My father gave me an impatient look, hit the chords again and I tentatively started to sing. What had he got me into?Tara Hardy/The Globe and Mail
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I tapped on the microphone as my 80-year-old father, a taller version of Wallace Shawn, played the opening chords of I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair on his electric piano. In the darkened Mexican bar, the blue-rinsed heads in the audience glowed. Ice clinked in glasses. My father gave me an impatient look, hit the chords again and I tentatively started to sing. What had he got me into?
My father and stepmother have spent the past 20 Februarys in the zona romantica of Puerto Vallarta, an area known for handsome gay couples and seniors adorned in brightly coloured caftans and silver bangles. I've visited five times. We live in different cities, and as we grow older that week together has become especially precious. It is uninterrupted time to do everything he wants me to do.
Mornings, I follow my father on his walk by the ocean, where he greets everyone with the only Spanish he knows: "Ola! Dia mucho calienté!" Then, we search for (and do not find) the New York Times at all the stores. I make him toast and eggs, and we eat on his balcony watching the pelicans. Evenings, we go to a restaurant of his choice, where he strongly suggests what I should eat.
Afternoons, we join my stepmother at a beach where no one swims. But instead of playing Scrabble, drinking margaritas or comparing the weather back home, like the other seniors, my octogenarian dad works the crowd. "Ola. Glad to see you! I'm back at Garbo Piano Bar on Thursdays. We're raising money for the Children of the Dump charity this year. You've recovered from throat cancer! Marvellous! You've got to sing at least one song with me! And bring all your friends."
My father has had a weekly show – Ken Luchs Plays the Broadway Hits You Know and Love – in Puerto Vallarta since he turned 70. Though he spent his life in advertising, music has remained his passion. He has a knack for playing any song he's heard once.
This year, he had a tough time finding singers. One of the regulars had cancer, another was in a nursing home and a few had died over the winter. Only Rick, a timeshare salesman, remained. And, my father confided, Rick's repertoire is limited. That Thursday's show was especially important to my father: On the plane, he had met a mattress magnate, Harold, who was coming to the show with a group. He and Harold had talked for hours about marketing a new business idea together.
With only two days to go, my father and Rick got to work. They'd open with a medley from a few older musicals – The Pajama Game, Oklahoma and A Little Night Music. That would cover half an hour; 90 more minutes to fill. When they hit upon Soon It's Going to Rain from the Fantasticks, my father implored: "Michele, you have to help us out with this one. It's a duet. Rick can't do this alone!" I wanted the show to go well, but this time my father had gone too far. "Forget it," I told him. "I can't sing." But he's persuasive. By the end of rehearsal, he had my name beside 17 songs, including two from South Pacific.
I hadn't sung in public since I was 16, after a humiliating experience with a community theatre production of South Pacific. At the auditions, I'd sung my heart out for the lead role, Nellie the Nurse, and was offered the part of Liat, a mute teenager. At the cast party, the director told me that in the real show my character sings two songs, but my voice was so poor he'd cut them.
And here I was, 35 years later, singing Nellie's solos in a bar with my father on portable piano. His advice: "If you can't remember every word, just hum until you pick up the song again. The people in the audience can't even hear that well." And with that, my dapper dad introduced the show.
Rick sang the first dozen songs, which gave me a chance to check out the audience – nine women, my father's faithful followers from the beach. It was a slow night. During my set, I hummed through the duet with Rick, mangled Send in the Clowns and tunelessly garbled the songs from South Pacific. Every few minutes, my father would look out for Harold, the mattress magnate. By 7:30, the song list finished. I assumed Harold wasn't coming. Still, I prayed my father's new friend would walk in. When I was 3, my father followed me around our new neighbourhood as I went from house to house looking for friends. Now, I wanted the same thing for him.
At 7:45, Harold arrived with 15 friends, including several singers. My father sprang back to life. Suddenly, he looked like a younger man. He sat up a little straighter and played the piano with a flourish that made my heart swell. Right before the end, he cajoled me to do an encore of I'm Gonna Wash that Man Right out of My Hair. As I stumbled through the second verse I thought, "This goes way beyond unconditional love." But this was my father's senior talent show and how many more would there be?
I wish I could stop time right here, while he still has all his brain cells and I have most of mine, where he still tries to be the boss and I generally go along with him. Maybe I should take a few singing lessons, just in case, for next year.
Michele Luchs lives in Montreal.