Dreamspinner Press Year Nine Greatest Hits

by Michael Murphy

  “Not used to sharing them.”

  “Maybe you need a bigger bed with bigger blankets,” Shane said, his mouth quirked in an apologetic smile. Then he began searching the room for his discarded clothes. Considering the size of the room, he’d managed to scatter his small amount of clothing over a surprisingly wide area. Jimmy enjoyed the view every time he bent to retrieve something.

  “I’m gonna go shower and change,” Shane said when he was dressed.

  “Won’t Belinda see you walking from my room and know you slept over?”

  “She probably knows already. I’m thirty-three. If I wanna have a sleepover, I’m old enough to make that decision.”

  Jimmy rubbed his neck. “Will she be pissed at me?”

  “For seducing me? I think she knows I’m the one who seduced you. And I told you. She likes you.” He came close, cradled Jimmy’s head with his hands, and kissed him deeply. “Mmm. Minty.”

  “Mmm. Morning breath,” Jimmy teased.

  Shane lightly swatted Jimmy’s ass before kissing him again. Then he stepped away. “No time for Mae’s today. But you’re gonna be busy before me. Want me to bring you something for lunch?”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Did you have breakfast?”

  Jimmy pointed at his little fridge. “I’ll have some juice.”

  “Swing by the bar in about an hour and I’ll brew you some coffee.”

  “Thanks.”

  After Shane left, Jimmy spent a few minutes tidying his room before venturing down the hallway. He was nervous about seeing Belinda, but if she was angry, she was too distracted to show it. She had a long list of tasks for Jimmy to perform, so he got straight to work.

  As he’d been warned, the inn was busy all day long. The bar furniture needed rearranging to accommodate the band and make a dance floor, and there were fresh shipments of beer, wine, and liquor. He helped Grisel and Candy with some of the room cleaning and set up a rollaway cot in one of the larger rooms.

  The music was sponsored by a couple of local wineries. It was all part of a package deal that happened four times a year. People came up from the Bay Area or the valley on Saturday morning, spent the day being bussed to wineries, and had dinner at Carlotti’s or Savoir Faire, the overpriced upscale restaurant near the end of Main Street. Then they came to the Snake for music and drinks before retiring to their rooms at the inn. When they woke up, they’d treat their hangovers with brunch at Mae’s before heading back home, probably with a few cases of wine in the backs of their cars. It was a popular event, Shane said, and sold out months in advance. It was also a huge moneymaker for everyone involved. He explained that Belinda’s family connections with the tour organizers meant the guests were steered toward the Snake instead of the resort near the highway. Besides, this crowd preferred the authenticity of the old inn and the fact that even if they got wasted on wine, they could still walk to the shops.

  Belinda went all out for the event. Jimmy helped put fresh flowers in every room, along with a corkscrew, souvenir wineglasses, and a little basket of crackers, cheese, and grapes. He made sure all the public spaces were shipshape too—more flowers, freshly cleaned rugs, carefully straightened artwork. “Over 60 percent of the tour guests will return to the inn on their own,” Belinda informed him. “I’d like to increase that percentage.”

  “I’ll do my best, ma’am.”

  He cleaned the glass on the front doors and the inside and outside of the bar windows. He made sure the front walk was free of leaves and debris. He checked the lights and plumbing fixtures in the shared bathrooms and finally remembered to clean the slightly clogged showerhead, which considerably improved the water flow. He tried to artfully arrange little bowls of potpourri near the sinks but failed miserably and had to be rescued by Grisel. He polished the wood in the lobby and oiled the hinges on the saloon doors and fixed the sticky window in 203. He brought extra chairs out of storage and set them up in the bar.

  He and Shane were quickly gobbling calzones near the snake mural when guests began to check in. They’d already visited one winery at that point, and they were noisy and happy. They oohed and aahed over the authentic gold rush décor, then bitched about the lack of elevator. The bitching stopped when Jimmy smilingly offered to carry their luggage upstairs, and then refused tips.

  One couple—a pair of men in their seventies—was staying in one of the first-floor rooms near Jimmy’s. Even though they didn’t have to manage the stairs, he helped them with their luggage anyway because they had acquired several boxes of wine already. They seemed pleased with their room, which had a big canopy bed. “It’s our anniversary,” said the one with the mustache.

  Jimmy smiled at them. “Congratulations! How long?”

  “Well, we’ve been together forty-seven years—”

  “It’s forty-eight,” interrupted the other man.

  “All right, forty-eight. But we just got married one year ago.”

  “He finally made an honest man of me.”

  “That’s fantastic,” Jimmy said. “Really, congratulations.” God, what would it be like to remain with someone for almost half a century, to grow old with him? That had never been Jimmy’s dream—he was more likely to grow wings and fly to Mars than find someone to settle down with. But these men were gazing at each other with all the devotion of newlyweds.

  “Can I ask you something?” said the one without the mustache.

  “Of course, sir.”

  “My husband and I would very much like to dance this evening when the band plays. I don’t mean to imply that Rattlesnake is unsophisticated, but do you anticipate two old gentlemen sharing a dance will be the cause of any trouble?”

  Jimmy chuckled. “Rattlesnake is unsophisticated. But you’ll be able to enjoy your dance in peace. In the unlikely event anyone gives you a hard time, just say something to the really hot bartender who slept with me last night. He’ll take care of it.”

  The guests laughed. “Hot bartender, eh?” said the one without the mustache, waggling his shaggy eyebrows.

  “You’re a married man, sir.”

  “Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the view. Hell, Doug and I can enjoy the view together!”

  “Enjoy your evening,” Jimmy told them, smiling. “Please let me know if there’s anything you need.” He turned down a ten-dollar tip—which was far too much anyway—and returned to the lobby.

  A momentary lull had fallen, allowing Belinda to take a quick break. Jimmy approached the front desk. “Those men I just helped? They’re celebrating their first anniversary. Do you think—”

  “Go find Shane and ask him for a bottle of champagne. Nothing too expensive, but not too cheap. I’ll put it in the gentlemen’s room later.”

  Jimmy hurried through the saloon doors. The band had arrived, along with their helpers—roadies, Jimmy guessed—and Shane was supervising as they set up their equipment. He shot a bright smile Jimmy’s way. “Everything okay?”

  “No problem. But it’s an anniversary for the guys in 106, and Belinda says you should pick out a moderately priced champagne.”

  “Sure. I’ll get it in a sec. Anything I can get you?” He leered.

  Well, if he was going to play it like that. Jimmy leered back. “Not in public.”

  “Aw, we wouldn’t mind,” said one of the band members. They weren’t what Jimmy had expected in a country-western group. Three of the four were women, and the one who’d just winked playfully—the lead singer, Jimmy believed—was a tall, middle-aged black lady with a complicated hairdo and sparkly purple eye shadow.

  Jimmy laughed, winked back at her, and left the bar.

  “He’ll bring it to you,” he informed Belinda. “Is there anything you need me to do right away?”

  “Not this minute. More guests should be arriving shortly. After you help them, you should take a break. We’ll need you in the bar by seven, and it’ll be a long night. Oh! And I’d like you to wear this.” From behind the counter, she pulled out a large paper b
ag emblazoned with the logo of Rattlesnake Westernwear Unlimited. She handed it to him.

  Curious, he pulled out the contents: a white button-down with slightly billowy sleeves, a dark suit vest, and a black bow tie. He held up the tie with two fingers. “I have no idea how to tie one of these things.” Or knot a regular tie, for that matter, but he didn’t mention it.

  “Shane does.” She gave him a genuine smile. “The clothes are yours to keep. You can wear them next month too.”

  When he’d be far away. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  SHANE DID know how to knot a bow tie, although his fingers weren’t very cooperative and he swore a lot in the process. Jimmy didn’t mind, because the delay gave him a better chance to take in Shane up close. Shane wore a costume of sorts too, also in keeping with the western theme. He had his usual jeans and boots, but instead of his Pendleton-and-tee combo, he sported a pale chambray shirt. Rather than a tie, he wore a red bandana knotted around his neck. And—holy fuck—a well-used Stetson hat sat at a rakish angle. Jimmy wanted to eat him up.

  With a final adjustment to Jimmy’s tie, Shane took a step back. “Yeah. That’ll do.”

  “How come you get to be a sexy cowboy and I’m… whatever I am?”

  “You are a sexy saloonkeeper. The look suits you too. I can picture you behind the bar here, staring down unruly miners.”

  “You know me. I’m not good at staring down anyone. And I think I’d rather be rounding up dogies. What is a dogie, anyway?”

  Shane’s answering look was unexpectedly sorrowful. “An orphaned or abandoned calf.” Then he tugged at his bandana. “You look fine. I feel stupid. But Belinda insists. I guess I’m lucky she doesn’t make me wear chaps.”

  Jimmy smiled. “I’d like you in chaps.”

  Bending close, Shane whispered in his ear. “That could be arranged sometime, if you play your cards right.”

  Shit.

  With a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth little smile, Shane steered him behind the bar. Apparently it was going to be Jimmy’s duty to pour beer and wine and take people’s money. He had experience with neither, but Terry would be nearby to mix the fancier drinks and help him if he got stuck. Shane and Trudy would wait on tables.

  “How come I can’t wait on tables?” Jimmy complained. “I can carry things to people.” All the legwork would be hard on Shane.

  But Shane shook his head. “It’s harder than you think. Plus, I am charming and you tend to glower.”

  “I don’t,” Jimmy protested, glowering.

  Shane chucked his chin. “Look. Standing in one spot for a long time kills my hip. And I can deal with ringing things up and making change when I’m not rushed, but when the place gets busy, I make mistakes. All those numbers collide inside my broken brain.”

  “Not broken,” Jimmy said, chucking him right back.

  As it turned out, the cash register was easy to use. It looked like an antique from the customers’ viewpoint, big and made of ornately decorated brass. But the guts were modern. “Easier for record-keeping,” Shane explained. “It’s all computerized.” Most transactions simply took a few button pushes or a credit-card scan.

  “If you do everything right, the machine’ll tell you how much change to give. But only the locals will be paying cash anyway. The people on the package deal will use plastic or just charge it to their rooms.”

  Jimmy nodded. He was still slightly overwhelmed at the realization that Belinda and Shane were going to trust him to handle money. He wasn’t a thief, but they couldn’t know that. They’d known him less than two weeks.

  Shane was showing Jimmy the basics of pulling beer from the kegs when Terry—formerly Next Tuesday Terry—wandered over. “It’s not rocket science, Jimmy. My mother-in-law tells me you’ve been doing a spectacular job keeping this old heap upright. I’m sure you can manage a few pours. And if you run into trouble, I’ll be here.” He winked.

  As it turned out, Terry was almost movie-star handsome and knew it. Although Shane assured Jimmy that Terry was a confirmed heterosexual, he was also one of those guys who flirted with everyone, male and female, young and old. Trudy must have been used to it, because when she caught him at it, she only rolled her eyes fondly.

  The bar began to fill about twenty minutes before eight, when the music was due to start. The package tourists came in, of course, but so did a lot of locals. Live music night was a big deal. Jimmy kept busy opening bottles and pouring, and Shane limped around quickly. Whenever he stopped at the bar to put in an order and pick up a tray, he had a smile for Jimmy.

  The room was packed when the musicians took their places on the makeshift stage. Shane joined them at the mic. He looked perfectly at ease despite the size of the crowd, and he was the most gorgeous thing Jimmy had ever laid eyes on. Jimmy felt a little breathless, knowing the man on the stage had chosen him, however briefly.

  Shane waited expectantly for the room to quiet. He looked over everyone’s heads, catching Jimmy’s eyes to give him a wink, and then he turned his attention to the crowd. “I wanna welcome everyone to the Rattlesnake Inn. Thank you to Behrens Winery and Fair Weather Cellars for helping to bring us some great entertainment. I hope you’ve been enjoying your Saturday. You’re in for a real treat. Tonight we got the Betty Diamond Band, all the way from Sacramento.” He strung out the name of the city as if it were something exotic. “Now sit back, wet your whistle, and make sure your dancing shoes are on real good. Here’s the Betty Diamond Band.” He stepped aside to a boisterous round of clapping and shouting.

  After that, things truly hopped. The band played mostly covers of old country songs, with a few blues and rock tunes mixed in for variety. Betty had a terrific voice, deep and husky, and she probably could have done well even without the mic. Pretty soon people pushed their way to the cleared area and started to dance. Jimmy grinned when he caught sight of the couple from room 106 doing a damned good job of keeping up with dancers half their age.

  The crowd was thirsty and the work exhausting. But it was fun too—laughing at Terry’s flirting, listening to the music, watching everyone have such fun. And catching a smile or a wink or a quick touch from Shane every few minutes. Once Shane even leaned over the bar to give Jimmy a quick kiss, and several nearby patrons hooted and cheered. “Ride ’em, cowboy!” somebody yelled.

  Jimmy actually blushed.

  As the night wore on, Shane’s limp became more pronounced, but he refused to take more than a few five-minute breaks. “I’m fine,” he insisted when Jimmy tried to push him onto a chair in the storage room. “It’s only pain.”

  “Only pain?” Jimmy squawked.

  “Look, there’s two kinds of hurting. One kind means you’re damaging yourself. If you have that kind, you gotta do something about it. But the other kind’s just… just there. That kind you deal with as best as you can and just soldier on.” His eyes softened and he stroked Jimmy’s cheek. “I think you know that kind.” Then he hobbled back out to the main room.

  Even when the band took a breather, the bar staff had to work. In fact, their busiest times of all were when the musicians needed refreshments and the dancers all wanted refills. But Jimmy found a rhythm to the job and made only a few mistakes. He liked this, he realized at some point. He even enjoyed it when locals greeted him by name and when Trudy teased him about dazzling Shane with his big-city ways. For this evening, for a few hours, he felt like he belonged.

  Betty Diamond and her band had an amazing amount of energy. They didn’t slow down until after midnight. By then the bar had begun to clear, the tourists stumbling to their rooms and the locals, Jimmy hoped, walking home. Jimmy had worked through exhaustion to that haze on the other side. He was drinking a lot of coffee. Now Shane had time to lean up against the bar for minutes at a time, chatting with Jimmy, Trudy, and Terry about adventures during previous live music nights.

  “Hey, Trudy,” he said after taking a sip of Coke. “You remember that time a few years ago when we booked that big-shot group that was
supposed to be so great? What was their name? Some kind of animal….”

  Trudy was holding a beer, her second of the night. “The Lone Wolfs. Which is a stupid name anyway, because how can you have more than one lone wolf? And the whole misspelled ‘wolfs’ thing—idiotic.”

  “But everyone said they were awesome squared. So we booked ’em and pimped the hell out of the gig… and then they cancelled on Saturday morning. We had, like, ten hours to find a replacement.”

  “Yeah,” Trudy agreed. “And Mom decided on your sister’s boyfriend’s band. Which, it turned out, played mostly old soft rock.”

  Shane groaned at the memory. “Air Supply and Styx. Plus they sucked. I thought we were gonna end up with a riot.”

  The couple from room 106 had retired from the dance floor, but they sat close to each other, the mustached man’s arm on his husband’s shoulders. They looked happy.

  Jenn the cop, who was out of uniform and presumably off duty, waved from a table near the dance floor. Shane started to lever himself off the counter, but Trudy waved him back. “I got this one, cuz. You stay here and impress your boyfriend.”

  “Bossy, isn’t she?” Terry laughed. But Jimmy barely noticed. Boyfriend?

  If Shane noticed Jimmy’s distress, he plowed on through it. “What’s the worst band you’ve ever heard, Jimmy? I bet it wasn’t as bad as Annie’s boyfriend’s.”

  “I, uh….” Jimmy tried to clear his head. “I was in Seattle. This was maybe ’93, ’94. You were just a kid.”

  “I was just getting a handle on liking stallions instead of mares,” Shane replied, tipping his cowboy hat slightly.

  “Well, I’d figured that part out long before then. Anyway, I was sort of between jobs, looking for ways to kill some time. And it was Seattle and of course it was raining, so I looked for indoor options. I found this crappy old bar with cheap drinks and free music, so I figured what the hell. I still drank back then.” Heavily, in fact, but he didn’t say that. “You know, by this time people in Seattle were already over grunge. But then this band took the stage wearing all the clichés: plaid flannel, baggy cardigans, jeans with more holes than denim, beanies pulled over stringy hair. The bar was crowded, and I think everyone took offense right away, because the mood was not good.”