Wild at Whiskey Creek

by Julie Anne Long

  “Eli has a very nice, big, comfortable truck,” Bethany said into the silence stoutly, perhaps worried Eli might feel less than manly because he didn’t have a Porsche. “It’s very powerful. Took those hills and curves like they were nothing at all.” This last sentence was delivered with a sly little smile and a sidelong look at Eli.

  Well. Glory’s own flirting chops were highly honed, and she always took a sort of professional interest in witnessing someone else’s technique. This Bethany might be a little loose.

  Judging from the glimmer in his eyes and the sideways glance, Eli appreciated the innuendo.

  Then again, it was possible he’d already explored Bethany’s hills and curves.

  The very idea made Glory tense everywhere, which oddly made her braid pull tighter, which just made her feel irrationally as testy as a pit bull staked to the ground on a short chain.

  “Mr. Francone,” Bethany said politely, “we just spent an hour in it driving around and looking at the sights of the town and listening to music, and it’s such a charming location for a show like The Rush. I thought it was adorable when that John Cougar Mellencamp song about small towns came on. Eli, what’s that song called?”

  “‘Small Town,’” Glory and Eli said simultaneously. Without looking at each other.

  Glory was awfully tempted to add, “Duh.”

  They both hated that song, as it so happened.

  “It was like Kismet,” Bethany expounded.

  “You believe in Kismet, huh?” Glory said neutrally.

  She knew Eli was wildly suspicious of words like Kismet and Scorpio and aura and the like. He liked things to be defined, not theoretical. That tendency had gotten even more pronounced after his dad was killed. And Glory knew it was one of the reasons he found refuge in the law.

  Crap. An ache started up, for all the things she knew about Eli. For all the ways he was strong and for all the ways he was vulnerable.

  “Sure, Kismet’s a lovely concept, don’t you think?” Bethany persisted. “I never thought I’d run into a handsome, charming cop in the middle of my grandmother’s retirement community. Or have breakfast with the Franco Francone. Let alone work on his TV show. Today is absolutely my lucky day.”

  She was skillfully distributing flattery equally between Eli and Franco in the manner of sycophants and underlings everywhere. The Franco Francone gave a subtle, courtly nod, as if Bethany had just handed him the salt. Gushing was probably his version of small talk.

  Eli was the one Bethany wanted to do, Glory thought. If she had to pick one or the other. She knew that with a woman’s instinct.

  Franco idly picked up the little salt shaker. “I picked up a local station in my Porsche right after the deputy here pulled me over.” He made Porsche and the deputy sound italicized. “They were playing some girly song from the nineties . . . ‘You Suck’?”

  He said this directly to Eli.

  Eli’s head went up slowly and he fixed Franco with an interested stare.

  “It’s by the Murmurs. I like the Murmurs,” Glory said hurriedly. “Discovered them on YouTube. Don’t hear them too often these days.”

  “What’s your favorite song, Francone? ‘I Can’t Drive 55’?” Eli’s tone was jocular. Eli’s eyes weren’t.

  “Funny,” Franco said, not sounding amused. “But no. I’m actually kind of partial to an old Ian Hunter song . . . ‘Bastard.’”

  Eli unwrapped his silverware from his paper napkin as carefully as if he was cleaning his gun.

  “‘Bastard,’ huh? That song always reminds me of that Three Days Grace song. ‘I Hate Everything About You.’”

  Those two songs were in fact almost nothing alike, Glory knew.

  This might be the most unusual pissing contest she’d ever witnessed.

  Or, more specifically, instigated.

  She sincerely hoped there wasn’t a rock song called “Beat You to a Pulp.” Because things could get messy in here.

  Glory felt a hand on her elbow and gave a guilty start.

  It was Sherrie.

  “Mr. Francone,” Sherrie said to Franco, “I see you’ve met our Glory. Glory, honey, your back has been to the restaurant for a while, so you may not have noticed that we have quite a number of other customers.”

  That was admirably dry, given that the place was packed and heads were craning for waitstaff. None of them had quite figured out that Glory was a waitress, given than she hadn’t moved in a while.

  “Maybe the braid is cutting off circulation in her head,” Eli suggested. “Maybe it’s making it harder for her to think on her feet.”

  “Is that why you keep your hair so short, Eli? To take some of the weight off your brain, let a few thoughts get through?”

  “You guys are so funny,” Bethany said somewhat uncertainly.

  “Always good to see you, Eli,” Sherrie said warmly. Having delivered her other subtler yet pointed message to her new employee, she moved off again to attend to some of the hungry customers.

  “Last time I saw you in a braid, Glory,” Eli persisted thoughtfully, “you were about eight years old. You got it caught in the door hinges of your classroom at school on your way out to recess and they had to call the janitor to get you out. We could hear you screaming bloody murder from across the school.”

  This was true. Glory had always taken her hair very seriously. As seriously as Samson.

  He could probably pull a memory of her out for every occasion. Damn him.

  “She told them the hinges were a hazard and they ought to change them. Stomped her foot and everything. Glory always has very strong, understandable, if occasionally completely misguided feelings on issues.”

  Well, well, well. Eli had been setting up a point.

  Glory’s temper officially dialed up to a simmer.

  She locked eyes with Eli.

  “Speaking of hair, it’s been a little odd getting used to Eli with short hair. You should have seen him with a blow dryer when he was younger,” she said chummily to Franco and Bethany. “It was his crowning glory. What was it your grandma called you, again? Started with a ‘B’? Something to do with a shampoo?”

  Eli’s eyes narrowed in warning.

  “Breck Girl?” Franco supplied, blithely.

  “Yeah. That was it,” Glory said slowly. “She said he had hair like a Breck Girl.”

  Eli received this stonily.

  “Gosh! These are charming stories,” Bethany said sweetly. “Did you know Christie Brinkley was a Breck Girl?”

  “Hear that, Eli? You’re in good company,” Glory said. “Christie Brinkley.”

  “She’s even more gorgeous in person,” Franco said offhandedly. “Speaking of gorgeous people, Glory here reminds me of a young Charlotte Rampling. Or maybe Katharine Ross. Bobbie Gentry, too, to pull a name out of the musical past. She had a kind of sultry thing going on.”

  He was reminding them that they were in the presence of someone who had been in the presence of Christie Brinkley. And possibly Charlotte Rampling, whoever that was.

  “Very flattering,” Glory said graciously. She was pretty sure Franco was the only one at the table who knew who those first two women were. “You know, I’m a musician, Mr. Francone, and I actually play a Bobbie Gentry song in my set. You should come by open mic here at the Misty Cat tonight. It’s about the only thing to do in town at night, unless you like bingo.”

  “A musician, eh? I’ll do that, Glory,” Franco promised.

  Bethany was listening to all of this closely. Her fingers crept toward her cell phone. She was clearly dying for a selfie with a major star.

  Francone gave his head a little shake: no.

  Bethany’s hands went back to her silverware.

  And just then Eli stretched luxuriously, and his shoulders and pecs moved in a very interesting way beneath his t-shirt, and Glory’s head felt light and irritability and frustration were like burrs over her skin.

  “Have to keep my hair short and streamlined these days,” Eli said. �
�I can catch the bad guys faster that way.”

  He actually winked at Bethany.

  She’d never seen Eli wink in his life. Growing up they’d all tacitly agreed that winking was lame and strictly the province of elderly perverted uncles and the like.

  Bethany laughed softly and she touched Eli’s arm again.

  Glory remembered that big, brown arm braced against the tree when she looked up into his face that night. And then his hands sliding down against her skin into her jeans, and somehow he’d shown her about two dozen new degrees of bliss with just his mouth. All inside of about two minutes.

  And it was all Glory could do not to reach over and take Bethany’s hand from him and press it gently and firmly down on the table as if she were correcting a grabby toddler or training a puppy. No, Bethany. Bad, Bethany. Down, Bethany.

  “We’re going to need a minute to look at the menu, if that’s all right, Glory?” Eli said mildly.

  Even with the Franco Francone sitting there and complimenting her with the names of actresses she’d never heard of, the word we was like nails raked right over Glory’s heart.

  This was entirely unexpected. Why shouldn’t Eli date? Why shouldn’t Eli be happy with this clearly normal, very pretty, if probably a bit slutty, blonde, who probably had perfectly manageable relatives and wasn’t holding a poisonous grudge against him?

  She turned abruptly away from him. “Mr. Francone, what can I bring you?”

  “Umm . . . the keys to your heart, of course, Glory. And an egg white omelet. Have to stay in fighting trim so I can fight bad guys on TV and get photographed on the red carpet.”

  He didn’t wink, but he did grin at her again as if she were in on the joke.

  She laughed musically, perhaps even a little maniacally, and whipped around so fast Eli was forced to duck like a ninja to avoid being lashed by her braid.

  She might get to like that braid, after all.

  Sherrie took that table from her immediately with these diplomatic words: “Hon, I think the dynamic there is a little too tricky for your first day on the job. Maybe another day.”

  As if that was ever going to be a regular threesome.

  Glory wasn’t certain whether to be grateful or sorry Sherrie took that table away.

  She tried to keep an eye on things there, but the rest of the tables managed to keep Glory scrambling, and then Eli and Bethany and then Franco were gone before she knew it, though she sincerely doubted they’d departed together.

  She wished she could take a moment to decide how she felt.

  Glenn pulled her aside during something of a lull around two o’clock. “Sherrie and I thought you might like to discuss your first day of work. Why don’t you sit right here, kiddo. We’ll keep it short.”

  Uh-oh.

  “Is this a good cop, bad cop, kind of thing?” she tried.

  Which made her think about Eli and Franco Francone. Although that was more hot cop, hot fake cop.

  “Ha ha.” Glenn’s laugh sounded insincere.

  In other words, yes.

  She settled in across from Glenn and Sherrie and folded her hands in front of her like a defendant preparing for castigation.

  Sherrie began breezily enough. “Let’s start with the pluses. You only brought the wrong order to the wrong table once. Only one cheese omelet congealed up on the counter and one French dip got cold. You didn’t drop anything. You sold six of the muffins, which is excellent. You didn’t get into any tussles with Giorgio. You got here on time. No one complained about hair in their food.”

  Glory began to feel like a first grader who was about to get a star on her chart for participation.

  “Now . . . let’s talk about room for improvement.”

  Naturally, this was Glenn’s portion of the program.

  “You probably shouldn’t seat a taciturn sheriff’s deputy who just gave a speeding ticket to a movie star on location with said movie star. Eli’s face was so scowly half the time I’m pretty sure he scared a few people from walking in. I could swear I saw a whole crowd back up when they got a look at him sitting in the window. And he wasn’t even in his uniform.”

  Glory perked up. “Was it?” she said eagerly. “I mean,” she hastened to add, “I should have thought that through. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want anyone to have to wait, and it seemed to make sense at the time.”

  “And Eli kept watching you,” Glenn added, shrewdly.

  Glory’s heart skipped a beat. “He was probably just wondering where his order was.”

  “Sure, sure,” Glenn said noncommittally. “He’s a big guy. Needs his food.”

  He and Sherrie exchanged a speed-of-lightning glance that Glory wouldn’t quite interpret.

  “But wait, there’s more,” Glenn added dryly. “We like to apportion equal amounts of time to all of our customers. Even the ones who aren’t as good-looking as Sherrie thinks that actor kid Francone is.”

  “Isn’t he, though?” Sherrie asked, laying a hand on Glory’s arm. “Those eyes! That tush! Such a nice boy, too. Very friendly.”

  This was almost funny. Friendly and boy were such homely little words for Franco, but then, Sherrie had an egalitarian spirit and wasn’t easily wowed.

  “I swear to you, I didn’t really start it. He was flirting with me.” She sounded like a ten-year-old again.

  “Of course he was, hon,” Sherrie said, soothingly. “But just because you’re good at something, too, doesn’t mean you need to deploy it full on all the time.”

  Glory tried and failed not to grin at that.

  “And I’m just not certain how much . . . oh, substance he has,” Sherrie mused.

  Glory crinkled her brow. This was odd. Sherrie wasn’t the sort to editorialize aloud about her customers.

  But Glenn wasn’t finished. It was as though he had a bullet-point list in his head, rather like the one she’d been carrying around about Mick Macklemore before she dumped him. “Mrs. Adler said you brought her a pumpkin muffin in a, and I quote, ‘passive-aggressive attempt’ to imply that she ought to be sweeter. Though she did enjoy the muffin.”

  Damn. Mrs. Adler was smart. And of course she was a fink.

  “At least it was . . . passive-aggressive?” Glory offered weakly after a moment. “Not aggressive-aggressive?”

  Glenn snorted. “I’ll allow she’s a tough old stick—none of my kids loved having her as a teacher—but you can’t imply anything of the sort while you’re waiting on her, Glory. While our customers are here they should feel like beloved long-lost relatives. A couple more things—you need to get the food out to the tables as fast as possible. Customers shouldn’t be able to lift off the cheese melted on their omelet tops in a single solid lukewarm sheet. Giorgio takes it personally when that happens. And customers shouldn’t have to get neck cramps searching the restaurant for the person who’s supposed to take their orders.”

  Glory was silent. Bravado was slowly hissing out of her and she began to feel like she was sinking, as sure as though the ground beneath her chair was made of mud.

  She wanted to give a crap. She truly did. Glenn and Sherrie were lovely people who had hired her against their own good judgment, and they loved this business and it was a wonderful business. Glory loved playing music here, and she loved the history and the food.

  But she was bad at this and she didn’t want to do it and she had to, and for that reason it felt less like a blessing than a sentence, which made her feel deeply ungrateful, which made her feel something close to wretched.

  Why couldn’t she, from the bottom of her soul, want a job that came with either a rule book or a defined set of steps? Like lawyer or deputy or hairstylist or grill cook?

  Sherrie must have seen something in her face.

  “You can do it, sweetheart,” Sherrie said stoutly, giving her a motherly pat. “And you won’t need to do it forever. You are going to be a superstar! And . . .” She shot another look at Glenn that Glory couldn’t quite interpret. “Mr. Francone asked me to pass thi
s to you.”

  Sherrie pushed over a napkin.

  Ten digits were written across it. Glory took it gingerly. “I’ll be damned.”

  A movie star had just given her his phone number.

  Or one of his phone numbers.

  “Handle that with care, peaches,” Sherrie said sounding sincere. “We’ll see you here tomorrow for the breakfast shift. Say about seven-thirty? I’ll open up and we’ll do a little more training in the morning. You can follow me around for a bit. You’ll get the hang of it. I know you will. ”

  Gory didn’t want to get the hang of it. But she would have to.

  “Thanks, Sherrie,” she said humbly.

  She carefully folded that napkin and put it in her pocket, where it all but pulsed.

  She wasn’t sure what, if anything, she intended to do about it. She’d at least made a good impression on one person. Doubtless Franco Francone was just passing through to work on The Rush and wouldn’t mind having someone to do while he was here.

  “And you’ll play at the open mic right after the chamber of commerce reception tonight? Eden’s going to let Annelise stay for a few songs. She loves music. And she thinks you hung the moon.”

  This was lovely to hear, too. Truthfully, all she really wanted was to be loved for what she did best, for her best self. “Definitely. Annelise is a sweetheart. Yes. I’ll be there.”

  Sherrie slid her chair back and headed toward the kitchen, and Glenn got up almost reflexively to follow his wife. It was touching, the way he always warmly tracked her with his eyes, as if she was magnetic north. That was the proverbial match made in heaven.

  She wondered what her mother’s life would have been like if Hank Greenleaf hadn’t driven off an overpass.

  Glory steeled her nerves. The timing was hardly perfect but it was now or never.

  “Wait . . . Glenn, can I ask you about something?”

  He turned in surprise, then settled back into his chair and arched his brows in a question.

  She crossed her fingers in her lap for luck. She took a deep breath.

  “Out with it, kiddo.”

  “I was wondering if I could open for The Baby Owls. Maybe play a thirty-minute set or so.”