The Darling Songbirds

by Rachael Herron

  Now that he thought about it, why wasn’t he hearing the creak of the storeroom when she came through it? Ignoring her, he stepped around her and pushed the heavy door.

  Nothing. It was silent.

  ‘This used to squeak.’

  She grinned. ‘I oiled it!’

  ‘You what? When?’

  ‘Just now. It only took a second. I’m nervous.’ Adele twisted her fingers together. ‘I like to fix things when I’m nervous.’

  ‘Did it ever occur to you I wanted it to squeak?’

  She laughed.

  He didn’t.

  ‘You’re serious?’

  Nate nodded.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I keep the bank bag back there, as well the extra bottles for the top shelf. That’s a lot of potential loss.’

  Her cheeks were bright pink. ‘I would never have thought of that.’

  ‘Yeah.’ A thank you wouldn’t kill him. He knew that. But he’d be damned if he’d say it. Was there even a way to make a door squeak again, once it stopped?

  At least she was something good to look at. That helped, he supposed. She was wearing a red-and-white chequered western shirt with pink flowers embroidered on the shoulders. Her hair was loose around her face, curling at the ends. Her blue jeans were tight. Instead of cowboy boots, she was wearing shiny red heels with straps that went across her ankles. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said miserably.

  ‘Whatever. I’ll deal with it.’

  She rallied – he could see her doing it. ‘But see?’

  ‘See what?’

  She turned and gestured. ‘All these people!’

  ‘There aren’t many. And they’re not buying.’ He felt like he was popping balloons as fast as she could blow them up.

  ‘Even not buying much, I see a couple of drinks out there. Look at those cowboys. I bet you five dollars they’ll buy those girls a drink within an hour.’

  Nate didn’t doubt the truth of that. The women were getting gigglier and edging nearer the cowboy clump. ‘Yeah, but that’s not the point. A few of my regulars aren’t here.’

  ‘What, you think they’re scared of a little music?’

  ‘More like don’t want to bothered by bad musicians. Maybe they just bought a bottle of vodka and are staying home tonight with their Wanda Jackson records.’ Nate had it on good authority that Parrot Freddy had done exactly that. He’d been mighty clear that he hadn’t wanted either of his parrots to have to endure ‘a cacophonic clusterfuck’.

  Adele’s colour was still high, pink lighting the tops of her cheekbones. It didn’t look like make-up, either, not like the waitresses over there. Nate knew all of them, had even dated Jessica Moniz once or twice. But there was just something about kissing a woman whose face left an oily tan-coloured slick behind on his fingertips that Nate didn’t enjoy.

  Adele’s face looked free from make-up, apart from that lip gloss that should be classified as a deadly weapon. She could kill a man wearing that stuff. It was good Nate’s heart was strong and could remain unaffected.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘You’ll be amazed at how much money the bar brings in tonight.’

  ‘It’s not all about money, you know.’ It was about community. It was about the group of people he took care of. If Parrot Freddy wasn’t in the saloon, Nate couldn’t put a glass of water in front of him between each drink, could he? At home, Freddy was just going to chug the whole fifth and wake up tomorrow feeling like hell, dehydrated and weak. That wasn’t good for his diabetes, either. Usually Nate could get a little cheese and peanuts in the guy (he bought and kept Fred’s favourite, Monterey Jack, in the iced tea fridge, just for him). At nine, he reminded him to take his night-time meds. Who would do that for him tonight?

  Three other regulars were missing from their bar stool lineup, three others who’d be nursing cases of beer and bottles of wine at home, where, if they needed assistance, no one would be there to help.

  Norma, though, was here. Good old Norma. She was already dealing tarot cards out on top of the saloon with loud thunks, keeping a careful eye on the waitresses. She was good – within half an hour, Nate predicted each of the young women would be buying her a drink or two to read their fortunes. If she spaced them out right, she wouldn’t have to buy more than her first drink tonight.

  ‘Speaking of money.’

  Nate raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I’ll need to get the bank ledger from you soon. Maybe tomorrow?’ Adele’s voice was light, but she kept her eyes on her red shoes.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘That’s –’ She cleared her throat. ‘That’s not a problem, is it? Does he still keep it in his office desk? I always loved those old folio-style books.’

  Had she even noticed she’d used the present tense? ‘He did. Yeah.’

  ‘Is the office unlocked?’

  It felt like she was trying to steal money out of his wallet even though she had every right to ask. ‘No.’

  ‘Where do you keep the key?’

  He reached into his pocket slowly and pulled out a keyring. ‘On my person.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘For safety.’ Even more slowly, he twisted off the key and handed it to her. ‘But you’re the one who needs the key now, huh?’

  ‘No, you’re still – I mean –’

  He raised a palm. ‘S’fine. I have another one. I suppose you’ll have to turn over the ledger for the bank appraisal.’

  She would. ‘Do you know his banking system? Quick-books? Excel?’

  A barked laugh was the only answer he could give. Hugh didn’t trust computers, never had, and had kept everything in that one big book.

  ‘Still?’ Adele shook her head. ‘God, he was stubborn. So what, he’s still doing it all by hand?’

  ‘I tried to make him a customer database for the hotel once, just a simple computer form, and I swear he almost fired me over it. He kept talking about selling, so I told him it would be a good idea to pull everything into one place. Easier for everyone involved. But he wouldn’t do it.’ Nate popped open the till’s tray and checked to make sure he’d put enough singles in it, even though he knew he had. ‘I tried, but he said he liked walking to the bank every day.’

  ‘Walked to the bank. He was never robbed?’

  ‘This is Darling Bay, not Venice Beach. Besides, you’ve seen the place. No hotel money, no café money, just the take from the saloon. He would have lost a couple hundred dollars most days. Even our busiest nights don’t bring in more than seven, eight hundred. Not a big enough deal to make him go digital. So,’ Nate folded his arms across his chest, ‘getting ready to put it up for sale?’

  Adele raised her chin. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ll be pleasantly surprised, I think, to find that I haven’t been a complete fuck-up with Hugh’s accounts.’

  She folded in her lips before she spoke. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you had been.’

  Yeah. That was not what her face said. Adele’s eyes were saying that she thought maybe he had no clue what to do with a dollar bill. In fact, he’d pay quite a few of his own hard-earned, carefully saved dollars just to watch her face when she went through the Golden Spike’s accounts. Closing the café and the hotel had been Hugh’s decisions, based on mistakes Hugh had made. There had actually been a time, about two years ago, when Nate had floated Hugh for a month or two while he sold some property he had in Nevada in order to make ends meet. Hugh had paid him back, almost immediately, red-faced about it. Hugh had hated it. He shouldn’t have. It had made Nate happy to help.

  ‘Thanks,’ Adele said into the silence that had fallen taut between them.

  ‘Want a drink?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘You and everyone else around here.’

  ‘Really?’ Adele looked concerned for a moment. ‘Yeah, then. I’ll have a whiskey and soda.’

  It wasn’t a girly drink. He approved. Not that he would tell her that. He poured and passed. ‘Here you go.’

 
Idiotically, she tried to slide a ten across the saloon top. ‘Thanks.’

  He pushed it back firmly. ‘It’s your whiskey.’

  ‘I don’t want to …’

  ‘It’s literally your whiskey.’

  ‘Let me pay.’

  Nate shrugged. ‘Fine.’ He gave her the change, and then leaned against the old till, watching her carefully.

  She was trying to look calm, but her fingers gave her away. They moved like they were playing the guitar, her left hand making chords at her side, her right doing a strumming pattern that he could almost hear. She reached up to tug on a lock of her hair as if she wished she were wearing a hat that she could pull down.

  Damn it, she was too good-looking. If only she’d stop biting her lower lip like that. Like it tasted good to her. Those shiny lips – was her gloss the kind some women wore that had sugar in it? Did she taste as sweet as she looked in that plaid shirt? Her breasts were high, just the right size, held up like they were secure but not so pushed up that he suspected major bra mechanics at play. An image, red hot and pornographic, lit his mind – Adele, arched under him, his arm wrapped behind her back, pulling her up so he could trail kisses and bites down her torso, and lower.

  Lord have mercy. He couldn’t just stand here lusting after her like a thirteen-year-old boy discovering his first dirty magazine. He dug out a clean rag and put disinfectant on it, then he wrung it out and held on, as if it could wipe his brain with it.

  Adele bent over the amp onstage and wiggled the cord, sending a squeal of feedback through the room. Even the oldsters clapped their hands over their ears in protest.

  Nate found out he didn’t care about the feedback. It didn’t even hurt. It practically sounded like a song, as long as she kept herself bent over like that, her sweet little rear round and tight in those dark blue jeans …

  He put down the rag and rinsed his hands. A few dirty thoughts weren’t actually immoral, right? Not yet, anyway. The open mike was going to be a train wreck, and he’d warned her of that. He couldn’t stop this particular train from hurtling down the tracks, so instead of trying to, he leaned back against the till again. He crossed his arms.

  And then he mentally undressed her, right down to those silly red strappy distracting-as-hell shoes.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It was a train wreck.

  And the worst part was that her turn was still coming. She’d decided to use the pool chalkboard for the list of names. It was a small chalkboard, but only seven people had showed up to perform. ‘Great!’ she’d lied. ‘If anyone has a second song, feel free to perform that as well! Write your names up here, and we’ll get started!’ She hadn’t wanted to put her name up – this wasn’t about her – but the tiny audience had insisted, the cowboys in the back going so far as to chant, ‘Songbird! Songbird!’ until she’d given in and added herself to the end of the still-too-short list.

  ‘Welcome!’ The microphone felt strange in her hand, like the memory of a dream. She wrote songs now, and fixed the songs of others. She didn’t perform. Why the hell had she given in and said she would sing? ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ All, what? Fifteen people? There couldn’t be more than twenty at most. When Adele had imagined the night, she’d pictured the saloon full. Two hundred, max capacity. The fire marshal would be summoned to check for safety. People would be packed in, right up to the old wooden beams. Nate would be pouring drinks so fast, working so hard, that he’d sweat. His shirt would be stuck to his skin, and she’d be able to see those muscles flexing, his biceps straining.

  Instead, there was a group of senior citizens who seemed both very nice and very reluctant to drink anything but water. A small clutch of women stood near the door, and a few cowboys held up the far end of the bar. Norma was there, her long skirt draped over her bar stool. That was it. Dixie wasn’t even there to urge her into bad behaviour. (Adele knew she shouldn’t feel as disappointed by this as she did.) None of the firefighters who’d been hanging out with Hank the other night were there.

  Adele hoped her disappointment didn’t show. ‘All of you! How wonderful you’re here. You’re in for a real Darling Bay treat tonight, I tell you that. First up, Clois! Come on up!’ She put the mike back on the stand and clapped as loudly as she could to make up for the fact that two of the older women appeared to be arguing over a crochet hook.

  The woman named Clois had gotten the night started with a bang. She went up with a guitar and a short skirt. Her guitar playing wasn’t the problem. Nor was her singing.

  The skirt was the problem.

  The stage was about eighteen inches higher than the bar room floor. Because the audience’s median age was a hundred and twenty and if they’d been standing they would have just been creaky dominos, ready to fall, they were all seated in the folding chairs. It felt strange to be the only one standing so Adele sat, too.

  And from there, Adele could see why the audience looked so gobsmacked.

  Clois’s underwear was orange. It was the orange of roadworkers worldwide. No one could miss it, and worse, no one could take their eyes off it.

  How did Clois not notice where everyone’s eyes were? Every seated woman in the room wriggled miserably, crossing and recrossing their legs, but Clois just kept singing. Adele hoped against hope that she only had one song to sing, but after the first one, Clois just smiled happily at the applause (fervent, heated clapping from the old men) and said, ‘Oh, thank you! Thanks! I have another for you, a long one that I wrote in the tradition of the folk murder ballad.’

  Awesome.

  By the time the seventeen verses were done and Clois took a bow, Adele felt like her eyes had been burned by the sun. She stood.

  ‘Thank you, Clois. That was inspiring, for sure.’ It was true – she was inspired to wear jeans for the rest of her life, just in case. She looked at the chalkboard. ‘Benny Simmons?’

  Benny was one of the old men in the audience, and Adele was glad to see that he was wearing a full, dark-coloured pair of overalls. No chance of wardrobe malfunction. Benny’s talent was the harmonica, and it was something else, that was for sure. He did a rip-roaring rendition of ‘Fur Elise’, which Adele hadn’t known could be done on a harmonica. When he launched into his second song, ‘A Boy Named Sue’, Adele went to the bar. She’d told Nate she wouldn’t need more than one that night, but she’d been wrong.

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Nate. ‘You changed your mind.’

  She didn’t bother arguing with him. ‘I’ll take another one. As fast as you can.’

  ‘You know he also yodels? You’ll be lucky if you get him off the stage with just two songs.’

  ‘Make it a double.’

  The alcohol helped a little bit. Benny did indeed do four songs total, two on the harmonica, two yodelled. Usually Adele could get behind a nice little yodelay-hee-hooooo but Benny had the unfortunate musical handicap of looking like he was being stabbed while making his yodelling face. His teeth were bared, his eyes shut tight, and he grimaced painfully. When Adele glanced around, she could see everyone else’s faces struggling not to do the same thing.

  After Benny came Dorene Hammer, a senior citizen wearing a tight red sequined dress. She did spoken word, and honestly, it wouldn’t have been that bad if she hadn’t added all the stuff about her loins. Her voice was nice, and she knew where to punch a word out so that it had the most effect.

  ‘My loins are girded,’ she said, her hands outstretched, ‘But not with fear – they are girded with fury and lust and a moist, damp, yearning.’ Her hands dropped to the loins in question. ‘Let me tell you how my womanhood feels, in the morning when you rise.’

  Panicked bubbles tried to break free from Adele’s oesophagus, but damn, as long as Dorene kept her loins covered up, Adele could keep the laughter inside.

  After a man with a singing sawblade (not bad) and a brand-new fiddler (very bad), Adele’s was the last name left on the chalkboard. Luckily, the thin crowd had grown even more gaunt – Benny had disappeared clai
ming a harmonica problem, and Clois had left, citing laundry. Adele visualised orange panties, dozens of them, going around and around in the dryer.

  ‘Adele Darling!’ It was one of the young women who’d been too busy flirting with the cowboys to pay attention to Michael Hannah’s magic tricks, the one with the low-cut red top (as opposed to her friend in the low-cut black top or her friend in the low-cut white top). ‘You’re up!’ She led the room in clapping.

  Why? Why had she agreed to put her name up there? She should have remained the organiser. The organiser didn’t have to perform. The organiser just organised.

  But usually organisers put together things that were successful. She certainly didn’t have that going for her, not tonight. She glanced at her wrist even though she didn’t wear a watch. ‘Oh, wow! The time’s been filled! We can just –’

  She was shouted down by the group of young women and cowboys, whose voices were joined by the seated senior citizens.

  ‘No, we’re here to listen to you!’ Someone yelled, ‘That why I put up with these clowns!’ Laughter rippled through the darkened room.

  ‘You win,’ she said as sweetly as she could. She stood close to the mike and slung her guitar strap around her neck. ‘So you might know this one. My sisters and I played it a lot, back in the day.’

  Across the room, Nate’s dark eyes smouldered at her. For a moment, Adele forgot where she was and what she was supposed to do next. Lord, did he always look like that across a dim saloon, like a man about to wander a heath at midnight? No wonder Clois had put her panties on display.

  ‘Um,’ she went on eloquently, ‘it’s been a long time since I played out in front of real people instead of my microphone at home, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I jumble things up.’ Oh, Lana would be so mad at her for that. You never apologise in advance, her sister always said. Only apologise if you really have to. Even if you’ve got the flu and can barely talk, never admit it before you start playing.