Weeping Angel

by Stef Ann Holm

“I thought you might,” he drawled with a hint of devilment. Before she could respond, he repeated, “Keep drinking your lemonade. Your cheeks are still flushed.”

  “Are they?”

  “Yes. The color of sloe gin. Now drink.”

  Swallowing a delicate quantity of lemonade, she hoped slow-pouring gin wasn’t a flaming red concoction.

  Frank went to his icebox, pulled out a bottle, then grabbed a large box of animal crackers. He proceeded to pull the chairs off the table closest to her, and when they were all on the floor, he sat down. A phisst sound came from the bottle’s neck when he popped the wire cap off. He held on to the beer in a most peculiar manner—with the neck between his middle three fingers. She wondered how he could perform such a trick as he took a drink. An obviously satisfying one, from the smile on his lips. Then it dawned on her he was drinking liquor in broad daylight.

  She gave him her mother’s most reprimanding frown as she glared at the beer bottle. “Really, Mr. Brody, have you no control?”

  “With all the liquor in this place, I could be a drunkard. Seeing as I’m not, that says something for my control.” He took another leisurely swallow, then added, “I’m sure Budweiser wished I did have less control.”

  “Mr. Budweiser must be a good customer.”

  “Yeah. He and Jim Beam are popular.”

  “I’ve never heard mention of Mr. Budweiser and Mr. Beam. They must not live in Weeping Angel.”

  “No, they only come up the first and third Friday of the month. Fisk at the Short Line handles them with kid gloves.”

  “What profession are these gentlemen in who need to be handled with kid gloves?”

  He smiled easily when he said, “Spirits.”

  “The spirits of the Lord,” she interpreted with offense. “And you allow them to partake in liquor?”

  “I’ve heard it said, some men claim to see the Lord when they’re in Mr. Beam’s company.”

  “Disgraceful.” She tsked. “I most heartily disapprove.”

  “I was certain you would.” Frank brought the beer to his lips. “Now that we got Mr. Budweiser and Mr. Beam out of the way, I’m ready, so go ahead,” he said, opening the crackers and eating one.

  Baffled, she stared at him. “Ready for what, Mr. Brody?”

  “Ready to listen to you play the piano.”

  “I beg your pardon—”

  “There you go again. We’ve gone through this already. Women don’t beg for my pardon.”

  “Well!” she declared. “Why must you twist my words to suit your vulgarity?”

  “Because you’re fun to tease, Miss Marshall.”

  There was something warm and enchanting about his humor, despite her being the object of his amusement. He had an arresting smile that touched her every nerve ending and put her senses in disorder. Normally, she was quite restrained around men. But Mr. Brody’s magnetism turned her to mush.

  Amelia was no longer in a frame of mind to continue her practice. “I’m finished.” She stood and set the remainder of her lemonade on his table, then picked up her music bag.

  He continued to munch on his animal crackers without making a move to stop her from her prompt departure. “You never took out your busts.”

  She gave him a sharp look. “My busts will have to come out another time.”

  “I’ll be waiting to see them.”

  Feeling herself blush profusely, she strode toward the entrance on her no-nonsense heels. “Good afternoon, Mr. Brody.” Though she didn’t wish him one at all. She hoped the remainder of his day turned out perfectly horrid.

  * * *

  Frank never slept until noon on Sundays because he wasn’t open for business those nights. He’d tried keeping gospel hours a few times, but he hadn’t been able to attract any customers—not even the Basques who periodically came into town for supplies. And if he couldn’t tempt the loner sheepherders, he sure as hell couldn’t entice the men of Weeping Angel—piano or not. Even Lloyd Fairplay shut down the Palace on Sundays. The womenfolk kept their men on short lengths of chain after church, and Frank had to give in to the day of rest, going as far as carrying his relaxation through to Mondays while he was already in the mood for recreation.

  While everyone else clustered in the Christ Redeemer church listening to Thorpe sermonize something fierce, he and Pap spent Sundays shooting up empty bottles and swinging a baseball bat at cans in Reverend’s Meadow. When they were finished blowing glass to smithereens and whacking tin, they waded hip-deep in Tadpole Lake and whipped their silk fishing lines over the glassy water. The rainbow trout took to their feather flies so readily, there was no need to pursue grasshoppers over the hillsides.

  When Frank felt the cool water surrounding his legs, heard the choking squeals of blackbirds, and smelled the wintergreen, there was no greater heaven to him. He didn’t need Reverend Thorpe’s preaching to convince him otherwise.

  “Did you bring the Ethel Mays?” Pap asked Frank as they walked the boardwalk on Divine Street carrying their tackle, poles, revolvers, and a gunnysack of empty food cans and beer bottles.

  “I brought them.”

  “I wonder who thought to name trout flies Ethel May.”

  Frank hiked his left shoulder to more firmly secure the strap of his creel basket. “I suppose somebody who thought Ethel May looked like a trout fly.”

  “Yeah . . . I reckon.”

  They turned right at Dodge Street and went past the church just as the morning service let out. Frank never saw more suits in one place than Sundays at eleven o’clock. With their souls saved from sinful annihilation for another six days, the congregation milled underneath the shade of maple and cottonwood trees shaking hands as if they’d never met before. They talked in voices loud enough for Frank to hear bits of their conversations as they discussed the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog items, recipes, and making plans for Sunday suppers. But as soon as he and Pap were upon them, octaves lowered to whispers.

  Frank was fairly certain he became a more pressing topic than the price of dress goods or the Farmer’s Almanac. He wouldn’t have minded so much if the men didn’t act differently when they weren’t under the preacher’s thumb. They had no problem bellying up to the bar with a congenial how-do-you-do during the week; and it seemed to Frank more than a little hypocritical that they would view him in a less favorable light on the seventh day.

  Thorpe must have spread the covenant of darkness on them real thick this morning.

  Striding by sporting an expression of what he hoped to be measurable affability, and with an obligatory nod now and then, Frank caught a glimpse of duck wings through a sea of millinery trimmings. He kept his gaze directed on the feathered ornamentation, and as soon as the wearer separated from the churchgoers, he caught sight of Amelia beneath the notable hat. She’d efficiently pinned her shiny brown hair in a sort of springlike twist at the nape of her slender neck. Had he not seen the strands of hair tease her brow the day she’d played the piano in his saloon, he would have assumed her coiffure never rumpled; had he not listened to her feminine and breezy laughter after she finished her musical piece, he would have assumed she kept her voice in a bland tone befitting a school-marm.

  But he had seen and heard otherwise, and viewing her this way—all coiled and subdued—suddenly didn’t seem natural anymore.

  Amelia paired up with Narcissa Dodge and smiled at something the mayor’s wife told her. There was something appealing about the way Amelia smiled, and Frank figured Pap must have seen Miss Marshall smile once before he made up his mind to give her the chase.

  Looking up, Amelia’s eyes met Frank’s and the animation left her face. The softened curves of her mouth were suddenly replaced by a wary line. She kept her expression under stern restraint when gazing at him, and it bothered him that she felt the need to bottle up her smile when he was around.

  Frank let his glance travel from her to Pap. He barely had time to wonder if his friend had seen Miss Marshall, too, when Reverend Thorpe made a sp
ecial point to single Frank out.

  Dressed in a black vicuña suit more appropriate for coffin wear than a summer day, the preacher greeted, “Mr. Brody,” in a tone too Bible friendly to keep Frank at ease.

  He nodded tightly, his eyes shaded from the sun’s brilliance by the brim of his panama hat. “Rev.”

  “Are you going fishing?”

  Frank gazed at the fishing pole in his hand, then back at the reverend. “Looks that way.”

  “A blessed, beautiful day for it, too.”

  Sunlight caught on the gilt-stamped cross gracing the cover of Thorpe’s Bible. He held the round-cornered book in his large hands, front forward, and pressed to his chest. The holier-than-thou position was wasted on Frank; he didn’t bow under scriptures anymore.

  Reverend Thorpe smiled, showing his mouthful of big teeth. He didn’t make a move to let Frank by, and kept on smiling until Frank got to feeling itchy under the collar.

  “Anything you want, Rev?” Frank asked too late. The parishioners had circled around like a wagon train—him and Pap in the middle as if they were Indians waiting to get shot at by a hundred primed rifles.

  “As a matter of fact, I did want to extend an invitation to the Lord’s house.”

  Frank could feel the expectant gazes boring into him. “I don’t accept invitations to ice-cream socials, tea parties, or church. Especially not church.”

  “I hope you’ll change your mind, Mr. Brody. I do believe you are a Christian, despite your unsuitable occupation. After all, you’re sharing the piano with Miss Marshall.”

  Uncomfortable with the crowd, Frank needed breathing room. “It doesn’t take a Christian to do that. Now if—”

  “I don’t believe I’ve been introduced to your friend,” the preacher said in a rush.

  Pap shifted his feet. “O’Cleary. Pap O’Cleary.”

  The reverend kept his stronghold on the Good Book, aiming in Pap’s direction. June’s devouring sun reflected off the gold cross like a mirror and beamed a spiritual effulgence on Pap’s face, as if he were being baptized without water. Thorpe didn’t switch the angle of his Bible when he said, “I’d like to invite you to services as well, Mr. O’Cleary.”

  Squinting and trying to duck, Pap hastened to reply, “Go ahead.”

  “Would you come to next Sunday’s services, Mr. O’Cleary?”

  “Hell, no.”

  A rolling gasp emanated from the crowd, only to be broken by a boy’s query near Frank’s trouser leg.

  “Hey, Mr. Brody, is that a real Spalding baseball bat you’re holdin’?”

  Frank gazed at the bat in his left hand, then at the freckle-faced kid at his hip. “Yeah. A genuine league model.”

  “Holy smoke!”

  “Daniel Beamguard, you mind your phraseology!” clucked Mrs. Dorothea Beamguard. “Especially in the company of Reverend Thorpe.” She gave Pap a severe glare. “Unlike others who have no manners at all.”

  Pap took offense with a snort, then skewed up his face in a heated shade of bully red. Those standing at his right abruptly disbanded, and Pap took off before Frank could escape through the gap after him.

  Neither the disruption, nor the reprimanding from his mother, had any apparent effect on Daniel. He kept right after Frank. “Hey, Mr. Brody. Would you ever let me try it out? Huh? I’d be real careful. I ain’t never hit off a genuine Spalding. All my Pop sells at the mercantile are handmade bats out of maple.”

  “Don’t you downtalk your father’s merchandise, young man,” Mrs. Beamguard chastised, grabbing hold of her son’s broadcloth collar and giving him a firm yank toward her.

  “Ah, gee!” Daniel squirmed away from his mother. “You’re embarrassin’ me, Ma!” He broke loose with a jerk and kept on after Frank. “Them maple ones are sissy bats, Mr. Brody. I can’t hit nothin’ but fly balls with ’em. Can I try it out, huh? Huh?”

  Frank felt extremely uncomfortable. All eyes were on him. If he told the kid to get lost, he’d look like a spoilsport. On the other hand, if he promised the kid, he was certain there’d be a good number who’d take offense over a bartender teaching an impressionable boy the fine art of baseball hitting.

  Either way, he’d lose.

  “Well, boy,” Frank mused aloud, “I’ll have to think on it.”

  There. No commitment in any direction.

  “Think long, Mr. Brody,” Daniel pleaded. “Drink a lot of hard stuff while you’re thinking. My ma says that all you do in that saloon of yours is think up smut and drink hard stuff while you’re thinking.”

  “Daniel!” Dorothea cried.

  Frank’s nostrils flared and he felt that damn tic—the one even the nuns hadn’t been able to whop out of him—kick up at his jaw. “Well then, ma’am, I’m sure you won’t be allowing Danny-boy here to take lessons from Miss Marshall in my smut hall.”

  “I-I—” Dorothea stammered, then straightened her shoulders. “One must make amends, Mr. Brody. Of course my Daniel will be taking lessons. I’m going to personally escort him to and from them to see for myself the inside of that bar of yours.”

  “You do that. And I’ll make sure it’s worth your while. I’ll keep all my smut in full view. Now, if you’ll excuse me, folks,” Frank said, and nudged his way past Thorpe who had dried up speechless. “I’ve got to be moving on.”

  Frank glanced around for Pap but didn’t find him. He did make eye contact with Emmaline Shelby, though. She stood off to the side, her black hair all done up in pretty waves, and with a silver cross dangling from the lace pin on her collar. He’d never seen her dressed up for religion before. Prior to their beginning a relationship, he’d known she was a churchgoing woman, and he’d asked her if she’d get all righteous and weepy on him with regret after they started something. She’d sort of shocked him with her reply of, “I know how to handle this type of situation. I have before.” Then she’d gone on to say, the Lord need only know her business on Sundays; what she did with the rest of the week was strictly her own. So he’d let the subject go, but he hadn’t counted on seeing her in the clutches of the Christ Redeemer right under his nose. It left him feeling rather unscrupulous about diddling one of their own.

  Esther Parks, the ticket agent’s wife, made her way to Emmaline’s side, and the two of them went off before Frank could make heads or tails out of what Emmaline could be thinking about him. She’d made it quite clear two days ago when he’d brought his laundry in for cleaning—and some steam put in his pants—she hadn’t been too happy about his consideration for the piano teacher. One look at the businesslike pinch on her face as he’d set his clothes bag on the counter, and any thoughts of extra starch fled his mind. She’d politely asked if he wanted his muslin shirts laundered with blueing or borax. He’d stated bleach, then after an awkward lapse of silence, he’d left.

  He couldn’t understand why Emmaline was so agitated about the situation. Amelia Marshall wasn’t a hot commodity type of woman. True, she was pretty, but not with the same passion as Emmaline.

  As he walked toward Gopher Road, Frank saw Pap loitering in front of the mayor’s house. A cast-iron railing surrounded the lawn and front border of curly pink rose bushes, and Pap had his foot propped up on the mud scraper. He’d ingratiated himself into the company of Amelia and Mrs. Dodge. The two women stood on the other side of the closed gate while Pap gave his jaw plenty of exercise by planting a crop of words on his plaster-smiling audience.

  As Frank approached, both women looked up, but Pap kept on talking.

  “I played an upright in the El Dorado. You’ve heard of the El Dorado, haven’t you, Miss Marshall?”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t,” she replied, turning back to face Pap.

  “Why I’ll be ding busted, Miss Marshall,” Pap said, shaking his derby-topped head. “Everybody’s heard of the El Dorado down in San Francisco. It’s the best damn gambling house I ever played in.” Pap shifted his stance and brought his foot down.

  Frank noticed Amelia grew visibly embarrassed over Pap�
��s brash language. But Pap didn’t back off. He kept right on, and both ladies were apparently too cultured—and perhaps too perplexed by his attentions—to stop him.

  “What all can you play, Miss Marshall?” Pap asked while adjusting the gunnysack of bottles and cans slung over his back. They made a trash-sounding noise, as if Pap were hauling a bin of garbage. “Any ballads? Popular tunes? Love songs?” He gave her a broad, infatuated smile, and when she didn’t make a comment, he went on. “I know a few orchestral pieces by the Greats. You know, like Back and Vagger.”

  Amelia nodded and corrected. “I believe you mean Bach and Wagner.”

  Frank couldn’t figure out what had gotten into Pap. Pap O’Cleary was running at the mouth like a braggart full of more verbal lather than suds in a shaving mug.

  “Yeah, I mean those fellows,” he amended, then kept yacking. “Say, do you know how to play ‘The Band Played On?’ ”

  Amelia gave Frank a short glance, Pap still unaware of his approach, then she shook her head.

  “Ah, I’m sure you’ve heard it.” Pap started to hum the tune, then sang, “Casey would waltz with a strawberry blonde, and the band played on . . . hmm-hum-hmm-hum-hmm-hmm . . .” Pap swung his arm a bit, his fishing pole hitting the fence. He put the words into baritone. “He’d glide . . . hmm-hum-hmm . . . But his brain was so loaded—”

  “Bust your talkbox, Pap,” Frank said, striding up to the trio. “Can’t you see you’re wearing the ladies out?”

  “Huh?” Pap whipped around, the superfine hook on the end of his line slicing through the air. It snared Amelia’s hat, and as Pap inadvertently jerked the pole, he pulled her toward the fence.

  “Ow! Get it off me!” Amelia braced herself against the black iron spears and stood immobile.

  “Oh, dear!” Narcissa cried and went to Amelia’s side.

  “What in the hell?” Pap’s eyes widened as soon as he saw he’d hooked a hat and the woman beneath the brim. “Why, I’ll be damned! I’ve caught you, Miss Marshall.” He didn’t give the line any slack when he added, “Now all I have to do is reel you in.”

  Amelia obviously didn’t appreciate Pap’s humor. “Unhook me right this minute!” She looked at Frank when she spoke, but he doubted she was talking to him. Just the same, he dropped his baseball bat and pole and took several strides to reach her side.