by Pat Henshaw
Raynetta eyed Vic. “We’ll talk to you later.”
They left in a swirl of gardenias—on their shirts and in the air.
WHEN WE got to the kitchen, I shared my special coffee with Vic and peeked into the dining room. Hayden and Tripp were sitting at the same table where we’d been before, but they weren’t talking. Both of them had cell phones out and were concentrating on them.
“You want to stay here or go somewhere? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.” My stomach rumbled to underscore my sentiment.
“Yeah, I’m up for something to eat.” His stomach sang a chorus to mine, and he laughed. “Where do you want to go for breakfast?”
Outside, he patted the truck before getting into it. “I understand your fascination with the past. You got to hang on to what you can while you can.”
We seemed to have gone from quick friends and flirting to lovers and halves of a whole overnight. All the sappy songs I knew about falling in love quickly and deeply flitted through my head. I’d gone from complaining about having no lover to euphoria faster than an earthquake struck. And my world was just as shaken.
EVEN THOUGH there was a line waiting in the front foyer of the Bottom, Lorraine seated us quickly in a back booth near the kitchen door.
We’d barely gotten seated and our food ordered when Fredi and his husband Max joined us.
“Well, now. Look who’s sitting in our booth.” Fredi’s voice was high-pitched as he parroted Goldilocks.
“And this bench is much too hard,” Vic answered, getting up and scooting to my side. “How’re you guys doing this morning?”
Lorraine descended on our booth with extra mugs and a huge carafe of coffee.
“The usual, boys?” She took Fredi’s and Max’s orders, then gave us a grin of approval. “It’s nice to see so many men being able to be nice to one another in the morning.”
As she walked away, Max and Vic laughed.
“There once was a time,” Max said, “when a gay couple would walk in here and people stared. Now look at them. They don’t even bat an eye.”
We glanced at the tables of men in their chambray shirts and denim pants either animatedly talking or silently nursing cups and staring off into space. No one seemed particularly interested in our little corner of the café.
“A few times I came in here, I thought I’d be leaving feetfirst.” Fredi bounced next to Max, bending to stare at Max’s slight smirk. “Don’t you tell me I’m wrong. I even had to defend myself a couple of times when we were courting. It was that scary.”
Max looked down at him with a twinkle in his eyes. “Oh, hush. You were always safe with me.”
Fredi gave an indignant humph and turned to me.
“Are you sheltering that boy? The one who was at Stonewall last night?” Before I could answer, he looked up at Max. “How could Guy let the boy in? He’s underage.”
“No, Stone’s legal,” Max answered, and Fredi swatted him.
Under the table Vic grabbed my hand and squeezed. I could feel the laughter bubbling up in him and wanting to spill over. I knew if I looked at him, we’d both be rolling on the floor, unable to stop giggling.
Fredi turned back to me, and I tried to look interested and not like I was laughing at or with him.
“So what’s the deal with the boy?” His avid gaze almost tipped me over to the bright side, so I threw Vic at him.
“Don’t ask me. Vic’s his relative.”
Vic squeezed my hand really hard and murmured, “Nice one, you ass.”
I wiggled for him, and I thought he was going to lose it.
Instead, he dropped my hand and straightened.
“My foster uncle has a bad habit of beating his kids. Sometimes nearly to death.” His strong features made him look fierce, like he was about to go to war. And who knew? Maybe he was.
“Raynetta was my foster uncle’s brother before her change and he disowned her. For some reason only he knows, Calvin ran to Raynetta for protection.” Vic turned to me. “Or maybe more accurately, Calvin ran to the Bandy Hotel for asylum.”
The last word stopped both me and Fredi, whose mouth formed a giant O.
“Is he okay?” Max asked Vic.
Vic looked at me and then away.
“Is anyone who’s been beaten by his father ever okay?” Vic’s head bent as if he were studying the table. “Is anyone who’s had to run away to save his life ever okay?”
His voice was so low that Fredi and Max leaned in to hear him.
“Pain like that lasts forever and can never be erased,” Vic ended in a whisper.
Lorraine’s arrival with the food somewhat alleviated the heaviness that had settled on our table, but it didn’t abolish it. We ate in silence, me thinking about Calvin and his prospects.
ON THE way back, both of us still introspective, I glanced at Vic.
“You know something about running away?”
At first he shrugged and looked out his window. But then he sighed.
“Yeah. I hit Hebron’s house with both feet on the ground, ready to run. Got caught every time. He and Tobias tried to beat gratitude into me, but I was too stubborn and willful. There was no Bandy Hotel on my horizon until now.”
My brows rose. “What? What do you mean?”
He ran a hand over his face. “When I saw you that first night at the bar, I felt like I already knew and liked you. When I stepped into the hotel, I felt like I’d come home.”
I was stunned.
I laid my hand over his, then clasped it as if to say “I’m glad you made it home.”
7
WE WERE still and quiet as we drove back to town. Vic held my hand like it was a raft bobbing in high water. He commented now and then about a tree or building or cloud he saw. I commented in kind, happy the truck was automatic and not stick shift so we could hold hands easier. In a way, we were closer now than we had been the night before in bed.
I parked in the back, and we were met by an agitated Greg, who was nearly crying.
“I called and called. I couldn’t get you on the phone, boss.”
Down the hallway, I heard someone bellowing, the words indistinguishable but loud.
I didn’t even bother asking what was going on but sped past Greg toward the foyer and the front desk as quickly as my leg would let me.
“I demand to see my son. I have a God-given right to see him and take him out of this house of ill-repute. Who’s in charge here? Why won’t anyone help me find my son?”
Vic put his hand on my arm.
“It’s my foster uncle,” he whispered to me. “I’ll handle him.”
My short laugh came out more like a snort.
“It’s my hotel. It’s my mess to mop up.” I stopped and turned to him. “Call the sheriff. I’m pretty sure none of them have yet.”
At his nod, I walked into the reception area.
“I’m Zeke Bandy, and I’m in charge here.” The huge disheveled man holding the rifle stopped me for a moment, but I stood my ground in front of him. “Someone is calling the sheriff, so if you have anything to say before he gets here, I’d say it if I were you.”
He gave me an assessing glare and an evil grin.
“I want to talk to the owner about getting my son out of this dump so I can bring him home.” One eyebrow cocked up like he expected me to hop at his command.
Instead I stood facing him. I wasn’t afraid, just really angry.
“I own Bandy’s Finest Hotel. Who’s your son? Why do you think he’s staying here?”
Vic’s foster uncle wasn’t having any of my calm in the face of his bluster. He raised his rifle and pointed it at me. I didn’t move. I was fairly sure he wasn’t going to shoot since it wouldn’t serve his purposes at all.
I could see the sheriff through the front door glass behind him. Thank God for small towns. It didn’t take any time to get from the sheriff’s office to anywhere in Old Town. I nodded slightly to Lloyd Campbell and pointedly looked down at the rifle s
o that he’d know something was going on.
Vic was behind me and seemed to be hyperventilating. But I’d had it with fathers and relatives beating kids and getting away with it. I didn’t give a fuck anymore if I got hurt. Someone had to stand up for these kids.
As Calvin’s dad went from foot to foot in front of me, keeping the gun pointed at my chest, I said, “Your boy was taken to the clinic after he arrived here and probably isn’t here right now.”
My words made the man’s brows draw together, the gun sagging. His momentary lapse of attention was all I needed.
I reached out and batted the barrel of the gun to the side, away from me. Lloyd and his deputy charged into the foyer and had the man trussed and the rifle out of his hands within seconds.
“Don’t ever, ever do that again!” Lloyd was shouting at me as he clicked the safety on. At his words, I realized how stupid I’d been.
“Sorry.” I took a breath, and Vic wrapped me in a hug that threatened to suffocate me.
“My ancestors probably would have taken this as life as usual, but I can’t,” Vic whispered. I could feel him trembling as he clutched me. “Why’d you do that? Don’t do it ever again.”
His breath tickled my ear, and I sagged into him, my weight pushing him back and making him stumble a step.
As the sheriff and his deputies removed Tobias from the foyer, I glanced at the clock, and my life overwhelmed me. I had only a few hours to talk to Greg, Jax, and Gloria to find out if they had any hotel-related problems. Then I was due at the wedding rehearsal and dinner at five and Stonewall at nine. Lloyd was telling me I had to stop by the sheriff’s department sometime soon, so I had to get organized.
As I watched Lloyd, Tobias, and Vic leave, all I could think was no matter how weird it got, life at Bandy’s Finest Hotel didn’t stop. And I didn’t get to rest.
THE WEDDING rehearsal went well. Vic ignored the seating cards at the dinner to sit down next to me. Everyone at our table wanted to know what’d happened at the hotel with Calvin’s father. Fortunately, Vic told the story over and over and didn’t seem to tire doing so.
“Zeke and I’d just gotten back from having breakfast at this great place, the Rock Bottom Cafe—you should try it, if you haven’t already. We heard shouting in the lobby, and Zeke ran to find out what was going on. Turns out my foster uncle was there trying to find his runaway son. He held a shotgun on Zeke, who disarmed him right before the sheriff arrived.” The story had gotten shorter and shorter as he retold it. The errors stayed in it, though.
I thought it was weird that Vic didn’t know the difference between a rifle and a shotgun. Maybe that was part of being a city guy? The better I got to know him, the more I understood how he was right about his heritage. In this case, being of Native American descent didn’t automatically mean he knew anything about guns.
Vic guided the table discussion, and I sat back, ate, and relaxed a little. It was like we’d crossed some bridge and were now a couple. The strangeness of the day had bled over to our odd relationship.
After dinner he and I walked to Stonewall in silence, side by side, not touching physically but rather connected through our pheromones. I could feel his concern like it was a hug enveloping me in a warm, comforting blanket. Instead of questioning, I cuddled in it until we separated as I went backstage.
As always, I pulled the folksy musician persona on as I set up my instruments and the mic. With every tuning note I played, I got closer to the entertainer I became on stage.
Tonight for some reason, Stone decided to introduce me and say a few words before I began my set.
“Welcome to Stonewall. Zeke Bandy’ll be singing and fiddling and playing for you in a minute. Just remember that we will throw you out if you get drunk and disorderly.” He nodded out to the crowd with a frown on his face, but the guys sitting ringside didn’t seem to be cowed. “Now put your hands together for Zeke.”
I started my rendition of the Supremes’ old standard “You Can’t Hurry Love” and the crowd went wild. As I led them in the chorus, everyone was shouting the lyrics, stomping, and clapping. The grooms sat at a huge table of friends in the back while Vic, Hayden, and some of my Stone Acres friends sang along at stage front.
After running the chorus a couple more times and letting the appreciation run its course, I said, “That goes out to you two”—pointing to the grooms—“since neither of you are spring chickens.”
Ned and Sam laughed and waved as the guys around them starting hooting.
“Now I’m tired tonight. Having someone wave a rifle in your face does that to a guy. So I’m gonna ask all of you to do the work. If you don’t know the words to one of these songs, then just make something up. I see enough pitchers and hard drinks here to know nobody will care. Let’s have some fun.”
I rolled into my rendition of a cowboy favorite, “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town.” The people who knew what was coming and knew about Tobias’s visit to the hotel earlier laughed. In my version of the song, instead of Billy coming to a gruesome death in a gun fight—as the ballad lyrics say—I sing that the cowboy lays a big, hot kiss on poor, hapless Billy. My ending says the young gunslinger doesn’t need his gun in town as they ride off in the distance together.
The laughter at the end of the song signaled that the show was on the road. Stone and his crew kept serving drinks as I plowed through a few more gun songs, then gave our voices a rest with a few instrumentals.
The night passed by quicker than I thought it would. I’d only played an hour and a half, but I was exhausted when I finished and the audience went back to serious drinking.
I ended up at my friends’ table, where they asked about my near-death experience that afternoon. I turned to Vic.
“Didn’t you tell them?” I took a long sip of beer before I realized I still had to walk across the alley to pass out. Could Vic carry me that far? Did he want to?
“Not good enough,” Jimmy said. “Vic was standing behind you. He didn’t see anything.”
Everyone laughed.
“Yeah.” I turned to Vic. “Coward. What was that all about?”
“Stubborn white man,” he answered, looking fierce, but his hug tightened. His eyes told me it was hard for him to joke about it.
Everyone laughed harder.
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t how I’d recommend coming home from a meal.” I nodded and took another sip, this time smaller. “Calvin was pretty beat-up when he got to the hotel the other night. I didn’t realize his father wanted him back so bad.”
“So where’s the boy now?” Fredi looked around the barroom. Calvin wasn’t stuck in a dark corner like he had been last night.
I’d heard stories about Fredi and how fiercely protective he was. He didn’t back down when people slurred him or the ones he loved.
I shrugged. “I hope Calvin’s sleeping and safe wherever he is.”
They didn’t push it, and Vic breathed a sigh of relief in my ear.
I knew exactly where Calvin was. In room 305 on the third floor of the Bandy being watched over by Raynetta and Justine.
Once again, Bandy’s Finest Hotel had folded another victim into its arms and was singing its lullaby. Calvin’s crisis was averted for the time being.
8
THE MORNING of the wedding dawned pristine and bright. If I ever got married, I’d want a day like the one shining outside my window. Considering I’d barely reconciled myself to being Vic’s boyfriend, though neither of us had cemented the relationship by naming it, thoughts of a wedding and marriage seemed so future file as to be only a dream right now.
We got up, sore and a little tired from too much activity in my bed and not enough sleep, and rode to the Rock Bottom in Vic’s car, a jazzy deep red Jaguar XF, which he’d been keeping at Del’s garage. As we zipped around the county roads taking a very, very long way to the diner, all the happenings of the past week came zooming back to me.
A week ago, I’d been settled in the deep rut of running the hotel,
hooking up with guys out of town for anonymous sex, and wondering if my life was going to be dull and uneventful forever. In a week, I had realized the hotel practically ran itself without much interference, had attracted an incredible, gorgeous lover, and had been nearly shot by a child abuser.
I’d been tested and not found wanting. I was more than just the owner of a dying—and possibly even dead—frontier hotel and a passable act at the adjacent antique bar.
Now I was a protector, an entertainer, and a boyfriend, more than I’d hoped for, but less than I wished to be. Unlike last week, I could see possibilities and roads I hadn’t even dreamed about experiencing. Cradled in Vic’s wonderful car, I felt excited and exhilarated for the first time in years. I understood in a small way how the settlers must have felt when they’d seen the West for the first time and found their world expanded beyond belief.
Vic grabbed my hand and rested our hands on the console between us. I couldn’t see his eyes hidden behind his mirrored aviator glasses, but I could feel their promise. Smiling in our shared silence, we drove to the restaurant.
BUD JUNIOR, who was now telling everyone to call him Larry, seated us. The place hummed like a particularly active hive as men dressed for Saturday chores or weekend fun chowed down.
“Where’s your mom?” I wondered whether Lorraine was finally taking time off or if something had happened to her.
Larry shrugged. “She had to go shopping for a wedding present.”
“Yeah?” Huh. I hadn’t gotten the guys anything. What did I know about presents? Nothing.
“I told her to get them a toaster.”
Vic snorted. “Do they still make toasters?”
Larry shrugged again. “I thought it was the basic wedding present. Maybe not. What do you want to eat?”
As Larry left with our order, Vic leaned toward me. “Have you gotten them anything?”