Beautiful to the Bone (The Enuis Trilogy #1)

by P. G. Lengsfelder

  Roddy coughed out a small laugh, set down another chair, and came to hug me. I was disinclined, but not because I was unenthusiastic about pressing my body next to his. I tried not to breathe him in, and he noticed.

  “Breathe,” he said, misunderstanding my motivation. “This will all go fine, you’ll see.”

  We finished organizing the tables and, finding some large floor fans in the storage room, set them on opposite sides of the stage and turned them on full to blow away the malaise, though the smell of him was still with me. The shrill tin sound of the fans drove us into the main barroom, mostly empty at this hour, where we scooted into the booth in the corner, the same one in which Sparky and I had conversed.

  “How is he?” he asked.

  “Oh, he seems particularly upbeat this morning. He was up early, says he’s going for a drive and a short walk.” I removed my hands from the tacky tabletop and searched for the hand sterilizer in my coat pocket. “Was this a mistake?”

  “The performance? You just said he’s upbeat.”

  “But this place . . . I’m not sure what’s up or down anymore.” I tipped a couple of drops of hand disinfectant onto my palm and massaged my hands together.

  “If he’s happy, you’re doing all the right things. What can I do?”

  “Nothing, he really likes you.” I offered him the small bottle of sanitizer. He mouthed no thanks.

  “And you?” he asked.

  Meaning do I really like you? The question flustered me. “What do you mean?”

  “Is there something I can do to help you?”

  I sat back.

  “I mean, with Lyle or the house or your research?”

  “Oh, everything’s taken care of.” I was relieved and hoping the one waitress on duty would see us in the corner and bring us some water. My mouth was a desert; lips bonded together as if grout had been layered in. Probably the coffee.

  “So you’ve come to conclusions about beauty? Because I’ve got questions galore.”

  “Just a lot of research and nothing final.” I didn’t want to cross-reference him against additional criteria, at least not in that moment.

  “Well maybe you can explain; like if someone has a beautiful face and a mangled body, are they still beautiful?”

  “Scientists have been working on those solutions for years. I don’t take that on. I’m interested in offering facial beauty from the get-go. Getting it genetically right at inception.”

  “But?”

  “But defining what that is, is more difficult than I thought.” I signaled the waitress, who waved back.

  “I’m not surprised,” he said perhaps smug. “Different cultures, like you say, see beauty differently. I’ll bet even climate plays a part.”

  “You’re right. Think how differently a Tahitian and an Eskimo might consider what’s beautiful.”

  “Based on what they can even see.” His eyebrow went up, roguish.

  “Yes,” I said thinking damn he’s cute and warming to his interest, “and there are specific criteria analyzing the face, like symmetry using numeric calculations, and perceived visual cues, say about our immune system, and,” I hesitated, “smell. The research indicates that even smell impacts our perception of beauty.”

  “So many ways to skin a cat.” He mugged, put both hands behind his neck and stretched.

  “Yes,” I flashed on Levi.

  He leaned forward, his hands back on the table. “So the day is coming when my pitch to you for a date is ‘I was down there at the end of the bar with my buddies and I couldn’t help notice that your immune system looks very cool. I think your symmetry and my smell would be great together.’”

  I laughed. “Something like that.”

  “And then the more you see and smell me, the more attractive you’ll find me.” His eyes and cheeks closed in on each other: his pocket smiles.

  “Could be.” My crescent moons out of my control.

  “Hmmm. But besides my getting a date with you —which I admit is critically important— what is the purpose?”

  “To make life easier, to make people happier. At least looking like this wouldn’t be a deterrent.”

  Something like a hiccup erupted before he covered his mouth, coughing out something between a belch and a small laugh. I couldn’t be sure.

  “What?!”

  “I’m sorry.” He took my hand across the table. “Has your research shown that to be true?”

  I removed my hand from his. “I can’t solve every problem but it seems obvious.”

  “Obvious, like the nose on your face?”

  That was an affront. “Yes.”

  He leaned over the table and kissed my nose. “I don’t think it works that way.”

  “Can I get you two a drink?” The waitress, a once-attractive thin woman approximately my age had reversed the beauty process by introducing botoxed lips. I flashed on Carly leaving The Cosmetic Center.

  “Water,” we said in unison.

  “That’s it?” The waitress searched for roving mascara in her eye.

  “For now,” Roddy said.

  And she left, tossing two menus to the table.

  What to do with his kiss? My respiration was up, his eyes searching for a place to land. “Let’s get back to work.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  The afternoon sun filtered through the copse of still-barren black ash, a fall-like backdrop of gold filigree framing the farmhouse. Inside, I hung up my jacket. I could already hear Momma and Carly at the kitchen table in a celebratory mood. They quieted down when I came in.

  “All set up?” asked Carly, and I could see for the first time how her good looks had come from Momma; the full lips, the small balanced mid-face, the smile so seldom seen on Momma.

  “I think we’re good. There are some flowers and we put up some posters — Roddy’s idea, he gathered them online — places Lyle had played before: Butte, Cheyenne, Laramie, a couple others. It gives the room some color. Is Lyle back?”

  “Not yet.” Momma took a drag from her cigarette. “But I think we’re outta the woods.” She smiled, nodding at Carly.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Lyle,” answered Carly. “He’s much better today.”

  “I think the medicine is working,” Momma interjected. “He went for a drive and a walk.”

  “Momma.” I was trying to be sympathetic but I shook my head.

  “What? This is what we’re all hopin’ for.” She picked a fleck of tobacco from her tongue.

  “Momma,” I said, “his blood vessels, the tumors . . .”

  “Can’t you ever be positive?” She twisted to Carly and back. “Damn it, Eunis, do you have to be so fuckin’ negative? Be more like your sister.” She snuffed out the cigarette.

  “Momma,” said Carly trying to downplay comparison.

  “He’s really sick,” I said.

  “Yes, but he’s gettin’ better, anyone can see that. Look for the beauty, for godsakes.” Momma gaining steam. “Look for the goddamned beauty!”

  “Momma, I want this as much as —”

  “Shit.” Momma rose from the table and stormed out. “You can spook wine into water.”

  I exhaled slowly, fully. “Do you understand?” I asked Carly.

  “Hey, don’t ask me,” said Carly, also getting up. “This house is as fucked up as ever.”

  ***

  Lyle hugged his guitar, the last raging scarlet light from the horizon rippling over him.

  “You look tired.” I took my eyes off the road for a moment. “You okay for this? We can head back if you —”

  “A course he’s fine,” said Momma from the back seat, requisitioning endorsement from Carly, who looked away. “This is his big night, the beginnin’ of big things, isn’t it, Lyle?”

  “I’m good,” he reassured me. “I probably carried a myling walkin’ to Kingdom, but I’ll be fine. We’re good.” He tapped the Martin. In the rearview mirror, I checked Momma’s reaction. She averted her
eyes.

  ***

  The Drink ‘n’ Dive was filling up; mostly men, hands clenching their half empty glasses, ogling the mermaids in the tank, waiting for the night’s lucky break, a few women trolling for the same. From the stage, Mae waved to Lyle and me as we entered, and Roddy appeared from the side toting a mike stand.

  Lyle took shaky steps to the stage and Roddy reached out to help him up the last two. I caught Roddy’s eye and thanked him.

  “I’m looking forward to this,” said Mae, kissing Lyle on the cheek. “It’s been too long.” He gave her a weak hug and patted her on the shoulder; Mae gazed past him to me with dismay. I’d given no explanations to anyone, just as I’d promised, but Mae was no fool.

  “Oh,” she said, “looky here.” She reached down and provided a bottle of Jim Beam. “A present from Gordon. He wishes he could be here. Says ‘break a leg.’”

  “That’s awful white — nice of him.” Lyle lowered himself onto the stool behind the mike. “You thank him for me.”

  After the three of us fussed over Lyle for a few minutes, bringing him water, moving the basket of tulips closer, adjusting the mike, he checked his sound levels, and Roddy and I proceeded to our front row table, next to Momma and Carly and Sparky. Seeing Carly next to the multi-pierced Sparky was surreal. The whole thing was.

  Two of the off-duty mermaids —big-busted redheaded Sherry and a hawkish younger woman named, appropriately, Birdy— sat close-by and introduced themselves, shaking my hands and inclining me to pull out the hand sterilizer. I refrained.

  The house lights went down, the clinking glasses and drifting talk softened, and the spotlight came up on Mae. “I want to introduce someone I’ve known for years, a wonderful local musician who has the voice of one of those —what dya call them, sirens — that can pull you into worlds you probably couldn’t reach otherwise. He’s been gone for a while now — just returned from some engagements in New York City — and we’re so glad he’s come back home. Please welcome Lyle Kind.” Middling applause.

  “Thank you, Mae.” Lyle lifted his hand in front of his face, diffusing the spotlight. It was turned down. “And I want to thank my family, friends, all of you for being here tonight.”

  He peered into the dim lip of light cast upon the first row of tables, and found Roddy and me. He gave us a small nod, a wan smile. “By the way,” he said, exploring beyond us into the darkness, “Kind is my stage name, but my real family name is Kindsvatter.”

  He started his final tuning and I swung around. The community had rallied. Thanks to Mae and Gordon, Carly, Sparky and Sherry, the room was half full with some familiar faces and two surprises: Sandy, the lamb-faced Miss USA judge, and Johnny Ray Bardo.

  In the darkness I could imagine the other faces, the ones I’d been studying for years —DeCaprio, Pitt, Anniston— I wasn’t sure I found them beautiful anymore. Not that they were ugly; they just left me numb —and not the refreshing numb of the water, just numb. And there it was: I’d reached the end of my research because the faces and the answers kept changing; there were too many of them for any one of them to be definitive. I could look all I wanted, but I couldn’t see.

  Except . . . except in those odd moments particular to me, though I still didn’t understand the lineage of what brought me to those moments any better than when I made the promise to Nemo. I could see him. Maybe his smile and his lick meant you’re so foolish, little girl; I love you because of it; you’re beautiful because of it. Because that’s how I felt about him too. To see his little face, that smile, the hope. Even now I see him and I suffer. I tell myself to move on. And I do, but I also —always— suffer.

  It’s what happened with Lyle. Sensory not intellectual.

  Staring up at him, so handsome in the spotlight . . . I’d never seen him that way before. Handsome. Beauty forever shifting —at least for me. Weird. Like a spell got me, like it gets everybody. Unique stories chemically infused in each of us from birth. Triggers of all sorts, everywhere: the neighborhood, the room, the smell, the time of day, the language, the familiar expression (of hope or desperation), the person next to the person, the music, the background TV, the smile, the soft voice, the eyes. Message after shadowy message transmitted from within. Treasures and curses from the DNA swamp.

  So after all, my weakness was everyone’s weakness; objective versus subjective was beside the point. It was both. I couldn’t outrun my cells, my primitive lineage. I had no choice, I was going to have to be attentive to them, maybe even accept some of them. And I guess, those of others.

  Still, I had to be careful. It was, after all, a mire of switches. I’d seen beauty as a virtue. I’d also seen it as subversive. I wasn’t always quick to decipher between the two. I’d needed to work on that, especially as so much of it was out of my control. All of us at the effect of our shadows.

  “This’ll be a short set,” said Lyle. “I’m feelin’ a little under the weather but I hope you like ‘em, they’re some of my favorites. This first one is a Lowell George tune.” And cradling his D-35, he splayed his palm on its amber body, and his hand trembled for a moment before he closed his eyes and launched into a slow version of Little Feat’s “Willin’”:

  “I’ve been warped by the rain

  Driven by the snow

  I’m drunk and dirty, don’t ya know

  But I’m still . . . willin’. . . ”

  I settled in, shut my eyes, the room full of people falling away and leaving me alone, every grainy word verifying his journey. He was steady to the end:

  “. . . And if you give me weed, whites and wine

  And show me a sign

  I’ll be willin’ to be movin’”

  The small crowd waited to be certain he was done and then extended an almost reverent applause; as if the audience wasn’t sure that they’d really heard such intimacy and if so, what they should do with it, while I marveled and applauded loudly.

  He didn’t wait for the audience to be sure. He pressed on with two Johnny Cash tunes: the itinerant “Guess Things Happen That Way” and “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” which sounded to me like heavy raindrops on a cortege. He paused, and his eyes traveled out and beyond the audience, not saying a word, even after the applause subsided. He reached down and took a sip of water and began again, this time Hank Williams’ “May You Never Be Alone.” And as the last chord lingered, the room filled with louder but still reverential applause, the audience stunned by his ache, and their own.

  “Just two more,” he said, and there were groans and someone yelled out, “No!”

  “I’m afraid so.” Then, “This one was written by Kris Kristofferson and Danny Timms and is especially for my sister, Eunis.” I eyed him in surprise. He shared his crooked smile with me, me alone. He closed his eyes once more and embarked on “Moment of Forever:”

  “Was it wonderful for you

  Was it holy as it was for me

  Did you feel the hand of destiny

  That was guiding us together

  You were young enough to dream

  And I was old enough to learn something new

  I'm so glad I got to dance with you

  For a moment of forever”

  A wellspring broke open in my belly, frightening me. That recurring susceptibility. I wanted to reject it but it rose like a rocket through my chest to the surface, and tears emerged. I didn’t wipe them away. Lyle was . . . inexpressible; he was beautiful.

  Attempting to quantify that beauty would have been an attack on the sacred. I couldn’t have that; I wouldn’t want to take that away from anyone. May beauty live on wherever it’s felt.

  “Come whatever happens now

  Ain’t it nice to know that dreams still come true

  I’m so glad that I was close to you

  For a moment of forever”

  He was done, and the crowd leapt to its feet, applauding and calling out. I sat stunned and cleansed.

  The applause receded. He said, “For my final song . . .” — and
again “No” rang out from multiple locations in the audience — “ . . . I’d like my sister Eunis to join me on stage.”

  What had I been thinking?! Not only was I going to sing, I was going to step onto a stage in front of 100 people. The hot terror of facing the Octagon Homeowners fell in folds over my spine and shoulders. I was burning up and frozen.

  “Ralph Stanley was one of my father’s favorites; he’d hum Ralph Stanley all day long . . . ”

  I wasn’t worthy. I wasn’t prepared. But I’d promised.

  “ . . . So we’re gonna sing one of Papa’s favorites.”

  I found myself rising from the table and walking toward the stage.

  “A Man of Constant Sorrow,” yelled a man in the audience.

  “No,” responded Lyle, “I’ve sung that one enough.”

  I made my way up the steps and across the stage as Lyle stood stiffly. I discovered myself next to him, eyes downcast. He embraced me and whispered in my ear, “Together.”

  Up and out, past Roddy into the darkness, fear vibrated my entire body, my legs ready to buckle.

  “They say Ralph found the title in proverbs or folklore. Anyways, they sounded right to my Papa, and they still sound right to me. Ralph used to sing this with his brothers. It’s a song that takes harmony, and I can’t imagine a better partner than my sister.”

  At that, he began picking in ¾ time and singing, his voice clear and coarse and angelic:

  “The sun is slowly sinkin'

  The day's almost gone

  Still darkness falls around us

  And we must journey on . . .”

  He turned to me and closing my own eyes, I found the space above his voice, the one he had taught me, and I discovered myself singing harmony:

  “The darkest hour is just before dawn

  The narrow way leads home

  Lay down your soul at Jesus' feet

  The darkest hour is just before dawn”

  Lyle played the instrumental bridge, my body swaying willingly. I was in water.