Small Town Girl

by Rice, Patricia

  “Maybe when you’re better settled in, as we discussed,” his mother said. “Your father and I can bring them up, and you can show us around.”

  Flint ground his teeth. She’d been there when the kids needed her, latching onto his sons like a mother hen with her chicks. He didn’t want to fight her now. “Sure, Mom, that would be good. The town hasn’t changed though. I survived it.”

  She didn’t like being reminded of her country origins, he remembered too late.

  “Just barely.” The frost in her voice grew icicles. “If you’d had a better education, you might have made something of yourself. You could have been a banker like your brother.”

  “Or sell insurance like Jim, right. Four gold records don’t mean a thing. Tell the kids I called. I’ll try again tomorrow night.” Hurt in more ways than he cared to count, Flint flung the ball at the shelf where the stereo should have been.

  “They have a game tomorrow night,” she reminded him. “If you can stagger out of bed before nine on Saturday morning, you might catch them then.”

  Okay, he deserved that. He clicked off the phone, dropped his head back against the leather cushion, and stared at the arched rafters of his ceiling. He’d never been around when the boys needed him. Why shouldn’t they return the favor? His mother aiding and abetting them didn’t help though.

  If he hadn’t been such a horny bastard, he probably would never have married at all. His uptight mother was enough to permanently put a man off women. But he’d been just twenty-three when he’d knocked up Melinda, and even though he’d known marriage would be a disaster, he’d done the honorable thing and ruined both their lives for the sake of the baby. Schools needed to teach common sense instead of math.

  The phone rang, and he contemplated flinging it across the cavernous room, but he was used to company, and loneliness didn’t suit him. He punched the button. “Last Chance Ranch, Flynn the Barbarian speaking.” He waited for the pleasure of shocked silence.

  “Not Flynn the Kung-foo Fighter or Clint the Crooner?” a sultry soprano sang in his ear without hesitation.

  Sopranos weren’t supposed to be sultry. Blondes weren’t supposed to be quick on the uptake either. “I never crooned,” he growled. “I’m just a picker.” And a songwriter, but no one cared about that. Besides, he wasn’t either anymore. “What did you want, Miss Joella?”

  He wished she had a name like Miss Prune or a voice like rusty hinges so he could keep the employer/employee thing at an icy distance. Just one more example of his rotten luck that he’d inherited a blonde sex goddess for a waitress instead of a shriveled-up battleaxe.

  “Your night shift didn’t show up, and the boys want to know if it’s still okay to play in your back room.”

  He thought the café closed at three. He had every intention of being home for his sons when they got out of school. “Want to run that by me again?” he asked, just in case something had been lost between his hearing and his imagining of Jo nibbling on his ear.

  “Charlie always let Slim and the boys play the back room if Mary Jean kept the café open. But Mary Jean had a baby last week. I’ve got the lot of them at my place pacing the floor. I can open up the café tonight, but I can’t do it every night. Amy is taking classes, and I keep the kids on Tuesdays and Thursdays since her lout of a husband is always at the office and too busy to look after them.”

  Information overload. Bells rang, whistles wailed, and his brain refused to get beyond boys and play. “What boys?” he asked, trying to sort through the info dump.

  A sigh of impatience emanated from the receiver, and his over-stimulated brain translated it to the heave of Joella’s amazing breasts.

  “Didn’t Charlie tell you anything? Local groups use that stage in the back room. They charge admission on weekends and use it for practice during the week. The acoustics are better than a garage, and it’s warmer in winter.”

  “Joella, would you mind answering just the question I ask and not half a dozen I don’t care about?” He’d been thinking about turning that back room into a real office. He should have asked about the drums he’d seen in there. “Charlie was supposed to call and fill me in before he left for Florida. What hospital is he in? Maybe I can go visit him.”

  “We don’t have a hospital,” she answered. “He’s recuperating with his daughter in Charlotte. I’ll give you his number. Got paper?”

  Once he’d scribbled the number, his brain had processed her problem and developed a few of his own.

  “Do I have liability insurance to cover bands and audiences?” He hadn’t been oblivious to the business around him, just the people.

  That shut her up for all of five seconds, a new record, he calculated.

  “I’ll talk to George Bob. He carries Charlie’s insurance. But there’s no audience tonight. I’ve got a key. You don’t need to come in.”

  He didn’t want to go in. He didn’t want to get near music ever again. It was a temptation he could do without, kind of like a drunk and alcohol. “All right,” he agreed. “Just tonight. I gotta find out how much this is gonna cost.”

  “It’ll cost you more if you kick out some of your best customers. See ya in the mornin’.”

  She hung up, and the big cabin echoed with emptiness. Flint gazed at his bare shelves. His state-of-the-art stereo equipment hadn’t brought half what it was worth at auction, but he’d seen a certain justice in Melinda getting half of his soul as well as most of his money.

  At the time, he’d been too livid to realize how fleeting life was.

  ***

  Slim and the boys watched Joella anxiously as she hung up the phone. She flashed them a bright smile and a thumbs-up, even though she’d heard the negativity in her boss’s voice. It looked mighty like Flynn Clinton would be even more mule-headed than Charlie.

  The guys cheered and began packing up their gear to carry it down the fire escape to the café’s back room.

  She unlocked the back door, turned on the overheads, and held the sagging door while Turbo entered with his keyboard, and Slim and Eddie carried in their guitar cases and amps. Bo’s drums were already there. She didn’t want to think where in town he could leave them and the bass amps if they had to move out.

  “Hey, Jo, you got any new material for us?” Slim asked. “Now Randy’s using the old stuff, we need something of our own.”

  “Why, so you can all make it big and leave me behind, too?” she half-joked. It still hurt real bad when she thought about Randy’s desertion just as he was hitting the big time. He’d promised to take her with him on his path to fame and fortune.

  She was a little slow to make the same mistake twice, but she’d finally learned her lesson.

  “You know us better than that, Jo-Jo,” Slim said. “We think you’re the best thing to come along since Jack met Daniel.”

  She’d feel a little better about that if Slim was looking at her and not his guitar while he said it. People around here pretty much took her for granted. She was about the only person who thought she had what it took for a bigger and better life than being a small town waitress. Maybe she was wrong, and it was time to admit it, but Stubborn was her middle name. Or Stupid, if she believed the men in her life.

  “I’ve got a few rhymes you can play with, if you want.” Jo pulled a crumpled paper out of her pocket. “But the words aren’t all there yet. They need some work.” The lines needed a lot of work. Kind of hard to do upbeat with a broken heart. Or even a numb one.

  Eddie took the paper from her and scanned her nearly illegible handwriting. “Kinky. You’ve got a way with words, girl.” He passed the paper on to Slim and strummed a few chords. “Same key?”

  “Y’all know I can’t compose worth diddley. You work it out. I gotta make a few calls.” She left them with her foolish verses and ran back upstairs. She’d taught herself basic piano and guitar, but mostly she hung around the band because they were willing to play her ditties. She’d given up hope of singing her way out of here after the Atlanta
humiliation. Then Randy had come along and played on her hunger for respect by claiming her songs and his singing could make them rich.

  Well, he’d taken himself to fame and fortune, although that probably had more to do with his good looks, charm, and sexy tenor than it did with her rhymes. If she scratched both singing and songwriting, she didn’t have too many escape hatches left.

  Nights like this, she was so lonesome, she could cry, just like the song said.

  Five

  “George Bob, so help me, if you don’t give Flint a good deal on that insurance, I’ll tell your mama about the time you took me behind the shed and talked me out of my panties.” Jo slid a donut and a coffee mug to her childhood nemesis.

  George was three years older than her twenty-eight, and he looked every year of it. Tall and thin, he’d never been bad looking, but his nondescript brown hair had grown thinner, and now that she looked close, so had his mouth. He looked like a priggish stickler who sold insurance. When had they become their parents?

  He shot her an annoyed look. “You were five and I was eight. This is business, Joella. A man has to make a living. Keep your nose out of it.”

  “When pigs fly, Georgie-boy,” she sang, unfazed by his refusal. He’d remember her threat when the time came.

  “Which reminds me, that blasted flying pig you talked me into is blocking the sign on my door. Why don’t you sweet talk your new employer into taking it?”

  “Flying pig?”

  Jo rolled her eyes as Flint used his amazing timing to walk up at the wrong moment. Familiarity hadn’t bred enough contempt yet, she reflected, nor driven out the memory of his mind-melting kisses. She’d woken up in the middle of the night sweating over a tasty dream of his buff chest all naked and propped above her.

  She tried not to admire the way his short-sleeved shirt clung to his muscular biceps and his too-long hair brushed the collar, but every damned woman in here had taken notice. Even the blue-haired ladies had flirted when Flint walked by. And he smiled at all of them—just like he had at Jo that first night. And hadn’t done since.

  “The flying pig is the very best one,” she told George, ignoring her boss. “It’s bound to win the prize. Move the pedestal.”

  Jo sauntered on to the next customer. Both men watched in appreciation. She was wearing a narrow black mini-skirt and hot pink golf shirt under her apron today, color-coordinating with the café’s fifties colors. The apron hid nothing from the rear.

  “She’s a bossy brat,” George Bob opined. “I don’t know how you put up with her.”

  Flint gazed around at the customers occupying his tables. The ones remaining after rush hour were all men. “It helps to pay her,” he said noncommittally, sliding into the booth seat across from George. “I tried calling Charlie last night, but his wife wouldn’t let him come to the phone. Says he needs his rest, and worrying about this place won’t help him. So I’m out on this limb alone.” He produced a sheet of paper from his pocket. “I picked up a few estimates before I called you.”

  George held out his hand. ‘Mind if I see them?”

  Flint stuffed the folded paper back in his shirt pocket. “Give me your best offer, and we’ll work from there. I’m on a tight budget and have to work out the cost differentials.”

  “Charlie never had enough coverage,” George asserted.

  “I have no assets,” Flint countered. “Going broke paying too much insurance is a certainty. Getting sued isn’t.”

  Well, actually, given past experience, getting sued almost was a certainty, but he wasn’t inclined to mention that. He’d decided to make one last call this morning before he started digging his own grave.

  As George talked liabilities and assets, Flint watched his waitress greet a shorter, sensible version of herself entering the shop. The brunette in a blue suit held a kid in each manicured hand, and Joella crouched down in that breath-stealing skirt to hug them.

  He almost missed his insurance agent’s quote when Jo stood with a sexy swirl, the little boy’s hand gripped in hers. Returning his wandering attention to business, Flint put on his good-ol’-boy grin and took the paper George pushed at him. “I’ll crunch the numbers and let you know.”

  “You sure you don’t want a flying pig to go with that?” George asked in disgruntlement, sliding out of the booth. “I might even give you a discount to take it.”

  “A purple cow, if you have one,” Flint replied agreeably, clueless about the joke but willing to pass it on.

  “Damn good thing Jo didn’t think of cows.” Grumbling, George walked off, greeting the newcomer with a nod before departing.

  “Hey, Flint, come meet my sister.” Jo poured coffee for her customers at the counter and nodded toward her almost-look-a-like.

  Warily, Flint left the booth and held out his hand. “Just call me, Flint, ma’am. Howd’ya do?”

  “Amy Warren. This is Louisa, and that’s Josh.” She indicated the kids with a harried nod. “Pleased to meet you, Flint. And bless you for letting Jo have Josh for a while. I knew Charlie would find a good man to take over. I have to run. I’ll bake you some muffins this afternoon.”

  Flint blinked and wanted a televised replay of what had just happened here as Amy Warren picked up her daughter and rushed out. He’d bask in the woman’s approval, except he didn’t know what the heck he’d done to gain it.

  “Here, take the kid while I get some more beans out of the back.” Jo shoved the boy’s hand into his.

  Flint was left staring into solemn blue eyes with ridiculously long lashes. A grimy thumb popped into the kid’s mouth. He remembered his kids at that age. He’d give half his life to have that time back.

  “You’re too old to suck your thumb,” he admonished, sounding like his mother.

  The kid sucked harder.

  “Does it taste good?” Flint deposited the boy on the counter with full intention of leaving him there and getting back to work.

  The kid offered his wet thumb for tasting.

  “No, thanks, I’m on a diet and had to give up thumbs. How about a donut instead?” He opened the donut case and selected a chocolate one.

  The kid reached in and helped himself to a sticky one.

  “Josh doesn’t like chocolate.” Jo closed the case as she passed by with the bag of coffee beans. “And now he’ll have sugar all over everything and be hyper for hours. Better get a paper towel.”

  “Tell me again why I’m babysitting?” Flint reached for the towels. Sugary fingerprints already adorned his shirt front.

  “Because Mary Jean just had a baby, and Peggy goes to bed if she sneezes, and Louisa has a doctor appointment.”

  “Okay, that’s one inanity too many. I’ve got to work on the books.” Admiring the way Jo’s feathery earrings accentuated her pouty lips was sufficient to cope with her diarrhea of the mouth.

  Hauling the chubby cherub out of the way of his breakfast crowd before the kid ate up the profits, he escaped to get the phone call off his agenda.

  The office wasn’t bigger than a storage closet. He dropped Josh on a cracked overstuffed chair, handed him pencil and paper, and took a seat at his desk. Vowing to buy a cordless speaker phone to bring some piece of the twenty-first century in here, Flint dialed the number for his ex-manager’s office and set his feet up on the battered oak desk. Putting his big clodhoppers anywhere else involved endangering overflowing wastebaskets or kicking file drawers spilling yellowed invoices.

  “Darla, put me through to Ned right now, or I’ll sue his pants off, and you’ll be out of a job,” he told the gum-smacking secretary who answered.

  As soon as he heard Ned pick up the receiver, Flint launched into his tirade. “You lied to me again, Slick. The album is slated to hit the stores in August, and I have yet to see RJ’s approval for a correction on that cover.”

  He tried not to sound as desperate as he felt. He’d worked his heart out on the tunes for the record company’s latest greatest star. He’d thought RJ was a friend. He’d given
the lying, thieving bastard some of the best work he’d ever done. Maybe the last work he’d ever do. He had wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, not in a sleazy river of lawsuits and name calling between ex-friends and ex-managers.

  “Flint, you’re bulldozin’ mountains out of cesspools, son. The cover is fine.”

  “He left my name off! It’s damn well not fine, and you know it!” Flint roared.

  Startled by Flint’s shout, the kid looked up so fast that he dropped his pencil. He puckered up, whether at the shout or the fact that the pencil had rolled under the desk, Flint couldn’t determine. Grimacing, he tried to maneuver the long curly cord of the phone around the tarnished brass accountant’s lamp to reach under the desk.

  In a lower voice, Flint continued his rant. “Tell RJ if I don’t get credit on that album, I’m coming up there to cut him a new asshole.”

  Ned started more of his backpedaling bullshit. Fed up, Flint let the receiver dangle and crawled beneath the desk to retrieve the pencil from the dust bunnies.

  He had a real bad feeling about lying scum like RJ. He had an ulcer shouting lawsuit every time he thought about the lyrics on that scrap of envelope RJ had passed off as his. In his experience, any man who could rip off a friend would cheat his own mother. That writing wasn’t RJ’s.

  Grabbing the pencil, he started backing out from under the desk.

  “Hide and seek, now why didn’t I think of that?” called a melodious voice over his head. “The café has emptied out and I’ve come to retrieve Josh, but if you’re having fun—”

  “What’s an asshole, Aunt Jo?” Josh asked.

  Flint whacked his head against the desk coming up too fast.

  All five feet, six inches of blonde bombshell beamed at him as he staggered up and fell into his desk chair, nursing his bruised head.

  “Teaching the boy a new vocabulary, are we? How thoughtful.” Without missing a beat, she scooped up the dangling receiver and hung up on Ned, abruptly cutting off the whining—whether intentionally or not, Flint wasn’t about to guess. Joella looked like the kind who didn’t get mad, but got even.