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CHAPTER 39

Tuesday Evening

      TUESDAY MORNING was much like Monday; Lucy made breakfast four times, then she cleaned, and then she fed everybody again.

      Even before the coffee was ready, Gallatin had slipped away to the barn, and after that, he returned to the house only to eat. Bobby took off for Clive's again right after breakfast. He'd evidently gotten home late in the night — Lucy never learned when. She guessed he hadn't found out about her and Gallatin. But it hardly mattered to her if he did.

      At lunchtime, when the band members were in eating, Normalade came down, dressed to kill and expecting to be admired. When nobody noticed her, she drifted off again, never asking where Bobby had gone.

      Lucy cleaned the kitchen and did a load of wash, just the way she did on any other day. As always, she spent time with Uncle Bob and fed him and talked to him. Uncle Bob said nothing and ate nothing.

      When it was time to go to work, Lucy rode to work with the band again, because Bobby had never brought the pickup home. "This sort of thing can't go on," she thought.

      When they got to the bar, however, it was clear that this Tuesday was going to be like no other day. For one thing, by five o'clock, there were already more people there than on a Saturday night.

      Everyone was busy. Swan and Bobby were pouring beer and they pressed Shark into service to wait tables. And Gene, alone in the kitchen, was making chili fit to beat the band. By six, every table was full, and Lucy telephoned Melida and asked her as a favor to come in and help serve.

      Everybody was in great good humor. They were all excited over the party tomorrow — and over having a band to listen to. And as they were all eating chili, nobody was going to get too rambunctious as the night wore on.

      Swan looked so happy it was as if there was a light inside her. "Isn't this grand." she whispered to Lucy. "If tonight's like this, then tomorrow is going to be, well —" she gave herself a little shake, "Spec-tacular!"

      "Sure hope so," Lucy nodded, busy making change. Then she called, "Yes, Mr. Grosbeck, your chili's coming. And a ham sandwich on the side, just like you like it."

      The cashbox was already bulging, and the evening had just begun. Thinking about all that money, Lucy began to feel absolutely wonderful. This was going to go a long way toward squaring things with Charles White. She longed to count the cash and find out how much was there — God bless Swan for this good idea. She reached for the glasses "A couple more, Bucky? Sure, coming right up."

      Then she thought, "But it's also because of Gallatin. Because they've come to hear him sing. So — God bless Gallatin, too!"

      And then, as she picked up a tray to take to one of the tables, she admitted to herself that it was not just the money she cared about. Or the singing. If he never sang another note, and no matter what he did and where he went — oh yes God, please bless Gallatin!

      Somebody said, "Hey, I didn't want this beer, Lucy. I ordered a grapette soda."

      She looked up, flustered. It was just as well he gave it back, since she'd forgotten to uncap it. "I'm sorry, Cal — I'll go get your soft drink right away." After that, she paid better attention to business and was too busy to do any more thinking.

      Around eight o'clock, Normalade came sailing in, wearing a new pink dress. She came directly to the bar and made Tagg get up so she could sit down. "Hi, there, Sugar," she said to Bobby. "Hi, Swan, you want to make me a beer?"

      Bobby nodded. "Hi Normalade." Swan didn't say anything, just poured one.

      Normalade looked around. "Lotta people here tonight. People I never saw before. I thought you all said the party was tomorrow."

      "That's right," Bobby nodded shortly. He had several orders to fill, and he never liked to stand around and gab when there was a crowd.

      Normalade gave him a look. "Seeing so many cars outside here, I'd wondered if you were fooling me. Wondering if there was something going on here that you weren't telling me about."

      Lucy had been serving tables when Normalade came in, and she was just coming back for a load of refills when Normalade said that last part. Maybe because she'd missed what came before, those last words gave her a little chill. Almost as if Normalade meant more than she appeared to by saying that.

      "Everybody came to hear the band," Tagg said, leaning past Normalade to get the glass which he'd left on the counter when she made him move. "That singer they have is first-rate. You know he's the brother of your cook's helper? He's been doin' good with these fellas in Duke City, I hear."

      "That so?" Normalade said. "From Albuquerque, are they?" But of course she'd known that all along.

      Lucy didn't hear any more. She was off distributing six chili orders, and some fresh bowls of chips and salsa, and the beers Bobby had put on her tray for the customers at table number two.

      All evening, the band played softly, and several times, people went over and spoke to the musicians. Mostly they talked to Gallatin. When they did, he'd grin, and sometimes nod, and once or twice he shook his head. Busy as she was, Lucy managed to notice that.

      Finally, just about eleven o'clock, Shark got up and stepped forward. Immediately everyone hushed. "Ladies and Gentlemen," he said, "Some of you been making a few requests of our lead singer, Mr. Gallatin Shark. So I guess you're ready now to hear him start making his own special brand of vocal music for your pleasure."

      It just tickled Lucy to death to hear Shark talk like that.

      "And I want to assure each and every one of you that he is now ready to sing for you tonight." At that everybody began to clap, and after waiting a minute for the applause, Shark held up his hand for silence. "So now, here he is. Our own . . . Gaaaaaaallatin!"

      Last night, when Gallatin had stepped forward, no one had known what was coming, and no one had much cared. There had been nothing to greet him but his own invisible spotlight — which, to Lucy's mind, went with him everywhere he went.

      But tonight it was different. Word had gotten around. And Lucy was certain that this whole mob tonight — on a Tuesday, which was always dead. — had come purely to find out if this singer really was as good as other people had said he was.

      And the couple of dozen or so who'd heard him before, they were dying to find out if they'd misremembered. Probably right now several of them were thinking, ". . . naw, I just had one too many last night. That was what made me shoot off my mouth today, talking about that singing. It couldn't possibly of been as good as I thought it was . . ."

      So when they clapped very eagerly, and put down their drinks and stopped their talk, Gallatin was facing a very different crowd from the ones who had come here on Monday night.

      Standing at the far end of the bar, Lucy suddenly felt very tense. "He has to do good tonight, or they'll laugh him out of here," she thought.

      "Oh, let him do good," she whispered to herself. "Let them just be crazy about his singing. Let him not fail!" Because — yes, she had to admit it, at least to herself — she truly did love this man. And never mind about the bar making money, or anything else, she thought, you always want somebody you love to do well and succeed.

      He started off saying much the same thing as before. "Ladies and Gentlemen, we thought you might like to hear some old fifties ballads tonight. Hope you enjoy our music."

      And then, just as they had yesterday, the band picked up softly, and Gallatin's hands moved on the guitar, and he began to sing.

      And the music carried them away.

      At first, it was all love songs. Plaintive, lonesome music, with lyrics about early love that poured out a longing that it was too large ever to be satisfied. It was the music of loss and parting — touched with the frost of heartache, because its sweetness was too green and fragile to survive.

      Lucy never noticed where one song ended and another one began, because she was listening through a dream of her own making — but an occasional phrase lingered, wrapped in her memory like a rose, kept safe in scented paper.

      ". . . Maybe I'll live a life of regret \ and maybe I'll give much more than I get . . ." those words stayed with her. And others, "Each kiss I gave to you made me a slave to you . . ."

      Oh yes, Gallatin, each kiss . . .

      Then the beat of the music picked up as he began singing, ". . . sixteen tons. And what'd I get? Another day older and deeper in debt . . . " Once he began that one, all those raunchy old cowboys, and the roughnecks that had come in from their half-dead oil rigs from miles around, all began clapping right along. This was better than radio music — even better than the TV. It was a wonder!

      While he was singing the funny stuff, Lucy scurried around and refilled people's glasses and served some more chili and took orders for about two dozen ham and cheese sandwiches.

      Gene, who had been standing in the doorway of the kitchen to listen to the singing, seemed reluctant to go back and miss anything, so Lucy made the sandwiches herself.

      Through the kitchen door, she could hear Gallatin starting, "I must go where the wild goose goes . . ." a song Lucy remembered hearing on the radio when she was still in grammar school. He sang it half-funny and half-serious and everybody just loved it. A couple of the older guys, who knew the words, chimed in at the end, and everybody laughed and clapped when it was over.

      But when Lucy pushed back through the door, her tray full of plates of sandwiches, she had never felt less like laughing — because just as she entered, her eyes fell on Normalade, who was perhaps the only person in the whole room who was not staring at Gallatin.

      Instead, Normalade was looking at her sister, Swan. And from Swan back to Bobby.

      What had Normalade seen; had she caught some look that had passed between them? Because her eyes were narrow as slits, and her lips were pressed together so tight that her mouth was only a red, down-turned slash across her face.

      But then Tagg said something, and immediately Normalade looked up and answered him, all peaches and cream again.

      Lucy tried to tell herself she was just imagining trouble. But what she'd seen stayed with her.

      It was almost closing time when Gallatin finished singing. The people who had ordered food barely had time to eat it before they had to leave.

      Gallatin gave a half-bow to crowd and said, "I thank you very much for your appreciation. It does my heart good for you to like our music, and I hope we'll see all of you here tomorrow night."

      Nobody wanted him to stop. They just kept clapping and calling, "More!" and "Come on, do another!" and, "Just one more!" Gallatin ducked his head and thanked them again, but they kept clapping and cheering. Finally he glanced at Fred and Ferd a little bashfully, and they both laughed and nodded — which made Lucy feel good. Because it was nice of them to be pleased with him. And in that moment Lucy discovered that she had somehow gotten to be fond of those shabby, scruffy guitar players. If only because they liked him and were pleased with him, too.

      Gallatin took a step forward and said, "Well, just one more — and then we'll really have to call it a day." So everybody quieted down again to hear him sing.

      "Down in the valley, the valley so low . . . " his voice rose as softly as smoke, curling around the heart. Lucy stood with a tray of empty glasses in her hands, never thinking to put it down, heavy as it was. Mama used to sing that sometimes, while she was sewing. Maybe everybody's mama did.

      There was a long passage of music between the verses — Gallatin's hands moving on the strings, with the other guitars filling in very softly behind him. Raton, the little fiddle player, had put his instrument under his arm, and he stood with his head bowed, listening.

      "Roses love sunshine . . . " As he sang those words, a sound that was almost a sigh moved through the crowd. It was funny, how such an old song could still hold them that way. "Violets love dew . . ."

      Until now, Gallatin's eyes had been intent on his guitar, his hands stroking the strings as if he loved them . . . but as he started the next words, he looked up, almost as if he were searching for something in the crowd.

      Lucy drew breath as their eyes met; she was the one he'd been seeking: "Angels in heaven . . . know I love you."

      It was as if he'd touched her with his strong, calloused hands. He did love her! If only for that one moment. It was as clear as if he'd said it aloud to her, here in front of these dozens and dozens of people.

      If she'd had to die for it, she could not have looked away from him as he sang those words to her. Because she never doubted that he was saying to her exactly what those words said.

      Then he was looking down at the strings again, finishing the last chords. And the glasses on the tray Lucy held began clinking together softly, and she had to put the tray down on the bar to avoid dropping it.

      Tagg had been lounging there, leaning on the bar and chatting idly with Normalade. When he heard the glasses he looked up. "You okay, honey? You're white as a sheet! Here, let me give you a hand with that stuff; you must be dead tired. " He took the tray from her and carried it into the kitchen.

      Normalade gave a hard little laugh. "What a gentleman."

      Then Gallatin was singing again, and Lucy no longer noticed anything else.

      He finished with "Now is the hour . . ." an old war song, of soldiers going away from home, but the words could apply to any man, leaving any woman. As he sang it, all those old cowboys and roughnecks began to sigh and look a little dreamy, to the extent that men like them could do such a thing. Many were a long way from home, and perhaps a few were thinking about some woman they used to know. And when Gallatin sang the words, " . . . when I return \ I'll find you waiting . . ." some of them might have been wishing there really was someone waiting for them, somewhere, someone they could go home to.

      But Lucy knew that Gallatin was singing only for her — and that by finishing up with that song, he was trying to give her a true message in the only way he knew . . . telling her once again that maybe he did like her, and maybe he wouldn't forget her right away, but that even so, he wasn't going to change his mind about moving on.

      Yet what could she do? She couldn't love him any the less for that.

      When the music was really all over, all the bar's patrons began getting their things together and paying up, ready to head for home. But almost before the clapping for Gallatin had ended, Normalade said, in a loud, hard voice — "All that singing about lovemaking has got me feeling real lonely."

      She turned and leaned across the bar to where Bobby stood, rinsing glasses. "Bobby-honey," she said, clamping a hand on his arm, "I'm just dying to go home with a handsome man tonight — you know that? I'd even go with my own husband right now — if he was willing. What'd you say, Bobby — are you willing?" And she gave him a real sizzler of a look: half come-hither and half go-to-hell.

      Bobby turned red. "Leave off, Normalade."

      Nearby, Pancho Schneider had been sitting at the bar with Ricky. He began to laugh. "You better take her home right now, Bobby, if you know what's good for you."

      And out of the crowd of people who were leaving, Chuckie Brewster called, "Watch out there, Bob — I'm a pretty handsome fella myself, if that's what she wants. And I'm real willing, if you don't want to take up the job."

      Ignoring them, Normalade stood on tiptoe and leaned still farther across the bar, putting put her face close to Bobby's. "I mean it — come home with me right now, and let the rest of them close up this place for once." Leaning across the bar that way, she was near enough to have kissed him. And she still had that half-loving, half-angry look on her face, as if trying both to threaten and entice him at the same time.

      Bobby said nothing. He hated her making a scene, of course. But maybe he was also a tiny bit flattered. Or feeling guilty, maybe — Lucy couldn't tell.

      When he didn't answer, Normalade turned her head and gave Lucy almost that same love-hate look, saying, "Listen, honey, you don't mind, do you? You can manage things if Bobby leaves with me now."

      Lucy hated to be drawn into it, so she only shrugged, not saying either yes or no. But she felt like a coward.

      At that, Normalade turned to her sister and said, in a distinctly nasty way, "Swan, dearest — you'll stay and do the dishes won't you? While I take my husband home with me?"

      Once again, something came into Normalade's face that made Lucy feel uneasy: Trouble. Trouble!

      Lucy took a step forward and said quickly, "Sure, Normalade. It's closing time anyway — you two go on."

      So Bobby took Normalade home. And Swan did help Lucy clean up, like the good person she was. She never said a word to blame Lucy for sending them off together like that. And she never cried a tear.

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