by Ann McMan
Syd sighed and released her. “From your mouth to god’s ear, kemosabe.”
“WHAT DO YOU mean we don’t have seats?”
Maddie took Syd by the elbows and pulled her back away from the Will Call window.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t find any record of this order, and the performance is sold out.” The woman behind the glass was doing her best to be polite, but it was less than ten minutes to curtain, and there were still half-a-dozen people in line behind them.
“We’ve got a confirmation number.” Syd waved their receipt around. “Right here.”
Maddie pulled Syd to the side. “It’s okay, honey,” she whispered. “Sometimes these things just happen.”
The overhead lights flicked off and on.
“I really am sorry, ma’am, but that’s not a confirmation number we recognize, and I’ve got to help the other people in line.” The ticket agent looked at Maddie for support.
“Come on, Syd. We’ll figure this out later.” She led Syd away from the line. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”
“Oh, sure there is,” Syd exclaimed. “We should’ve just bought tickets to the damn race.”
“Honey . . .”
“I’m not kidding. We get out . . . what? Once in about ten months? And this is how it goes? Seriously?”
Maddie shrugged.
“And how can you be so fucking calm about everything?” Syd hissed.
“Sweetie, it won’t do any good for both of us to freak out. Let’s just go back to the hotel and try to enjoy what’s left of our evening.”
Syd sighed and looked up at her. “You’re right . . . I’m sorry. I guess I’ve just had a bit of a hair trigger lately, and this isn’t helping.”
“No worries, honey.” Maddie led her to one of the padded benches that were salted around the marble-floored lobby of the Belk Theatre. Most of the confirmed ticket holders were already inside. Only a few stragglers were still milling around, talking on cell phones or flipping through their programs. “Let’s sit down here for a second and take some weight off your foot before we head back to the hotel.”
“Okay.” Syd sounded totally defeated. “I’m sorry I acted like a jerk.” She plopped down onto the bench. “Should I go and apologize to the ticket person?”
Maddie glanced at the Will Call window, where the agent was already dealing with her next set of problems.
“I don’t think so. She seems to have moved on just fine.”
“This really sucks.”
Maddie agreed. “It does.”
Syd looked at her. “So what now? Domino’s Pizza and Pay Per View?”
“Nah.” Maddie pulled out her cell phone and a tiny card. “I’ve got a better idea.”
She punched in some numbers and waited until a husky voice answered. “Hi, Lu? This is Dr. Stevenson and Miss Murphy. There was some kind of snafu, and the Theatre lost our tickets.” She looked at Syd. “Yeah, it does suck. Look—were you able to get us a dinner reservation anyplace?” She listened a moment. “You were? Great. Any chance you can move it up by a couple of hours?” She nodded at Syd. “Wonderful. We’ll wait right here until you call us back. Thanks so much, Lu.” She hung up.
“So?” Syd asked.
“So—she’s fixing it for us—and calling us a cab.”
“A cab?”
“Yeah. It sounds like this place—I think she said it’s some kind of Irish pub—is across town near the Panthers stadium.” She pointed at Syd’s walking boot. “Too far for you to walk on that.”
Syd sank back against the wall. “I don’t really care where it is as long as they serve alcohol.”
Maddie’s phone rang. “Hold that thought. I think salvation is at hand.”
Chapter 16
“HARTIGAN’S?” THE CAB driver asked. He looked them up and down, not missing any detail of their glad rags. “You sure?”
Maddie looked down at her slip of paper. “Yes . . . that’s the name. Near the football stadium? I think it’s some kind of pub.”
“Pub?” he repeated. “Right. It’s some kind of pub, all right.” He punched in some numbers on his meter. “Hop in.”
Maddie helped Syd climb into the backseat of the cab, and the driver pulled away from the curb.
Tryon Street was teeming with people. They were everyplace—crowded into doorways, standing in groups on sidewalks, and clogging the side streets. Even inside the cab, they could hear the sound of country music blasting from one of the two open-air stages set up at opposite ends of the festival’s Uptown venue.
“I wonder if they can hear that inside the hall?” Maddie asked.
Syd chuckled. “It would serve them right for losing our tickets.”
“Now why would you wish such a misfortune on poor Denyce Graves?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it would lend an air of authenticity to her performance?”
Maddie chuckled. “Right. Because bad covers of ‘Dixie Chicken’ mesh so well with Bizet.”
“You never know.” Syd thought about it. “Maybe we can ask her about it at breakfast?”
“That’s my girl. Delusional as ever.”
Syd looked out the window at the crowd. “What in the world is on that guy’s head?”
“Which guy?” Maddie leaned toward her to take a look.
Syd pointed at a man wearing a bright blue jumpsuit and a checkerboard cape.
“Oh, that’s just Lug Nut,” the driver volunteered. “He’s the speedway mascot.”
He blew the horn at a raucous group of jaywalkers. One of them yelled something unintelligible and gave him the finger.
“Oh, this should be great in another few hours,” Maddie said. “I’m glad we’re not walking.”
Syd looked shocked. “Did that man in the Dale Jr. shirt just tell the driver to suck it?”
Maddie was surprised. “Dale Jr.?”
Syd pointed out the window. “Right there. The big dude with the even bigger number 88 across his . . . man boobs.”
Maddie was staring at her in disbelief.
“What?” Syd asked.
“I’m just amazed that you know who number 88 is.”
“I teach high school in Appalachia . . . ring any bells?”
“True.”
“Junior is a pussy,” their driver volunteered.
Maddie glanced up at him with surprise, but Syd just stifled a laugh. “You’re just lucky I didn’t smack you earlier for those condescending comments about Brett Bodine.”
“Brett Bodine?”
“Back in the traffic jam—when I was . . . preoccupied . . . with hooters.”
Up in the front seat, the cab driver chuckled.
Maddie rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Syd. Charlotte is supposed to be a foodie’s paradise. Why are you so obsessed with missing out on a basket of indifferent chicken wings?”
Syd smiled and patted her hand. “You’re adorable, but you’re one fry short of a happy meal—you know that?”
“Don’t worry, ma’am,” the driver chimed in. “I hear they have great wings at Hartigan’s.”
“Thanks,” Maddie squinted at the I.D. card attached to his visor, “Eddie.”
“Breasts, too,” he muttered. Then he snorted, like he’d said something funny.
Maddie gave Syd a perplexed look, but she just shrugged. “What else is good at this pub, Eddie?”
Eddie waved a hand. “You know, I ain’t never really been there.” He blew his horn again and swerved around a minivan that was double-parked next to the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile. “But I know some folks like to go there for the . . . entertainment.”
“Entertainment?” Syd asked. “They have live music or something?”
He looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Or something. Right.”
Maddie was starting to have second thoughts about this. She gave Syd a nervous look. “Those hot dogs back there actually didn’t look half bad. Maybe we should just head back to the hotel?”
“Oh, come on.” Syd punched her on the arm. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“She’s right,” the driver chimed in. He glanced back at Maddie. “Besides, once you get past the smell, you pretty much got it licked.”
It was clear to her that Eddie was enjoying this a bit too much. Maddie narrowed her eyes. She might be one fry short of a set—or what ever that aphorism was—but she knew how to smell a rat.
She pulled out her cell phone to Google Hartigan’s Pub, just as the driver made a sharp right turn and jolted to a stop in front of a low, industrial-looking brick building. Behind it, the imposing Bank of America Stadium filled up the horizon.
“Here you go, ladies,” Eddie said. “Hartigan’s.”
Syd looked at a large poster taped inside the front window.
“What’s pudding wrestling?” she asked.
Eddie cleared his throat.
Maddie sat back against her seat. “Okay. Back to the hotel.”
“No.” Syd took hold of her arm. “Come on. It’ll be fun, and I’m starving.”
Maddie demurred.
Syd cranked it up. “Pleeeeaaassseeee?”
Maddie sighed and unhooked her seatbelt. “I know I’ll live to regret this.” She looked up at Eddie. “How much do we owe you?”
“Nine-fifteen,” he said. “Try the sweet potato fries.”
Maddie handed him a ten and a five. “I thought you said you’d never been here before?”
“Maybe once or twice.” He shrugged. “Their cages have poles—you don’t find that much any more.”
Syd was laughing now. “Oh, god. This I gotta see.” She grabbed Maddie by the hand. “Come on, Cinderella. This is your wake-up call.”
“HOWDY, LADIES.” THE waitress slapped a couple of menus down on their table. “My name’s Josette, and I come bearing about twenty offers to buy you two a round of drinks.”
“Really?” Syd looked around. Half-a-dozen women at other tables raised glasses and winked at her. “But we only just sat down.”
Josette shrugged. “This crowd ain’t used to seeing such finery on gals who ain’t packin’—if you get my drift.”
“Oh.” Syd looked down at her black dress and single strand of pearls. “I guess we are kinda overdressed for a bar.”
“You think?” Josette gave a husky laugh that turned into a cough. “You created quite a stir when you walked in. Dorinda up there behind the bar swore you were with the ABC Board.”
“Really?” Maddie asked.
Josette jerked a finger toward the neon exit sign near the restrooms. “You didn’t notice a couple carloads of coeds bust their gussets heading for the back door?”
Maddie looked around the crowded place. Most of the patrons were women—extraordinarily robust-looking women, although there were a few men here and there. But the couples were decidedly homogenous. The music drifting up from the club downstairs was deafening, and completely drowned out the volume coming from the flat panel TVs mounted near the bar. Since it looked like the TVs were tuned to live coverage of the Speed Street festival, She considered that a blessing.
She looked back at Josette. “We’re not with the alcohol board.”
“No shit, Mulder,” Josette replied. “Can I get you and Scully something to drink?”
“What are the options?” Maddie asked.
Josette took a deep breath and shifted her weight. “We have all the usual stuff. You name it, we probably have it.”
“Do you have a wine list?” Maddie asked.
“Well,” Josette began with what seemed like exaggerated patience, “this ain’t my normal night, but the last time I saw it, it was propping up a leg on that table in the corner.”
Maddie turned around to look, but Syd kicked her on the shin. “Just bring us a couple of Newcastles.”
Josette nodded and walked off.
Maddie rubbed her leg. “Why the hell did you do that?”
“Look around,” Syd hissed. “How many people do you see swilling wine?”
“None,” Maddie agreed. “But for your information, I wasn’t planning to swill it either.”
“Honey,” Syd said. “Just try to relax and go with the flow, here.”
“The flow?”
Syd nodded. “And for tonight, the flow looks more like beer than wine.”
Maddie scooted forward on her chair. “That’s not all the flow in this joint looks like. Are you getting a load of this crowd?”
“Oh, yeah. Not exactly like one of your AMA conventions, is it?”
“Nuh uh.”
Syd gaped at her. “Oh, come on, sweetie. Don’t tell me you’ve never been in a gay bar before?”
Maddie looked offended. “Of course I have. I went to a gay bar in grad school.”
Syd laughed out loud. “You sound like Mitt Romney saying, ‘I paid taxes once.’ ”
Maddie glowered at her.
Josette reappeared and deposited two ice-cold bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale.
“You beauties know what you want to eat?” She pulled a small pad and a stub of pencil that was dented with teeth marks from the front pocket of her denim shirt.
“Wings and sweet potato fries.”
Syd looked at Maddie with surprise.
“Well?” Maddie shrugged. “When in Rome.”
“Regular, hot, or nuclear?” Josette asked.
Maddie looked at Syd, then back at Josette. “How many are in an order?”
“Ten.”
“Okay. One order of each.”
“Got it.” Josette walked off.
“Extra ranch dressing!” Maddie called after her.
“Are you nuts?” Syd asked.
“Nope.” Maddie took a big swig of her beer. “You’re the one who’s been jonesing for wings all day.”
Syd shook her head. “You’re so clueless.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“Never mind.” Syd looked around the bar. “After we eat, do you wanna go downstairs and check out the action?”
Maddie looked at her like she had two heads. “About as much as I’d like to have a root canal.”
“Come on. I keep watching the people coming and going from down there. Admit it. It would be a blast.”
“No way.”
“Why not?”
Maddie let out a long, slow breath. The sound of loud, raucous laughter near the bar distracted her. “There.” She gestured toward the sound. “Check that out.”
“What?” Syd turned in her seat to follow Maddie’s gaze. A couple of drag queens were standing near the bar, getting glasses of wine. One of them was wearing a skin-tight pink leotard and a black satin bustier. Her platinum blonde, Perma-Tease wig was large enough to have its own zip code. The hand that held her wine glass was dotted with Heliotrope, glamor-length nails.
She turned back to face Maddie. “The drag queen?”
Maddie nodded.
Syd sighed and picked up her Newcastle. “Please don’t disappoint me by suggesting that you’re offended by drag queens?”
“Of course not,” Maddie said in a huff. “I’m offended that he thinks purple nail polish goes with those tights.”
Syd choked on her beer and sent brown liquid flying across the table. Maddie leapt to her feet to avoid the spray, and knocked her chair over. Patrons at nearby tables laughed, and some even applauded. The drag queen at the bar looked at them and promptly dropped his wine glass when he saw Maddie.
“Jesus Christ, Mandy!” his companion yelled. “You got that cheap Chardonnay all over my fucking Jimmy Choo’s.”
A chorus of cheers sounded all around.
TIME STOOD STILL as Maddie stared back at the man.
Oh. Good. God. This is so not happening.
Syd sat dabbing at her clothes with her napkin. She looked up at Maddie. “What on earth is the matter with you? You look like you’re going to pass out.”
Josette appeared at their table to help Maddie set up her chair. “Everything okay over here?
” She handed Syd a damp cloth. “You need another beer, honey?”