He was always the main attraction that season in St. Croix, the pianist comedian, the comic pianist, and part time magician, if you count how he charmed. We threw huge parties that spilled from the lawn down into the sand, guests drawn inevitably towards the water. The time we set up his piano on the beach, long tables set with china and gold rimmed glasses and flamingo gravy boats, dinner on a hundred perfect plates. We sat before him like a garden in floral dresses, passing around bottles as he joked and played. We saw a pod of evening surfers and a real pod of dolphins that night, their silhouettes grooving with classical piano and a nonsense song sung on the wind out to sea.