Four Men & A Lady

by Alison Kent

  So it took Jack's, "I don't believe it," and Quentin's, "She'd better know how to play that thing," to break Ben's concentration and draw his attention to the practice room doorway.

  He'd seen her once or twice in the band hall during summer registration, figured she was one of the kids who'd gone to the junior high down by the river. For years there'd been a campaign calling for a redistrict-ing of Johnson High's lines. The circulating petitions ranted about tax issues.

  Right. Like the few river kids attending JHS really put a drain on the funds.

  He wished the crusading parents—his included— would just get over it. So what if rich kids and poor kids went to the same school? This girl didn't look like she was any happier about where she came from than he was.

  He pushed up from behind the bass drum and watched her enter the room, stop, close the door behind her. She wore what looked like a man's pinstriped suit pants. With work boots that were a matching dark brown. On top of chopped-off hair the color and consistency of hay, she'd mashed a man's brown hat.

  The interesting part was what she wore between the hat and the pants. It looked like underwear. Or those nightie things girls slept in. It barely came down to the waist of the pants.

  It was black and shiny, with thin straps holding it up on her shoulders. And he could see a lot of her bra, lace and ribbons and stuff, like maybe she was going for a Madonna look or something.

  She was tall and sorta scrawny, but in a curvy sort of scrawny way. And she had the biggest darkest eyes, with lashes that made him think of A Clockwork Orange. Or maybe they just looked that way because her face and all of her skin was so pale.

  In one hand she held a book satchel and a horn case. In the other she held a saxophone that had long since lost its brass sheen.

  It looked like they'd found their fifth.

  “Hey," she said to the room. Her gaze traveled from Ben to Randy to Jack to Quentin and back. She looked at him for a very long time, or it seemed like a long time, because of the way she was looking.

  It was weird to say, but she made him feel as if they were the only two people in the room. And that made him feel like a real dork. He would've understood it better if she'd looked at him the way girls had looked at him since fourth grade. But it wasn't like that.

  She wasn't batting her lashes or pouting her lips. She wasn't checking him out. It was like she didn't see the uniform of his social circle, the button-fly 501 jeans, the untied high-top sneakers, the turned-up collar and green alligator logo on his yellow shirt. And it made him wonder what, instead, she saw.

  The whole scene turned into a weird freeze-frame. No one moving. Just these five people squared off in four-to-one odds in this drab cold room with industrial-strength floors and acoustical ceiling tiles.

  "Hiya." Quentin finally raised his hand, stood up from his piano bench. She waved the fingers holding her case, but didn't say anything else. "I'm Quentin. Marks."

  "I'm Heidi. Malone," she answered.

  Jack was next. He plucked two strings on his standing bass. "Jack Montgomery."

  Never taking her eyes off Jack, she raised her horn, licked her lips and blew a quick two notes. The same quick two notes. "Heidi Malone."

  Ben grinned to himself and waited Randy's turn. Randy glanced over and shrugged, turned back to the waif standing alone with her back to the door.

  He walked toward her a couple of steps, gestured with his trumpet. "Randy Schneider. I hope Mr. Philips knows what he's doing, sticking us with you."

  Ben grimaced. Randy and his big mouth. But she seemed to take it in stride.

  "Heidi Malone," she said. "And I hope he knew what he was doing by sticking me with you four."

  Randy turned away, blew a puff of breath into the trumpet's mouthpiece. "Weird chick," he mumbled under his breath as Ben walked up to bat.

  He jumped off the small platform, tossed back his hair. "Heidi Malone. Hi, I'm Ben Tannen."

  "Hi, Ben," she said almost for his ears alone.

  "Hey. Listen. You gotta know this is our third year to play together. The four of us." He jerked his chin back, indicating the other three who were keeping their distance. "It's gonna be like a weird adjustment to get used to—"

  "Playing with a girl?"

  Randy choked on his laughter. Jack snorted. Quentin rolled his eyes, turned, banged his forehead against the piano.

  Ben tried to keep a straight face and an open mind. "No. To get used to a new sax player." He nodded toward her horn. "You do know how to play that thing, don't you?"

  "I can play."

  Randy offered the first challenge. "Prove it."

  Heidi moved to set her shabby leather satchel and horn case on the same round table where the others had piled their books. "Boys," she said to no one in particular. "Always after girls for proof."

  Ben crossed his arms and propped one hip on the table. From the stage platform behind him he heard sniggers and under-the-breath gutter remarks. He was sure Heidi heard them, too, but she went on as if the comments were nothing.

  She cast but a cursory glance in the direction of the other three before Ben received her full attention. "What do you want? David Sanborn? Clarence Clemmons? Charlie Parker?"

  Quentin's head popped up. He walked closer. "You know Charlie Parker?"

  Heidi arched a brow over one big dark eye. "You know Scott Joplin?"

  The smile Quentin gave Ben wasn't quite as shaky as before and was the first sign of the afternoon that maybe they weren't screwed after all. Ben shrugged, nodded at Heidi to go ahead.

  She stood still, both feet flat on the floor, fingers with chewed-up nails poised over keys. Taking a deep breath, she managed a very clean, very precise, very bland first few bars of the national anthem.

  Randy flopped to the floor and groaned. Jack gripped the neck of his bass and shook his head. Quentin's mouth pulled into a grim line. Ben figured by the time she hit the home of the brave Quentin would've reached the door to Mr. Philips's office to raise holy hell.

  There was no real reason to wait that long. Might as well put everyone out of their misery now.

  Ben eased off the table to stop Heidi's really bad audition, but never made it another step because she held the high note over the rocket's red glare and then began to move. And to play. To really, really play.

  It was amazing to watch, amazing to listen to. She had her eyes closed, screwed up tight one minute, brows lifted high the next, getting into the song like it was what she lived for. Every note dead on. She knew exactly what she was doing.

  And he didn't doubt for a minute that she'd done what she'd done on purpose. She was taking their measure the same as they'd taken hers. Not only had they found their fifth, they'd met their match.

  The song she played wasn't familiar to Ben, but Jack had no trouble picking up the tempo. He thrummed the strings of his bass, bdmp-bmp-bmp, bdmp-bmp-bmp-bmp. Ben found his own foot counting the beat. Bdmp-bmp-bmp, bdmp-bmp-bmp-bmp.

  He crossed the room, picked up his sticks and lightly struck the skin of the snare. He smiled when he saw Quentin give up the fight and not even bother with the piano bench, standing instead while he banged out accompanying chords.

  Randy looked from Heidi to each of the others and back. His head was moving, both in rhythm and in disbelief. He finally let out a loud, "Yeowza! Quentin, my man. You are on your way."

  The music fizzled. Heidi was the last to stop playing. She met the eyes of each boy, lingering longest on Ben, before she walked to the table and picked up her things.

  "I expect each of you to be here after school tomorrow. Three-thirty sharp."

  And then she left the room. Ben watched her go. And then he just cracked up.

  It was going to be an interesting four years.

  He wondered if they'd all survive.

  THE SHORT CORRIDOR bisecting the small barn smelled like hay and early morning. And like impending birth. Ben stopped at the last stall in the short row of three. He hooked his arms over the swingin
g door's top slat and looked from the quivering mare to the man checking her progress. "How's she doing?"

  Thackery Jones took his time, moving in low third gear—the only speed Ben had seen the older man move since he'd hired on four years ago. The slow motion had nothing to do with age and everything to do with precision.

  Which was exactly the reason Ben had chosen him and now depended on him to oversee the daily operation of the place. In his sixty-two years, Thackery had forgotten more about the ins and outs of country living than Ben would ever learn.

  The older man didn't rush with the mare, staying where he was until he'd finished his business and found the horse's progress to his liking. Only then did he push up from a bending position in denim jeans as broken in as the leather of both his belt and his boots.

  He spoke softly and in dulcet tones, making his unhurried way toward the animal's low-hanging head. The words he next spoke to Ben were carried on the same even breath. "The way it's lookin', you'll be a daddy by the time you get back from Sherwood Grove tonight."

  A living, breathing expansion of his holdings. His very first—since he didn't count the cats who ran from the field to the bam these days in what seemed like small herds. He was finally getting there, settling into a deep state of satisfaction with his life.

  Funny how the birth of a horse that couldn't even weigh a hundred pounds and had only the barest value as a capital asset could put a smile on his face. He could only imagine what sort of look it would put on his father's.

  He laughed, but kept the sound in the back of his throat. "Don't be bringing my bloodlines into it. I'm afraid they've caused me enough trouble already."

  The one brow Thackery lifted was grizzled and gray. "You saw your little girl last night, did you?"

  Ben debated on telling Thackery how much of a little girl Heidi had ceased to be. "I saw her. Danced with her. Fought with her. Kissed her."

  Thackery laughed softly, the sound a veritable lullaby, his wide smile white against his smooth dark skin. "You two sound about as chummy as me and Mrs. Jones."

  He and Heidi? Chummy? Didn't that paint an interesting picture. "Now, that thought's enough to keep me home today. You sure you don't need a hand with Charlie here?"

  "And which of your hands you plannin' to give? That right one there that spends all day cuttin' and pastin'? Or the left one that's busy checking voice mail and speed dialing? No sirree." Thackery pushed out his bottom lip and shook his head. "If I need a hand, I'll be wanting Doc Specter's."

  Charlie wuffled at the sound of the vet's name and both men turned their heads. This horse had a special place in Ben's heart. He wanted her to have the best care. "Should I call the Doc?"

  Thackery whispered calming words to the horse. "Charlie's fine. All she needs is peace and quiet and a clean bed of hay to be droppin' this foal on. She don't need the Doc. And she sure don't need your nervous Nelly fidgeting."

  Ben hadn't thought he was fidgeting until Thackery nodded toward the silver watchband Ben was stretching and turning inside out and back again.

  He settled it back on his wrist and stepped away from the stall door. "Maybe I'll just hang around today."

  Thackery reassured Charlie and gave her nose a soothing stroke before he eased open the swinging door and joined Ben in the corridor. The stall's latch made the barest click as it caught. "I don't know why. You're not exactly dressed for a delivery."

  Thackery was right on that one. Denim shorts, athletic shoes and a white polo shirt wouldn't stand up to the rigors of an animal birth. "Only a city boy would attend a birth in picnic attire, right?"

  "Attire? Only a city boy would talk like a...well, a city boy. But at least you ain't stupid enough to've married yourself to concrete." His legs bowed but strong, Thackery headed for the tack room, adding over his shoulder, "At least you found enough good sense to bring you out this way."

  The other man walked off, leaving Ben to ponder or follow. He did both. "Maybe good sense is what kept me in Denver. Could've been insanity that brought me out here."

  In the beginning, while trading in the luxury car for a truck, custom-tailored suits and Italian leather loafers for off-the-rack blue jeans and cowhide boots, he'd wondered what had gotten into him. He wondered less often lately.

  "Well, good sense is keeping you here now."

  Thackery picked up an awl and a stirrup leather, gestured toward Ben with the pointed end of the piercing tool. "Good sense and Mrs. Jones's cooking, that is."

  Ben grabbed hold of his flat abs and jiggled. "Mrs. Jones's cooking is going to make it impossible for me to leave. Except in a dump truck."

  Thackery shook his head without ever looking up from the leather strip. "A wheelbarrow maybe. You won't be needin' a dump truck for at least ten more years."

  "By the end of the day I'll need one or the other. Do you know how long it's been since I've swung a tennis racket?" He swung an imaginary racket and winced only once.

  "What're you worried about? You ain't exactly a marshmallow, even if you do sit behind a desk most of the day."

  "I don't do much sitting these days. Not with running that one-man newspaper show. And not with you keeping me hopping every minute that I'm home." He swung the racket again. Better. A little stretching and he'd be fine.

  "Look here, city boy. You want to be a gentleman . rancher you can't just be polite and sit up straight when you ride Miss Charlie. You gotta do some of the ranching for it to take."

  "Gentleman rancher, huh? I'm not sure this place qualifies as a ranch."

  That grizzled gray brow came up again. "What would you call it?"

  Ben shrugged. That was easy. "Home."

  Thackery hung the awl on its hook. "Well, your home's got some ranching that needs to be done. And since you plan to spend your day playing with a ball that ain't even a ball, I'd better get to making hay."

  Ben couldn't resist. "I thought we bought our hay."

  "City boy," Thackery grumbled and headed out of the barn, stirrup leather in hand.

  Ben shook his head and watched his good friend go. After closing on the property in Stonebridge, the first thing he'd looked for was a caretaker. The Stonebridge Reporter hardly operated at the pace of The Denver Post, but Ben's duties as publisher kept him busy enough that he'd known he'd need help maintaining his new place.

  What he didn't know was which decision had been the smartest—buying the property or hiring the Jones couple.

  Thackery and Mrs. Jones were a perfect team. Mrs. Jones ran the household. Thackery took care of the buildings and grounds, freeing up Ben's time to devote to the paper. The townspeople deserved a first-class publication and knowing he had the Joneses taking care of business at home allowed Ben to make it one.

  Giving Thackery a final wave, Ben turned back into the barn and stopped by Charlie's stall again. She returned his stare, slowly blinking those big brown eyes. "Hey, girl. It won't be long now."

  She'd been his first livestock purchase, this horse, once he'd moved into the rambling two-story house. The ratty-looking dog just showed up under the front porch one day and the cats...who knew where they came from. And came from. And came from.

  Owning a horse had never been a dream he'd entertained. Owning a ranch, though ten acres hardly qualified, and being a gentleman rancher had never been his grand plan. He'd known he needed a change. He'd returned to Sherwood Grove and the Austin area for a family visit, seen what was happening in Stonebridge and felt the stirrings of his first real roots.

  The funny thing was, plan or not, the scaling down to this slower pace left him feeling incredibly settled. Up until making this move, he'd done more of what was expected of a Tannen than what he expected of himself.

  In the beginning, he'd avoided all but the most benign teen rebellion and angst and had come of age without sit-ins or walk-outs. Economic depression had taken the fire out of protests. No one could afford the time or energy.

  No one but those who lived like the Tannens.

  He
'd enjoyed working on the Johnson High Journal and heading up the yearbook staff. Continuing his studies in journalism had been a natural extension of that interest. He even counted his choice of university as his own, though he'd been expected to attend University of Texas, as all Tannens did.

  Once married, Katherine's rising star had been the impetus for most of their moves. He hadn't objected to the relocations, easily climbing to the top in his own editorial field. Who wouldn't want a Tannen on staff, after all?

  Katherine had cultivated their circles of friends, furnished their homes without his input. She'd had exquisite taste in people and place settings—even if the former strangely mirrored his father's, the latter reflecting his mother's.

  So, it wasn't surprising that he'd felt as if he were living someone else's life, fulfilling the expectations into which he'd been born, the very expectations into which Katherine had married.

  His dissatisfaction, in fact, had been slow in its evolution. The changes to his way of thinking, his way of seeing the world around him, had in no way come about overnight.

  But Katherine had noticed and had left—she didn't need his name and influence any longer, she'd said. She certainly didn't need his obvious disinterest, she'd added. He hadn't been fair to her, no, but she'd married the father's son, expecting him to be the father.

  Expectations had ruled too much of his existence. To an outsider he had a perfect life. But his perfect life had no heart or soul. And Heidi's assault had caused him to see that.

  He'd been honest when he'd told her last night of the effect she'd had on who he was today. It had taken a trip home to Sherwood Grove after his Breakup with Katherine, Ben's first visit in several years, to see that he needed to cut the Tannen ties.

  To see clearly for the very first time, through the eyes and ears of an adult, of an equal, that his family bought and sold people as often as they did product. That they used money to cover a multitude of sins, and as an easy fix. How simple it was to grease a palm rather than work toward an honorable solution.