1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Nine

by Carrie Ann Ryan

  “Why’s that, Julio?” Joel asks.

  Annabelle says, “You have our papers on file, asshole!”

  “Alright, so apparently the cursing just isn’t going to stop which means I’m gonna have to put in a call to our friends at the Dallas Po—” He’s in mid-dial when he sees her charging toward him down the sidewalk. “Goddammit to hell!” he shouts at the crowd. “Now who called Amber? That is just not appropriate! That is not appropriate at all.”

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  It’s the closest they’ve been in days. Everyone on the curb seems to know it. They’re being stared at like strippers outside a church on a Sunday.

  “We’re gonna need to have a pause while we work all this out,” Joel says quietly. “That’s all.”

  “A pause. What the hell does that mean?”

  “He’s not just changing the locks, Amber,” Julio shouts. “He’s shutting the place down.”

  Annabelle says, “He came in ’bout a half hour ago and told us all to go home. Locksmith pulled up about five minutes after that and he got all pissed because the guy was early. He wanted us all gone so we wouldn’t know he was try—”

  “For the last time! I am not shutting the place down,” Joel barks. “I am stopping business temporarily while we sort everything out. That’s all.”

  “That’s all? You’ve got four acts booked this week alone,” she says. “What are you going to tell their managers?”

  “That the club’s working out some issues related to ownership and we’ll rebook as soon as they’ve been sorted out.”

  “Related to ownership?” she screams.

  “It’s just a business term, Amber.”

  “Ownership? Of my father’s bar?”

  “We’re gonna figure this out. Would you just relax already?”

  “Three of those shows you’re canceling are sold out, Joel! That doesn’t sound like good ownership to me.”

  “Yeah, well, I changed our refund policy.”

  “You can’t—Watson’s has been in business for twenty-five years. You don’t have the right to shut this place down on a whim.”

  “A whim, huh? Is that what you call the end of our marriage?”

  Discussing the end of her marriage right now in front of everyone would be an indignity worse than what he put her through a few days before.

  “This club isn’t about us, Joel. It’s about the people who work here. It’s about the music. It’s about my father. He trusted you to—”

  “To run it, exactly. And this is me running it. I own Watson’s so I’ll—”

  “An LLC owns Watson’s!”

  “Yeah, and I’m the majority partner. Because that’s how your father wanted it. Because he knew you and your mother didn’t know a damn thing about how to run a business.”

  “My father gave you this place because you bullied him into it on his deathbed!”

  It’s the first time she’s ever spoken this truth out loud. And she expects it to knock her soon-to-be ex-husband off his feet.

  But Joel Claire, it turns out, is nothing if not resourceful.

  “There!” he cries. “Did everyone hear my wife’s acknowledgment that her father gave me this bar?”

  “I heard her!”

  The shrill cry has come from the direction of Joel’s truck. Mary, the same woman she caught her husband fucking a few days ago, throws herself halfway out of the passenger side window of his pickup truck, wearing a big smile on her rosy-cheeked face.

  In a low voice, Annabelle says, “Dogs should keep their heads inside cars. They might get hurt.”

  “I heard that too,” Mary cries.

  “Oh, yeah? Bowwow, puta!” Annabelle shouts back.

  “You’re fired!” Joel shouts at Annabelle.

  “Uh huh, sure,” Annabelle responds without moving an inch.

  “Stop it, Joel,” Amber says. “Whatever you’re doing, just stop it!”

  “I am, Amber,” Joel whispers. “I’m putting a stop to everything until we figure out what we’re gonna do.”

  “We’re getting divorced,” she whispers back. “That’s what we’re gonna do.”

  “I’m aware of that, sweetheart. I’m talking about the next verse of my song, not yours.”

  No thought to the years they’ve spent together. No thought for the plans they’d made for kids, for a life. Just a few days out from being caught red-handed with another woman and already her husband’s thinking of the business, of money, of himself. She’d always made allowances for his ambition, had figured ambition was part of any exceptional man. But her husband, she can see now, isn’t just ambitious; he’s self-obsessed and greedy. The sight of him now, plotting his next career move with her father’s life’s work gripped in one fist, is a harder slap in the face than the sight of him fucking another woman.

  “Jesus, Amber,” Joel whispers at the sight of her tears. “Don’t cry in front of them.”

  “Howdy, songbirds!” a familiar voice says from several feet behind her.

  Amber hasn’t laid eyes on him in four years, and even though she wouldn’t have thought it possible, during that time Caleb has somehow grown taller and broader. He still walks with a casual, confident gait she’d be able to spot across a crowded arena, like he knows his sheer size is a better indication of his strength than any menacing pose could ever be. His Stetson’s the right size now, unlike the ones he used to wear as a kid, and the brim shades the hard, etched features of a fully grown man, a man with a voice so deep it sounds like it’s coming from some otherworldly place where he rules as king. His eyes are still so sparkling and blue she can’t look into them without blushing. His jeans are scuffed and tattered, but his cowboy boots are brand new; so is his red and black plaid shirt. Not just new, spotless and freshly ironed.

  Did he dress up a little for this surprise visit? Did he dress up for her?

  “What are you doing here, Caleb?” Joel asks, his tone suddenly tense.

  “Just got back in town last night. Thought I’d stop by the family business and have some lunch. But it doesn’t look like lunch is being served.”

  “Who called him?” Joel shouts over one shoulder with real fear in his voice. No one answers. “Who called him?”

  “Nobody called me, songbird,” Caleb says. “Quiet down. You don’t want to damage your signing voice there. Hey. You alright, Amber?”

  “I…”

  Her throat closes up. Maybe it’s the shock of seeing Caleb for the first time in years. Maybe she just can’t bring herself to spill her guts right there on the sidewalk, to paint the full picture of how awful Joel is being to her, to all of them.

  “You know, well, uhm…” Joel says, with the nervous stutter of an elementary school student giving his first presentation in front of his classmates. “I’m sorry to say I’ve got to close the place for a week or two.” Joel's voice seems to get a little shakier with each step Caleb takes toward him. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard but Amber and I…Well, we’ve decided to end our marriage.”

  Caleb freezes, expression hard as stone and impossible to read.

  “I hadn’t heard that, no.”

  There’s now about three feet of space between Joel and the man she cannot bring herself to call her brother despite what the adoption papers might say.

  “Well…” Joel says. “In light of that—I mean, given how much there’s going to be to deal with, we just need to stop operating for a short while and then we’ll be back—”

  “How long’s a while?” Caleb asks.

  “Just a few weeks ’til we gets things sorted out. Now, with all due respect, this is a family matter so if you could ju—”

  “I am family,” Caleb says.

  “On paper, maybe. But come on, now. We all know Abel was just—”

  “My father,” Caleb says. “Abel Watson was the only real father I ever had.”

  “Sure, sure. Of course. But if you’d ju—”

  “He cheated on her, Caleb!” A
nnabelle snaps. “She caught him in the back room last week with that girl over there in his truck. Now he’s trying to take the bar so he can use it to promote his crappy band.”

  “Shut up, Annabelle!” Joel cries.

  Caleb’s entire body goes rigid. Amber’s seen this change overtake him many times, mostly when they were teenagers and brawling became Caleb’s preferred method for dealing with his grief for his parents. She knows just where to look for the telltale sign of the anger knotting itself through his soul; it’s in the right corner of his powerful jaw. The tension there is suddenly so strong it sends that section of his jawbone into sharp relief. He has to tilt his head gently to one side to be rid of it, an oddly prim gesture for a guy on the verge of venting rage.

  “That true, Amber?” Caleb asks.

  “Yes. I caught ’em. It’s true.”

  Joel takes a step toward Caleb. “Look, I don’t mean to be blunt, cowboy, but this doesn’t concern you, alright? And Amber and I don’t need to litigate our marriage right here in front of—”

  The punch is so silent and swift Amber’s not sure where it landed. One minute Joel’s standing, the next he’s flat on his back. No blood comes from his nostrils. The hand Joel finally manages to bring to his face lands weakly on his jaw. As he wheezes, he blinks up at Caleb as if he’s in genuine fear for his life.

  “Try to get up,” Caleb says quietly. “Just fucking try it. I dare you.”

  Joel doesn’t get up.

  Caleb steps off the sidewalk and starts for Joel’s pickup truck.

  “Drive away!” he calls to the terrified woman in the passenger seat.

  “What?” Mary squeals. In her panic, she’s pulled off one of her shoes and she’s holding it beside her head like a makeshift baton.

  “Roll up the window and drive away,” Caleb says firmly.

  “It’s his truck!” Mary whines.

  “Don’t care,” Caleb answers.

  “Where am I supposed to go?” Mary asks.

  “Somewhere Amber doesn’t have to look at you. You got all of North Texas to choose from. Take your pick and get moving.”

  Mary crawls over the gearshift and into the driver’s seat. Without taking her eyes off Caleb, she starts rolling up the window like a swarm of killer bees are heading straight for Joel’s pickup. Caleb points at the parking lot’s nearest exit.

  The tires literally squeal as Joel’s mistress abandons him.

  As if he’s just completed a task as simple as removing a kink from a garden house, Caleb turns and walks back toward the spot where Joel is still flat on his back, rubbing his bruised jaw with one hand.

  “Got any brain damage there, songbird?” Caleb asks.

  Joel wheezes.

  “Okay. Good. ’Cause I’m gonna need you to take this all in, and it’s complicated, so pay attention. You know that trust fund Abel set up to provide you with a cushion while you got started? The one that’s got the proceeds of his retirement in it? The one you’ve been relying on for your marketing budget now for four years? Guess who’s the trustee?”

  Joel groans.

  “Yeah, see, he didn’t want to make me a partner in the LLC ’cause he didn’t want you to think he didn’t trust you. But just in case you did turn out to be a steaming stack of shit on a hot highway, he wanted a fail-safe in place. And that fail-safe’s me, asshole.”

  “Whu—what do you…?” Joel tries.

  “It means you do anything other than make a graceful exit—and by graceful, I mean you sign over your majority share back to Amber tomorrow—then your little slush fund’s gone.” Caleb snaps his fingers to indicate how quickly he’ll make that happen. “And in your case, that means no radio spots, no T.V. spots, no nothing to promote any band you’d even think about bringing in here. Including yours. The Shitty Taillights, or whatever the hell they’re called.”

  “The Blinking Jailbirds,” Joel mutters in a lisping voice. That’s when Amber notices his bottom lip is swelling. “You can’t…You can’t do that. You—”

  “I can and I will,” Caleb says. “Four years now and you’ve got this place down to just above the red. Every other week you’re switching out a menu item to something three times the cost. Paying shit-ass consultants thousands to find out what it would take to turn the place into a wine bar. You know damn well if you have to run this place off what you make from buffalo steaks and Corona, there won’t be a dollar left to launch your music career. So sure, songbird. Go right ahead. Make a play. And I’ll make sure you won’t get a single band, manager, agent, or A&R guy anywhere within a hundred feet of you and this place.”

  She’s more startled by the facts Caleb’s just revealed in his speech than she was by the sight of her husband cheating on her.

  Caleb, a trustee?

  She’s barely heard from him in four years, ever since her father died. Just a postcard here and there, usually with a line or two about whatever job he’d managed to land that month. Truck driver in the North Dakota oil fields. Ranch hand at some big spread up in Montana.

  She figured he’d taken her father’s death—their father, she reminds herself, against her will—harder than she had. She’d never imagined him playing any role at all in the business, not now, not ever. And yet, the whole time he’d been gone, the whole time he’d been riding the ranges, driving oil-filled trucks through the lonely highways of the Great Plains, Caleb had been reviewing paperwork and bank documents, using his position as trustee to monitor Joel’s stewardship of her father’s lifework.

  Of course, he couldn’t have learned all of what he’d just said from the bank. He’d probably stayed in touch with Julio and Annabelle too. The knowledge that for the past few years Caleb has been closer than she realized leaves her breathless. She’s not sure if she likes the feeling.

  Things seemed easier when Caleb was far away. For her heart, at least. For her head. But given how bad things are now, apparently it only seemed that way. In fact, now that he’s back, it looks like things are going to get a lot better.

  Joel struggles to his feet. The bruise on the left side of his jaw has doubled in size. When he goes to speak, his swollen lip seems to cause him so much sudden pain his sneer turns into a pained grimace.

  “I don’t need this place,” he finally manages. “I don’t need…you two!” He says the last words with such venom she’s surprised when he doesn’t follow them up by spitting at her feet. “You can have it. Take it. Run it together. Make it your special little project. I’m sure y’all will have a blast. Brother and sister, sitting in a tree—”

  “Joel,” she says before she can stop herself.

  “Oh, come on. I’ve seen the way you look at him—”

  “Joel,” Caleb says this time. “There may be a saying about not punching the same man twice in one day, but I ain’t ever heard it.”

  Joel gives them both a leering grin. When he starts to walk away, his first steps become stumbles.

  Caleb moves out of his path, hands out and a polite smile on his face, like someone letting a drunk move past them in a crowded bar. Amber can hear sighs of relief from the staff when Joel gets a few yards from the curb and yanks his phone from his jeans pocket. But just then, he spins in place. She’s surprised when he shouts a name other than her own.

  “Hey, Annabelle,” he shouts. “Since I finally got the chance to say this, your food? It’s shit!”

  “Oh, Mister Joel,” Annabelle says with a broad grin. “That’s ’cause I always added something special just for you.”

  Joel does his best impression of an idiot’s laugh. But Annabelle keeps smiling and nodding, as if the memory of whatever she added to Joel’s meals is a warm and happy thing that will sustain her for years to come.

  His parting shot having missed its target, Joel stumbles off into the parking lot.

  “So,” Caleb says, “who wants some lunch?”

  Chapter 3

  Watson’s is so cavernous it feels to Amber like she and Caleb are the only ones inside. B
ut Annabelle and her three cooks are busy making up for lost time in the kitchen while Julio and his servers frantically set up tables on the three levels of platforms surrounding the empty, sunken dance floor.

  Nothing bums her out more than the sight of a dark stage, but apparently she’s in the minority, because in a few minutes, the place will be packed with hungry regulars even though the only music will be coming from the jukebox.

  Caleb walks up to the beer taps like he owns the place which, given what she learned a few moments before , he just might. He fills a pint glass with amber ale and sets it on the bar in front of her with a loud thunk.

  “Thanks,” she says. “But I had a martini at work.”

  “Hot damn!” he says. “I want your job.”

  “Not enough manual labor for you,” she says. “And since when do you like martinis?”

  “Since never. ’Sides, looks like I’m out of the job market now.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Gonna have my work cut out for me with this place.”

  “You’re staying?” she asks.

  Does this excite her or fill her with dread? She always feels a mixture of both when Caleb’s around.

  “Somebody’s gotta run this place now that Joel’s out of the picture.”

  “Caleb, I really appreciate what you did out there. Seriously, I do. But I’m not sure it was enough to get Joel out of the picture for good.”

  “You’re not asking me to kill him, are you? Can I pat you down? You wearing a wire?”

  “No!” she barks.

  “No to which? The wire or the pat down?”

  “I don’t think Joel is through with us yet, is what I’m saying.”

  “Fine. Next time I’ll aim for his stomach.” He sinks his teeth into his lower lip, throws a mock punch into the air in front of him.

  “Be serious. Please.”

  “Oh, I’m damn serious. He’s not getting his hands on anything in this bar. Not the jukebox. Not the barstools. Not nothing. And I’m sticking around to make sure of it. Unless, you know, you think you can handle this place by yourself.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t want you around.”