Red Hot Blues (10 page)

He laughs again, pure mirth. I like his
laugh. It’s welcoming, effusive. His dimples come out beautifully.
His brown eyes shine like a setting sun in a dark desert.

I don’t ask him why he was crying, or why
he’s got that cut under his eye again. Because that means we’d
return to that dark place we’ve just left, that dark place when he
held me here, near this parking lot. Let’s not go to that place
again tonight. Let’s not go to that place again, ever, if we don’t
need to.

“You came,” I say.

“I’m sorry?”

“Tonight. You came. Like you said you
would.”

He frowns. “You thought I wouldn’t?”

I shrug. “It crossed my mind. There was no
reason for you to come back.”

“There was a reason.”

I raise an eyebrow. This is a little intense.
He doesn’t even know me.

“I wanted to hear you sing again. I think...I
could hear you sing every day for the rest of my life and I’d be
OK.”

Wow.

I try think of something to say to that. I
can’t.

My mouth goes dry. And I realize I’m staring
at him.

“You should cut a record,” he says.

“So should you. You play real old school,
like old Memphis stuff.”

He shrugs. “I was taught by the best.”

Silence. He digs in his jeans pockets. Pulls
out a box of American Spirit.

“You smoke too much.”

“Only when I’m nervous.”

I don’t ask him if he’s nervous now, because
if it has something to do with me, I don’t want to know about it.
Because that would make
me
nervous.

I bring up the courage to ask him the next
thing: “You leaving again tonight?” I swallow hard, dreading the
answer.

He waits. Then: “You want me to?”

A lump forms in my throat. This is it. This
is the moment. This is the moment I screw it up or take the
jump.

Something happening here. Something.
Chemistry. Something. Something...I’ve
avoided...
forever
.

I could let it happen, or I could let it
slide. What do I do? What do I do?

“OK,” I say.

He’s confused. “OK what?”

I swallow a dry lump. “Stay. I’d...like you
to...
stay
.”

His lip twitches up on the right, just
minutely. I don’t like it. Don’t like
this
. These little
things happening. This...
chemistry
. I don’t like it. It
makes me nervous. Makes me scared. I don’t know this guy.

But isn’t that the point? If he stays, I’ll
get to know him.

And then you’ll fall for him...

“Ace.” I shake my head. I want to tell him
I’m fragile, that I’m confused. That I don’t know if there are
truly sparks flying or if I’m just imagining them.

But I can’t. If it’s all in my head, I won’t
embarrass myself by saying it.

“Yeah?” he prompts.

I shake my head, look at my pumps. Black.
Sexy.

I catch a glance of my cleavage.
Yikes!
I really went all out tonight. “Nothing,” I say.

I hear the gravel under his boots as he
shuffles his feet once. “You look hot tonight.”

The world stops. My heart stops. All sound
stops. “Thank you.” I’m looking down.

“Does that make you nervous? Me saying
that?”

I stare at the ground, hoping he didn’t just
ask me that. I feel the tears slamming against the back of my eyes,
just like they slammed last week when Layna held me outside the bar
and told me something similar.

“Ginger?”

“Gin. You can call me Gin.” Nice, safe thing
to say.

“OK.
Gin
. I didn’t mean to make you
uncomfortable.”

I am. I look to my right, catch the entrance
to the Blues Bar just around the corner.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t—”

“Don’t be. I like that you said it.” I’m
still not looking at him. Still fighting the dam behind my eyes;
and my tear-ducts are the dam walls. Closed, but feeling the
unrelenting pressure as the water pushes against them.

He sighs loudly. Then he drops a bomb on me:
“My father’s in the hospital with four bullet wounds in his body.
So is my best friend, the man who raised me. And I’m only rooting
for one of them to make it, and it isn’t my dad. I couldn’t stay to
see the outcome. So I ran. I drove straight here, non-stop, from
Virginia. I haven’t slept for two nights. That’s why I was
late.”

Oh. My. God.

Dry mouth. Thinking of something to say to
that.
Something
.

But sometimes the best thing to say is
nothing at all.

I can tell it took a lot of courage for him
to say it to me. I can tell that he’s showing me he trusts me.

And that I should trust him back.

You look hot tonight.
For a moment, I
actually believe him.

“Did you shoot them?”

He’s a little stunned for a moment. “No! Of
course not!”

“OK, I just had to ask. Not that I suddenly
become the shoulder to cry on for an axe murderer.”

He laughs joyfully, mirth dancing in his
irises. “Good point.”

I won’t ask more about what he just said to
me.
That dark place...

Not tonight. When he’s ready, he’ll tell me.
I can sense that. “OK,” I say. “Thanks for telling me.”

He nods tightly. “No sweat.”

“And, uhm, thanks for telling me that”—I
scratch my nose—“that, er, I look...y’know.” I fight off a
smile.

“Hot?”

I look down again, embarrassment burning hot
on my cheeks. I croak, “Yeah.”

“It’ a pleasure.”

Damn, your accent is sexy!

He pulls on his cigarette. “So what does one
do in Nashville during the daytime?” New subject.

I smile, because that’s an invitation if I
ever saw one. “I’ll show you around tomorrow. I mean...if you want
me to.”

He grins.

And my heart melts. Because his smile is not
only innocent, it’s hot. It’s innocently hot. It’s the hottest hot
there is.

Ace crashes at the Nashville Downtown Hostel
on the corner of First and Church, right by the river. Only two
buildings away from where I’m staying.

Layna, of course, rags me all night about how
she would’ve given me free rein of the apartment if I’d wanted to
“get it on” with him, and this just makes me throw my pillow at
her.

In the bathroom, I get to look at myself
newly. I really went all out tonight, maybe even a little slutty. A
little
bad
. Whoa! Anyway... A girl’s gotta flaunt what she’s
got, right?

I meet Ace the next morning at the corner of
First and Church. He’s looking over at the park where the homeless
guys hang out and I tell him Nashville has the nicest homeless
people in all of the states and if you give them some food they’ll
watch out for you for the rest of your life.

“You done that before?” he asks.

“Nope,” I lie.

I introduce him to my Yellow Bike Katie and
tell him that up by the Starbucks there’s a bike rental place and
he can pay five bucks and ride these cute little pink bikes that he
must simply “check in” at different spots so that he doesn’t have
to pay more than five bucks for the day.

“Pink?”

“Yes. Pink. You have a problem with
that?”

He laughs again.

I really like seeing him laugh.

His eye is swollen, and it attracts my
attention, but I look away. I can tell he appreciates it.

Downtown Nashville’s really quick to see.
It’s all in one place, not like other cities. You got Broadway
where all the bars are at, crossed by Second Avenue where the rest
of the bars are at (Hooters, That Place Yo Mama Warned You About,
B.B. King’s Café—although they don’t really play the blues
there...) Then there are a bunch of churches, lots of churches,
plenty of them, everywhere, downtown and elsewhere. Within a few
blocks you have the State Capitol, the Courthouse, the fountain in
front of the City Hall, Grumpy’s Bail Bonds (I’d be pretty grumpy
myself), a bunch of really expensive hotels (The Hilton, The
Sheraton, The Renaissance.) He sees the Renaissance Hotel Bridge
crossing over Commerce Street and asks if we can go inside. We do,
and we pretend we’re high-browed guests when we order two
non-alcoholic O’Doul’s.

Ace pays for mine, despite my protests.

Sitting on the lush bridge, comfy couches, I
say to him, “I
do
work, FYI.”

“I never said you didn’t.”

I’m sweating insanely. It’s all over me. The
heat outside is less than yesterday because it did storm last
night, bringing the temperature down quite a bit, as well as
bringing a welcoming wind that’s been blowing all day; but when
you’re riding your bike all day, it gets hot anyway. Ace is also
sweating, his brow shining with it. Not the most romantic meeting,
but it makes me comfortable. Less pressure.

He downs his non-alcoholic beer quickly and
orders another one. I get a sparkling water this time. Even
non-alcoholic beer has a lot of calories.

“What’s next?” he asks. We’ve been riding a
good three hours.

I tell him about the Tennessee Museum (free
entrance), Music City Central (basically, the bus station), the
Library, the Ryman. If he’s really adventurous, we could even catch
a show at the Grand Ole Opry—
if
he’s into country music (I
really hope he isn’t...)

“Show me all of it,” he says. “But...not the
country music stuff.”

I cock a suspicious eyebrow. “OK?”

“What?”

“Dunno. The
museum?
The
library
? It seems like you’re trying really heard to impress
me.” Only when the words leave my mouth do I realize I’ve a dug a
hole and am falling into it...

He drinks half his beer. “I like your
company. Is that a problem?”

Again, his statement stuns me. I finally
think of a good comeback. “Even as sweaty and disgusting as I look
now?” I pull my dress from my breasts with my index and thumb on
each hand, as if it’s too grimy to touch with my full hands.

His expression changes, and he stares at me
wantonly, a clear lust in his eyes. He inhales, and the moment
lasts a lifetime. He quickly looks away.

“Yes,” he says, looking away, “even as you
look now.”

There’s an eerie silence, and then he says,
“Besides, it’s not about how you look that makes me wanna hang out
with you.”

I wait for him to elaborate on that.

But he doesn’t.

I down my water.

He downs his beer.

We hit the road. Me on my yellow bicycle. Him
on his pink one.

We end up on the Observation Deck at the
Public Square in the late afternoon. It’s only two floors high but
you can see everything from up here because it’s on a hill.

Facing West: downtown, City Hall, the UBS
building, endless high-rises gleaming under the setting sun. And
then, East: all of Nashville’s gorgeous trees, LP Field, the river,
endless space, a highway. Just plain beauty. The sky is clear, the
wind is cool. I’m sweating like a pig. I wore jeans today. Jeans! I
don’t own a single pair of shorts.

Gin and I hung out at the museum. I learned
about Andrew Jackson, plantations, the history of Native Americans
in this area. We chilled out at the library, the most exquisite
building I’ve ever seen, and a library that rivals the Library of
Congress. Not in size, but in grandness.

She was surprised to hear I read. I didn’t
tell her that I used to read to escape, that sometimes it was the
only thing that kept me sane outside of music. That when I couldn’t
play my guitar because my ribs hurt too bad, I’d read a Western or
an Adventure story. Occasionally the odd science fiction.
Definitely Fantasy. Definitely. Because it transported me, took me
elsewhere, made me forget the pain. The real, physical pain under
my lungs from where I’d been kicked, punched.

I didn’t tell her that.

But she knows. I know she knows. Because her
eyes flashed once with deep, wrenching empathy. Not sympathy,
empathy
.

I can’t leave her yet. She doesn’t know that
she anchors me. She’s “normal.” I need normal. I need someone that
shows me the sights, someone I can hold the hand of. Someone who
makes me feel like I’m a normal guy living a normal life, walking
in the park, watching people take their morning runs.

I need peace.

I need someone to make me feel like I’m not
running, like I don’t
need
to run.

It’s the first time I’ve been somewhere where
I don’t have the ache to go, to leave, to just disappear and find
something new, something else. Something different.

Even those places I stayed at for longer than
a couple months, working, saving up—every day was a grind. Every
day I wanted to leave. If I hadn’t needed the money, I would have
split from those places in less than a few days. Now I don’t need
the cash. I have enough. And yet I want to stay.

I want to stay and see Gin’s short black hair
blow against the wind. I want to watch her flowery dress push
against her full figure.

But I also want more. And I can’t take it
from her. I can’t. Because I can’t promise her that I’ll stay, or
that I’ll come back. I’m fucked up, screwed up, angry, full of a
temper, full of rage. I don’t trust myself. She needs more than
some wild guy. I know it.

And yet...

The urge, the
physical
urge...has hit
me, winded me. Her voice, the way she sang, the power, the
resonance; that damned, raw, sexual appeal that she rocks when she
walks, when she sways her hips. Her body, strong and curved. Full
and sexy.

I’m watching her now, the blue sky and green
trees ahead of her. I’m sitting on a plaque / stone thingy that
explains the history of Nashville. We’re alone up here. It’s
silent, so silent. Nashville’s like Las Vegas at night, loud,
rambunctious. But here, looking out into the distance, it’s pure
silence except for the gentle wind. The wind that’s blowing her
dress, wrapping it around her curvy butt, round and calling me,
waiting for my hand... She’s perfect, so shapely.