Songbird's Call

by Herron, Rachael

  Colin gave a nod. Good, it was established it was definitely his fault. Nothing better than that. “I’ll see you.”

  God, he hoped he would. At the same time, he was scared he might.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The next morning, Adele was at Molly’s hotel-room door at eight. She let herself in, of course. A quick knock, a twist of the key in the lock, and a bright voice, “I’m so excited! I still can’t believe it!”

  Molly groaned and pulled the covers over her head, then peeked out. “It’s too early for this.”

  “If you’re going to run the café, you’re going to have to get used to early mornings. Up and at “em, sunshine! Let’s get down there and throw stuff around and figure out how to do this!” Adele twirled.

  “Does Nate ever want to kill you?”

  “Never. I’m everything he ever wanted. I’m the light of his life.”

  “So the answer is yes. Daily.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Molly struggled into a sitting position, rubbing her eyes. The idea, which had seemed so incredibly brilliant last night, had dimmed. “I’ve got no clue where to start.”

  “I don’t either. We’ll figure it out.”

  And here, already, was the sticking point. That we.

  Molly wanted to do this on her own. If – and it was still a big if – she decided that this was actually a good idea, she wanted it to be hers. Not yet another Darling Songbird collaboration. When the band broke up eleven years before, the split had crushed all of their hearts, leaving the girls scattered, alone, each of them homeless without her sisters.

  But Molly had taken one worthwhile thing from it – it felt good to stand on her own two feet, without propping herself up on her sisters” shoulders.

  And she wanted the café to be hers. Not Adele’s.

  Molly cleared her throat, hoping the nerves she felt were just because she needed coffee. “I’ll figure it out.” She was correcting Adele’s last words. Only she didn’t want to have to spell it out. She didn’t want to hurt her sister.

  “You’ll let me help?”

  Adele’s help. That was the thing. Adele was wonderful, a marvel. She was a force of nature. She could get more things done by noon than most people did in a weekend. But Molly didn’t feel like being bossed. Not anymore.

  “Absolutely. When I figure out what you can do.”

  “But –”

  “Let me at least start this by myself. I’m going to the bank on Monday.”

  “But you’ll…”

  Molly waited for Adele to finish her sentence. Molly would what? Screw it up? Get it all wrong? Adele had always been the one to get things right. She was the one to fix things that broke, the one who had cleaned up their messes for a long time. She was good at it. Only Molly had grown up. “I’ll be fine.”

  Adel nodded sharply. She got it. “I guess I’ll leave you to it. Let me know if you need anything.” She didn’t meet Molly’s eyes.

  That was fine. Adele’s feelings could be hurt for a while. She’d get over it. “I do need cleaning supplies. I’ll buy stuff like Clorox and 409, but can I borrow the mop and bucket from the bar?”

  Adele’s voice was curt as she said, “Whatever you need. Just take it.”

  “Thank you.” But Adele had already closed the door behind her.

  Molly showered and put on her oldest T-shirt and jeans. The shirt had a gigantic blue kitten face on the front, and was ripped in three places at the hem. It was tighter than she usually liked to wear in public, but it was just for cleaning. A nutrition bar for breakfast, a cup of coffee reheated in the hotel-room microwave and she was ready. Armed with rags, cleaning liquids and a pair of bright-pink rubber gloves, Molly let herself into the café.

  And her heart fell to the filthy floor.

  It was even worse than she’d remembered. If a fire had ravaged the place, leaving nothing but black char in its wake, it might have looked more attractive than what she was staring at now. In the darkness of night, the dirt had been hidden. Now, in the light, everything was visible. Grime covered every surface, every counter, every chair, every table. For a brief second, Molly considered crying. Then she considered running away, leaving town, a note for her sister pinned to the hotel-room door.

  She shook herself. Enough. She stuck in the ear buds of her phone, cued up her favorite dance list, and started moving.

  First things first. Today was for the dining room. Everything had to come out. She wouldn’t even set foot in the kitchen yet. That would come later, when she had a better idea of all there was to do.

  One by one, she lugged each heavy wooden chair outside, singing as she moved. Then she wrestled each table into the parking lot. An hour later, the parking lot looked as if she were about to host a dinner in an open-air dining room for people who didn’t mind a dark dose of depression served with their meal.

  The lamps that stood in the corners came out and leaned crookedly against the tables. She set the heavy Victrola just outside the door. Molly remembered winding it as a child, playing records on the nights – not infrequent – when the power went out due to storms or high winds.

  Then the dining room was empty. It echoed dully, her footsteps ringing hollow, the mop and bucket making an unholy racket as she pushed them forward. The scent of bleach in the hot water stung her nose. She was already sweating her ass off, and the cleaning was just getting started. Molly cranked her tunes louder.

  She dragged the mop forward and back, scrubbing as hard as she could. She sang out loud, coughing every once in a while in the foul-smelling air. She didn’t even care when one of the poppiest Darling Songbirds songs was played. Usually, unable to listen, she hit the forward button. But today, it felt right, singing along to “Honey and Honky-tonk” at the top of her lungs.

  She dumped the mop bucket and its disgusting contents down the outside drain and refilled with what felt like her tenth bucket of hot water. Thank God for the outside fish-cleaning sink. The cool morning air felt good on her wet skin, and she closed her eyes for a moment, stretching.

  Then she felt a tap on her shoulder. Molly screamed, and whirled, wielding the mop as a weapon.

  “Whoa, there! Sorry! I didn’t know you were armed!”

  It was the beautiful blonde she’d seen Colin with the night before. Nikki.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Nikki was the date he’d said wasn’t a date, the woman who’d gotten into the car with the other man and left Colin standing alone on the front porch of the Golden Spike.

  Molly jerked out the ear buds. “Can I help you?”

  “I just wanted to know what you were doing.”

  Oh, Darling Bay. Molly had forgotten how everyone in a small town was nosy, as if just living there gave them that right. “Cleaning.” Her voice was flat.

  “Sorry, but didn’t I see you at the bar last night?”

  “Maybe?” Molly was a ball of sweat. She could feel it trickling down her forehead and running into her eyes. She felt as grimy as the furniture she’d pulled into the parking lot. The gorgeous blonde standing in front of her wasn’t making her feel any better. She wore a button-down blue blouse, a dark-blue skirt, and blue flats that looked new. Not a scuff on them. She was the stark opposite of Molly, before and after in the flesh.

  “No, I know I saw you. You’re a Darling Songbird. You’re Molly. Am I right? Oh, I know I’m right!”

  Oh, Lord. Was this really the time she had to run into a fan? Molly bumped into fans just about never, nowadays. The band had been forgotten for the most part, save in this little corner of the world. Here they were big fish in a pond the size of an mason jar. It wasn’t something to be proud of.

  “You’ll forgive my not shaking hands. They’re covered with things you don’t want to touch, trust me.”

  The woman bounced on the tips of her toes. “Oh, my goodness. I’m just so excited, you don’t even know. I think I might be your biggest fan.”

  That was entirely possible. “How nice.�
�� Molly shoved a sweat-soaked lock of hair out of her eyes, knowing as she did so, she was probably dragging another dark smear across her face.

  “I’m Nikki. Nikki McMurtry.”

  Oh. Something bright glinted across the street, blinding Molly momentarily. “You’re his wife?”

  “Whose wife? Oh, ew, Colin’s? No! I’m his sister!”

  “Oh.” The idea of Colin not having been on a date last night was entirely too welcome.

  “Did you think I was his girlfriend or something last night? That’s horrible. You mean he didn’t correct you?”

  It wasn’t like Molly had asked. It had been none of her business.

  “I’ll never forgive him for not introducing me to you. We met, once, a long time ago. I’m sure you don’t remember. But you helped me. You helped me a lot.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t…”

  “I was leaving summer camp at the youth center, and Cortez Burdass started chasing me, yelling that he was going to throw me into traffic.”

  Oh. Molly remembered the bully, his bellowing voice, his empty threat (there was almost never traffic in Darling Bay, after all). And she knew she had yelled something at him, but it was so long ago now. She didn’t know what she said.

  “You yelled at him that if he put a finger on me you would punch him in the balls.”

  Laughter jolted her. How could she have forgotten that? In a house with two sisters, she’d been late to even hearing about the concept of balls – how they could hurt a boy if smacked the right way. And the right way seemed to be any way at all. That day had been the first time she’d ever said the words out loud, and they had felt powerful. Her father had been right – he’d been telling her she had to speak up, like her sisters did, if she saw something that needed to change. Use that voice of yours. Yell when you need to, Molly. So she had yelled at Cortez. It had been the first time she’d heard the power of her own voice. Just her words, yelled, had had a very real, physical effect. Cortez had given a squeak and then he’d run away like a little girl, leaving the actual little girl gaping at Molly in awe. It had been extremely satisfying even if she’d been shaking a little.

  And as far as Molly knew, it was the first and last time she had ever had any dealings with this Nikki McMurtry. “I’m glad it helped. That guy was a little jerk.”

  “Now he runs the second-best fishing tackle shop in town, and he’s still an ass. In fact, if you wanted to go threaten his balls, I’d like to watch.”

  “Noted.” Molly turned back to finish filling the bucket with hot water. She added the last slug of her second bottle of Lysol to it. With a heave and a sigh, she lifted it down to the concrete.

  “Can I help?”

  Molly shook her head quickly, automatically. “I got it.”

  “You’re…cleaning?” Nikki made it sound as if cleaning the café was the worst idea she’d ever heard, or at least the most ridiculous. She peered inside as she held open the glass door for Molly to roll back into the dining room. “Because I gotta tell you, this looks like a lost cause.”

  “Yeah, it might be.”

  Nikki tilted her head. “But you’re going to punch it in the balls?”

  That was it, actually. “Yes! I’m going to punch it so hard it sings like a canary.”

  “Let me help.”

  Propping herself on the long handle of the mop, Molly took another look at Nikki. Her pink lipstick was recently freshened. Her eyeliner was perfect. Every strand of hair was in place in that artfully waved way women wore their hair on Thursday-night television. She looked like a model. “You’re not exactly dressed for it.”

  “I don’t care. I just had the most awful interview of my life. I hate the clothes I’m wearing, these shoes are pinching my feet, and I’m in the worst mood ever. I need to attack something.”

  “And you don’t have a house to clean? A car? You actually feel like scrubbing down the dirtiest diner in the history of the western world?”

  “Believe me, my house is as clean as it’s going to get.”

  There was something in the woman’s face that Molly liked. An openness. Her eyes looked sad, and at the same time Molly thought she could read something hopeful in them. Nikki’s shoulders were bowed just enough that it looked like yes, she’d had a bad interview. And maybe it would be good for her to scrub something. “I can’t pay you.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Molly shook her head. “No, I really mean it. I have no money. I have no idea why I’m cleaning this shithole, and I can’t guarantee that you won’t get some kind of tropical disease from what you touch in there.”

  “I said I don’t care. I really don’t. I just need to make something look better. You ever get that feeling?”

  “Yeah. I do. All right, then. There’s a box of rubber gloves on the picnic table in the front.”

  And then, strangely, Molly cleaned side by side with Colin’s sister. Molly cued up her dance playlist on her phone, and turned up the speaker so that the music filled the dining room, the sound quality thin but audible. Nikki knew the words as well as Molly did, and they both sang along. Nikki managed to unstick most of the windows with a putty knife, and the scent of salt air filled the dining room, christening it, chasing out the smell of mildew and bleach.

  After two hours, three-quarters of the floor space had a natural sparkle. Some of the old linoleum would have to be pulled up and replaced – there was no saving it. The northern wall, the one with the fewest windows, had obvious water damage, and when they tried to wash it, the paint peeled off in long, thin strips.

  They went outside and attacked the tables and chairs. Molly was grateful they were in the parking lot and not set up on the main sidewalk. As it was, four or five residents peered over the low white fence to ask what they were doing. Molly answered politely twice. To the third resident, Nikki put her hands on her hips, and said, “We’re building an airplane.”

  The man huffed. “I thought you were having a garage sale or something.”

  “A garage sale?” Nikki flapped a Windex-soaked rag in his direction. “Do you see a garage here? Do you think we’re having a gigantic tag sale on old tables? Are you an antiques dealer?”

  The man backed off, still puffing out his cheeks.

  “Because if these are antiques, sir, we can give you a fair price! Each piece, just a thousand dollars!” She turned to face Molly. “Sorry. That wasn’t very polite.”

  “It was wonderful.” Molly meant it. “I’m starving. Let’s eat.”

  They scrubbed their hands raw, and over two sub sandwiches as big as Molly could talk the deli guy into making them, they ate.

  “This is amazing.” Nikki spoke around a mouthful.

  Molly chewed appreciatively. “The best part is this.” She rapped the plastic deli table with her knuckles. “So clean. If I had any cash at all, I’d order fifteen of these and throw out the café tables. No, I’d burn them. Only that might put too many toxins into the environment.”

  “Nah, that furniture will be beautiful when we’re done with it. Just a little more elbow grease and some Murphy’s wood soap, followed by a good oiling. Worst-case scenario, we re-stain them. That stuff was made to last. You’re lucky.”

  “You really think so?” Lucky. Molly didn’t know how much luck had to do with anything. The reason she was broke wasn’t about luck – that was all her, all the time.

  “Come on. Think about that old café. Isn’t it literally sitting on top of a gold mine?”

  “Maybe a mineshaft? One that’s about to collapse?”

  “No, really, didn’t your family mine gold?”

  “Oh, lordy.” Molly laughed. “No. There was gold up in the valley, but it was never ours. Some of that gold ended up in the Golden Spike that joined the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869. But my great-grandfather just named the town after himself and opened a saloon called the Golden Spike. That’s as close as we ever got to a precious metal, unless you count the Golden Spikes they serve at the bar.”


  “Oh, man, I had one of those once. That’s all it took. What was in that thing?”

  Funny. Molly hadn’t thought of that drink for so many years. The tourists had always loved it – probably still did. “Bourbon, Goldschläger, Angostura bitters, hot apple cider, and a lemon wedge. So yeah, with the Goldschläger, you’re really drinking gold.”

  “That’s so weird. And awesome. I wish I had something like that. Something that meant something to me, that had been in my family a long time.”

  Molly stabbed her ice with a straw. “Do you and Colin have family here?” Oh, dang it. They were all in jail. She shouldn’t have mentioned it.

  “Me and Colin are the two who are left, that’s all.” For one short second pain shone in Nikki’s eyes. “Been that way for a long time.”

  “Are both your parents gone?”

  Nikki stared. “Really? You don’t know?”

  Molly shook her head. “It’s been a while since I knew any Darling Bay gossip. But you don’t have to tell me a thing.” She hated it when people pried. She didn’t need to do it herself.

  Nikki just blinked. “My mama died of a stroke, and then my daddy, who was the sheriff just like Colin, ate a bullet. On the sidewalk in front of the police department.” Her gaze was blank.

  Molly sat in silence. She didn’t know what to say. Was there any condolence big enough? Instead, she just said, “Me and my sisters are orphans, too.”

  “I know.”

  Something lurched inside Molly’s chest. She had two options. She could stand up and leave the deli with Nikki, thank her politely, give her a California hug, and hope that she saw her in the new future. Maybe they’d exchange cell-phone numbers.

  Colin’s sister.