIM BALDWIN

After a minute or so of that tune, she transitioned skillfully into a French café song that sounded vaguely familiar, then, from there, into

“La donna e mobile,” the familiar Verdi piece Megan had been thinking of when she’d made the gondola crack. After Italy, Chaz segued into a German biergarten song, another lively piece with impressive fi ngering, then into a Polish polka, and, fi nally, to a Cajun Zydeco strain that took them all to New Orleans.

Megan would never have guessed that the unusual instrument had such versatility. And it was obvious Chaz had spent a lot of hours with the concertina, for she didn’t miss a note in the impromptu concert.

There was a rousing chorus of applause and whistles when Chaz fi nished with a fl ourish.

“Bravo!” Yancey called out as the clapping died down. “That was marvelous!”

“Great going!” Justine agreed.

“Yes, very nice, indeed,” Megan said. “How long have you played that thing?”

“Since I was ten. My father gave it to me when we moved to Alaska—something to keep me occupied during the long winters.”

“Where did you move here from?” Elise asked.

“Oregon. I grew up on a commune. We moved to Alaska when it kind of disbanded.”

I guess that explains why she’s so nonchalant about nudity, Megan thought. The word commune to her evoked images of Woodstock and the hippie generation of the 1960s and early ‘70s—men and women parading around naked or half-naked as they grew their own vegetables and lived off the land. She imagined them as promiscuous and uninhibited about sex. Wasn’t ‘free love’ one of the big slogans ofthat era? She found the knowledge that Chaz had grown up in that environment most encouraging.

“I don’t think anyone should have to follow Chaz’s playing,”

Linda complained good-naturedly. “That was defi nitely real talent.”

“No getting out of it,” Pat said. “Besides, I’m very curious to see what you’re going to claim as your hidden talent, since the one I know about can’t be demonstrated in public.”

Linda blushed bright red as everyone laughed. “I can’t believe you said that,” she grumbled.

“It’s a compliment!” Pat said.

• 106 •

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