by A. J. Downey
“City center, the courthouse and it’s only twenty-five bucks for the whole year.”
I chewed my bottom lip and thought about it. “And the fine is fifty?” I finally asked.
“Yup, plus they can deny you a permit for up to a year if they really want to be assholes about it.”
I heaved a sigh. “You are totally saving my life right now,” I said.
“You must be fresh off the bus into town,” he said and I went over and leaned a hip against the counter while he went around doing whatever needed doing behind it.
“Just got in last night, actually.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Well,” he winked a deep brown eye at me and blew a stray dark curl off his forehead that had escaped his man bun, “welcome to Indigo City, Saylor Moon.”
I rolled my eyes. “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”
He laughed and I sipped my breve, and asked, “How far is it to the courthouse to get this permit?”
“You got enough for one?” he asked.
“Barely. It’s going to probably wipe me out and leave me enough for a few bus rides, but I’m literally stuck here until I get some capital built up and I would really rather not blow it and be looking over my shoulder every twenty seconds for a cop. Do it right the first time and you never have to do it again, am I right?”
“That’s using your head for something other than a hat rack,” he said, playing the lip ring in the corner of his bottom lip back and forth with his top lip. His teeth were very white in his dark beard as he grinned at me and I smiled back from behind my coffee cup.
It actually felt kind of good to flirt, even if it was harmless and wasn’t likely to go anywhere.
“Here.” He reached into the tip jar on the counter and pulled out a five-dollar bill. “Consider this my contribution to a most worthy cause. You have to promise to come back and sing for me. Now you better fly little nightingale.” He set the bill on the counter and walked backwards toward the kitchen.
“Fly, fly, fly!” He waved his hands as if winging away and I laughed and shook my head.
“Thank you, and I’ll be back. One last thing, you know where I might be able to find a map?”
“Now that, I don’t know.”
“Thanks again, Josh!” I said, picking up the rumpled bill.
I backed out of the coffee shop, croissant in my mouth, coffee in one hand and guitar in the other and went to find the nearest bus stop.
My thoughts went back to Poe. I wondered and worried a little about my stuff, but I knew it was all in my head. Poe really was one of the good ones, like Josh had been just now, but different at the same time.
I knew that I would eventually have to do something for that five he’d just given me. Likely it was an opener to ask me out, and I had to put way too much brain power into a gentle letdown, but I would be lying if I said that five-dollar bill wouldn’t make a huge difference in my day.
I needed to get to the courthouse, I would easily drop twenty-five plus a couple dollars or more in fees on the permit I needed, then I would need to get back to this part of town and risk only pulling in a few bounced nickels the rest of the day. Then it would be bus fare back to Poe’s… and then what?
That was the problem. I didn’t know. I didn’t know where I would go or where I would be staying tonight and I didn’t know enough locals or have any inroads to the local artist’s scene… it was a superprecarious position to be in.
At least back in Seattle, I knew which homeless camps were safe-ish and which ones to avoid. I knew which overpasses provided the best shelter and which ones leaked or were too loud to sleep let alone hear yourself think.
Here I knew no one. Here I really had nothing.
Damn you, Cody.
I waited for the next bus to come and asked the driver which routes went to the courthouse and which one I should catch to connect to what and scribbled it all down in my journal.
Turns out, I was back on Bernard’s bus for the first leg and thankfully, he wouldn’t hear of collecting fare from me. Instead, he chatted with me the whole way as the bus filled up with people bussing to the center of the city for work and the like.
“Okay,” he said pulling up to a stop. “This is you. You get on the two fifty-four and tell the driver you need the courthouse, but I promise you – you can’t miss it. It looks just like a courthouse should.”
“Thanks again, Bernard. You’re a lifesaver,” I said.
“You just gots to let me hear you sing some time, girl!”
“As soon as I get that permit, I promise.”
“Atta girl!” he called after me as I stepped off the bus and waited for the two fifty-four.
By the time I made it to the courthouse, the morning commute was so over and I had missed my window. I still had the lunch rush and the evening commute, depending on how long it took to get this damn permit.
I asked directions and put my backpack and guitar through the x-ray machine, ditching all my change in the little dish. The officers manning the machine were gruff and of absolutely no help, pointing me in the direction of some random clerk’s office.
The clerk was rude, but helpful – barking at me that I was in the wrong place and I needed room whatever on the second basement level.
I went to the elevator, found the second basement level and eyed the directory for something that sounded even vaguely familiar to what she’d said to me but that I hadn’t quite caught. I found something promising and went in that direction.
Poking my head in the door, I asked the lady behind the desk meekly, “Performing arts permit?”
“Yes! You’ve found the right place. A busker, are you?”
“Um, yes.”
“Got your ID?” the bubbly and buxom blonde asked. She had to be in her forties, but she was super nice. I didn’t let my guard down, though. I had met plenty of clerks that were nice on the surface and the second you forgot to call them ma’am or became too familiar they’d turn into a real Karen or Susan. Stuck up and unbearable.
“I literally just moved here yesterday,” I said, scrabbling around my wallet looking for my ID. “Will an out-of-state one do?”
“As long as you have the current address of where you’re living in the city or surrounding area, it should be fine.”
“Um, yeah. That I do have,” I hedged and fetched my journal out of my backpack. I rooted through its pages looking for the one I’d scribbled Poe’s broken address on.
“Okay, good.” She was being patient, which I was grateful for. Usually when dealing with the civic types you could get your head bitten off for not having this info at the ready. She took all my information then sent me to the line of chairs against the wall to wait.
It took over two-and-a-half hours for my permit to be signed off on and the lady at the counter was nice enough to laminate the notarized square of paper.
“Okay, you’re all set. Keep this on display in your guitar case and nobody should bother you. If something happens to it, we can make you another, but re-prints cost ten dollars plus a two dollar and fifty cent administration fee.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“Mm-hm, good luck out there,” she said. “It can be a tough crowd from what I gather.”
“Okay, that’s good to know, thank you.”
“You’re welcome!”
God, I sagged with relief and got the hell out of there. Outside the courthouse I scanned up and down the block. There was a café down a couple of blocks and across the street that looked promising and if I were going to find a place to set up to take advantage of the lunch rush? I needed to do it now, so I made a break for the crosswalk and dashed across the street as soon as the little man appeared in the walk/don’t walk signal.
“Hi!” I called out to a lady as I approached the café. She was in an apron clearing off one of the outdoor tables, so clearly, she worked there.
“Well, hi there!”
“Could I,
maybe, set up outside your door and give things a try for the lunch rush?”
“Oh, you know, I’d really love that!” she cried. “We don’t get many street musicians in this part of the city. I think it might be really nice.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I only just got my permit and I am dying to play,” I said, stepping aside and opening my case.
“What’s your name?” she asked me.
“Saylor. Saylor Grace,” I said, my mind drifting back to Poe and how he always seemed to use my middle name along with my first.
“It’s really nice to meet you, Saylor. My name is Millie and I’m the owner.”
“Thank you for giving me a chance, Millie,” I said and she smiled warmly at me and headed inside with her dishes.
I sighed and put a dollar and some change in my open guitar case at my feet, settled the strap over my body and against my backpack and strummed a few experimental notes, tuning things up.
I let my breath out slow like my granddad had taught me to do, drew a deep breath, and I mean deep all the way into the pit of my belly and started to play and to sing.
I only sang my own songs. Spared me the drama of unexpectedly having to shell out royalties to some big-name artist with more money than God, who had forgotten where they’d come from.
If I had to describe my style, I would call it somewhere in the realm of folksy, bluegrass, and seriously old-world folk. Like fairy folk kind of folk. Like Green Sleeves is something I would sing on occasion, and there were other super old fair-use songs I would do between my own to inject some little familiarities into things.
I sang my heart out in front of that little café for harried lawyers and clerks and smiled and hoped for the best, encouraged by the gentle clink of coins as handfuls of change landed in my case as they slipped out of the shop.
I finished probably a solid first set and stopped, trying to catch my breath. I turned and Millie held out a glass of water.
“That was just beautiful,” she said, and I took the glass of water.
“Thank you,” I said and sucked several gulps down. God, it was perfect, cool and sweet to my parched mouth.
“I’d say you pulled in quite the tidy sum,” she said with a wink, taking the empty glass from me.
“I’ll have to have a look and see,” I said with a smile.
“Take your time, have a seat, and come back any time,” she said, going back inside.
“Thank you!” I called after her.
I took a seat and sorted through my spoils, pulling out the paper bits, separating out the inevitable receipts that some people tossed in and setting them aside on the table. I pulled out the bills and shoved them in my jacket pocket, and guitar braced between my knees, swung my backpack off and found my purple Crown Royal bag where I kept all my loose change. I got the coins stored, put my guitar away and closed up my case. My bag went back on my back and I straightened up and stood my case up between my knees, wrapping my legs around it and crossing my ankles.
I checked my pocket and sorted the bills, making sure to keep the metal table between me and the street.
I halved the money, a cool thirty bucks, and put half of it in the top of my sock and the other half in my jean’s pocket.
“How’d you do?” Millie asked, coming out to collect a coffee cup and saucer.
“I think I’m going to like Indigo City,” I said laughing.
“Yeah?” she asked excitedly.
“Yeah,” I said and grinned.
Another windfall like that during the evening commute and I would be one very happy girl.
5
Poe…
I woke up alone, stretching luxuriously and frowning at the piece of paper sliding off the pillow next to me getting trapped between my arm and the sheets. I pushed myself up and dragged the page from her journal in front of my face.
She had nice handwriting; the note read she had to get out there and figure things out, that she didn’t want to wake me, but she was kind of begging forgiveness rather than asking permission to leave her stuff at my place for today – that she would be back tonight to get it.
I frowned and wondered where the hell she could be.
I worried about her. She hadn’t exactly been welcomed to the city with open arms and it could be brutal out there. I lived it every day I wore the uniform. Frowning, I got up and went through my morning routine. I was hoping that somehow, by some miracle, I would run into her out there but there was no telling. It was a big city, and I had no idea where she’d gotten off to in it.
Damn.
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t woken up, that I’d slept right through her moving around my place. Getting dressed, leaving. I didn’t hear the door open or shut – what the hell?
I stewed about it all damn day. Through my workout at the Blue Line, through muster, briefing, and all through my shift. Looking down side streets and in alleyways for that flash of blonde hair, the spark of her blue and green eyes.
No such luck.
I dragged my ass home, the nagging worry chewing me up from the inside as I pulled into my garage. My heart did a fucking barrel roll in my chest when I rounded the corner, keys in my hand, to find her sitting outside my front door. I still have no idea how I hadn’t seen her from down below when I’d pulled in.
“Jesus! Saylor. I’ve been worried about you all fuckin’ day!”
She looked up from her journal perched on her knees, her guitar case laying beneath her legs as she scribbled on its pages, her backpack pressed between her and the wall behind her.
She smiled up at me and said with a wink, “I can take care of myself, Officer Friendly. How was your shift?”
I hung my head, hands on my hips and snorted a laugh.
“Same shit, different night – we were talking about you, though.”
“Mm, my day was a busy one. I went and got a permit so I could sing for my supper – that took most of the day. I made a killing, though. Indigo City is way more lucrative than Seattle and your bus fare is so cheap!”
“Sounds like you had a better day than you did last night,” I said, holding down a hand to her. She flopped her journal closed and reached up. I hauled her to her feet and she tittered a laugh.
“A much better day, for sure. I made enough that I can just afford this cheap motel I heard about on the other side of the city. I can be out of your hair tonight if you want.”
I eyed her in my peripheral vision as I keyed open the locks on my front door.
“You eat today?” I asked.
“Mm, I had coffee and a croissant this morning.”
“What time this morning?” I asked.
“Sometime around six or seven.”
“Saylor, it’s almost midnight,” I said shoving in the door. She bent and picked up her guitar and smiled when she said, “I know.”
I held the door for her and she slipped past me.
“So, have dinner with me,” I said, “and let’s talk about this.”
“I will never pass up free food,” she said, setting her guitar aside and sighing, “But I’ve already soaked up way more of your hospitality than I should and I feel guilty.”
“Guilty?” I asked.
“Yeah. I mean, if anyone found out about any of what you’re doing for me you could be in a lot of trouble, right?”
I went to my closet and shrugged out of my jacket and cut, hanging them up.
“Not as much as you’d think,” I lied. “You gonna tell on me?”
“What? No! I may be a bitch sometimes, but I’m not that kind of a bitch.”
I chuckled and said, “Good to know.”
“Seriously, though… I made just enough to cover my ass for a roof tonight and maybe a meal tomorrow, so I’m all good.”
“Are you for real?” I asked and fixed her with a look as I tried to pull some of the tension riding my neck and shoulders. It’d been present all day, tightening up the more I wondered where she was at or what she was doing and that bothered me. I
found myself asking myself what was up with that – worried I was acting all possessive and crazy over this girl I barely knew.
“What?” she asked, and her expression was startled, like she couldn’t really comprehend what the big deal was.
“Look, I know we barely know each other,” I said, “but I’ve been thinking about you all day.”
A wrinkle formed between her eyebrows as she swept the loose gray beanie slouched on her head off her hair and shoved it in her back pocket.
“Really?” she asked.
“Really. I work these streets every damn day and you up and disappearing like that this morning? I don’t know why, but it scared the shit out of me. I was wondering and worrying about what happened to you all day – and believe me – I know that’s weird.”
“Wow,” she breathed, her mouth lingering in this adorable little ‘o’ of surprise. “You’re really for real right now, aren’t you? Like, you’re really serious.”
“Yeah, Saylor. I am.”
She leaned her butt against my dresser and crossed her arms over her narrow chest, sort of just huddling in her jean jacket and white hippy blouse underneath it. She stared down at the toes of her brown boots, her jeans rolled up at the cuff to just above the tops of those same boots.
“I don’t understand…” she said finally. “I’ve only known you like a day, that’s it.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t understand it either but some things? It just is what it is, you know?”
She nodded slowly and twisted her lips back and forth.
“So what are you saying? You want me to stay?”
“For now, yeah… until you got a better plan than some fleabag, junky den, hotel in one of the worst parts of the city.”
Her stomach growled audibly and I sighed.
“Look, you don’t have to make a decision right this minute. Let me just fix us something to eat, we can talk about whatever you’d like, and then you can just let me know what you wanna do.”
“Okay,” she murmured, visibly shook.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing!” she said quickly and my bullshit detector pegged in the red. I gave her a flat look. She scraped her peeling bottom lip between her teeth and finally said, “I just don’t think anybody’s cared about what happens to me like that since…” she trailed off and went mute.
