She found a café with Wi-Fi and got online with her phone and searched for Broken Coyotes. She found some old music festival listings for past gigs in the area but nothing new.
That night she walked the streets alone, popping into clubs and searching for him. Several places charged her a cover just to go inside and look, and she was beginning to worry about money, since her house sale had yet to close. As the night wore on, the music got louder, and eventually it poured from the clubs, along with the drunks, into the streets where rickshaws rode wildly through the crowds and young men stumbled after staggering girls carrying their heels in their hands. A beer bottle crashed at Jane’s feet as she passed police officers breaking up a fight. She decided it was time to call it a night.
The next day she searched again. She went into bars and asked about Broken Coyotes, but most people she spoke with knew nothing about them. It seemed there were endless bands in the area, forming and breaking up, coming and going, all fighting to be heard above the almost constant cacophony of live music played nightly. Jane began to worry.
What if Caleb wasn’t even here?
What if the band had moved somewhere else?
She was walking down Colorado Street when she saw the sign. She had almost passed it by, but the word “Coyote” leapt out at her, and she turned back. It was posted in the window of a club called Rosa’s Place, and it read:
BROKEN COYOTES
LIVE TONIGHT AT 9:00 PM
She committed the address to memory and walked back toward her hotel with a smile on her face.
She tried to nap, but she was too excited to sleep. She ate a PowerBar for dinner and washed it down with an orange juice from the hotel vending machine. She took a shower and shaved her legs, then washed and conditioned her hair. When she was freshened up and feeling good, she put on her cutest dress, went back to Rosa’s Place, paid the cover, and went inside. She was an hour early, and the bar was just beginning to fill up, so she ordered herself an iced tea and snagged a seat at a table near the stage. An hour had never passed so slowly before.
Her heart leapt when some of the band members appeared on stage. They fussed with their equipment and performed a sound check. The place was already packed, and strangers had crowded around the tiny table with Jane, but she didn’t mind. Not tonight. The lights finally dimmed, the crowd settled down, and the band filed onto the stage—the short lead singer with hair to his waist, followed by a blond drummer, and a tall kid on the electric base. Then the guitar player stepped on stage, and everyone clapped. Except it wasn’t Caleb.
Her disappointment must have been written all over her face, because when they had finished their first song, the man beside her got her attention and said:
“You look a little out of it. Can I buy you a drink?”
“No, thanks,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
An hour later when the band stopped for a break, telling the crowd they’d be back on in ten minutes, Jane got up and approached the stage. The lead singer was marking up his set list with a pencil when he looked up at Jane.
“I’ll have a vodka rocks,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she replied, “but I don’t work here.”
He stuck the pencil in his mouth and chewed on it, raking over her with his eyes. Jane recognized the look.
“Well, if you want to party with me in the backroom after the show, you gotta bring some friends for the band.”
“I just wanted to ask you about Caleb.”
“Caleb?”
“Yes, Caleb Cummings.”
“Never heard of him.”
He turned back to his set list.
“He was supposed to join your band.”
“Oh,” he said, nodding, “the kid from Seattle. That guy’s got some talent. But we went with Vincent instead. No room for two songwriters in a band, if you know what I mean.”
“Do you know where I can find him?”
“No clue. But he’s a lucky guy if he gets found by you.”
That night Jane tossed and turned and hardly slept at all. In the morning she went out again and asked for Caleb by name in every bar and club she could find. She walked until her feet hurt, and a sole broke free from one of her shoes. She ate when she was hungry, just to maintain her energy, but she didn’t taste the food. The hot Texas sun burnt her neck and her nose, despite the sunscreen she’d picked up in a corner market. Still she walked on. She entered a hundred dusky bars reeking of last night’s spilt beer, and she was met with a hundred tired faces with blank stares and bad news.
“Nope, haven’t heard of him.”
“Never played here.”
“Maybe try Red River.”
“No, Market district.”
“South Lamar.”
It was Friday evening, and she was alone in a strange town in a strange state with all of her remaining worldly possessions spread between two suitcases and the trunk of her car. She began to think she’d made a mistake even coming. Her mind wandered to what she might do if she never found him. She knew she wouldn’t return to Seattle, but where would she go?
She found herself just after sunset that evening surrounded by tourists on the Congress Avenue Bridge. They were leaning against the rail and looking over. She wondered if someone had jumped, so she stopped and looked too. There were dozens of tour boats in the silver water below, cameras flashing on their crowded decks. Then a woman below shouted, and a child next to her pointed. Jane saw a few shadows dart out like scouts, and then a wild fluttering stirred up an earthen smell. A million Mexican free-tailed bats flew out from beneath the bridge and funneled up into the crimson sky. They twisted and turned in skyward shadows that looked almost like black contrails in the windless sunset sky, spreading over the city and dispersing on their blind and hungry hunt. Oh, Lord, Jane thought. If she could only separate into a million selves and ride upon their backs, she might have a chance.
But a strange peace fell over her then. It was as if the night had whispered in her ear that all would be well, whether she ever found him or not. She suddenly realized that this journey had always been about her finding the courage to move on.
She thought about her daughter and the good times they had shared. The memories made her smile. She knew she had been blessed to have her, even for the little time that she did. She thought about Grace and how lucky she had been to know her, to love her, to call her a friend. She remembered the promise she had made to Grace on that hotel balcony in Paris. She had promised to live the life that Grace couldn’t live, a life free from fear. She knew that Grace would always be with her, and Melody too. She knew that while she might be by herself now, she would never really be alone.
The sound of a lonely guitar pulled her from her thoughts. She stopped and looked around. She wasn’t sure how long she had been walking, and she was in an unfamiliar part of town. The music rose again, carried to her on a gentle breeze, and she followed it down the street and around a corner.
Several people sat on the steps of an old warehouse turned bar, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. He stood at the base of the steps, his head bent, his hair hanging, playing his guitar and singing a song. She stood and listened.
Served up on a silver tray
Love is a bill too high to pay
As high as any hope can soar
Fear descends as a tax collector at your door
And if you’ve shed your skin too soon
It opens a hole in you that the wind blows through
I just wish our love had not been in vain
That she’d felt it too, that we’d meet again
Through my dark days, through this constant night
I sing out her name – Jane, Jane, Jane
It’s a name I’ll remember for the rest of my life
Most mornings I forget to pray
Oh, how I begged the angels she’d let me stay
Begged until their sweet mercy poured
A gift of light from a forgiving lord
; It rose until it filled my room
And from the light a new hope grew
What if our love was not in vain
That she felt it too, and we’d meet again
Through my dark days, through this constant night
I sing out her name – Jane, Jane, Jane
And I wonder what would’ve been if I’d stayed to fight
They say love’s a game that losers play
Oh well, I say, I never won anything anyway
So I’ve learned to live with an open sore
A gash in my heart that love once tore
I was just too young, blinded by youth
But as I sing this now I know the truth
I know our love was not in vain
That she felt it too, that we’ll meet again
Through my dark days, through this constant night
I sing out her name – Jane, Jane, Jane
And when I find her again, I’ll make her my wife
While he had been singing, the street and the steps and the people had all faded away until all Jane could see there was him, standing alone beneath the amber streetlight.
She reached into her purse and closed her hand on the silver dollar he had left on Melody’s grave, so long ago it now seemed. She tossed it into the open guitar case at his feet. She saw him watch it land, but he stared at it for several seconds, as if he might be saying a prayer before looking up. Then he raised his head and looked into her eyes, and she knew in that moment that she would love him for the rest of her life.
LATER THAT NIGHT, as they lay naked in his bed together, washed in the red neon light coming through his window from a bar sign across the street, Jane rested her head on his shoulder and laid her open hand on his bare chest, watching it gently rise and fall with his breath.
She had never been happier.
“I was in such a hurry to get you into bed,” she said, “that I forgot to mention I brought something for you.”
He caressed her naked back with his fingers.
“Oh, you did? What did you bring me?”
She reached over and turned on the lamp. Then she pulled her purse onto the bed and pawed through it.
“Here,” she said.
He took it from her hand, looked at it, and laughed.
“Don’t tell me you drove two thousand miles to deliver my health insurance card,” he said. “I don’t know whether to be impressed or heartbroken.”
Jane smiled.
“I’m just playing. That isn’t really it. Here.”
She held out the blue felt box in her palm.
His eyes lit up, and he took it, propped himself against the headboard, and looked at it. He was grinning from ear to ear.
“Where’d you get this?”
“Mrs. Hawthorne brought it by.”
He opened the box and looked at the yellow diamond ring.
“And just so you know,” Jane said, “I expect you to get down on one knee when you give it to me.”
“Oh, you think this is for you, do you?”
Jane leaned in and brushed her lips against his, teasing him.
“I sure hope so. However, in the interest of full disclosure, I should warn you first that I’m homeless and unemployed.”
“That’s okay,” he replied. “I’ve got a day job that pays the rent here. Plus, my little balcony there could use some plants to liven it up. Maybe I’ll put you to work for me this time.”
“Hmm,” Jane said. “It’s a tempting offer, but only if you still make us breakfast every morning.”
Caleb smiled.
“You’re turning into quite the negotiator.”
“Deal or no deal?” she asked.
She stared into his beautiful eyes, waiting for his response. She saw none of the sadness that had always been there before. Instead, all she saw was happiness and love.
“Deal,” he said.
He started to rise, but she took the ring box from his hand and snapped it closed and set it on the bedside table. Then she rolled over on top of him and straddled his chest.
“Whoa there,” he said, grinning up at her. “I thought you wanted me to get down on one knee.”
“That can wait,” she replied. “This can’t.”
She planted her hands on his naked chest, leaned down, brought her lips to his, and they kissed.
THE END
About the Author
Ryan Winfield is a novelist, poet, and screenwriter living in Seattle. His debut novel South of Bixby Bridge quickly became a viral success story, selling over 100,000 copies in the first year. Jane’s Melody is his fourth published novel. If you would like to get in touch with Ryan, he would love to hear from you at www.RyanWinfield.com.
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