IT TAKES TWO
The Magic Jukebox: BOOK NINE
***
Copyright © 2020 by Barbara Keiler
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
To learn more about the author, and to sign up for her newsletter, please visit her website
.
***
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
About the Author
About the Magic Jukebox
***
Chapter One
“It’s called a Dark-and-Stormy,” Will said, stirring ginger beer into the glass of rum while his gaze scanned the bar’s shelves in search of a slice of lime for garnish. “You need to diversify, Mom. Stop serving the same old same old.”
Gus Naukonen glared at her son. She was tall but he was taller, and good-looking as sin. She was a mother, and of course she thought both her boys were handsome. But Will… Still single, still a bit too sure of himself, still blessed with thick, dark hair and a dimple. Still too gorgeous for his own good.
He would make a damned fine bartender, though. Too bad he wasn’t going to be staying in Brogan’s Point long enough to take a full-time position at the Faulk Street Tavern. People who ventured into her bar responded to his charm, his easy smile, the way his hazel eyes sparkled. The business would benefit greatly from his presence, as long as he didn’t try to sell weird cocktails with weirder names to her customers.
“The folks who come here won’t drink that,” she said, eyeing the glass warily.
Will nudged it along the polished surface of the bar to her. “Take a taste.”
“I won’t drink that.” She didn’t drink much at all, which was a plus, since she owned the place. Bartenders who drank a lot usually went out of business pretty quickly.
The Faulk Street Tavern, which had been in existence since before Gus was born, remained profitable. One reason was that Gus didn’t drink much. The other was that she knew her clientele—working people, local people, office assistants who stopped by after work, fishing crews who wanted to toast their day’s haul, professionals who nursed glasses of wine, and folks in a festive mood who sipped margaritas. Few patrons asked for fancy cocktails. At the Faulk Street Tavern, margaritas and Bloody Marys were about as fancy as it got.
She’d married into the bar, run it with her husband, and continued to run it after his death. Now that she was flirting with her fiftieth birthday, she had Manny Lopez, her second in command, do a lot of the heavy lifting. Manny lugged inventory up from the basement, ran the ovens and dishwashers, and covered at the bar when Gus couldn’t manage all the orders herself. He was her right-hand man, her second in command. Will was simply passing through, biding his time until he headed out west, and she wasn’t going to change her beverage menu just to suit him while he was temporarily helping out behind the bar.
Maybe he’d lived in Boston too long. Maybe he’d gotten a little too rich after struggling for so many years. She loved having him around, and to her surprise, she loved having him tending bar with her, easing her load during the busier stretches. But she wasn’t going to start introducing a bunch of fancy urban cocktails.
Dark-and-Stormy? No, thank you.
The glass was just inches from her hand. The little wedge of lime looked festive adorning the rim of the glass. She took a quick sip.
It tasted like exactly what it was: rum, ginger beer, a hint of lime. “People like this down in the city?” she asked Will.
“They sure do.” He scanned the tavern. In the lull between the after-work crowd and the evening carousers, the place was pretty quiet. Most people were eating dinner right now, and while the Faulk Street Tavern served a variety of light foods, it wasn’t a place people chose to come to for their evening meal.
A couple of women in pale blue nurse scrubs were doing the margarita thing at a booth near the bar. A quartet of young-ish men—Gus recognized some of them from the local Wright Honda dealership—feasted on flatbread pizzas washed down with pitchers of draft IPA; evidently, they didn’t have partners waiting at home for them, preparing more nourishing meals. A woman dressed in a demure business suit sat by herself at a table near the jukebox, a glass of Chardonnay within reach as she read from a digital tablet. Caleb Solomon, a local attorney, shared a booth with an older couple—clients of his, probably—engaged in an intense discussion. The couple were drinking beers, but Caleb had ordered an iced tea. Evidently, he wanted to keep a clear head as he analyzed some complicated legal issue for them.
“Admit it,” Will said, his smile teasing as he pointed at the glass. “It tastes delicious.”
“It’s okay, if you like that kind of thing,” was all Gus would give him. She knew her smile was just as teasing as his. Her gaze drifted toward the door, but it remained closed.
She didn’t mind the sparse customer load; it was typical for that hour of the evening. But she was watching for Ed Nolan. As usual, he’d promised to stop by after he finished his shift at the police station. He was the senior detective in the Brogan’s Point police department, and if he’d had a bad day—a major crime, a serious incident or accident—he would have called Gus to let her know he wasn’t coming. She hadn’t heard from him, which meant he was probably tied up in paperwork at the station house.
He’d show up sooner or later. He nearly always did. She just wished he’d show up sooner rather than later. She’d like to say hello to him before the Board of Selectmen meeting, which he’d probably feel obligated to attend, given that he was a town employee. The discussion over whether to renovate the old Town Hall building or construct an entirely new facility was destined to be lively. Anything that had an impact on the tax rate always generated a lot of excitement.
Gus wasn’t sure which side she favored in the debate—renovation or a brand-new building. For the past few months, what to do about Brogan’s Point’s Town Hall had been the hottest topic at the meetings of the Brogan’s Point Business Association, and everyone except her seemed to have a strong opinion. Ed wanted to see a brand new building. “So much has to be done just to bring the current Town Hall into compliance,” he argued. “You start patching it here, shoring it up there, and you wind up with a mess. It’s better just to tear the damned thing down and start from scratch.”
Ed’s daughter Maeve, who had recently started participating in the business association, had the exact opposite opinion. “There are buildings in Europe that are a thousand years old, and they’re still being used. We tear things down too much in America.”
She had a point. Then again, it was hard to disagree with anything Maeve said when you were munching on one of the gourmet cookies she sold at her specialty bakery. Gus would swear the earth was flat if Maeve claimed it was while she was handing Gus one of those amazing oatmeal spice cookies of hers.
Gus couldn’t go to the Board of Selectmen meeting to listen to more arguments for and against the new Town Hall that evening. She had a bar to run, and she suspected that significantly more town residents would be in attendance at the Faulk Street Tavern than at the meeting room of the old Tow
n Hall. But Ed would go to the meeting and fill her in afterward.
“Watching for your sweetheart?” Will needled her.
She sent him another scowl. “If only you were still five years old, I’d turn you over my knee and give you a good spanking.”
“You never spanked us,” Will reminded her.
“You weren’t as fresh when you were five as you are now.”
“I’m not fresh.” Two long strides carried her to his side, and he wrapped his arms around her. “It’s all about birth order, Mom. I’m the younger child. I’m supposed to be a pain in the ass.”
“I’ve never bought into that theory. I always assumed that both my sons were responsible and respectful.”
“We are. We just manifest responsibility and respect in different ways.” He grinned, released her, and eyed the guys from Wright Honda. “I think they may need another pitcher.”
Gus motioned toward their table with a tilt of her head. Her evening wait staff hadn’t arrived yet, but Will, pain in the ass or not, had no problem filling in. He sauntered over to their table, chatted a bit with the men, laughed with them, and returned to the bar, carrying the empty pitcher. “I was right,” he said, setting it in one of the deep-basin sinks and reaching for a clean pitcher. “They’re ready for another round.”
Gus watched Will’s technique as he held the pitcher under the tap, tilting it so it wouldn’t fill with foam. He really was good behind the bar—and in front of the bar, too, schmoozing, circulating, making people feel welcome in her establishment, and noticing when they needed refills of their drinks. If he decided not to head out to Seattle after all, but instead opted to remain in Brogan’s Point, she’d be glad to make him a permanent member of the Faulk Street Tavern team.
Not that he needed the job, or the money.
The door opened and Ed entered. Even though they’d been a couple for more than five years, Gus still felt a ripple of excitement when she saw him. A bear of a man, with broad shoulders and a full head of brown hair threaded with silver, he moved with the confidence born of a long, successful career as one of Brogan Point’s finest. He’d had his dark days, as Gus well knew, days when he’d lost his daughter, days when he’d lost himself inside a bottle. But he’d pulled through. His daughter was back in town, and happy to be here. He no longer drank anything stronger than black coffee. Like Gus, he’d been widowed, and the pain had nearly flattened him. But he’d healed. He and Gus had healed each other.
He returned her smile when their gazes met. By the time he reached the bar, she had a mug of steaming coffee poured and waiting for him.
He unzipped his jacket, leaned over the bar, and kissed her. Public displays of affection embarrassed her, but by now, anyone who came into the Faulk Street Tavern knew she and Ed were together. And he never did more than give her a light peck when people were around.
That one of the people who was around happened to be her son made her only slightly more embarrassed than usual. Will didn’t seem to mind that his mother and Ed were lovers, though. He and Ed got along well.
“Long day,” Ed said after thanking Gus for the coffee. He took a sip and smiled. “I’m guessing you want me to go to the Board of Selectman meeting tonight.”
“One of us should go, and it’s not going to be me,” Gus said.
Ed nodded, then glanced at Will. “Why don’t you send him?”
“Me?” Will looked panicked. “I’ve got to stick around and teach my mom how to make some cool cocktails. She thinks a Black Russian is the epitome of mixology.”
“The epitome of mixology?” Ed echoed, his eyebrows arching. “Too many big words.” He turned back to Gus. “You did a poor job raising that boy. He throws syllables around like there’s no tomorrow.”
Gus chuckled, but her mind settled on Ed’s suggestion. “I think you should go to the meeting, Will. You grew up here. This is your hometown. It wouldn’t kill you to see what the people running Brogan’s Point are thinking. And then you can report back to Ed and me.”
“You mean, you don’t want me to stay here and teach you how to make a Sex-on-the-Beach cocktail?”
Gus wadded up a cocktail napkin and threw it at Will. She’d played basketball in school and still had pretty good aim. The crumpled napkin popped him in the nose.
He laughed and snagged the napkin with his hand before it hit the floor. “I couldn’t make that drink, anyway,” he said. “One of the ingredients is passion-fruit syrup.”
“Oh, of course. Passion-fruit syrup,” Gus said dryly. “We’ve got a few gallons of that in the cellar.” She accepted the napkin, which Will handed back to her, and tossed it into the nearest trash can. “Go to the meeting. You might find it interesting. I read on the town website that they’ve narrowed the proposals down to two architects, one who wants to build new and one who wants to renovate. You can let us know which one makes more sense.”
“I already know which one will make more sense: the one who wants to build new,” Will said. “This town needs more newness. It needs to join the twenty-first century.”
No wonder he and Ed got along so well, Gus acknowledged. They thought alike. They both wanted new, new, new.
One of the guys from Wright Honda wandered over to the jukebox and inserted a coin. The tavern’s jukebox was definitely not twenty-first century. A classic Wurlitzer dating back to the 1940’s, as best Gus knew, it still played three songs for a quarter—but only songs old enough to have been released on 45-rpm vinyl records. The machine was physically beautiful, shaped like a window in a cathedral, only the stained glass adorning its front panel featured peacocks rather than religious imagery. It couldn’t be opened, so the records inside it couldn’t be swapped out for anything more contemporary, let alone CD’s or MP3’s. And the buttons didn’t work, so people who slid a coin into the slot couldn’t choose what it would play. It simply played whatever it felt like playing. Once a month, Gus emptied the coin box and donated the money to charity.
Some people claimed the jukebox was magic, playing specific songs that bewitched people who happened to be inside the tavern. Gus wasn’t sure she believed that—but she wasn’t sure she didn’t believe it, either. She worked in the bar nearly every day it was open for business, and heard plenty of songs booming from the machine, and never had one cast its spell on her. But quite a few patrons had insisted that hearing one of the jukebox’s songs had turned their lives around, made them view the world in a new way, and opened their hearts to love.
Maybe Gus was just immune. Maybe she’d built up antibodies after too much exposure.
The song that emerged from the jukebox was the one about banging a gong. “Get It On,” she recalled the title. A silly song—she’d never quite understood what “dirty sweet” meant—but the men at from Wright Honda let out a cheer and sang along, waving their beer glasses and drumming the table with their hands in time to the music. The woman reading from her tablet and sipping wine sent their table a dubious frown before rotating her chair so her back was to them. Caleb glanced their way and grinned, then leaned toward his companions and continued talking. Gus didn’t mind a little rowdiness in her bar. Like the jukebox, it added to the atmosphere.
Manny emerged from the kitchen, hauling a rack of clean glasses from the dishwasher. He and Will busied themselves lining the glasses up on a shelf behind the bar. Gus topped off Ed’s mug with coffee. “Will thinks I should sell fancy cocktails,” she said.
“Will’s no fool.” Ed shot Gus’s son an admiring look.
“You think I should expand the menu?”
“You can charge more for fancy drinks. Bigger profit margin.”
“More labor intensive,” she pointed out.
Ed shrugged. “Experiment. See if it’s worth it.”
“I’m not stocking passion-fruit syrup,” Gus muttered. “But this…” She eyed the Dark-and-Stormy Will had prepared for her, took another sip, and dumped the rest down the sink. “Not bad.” She ruminated
for a bit. “This isn’t a fancy bar, though.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” Ed angled his head toward the raucous young men. “You resisted introducing pizzas and wings, but Manny talked you into it and it was a good move. Updating is a good thing.”
“Like a new Town Hall, right?”
Ed grinned.
“Running low on vodka,” Manny reported as he eased past Gus with the empty glass rack. “I’ll bring up a case.”
“Thanks,” Gus said. “Mix it up, okay? Some of the pricy labels and some of the no-name cheap stuff.”
“You got it.” Manny vanished back into the kitchen with the empty rack.
The song about banging a gong wound down and the Wright Honda guys applauded. Gus shook her head and grinned. It really was a silly song.
The next song began—a bouncy beat followed by a duet, a man and a woman singing back and forth, as if in a conversation. They both had better voices than the gong singers did. “It takes two, baby,” they sang. “Me and you…” The song was so catchy, Gus couldn’t keep from moving to the rhythm as she emptied a jar of glossy green cocktail olives into a bowl.
The Wright Honda guys subsided, munching on their flatbread pizza. The nurses swayed to the beat, and Caleb tapped his pen like a drumstick against his table. The woman in the business suit looked up from her tablet, her eyes wide, staring. Gus traced their angle.
She was staring at Will.
He was staring right back at her. Not moving. Not swaying, not dancing, not drumming a beat against the bar. Not smiling.
Just standing, still as a statue. So still Gus wondered if he was even breathing.
His eyes were alive, though, focused on the woman in the business suit. She remained frozen, her tablet forgotten, her wine ignored. She looked like someone who had seen a phantom, or a gorgeous sunset, or the answer to every question that had ever wandered through her mind.
But the only thing she could be viewing, the only object in her line of vision, the only answer she could possibly see, was Will.
It Takes Two Page 1