Authors: Carolyn Brown
Larissa filled six quarts and set them on a tray, collected the money, and made change. “One more time and that’s it. I’m not here to buy your beer joint. I moved to Mingus because I wanted to live here. And you are changing the subject. Anyone can pull a lever and fill up a fruit jar with beer. How old are you, Cathy?”
“Twenty-eight.” Cathy started two more blenders of piña coladas.
“And you never loved anyone enough that you wouldn’t want to live without them?”
“Ain’t no one in this world that I’d want to die for,” Cathy answered.
“Looks like we’ve got something in common. I’ve got two years on you in age, but neither one of us has been led down the daisy path, have we?”
“I didn’t say that. The daisy path and I are very well acquainted. That’s why I wouldn’t die for a man. Basically, they’re all alike, aren’t they? Ever hear that old saying about burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice and shame on me. Well, that’s the story of my life. I ain’t livin’ a ‘shame on me’ life.”
Larissa kept filling jars, icing down beer in buckets, and making change. “Someday we’ll have to discuss that when we can sit down and not yell over the music and people.”
The tables and stools cleared out again when Kenny Rogers starting singing about knowing when to hold ’em, when to fold ’em, and when to walk away or when to run. Four long lines of people covered the dance floor in a line dance yelling “Fold ’em” with Kenny when he said the words.
“That’s my brand new favorite song,” Larissa said.
“How come?”
“I’m learning that folding them isn’t such a bad thing. I’m beginning to think I was a winner when I thought I was the biggest loser in the whole world. We’ll talk about that later too,” she said.
“What makes you think we’ll be friends and talk about anything other than beer and piña coladas?”
“Hey, you want to dance?” Travis yelled the minute the song ended.
The second he hollered a rare moment of silence filled the joint. His voice echoed in the stillness and everyone looked at him.
“Which one of us you talkin’ to, cowboy?” A girl in a laced-up-the-front white blouse that dropped off her shoulders in an elasticized neckline sidled up to him and laid her hand on his thigh.
“The bartender?” Travis blushed.
“Are you talking to me? No thank you. I’d lose my job.” Larissa laughed.
Someone plugged more quarters into the machine and Marty Robbins began singing about his wife. Dancers were stuck to each other and moving slowly on the packed floor. Travis was jealous. That’s the way he’d like to be hugged up to Cathy, not sitting across the bar from her with no possibility of anything but their hands touching.
Cathy stopped in front of him to replenish the pretzel bowl. “Thanks for asking me to dance, but I don’t dance with customers or while I’m working. And even if I did, it’s too dang busy for me to leave the bar even for one song. But thanks anyway.”
He reached for a handful of pretzels just to touch her fingertips. Hot vibes between them created something akin to a kid’s sparkler on the Fourth of July.
Larissa touched Cathy on the arm. “What would it take to make that song your favorite song?”
Cathy pulled her hand back from the pretzel bowl. “My song is Gretchen Wilson’s ‘Redneck Woman.’ You’re just now discovering country music and you think every one of them is written just for you, don’t you?”
“Hell yeah!” Larissa smiled.
“You’re getting into this, aren’t you?” Cathy asked.
“Been listenin’ to country music all day while I cleaned up my yard. That storm shook every loose leaf from my trees. I’ve got enough of a pile to make a bonfire for a wiener roast. Listen to the song. What would it take to make you someone’s woman?”
Cathy listened to the familiar words. “Guess he’d have to be willing to give me his share of heaven,” she said.
“Well said, sister,” Larissa said.
Travis was figuring out how a person made a deal to give up their share of heaven and when Angel tapped him on the shoulder he almost dumped his beer in his lap.
She giggled. “I didn’t mean to cause a disaster, darlin’. Come dance with me until Garrett gets here. Oh, there he is. You’re off the hook.”
Angel grabbed Garrett in the middle of a fast Jerry Lee Lewis tune and they danced not far from where Tinker had set up post. Garrett ran the tips of his fingers down her sides and she moved seductively against him.
Cathy wished for a long breath of fresh, cold winter air. The blend of shaving lotion, perfume, smoke, and liquor mixed together was enough to singe a billy goat’s nose hairs. And watching Angel and Garrett with glazed eyes only for each other as they danced like they were the only two people in the whole Honky Tonk didn’t do a thing for the heat inside her body. She looked over at Travis to find him mouthing the words to “Hello Darlin’” with Conway Twitty. Travis’s blue eyes met hers over the bar when he sang about letting him kiss her and hold her in his arms one more time. She forgot about the fancied up bodies in the place and cigarette smoke hanging in the air and even Angel and Garrett. All she thought about was his kisses. She had to hold both her hands behind her to keep them from her mouth to see if it was as hot as it felt.
“I need two pitchers of hurricanes and a single tequila sunrise,” Larissa hollered from the other end of the bar.
Cathy blinked her way back from imagination kissing to bartending. She glanced back toward Travis. He smiled and held up his beer in a toast.
Barbara Mandrell was the next jukebox star to sing. Another line dance formed with both men and women participating. Rocky was pretty damned agile and that didn’t surprise Cathy. But Bart did. She’d figured he’d be clumsy but he knew exactly when to kick back, two steps forward, kick forward, and twist and turn three times before starting again. He never missed a beat and looked like a ballerina the whole time he danced.
Waylon Jennings sang “Luckenbach, Texas” next and kept the line dancers on the floor.
Travis meandered over to the pool tables to talk to Garrett while Angel and Merle set up a game.
“If we could change that to Mingus, Texas, instead of Luckenbach, it would describe me,” Larissa said.
“You had never ever been in a bar before you walked in the Honky Tonk, had you?” Cathy wiped trays and stacked them up for the next run.
“Not like this. Went to my share of nightclubs in New York City and Dallas and Houston and been to Vegas but not a honky tonk. Did it show that much?”
“Yep, it did.”
“That’s another long story,” Larissa said.
“This your first experience with country music too?”
Larissa nodded. “And my first time to drink beer and two-step.”
“Mercy sakes, you ain’t been livin’. You just been existin’.” Cathy laughed.
Travis listened to Garrett talk about Angus, but his eyes never left the bar. Cathy was beautiful when she smiled. Bits of her laughter floated across the smoke-filled room to his ears and sounded like harp music or maybe the tinkling of a Floyd Cramer piano. What had Larissa said that had brought it on, anyway?
Larissa poured peanuts into the bowls on the bar. “You are right about living and existing. But I’m learning my way around this kind of life.”
“What’ll you have, cowboy?” Cathy asked a rancher who was panting so hard from dancing that he couldn’t catch his breath.
“Give me a bucket of Millers.”
Cathy reached under the bar and set a galvanized milk bucket on the bar, slipped six bottles of cold Millers beer into it, and then shoveled in two big scoops of ice.
He handed her a wad of crumpled bills. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks.” She straightened the money and made change. What didn’t go into the cash register she handed to Larissa.
“What’s this?”
“Pay. Whatever tips come in this evening belong to you,” she said.
“I’m not working for money,” she protested.
“What are you working for?” Cathy asked.
“Because you were too busy and it’s too crowded for me to dance. I’m not good enough to dance with that crowd,” Larissa said.
“Me neither,” Travis said.
“Where’d you come from?” Cathy asked.
“Garrett and Angel have a table staked out soon as those two cowboys finish their game and they don’t want to lose it so I’m here to buy beers for them.”
“Why aren’t you comfortable dancing with the crowd?” Larissa asked.
“I just don’t like to get in the middle of that much movement.”
“Darlin’, pretty as you are the women folks wouldn’t care if you were dancin’ standin’ straight up or layin’ down on your back. Hey, listen to this song.” Larissa pointed to the jukebox.
Tanya Tucker was singing a song that asked if he would lay with her in a field of stone in her song.
“Every single one of the songs has a meaning,” Larissa said. “Lord, I love this music. Why wasn’t I listening to it my whole life?”
“Would you?” Travis’s eyes locked with Cathy’s.
“Would I what?”
“Listen to the words. Would you do that?”
“I’m too damn busy to listen to the words of every song that plays on the jukebox. They’re just songs, Travis. I don’t look for hidden meanings in them. Go shoot some pool with Merle. She looks lonesome,” Cathy lied.
Her pulse quickened and her mouth went so dry she wished she didn’t have a rule about not drinking while she was working. A shot of Jack to steady her hands would be very nice even if it did burn the hell out of her ulcer.
Travis didn’t believe her. She
was
listening to the words. If he’d had to answer the question, he would have said yes, that he would lay with her in a field of stone at the base of a mountain or even in the sands of a desert with no water for miles and miles.
Larissa set two beers in front of him. “I would lay with you in a field of stone, darlin’, but something tells me you done got your eyes on someone else to fill that position.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Don’t play dumb with me and I won’t tell her,” Larissa said.
“You got a deal.” He carefully toted the beers across the room to the pool tables where Garrett and Angel took time for a long drink before they picked up their cue sticks.
Larissa filled two buckets and set up a dozen beers on two trays before she got a break. She touched Cathy on the arm and asked, “You got a thing for that cowboy, don’t you?”
“Afraid so but I
will
get over it,” Cathy said.
“Good luck,” Larissa said.
“Hey, could we get some beers down here? I need a bucket of Coors.” A cowboy slid onto Travis’s vacated bar stool.
Larissa set up a bucket. “You betcha.”
“You’re a quick study,” Cathy told Larissa as she worked up three pitchers of margaritas.
“That’s what they say,” Larissa said.
“And who would they be?”
“A story for a day when we’re not working our tails off. Not complainin’. This is more fun than I’ve had in years,” Larissa said.
George Strait’s voice filled the joint with his song about pure love. Cathy looked across a sea of dancing and drinking people at Travis who raised his glass when Strait sang about it being pure love, milk, and honey and Captain Crunch and her in the morning. She remembered giving him the toaster pastries and a cup of coffee. Pop Tarts, coffee, and arguments were not sexy, so why was he remembering that it was?
“Who is that man singing? God, I love this song. It’s just moved up the charts to be number one in my books,” Larissa said.
“That is George Strait. Every song that’s played tonight has been your new favorite,” Cathy said.
“Wait a minute. Who is this? Wow!” Larissa asked.
“That’s Don Gibson.” Cathy made the mistake of looking over at Travis when Don sang about his sensuous woman. Travis raised his jar again and winked.
She inhaled deeply and pretended she didn’t see the wink. She put a pitcher of Coors and six pint jars on a tray for one of the girls dressed in a black leather corset type top laced up both the front and back. It wasn’t easy to keep her eyes off him and on her work the next few minutes. She wanted to look back and see if he’d wink again, but she wouldn’t let herself get drawn into a flirting game while she was working.
“This is one jumpin’ place. Love the old music. Is it like this every night?” The girl was asking but Cathy couldn’t remember what she was supposed to be saying or doing.
“Just Mondays,” Larissa answered. “Rest of the week it’s just as jumpin’ but it’s the new country music. No rock or even alternative here. Just pure country like George just sang.”
Cathy could have hugged Larissa. If she’d have had to speak or burn down the Honky Tonk after Travis’s wink, Tinker would have had to strike the match and watch her cry as the old place burned to nothing but a pile of ashes.
“My crew will be back another night then. We love to line dance and two-step.”
“Where y’all from?”
“Breckenridge.”
“Well, come on back down here. We’ll be right here.” Larissa gave her the change in quarters. “Three for a quarter tonight.”
She pocketed the change. “I done put in a dollar but my songs aren’t up yet.”
“Sorry about buttin’ in. You looked a little pale. What happened?” Larissa asked Cathy.
“Nothing,” Cathy said.
“Honey, only thing that makes a woman lose her ability to talk is a man. Either they make her so mad she can’t speak or else they do something that makes her think of the bedroom and she can’t say a word because her mind is in the gutter.”
“You are so right.”
Charley Rich started singing about his baby making him proud by never hanging all over him in a crowd but when they got behind closed doors she made him glad that he was a man. Cathy didn’t dare look at Travis for fear he’d wink or blow her a kiss.
Several months before Daisy had complained that every blessed song on the jukebox reminded her of Jarod. During that time Cathy thought she was out of her mind in love or headed for the insane asylum, one or the other. That night Cathy knew exactly what she had been talking about. Everything a country music artist sang seemed like a Cupid’s arrow pointed straight for her heart. She found herself hoping that Travis would be in the oil field the rest of the week. That way there would be no excuse to get tangled up with him in the kitchen and wind up setting a wildfire in Palo Pinto County. Hopefully the songs on the new jukebox wouldn’t make her want to fall backwards on a big soft bed and drag that cowboy down on top of her.