§ CHAPTER EIGHTEEN §
Coffee cup in hand, Duke stared unseeingly at the kitchen window. A reluctant first morning’s light petered between the curtains. Romy’s shoddily made curtains. The kitchen he had rebuilt with pride by the sweat of his brow and a huge dent in his wallet, now seemed lackluster. It lacked the brilliance of her incandescent smile. It was dismally quiet. No radio blaring. None of her tap-dancing chatter.
The shouting silence. A cavernous emptiness he still could not comprehend. Her absence drew the air from his lungs. Extinguishing a Havana cigar on his tongue would have been a far less debilitating pain.
Even the ranch hands wore glum expressions and moped about.
“I can catch the bus on me own,” she had explained the morning before, following Sally and Arturo’s doleful funerals. She had stood there in front of him, Micah’s suitcase in her one hand, Arturo’s guitar case in the other, and her purse tucked under her arm. She looked like Little Orphan Annie.
How could he selfishly discount the skyrocketing career that awaited her in Nashville? “I thought you were finding me a wife?” When all he could think of was the way she held her chin high and met his questioning stare with a fierceness he found damnably admirable and irresistible.
“I did. I found Charlotte for yuirself.”
“Ahh, yes. You were right. The perfect one, bar none.” What a stupid, disastrous thing to say. “But you don’t have to go.”
Romy’s lopsided smile contained a painful twist. “Even fairy tales have to come to an end.”
At the back of his eyes, he felt a hot, prickly feeling.
§ § §
“Yuir Florsheims, sire.”
Upon hearing Romy’s lilting voice as she handed over his repaired and spiffily buffed shoes, the middle-aged businessman beamed, as did most of Weise’s Shoe Repair patrons. “Thank you.” He tipped the brim of his Panama Straw Boater.
With work so scarce, she figured she had landed the coveted job because the old Jew, Weise, found her brogue appealing.
Disappearing from the S&S immediately after Sally and Arturo’s funerals, coming one upon the other, Romy had nabbed a ticket on the first Greyhound bound for Nashville for a savings-draining seven dollars.
The remainder of her S&S pay she plunked down on a flat at the dingy Vauxhall. Its two buildings originally had been part of Dr. Price’s College for Young Ladies, but, with the passing years, the buildings had gradually converted to apartments noted for low rents and transient clients.
The hours at nearby Weise’s Shoe Repair were long and paid little more than a street beggar might garner, but, at least, they covered her meager meals and might make – or might not – another month’s rent, if she penny-pinched. Although she did not know how much more she could squeeze out of her Lincolns. Watered-down coffee and Skippy’s peanut butter did not make for the best dietary fare.
She could try her hand at card reading again for additional income, but she did not feel good about it. Not because she felt like she was scamming her customers; on the contrary, she lately worried that she was actually beginning to interpret things – things she shouldn’t be knowing, mayhap.
Like Sally’s death. Romy remembered seeing in Sally’s spread the Ten of Clubs, which could be interpreted as a trip, but it had lain alongside the Ace of Spades . . . the death card . . . well, the two juxtapositioned next to one another could also have meant a longer journey. A journey beyond this lifetime? It spooked Romy.
Between that and Johnson’s continual advances, she had known that her presence at the S&S could only make it worse for Duke. If he didn’t end up killing the congressman, she would.
As if Sam’s murder of his own daughter had not been bad enough.
At Sally’s burial on the family ranch, her father had looked a shattered man. An inquest had been ordered after that fateful night of the Fourth, when he had drawn his gun on Arturo . . . and Sally had thrown herself in between him and her father. And still, like a madman, old Sam had continued firing.
And since then . . . Romy had known only pure, intense brilliant pain at leaving the S&S . . . and Duke. Like walking barefooted over flaming charcoal with a two-inch nail embedded in each of her heels.
And then there was the loss of leaving the guys without even a goodbye. Would Glen marry Graciela? Would Bud make something of his tennis skills? And Micah, she wondered with a wrenching smile, would he become a card shark, with that face, and a tongue, that didn’t give away anything? Jock and Skinny Henry, all the men had become like family to her.
“Could I invite you to dinner tonight?” the businessman asked Romy, his fingers playing nervously with his straw boater’s brim.
She started, her surprise causing her to slam shut the cash register drawer. Her gaze took in the man – medium height, serious gray eyes, a short nose, and a mouth that wanted to smile.
Aye, nice looking he might be, but he was not Duke. Duke of the soulfully piercing blue eyes and a mouth that danced with humor at her wackiness . . . and suckled with such fervor at her pencil eraser-stubbed nipples.
Duke, with his seductive West Texas drawl that hid his speech impediment to all but her. Duke of the flexing biceps and washboard stomach and questing, then lingering, fingers that played her body far better than she ever had a guitar.
“Sorry tis I am, but I already have a date for tonight,” she told the male customer.
And it was true – her date that night was with other businessmen – in fedoras and homburgs.
For the Grand Ole Opry audition, she teamed her one good donated house dress, more of a funeral black, with Miriam’s genuine pearl necklace. In fact, Romy had worn the outfit to Arturo and Sally’s funerals. Since Romy could not afford rayons, she artfully drew a seam line up the center back of each of her legs with a Maybelline pencil.
With trepidation, she walked the five blocks to the War Memorial Auditorium, near Tennessee’s capitol. Looking somewhat like the Greek Parthenon, the auditorium was noted for its near perfect acoustics.
The three businessmen greeted her at the courtyard’s fountain and introduced themselves, but all she could think of was that these were the Three Wise Men, who were searching for a star.
Let it be me.
“Nothing to be nervous about, Miss Sonnenschein,” the elderly Stanley Davenport said, doffing his hat. “We’ve heard mighty good things about your talent, so we want to make this audition as pleasant for you as possible.”
The three gave her a tour, beginning with the 2,200-empty-seat auditorium and its intimidatingly large stage, then finishing with the control room that was banked by a bewildering array of audio equipment and a control board with more switches and dials than Duke’s Roper stove or Ford pickup.
Through the studio window, she peered down at the spot-lit stage. She might feel like a freak in circus sideshows on that stage, but, Jesus Jehoshaphat Christ, could it be any worse than being a Nazi specimen?
Aye. There were a lot of things worse. Like being unloved.
Still, she felt that old Gypsy’s surging impulse to go on the lam.