The Darling Songbirds

by Rachael Herron

  ‘She said something about selling it.’

  ‘Oh, man.’ Hank leaned forward. ‘Did you tell her you were going to buy it?’

  ‘She’s grieving, man. I just showed her around.’ Hank was right, though. It should have been the first damn thing out of his mouth. Hugh promised me I could buy the place. You gonna honour that?

  ‘Loser. She still as pretty as she always was?’

  Nate ducked his head to look over Hank’s shoulder. ‘Be careful that Samantha doesn’t hear you ask that, buddy.’

  ‘Ah. Sam’s good. She knows there’s no woman prettier than her in the whole damn world.’ Hank grinned.

  Hank and Samantha were the happiest couple he knew, and it seemed genuine. Highly irritating, too. Hank and Nate were close, had been since Hank had been on the paramedic crew that transported Nate’s mother to the hospital after one of several overdoses. But no matter how close they could claim to be, Hank and Samantha were each other’s favourites, in all things. Just plain annoying. ‘She coming?’

  Hank nodded. ‘She’ll be here soon. You didn’t answer my question about the Darling girl.’

  ‘She’s all right, I guess.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Fine. If you like that kind of thing.’

  Something happened to Hank’s face, as if he knew a joke that Nate didn’t know the punchline to yet. ‘What kind of thing is that? Brown hair, blue eyes? Pretty as a picture?’

  Nate shook his head, trying to rid his head of the image of Adele’s face when she’d first seen the courtyard and how pretty it was. She’d lit up, just like the strings of white lights that were illuminated out there now. ‘Nah, her hair’s not brown, it’s more like … not quite blonde, more like dirt-coloured, like the last inch of a warm Hefeweizen someone left in a pint glass.’

  Hank snorted. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘And her eyes, they’re not really that blue.’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘More like a foggy day kind of blue.’ He’d seen them change colour, as she’d looked first at the courtyard and then into Hugh’s disaster zone. ‘No. More like smog. Dirty-blue.’

  ‘You say dirty about her a lot.’

  ‘Well.’ Nate shrugged. ‘If the shoe fits.’

  ‘Dirty?’

  The voice was Adele’s, and it came – horrifyingly – from behind him. It was too late to save himself, and he knew it.

  Adele’s eyes snapped (her gorgeous, wisteria eyes – nothing like dirty blue anything), but something like a smile was fighting her mouth. She hit his upper arm with her fist. It was softer than a real punch, but harder than a play tap.

  ‘I have dirty beer hair? Smog?’

  She didn’t. She’d done something to it – maybe just combed it out – so that it flowed over her shoulders in soft waves. Her white T-shirt clung to her curves, and Nate had to actively counsel himself to remove his eyes from the vee of the fabric. ‘I like Hefeweizen,’ he said weakly. ‘And, um, pollution gets a bad rap. Why are you sneaking in the back, anyway? No one does that.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Hank. ‘Isn’t this your new boss, Nate? The one you were telling me about? The slave driver who’s going to ruin everything, right?’

  ‘Dude,’ started Nate, but then Adele was around him and on the other side of the saloon, wrapping her arms around Hank.

  ‘There you are,’ she said, kissing him on the cheek.

  Nate felt some kind of jealousy spark, an empty lighter clicking uselessly.

  ‘You’re even prettier now, you know that? Exactly the opposite of what Nate was just telling me.’

  ‘Hey!’

  But Adele just laughed. ‘Where’s Samantha? Congrats on finally getting your girl, by the way. I loved the Facebook posts of the wedding, and I’m so sorry I wasn’t there. I can’t believe you really dressed up in your big duct tape head to walk down the aisle.’ Sam taught self-defence and Hank was one of her padded instructors on his days off from the fire department.

  ‘I can’t believe the first thing my brand-new wife did was kick me in the crotch!’ Hank laughed happily. ‘She’s coming down as soon as she closes the studio. Should be soon. With both of our schedules, we haven’t had a Friday night date in a while. We’re going to watch Dust & Rusty play and maybe I’ll make you shoot some pool with us.’

  ‘Molly was the shark, not me.’

  ‘I seem to remember you weren’t bad.’

  Adele bit her bottom lip, and Nate wondered if that lip gloss he couldn’t stop staring at was a controlled substance. ‘That was a long time ago. We were all so young then.’

  Hank laughed. ‘I still remember your favourite drink from when you were what, twenty-one?’

  Her voice was soft. ‘I was twenty-two when we left.’

  ‘Yeah. Then. It was that horrible Clamato stuff, poured in a Bud.’

  ‘That’s the most embarrassing thing anyone’s ever said about me, and the tabloids have rumoured that I’ve been kidnapped by sex-trafficking aliens.’ Her gaze flickered to Nate, and he felt his stomach jump.

  He probably just hadn’t eaten in a while. That was it. He grabbed a bag of salt and vinegar chips, the least popular of the bags he sold. He didn’t like them much, either, but maybe they’d settle this case of nerves he was feeling. He chewed and then said, ‘Can I get you a drink?’ He felt, rather than saw, the chip fly out of his mouth and land on the saloon. Smooth.

  Hank guffawed, but Adele pretended not to notice. ‘Sure. How about a Hefeweizen?’

  ‘Well, what do you know?’ Nate grabbed a pint glass. ‘Those just happen to be on the house tonight.’

  ‘What a stunning coincidence,’ said Adele. She pulled up a bar stool and sat, leaning comfortably against Hank.

  ‘So y’all know each other,’ said Nate, adding stupid to his repertoire of clumsy and verbally challenged.

  ‘Small town,’ said Adele. She and Hank shared a private smile. ‘I just never held a candle to his dream girl.’

  No way. Her and Hank? How many times had Hank and Nate sat around listening to Hugh talk about his perfect songbird nieces, and Hank had never said a word to Nate? What the hell was that about?

  ‘I’m going to go grab some glasses. Holler if anyone needs me.’ It was an excuse. At least once a night, usually more, he had to do a sweep of the saloon and of the outdoor courtyard, picking up pint glass empties and dumping them into a bus tub. It was still early enough that he hadn’t even come close to running out yet. He’d be lucky if he came back with more than three glasses, total. But he had to get away.

  ‘Hey, Rich. How’s it going? No, you’re not done with that? I hear you. Gladys? You need me to grab that?’

  Gladys held on to the dribble left in her glass and glared at him. ‘Still drinking. Hey, is that a Darling girl over there?’

  ‘You never know.’ Nate hoped he could get away with just that, but Gladys’s fingers grabbed his shirt, crab-like and sharp.

  ‘I do know. She’s here now? Missed the funeral, didn’t she? All of ’em did. That one’s Adele?’

  ‘Didn’t really notice,’ he lied. ‘Maybe a refill on that?’

  Gladys let go of him. ‘Oh, that’d be good. Thanks, sugar. Get the gossip for us, huh?’

  ‘You bet.’ Never.

  The funeral. Had it really been necessary for her to mention that? Nate’s mood dropped just thinking of the day. A rare summer storm had swept in the morning they’d put Hugh in the Darling Bay cemetery, and instead of being a short and warm rain shower, it had been cold and dark. Completely appropriate, under the circumstances. The weather had grieved like Nate had. Thunder had rocked the bay, and lightning had started a couple of vegetation fires in the valley, so that two entire fire companies who’d been in attendance had to race away before it was over. Hugh would have gotten such a kick out of them being at the service – he’d always loved the fire department’s drum and piper corps. He would have thought it was funny as hell that Earl Cornejo had to stop bagpiping right in the middle of ‘Amazing
Grace’ to run out to the fire engine, but Nate hadn’t thought it was humorous at all. It had broken his heart, really. It had been the first time he’d cried in public since his mother had struck him across the face in a grocery store when he was five, knocking him backward into the shopping carts. He had learned from her not to cry, that life was too hard to give in to it.

  And Hugh had been the one to teach him that life was too good not to give in to laughter.

  ‘How about you, Randy? Ready to let that glass go? No? Okay.’ Nate hurried past the end of the bar, trying to shut his ears to whatever Hank and Adele were talking about – not hard when the Darling Songbirds’ second album seemed to be playing all the way through at full volume. Whoever had cued that up on the jukebox either had a good sense of humour or no tact at all. Nate would bet on the latter.

  He eyed the front – no new customers. With perfect timing, Dixie made her way through the swinging half-door. Thank God. She was technically his second bartender on Friday and Saturday nights. She covered him when he took breaks or played with the band. He gave her a long distant salute, and she returned it with a snap.

  Nate escaped through the storeroom and out the side door to the back courtyard. With any luck, no one had seen him leave. With a little more luck, no one would look for him for a while. It felt like a lot, all of a sudden. Adele, back in town. Hugh, gone forever. He wanted to breathe the night air by himself for a few long seconds before he had to get onstage.

  It wasn’t until he was sitting on the first long bench that he remembered the last time he’d sat out here.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Nate and Hugh had sat out on the saloon’s back courtyard a million – maybe more – times, under the twinkling lights of the white strands and the stars above, both. Hugh had sometimes lit his battered old pipe, but Nate was fine sitting on one of the benches with open hands, just looking up. The night before Hugh had died, they’d had a surprisingly quiet Thursday night, and the saloon was completely empty at ten o’clock. They’d sat out there, watching the stars blink at them – no fog, so cool they’d both needed their jeans jackets.

  As if Hugh had known he was on the way out, he’d said something that hadn’t made sense until later. ‘Hey, kid. I know you want this place.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Nate had said, smiling upward. He did. Ever since he’d been able to talk Mariah at the bank into believing he was a good bet. Well, he’d had to sell his boat to Ruthann to bring his points all the way and have the cash for the down payment, but it had been the right thing to do – he could feel it. The money was there, ready. He could buy the place as soon as Hugh told him he could have it.

  ‘Keep fighting for it.’ Hugh had said he would sell and then changed his mind an hour later so many times that Nate wasn’t going to believe it until the deed was in his hand. Hugh kept thinking the girls might come back. Claim their inheritance. But everyone knew the Darling Songbirds had flown away forever. Otherwise they would have come home sooner.

  ‘You want me to keep fighting you for the place? Okay, then. But don’t tell me you didn’t ask for a battle, old man.’

  ‘I mean it, Nate. No joke. If I’m not around. Do what you have to do.’

  Had Hugh known? Had he felt, even then, that his life was drawing to a close? Had he foreseen Adele coming back to town in order to sell the one thing that Nate held important? If so, why hadn’t Hugh just sold it to him? None of it felt fair, but that wasn’t news. Nate had learned a long time ago that life didn’t play by the rulebook.

  And now he’d lied to Adele about still having the boat. What was he supposed to do, suggest they share the small room? His neck (and something else, something lower) heated at the thought. He’d just toss his sleeping bag in room twelve where the bathroom still worked. It’d be fine, even without a roof overhead. Like camping.

  Nate collected the six ashtrays that rested on top of the picnic tables, stacking them to bring inside to wash. Then he realised they were all clean and unused, so he set them out again. There was absolutely no reason for him to be out here in the twinkle-lighted dark; this was just him running away. But hell. What was the harm in that?

  ‘It’s prettier out here than it ever was.’ Adele’s voice was soft behind him. ‘I love the lights, how they sparkle through the grapevines.’

  Was she going to make this a habit? Sneaking up behind him and sending goosebumps up and down his spine? If so, Nate didn’t like it. ‘Yeah. Thanks.’ He looked over her shoulder. ‘Do I have a customer?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘And there’s someone bartending now. Short brown curls?’

  He didn’t have to tell her anything about how he ran the bar until she actually asked. ‘Yeah, well, I should get back in there.’ He could smell Adele’s perfume, light as a butterfly’s wing and sweet as jasmine, and his head did a dizzy reel. He slid his right hand into his front pocket and gripped his mother’s two-month sobriety chip, just long enough to settle his head. Too bad she never got her three-month chip.

  Women. He’d believed in his mother too many times.

  Hugh had believed in his Darling Songbirds way too many times.

  ‘Wait –’

  But Nate was fast, moving around the last table and through the storeroom, back into the saloon before she could finish what she was saying.

  Scrug was almost finished setting up the amp onstage, and Mack was checking the microphones. ‘One, two, can y’all hear me?’

  There were a couple of new customers seated at the saloon, but Dixie had them well in hand, whipping up some frothy concoction while telling them a joke at the same time. Adele took her seat next to Hank at the saloon. She looked at him expectantly. ‘So, tell me about the band.’

  Hank hooted. ‘Yeah, Nate, tell her about the band.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  Adele sat forward eagerly. ‘Are you in it? I saw your guitars. I really wanted to play your Martin, but I didn’t dare touch it. It looks like an antique.’

  He wasn’t going to get out of this, was he? This was the way his night was going to go. The owner of the Golden Spike was going to watch its bartender play guitar on a broken-down stage in a podunk town, and that bartender was just going to have to take it. ‘It’s as old as I am, maybe older.’

  ‘Must be worth a fortune.’ Her voice was soft, but he could clearly hear her through the noise in the saloon.

  ‘It’s a piece of crap.’ The Martin had been his mother’s beater guitar, given to her by the man he’d suspected but never confirmed was his father, and it had always been passed around to the drunkest person in the room. It was the guitar that could take a lickin’, and it wasn’t worth more than a couple of hundred dollars, despite its age and provenance. ‘Plays for shit. Sounds terrible.’

  ‘Why do you keep it, then?’

  Sentimental reasons wasn’t a good answer. Same reason I keep her chip in my pocket. ‘Might need firewood someday.’

  Hank said, ‘Don’t let him fool you. Nate could make a neckless guitar sound great.’

  ‘You’re good, huh?’

  Her smile looked real, and it made Nate itch. ‘I guess I don’t suck that much.’

  The door swung open, and Samantha walked in. Thank God for small mercies. ‘Hey, Hank, look who’s here.’

  Hank lit up like someone put a quarter in him. ‘There’s my girl.’ Samantha laughed and kissed him roundly. Nate watched, a little embarrassed, but unable to look away from their happiness, like it was a car wreck, only the exact opposite. A collision that ended in joy.

  He met Adele’s eye, and then wished he hadn’t. There was something in her gaze, something soft and wistful, and there was nothing he could do about that – nothing he wanted to do.

  So he drew a pint of Samantha’s favourite beer and slid it across the bar. ‘Hey. Sam. When you come up from air, look who’s here.’

  Samantha and Hank pulled apart, both blushing. Or maybe they had both just overheated. ‘Sorry.’ Samantha turned to Adele. ‘Oh!�
�

  They hugged quickly.

  ‘It’s been a long time,’ said Adele.

  ‘So long. I loved your third album. It was the soundtrack of my life for a while.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Adele.

  ‘Do you get this wherever you go?’

  ‘No way. In every town except Darling Bay, no one knows me from Eve. Wait. I take that back. A couple of weeks ago I was recognised, and it was very exciting but then I realised she thought I was Lorelai Gilmore from Gilmore Girls and I’m obviously not, and both of us ended up very embarrassed.’

  Samantha laughed. ‘Did you have a cup of coffee in your hand?’

  ‘I did. That’s where the resemblance began and ended.’

  ‘No, I can see it.’ Samantha wrinkled her nose. ‘Totally. You’ve got that vibe. And hey, look, Nate looks like Luke Danes, doesn’t he?’ She nudged Hank in the side. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘I will never admit that I watch that show with you.’

  Samantha nodded solemnly. ‘Then I will never tell anyone that you’re the one who bought the DVDs in the first place.’

  Nate leaned forward, hands on the bar. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, but this staring at me thing has to stop, so somebody change the subject, for the love of God.’

  Adele came to his aid. ‘When does your band go on?’

  ‘Not for at least three or four hours,’ said Nate. Maybe she would give up and go to bed. Immediately.

  And just like that, he imagined her in his bed. Under his sheets. What did Adele wear to sleep? A white camisole? A red nightie? Nothing at all?

  Mack gave a howl from the stage while beating on the drum’s high hat.

  Nate jumped. ‘Or now. Maybe we could go on now.’

  Adele’s grin was huge. ‘Excellent.’

  For the first time in more years than he could count, Nate felt a surge of stage fright.

  He hated it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Adele couldn’t remember the last time she’d just watched a band play for fun. A band in which she had no investment, made up of members to whom she had no ties. She hadn’t written the song for the lead singer. She hadn’t introduced one of the members to her old publicist, and no one was trying to ride her now-threadbare coat-tails. Nashville was huge and bright, a tinseltown honky-tonk. Darling Bay was sleepy and Adele already knew the band would be done by eleven. The city noise ordinance had always been respected – Darling Bay liked its peace and quiet.