Page 1 of Lady Sings the Blues

1.

Elise

Lady Sings The Blues.

I read the glowing pink neon sign above the door a few more times, standing one foot both inside the rundown juke joint and one foot out letting the cold air escape.We’re not cooling off the outdoors,I hear my mother’s words in my head sounding, as she normally sounded, pissed at me. Not needing anyone else pissed at me, especially not here, I move to plant both feet securely inside as the heavy glass door swings shut behind me.

Once the door catches, the space is plunged into darkness. The only natural light should have come from the panes in door. But the glass has been covered over by thick butcher paper, leaving only about an inch margin of light showing through both the upper and lower sections of window, as if whomever put it there underestimated how much paper would be used. That or they just didn’t know how to measure.

Measure twice. Cut once.

This was something my dad taught me. A much happier memory if I let myself consider just the memory itself and not the fact that the man who helped make it no longer exists. Not just in my life, but at all. Period.

The few customers hunched over tables dispersed randomly around the dark space look up for a moment with squinting eyes before turning back to their beers or bourbons. It’s early to be in a place like this. Too early. Pretty much me and the drunks. Me and the drunks and the low, throaty, anguished melodies softly humming through the jukebox speakers.

“A duck walks into a bar,” I hear, realizing someone is speaking to me.

“Excuse me?” I ask, moving closer in the direction of the voice which speaks to me in the thick country twang of this area. Accents always get to me. Probably because I grew up in Michigan where we lack any sort of accent at all. His sounds smooth and sexy, and a hundred percent Kentucky.

He repeats, “A duck walks into a bar. He says to the barkeep, ‘You got any duck food?’ The barkeep answers, ‘No, we don’t got food. Especially not duck food. Now get gone and don’t come back’.”

“Okay,” I rasp, but he’s not finished. And instead of leaving, which I probably should do, I move in even closer to the man as he continues.

“The next day the duck walks into the bar and asks, ‘Got any duck food?’ To which the barkeep yells, ‘No we don’t got any food, especially not any duck food. Now get gone!’ The duck leaves. On the third day, the duck walks into the bar and ask, ‘You got any duck food?’ Losing all patience, the barkeep yells, ‘No we ain’t got any food, especially not duck food! Come back tomorrow, and I’ll nail your bill closed.’ So the duck leaves.

“The next day the duck walks into the bar and asks, ‘You got any nails?’ ‘No!’ the barkeep yells. ‘I ain’t got no nails.’ ‘Good,’ the duck says. ‘Got any duck food?’”

I blink once then burst out a laugh so loud, he takes a step back and so strong, I double over. It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed with this much careless abandon, tears filling my eyes.

Once I’ve come down from the laugh enough to right myself, after swiping away the tears, I notice him smiling. Not many people smile at me around here anymore. And his smile, well, that’s a smile worth a double take. One that would be hidden behind a full beard, if not for the obvious trim job, allowing me to get the full effect of the crooked, yet genuine smile filled with mostly straight, not quite bright white teeth.

There’s something familiar about his smile. Nothing I can pinpoint. Especially since I’ve blocked certain images from the last few months of when I used to live here. My therapist has been trying to help me reach that magical breakthrough moment when they all come flooding back. It hasn’t happened yet.

When I realize I’ve been staring, I avert my eyes, then slowly glance up into his. Wow, how he looks at me now makes my cheeks heat from his obvious perusal. It’s not really a look I can decipher because it says so much all jumbled together. I just know I haven’t been on the receiving end of that look in a very long time.

His eyes speak to me too. That same familiarity as his smile. But the total package encompasses a person Icannotplace.

“Tried that joke several times, never gotten that reaction before.”

He’s talking to me again. Yet all I can seem to concentrate on is how much I’d like to run my fingers through that hair, hair the color of peanut butter I might add, which he keeps pulled back in one of those super sexy man buns.Peanut butter hair? Maybe I need lunch instead of a drink.No matter. The beard. The bun. It’s been too long since I’ve talked with a man this beautiful. Then I notice he’s no longer talking. He’s no longer talking, and I should probably answer.

“I guess I just didn’t expect it?” Why do I ask it in the form of a question, as if this stranger could answer for me?

“Fair enough.” He wipes down the counter with a damp rag. “What can I get you to drink?”

“Hard cider?”

“Why you end everythin’ in a question?”Get out of my head, hot bartender guy.

“Nervous habit?” I do it again.

The man snickers as he spins around to a cooler, pulling a bottle of cider from a shelf. He spins back my way, twisting off the cap, and slides it over to me in one smooth motion.

“You got a name?” he asks, filling a couple glasses with bourbon on the rocks for an elderly man who walked up next to me. The man didn’t even have to order. The bartender just knew. And judging by the shakes in the old man’s hands when he reaches out for the glasses, I assume both are for him.

“Elise.” Then I give the air a little punch for not asking it. “You?”

“Mark.”

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