by Martha Carr
Emily shook her head, finished stirring the cheese into the soup, and wondered if any of them noticed her blushing. “Probably not.” She dished out a little soup into as many ramekins and soup cups as she could find, snatched up a tin of clean spoons, and carried the tray of soup out of the kitchen.
The server she thought was John rushed toward her with wide eyes, biting his nails. “This is your great idea? Give them more food?”
“Trust me. This’ll help.” Emily nodded. “Just pass one out to everybody, okay?”
“And tell them what?”
“That it’s on the house. That we’re sampling a new menu item, and they came in on a special night, so they get to try it. I dunno. Tell them whatever you want, but make sure everybody tastes it, okay? How many people are in the dining room right now?”
The server glanced over his shoulder, his lips moving in silent calculation. “Fifty-two.”
“Wow. Okay. I’m gonna go dish up some more and bring you another tray. Have the other servers help. Things will go back to normal soon.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“I just do. Go on.” She handed over the tray, then turned to repeat the process all over again. Dishing soup. Traying cups and bowls. Back and forth until she had to wipe the sweat from her forehead with the sleeve of her chef’s coat. “Okay. First glimpse of what it’s like to be in charge of everything. At least when I run my own kitchen, I’ll have had experience doing basically everything.” That made her laugh a little. “It’s really not funny.”
Finally, the head server popped into the kitchen to tell her everyone had received their samples and seemed to be enjoying them. The woman glanced at all the chefs, who were at this point making themselves dinner, unaware of what was happening in the dining room. Her eyes grew wide, then she spun and swiftly left.
“Almost done,” Emily muttered. She dished out fourteen more samples of wild mushroom and humility soup, then made her rounds through the kitchen. Her coworkers seemed more than happy to receive someone else’s cooking, and she found herself repeating over and over, “I just wanted to show my appreciation for what you do.” That was a tough enough pill to swallow, though it was true. The skilled and experienced chefs at Meadowlark Tavern seemed pleased enough to give her concoction a try.
Slowly, one by one, the chefs stopped what they were doing, blinked around the kitchen, and avoided each other’s gazes. Thankfully, they’d gone through all the orders on the line with a full dining room, so they at least hadn’t made any of their customers wait for their ego-inflating dinner. Apparently, Emily’s magic had been strong enough to feed them exactly what she was feeling—again, but this time with the intention to set things back on track.
“Oh, man.” With a huge sigh, Emily leaned against the outside of the walk-in fridge and closed her eyes. “I’m so glad that worked.”
“Hadstrom.”
She jumped to attention. “Yes, Chef.”
Anthony approached her and cleared his throat. His neck was a little red under his chef’s collar, and he didn’t exactly look at her. “Break’s over. We filled up tonight, so there aren’t any more tables coming in. Just focus on cleaning up. Clear your station. Then you can head out.”
“Yes, Chef.”
He cleared his throat again and nodded at the walk-in behind her. “Right. Good work tonight.”
“Thank you, Chef.” Only when he walked away did she let herself smile.
When she finished cleaning her station, washing a few dishes, and prepping for her next shift tomorrow, she went to the staff room to grab her purse from her locker. The server whose name was John—as it was written on the tape on the locker he rummaged through—stopped when he saw her and smiled. “I don’t know how in any alternate universe tonight could ever be possible, but whatever you did worked.”
Emily laughed. “Good.”
“Yeah. Everyone settled down after that. I think the old singing couple were just really drunk at the end.”
“Did the tips work out for you?”
“Oh, yeah.” John shut his locker and leaned toward her, though there was no one else in the staff room to hear him. “I still have a few tables left, but so far, I haven’t made less than forty-percent. I’d do this every night to keep that up.”
Emily burst out laughing, which brought a confused smile to John’s face. “I wouldn’t. No tips in it for me.”
“Fair enough. Hey, you done for the night?”
“Yeah. Chef-in-training, right? I get sent home early. See you tomorrow?”
“Yeah. I’m stepping outside for a break.” He nodded toward the kitchen’s back door on the other side of the staff room. “Come on.” With a grin, John headed out first. Shaking her head, Emily followed, ready to be done with the night and start over tomorrow.
The minute the back door closed behind them, John pulled a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket and held them toward her. “Want one?”
“Oh. No thanks.”
He stuck one in his mouth and lit it, the flame lighting up his face in the parking lot beneath the streetlamps. “I’m serious. That was the craziest night I’ve ever seen in food and bev. Maybe even worse than catering.”
Emily stepped away from the smoke as politely as she could.
“Oh. Sorry.” John watched his cigarette smoke for a minute, then stepped downwind of her and offered a sheepish smile. “Bad habit, I know. I shouldn’t have started it the first place. Waiting tables makes it hard to quit.”
“Hey, it’s all good.”
“So, chef-in-training. I don’t think we’ve officially met.”
“Emily.”
“John.” They shook, and he smiled through another drag of his cigarette. “Now I know who to go to with our rowdy customers.”
She laughed. “I was just fixing my own—”
He squinted at her. “Your own…”
“Nothing. It’s stupid.”
“What, you slipped up with an order and tried to make up for it?”
“Something like that.”
John exhaled a cloud of smoke into the night sky and shrugged. “Waiting tables has its challenges, right? I enjoy it. I don’t think I could handle working in a high-end kitchen like you do.”
“Oh, because we all get yelled at and belittled and pressured to make the dish right or not at all?”
He chuckled. “Yeah.”
Emily raised an eyebrow. “I think somebody’s watching too many reality cooking shows.”
“Oh, it’s not like that?”
“Sometimes.” They both laughed. “Mostly it just takes a lot of focus. And, yeah, being able to take criticism from people who know more than you and have way more experience has its challenges, I guess.”
“Like tonight.”
She grinned and nodded. “Yeah. Like tonight.”
“And you like cooking?”
“Wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
John lifted his cigarette toward his lips, but paused. “That’s good to hear. Not enough people do what they do because they want to instead of because they think they have to.”
“Well, I guess I just know what I want.”
He smirked. “I can see that.”
I actually might be starting to like this guy if he wasn’t a smoker. Bummer.
“So…” she pointed her keys toward her Honda and leaned in that direction. “I’m calling it a night.”
“Okay. Hey, what time do you get off tomorrow?”
“Well, that depends on—” Emily stopped and cocked her head. The urgent, energetic cadence of a drumbeat echoed from really far away. “Do you hear that?”
“Um…what am I listening for?”
He can’t hear it. Great. “Nothing. Sorry. Hey, I gotta go. Nice to meet you officially.” She tried not to run from her car.
“Everything okay?” John called after her with a hesitant smile.
“Yep. Have a good night.”
“Yeah, you—”
Laura answered on the second ring. “Hey.”
“I heard it. The drums. I heard the drums.”
“Whoa, Em. Slow down. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just had a really weird night, and this isn’t exactly helping.”
“Okay. Where are you?”
“A gas station by Meadowlark. I’m okay. I just heard the drums.”
“Did your ring do anything weird?” Laura asked. “Like buzzing or—”
“Nope. But I thought I should give you a call. Maybe now’s a good time to get together and try grabbing this thing before it slips into any more humans. Or something worse.”
“Yeah, we should do that.”
“Okay. Want me to call Nickie?”
“She probably won’t answer. She’s got a show—” There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.
“Laura?”
“What street is Tina’s laundromat on?”
“Uh…off Lavaca. I’m not sure what street, but it’s close—oh. Crap.”
“We need to get over there. Nickie has no idea.”
Emily threw her car into drive and said, “I’ll see you there.” Then she ended the call, tossed her phone onto the passenger seat, and drove toward the laundromat like a woman who needed a fajita.
29
Chuck held Nickie by the shoulders and studied her with a small frown. “You okay, babe? You look a little off.”
“I’m fine. Just a little tired. I think I had a migraine earlier.”
“Ouch. You take anything for it?”
“No.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and smiled up at him. “It’s gone now. Right in time for me to play.”
“Hmm.” He bent down to kiss her, then pulled back just a little to look her in the eyes. “I can’t wait.”
Nickie laughed and bent to pick up her dark-blue Strat. She slipped the strap over her head and shoulder. “I love that you still get excited about laundromat gigs.”
“Are you kidding? I get excited when you play in an empty room.” He glanced past all the washing machines and dryers of Soapy Days Twenty-Four-Hour Laundromat and gave her a wide grin. “Which this obviously isn’t. I’m pretty sure I’m your biggest fan.”
She pulled him in for another kiss. “Let’s keep it that way.” She winked at him, then headed toward the tiny box stage beside Tina’s small office. About a dozen chairs had been set up between the stage and the first row of dryers, all the laundry-folding tables moved to the back. Every chair had someone in it, and more people mingled behind the first row of dryers and waited for Nickie.
Nickie smiled and gave a few ‘heys’ to familiar faces, then stepped onto the tiny stage. A furious round of clapping and ‘whoop-whoops’ went up. She gazed over at her friend Tina Lennick standing behind the dryers, grinning from ear to ear under her short, pink-dyed hair. Nickie nodded at her as the rest of the small crowd applauded.
Chuck stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled.
Nickie made sure her portable amp and microphone were on, then she grabbed the XLR cable, plugged it into her Strat, and stepped up to the mic.
“Can everybody hear me okay?”
The applause and cheers grew louder with several ‘yeahs.’
She smirked. “Excellent. Wow, look at this, huh? Big crowd for a laundromat on a Monday night.” People shouted and whooped. “Thanks, Tina, for having me here. And thank you, everybody, for coming out tonight. Hey, and if you’re here just to do your laundry, at least you have some music to chill to, right?” She pointed to the woman at the far end of the room, who stopped shoving dirty clothes into a washing machine to wave and give a whoop of excitement.
“Yeah…” Nickie chuckled. “You know, this was one of the first places I ever played when I started doing this regularly. I love being back here, so I won’t make you wait any longer. I’m Nickie Hadstrom. This first song is called ‘String in a Bottle.’”
She stepped back to pull her lime-green pick from the front pocket of her black skinny jeans, raised her eyebrows at Chuck, and strummed the first chord. It filled the laundromat, and she shot an open-mouthed grin at the tiny crowd. They all grinned.
Before she even started singing, the audience nodded to the beat of one of her newer bluesy jams. And Nickie was just getting started.
Laura wanted to speed. She zoomed with her window opened, but was forced to settle on four miles per hour over the limit. It was only a fifteen-minute drive to Soapy Days, but even that felt too long. The light ahead turned red, and she knocked her fist against the steering wheel. “There needs to be some kind of magical exemption for traffic lights.” She glanced at the three iron daggers on the passenger seat. “No. It’s better to be safe.” She stuck the daggers in the glovebox before the light turned green. “That’s a little better.”
When she pulled up in front of the laundromat, she saw Emily’s Honda in the long line of cars outside the strip of stores and bars. Emily stood just inside the door behind a small crowd. She spied Nickie on the tiny stage, rocking out and intermittently lifting her face to the microphone.
As Laura turned got out of her car, the silver ring on her finger buzzed. “Aw, man.”
Emily turned to look through the window and saw Laura stepping onto the sidewalk. The youngest Hadstrom sister slipped out of the laundromat, letting out a low whine from Nickie’s playing before it was dampened by the door shutting.
“Hey.” Emily walked toward her sister. “Your ring doing the little buzzy thing too?”
“Yep.” Laura opened her passenger-side door and pulled two daggers out of the glovebox. “These are still, you know, disguised. But we should have them just in case.”
Emily took the offered dagger and stared at it. “Part of me really wants to use this just to get it over with. I mean, I know it’s only been two days, but it feels a lot longer.”
“I know. How’s she doin’ in there?”
“Great. Really wowing the laundry crowd.”
Laura shook her head with a small smile. “At least she’s having fun.”
Nickie bent over her guitar for a fast-paced solo, her long dark hair dangling over the neck of the guitar before she tossed her head back and took a few steps across the stage.
Then the drums returned.
“Please tell me you hear it,” Emily said.
“Of course I hear it. It doesn’t sound close, but we probably shouldn’t take any chances.”
“Chances with what?”
Laura blinked at her, then gestured toward the laundromat with her dagger. “There are a whole bunch of people in there. Humans. If this Gorafrex shows up, we can’t just fight it off in front of everybody. In front of Chuck.”
“Right. What do we do?”
The drums became louder, rising from two streets over now instead of three.
“First, we need to make sure Nickie’s okay.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She was hearing the drums again today.” Laura headed toward the door and watched her sister perform.
“That sucks. The headache came back?”
“Yeah, and I think it was worse.”
“She can just play Dad’s lullaby, right? Problem solved.”
Laura frowned. “I forgot to tell you…”
“Tell me what?”
“One of the Tree Folk came to her, told her she can’t play Dad’s lullaby unless the three of us are together. Because it…calls the Gorafrex to her. Seems the drums are supposed to lure in any witches and wizards who hear them.”
“Are you serious?” Emily sighed. “Yeah, that’s your serious face. So she’s gonna hear the drums. And she can’t play the lullaby to get them out of her head.”
“She can. Just not with so many humans around. Oh, no.”
“What?” Emily joined her sister at the laundromat windows where Nickie was frowning on stage and grimacing more than grinning as she played.
“Looks like she hears ‘em too.” Laura opened the door to the blast of high-volume guitar. Emily followed behind, meeting Chuck’s gaze and giving him a little nod. He smiled back, bobbing his head to the music, but then gave Emily a curious expression, likely from her giving off a worried vibe.
The two sisters moved behind the crowd. Laura’s ring buzzed on her thumb, but she couldn’t hear the drums from inside the laundromat. Hopefully, that means the Gorafrex hasn’t gotten too close.
Nickie sang another verse into the microphone, and as soon as she finished, she played a flourishing little riff and ended the song.
“That wasn’t the last line,” Emily muttered.
“Yeah, she’s hurting.”
The few dozen people in the laundromat burst into applause. Chuck clapped with them, but he wore a small frown as he studied his girlfriend.
“Chuck can tell something’s wrong.”
Laura side-eyed Chuck and nodded at Em.
“Thanks, you guys. Thank you. I’m gonna take a quick five. So, uh, wash your clothes if you need to.” A few people laughed, and Nickie pulled her strap over her head and put the Strat on its stand beside the amp. She ran a hand through her hair and hurried offstage.
Laura and Emily skirted around the crowd toward her.
“Nickie.”
Their sister turned, and her eyes widened when she saw Laura. “I’m hearing it again. Right now. I’m trying to play a fricking show.” Her voice trembled, and she clenched her eyes shut.
“Yeah, I know.” Laura grabbed her by the shoulders. “Because it’s here.”
“What?”
“It probably doesn’t know we’re here,” Emily added. “But we heard the drumming outside. It’s up to something.”
“This is the worst timing ever.” Nickie put a hand to her forehead and let out a little laugh. “I have to play the lullaby, don’t I?”
