“Such a Boro Park girl.” He shook his head sadly. “Wow, look who’s playing tonight! Jimmy Cobb! He’s an old-timer. Played with Davis and Coltrane!” he rejoiced, uncharacteristically super-excited.

She was glad of that, although she couldn’t understand what in all this had achieved such an instantaneous transformation. She looked around, searching for answers in the people sitting at tables and all along the bar, packed together as tightly as women crowding up to the mechitza to get a glimpse of the men dancing during Simchas Torah. Waitresses weaved around them, balancing trays of alcoholic drinks, hamburgers, and fries.

Up front, a blue-lit stage held a large piano, drums, and a double bass. The musicians didn’t look anything like what she’d imagined. Instead of tuxedos and evening gowns (this she’d once seen in a wall poster advertising a concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music), they wore sleeveless undershirts, their arms covered in tattoos, or black jackets and baseball caps, their eyes surprisingly shaded with sunglasses in the gloom. One even had a long beard. All he needed was a black velvet skullcap and a black bekesha, she thought, and this could be Fourteenth Avenue …

They squeezed into the bar, mostly to get out of the way.

“What do you want to drink?” a bartender asked.

“Not sure,” Duvie answered, taking out his thin wallet and flipping through it.

“There’s a twenty-dollar cover charge for the show if you don’t order,” the bartender informed him. “So maybe you’d like some food?”

“Well, in that case, sure. How about a hamburger and fries, and a large tap beer.”

Shaindele gasped, but he just grinned at her.

“And for your girlfriend?”

“Oh, she’s good,” Duvie said. The bartender glanced sympathetically in her direction, rolling his eyes.

“I’ll have a Diet Coke with rum,” Shaindele suddenly spoke up. “And can you put that into a paper cup?”

The bartender winked at her.

“I hope you have some cash on you, Shaindele.”

“I have,” she answered him defiantly. “I didn’t know you eat treife.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” He shrugged.

I bet, she thought. And even more I don’t want to know.

She watched as the plate of food was set in front of Duvie, almost holding her breath as he took a large bite out of the still-red meat encased in the whitest and softest of buns only gentiles ate. In Boro Park, the equivalent would have been challah rolls, smaller versions of the braided egg bread that graced the Shabbos table. Something about the roll’s spongy whiteness stained with the hamburger’s bloody residue nauseated her.

“Here, take one,” Duvie said, offering her a fry dipped in ketchup.

She shook her head, fastidiously removing the paper from her straw and sticking it into the paper cup.

“What, even the glass here isn’t kosher enough for you to use?” he scoffed.