Medium Well (9781101599648)

by Benjamin, Meg

  Biddy’s stomach clenched. “Well, you know how it is, Sis. You throw up, you feel better. And he wouldn’t go home afterward—too conscientious.” She plucked at a thread on her skirt. God, she hated A-lines. They made her look like something out of The Brady Bunch.

  Araceli snorted. “Conscientious! That’s rich. Probably just wanted to get back over here to see if he could find a way to butter up Big Al before Zucker called. I knew he couldn’t handle that carriage house. I’ll have to take it over myself. No matter what Big Al thinks, I can handle it just as well as Wonder Boy Ramos. My sales are just as good as his, considering how much other work I have to do.”

  Biddy shook her head. “He did a great job, Sis, honestly. If he hadn’t gotten sick . . .” She stopped, remembering his pale face in the kitchen. He hadn’t been sick. He’d been horrified, then nauseated. By something he’d seen in the kitchen. Something she hadn’t been able to see herself. Biddy rubbed her arms reflexively.

  “So how exactly did this happen?” Her sister leaned toward her, eyes flashing. “Tell me the truth, Biddy. Was he drunk? Was that it? Because it sure as hell wasn’t the flu.”

  Biddy pressed her lips together hard. “He wasn’t drunk, Araceli. He just didn’t feel well.”

  Her sister glared. “I understand loyalty, Biddy, but you’ve got an obligation to me, too. A bigger obligation than you have to him. I’m the boss here. And I’m your big sister.”

  Biddy raised her chin, glaring back. Playing the guilt card wouldn’t work this time.

  After a moment, Araceli shook her head. “All right, all right, but I want you to keep track of him from now on, Biddy. If anything else happens, you need to let me know. Immediately!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she murmured, wondering if she should cross her fingers behind her back.

  Fortunately, Araceli’s phone rang before she could say anything else. Biddy bounced from her chair and out the door, with a quick wave in her sister’s general direction. As she hurried down the hall toward her cubicle, her own phone chirped at her. She pulled it out of her purse and looked at the number.

  “Skip,” she groaned, then hit the connect button. “Hi, I know I’m late. We had a crisis at work. I’ll be there in a few more minutes.”

  “Hey, Biddy, we’ve only got the rehearsal room for an hour.” Skip’s voice sounded anxious for once. Could he actually be taking this gig seriously?

  “It’s okay.” She reached down to toss her briefcase onto her desk, casting a guilty look toward Danny Ramos’s closed door. He probably wouldn’t need her any more today—she doubted he’d want to see anyone from the Gunter family at the moment. “I’m on my way. I’ll be there in fifteen.”

  “Okay.” Skip paused. “Tico’s Taqueria tonight, Biddy. Big time.”

  “I know.” Biddy sighed. “Believe me, I know.”

  ***

  He did not need to call his mother. Danny sat staring at his phone, trying to talk himself out of behaving like an idiot. He was almost thirty—he should be able to handle a crisis on his own.

  Okay, his mom worried about him. Okay, she might be able to suggest something. Okay, maybe he needed somebody to tell him he wasn’t nuts.

  Even if he did call her, what the hell made him think she could do anything for him? Just because his dad always said she’d lived in a bruja’s house for eighteen years. Calling his grandmother a witch didn’t mean she was involved with the supernatural. More likely his dad had based his description on Granny’s personality, given what Danny had heard about her while he was growing up.

  Anyway, his mother definitely wasn’t a witch. And she definitely wouldn’t know anything that could help at the carriage house. Right?

  Supernatural. Danny closed his eyes. It hadn’t been supernatural at the carriage house. He didn’t believe in that stuff. On the other hand, if it wasn’t supernatural, he was cracking up. Really not something he wanted to share with his mother right now.

  As if he’d willed it to happen, his phone rang. Danny jumped, then checked the number. Brenda. He sighed. At least his mother wasn’t psychic. Much.

  “Hi, lover,” Brenda purred in his ear. “What time are you picking me up tonight?”

  “Tonight?” Hell. Had he said anything particular about tonight? Was he supposed to take her somewhere special?

  “Tonight.” Brenda’s voice lost most of its purr. “Our date. Friday night. Remember?”

  No, actually. “Sure, baby.” Danny pitched his voice lower, trying for a little purring of his own. It wouldn’t be a good idea to piss her off before he’d even picked her up.

  “So what time?”

  “How about seven thirty?” If he’d promised her dinner, seven thirty would still be in the ballpark.

  “Fine. Where are we going?”

  “Anywhere you’d like to go, sweetheart,” Danny growled. He didn’t care where they went as long as they ended up in bed as soon as possible. An evening of recreational sex could be just what he needed to take the edge off.

  Based on her sigh, Brenda didn’t feel similarly inclined at the moment. “You don’t have anything planned, do you?”

  “Sure I do. It’s a surprise, baby.” He tried for another seductive growl, but it sounded more like laryngitis. Not his day. Maybe he could bring her back to his place for takeout.

  “Right,” Brenda snapped. “I’ll bet. Well, I’ll see you at seven thirty, then.”

  Danny winced at the hang-up. He had a feeling takeout wouldn’t produce the desired effect. If he wanted some nookie later on, he’d have to come up with someplace good to take her first.

  And this day had started out so well.

  He headed for the outer office, snagging a copy of the San Antonio Express-News. Restaurants, nightclubs, dance halls.

  No, no dancing. That much he already knew. With his luck he’d probably break a leg, maybe hers. He ran his finger down the column of nightclub listings, looking for a name that meant something to him. Brenda would want something trendy. At the moment, the most trendy place he could think of was Burger King.

  His finger paused at one listing. Tico’s Taqueria. He’d heard somebody mention that name not too long ago, but he couldn’t remember who. It didn’t matter. At least somebody had talked about the place. Good enough for him.

  Danny tore the page out of the paper and stuffed it into his pocket. Maybe something was finally going right today. Time for a quick shower and a change of clothes.

  He reached Brenda’s front door by seven thirty-five, not bad considering the traffic on Highway 281.

  Brenda always looked terrific—he’d give her that. Of course, considering the amount of money she invested in personal maintenance, anything less than terrific would have meant she’d been cheated. Subtle reddish highlights gleamed in her auburn hair—her eyelids sparkled with some kind of glitter. She was dressed, mostly dressed, in what he assumed was the latest in club wear. Her halter top dipped down to display the beginning of major cleavage. Her black skirt ended halfway up her thigh, revealing a significant length of Pilates-shaped leg and sandals with heels so high they must have threatened vertigo.

  “So where are we going?” Brenda settled into the seat as he closed the door behind her, not bothering to pull down her skirt.

  “Tico’s Taqueria.” He slipped his Lexus into traffic, deftly avoiding a homicidal Ford Explorer loaded down with kids.

  Brenda raised one immaculate eyebrow. “What the hell kind of place is that?”

  “New music,” he murmured, trying to concentrate on the road rather than her thighs. “I’ve heard people talk about it. Supposed to be good.”

  The crick in Danny’s shoulders began to relax the farther north they drove. Putting distance between himself and the King William District suddenly seemed like a terrific idea. The San Diego investors were taking
the Tobin Hill property, which meant the day hadn’t been a total bust after all. Now, if Tico’s Taqueria just turned out to be something other than a disaster, he could begin to believe that the carriage house wasn’t as big a jinx as he’d feared. Maybe.

  Brenda ran her fingers under the shoulder straps of her top, raising her breasts slightly higher. They weren’t real, but he always appreciated good work.

  “This had better be good,” she muttered, licking her soft pink lips.

  Danny smiled. “Trust me.”

  The slight narrowing of her eyes didn’t bode well.

  He turned off at the Stone Oak exit, inching through the clotted suburban traffic.

  Brenda pouted picturesquely. “I don’t see why you couldn’t have told me about this place on the phone this afternoon.”

  “And spoil the surprise?” He grinned at her, feeling a lot more like himself.

  “Some surprise,” she grumbled, but the corners of her generous mouth trembled as she held back her smile.

  Oh, yeah, maybe at long last, after the day from hell, he might actually be getting lucky. The GPS beeped out some directions, and Danny turned at the next corner.

  Well, crap. Getting lucky had just become somewhat less likely.

  Tico’s Taqueria sat in the middle of a particularly anonymous-looking strip mall between a dry – cleaning shop and an optometrist’s office. Thick curtains covered the plate-glass windows in front, probably remnants of an earlier incarnation. A small display board read: SHORTY GONZALEZ CD RELEASE. OPENING: THE CHALK CREEK CHANGELINGS.

  “Oh yeah,” Brenda snapped. “This looks like one happenin’ place.”

  “Don’t judge it by its outside, babe, wait ’til you hear the music.” Danny hoped he sounded a lot more confident than he felt. It would help if he could remember who’d been talking about Tico’s.

  The inside looked pretty much like the outside, but then he’d expected it would. Still, he hadn’t expected that most of the Formica-topped tables would be full. A bored-looking hostess with bright blue streaks in her jet-black hair found them a booth in the corner, then started back toward the door.

  “Menus?” Danny gave her what usually passed as his charming smile.

  The hostess snorted. “What do you think this is, a restaurant?”

  He felt his smile curdle. “It’s called Tico’s Taqueria.”

  The hostess grimaced, shaking her head, and headed back toward the door again.

  Beside him, Brenda was on a low simmer. “You don’t know anything about this place, do you?”

  “I know the music’s great, babe.”

  Ten minutes later, while they shared a basket of stale tortilla chips and a bowl of salsa from a jar that he’d cajoled from the barmaid, Danny desperately hoped he wasn’t lying. At least the beer was cold.

  A bank of lights flicked on to illuminate the stage, and the club sank into total darkness. The conversation at the tables around them slowed as a guy so large he looked like a Thanksgiving parade balloon wandered onstage scratching his gray beard. The crowd applauded loudly.

  “Evening,” he growled, blinking into the spotlights. “Y’all know me—I’m Tico. We got a good show tonight. Shorty’s new CD’s out next week. Gonna start it off before that with somebody new, the Chalk Creek Changelings. You’ll like ’em. Go for it, kids.”

  Behind Tico, Danny could see several shadowy figures moving around the stage, and then a guitarist stepped toward the row of mikes at the front. “Kid” was right—he looked to be around sixteen or so. Probably thrash rock or something. He glanced at Brenda’s stony face and felt like moaning. So not good.

  The lights caught a guy sitting at the piano on the side of the stage. His hair puffed out in a huge corona, sort of like Sideshow Bob on The Simpsons. The guitarist was playing now, a muted rhythm line, fast and funky. The pianist picked up the melody, the sound tinkling around the rhythm, in between the guitar notes, kind of jazzy but not exactly. The drummer at the side echoed the rhythm on his snare. Behind them, somewhere on the darkened stage, a bass thumped—sounded like an upright.

  Okay, not thrash rock—at least the gods were smiling slightly.

  Another figure stepped to the front of the stage beside the guitarist, a woman in a blue satin dress that slanted across her curves like something out of a thirties movie. Her head was turned away from Danny’s table toward the guitarist, showing a fall of silver blond hair. She tucked a violin under her chin and began to play.

  The crowd came to attention.

  Her violin sounded like it was smiling. Danny had no idea why he thought so, but he did. Somehow the smiling violin drew the other instruments together into a single, lilting line, the guitars, the piano, the bass all following her, moving around her like a mosaic that had finally fallen into place. Oh, yes.

  The lead guitar player began to sing, something about traveling the road with his baby. After a moment, the violinist leaned into the mike beside him and harmonized on the chorus, her voice light and high, bubbling along the tops of the words.

  The carriage house abruptly disappeared from Danny’s brain, as did everything else that had happened that day. All he heard, all he felt, was the music.

  “They’re pretty good,” Brenda muttered.

  “Yeah,” he breathed, eyes on the stage.

  The violinist moved over to the pianist, her fiddle back beneath her chin. Sideshow Bob’s hair bounced wildly around his face as he played, grinning. The violinist picked up his melody, playing harmony in and around the line as she leaned closer. Then she turned back to the mike again, singing with the teenage guitarist.

  The words burbled out through the mike: “Traveling, wandering, my baby’s so fine, yes, yes.” Danny found himself drumming his fingers on the table in time with the bass thumps in the background.

  The violinist held her bow straight up in the air, shimmering in the stage lights like a golden arrow. A signal to the band, last chorus.

  They all swung together, then, one more time, the guitar laying down melody, piano doing variations, bass and drums thumping out the rhythm line, and the violin skipping over it all, flying like some happy bird.

  And then they were done, and the crowd yelled, stomped, clapped. Danny joined in, whistling over his front teeth in a way he hadn’t done since he was in middle school.

  “Danny?” Brenda stared at him.

  He took a breath. Okay, time to cool it. “Good.” He gestured toward the band. “They did a good job.”

  She nodded slowly, her eyes wary. “Right. I noticed.”

  He gave her his most reassuring, seductive smile. At least he thought that’s what it was. She didn’t look convinced.

  The band swung easily into another song, one Danny recognized. The violinist moved forward to the mike, the spotlight outlining her profile.

  “Grab your coat, and get your hat . . .”

  Behind her the bass thrummed while the piano moved up and down the line. They tossed the melody back and forth between them.

  The violinist seemed to wrap the syllables of the lyrics around her tongue, like she was tasting them. She sounded lazy and happy and pleased with life. When she stepped back from the mike and began to play, her violin picked up the melody, sliding easily from note to note. Her eyes were closed until they reached the final verse: “If I never have a cent . . .”

  Sideshow Bob played a riff behind her, his hair swinging wildly. The violinist threw back her head and laughed, then picked up her violin again.

  Familiar. She looked very familiar. Danny narrowed his eyes. She must have been in some other band he’d seen, but he couldn’t remember her offhand.

  The crowd roared its approval again as the last notes sounded. The violinist grinned happily, bobbing her head in thanks, her silvery hair dancing around her cheekbones. Then she
and the guitarist raised their instruments again, watching each other closely.

  The song started with an incredible series of runs by the violinist, guitarist and pianist, all playing the same notes in perfect unison. People in the audience whooped, clapped and whistled. The violinist and guitarist leaned into the mike again, singing a series of quick lines while Sideshow Bob hammered on the keys behind them.

  Danny discovered he was holding onto the edge of the table, leaning forward to see if they could make it through the whole chorus without flubbing a line.

  They could. He joined the cheers with another whistle. Beside him, Brenda rolled her eyes.

  The next three numbers went by in a haze of notes, with the crowd cheering solos and standing up at the end. After the final chorus, the band slipped offstage with a last shy grin from the violinist. But the crowd went on cheering, pounding on their tables and roaring for more. Danny cheered along with them. Brenda seemed to be pretending she’d never seen him before.

  A moment later they were back. The guitarist grinned so widely he looked like he had some extra teeth.

  “Hey y’all, thanks!” he cried, waving at the crowd. “We’ll do one more and then we’ll get out of here so Shorty can get set up. In case you didn’t hear, we’re the Chalk Creek Changelings. I’m Skip, that’s Rob on guitar, Yaz on bass, Steve on drums, Gordy on the piano, and, of course, the one and only Biddy on violin.”

  It took a couple of moments for the words to sink in before Danny stopped clapping and stared. “Biddy?” he blurted into the relative silence before the song began.

  The violinist turned in his direction, her eyes wide, before she whipped her head back and tucked her violin under her chin, maybe half a beat behind where she should be.

  Danny narrowed his eyes, studying her. It had to be a coincidence. His Biddy didn’t wear satin. His Biddy didn’t grin. His Biddy didn’t dance. His Biddy ran into things and stuttered.

  His Biddy?

  His jaw tightened. Suddenly, he remembered just who had been talking about Tico’s Taqueria.