Just as were starting to think about what we should do for lunch, a car pulled to a sudden stop in the otherwise empty little street next to us. “Hey! Leah! Emmy!” called out the driver as he stepped from his beat-up old Jeep Cherokee.

I expected some sort of Downfall fan excited to see his favorite rock star but it turned out far more surprising than that.

“Hey, you two!” said Mr Pacheco, the old music teacher from Fallbrook High School. “What are you guys doing here?” he asked.

“Um, what are you doing here?” I asked, trying to process.

“I live here now,” he explained, leaving his car in the middle of the street, door wide open. “I retired from teaching the year you guys graduated. Now I’m back here in Florida,” he said, grinning, happy to see familiar faces.

“It is very good to see you, Mr Pacheco,” Emmy said. “We are here for our honeymoon,” she explained, holding up her hand to show off her wedding ring.

“You guys got married? That’s great!” he said. “And call me Jordie. I’m not Mr Pacheco the teacher any more. Now I’m Jordie the beach bum and small business owner, and even my employees don’t call me Mr Pacheco.”

“Jordie, it is, then. It is nice to see you again,” Emmy said.

“Emmy, I’ve got to say I’ve been following your career and I’m super impressed. You’ve really been making a name for yourself. It’s great to see,” Jordie said. I was going to have a hard time with calling him Jordie, but I’d give it a try.

“Hey, have you guys had lunch yet?” he asked as a car pulled up behind where his Jeep was blocking the street. “How about I treat you to the best conch chowder on the island?” he asked, pronouncing it ‘konk’.

Emmy looked at me and I just shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

The three of us got into Jordie’s rusty car and drove three blocks up the street to a small parking lot next to a brick building covered in brightly painted murals. The restaurant occupied the entire ground floor. Well, I say ‘entire’, but it wasn’t particularly large at all. It seemed like the type of place that catered to the locals and not the tourist trade, but there were a handful of tables occupied by what were clearly out-of-towners. In just the few hours we’d been in Key West I could already discern the signs.

Jordie led up to an empty table by the window as everybody else in the place gawped at us. As I’ve said, I had mostly gotten used to it now. It was only on the occasional rare moments when I became aware of the staring.

To my surprise, Jordie didn’t sit down with us. “What would you two like to drink?” he asked as if he was the waiter. After taking our requests for a Coke for me and an iced tea for Emmy, he hustled back into the kitchen. The real waiter came over and handed us menus, which were just folded photocopies on mango-orange paper. “Once Jordie gets you your drinks,” he said, “I’ll be taking care of you guys. I’d recommend the Cuban sandwich.” Looking around to make sure nobody was listening, he leaned in conspiratorially “It’s the best thing on the menu,” he said in a low voice.

“Nonsense,” Jordie said as he placed three drinks on the table. “Joey, three bowls of chowder,” he ordered.

Shrugging, Joey said “You’re the boss,” as he headed back to the kitchen.

“How that kid managed to grow up here in the Keys hating seafood is beyond me,” Jordi said, shaking his head.

“I have to admit I’m not generally a big seafood fan, either,” I admitted.

“Well, at least try the chowder. If you don’t like it, well, the sandwich is pretty good.”

When Joey brought out the chowder, he asked Jordie “Is there any way I can get off a bit early today? Some of the boys want to go out tonight and asked if I could go.”

“You’re supposed to close tonight, right? If you can get Manny to close you’re good.”

“Thanks!” Joey said, immediately heading back to the kitchen, presumably to talk to Manny.

“My nephew,” Jordie explained. “Good kid, and a decent worker, which is rare around here, let me tell you. Anyway, the chowder,” he said waving at the bowls. “Probably not what you were expecting?”

“Um, no,” I admitted. “I guess when I think of chowder I imagine sort of a gluey white kind of thing.”

“Yeah, this isn’t that,” Jordie said, smiling. “Give it a try.”

“It kinda looks like minestrone,” I said, stirring the soup to give it a bit to cool down.

“Yeah, it does a bit,” agreed Jordie. “Most places use canned tomatoes, but we only use fresh,” he said, his pride showing.

“So how does a music teacher from Fallbrook wind up owning a restaurant all the way over here in Key West?” I asked as I waited for my soup to cool down a bit more. I don’t have a very high tolerance for food that’s too hot, and I didn’t want to burn my mouth. For some reason it seems that tomatoes really retain the heat well, so I was taking precautions.

“Well, I’m actually from here originally. My family has lived in the Keys and Southern Florida for generations. My great grandfather opened this restaurant in 1923,” he said. “I wound up in Fallbrook the same way everybody does- the Marines.”

As he was giving us his life story, I finally got around to trying the chowder. Honestly, and I say this as somebody who really doesn’t like seafood much, it was really good. A whole lot spicier than I’d expected, too, even though I hadn’t added a bunch of Tabasco the way Jordie had done to his.

“I met a local girl when I was stationed at Pendleton, got married and settled down,” Jordie explained. “I didn’t want to grow avocados working for my in-laws, so I finished college and got a job as a teacher,” he said finishing up his bowl of chowder. “Twenty years later, it was time to cash it in and come back here.”

“Has it been difficult, coming back home after so long away?” Emmy asked.

“Naw, not for me. For Sherry, though (that’s my wife) it’s been a bit of culture shock. But she likes to sail, so we spend a lot of time on the water. Plus we get up to Miami one, maybe two weekends a month in low season and she likes that. So it’s been O.K.”

“Do you still play music?” Emmy asked, and pointed to the small stage on one side of the room. It was really just a raised area with a couple of track lights aimed down on it, but it was a stage.

“Yeah, on Friday and Saturday nights a couple of friends of mine and I play. Mostly just classic tunes to keep the tourists happy, you know?”

"I would like to see that,” Emmy said, then turned to me. “Mr Pacheco- sorry, Jordie,” she corrected herself, “Has a wonderful singing voice. We should come back on Friday night to listen.”

After lunch, we walked to the beach shop that Jordie had recommended and got the mosquito repellant we needed, along with some SPF 100 sunblock designed for ocean swimming. I tried on a few bikinis, but really didn’t fall in love with any of them. I had just started looking at the one-piece suits when Emmy came up holding a hanger with an eye-popping blue that actually glowed under the fluorescent lights in the shop. It was fairly minimal, but not nearly as scandalous as something Emmy might wear.

“This is the one,” Emmy announced with finality.

“Mmm… I don’t know,” I said, taking it from her and looking it over.

“This. Is. The. One.”

“Well, let me try it on before we make that call, O.K.?” I asked.

“It will be perfect on you,” Emmy stated with conviction.

“I’m gonna try it on anyhow,” I said and headed for the little dressing room at the back of the shop. Just as I was checking myself out in the mirror, dreading telling Emmy that she was right- it fit me perfectly and did look good, she stuck her head in through the curtain.

“It is the one,” was all she said, before pulling her head back out of sight. Sighing, I changed back into my regular clothes and stepped out into the shop.

“Yes, you were right,” I admitted. “It’s the one.”

“I am looking forward to seeing you in it at the beach,” Emmy said. “And out of it later on.”

I had to admit to myself that so far married life was looking pretty damned good. Emmy was, too, in that sexy little summer dress, and she knew I was watching her little bubble butt sway as she walked. She looked over her shoulder and gave me a wink that promised more fun times in the near future, and all I could think about was rushing back to the bed and breakfast for some play time.

On our way back to the B and B, Emmy was in a great mood, and so was I. It was nice to be out walking, and although it was kind of hot, there was a bit of a breeze moving the early afternoon air around so it wasn’t too bad. Since it was past peak season, there really wasn’t all that much traffic on the commercial street we were walking along and not very many pedestrians, either. It wasn’t that we had the town to ourselves, really, but it wasn’t too far off that, either. Strolling along, holding Emmy’s hand, enjoying being a tourist- it was wonderful. Just the relaxing vacation I needed, and it sure seemed to be doing Emmy a world of good to be there as well.

At the corner of the cross street that would lead us back to where we were staying, just as luck would have it, there was a little guitar shop. Of course, Emmy just had to check it out, so that’s what we did. It certainly wasn’t a repeat of the guitar shop visit back in high school, though. The moment the clerk’s eyes landed on Emmy he recognized who it was and he immediately sprang into fanboy mode.

“Emmy!” he said, rushing up to say hello. “Welcome to ‘The Key Of G’!”

Emmy gave the guy a big smile, saying, “We were just walking by and saw the shop. I wanted to come in and take look around.”

At this point the two other customers had stopped what they were doing and were staring at Emmy as well. I got the feeling it was more a matter of being star-struck than any reaction to her unusual looks. I mean, by this point she’d been on plenty of magazine covers and so on, so she was an easily recognizable figure to almost everybody, not just subscribers to guitar or music magazines.

“Would you like to see any guitars? We have the nice ones over here," he said, leading us to the back wall of the shop.

“Oh…” Emmy gasped, spotting one in particular. “That Taylor is beautiful,” she sighed. “May I see it?”

“Of course!” the guy said, pulling the stunning sea-blue guitar down from the pegs.

Emmy sat down with the guitar and checked and adjusted the tuning before strumming it a little bit. “It has nice sound,” she said, not looking up.

“It’s a really nice piece,” said the shop guy. “Honestly, we don’t sell many guitars that nice,” he admitted. “Mostly it’s acoustics for beginners, or maybe one of those Ovations for people on vacation who want to buy a good guitar to travel with,” he said, babbling.

Looking up from the guitar, Emmy asked “Do you have an amp for trying out?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” the guy said and hustled over to the other side of the shop. While he was busy Emmy played some classical Spanish guitar tune. I know I’d heard her play it before, but I couldn’t tell you the name. As she finished the song, I looked up and realized that not only had I been staring at her, but the shop guy had been standing there, stunned, and so had the other customers in the shop. We all had been watching silently, enjoying the music.

I don’t know who it was that started the clapping, but in a moment we were all applauding Emmy’s playing.

“Thank you very much,” Emmy said with a wide grin, enjoying the attention. “May I try it plugged in now?” she asked the shop guy, pointing to the little amp he’d forgotten all about.

He had the guitar plunged in in a moment, and Emmy flipped a little switch on the top of the guitar and all of a sudden it sounded like a normal electric guitar and not acoustic. Strumming a couple of chords, Emmy made a few adjustments on the controls.

Looking around the shop, she asked “Is it O.K. if I play it a little bit loud?”

“Of course,” the guy assured her.

Needing no more encouragement, Emmy launched into a long, slow blues slide, then picked up the pace into a quick shuffle, still slinky and metallic- sounding. “Well I rolled and I tumbled, I cried the whole night long,” she sang. She played the whole song, at times sliding across the notes and other times strumming hard and fast. “When I woke up this morning, I didn’t know my right from wrong,” Emmy sang and then finished off with one last, long, low note, drawing it out.

“Holy shi…” One of the customers said under his breath.

I’d long since been used to Emmy’s amazing playing, but moments like this hammered home just how awesome and versatile a guitarist (and vocalist) she really was. Seeing as how nobody was making any move to interrupt her, Emmy slid into her next song, another Blues classic (yes, by this point I’d gotten to know quite a bit more blues than I had before).

‘Baby please don’t go’ never sounded like that in any version of it I’d ever heard before, a strange, sexy mix of longing in her voice while playing slinky and smooth, but also bitter vocals when the song turned fast and the playing got angry. I guess Jackson’s emphasis on the blues had really rubbed off on Emmy, all right.

The handful of others in the shop were completely floored. The guy that worked there at least had the sense to get his phone out and record the whole song, though. There was no doubt in my mind that was going up online the moment we left.

Emmy slowed it down after that rocking Blues tune into something much more laid-back and relaxed. ‘Gold Dust Woman’ is one of my favorite classic rock tunes, but the way she played it was somehow even more bluesy and languid than the original, drawing out the melancholy of the song in a way I’d never heard before, even though I must have listened to it hundreds of times growing up.

Emmy was absolutely loving this, performing like she was for the small crowd, which by this point had grown to maybe seven or eight people. After the Fleetwood Mac song, Emmy took a little bow and said “Thank you all for taking the time to listen to me play. It has been a pleasure.”

After that, Emmy posed for a couple of pics with people and the shop guy took a few for promotional purposes. Of course, Emmy just had to buy the guitar after that, too. By this point, a three thousand dollar guitar just seemed par for the course, and Emmy did love the sound and the deep blue color, so why not?

Emmy didn’t even want to put the guitar away to carry it back to the bed and breakfast. She asked if I could carry the case so she could continue to play as we walked. I might have been tempted to roll my eyes, but she was just so sweet in her enthusiasm that I couldn’t possibly begrudge her this tiny thing, so that’s what we did. I carried the guitar case in one hand and our shopping bags in the other, while Emmy walked beside me strumming and picking her new guitar. We only had a few blocks to go and none of what I was carrying was heavy, so it wasn’t bad. As a bonus, having walking music was nice, even though it kept Emmy from chattering the way she had been doing before.

Back in our room, Emmy sat out on the veranda to play a bit more. I could tell something was on her mind, so I gave her a verbal nudge. “You look as if you’re thinking about something, but don’t know how to ask,” I said, sipping my Coke while idly relaxing in the hammock.

“Would it be O.K. with you to go back to Jordie’s tonight for dinner?” Emmy asked, but I could tell that wasn’t what she really meant.

“If you want,” I replied, starting to see where this was going. “You want to play there, don’t you? On the little stage?”

“Yes, I do,” admitted Emmy. “It has been a while since I performed like that today for just a small group of people, and I had forgotten how much I enjoy that. Would it be to much to ask?”

“Of course not,” I replied. “Do you need to call Mr Pacheco- Jordie, I mean, to set it up?”

“I think that might be a good idea,” agreed Emmy, picking up her phone to call the restaurant.

Of course Jordie was ecstatic to have Emmy play at his little restaurant that night. He promised he wouldn't tell anyone. It’d just be the regular crowd, which was exactly what Emmy wanted.

We opted to drive the handful of blocks instead of walking that evening, mainly because we didn’t want to have to walk back later on. Sure, it was lazy of us, but whatever. We were on vacation.

Dinner was as good as lunch had been. Emmy had the ‘konk’ fritters (all my life I’d only ever heard the word pronounced ‘konch’ but here they seemed to think that wasn’t correct). Not wanting sea food again, I opted for the Cuban sandwich and in all honesty, for me anyway, I had to agree with Joey. It was better than the chowder.

The drinks Jordie had set us up with (the same red/orange drinks we’d had at the hotel) were tasty but I could feel my toes start to tingle after only a few sips. I could tell one was going to be my limit if we were going to drive back home after the show was done.

After dinner, Jordie took to the small stage and tapped the microphone to make sure it was working. “Ladies, gentlemen and any others who might be here tonight, thanks to an unexpected circumstance, we have music for you tonight. Yes, it’s only Tuesday, but you’re going to want to stay for this. Heck, Wednesday is a good day to sleep in and not go to work, right?”

I’m pretty sure plenty of people there had put two and two together by this time. I mean, it wasn’t as if Emmy escaped notice anywhere she went ever, much less now that she was famous. Emmy stepped up next to Jordie and smiled, waving to the audience. I don’t think there could have been much more than fifteen tables in the place, and it was only about two thirds full, so maybe forty people at the most would have been my guess.

“Hi! My name is Emmy,” she said into the mic, getting some laughter. I mean, of course most of the crowd knew who she was, right? “I asked Jordie here if I could maybe play tonight, just for free dinner and maybe make some money in tips, and he agreed. I did have to promise to play at least one Jimmy Buffett song, though,” she said, making a face. This got another laugh, because of course she had to play ‘Margaritaville’, right? And of course Emmy would play for tips, because why not?

“So I’ll be taking requests tonight. Just write down what you want to hear and hand it to your server and I’ll see what I can do,” she chirped, all smiles at the idea of almost busking for dinner.

“First, to start things off, I am going to play a song for Jordie here. He is almost directly responsible for my career as a professional musician, you know,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “He was my music teacher in high school back in San Diego, and he suggested I play at an open mic night at a local coffee shop. I earned fifty whole dollars that night!” This got more laughter, as everybody in the place had forgotten their dinners and had turned to watch Emmy.

“It was incredible, and a true turning point in my life. I cannot thank him enough for giving me the boost in confidence to do that. So for him, I will play two,” she said, holding two fingers up to emphasize the point. “Two Jimmy Buffett songs. But that is where I draw the line. Gratitude and friendship only go so far!” This got the biggest laugh of the evening, and it was clear that Emmy had totally captivated the audience by this point.

Picking up her guitar and plugging it in, she gave it a quick little strum to check the sound. “This is a new guitar,” she explained. “I only got it this very afternoon, from the wonderful people over at ‘Key Of G’ guitars. If you happen to need a guitar any time soon, stop on by. Tell them Emmy sent you.”

After adjusting herself on the stool and lowering the mic a bit, Emmy started to play. Within the first few gentle acoustic notes, the audience erupted with applause. When she started to sing, “Mother, mother ocean,” at least a half dozen patrons sang along with her. When she got to the refrain, at least half the restaurant sang “I’ve made enough money to buy Miami, but pissed it away so fast.” Emmy was eating it up, enjoying the love.

After the applause for the first song died down, Emmy said “That was wonderful! Thank you all for joining in! Feel free to sing along to any song I play tonight. I expect most will be very familiar.”

I didn’t know the next song about sailing on a boat with a pony, but plenty in the crowd did and just as Emmy had encouraged, plenty sang along.

Glancing around, I saw a few diners handing slips of paper to the wait staff. Requests for Emmy, apparently, because they were handed to Jordie who put them in a fishbowl on the stage. It was around this time that our waiter asked me if it would be O.K. if Emmy and I shared our table. I looked around and noticed that all the tables had filled up, and more people were trying to crowd in. Word had gotten out, it seemed.

I was fine with another couple at our table, and I said so. The two guys that sat down were an older, obviously well-off gentleman and a younger guy, maybe his son? They introduced themselves as Geoffrey and Hunter, and we shook hands. They ordered the same drink they saw in front of me, which I learned was called a ‘Rum Runner’. We chatted a little bit, but not too much since all three of us were watching Emmy play.

She played a lot of songs I just plain didn’t know, but a few I remember were that old Blondie song, ‘Tide Is High’ and of course ‘Southern Cross’ and ‘Sitting On A Dock On The Bay’. I may not have known most of the songs, but everybody else in the place sure did. So many sang along with every song Emmy sang that it made me feel as if I was the odd one out. Each time she would reach into the fishbowl, stir it around, then draw out a piece of paper. She played every single one, too. A huge crowd pleaser had her singing “Baby baby baby, light the roof on fire." When she sang “I’m on fire!” at least half the crowd did a move where they held their hands above their heads and made as if they were pushing the ceiling up as they sang along.

The second Jimmy Buffett song was one she drew from the bowl. “Oh, no!” she said upon seeing the request, clapping her hand to her mouth. Looking around at the crowd, she said “This is another Buffett song. I had said I would only play two of them tonight, and this one is so much fun that I simply must play it instead of Jordie’s second request. So here you are.” The crowd knew it from just a few notes of the first bar, and soon almost everybody in the place was singing “Why don’t we get drunk and screw?”

When the applause had died down afterwards, Emmy said “I do not know how I could possibly improve upon that, so I think that I must call it a night. Thank you all for being so very much fun. I had a great time tonight and I hope that you all did, too.” Then, remembering, she added “Please do not forget to drive safely on the way home. There are going to be a lot of drunk people on the road tonight!” This got some more laughter, since everybody in the place had been drinking fairly liberally and they knew exactly who the drunks she was referring to were.

Emmy packed her guitar away, then came back to the table to join me and the two guys (whom I had learned were a Miami investment banker and his boyfriend). Of course Emmy instantly became old friends with the two guys, as she does with almost everybody. Soon enough they invited us to go to some civil war fort on some island nearby in their speed boat the next day. Emmy and the two guys were drinking fairly heavily, so I felt that it was time to cut Emmy off and get her out the door by the time she finished the third Rum Runner. We agreed to meet the guys at their marina resort at eleven the next morning, then got good night hugs and thanks from Jordie on our way out.

“Stop by any time,” he said. “Of course you guys eat here for free.”

Emmy and I had learned our lesson about trying to shower together, so I took mine after she was done, only to find her out cold when I emerged from the bathroom. A bit disappointed that there was going to be no play time that night, I climbed under the covers and spooned my little crowd-pleasing artist and thought about the evening. Emmy had been so lit up by simply performing for a small crowd like that- and the crowd had absolutely adored her in return. It was something to see, alright.