by Jan O'Hara
That left him one last avenue of appeal. “But what do I tell the oldsters? They’re already attached to you.” He swallowed. “I’m already attached to you.”
For a moment he thought he had her. Her face lit with affection and hope and warmth. Then she shut it down faster than a pitcher with a rocket-arm.
“They’re called seniors. And tell them I said goodbye.”
In Oliver’s last glimpse of her, she was disappearing into the dim light of the Wobbly Dog, her outline hazy with snow as if the Page he knew was already being erased.
Chapter 13
Page had decided she wasn’t going anywhere near the stripper poles, except maybe to pretend to hump one at the climax of her act.
Ugh. Climax.
She was doing her best to stay in the moment, to breathe and apply her stage makeup with a steady hand instead of worry about what was coming.
Ugh. Coming.
It didn’t help that her brain kept coughing up words designed to unnerve her.
Her pole-aversion wasn’t an issue of cleanliness. Much to Shep’s amusement, she had borrowed a cleaning rag and Lysol and disinfected both poles. Three times. But as the Wobbly Dog maintained a surprisingly steady business, there hadn’t been much in the way of practice opportunities. During an attempt to twirl around a pole, when she’d had some early success and was feeling cocky, she’d landed hard enough to bruise a butt cheek.
Now she stood in front of the mirror in a borrowed cowgirl costume, with as much concealer on her posterior as her face. She was trying to focus on her eyeliner instead of her nervousness, and trying to forget the expression on Oliver’s face when they had parted.
He had been so terribly hurt.
You’re not doing great yourself, a little voice said, and Page stuck her tongue out at her reflection.
The only thing worse than getting attached to a group of seniors and saying goodbye, was getting attached to the seniors and their leader, who’d turned out to be an honorable and emotionally-vulnerable man.
There was a knock at the door.
“You decent?” Shep called.
For a dwindling period of time.
“Come in.” She was grateful her voice sounded calm.
During the dinner crowd, when the Wobbly Dog coped with a sink backup and a choking diner, Shep made it clear he had neither the time nor patience to coddle a needy newcomer. He had yet to veer into outright unfriendliness, but as his bald head poked around the door, his dark brows were drawn together. “You didn’t tell me you came with an entourage.”
Page straightened. “Excuse me?”
“A tour bus pulled up a few minutes ago. They’re not our typical crowd.”
Page put her head in her hands, knocking off her Stetson so it hung from a string around her neck. Between hyperventilations she said, “Oh, God, don’t tell me… Are they seniors?”
He grunted. “Your fans want to say hello before you go on. Do your best to talk them into leaving.” With that admonishment, Shep stood back and held the door wider. “Five minutes, ladies,” he said to someone in the corridor.
Two elderly women ducked under his arm. One was beaming. The other wore her professional face—a look Page recognized from three nights ago, when the woman had worked to save Page’s life.
“Avis. Mavis,” Page said weakly. “What are you doing here?”
“Why, we came to watch your debut, of course,” Avis said.
It took Page a minute to find her voice. “Who else came with you?”
“Let me see, now.” Avis began to tick names off her fingers. “There’s Mrs. Patel, Mavis, me—”
“Any of the men?”
“Oh, no,” Avis said. “We didn’t think that would be appropriate.”
“What about Oliver?” Page threw up her hands and paced in a tight circle. “What am I saying? Of course Oliver is here.”
“Don’t be angry with him,” Mavis said. “He heard what you said about needing to make your own way in the world.”
Page snorted. It took everything she had to hold back her retort. Oliver did not respect Page’s wishes. He’d merely shifted to fighting a proxy war with an unconventional team.
“He made us promise not to interfere, but he couldn’t very well let us come alone, could he?” Mavis said.
“Did he make you sign a waiver?” Page said under her breath.
“Pardon?”
Page closed her eyes briefly. “Nothing.”
“He had to buy a round of drinks, too, so your employer wouldn’t plow him one,” Avis said, driving a fist into one hand with a smacking sound. “But he said we were worth the price.”
Page succumbed to a wash of affection. “And so you are.”
Mavis took Page’s hands into her own. “I have to ask, dear. Are you doing this out of choice or necessity?”
Both. “I’m doing it of my own free will,” Page said, squeezing her hands back, loving that Mavis would fight for her even as her presence was giving Page heartburn.
“Because I’m torn.” Mavis’s gaze was very steady. “As a nurse, I support your right to express your sexuality as you see fit. Assuming you’re doing this out of a healthful mindset, of course. But as the woman who lay next to you when you were half dead?” She shook her head. “If you must know, I feel quite grandmotherly. If you were my granddaughter, I wouldn’t want this for you.”
“Then you should leave,” Page said gently. For both our sakes. “Don’t torture yourself.”
Mavis shook her head. “If you’re proud of it, dear, then you’ll be proud with me in the audience.”
Mavis left then, and Page stared after her retreating figure, brushing away a hot tear. After eight years of being alone, she had no defense against a master-level guilt-trip.
What was she going to do?
Avis touched her shoulder. “Sweetie, don’t mind her. Mavis has always been a bit of a prude, whereas we theatrical people inhabit our bodies. And this is so exciting! Don’t you love opening night?” She spread her arms wide, as if preparing to skydive. “The buzz that runs through your veins…?” She stopped and cocked her head. “Darn. Guess I won’t ever find out about the collars and cuffs on account of you probably had to have a Bohemian.”
“Brazilian,” Page corrected absently. “Will you excuse me?” She opened the door to the dressing room, dimly noticing that Avis was dogging her footsteps.
When Avis saw where they were headed, she patted Page’s shoulder. “Good idea. I used to scope out my audience beforehand, back in the day. I’d settle on a friendly face and pitch my voice to him or her. But you might want to fix your eyeliner first, dear. You forgot the left eye and you’re looking lopsided, not that the men will be focusing there.”
As Page parted the curtains enough to gain a peephole, she tuned out Avis’s chatter.
For midnight in a small town, the place was surprisingly packed. Then again, Harmony wasn’t situated far off a main transportation route. The pub probably received a significant boost from the trucker crowd.
She counted thirty patrons. Two huge guys sat in a booth at the far back. A couple of men in coveralls bent over the pool table, cues in hand. Closer to the front, men clumped together in groups of two to four around circular tables covered in beer bottles and glasses of amber liquid.
Curtis, the guy she had since learned was an engineer for the railroad, sat at one table with two buddies.
At the table nearest the stage, right where Page couldn’t possibly avoid seeing them, were Page’s crew: Mavis, Mrs. Patel, and the man who’d engineered tonight’s game of chicken. Oliver. Handsome Oliver, who was smiling and bending down at an awkward angle so Mrs. Patel could speak into his ear from the comfort of her chair.
How could someone be simultaneously so kind and so vile?
Then Oliver straightened and Page could see what his body had been shielding from view.
Page rounded on Avis. “You brought Mrs. Horton?”
Avis frowned. “Why w
ouldn’t we? Oh!” Avis said as the bar music was cut and Shep leaped onto the stage. “That’s my signal to sit. Break a leg, dear.” She pulled Page in for a quick kiss on the cheek, then bustled away.
“Gentlemen, we have a surprise for you tonight,” Shep said into a small mic. Under the spotlights, his bald head gleamed and his eyebrow piercing winked in a vaguely satanic manner.
“Does she have a twin?” some wise-ass shouted.
There was a chorus of hoots and hollers.
“Funny, Randall, funny. You kiss your sister with that mouth?”
Page tuned out the ribaldry after that, not that she could have heard it over the hammering of her heart. Her mouth was so dry she thought she might choke for lack of saliva. Tonight’s job was going to be hard enough without Oliver and the oldsters watching. But if she didn’t go through with it, if she let Oliver win, if she gave away this last option for independence, she’d—
Over the club’s speakers, the rhythm baseline of Tone Loc’s Wild Thing began to play. She swallowed. The time for navel-gazing had passed.
It was time to strut up or shut up.
Page squared her shoulders and smacked her cowboy hat on her head. She pasted a smile on her face and parted the curtains.
In the past eight years there had been precious little reason for her to wear heels of any height, much less the ridiculous nose-bleeders she was wearing now. Her steps across the polished floor had to appear less than fluid.
Fortunately, the audience wasn’t picky. There were catcalls and howls and shouts of, “Yeah, baby.”
She climbed onto the stage and faced the front, determined to ignore the upturned faces of the Shastavista crew.
Though the temptation was to start by removing her hat, Page was counting on its ability to hide her red face in the short-term and her naked assets later. So while keeping her hips in motion, she began by undoing the ties of her short-cropped top. In precious little time, the scrap of gingham dangled from her fingers, leaving her top half clad in a few strips of rawhide fringe. She swallowed. Only a few more steps until she’d be down to her G-string.
“Smile, sweetheart. You aren’t at the dentist,” someone called.
“Too bad, ’cause I’d drill her.” The quip came from a mutton-chopped guy at a table next to the oldsters, and earned him a lot of raucous laughter and backslapping from his companions.
As far as Page was concerned, the more audience crosstalk the better. If they wanted to use her as comedic fodder and keep their drunken focus on one-upping each other, rather than her near-nakedness, she was all for it. As long as she got paid.
But when she sneaked a glance at the oldsters, Mavis had swiveled in her chair to feed the commenter a glare.
Meanwhile, Avis was smiling away, clapping her hands to the beat of the music, Mrs. Patel was sipping her drink as if she were at a tea social, and Mrs. Horton, bless her, was actually sleeping.
As for Oliver… Oliver wasn’t even watching Page. He was sitting in his chair, hunched forward, staring at the empty glass he was turning over in his hand. His posture conveyed a simmering tension.
Page hadn’t given any prior consideration to how she’d handle the costume’s discarded pieces, but she couldn’t toss them randomly on the stage, where they could trip her. Nor could she risk flinging them into the audience. The costume was on loan, and what were the chances she’d recover it all? Plus, it was disgusting to think of strange men sniffing and pawing at her clothing.
She decided to start a pile in the corner of the stage. Maybe it was overkill to fold the blouse, but did Curtis have to yell, “Quit stalling”?
She did a few twirls and sultry hair flips and turned her back to the audience for the next step.
The micro-skirt was made of denim, and was meant to be tear-away, with a strip of Velcro located along one seam—an action that would have taken all of five seconds to execute. Instead, Page loosened enough at the waist to be able to wiggle the skirt over her hips, casting a coquettish glance over her shoulder during the process. A professional stripper would probably use the opportunity to bend over in a teasing display, but at the last second, Page lost her courage. She stepped out of the skirt delicately, one leg at a time.
A few men in the audience made grumbling noises, but to heck with them. All the costume Page had left was a belt holding two holsters with fake pistols, garters decorated with fringe long enough to dust the top of her feet, and a leather bikini the size of a bookmark.
She had danced through an entire song, and now the strains of Sledgehammer filled the room. Once again, Page turned her back to the crew. As a crop of gooseflesh rose on her skin, she wiggled out of her leather bra.
Forget shelter from the rain and snow, she now knew the true purpose of a Stetson. She seized the hat, squashed it to her chest with one hand, and turned to face the audience.
Despite her best efforts to ignore them, her gaze was drawn to the Thurston crew and Page faltered mid-shimmy.
Mrs. Horton was still sleeping, but Oliver’s head had come up now and he was looking right at her. In the reflected light from the stage, his eyes formed a glittering, blue dare.
She launched into some soft shoe, willing him to look away.
The booing started in the back and swelled forward. Someone shouted, “This sucks.”
“Does she?” came from Curtis, and his group burst into guffaws.
Avis shot to her feet, wagging her finger at the room in general, and Curtis’s group in particular. “Mind your manners or I’ll knock your hollow heads together.”
“Sit down, grandma,” someone called from the back, to a chorus of agreement.
From behind the bar, Shep made a get on with it motion to Page.
Page clamped the string of her Stetson in her teeth and dropped her arms, but as her breasts played peekaboo with the audience, their attention lay elsewhere.
Mutton Chops cupped his hands around his mouth. “Show us your tits,” he called to Avis.
His buddies thought that was hilarious, right up until the point when Mavis stood, claimed her drink, and dashed the peach-colored liquid in his face.
Mutton Chops rose with a deliberation that telegraphed menace.
Now Mrs. Patel and Oliver were holding Avis back. She was shouting anatomically-impossible insults to Mutton Chops and managed to shake free of Mrs. Patel, brandishing one fist in his direction.
Mutton Chops was yelling obscenities right back. He was being restrained by his buddies, but barely.
Meanwhile, Oliver was in the mix, valiantly striving to keep the arguing parties apart, risking his head and vision in the process.
Mrs. Patel’s hair had come loose from where she kept it pinned at the neck, and she gave a sharp elbow to the guy responsible.
Mrs. Horton carried on sleeping, oblivious to the jostling bodies that hovered threateningly above and around her.
When one of the men swung too close to her for comfort, Page abandoned her hat and jumped down to shield Mrs. Horton. She pushed at the guy’s shoulder to move him away and saw his sneering attention shift from the collar he was holding over to Page.
Meanwhile, Shep had cut the music and was charging forward.
Mavis grabbed Mrs. Horton’s cane and, while winding up to strike Avis’s insulter, beaned an arriving Shep on the head, smack dab in the middle of his shiny dome.
He answered with a roar that shook Page’s fringe.
Then everything got a little crazy.
While tempers frayed and fists flew, Mrs. Horton slept, the daisy on her knitted cap nodding cheerfully above the beer-soaked table.
Chapter 14
Though his eyes were gritty from lack of sleep and he was dragging, Oliver bounded down the stairs to the ballroom the next morning. He was after caffeine, but he also needed to reassure himself that Page was still with him—no, with them.
The previous night, after she’d leaped into the audience to defend the seniors—a bare-breasted warrior dressed only in fringe
—he hadn’t had the chance to grill her about her future intentions. While Oliver bought off the Wobbly Dog’s barkeep, Page had been dressing. Then they had woken Mrs. Horton and loaded the seniors onto the bus, anxious to get them back to the hotel before the late hour and cold took their toll.
During the entire enterprise, all Page would say to Oliver was, “How could you?” in reference to Mrs. Horton, and, “She’s ninety-five!”
So Oliver had explained how it had been Mrs. Horton’s idea to mount the rescue party, which might have been an overstatement of the facts.
And Page had given him a look that said she didn’t buy it.
But Mrs. Horton had complained about her arthritis in a pitiable voice, and offered to share a special bottle of rose-hip wine with Page when they returned to their room. And Page got all misty-eyed and distracted while Mrs. Horton shot Oliver a wink. And that had been the end of the night’s conversational opportunities.
As a consequence, Oliver had slept poorly, wishing he’d had the guts to ask Page if she would continue working with him. Or now that the highway to Vancouver was open, would she thumb her nose at Oliver on her way to thumbing a ride?
Two things had kept him in his bed, and kept him from storming her room to demand a commitment: Her fondness for the seniors, along with her desire to protect them from Oliver’s manifest incompetence. Also, though she hid it well, Page’s relief at being claimed.
What he didn’t know was whether that would be enough in the cold light of a February morning.
So as he strode into the ballroom, his first thought for finding Page and setting things straight, he was brought up short when he found Gill lying in wait for him.
The bellhop had been chatting to a giggly, red-headed server, but he jerked to attention the minute he spotted Oliver. “Good morning, Mr. Pike.” Gill smiled during the greeting, but his manner was unusually formal.
Oliver nodded and set his paperwork down on an empty table. “Gill. What brings you by?”
“Mr. Thurston sent me. He wonders if you’re available for a chat.”
The request had the flavor of an imperative rather than a suggestion. “Okay if I grab breakfast first?”
