The Awakening (20 page)

“Hey!” Tartan said.

The “woman” in the velvet dress growled up at him in a deep voice. “I'm a doctor. He's fine, won't even have a bruise on his chin. He's just drunk as a skunk. Anyone here know the guy?”

A startled little cry sounded and a tiny woman came rushing through them, falling to her knees. “It's Marty!” she cried. And she stared at all of them as if she were surveying a circle of vultures. “What have you done to my husband?”

“Your
husband
?” Gayle repeated disbelievingly. “You're here with . . .
him
?”

“Of course! He's my husband, and what did you do to him?”

“Lady, he was being totally obnoxious at the bar.”

“Marty? Never!” she protested angrily.

“Ma'am, really,” Megan said. “I'm sorry, but he was being really obnoxious.”

The woman wasn't about to take it. She glared at the occupants of the bar. “I'm sure he turned all you prostitutes down, and so—”

“Prostitutes!” Gayle cried.

“This is getting out of hand,” Tartan said, his lips twitching. “Doctor—” he began, then shuddered, looking at his “guest” in his drag-queen apparel—“can we move him?”

“Of course. He's just drunk.”

“Drunk. Marty never drinks too much!” his wife argued.

“Lady, smell him,” the doctor said.

“But you!” Mrs. Marty rose, pointing a finger at Finn. “How dare you! What did you do?”

“Excuse me,” Finn said firmly. “Perhaps your husband is allergic to alcohol, I don't know. He was rude and obnoxious to my wife, and then to the young lady there—”

“Young lady!” the woman sniffed. “My ass!” she exclaimed.

“I'll lay you wicked flat in two seconds, lady,” Gayle warned.

“Please!” Sam Tartan said. By then, Adam Spade had pushed through. He looked at the drunk on the floor, the wife, the crowd at the bar, and seemed to have a handle on the situation. “I'll get him up,” he said briefly. Spade even seemed to know that the figure in the Victorian dress was a doctor. “I can move him.”

The doctor nodded. “You have a room here?” he said to the wife.

“Yes. And we'll take Marty up to it, but I promise you, there will be a lawsuit. I have witnesses.”

“Ma'am, the witnesses will all say that your husband was drunk and obnoxious,” Megan heard herself say, her own voice rising.

She was startled to hear Finn speaking, calmly. “Why don't we call the cops right now, just so that there are no questions or hesitations later?”

Sam hesitated, as if the last thing he wanted was cops. But Megan could see that Finn was still angry, and not about to be accused of undue force against the man.

“Hey! I'm a cop,” a man, dressed in a Freddy costume, said. He came forward, pulling off his mask. “I'm not on duty, but I did witness what happened.” He looked at Marty's wife, a little sadly. “Ma'am, I'm sorry, but your husband was drunk and obnoxious.”

“Marty barely even drinks!” she said, and the sound of her voice was definitely pathetic.

“Maybe that's what happened,” the Freddy-cop said gently. “Maybe he had a drink, and it just all went wrong in him. Marty is probably a great guy who would never bother the ladies, especially when he's got a nice little wife like you. Do you want me to call out a man who is on duty? Do you want to file this? Marty could be charged with being drunk and disorderly—”

“No!” the woman protested. She looked at Tartan. “Just take him up to the room. Please.”

Adam Spade, the huge bouncer, concealed a grin as he gave the Freddy-cop a grateful smile and bent down to pick up Marty. He lifted him as if he were no more than a few pounds.

Tartan started to follow Spade and his burden and Marty's wife. He glanced back at Finn. “Can you play?” He hesitated a moment. “Please? I don't want everyone in the place over here!”

“Sure,” Finn said.

But he turned to the Freddie-cop first. “Thanks. You really defused a situation there.”

The man shrugged, also intent on concealing the depth of his amusement. “Hey, he could have charged you with assault, but the young lady there”—he indicated Gayle—“could have charged him with assault as well. Dumb incident. Can't believe the wife let him get in that kind of condition and could still insist to herself that her husband was a good guy who didn't drink—and wouldn't think of bothering a woman at a bar.”

“Who knows? Maybe Marty can't drink,” Finn said with a shrug.

Megan tugged at his arm a little nervously. “We need to get on stage. Officer, thank you.”

“My pleasure. I'm Theo Martin, by the way. Officer Martin, by day. Nice to meet you.”

“Our pleasure, sincerely,” Megan said.

They started to walk toward the stage. Finn had Megan's hand. She was almost wrenched away when Gayle came rushing up between them, throwing herself at Finn, giving him a choker hug. “Thank you! All those other folks—including a cop, so it seems!—did nothing. And you saved me.”

“I don't think you were really in danger,” Finn told her, trying to politely disentangle himself from her arms.

“And you're fine now,” Megan said. She clenched her teeth. What was it around here? Gayle hadn't wanted a drunk fondling her—but she didn't seem to mind becoming a drape over Finn's body—while Finn's wife watched.

“You've got balls! You're the only guy here with real balls!” Gayle insisted.

“He has to get his balls on stage to play now,” Megan said, firmly, but nicely.

“Oh! Sorry. But thank you; thank you so much!”

She slipped from Finn at last. He looked at Megan and shrugged. “It must be that power of suggestion thing you had going on today. About women drooling.” He was serious suddenly. “Megan, I didn't set out to start a fight. He went swinging for me hard, twice.”

“I know, Finn.”

“I know how you feel about street brawls—”

“Hey, I was there. I saw what happened. You did what you had to do. Let's get on the stage before Tartan comes back in.”

Finn dead stopped for a minute, turning to her. He didn't glance at it, but flexed and relaxed the hand that had been gouged at Morwenna's shop almost absently as he stared at her.

“What? He'll fire us?”

“Maybe.”

“If he does, it was meant to be.”

“You don't believe in destiny and all that, Finn!” she reminded him.

He muttered something and turned away. They walked up on stage. Finn picked up his guitar and took a seat on the stool. Before he even leaned toward the mike, a thunderous applause suddenly filled the room.

Speechless, he gazed at Megan. She shrugged. It was his ball game. She felt a strange pounding in her heart, and was annoyed with herself. Finn had gotten in trouble at school when he was young for fighting. Usually, because someone had decided to come after him. After nearly being suspended once, he'd made a point of taking classes in the Asian arts, which, along with self-defense, taught discipline. They had talked about it several times in college, because she'd seen her husband square his shoulders, turn and walk away, many times when a situation might have become explosive. Not tonight.

And to her amazement, she was glad. That Finn had stepped in. There was something archaic and medieval about the pride she was feeling. The word
pagan
suddenly popped into her mind. As if she had the most powerful caveman in the tribe, or the like.

She shook off the feeling. The incident was regrettable and strange. Mrs. Marty had really appeared to be stunned and brokenhearted that her husband had behaved so badly. She had been so stunned that she had been unwilling to believe the situation. Megan didn't get the feeling that she was the kind of woman who threatened to sue all the time. Her words had been in self-defense because it had been a situation she had been unwilling to accept.

“Hey, guys,” Finn said, stilling the applause. “I guess we all kind of have to be careful, this much partying and all. Especially all of you out there who are driving. We have to drink responsibly, no matter how wild the nights may get. Okay . . . this one is a takeoff on a medieval love ballad, very romantic and sad. Hope you enjoy it.”

He stared at Megan. He'd changed the lineup for the second set. She shrugged again. It was slow and sad, with a beautiful melody, and a calming influence. She nodded imperceptibly, but found that she couldn't quite tear her eyes away from his. The green seemed to be catching the light strangely. It looked as if his eyes had turned gold. Very strange eyes
. . .

Like those of the black cat, reflecting off the lights, as it had stared at them from the brush when they had left Aunt Martha's the other day.

The lights in the room were bizarre. Black lights, strobe lights. It might be natural that a strange reflection was occurring. But the color, or the glare of it, was oddly hypnotic and seductive. At last, she felt as if she ripped her gaze from his, and turned back to the audience.

Finn had to play the intro twice.

But then it was all right. She slipped into the melody, and as they went through the ballad, the room became quieter. Waiters stopped by tables. Glasses and silverware ceased to click.

A pretty song, and Finn's arrangement made it even more so.

As they finished, his music cues warned her that they weren't going to stop for applause, but that they would slip right into the next number, a dance tune.

His choices were good. By the time they finished the set, the night had worn on in a way that had pushed the incident at the bar to the back of peoples' minds.

It didn't matter. For Megan, the rest of the evening was a nightmare. Gayle Sawyer had become an attachment. It turned out that she knew Morwenna and Joseph, not surprising, since it was a small establishment. Mike Smith was there as well, and during the breaks, Morwenna made arrangements for a larger table. A bizarrely dressed small woman in a green flower costume and makeup turned out to be Sara, and she, too, joined the table. More of Morewenna's employees were there, including Jamie, with whom Megan usually felt very comfortable as she had known him a long time. That night, he was dressed in a strange brown cape and cowl and carried a plastic executioner's ax, which somehow seemed far too real. When she excused herself to go to the ladies' room, she was stopped at a table where it turned out that Brad and Mary—her co-guests at Huntington House—were sitting. They'd arranged for baby-sitters for the kids, since Sally and John had told them how much fun an evening at the hotel could be. She chatted with them, promised them a free CD, and managed to leave them. When she returned to the table, she found that Darren Menteith had joined the table as well. Her chair, next to Finn, had been taken. Sara was now on his one side, while the adoring Gayle was on the other. She couldn't hear any of the conversation. Everyone was drinking—except for her. She'd been sticking with water and a twist of lemon all night. The conversation was loud, and annoying, and Finn, though he looked tense and uncomfortable, seemed to be listening to something that Sara was saying, as if she were giving him world-shattering information. Sara's green “forest goddess” costume was skintight. Her cleavage spilled over. Finn wasn't usually an ogler. Megan felt that his eyes, that night, were glued to Sara's breasts.

She wondered at her growing irritation. To everyone here, Finn had behaved admirably—almost heroically—trying to avoid violence, but proving his prowess with a single moment when he was no longer able to do so. She didn't resent the attention given him—at least she didn't think so. She loved him, she was proud of him
. . .
and felt that strange almost gluelike attachment to him as well. She didn't want to behave like a jealous idiot. She believed that he loved her.

Didn't she?

She glanced at her watch. They were due back on stage. Finn was always so careful about their breaks. He didn't appear to have a care in the world. Other than Sara's breasts.

The cop stopped by their table, and started up a conversation with Finn. Megan was ready to hop to her feet and say that they had to be back on stage. But Sam Tartan himself came by then, and apologized to Finn, telling him he did what he had to do, and the hotel was grateful, since they prided themselves on the fact that single female guests were never harassed there. With a machismo wink—odd in a man who looked like Ichabod Crane—he noted that there was an exception, of course. Sometimes, they wanted to be harassed.

Finn listened to Tartan, his expression controlled, but then his eyes touched Megan's, and his easy grin half filtered into his lips. He didn't need to speak to her. She knew what he was thinking.
What an asshole!

She returned the grin with a shrug. He was the asshole who was paying them.

Finn rose on his own then, saying they needed to get back on the stage. Gayle had tried to stop him to say something when he had risen. Her hand lingered on his arm. He seemed not to notice, but extended his arm across the table to Megan.

It was all right.

The night went by quickly after that. Megan thanked God that most of Finn's new fan club had departed by the time they left the stage again.

Adam Spade helped them cover the equipment, and they were on the road back toward Huntington House by one-fifteen.

“What a bizarre night,” Finn murmured as he drove.

Megan was silent for a minute. “Very.”

“I just thought it was odd . . . I mean, you know, both ways, sometimes husbands and wives don't really know one another. But that guy—Marty—his wife was really appalled, and I think, in both her heart and mind, she couldn't begin to believe that her husband would have walked off, gotten tanked, and attacked women at a bar.”