Page 18 of Lady Sings the Blues

“Isn’t that Whitley Burgess?” I ask Maryanne.

She only nods as Whitley begins to sing.

“He said I love you…I said ‘I do’… I came home from work. What I found was you…

“He said he was sorry…Never again. Stabbed in the back by my husband and closest friend…

“I got the blues… I got those cheater man blues.

“Never again? He got that right. I ain’t seen him since that very night.

“My mama, she warned me. My daddy did too. And now I’m stuck nursing my cheater man blues…”

She’s sad and glorious, and I could listen to her sing the rest of the night. The live band I’d been too distracted by my Whiskey Sours to notice setting up accompanies her bluesy riff after bluesy riff.

Her song ends. Right when I think she’s about to start another, she steps off the stage allowing someone else to take her spot. When her applause dies down, the next woman begins to sing, although without nearly Whitley’s ability to carry a tune. But just because her voice sounds like fingernails scraping a chalkboard, doesn’t mean her words are any less heartfelt.

“That’s why I called itLady Sings the Blues.” Mark found his way to my side again, just as stealthily as before.

“Do only women sing, then?”

“No. Men sing sometimes. Back then, I was lost. Used to sit here with old man Gallbraith, drinkin’ my problems away. He’s the one who introduced me to Billie Holiday and jazz and the blues. It’s sort of taken on a life of its own. Every Friday from nine to close is open mic.”

“What kind of bar is it the rest of the time?”

As if taking directions in a play, the glass door opens and about fifteen bikers spill inside. I’m the only one to even blink out of place at the intrusion. Violent thugs is what they really are. How are more people not freaking out about this?

“Mark,” I whisper. “There are bikers in your bar.” And I tense in his arms as the mostly hairy, leather-clad men saunter up to us.

“Hey Bossman,” one of the men, this one not hairy, says to Mark, eyeing the both of us standing so close together. Despite that he’s beautiful and looks as if he should be hanging with California surfer dudes from the neck up. From the neck down he’s all biker, and I’m not wholly comfortable with the way he predatorily peruses my body, or the way Mark smirks at him in turn. “This her?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Mark answers. “This is Elise.”

“Tommy. Maryanne.” The man nods respectfully to our friends, leaving me dumbstruck that Tommy Doyle, police officer, would be as comfortable as he seems to be with bikers.

“Elise, this is Chaos.” Mark introduces us.

“Chaos? Did your mother not love you?”

He and the other men laugh. “It’s my ride name. Bossman’s birth name isn’t Bossman, either.” I’m piecing together what he’s said when he pretty much crumbles my world with what he says next. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

As his words really sink in, of course I look to Mark. And from Mark I look to Chaos, the other men and back to Mark again. Reality.

“You’ve got to be shitting me?” I step free from the arms of the man I felt so safe with only moments ago, keeping clear of his friends. “So what? Are you going to threaten me with a knife, too?”

“I—huh? Who threatened you with a knife, darlin’?”

“It doesn’t matter. But this—”I move my hand between the two of us“—can’t happen. Not now. My dad gets buried in three days. Shit, I thought you were one of the good ones. I’ve watched biker shows, read my share of MC novels. We all know how this ends forme.” Before he can capture my arm again, I stomp off for the door yelling ridiculously loud, “I cannotdealwith this.”

Yeah, I realize that Mark hasn’t been anything but wonderful with me thus far, a real friend, nor does he know about the biker from my childhood. But that incident from so long ago put the fear of God into me, at least where bikers are concerned. There’d been so much blood. A gruesome sight for a six-year-old.

Once outside, able to breathe in the crisp nighttime air and clear my head, I concede that I probably overreacted. But hey, they aren’t called irrational fears for nothing.

As I look around the parking lot, I realize something else. I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere Kentucky without a car, no one will rent me a room, and all my stuff is at Mark ‘the lyingsonofa biker’s’ house. Lying by omission is still lying.

This cannot be happening. How did I end up here?

“You’re embarrassin’ me in front of my club.” Predictably, the burly bar owner followed me out.

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