She held perfectly still a moment.
Then she stood up, stuffed her guitar into her case, snapped the latches down, walked across the silent, startled room and right out the door of the Misty Cat.
They all watched her silently go.
There was a stuttered scattering of confused applause.
“Women,” he heard Truck Donegal sniff.
Glenn, clearly accustomed to rolling with whatever happened in his establishment and completely unaffected, stepped up to the microphone.
“You’re up, Mikey McShane!”
A skinny young guy with dyed black hair clutching a battered acoustic guitar in one fist moved toward the stage. He gave a head toss to get his long bangs out of his eyes. He had a single stud in his nose, and the piercing looked fresh. And possibly infected.
He cleared his throat and leaned toward the microphone. “This one’s called ‘Fuck Small Towns,’” he said shyly.
“Go Mikey!” Truck called. Not entirely ironically.
If the kid was born here, he’d probably be known as Mikey his whole life, J. T. thought. Which was reason enough to write angsty songs about small towns.
And with no one to tell him not to, Marvin Wade got up to dance.
Britt brought her beer orders to the counter and Sherrie sorted through them with practiced speed. Casey Carson was waiting there. She’d sneaked one last take-out order in for the day to bring home for her dinner. She had an early morning and she couldn’t stay for Open Mic Night.
“Mr.McCord likes you,” Sherrie said as close to Britt’s ear as she could get, over the sound system as she plopped beers on her tray.
Britt’s heart gave a lurch. “Of course he likes me. I’m nice to everyone. Isn’t that why you pay me the big bucks?”
Sherrie snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous.Likesyou, likes you.”
Britt stopped herself just in time from saying,Really? You think so?
Because, frankly, she knew so.
It was an interesting blend of terrifying and enthralling to hear it from other people.
Casey took the take-out bag Sherrie extended and leaned toward her so she could say it quietly. “Greta was in here a minute ago and saw you talking to him, and she said youraurasweremerging.”
Greta worked at the New Age shop and read palms and futures in the back room behind a red curtain, between selling books and crystals and other accessories.
Casey looked genuinely excited about the prospect of this. As if her team had made the playoffs.
Britt was touched to realize that both Sherrie and Casey were rooting for her. And Britt wasn’t an unbeliever in auras and that sort of thing, not really. But now felt like flinging her hands up over her head. How did one disguise an aura? Could you wave it away, like a gas?
And was this what life felt like to J. T.? Her life viewed through a telescopic lens, wide open to the interpretation of any casual observer?
The real danger in Mr.John Tennessee McCord wasn’t his considerable sexual appeal.
It was in his subtlety. In the way he calibrated what he said to her. That little silence when he saw her, as if some sort of internal adjustment was taking place to absorb the pleasure of her impact.
All of this suggested that he likely not only wanted todoher... which she could get on board with... he wanted to know her.
She wasn’t certain this was what she wanted.
“Don’t worry,” Casey said, maybe correctly reading her expression. “I’m not convinced she actually sees auras. I think she brought some peyote back from Burning Man and it’s giving her notions.”
Britt laughed.
