Stream Theory-
stick your toe in the current and you might get pulled under
The streams surged under my feet, vibrations, string-theory echoes of a million paths a single life could take.
High-end restaurant seeks engaging hostess, no experience required.
Word on the street was that management was looking for someone fun. And pretty. And probably younger than me.
I can’t remember who suggested that I make that drive from our little home in DeSoto, Texas to downtown Dallas to interview for a job. Inexperienced in the hospitality industry, I masked my anxiety with wide-eyed enthusiasm. I was stunned when, with very little experience and a school teacher resume, I was hired to work the door at Sipango. And I was grateful. I needed that second paycheck. My job was to greet, seat, and schmooze a little. I was comfortable with that. It wasn’t rocket science. I’d grown up on stage, singing with my family, and I had learned how to be cordial and communicative. I had been practicing that since I was eight or nine. It probably didn’t hurt that “growing up in a performing family” had trickled out of my resume.
My husband had been doing everything he could think of to pull us out of a financial nosedive. Up until then, he’d made a living for our family by making music—he wrote the songs, we both sang them—but the music had dried up for a time, and so did the work. When you’ve been involved with songwriting and singing your whole life, it’s hard to see what could be on the other side of this collapse. It was my turn to try to earn a paycheck, and I had another job at the time, too. I worked days as a paraprofessional at my kids school, right around the corner from our home in DeSoto.
When I left for school in the morning, he would keep himself busy in the garage or tinkering at household chores. By the time I got home in the afternoon, I would often find him sitting in an armchair in the corner of the living room, completely still, negotiating with demons. It wasn’t depression; it was annihilation. For a time, he just couldn’t.
Thankfully, the junior high school required only daytime hours from 8:15 to 3:15, and my new weekend shifts as a hostess at Sipango, an electric night spot in Dallas, sat roughly between 8 pm and 2:00 am Friday through Saturday.
I enjoyed my jobs with the exception of being forced to leave my young children for half of the weekend to pull it off. I never wanted to head downtown right before bedtime. I worked at their school; that had to be enough at the time.
It sounds insane. It was insane.
For months, my body ached from coming in and out of jet-lag, living different schedules. Just as I was starting to adjust on Wednesdays and Thursdays at the school, I fell back into a 3:00 am bedtime on the weekends.
Before then, I had never fully experienced any kind of night life unless I was touring with my parents, or singing background vocals for my sister in Las Vegas. After recording you light up my life, Debby had been pulled through a portal and immediately hit the road. I was elated that she invited me to come on the road with her and her band, and even work in Las Vegas when she opened for Kenny Rogers. Vegas crackled with energy, but my interaction with the casino life was tame. I drank Lillet with a twist of orange, and lost money at blackjack. But when I worked in the heart of downtown Dallas, listening to an eight piece band playing dance music felt like a coming out party.
An upscale restaurant at 8:00 pm, Sipango later transformed itself into a dance club, The Rio Room, that revved up around 10:00 or so. That’s when the place sizzled with energy.
I loved the night life—falling through the looking glass into a waterless pool of potential—where moving forward felt like falling backwards. A vortex.
Ladies were decked out in high priced cocktail wear: sleek, Marc Jacobs black, shimmering fitted Prada suits and glitzy, barely-hanging-on slip dresses. And the men? They seemed confused by the 90s fashion trends: leather jackets and white tees, mildly grungy JNCOs and combat boots, Calvin Klein slacks and unbuttoned linen shirts, and of course, elegant streamlined suits and ties. If they walked in the door in casual wear, they were encouraged to accept a jacket offered by the management. I knew I didn’t have the preferred wardrobe, so I tried to make up for it with sleek, long hair and an outgoing personality. Performative, perhaps, which makes sense, considering the entertainment driven childhood.
The early guests at Sipango leaned toward mature couples, professionals, and entire families. But as the evening proceeded, The Rio Room fired up the band’s thumping base and drums, pulling all of the would-be dancers to slip out from their booths and move toward the dance floor. A younger, dance/bar crowd began to arrive. It was contagious, and I couldn’t resist dancing from my post at the front door.
I was propositioned there, more than once, I think, but I'm known for being slow on the uptake. Near closing one night, a woman with luxuriously long, wavy, silver-blonde hair hugged me on her way out, bathing me in praise for my hair and my Doc Martens. Her date—or husband, or boyfriend—nuzzled her, and slipped a hundred dollar bill, folded neatly in half, into my hand. Confused, I missed the invitation until they both came very close, and made it a little more clear. “We have a limo waiting right outside. Please. We want you to come with us!”
I awkwardly declined.
“I'm so sorry,” trying to give back the money. “I have kids waiting for me at home. And a husband.”
Patient smiles. “No, no, it's for you. We’ll be back.”
The Rio Room had functioned as a disco with DJs in the past in more than one location, but after it became conjoined with Sipango on Travis Street, an evolutionary shift brought live music—a rhythm section pounding in sync with horns, and a charismatic singer, Top, who filled the room with his energetic vibe consisting of 80s funk, soul, and pop. I adored him. The R&B music, with Top up front, pumped joy into the room like champagne at a wedding.
Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” got the dance party started, and I didn’t need an invitation.
Can you feel it?
A cool stream of magic flowed through the Rio Room to the restaurant’s front door, passing right under me where I stood, as if I had stuck a toe into the energy of my college days. In 1977, I danced to “If I Can’t Have You, I Don’t Want Nobody, Baby,” in small rooms with loud speakers and no date. Just the music and some John Travolta moves. At Sipango in the 90s, I didn’t mind it one bit that I got to dress up again, put on makeup, fluff my hair, and head to work on the weekends, an escape from day to day responsibilities and issues I didn't know how to contain or resolve.
“Sneaking out the back door to hang out with those hoodlum friends of mine…”
My handler, so-to-speak, was Louie. He rocked a Benicio del Torro vibe, dashing with a pinch of dangerous, and he knew everyone. He interviewed me, hired me, and gave me discreet instructions throughout the night, manager-to-hostess. Someone's whole evening could be ruined by being seated in the wrong place, near the wrong people. He was an expert at knowing how to keep his guests satisfied. And when he huddled up speaking in soft tones with the owner and higher level management, it seemed there were deals being made. Secrets, maybe.
Louie, dressed in pressed shirts and shiny jackets, served as the Mâitre D’ at Sipango, and he taught me how to salsa dance in the club and afterparties. With no previous training, I became a sexy salsa dancer when he led me intuitively by channeling gentle pressure from his hands to mine. It felt like he could lead me safely into another room, another dimension, where I could play with the big kids. The streams surged under my feet, vibrations, string-theory echoes of a million paths a single life could take.
If one vibrational stream crosses another without merging, does the second stream ever circle back to create another crossing? A second chance?
If my DNA ever included a gene for being decisive, it had remained cryptic, unexpressed, throughout my life. Believing the way I did as a young woman, there would have to be a man or a spiritual leader—also a man—to chart a course and make my decisions for me. In lieu of making choices from a place of understanding myself, and knowledge of the direction I might want to go, I had been influenced, led, or misled.
That's what I told myself, anyway.
I may not have known where I was going, but I had nonetheless surrendered to the waters, allowing myself to drift as long as I was still breathing. I married young and adored my husband, and craved the company of my children, but I was waiting for something, or someone, to take over and pull us all safely to shore. Gazing into the Rio Room on the third watch of the night, I stood at the cross section of two streams: the one I knew, and the one to which I was being drawn. I’ve had times in my life when careless and youthful indiscretion wove itself into my adult life, and nights at the Rio tempted me to see what else might be behind Door Number Two. I was teasing the fabric to see what was under the edges.
I chose wisely—I wanted what I had, so I always went home after work.
But the crossing of the streams marked me like opaque coordinates on a map I couldn’t read, and didn’t know how to use.
Little did I realize my mild mannered teacher's aide had a different life on the weekends back then. Great writing. John Droll
Beautifully told, Laury. What resonates with me is that feeling when you're tethered to one life but have your feet in another. For me, it was work, sometimes simply the work itself, but also the people and the travel associated with my different jobs. And if I think further back to the days when I danced at clubs and concerts, that's a whole other story. Thank you for inviting us into yours.