by Amber Foxx
But she had gotten him drunk and then driven him to his hotel and parked the van in that out of the way place, knowing it was unlocked. He had only one stalker. She was the thief. She was the poisoner. And she had Gasser. Why?
Chapter Thirteen
Mae and Stamos made their way through a dense crowd to their seats. They had a long walk to the first row in the second tier of the arena, during which neither spoke except for a quiet reminder from Stamos cautioning Mae to watch her purse and her pockets. They hadn’t exactly had a fight on the drive, but it felt close to one, and Mae wondered if that was what a real fight with Stamos would be like. She would talk, and he would say next to nothing. Her first taste of being involved with a strong silent type. He didn’t thaw out until the opening act, an all-female bluegrass band. With great relief Mae saw him smile and tap his toes to the music. She reached over and took his hand.
“Thought you were mad at me.”
“A little. You asked me twice if I still wanted to come to this. I said yes once. That was enough.”
He’d been so contemptuous of Joe Wayne’s character, she’d wanted to double-check he could still enjoy the music. The yes had been hard and cool. When she’d called Jamie, Stamos had withdrawn even further, giving one-word answers to her questions.
“I thought maybe it was because I talked so long with Jamie.”
Stamos frowned and exhaled a kind of laugh. “I am not jealous of that man.”
“I didn’t say you were. I just thought it bugged you—me helping him out some more.”
He raised a finger to his lips, smiled, and took her hand again, returning his attention to the band.
As long as the bluegrass ladies played and sang, he looked happy enough. Then Joe Wayne Brazos and the Big Bad Band came on, and Joe Wayne’s sensual baritone growled a suggestive “Hello,” earning whoops and shrieks from women in the audience. Stamos stiffened. He pressed his hands down on the seat, bracing himself up straighter.
The band—bass, guitar, piano, drums, and backup singers—exploded into their first big hit, “Good Life, Bad Habits.” The song had always made Mae laugh, as it cleverly twisted certain facts—red wine, coffee and higher income being associated with better health—into the suggestion that sinners outlived the good guys. Mae glanced at Stamos. No sign of enjoyment.
“Forget about that whole bill of goods you been sold,
It’s rich men and bad boys that live to be old.”
Sooner or later Stamos would have to get in the mood of the music, wouldn’t he? How could he not? Joe Wayne rocked.
Unexpectedly, Joe Wayne reminded Mae of Jamie. Like Jamie, the country star flowed easily between various instruments and from singing to dancing, charming the audience with a larger-than-life personality. He could cut loose into some flying footwork and then slip right back into fiddling or guitar picking, the music moving through his body so he seemed to still be dancing. Joe Wayne had a powerful musical voice too, though he’d smoked away his high notes and roughened its texture.
It was strange to see this kinship, this echo. A black man and a white man really couldn’t look alike, aside from a similar build, and the light hair and dark beard. The Texan country singer was sharp featured with a thin, hard mouth, and had that cool, blue cowboy squint, while Jamie had a softer look with his broad nose and full lips and those big black baby seal eyes. The biggest contrast, of course, was the setting. The huge arena, the bright lights and banks of amplifiers. The signs of success.
After a world-weary bar-room ballad, Joe Wayne drank some water, made a sign to his bass player, and spoke to his audience with a kind of conspiratorial intimacy.
“I got a bad review.” He took a beat, then laughed, a low, goofy huh-huh sound that was funny in itself. “As you might expect, a woman wrote it.” He winked with a wicked one-sided smile, drew a folded clipping from his jeans pocket, and made a show of whipping it out straight. “Gonna share a few words of this fine lady’s wisdom with you all.” He pulled his shoulders back and read, imitating a woman’s voice full of Southern-belle propriety and outrage. “Joe Wayne Brazos obviously writes for men. His songs brazenly defend every vice and flaw a man could have. Drinking, fighting, cheating, lying, and being lazy. Spending all his money on horses and cars. He never apologizes, never regrets. I think Sylvie Wainwright must be a man named Sylvester”—here Joe Wayne guffawed in his own voice, and then resumed reading as the offended lady—“because a woman could not have coauthored these macho anthems. If there’s anything a man could do that his woman wouldn’t like, Joe Wayne will boast about it. Except for getting a beer gut. Maybe at least that is beneath him.”
Laughing more softly now, he pocketed the review, rubbed the region of his zipper, and purred, “My gut’s beneath somebody. Somebody bouncin’ right here.” He leaned close to the mic and said softly, “Sylvie likes her privacy, she don’t want no limelight. She just wants to write songs and mind her own business. But she’s a woman.” His voice caressed the word. “And she helped me write this next one.”
Mae whispered to Stamos, “He sounds proud of her. Maybe he’s not as bad to her as you thought.”
“No. Trust me.”
The big-bellied bass player joined Joe Wayne, setting up additional mics for his voice and guitar as Joe Wayne continued in the same tender, intimate tone. “Sylvie and I dedicate this song to Ms. Roberta Haines of Dallas, author of that fine review. We’d like to thank her for the inspiration. And so would Bubba,” Joe Wayne nodded to the bass man, “and his wife.”
Joe Wayne and Bubba counted down, and the band broke into a rowdy, hard-driving song, the two men harmonizing and obviously having the time of their lives.
“I like green chile cheeseburgers, taters, and beer,
And mom's home cooking and it shows up here.”
Each took a hand off his guitar, patted his belly, and resumed playing, every move perfectly timed. Joe Wayne at most might have had what Jamie bemoaned as an inch, while Bubba’s white, hairy gut hung out from under his shirt.
“But my woman ain’t nagging, in fact she’s bragging,
And this is what her girlfriends hear.”
The backup singers joined in:
“Love handles—help her hold on tight
When we’re hot and sweaty and we slip and slide.
A little paddin’ on the saddle keeps her satisfied
When my cowgirl’s buckin’ on an all-night ride.”
The bucking line drew a round of whoops and shouts. Stamos didn’t laugh, didn’t even smile. He stared as if watching his favorite team losing a big game. Mae hadn’t taken him for a prude. His sexual innuendo was more genteel, but he normally appreciated a naughty joke.
On the next verse Joe Wayne and Bubba took turns singing the lines.
Joe Wayne started with “She’s skinny as a snake and I like her like that—”
Bubba took it up: “So she don’t mind if I get fat.”
They harmonized again on the rest:
“Cause when you’re bareback in nothing but your boots and hat
It should sound like this—”
The music stopped, both men raised their shirts and smacked their bellies, “and not like that.”
They knocked a single hard sound on their guitars.
The audience whooped again, and the full band roared into the chorus. Mae looked around. Plenty of beer guts. She whispered to Stamos, “Reckon anyone’ll work out to this song?”
He raised an eyebrow and forced half a smile, not looking much amused by her joke either, but at least he’d tried.
Joe Wayne grabbed his fiddle to play a fancy variation on the verse, and then set it down and danced, tossing off some fancy steps and hip swings while the band played virtuosic riffs on guitars. As the chorus rolled around, Joe Wayne returned to his mic, slinging his guitar strap over his shoulder in another tightly choreographed move, to sing it one more time.
“Love handles—help her hold on tight ...”
As applause greeted the end of the song, Mae wondered what that critic in Dallas would think. The song was too risqué for radio, but it would likely be big on YouTube and downloads. The critic would probably recognize it as an elaborate act of revenge, mocking her by turning that bad review into another success.
“Thank you.” Joe Wayne took his hat off, shook his hair, and put the hat back on. “Guess we’d better cool things off a little.”
Bubba returned to his usual place, and the lights dimmed on the band, catching Brazos alone in a straw-colored circle. He changed to an acoustic guitar and tuned. “This is my newest outlaw ballad.”
The melody rambled, not sad but thoughtful, with a hint of ironic regret.
“She was older than me, and I couldn’t help but see
We wouldn’t last a long time
But if I had to do it over I’d still be her lover
For a week or two, and make her heart one quarter mine.”
Stamos stood, excusing himself. Mae assumed he was on his way to the men’s room, since there was no drama to his exit, no great change is his demeanor. The next line made her think twice.
“I served a short tour of duty in the service of her beauty
And meant to send her home to him with no damage done ...”
Military imagery. An older married woman. Stamos walking out. What if this song was about Stamos’s wife? If so, failing to make an introduction at the Route 66 Classic Car Show was hardly Joe Wayne’s worst behavior. How much had Stamos held back about why he didn’t like Joe Wayne? Why had he agreed to come? Mae looked for her date’s back, as if she could read him that way, but he had already vanished into the stairway. He must have hurried.
The magic carpet shot out from under Mae completely. Stamos’s generous, flexible willingness to accommodate her wishes looked like martyrdom now. Or compensation—though Joe Wayne could hardly look out through the blinding lights into the crowd and see that Stamos had a new younger woman. It made her sad to imagine Stamos feeling that way, sad for him as well as disappointed for herself. She hoped she was wrong.
Stamos was waiting for her at the end of the show, near the same door they had come in by. He opened it for her and took her arm as they walked to her car. “I apologize for not coming back. I thought it best to listen from out here rather than climb over everyone again.”
Plausible, but she doubted it. “You worried me. You could have sent a text or something. I kept looking for you.”
“I’m sorry. I hope you still enjoyed it.”
“When I asked you if you wanted to skip it, you should have told me. I’d’ve respected that.”
Stamos let go of her and looked out across the lot.
“If what I think that was about is true ...” Mae reached for his hand, wanting to reconnect. “I shouldn’t find out because Joe Wayne sings a song about one of his affairs. You should tell me. We need to get to know each other.”
Stamos’s hand was almost lifeless in hers. “I told you enough about Diana.”
“You said she got restless and dissatisfied after she left the Navy. I took that to mean like how I felt when I didn’t have a job. Not to mean she cheated on you. That’s a big hurt to keep to yourself.”
“I think civilized people try not to speak ill of their former partners.”
“You don’t have to call her names and tear her down to tell me the truth.”
They had a considerable distance to cover across the parking lot. Around them people sang snatches of Brazos songs or talked loudly. A hefty couple a few paces ahead swung each other’s arms vigorously, practically hollering the chorus to “Love Handles.”
Stamos muttered, “That song was all about getting women to imagine having sex with Joe Wayne.”
“Made me picture someone having sex with Bubba.” Mae pushed the image away. “Reckon you’d hear it the way you did, though. I’m not insisting, but I think we’d understand each other better if you told me what happened with your wife and Joe Wayne.”
“Fine.” Stamos walked a little further apart from her. “You will have it. Commander Diana’s faithlessness.”
That sounded cold. “You called your wife that?”
“Yes. Fondly, at times. That was her Navy rank. And her way of life. In command. She’d been out seeing the rest of Summerfest, strutting around in little white shorts and a tight white tank top. Commanding attention and enjoying it. She is a beautiful woman and does not look her age. When she joined us, Brazos took off his sunglasses and told her how good she looked next to his car. He asked her to pose in it and took a picture, and they talked. When she said she’d been in the Navy, he said she must have launched a thousand ships. At first it was charming, but after a while they acted as though they’d forgotten I was there.”
“Didn’t you say anything?”
“In my own way, yes.” Stamos’s lips pressed into the thin line of a bitter smile. “He marveled that a woman so young could be retired. I remember that, because she started to say the Navy lets you retire at—and she stopped, like she didn’t want to tell him her age. He’s what, twenty-something? And my beloved was a little over forty. So I said her age for her.”
Though what Stamos had done at that moment was understandable, it was passive-aggressive. A good way to drive his wife off, not pull her back from Joe Wayne. “Doesn’t seem to have stopped Joe Wayne.”
Stamos cut each word out even more crisply than usual, his face hard. “He took the sign off his car and drew a sketch on the back. Diana in a little toga-like dress with a bow and arrow in her hands and a crescent moon behind her. He wrote Diana the huntress, goddess of the moon, and signed it Joe Wayne Brazos, with his phone number.”
“He’s got nerve—trying to pick up your wife right in front of you.”
“She encouraged him. I told her if she ever called that number I would sell that picture on e-Bay, with a provenance that would make her blush.”
“Did you?”
“Alas, she kept it, so I cannot make my little fortune. But after I said that, Joe Wayne acted the ‘good old boy’ and buddy to me again, and made me think it was all a game—at the time.” Stamos fell silent for a while, scanning the row of cars. “Are we in K? Or L?”
“K. Two down from the sign. Next to a big SUV. How did you find out she called him?”
“She took trips to Austin. Stayed overnight. She wasn’t any more discreet than he was. Perhaps I can’t blame her. A rich and famous younger man, and her marriage on the rocks.”
“I’d blame her. Cheating is cheating.”
Stamos glanced at Mae with a curious frown, as if she had said something new. My God, he’s been blaming himself. That’s why he wouldn’t tell me.
“In the end,” he said, “Brazos hurt her, but I couldn’t take her back. I don’t think he loves women. Only the dogs and the car. She should have seen that before she let him have her.”
“Because of how he treated the woman walking the dogs?”
“No.” Stamos’s voice dropped, soft yet harsh with passion. “Because of how I treated Diana. I had shown her what love is.”
Mae offered Stamos her hand, he squeezed it, and then let it go. They arrived at her car. “You still feeling like a trucker or you want me to drive?”
“Very much the trucker.”
Very much the man wanting to be the Man. Mae got in and found the Bad Sweetheart CD case on the floor of the passenger seat where she’d dropped it. Before putting it away she looked at the pictures of Joe Wayne Brazos and his car and his dogs again, and at the words that spread above them. Mae had never taken it seriously. The man in the song admitted to being unfaithful, often in trouble, and still loving the woman he treated wrong. It had an odd twist, though—there was no begging forgiveness or feeling unworthy as there might be in most such country songs. The singer knew he had power and that he could get away with anything. Including Diana Tsitouris.
The off-stage Joe Wayne Brazos, or Joseph Bradford Wainwright the Third, was only true t
o part of his public persona, though. Rather than being the redneck cowboy he played, he was educated or sophisticated in a way that could impress a woman like Commander Diana, with his British car and exotic African dogs, and classical allusions in a well-drawn sketch.
When the night grew late, and Mae had taken her turn to sleep, she had to work hard to talk Stamos into letting her drive. His resistance to it made her think martyr again. A man of his generation could have more conventional male-role expectations, and maybe it was part of being Greek, too, but it was the thing that disappointed her about him.
They took turns driving and sleeping for the rest of the night, and through all of the next day, stopping for walks and bodyweight workouts at rest stops’ picnic grounds. Stamos kept in relentless phone contact with his Pilates studio during business hours, even though the holidays were the slowest time of year for such a business and he was on vacation. The subject of Joe Wayne and Diana didn’t come back up. Nothing of importance did. All their talk was small. Mae felt that her attempt to force him to get closer by sharing had backfired for both of them.
At the end of her final turn to drive for the day, she pulled into the hotel outside Little Rock, their halfway stop. Stamos looked up from reading an e-book on his smartphone and gave her a distant but friendly smile as he came back from wherever the story had taken him.
They got out and stretched. It was warm for December, barely a chill in the air at all. Stamos took only his overnight bag from the trunk. Mae picked up her overnight bag and her laptop.
“Why bring the computer in?” Stamos asked. “We only have time to sleep and get up and drive again.”
“You have that smartphone you been messing with all day.” Mae closed the trunk and locked the car, and then started toward the front door. “I don’t. I need to do some stuff.”
“Get some sleep. E-mail can wait. If it’s urgent people will call you.”
“I need to look something up.”
They entered the hotel and checked in. The mischievous wink Stamos gave Mae when the clerk asked if they needed one room or two came as a pleasant surprise. It was nice to see him feeling playful again, but she asked for two rooms. Before they’d left for the concert she’d been ready for a shared room. She might be ready again on the way back—maybe—but not tonight.