Red’s Hot Honky-Tonk Bar

by Pamela Morsi

  “I’m not angry! Why would I be angry?”

  He loosened his grip and turned her to face him. “Because you like having everything under control,” he said. “You’ve made your world pretty small in order to manage that. But now the outside has come flooding in.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” she insisted, but didn’t like the ring of truth that his words carried. “I’m just going to be spending more time with these kids in the next few days. The smart thing for you to do is make yourself scarce. Once this thing gets settled…once the kids are gone, we’ll see where we are.”

  “I already know where I am,” Cam told her. “I’m here beside you. I can help you, Red.”

  She pulled away. “I think I’ve made it clear that I don’t need anybody’s help.”

  He nodded. “Right, we’re back to that. I’m just the go-to guy for sex.”

  “Stop looking for insults,” Red told him. “Yes, I like being with you, but we both know that this is just…Well, it’s just a here-and-now kind of thing. And today my here-and-now got a little bit too busy for being with you. And you’re busy, too. Isn’t the band playing in Austin next week? By the time you get back, this will probably all be behind us.”

  “Okay, next week I’ll be gone,” he agreed. “But tonight I’m here, and it’s now.”

  He nuzzled her neck and ran his hands along her torso to her waist and down. He grasped her backside and lifted her up against him.

  Her breath momentarily caught in her throat, but she managed to voice a whispered protest.

  “The kids are asleep in my bed.”

  His answer was low pitched and lusty.

  “The day I met you, I was sitting in that back booth. I wanted to do you right there, right then.”

  Red sighed against him.

  “Tonight I’m going to polish that worn old vinyl with your sweet armadillo.”

  6

  Between the great sex and the bad sleeping accommodations, Red began Sunday morning even more tired than she’d been on Saturday.

  The kids were up and about early. Cam slipped out unnoticed and then returned an hour later, showered and shaved and carrying a sack of breakfast tacos. He received a hero’s welcome from all three of them.

  They sat down together on the patio. Red was hungry, but more grateful for the coffee than the food. The caffeine was just beginning to kick in when her granddaughter dropped the next bomb.

  “We have to get ready to go to church,” Olivia announced.

  Daniel made a small sound of complaint. Red felt like doing the same, but she managed to choke back the response.

  “Church?” she asked, hoping her question sounded more neutral than she felt.

  Olivia gave her brother a reproving nod before answering Red. “It’s Sunday,” she said. “And on Sundays we go to church. That’s what people do.”

  “It’s not what all people do,” Red said.

  Olivia ignored that fact.

  “We always go with Mom or Abuela. It’s never good to miss,” she said. “Usually we go to Holy Family, but sometimes we go to Little Flower. With Abuela being sick, I think we should go to Little Flower. They give out miracles there.”

  Red was taken aback by her granddaughter’s matter-of-fact belief. She’d thought Olivia to be very much like her mother. But Bridge only had faith in herself.

  Taking another sip of coffee, Red spoke carefully. “I don’t go to church,” she told Olivia. “Sunday is my only day off and I usually just hang around here, resting up and enjoying myself.”

  Olivia’s little nose went up in the air a bit. “There’s plenty of time for that in the afternoon,” she pointed out.

  From the corner of her eye, Red caught sight of Cam. He was eating his breakfast and not saying a word, but the smirk on his face was infuriating. She resisted the desire to kick him under the table.

  Red kept her annoyance firmly in check. She decided that the impasse required compromise.

  Brightly, she offered a suggestion. “How about I drop the two of you off at Abuela’s church and pick you up after the service is over?”

  Olivia’s brow furrowed and she shook her head with disapproval. “No,” she stated firmly. “Mom wouldn’t like that at all.”

  Red had not darkened a church door in a very long time. A funeral of a close friend was about the only thing that could compel her in that direction. Did she have to go? And if so, what in the devil would she wear?

  She was weighing her options when her cell phone unexpectedly sang to the rescue.

  Slipping it out of her back pocket, she glanced at the screen.

  “It’s your dad,” she announced.

  The response from the kids was jubilant and animated. Red hardly had time to say hello to her ex-son-in-law before Olivia and Daniel were manning the phone.

  She listened to their excitement and giggling and, surprisingly, found herself feeling left out. Red pushed that strange feeling away. Having Mike in town this quick was better than she’d hoped.

  Within minutes the conversation was over and the two children were wolfing down the rest of their breakfast and enthusiastically relating their plans for the day.

  Mike was to pick them up in one hour. They were going to visit Abuela at the hospital and then spend the day with their dad. Their delight was obvious.

  Daniel was excitedly rambling in Spanish. Red didn’t recognize any of it except the name Sea World.

  Olivia was nodding. “Daddy took us to Sea World once,” she explained. “And Daniel got to pet the dolphins.”

  Once the two had scrambled up to the apartment, Red put her feet up in the chair opposite her and raised her hair off her neck.

  “More coffee?” Cam asked.

  She nodded and he poured her a cup.

  “This is really a weight off my shoulders,” she told him. “There is just no way to have a couple of kids living above the bar. I was sitting up there in the bedroom with them last night. Even with the windows all shut and the air-conditioning unit turned up, the music was blaring in at a half-jillion decibels.”

  “Yeah,” Cam agreed. “Kids need a home in a neighborhood. That’s really ideal. But just having someone who cares about them, that’s an awful lot.”

  Mike showed up at the bar about an hour after the call. He was driving Bridge’s very distinctive Prius. Her daughter had purchased the hybrid vehicle in a pale minty color and then artfully painted it with swatches of darker green that made it look like camouflage. There was not another car like it in town. With the GO ARMY sticker on the bumper, it said a lot about her daughter.

  The minute Mike opened the driver’s door, both kids were running into his arms.

  Miguel Lujan was tall, dark and handsome. With his easy smile, charming manners and Hollywood good looks, Red understood completely how a lot of women could fall head over heels for him. But she’d been surprised when her daughter had. Bridge had always been far more sensible about men than any ordinary female.

  Red didn’t know if Mike had broken her daughter’s heart. Bridge never confided anything and Red was loath to believe rumors. But they’d divorced the year that Daniel was born. Red was fairly sure that neither of the children had any memory of when Mom and Dad actually lived together.

  Mike grasped each child in a muscled arm and lifted them both off the ground.

  “Wait a minute,” he told them, feigning astonishment. “You can’t be my kids. My kids are little baby kids. You guys are way too grown-up.”

  “We’re your kids, all right,” Daniel told him. “You look exactly like I always remembered you.”

  “You don’t think I’ve grown up at all?” Mike asked him.

  Daniel giggled. So did Olivia.

  “Let’s go,” Daniel said. “Let’s go see Abuela and the dolphins at Sea World and the train at Brackenridge Park and—”

  “Whoa, we can’t do all of that at once,” Mike said.

  He glanced over at Red.

  “Hey, mama-in-law,” h
e said, offering a wave as a greeting. “You’re looking mighty hot to be somebody’s grandma.”

  Olivia caught sight of the glance and frowned, apparently unwilling to share her dad’s attention.

  “Let’s go! Let’s go!”

  “Come on, Livy, we have to be polite,” he answered, dragging both kids closer. “It’s good to see you, Red. You been doing all right?”

  “Just fine,” Red answered.

  Mike managed to free one arm and held it out to Cam, who stood slightly behind her. He grasped it and they exchanged names.

  “Are you the bartender? What happened to Karl?”

  “Karl’s still here,” Red answered.

  “I’m not the bartender,” Cam offered as explanation. “I’m the boyfriend.”

  Mike’s eyebrows went up and he looked at Red as if she’d lost her mind.

  She returned his glance with one of her own that clearly conveyed the advice that he should mind his own business.

  “I guess I better get out of here before I say something I shouldn’t,” he suggested.

  Red waved him off. “Yeah, go on. Get caught up with your kids. We’ll talk later.”

  She waved at them as they drove away. As she turned back toward her apartment, a strange feeling came over her. The relaxing, uncluttered day that she’d longed for now lay before her as an emptiness. Cam had an afternoon commitment to play at Barton Springs, so Red puttered around her place, doing laundry, straightening the apartment.

  Around three o’clock she heard a knock on the back gate. Red was concerned, thinking it was Mike and the kids back already, but was more surprised to find Mrs. Ramirez, from the restaurant on Jones Street.

  She was a very tiny woman in her mid-fifties. Her dark hair was liberally streaked with gray and cut into a bowl shape that was easy to manage, if not particularly attractive. She was dressed in a casual, loose-fitting dress belted at the waist, with heels that were significantly higher than comfortable for a Sunday afternoon. Carrying a plate of warm conchas—cinnamon-flavored, shell-shaped sweet rolls—her brow was furrowed and her manner concerned.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she told Red. “Everyone has different advice for me. So I thought I’d hear what you are going to do.”

  Red led her to one of the patio tables in the shade. The afternoon was hot, but a nearby fan at least stirred up a breeze.

  “What am I going to do about what?” Red asked her.

  “The River Walk extension,” Mrs. Ramirez answered. “And the redevelopment of our neighborhood.”

  “Oh, that,” Red replied dismissively. “Yeah, I heard some talk about that. But the folks at city hall are always threatening to change things down here. It’ll never happen.”

  Mrs. Ramirez was momentarily silenced by her response, but then appeared more anxious than before.

  “But it is happening,” she said. “The construction on the river is all the way to the Brooklyn Street bridge already.”

  Red remembered the bright-orange construction zone that had caught young Daniel’s eye.

  “They’re probably just…just…well, surveying or something. I don’t know what they’re doing,” Red admitted.

  “They are making the river wider and deeper,” Mrs. Ramirez told her. “They’re going to bring the water-taxi service up past us, all the way to the Pearl Brewery. They’ve decided to remake Avenue B into houses and condos. The only restaurants they are going to want will be for tourists.”

  “Your café is the anchor of this neighborhood,” Red assured her. “Your place will always be on that corner.”

  The older woman shook her head. “That is not what I hear from my landlord,” she answered. “Last year he raised the rent so high on me. He said he couldn’t help it, that it was property tax. This year, he said he will not renew at all. He said there’s a buyer that is piecing together our entire block. My landlord is selling, and what the new owner will want from me, I do not know.”

  Red felt a momentary queasiness as she remembered the higher-priced lease agreement that she had refused to sign. Yes, she had heard the talk, yes, she had seen the construction, but she was still convinced that it couldn’t happen. Nobody wanted this piece of town. No one ever had, no one ever would. She was certain of that.

  “I’m sure the new owner is just speculating,” Red told Mrs. Ramirez. “And the very fact that your landlord wants to take the money while it’s offered just tells you that he doesn’t think anything will happen, either.”

  Mrs. Ramirez nodded, but she didn’t look convinced.

  “My nephew, Maldito, is looking for a place for us on the west side. But there are so many restaurants over there! How could I ever make a place for myself there like I have here? My sister says I’m too old to start over.”

  “And when did you ever listen to your sister?” Red asked. “Don’t move to the west side. Stay right here. All this will blow over and it will be the same as it always was.”

  Red’s upbeat insistence didn’t seem to do much for Mrs. Ramirez. As she continued to speculate about the future, she nervously ate all but one of the sweets she’d brought to share.

  After she left, Red went through her papers and found the lease agreement that she’d failed to sign. She looked at it in a whole new light. Maybe she should have asked more questions. She’d assumed it was just a typical negotiation over money.

  She looked around her little tattered business. It was a great place. A funky place. A family place. It was a place she wanted to be for the rest of her life. No one would ever want to get rid of it.

  Red took some comfort in that thought and deliberately tried to push Mrs. Ramirez’s revelations out of her mind.

  By evening, she’d almost succeeded in not thinking about it at all. Cam showed up at seven-thirty with a sackful of barbecue. He was tired and she was hungry, so their dinner conversation lagged.

  It was nearly eight when she heard Mike pull the car into the back. Red hurried to greet them at the gate. But there was not much greeting to be done. Both children, run ragged with activity and overfed on junk food, were sound asleep in the car.

  “Can you get Livy?” he asked her.

  Red nodded, but she didn’t attempt to carry the girl. She shook her awake and led her, zombielike, across the patio and up the apartment stairs. Mike followed with a still-sleeping Daniel slung against his shoulder.

  In the bedroom, Mike laid Daniel on the bed and pulled off the boy’s sneakers. “I’ll…I’ll let you do whatever needs to be done,” he said and made a hasty retreat.

  Red wasn’t exactly sure what had to be done. She led Olivia into the bathroom, removed her clothes and made her sit on the toilet as she washed the little girl’s face and hands with a washcloth. She brought her a nightgown and then led her back to the bed and tucked her in.

  Red glanced across at Daniel. He was lying there so peacefully. Red was torn. She hated to disturb him, but she remembered how long Bridge had wet the bed and how much her young daughter had been humiliated and embarrassed by that failing. With a sigh, she dragged Daniel up and into the bathroom.

  By the time both children were snugly in bed, Red realized that she was tired herself. But she headed downstairs, eager to hear the plans for the days ahead.

  The guys were not on the patio, but she could see a light on in the bar and she followed it inside. The two men sat on either end of the bar, a bottle of Shiner Bock in front of each.

  “What’s the deal? Nobody drinks draft anymore?” she asked, indicating the bottles.

  “Do you want me to draw you one?” Cam asked.

  She waved him away as she went behind the bar. “No, thanks, I’ll fix something for myself,” she said.

  A half minute later she heard Mike chuckle and glanced over at him.

  “Are you still drinking iced tea disguised in a highball glass?” he asked her. Without giving her time to answer, he directed his words to Cam. “Did you know that about her? The woman is a genuine teetotaler. Don’t to
uch a drop of alcohol.”

  Mike’s words were spoken like some kind of challenge, as if to say, You think you know this woman, but I know her better. Red found herself hoping that it wasn’t true.

  “Don’t act like you’re an expert on me,” Red told him. “It’s not like you’re my ex, Mike. Just my ex-son-in-law.”

  Mike shrugged. “Okay,” he agreed. “I just wanted sonny-boy to know the lay of the land. You’ve thrown away more guys like him than he’s ever even met.”

  Denial sprang to Red’s tongue. She wanted to tell Mike that there was nobody like Cam and that what she had with him was very special, but she feared it wasn’t true. Instead of defending herself, defending Cam, she changed the subject.

  “We could talk all night about your ex-wife’s mama,” Red said. “But I’m more interested in your own mama. How’s she doing?”

  Mike nodded. “She’s still not able to do any talking, but the doctors are pretty hopeful. She seemed thrilled to see the kids and they pretty much filled the room with chatter, so she didn’t need to say anything.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Yeah, I think so,” he agreed. “They’re moving her to a rehabilitation facility on Monday or Tuesday. It’s by the medical center, but I’m hoping you can get the kids over there to see her while she’s there.”

  His words momentarily caught Red up short. “How long are the kids going to be here?” she asked.

  “Until Bridge gets back,” Mike said. “My mother is not going to be in any shape to take them.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about her, I was thinking about you,” Red said. “Aren’t you going to take them?”

  Mike made a humorless chortling sound that was almost a snort.

  “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what Bridge is hoping,” he said. “Livy probably was a genuine accident, but she knew I didn’t want kids. She got pregnant with Daniel anyway. I told her then and I’d tell her now, I’m not going to be trapped into some kind of daddy thing. That’s not a life I’m interested in.”

  Red’s reaction was sharp and angry. “Those kids are crazy about you. And you act like you’re crazy about them.”

  He shrugged. “Hey, they’re great kids. I’m not saying otherwise. But I’m not a home-and-hearth kind of guy. What I want is more cheap beer and cheaper women.”