Page 92 of The Maverick
Tommy Dane did not get rattled. Tommy Dane kept his face level even when his interior had walked off a cliff. I'd been raised on that and trained on that and the unit had known it about me before I'd known it about myself.
But somewhere underneath the level face, way down past the diagnostics I'd been running at five this morning, the man who'd been a boy in a bunkhouse in Valentine was sitting on the edgeof his bunk with his shoes still on, listening for the sound of his father's truck on the gravel.
The boy hadn't moved in a long time.
The boy was moving now.
25
REBECCA
The double shift started the way double shifts always started—with the resignation of a body that knew what was coming and had decided to be professional about it.
I tied my apron at the server station and thought about Tommy.
I'd been thinking about Tommy since the lobby of The Palmetto Rose, which meant I'd been thinking about Tommy for approximately three hours, which was three hours of a mental conversation that kept arriving at the same two places:I love youandI can't let you pay for everythingand the tension between those two things that I didn't know how to resolve yet.
He'd saidI'll see you tonightand I'd said it back and I meant it and I thought he meant it and the fight—if it had been a fight, it had been the quietest, most honest fight I'd ever had with anyone—hadn't changed the underneath of things. It had just added a layer of complicated on top of the something true.
I refilled water at table four and smiled at the couple there and thought about what my mama would say.
My mama would saybaby, a good man who loves you isn't the same thing as a man who wants to own you. She'd say it while rolling out biscuit dough, not looking at me, because my mama delivered her best wisdom sideways. She'd saythe trick is knowing the difference, and the knowing takes time.
I was taking the time. That was what I'd told him.
I just needed him to let me have it.
The call came in during my break.
I was in the back alley behind The Carolinian with a cup of Luis's coffee and my coat on, watching the Charleston pigeons do their business on the cobblestones, when my phone buzzed with a number I didn't recognize. Something in my stomach saidanswer it.
"Hello?"
"Is this Rebecca Myers?" A woman's voice. Warm, professional, with a slight Georgia softness under it.
"Yes."
"Rebecca, this is Wren Calloway. Southern Frequency. I'm returning your call."
I stood up straighter, which was instinct, which was ridiculous because she couldn't see me.
"Oh—yes. Hi. Thank you for calling back."
"Of course. I'm so glad you reached out." I heard papers, a chair, the ambient sound of someone settling in. "I was at The Carolinian for a client lunch the day you played. I have to tell you, I stayed through your entire set. I canceled my afternoon."
I opened my mouth. Closed it. "That's—thank you."
"The originals especially. That last song." A pause. "Where did that come from?"
"I—" I thought about the apartment in Pigeon Forge. The kitchen table in Key West. The song I'd written just yesterday that I hadn't played for anyone yet. "I've been writing since I was fifteen. It just—comes from wherever things come from."
"That's the right answer," she said, and I heard a smile in it. "Rebecca, I want to have you on the podcast. A full episode, your story, some live playing. I think our audience is going to love you. But before we do that—and I know this is fast—I want to put you in front of some people tonight."
I stopped walking.
"Tonight?"
"Southern Frequency is a presenting sponsor of an indie artist showcase. The Revel Room, on upper King. It's a real venue—three hundred capacity, proper sound system, mixed bill. We had a cancellation this morning. One of the performers dropped. I've got a forty-minute slot and I'd like to give it to you, if you're interested."
