Willie Keith meets May Wynn

Willie Keith meets May Wynn at an afternoon audition at Club Tahiti, where he is playing piano for prospective performers. Her unassuming performance of a Mozart aria catches his attention, and she is hired for the club. Their brief exchange after the audition shifts the encounter beyond a routine musical appointment: Willie invites her to dinner, later explaining that there is nothing else he cares to do with his life. The meeting begins a relationship that the narrative marks as unlike his earlier college romances.

The Audition at Club Tahiti

The encounter takes place in spring, on a cold, wet day, in the shabby room where Willie plays for auditions. Club Tahiti is not an elegant setting: its worn interior and neglected decorations make it a modest workplace rather than a glamorous stage. Yet the club matters to Willie because it is a place where he feels capable and accomplished. He is comfortable at the piano and treats the audition as familiar business, assessing the singers as they arrive.

One performer sings Night and Day, but the audition does not make a strong impression on him. The other is a small, initially nondescript girl wearing a large black hat. May Wynn brings a thick arrangement to the piano and asks Willie to look over the piece. Her reserved entrance sets her apart from the more conventionally self-assured audition that preceded her, but it is the music, rather than her appearance, that changes Willie’s attention.

May Wynn’s Performance

Willie begins playing a Mozart aria he knows by heart. May leans on the piano as she sings, and the scene becomes an exchange between singer and accompanist rather than a formal demonstration. Willie recognizes that she is not a major professional voice; the appeal lies instead in the freshness and apparent sincerity of her singing. His years of listening to opera allow him to distinguish technical stature from the pleasure she takes in the music.

May’s familiarity with the aria is evident in her accurate Italian pronunciation and her apparent understanding of the words. She accompanies the imagined guitar part with a small, playful gesture, and Willie responds with a smile and a nod while continuing to play. The blonde singer, already leaving, stops to listen. These details give May’s audition a quality of ease and shared enjoyment that contrasts with the earlier performance’s effort to secure work. Willie’s interest begins not with a claim that May is the most accomplished singer, but with the personal charm of the way she performs.

The description also gives a brief indication of the work behind May’s appearance. Her hands are strong, with roughness around the knuckles attributed to dishwashing. The detail quietly places the musical audition alongside the practical labor of her life, without making her performance seem like a polished professional act. She sings for pleasure as well as for the possibility of a job, and that combination is central to the impression she makes on Willie.

The Job and the Invitation

May is offered a start the following Monday and reacts with surprise. Mr. Dennis asks Willie to show her around, then leaves the two alone among the club’s artificial palm fronds and coconuts. Their first direct exchange is brief: Willie congratulates her and offers his hand, and May returns the handshake with a firm, warm grasp. The hiring establishes the practical reason for their meeting, while this moment gives them an opportunity to speak without the proprietor or the other singer present.

Willie explains the basic arrangements of the job, including the small dressing room and the schedule of performances. He then asks whether May likes pizza and proposes taking her to dinner. When she questions why he wants to do so, he answers that, at that moment, it is the only thing he cares to do with his life. The declaration is a marked departure from his businesslike role as accompanist: his attention has become immediate and personal. May does not simply accept without reservation; she looks at him with wonder and caution and says she must make a phone call. The scene ends with the invitation accepted only in that qualified, still-unsettled sense.

Significance of the Meeting

The narrative sets this encounter against Willie’s earlier romantic history. He has flirted and previously mistaken several attractions for passion, but the arrival of May is presented as a different kind of emotional event. That contrast gives the audition consequences beyond the hiring of a singer: the evening marks the beginning of the love that becomes one of the great events of Willie’s spring, alongside the notice from his draft board.

The scene’s change in direction is modest but decisive. Willie enters with the assurance of a young man in a familiar domain, expecting to evaluate performers; May’s song instead draws him into a response he did not plan. The worn piano, the ordinary audition, and the brief handshake remain part of the encounter’s scale, while his invitation makes clear how swiftly its importance has grown for him. The meeting thus introduces May through her musical warmth and guarded independence, and Willie through the sudden intensity with which he singles her out.