The Happy Hour Choir (2 page)

“Sacrilege?” Something snapped behind my eyes. “You want to waltz into
my
workplace and talk to me about sacrilege. It's a free damned country. If you don't like the songs I sing, then you can leave.”

“Free country or fascist state, I wasn't going to leave without telling you that singing hymns like a sexpot isn't appropriate.” He still hadn't looked away. “No matter who you are.”

“Appropriate? Who gives two shits about being appropriate?” I stood up straighter and crossed my arms, which had the unintended but fortunate effect of pushing my breasts up and out.
Good. Let him take a look at what he isn't going to touch. Ever.
“I'll do what I need to do to put food on the table. If I'm going to be saddled with this ridiculous name, then I might as well make the most of it.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Are you making the most of what you've been given?”

More preacher-speak. As if I hadn't heard all of this mess about gifts and talents from my father a long time before. It was my business if I wanted to stay put in tiny Yessum County instead of driving up to Nashville to see if I could get a better job.

I turned to go. “You know what? Screw you. You don't know the first thing about me.”

He grabbed my arm. “You have real talent. You shouldn't be wasting it here.”

We both looked down to where his warm hand lightly circled my arm. He quickly released me, almost as though he couldn't believe he'd reached out to touch me.

“I'll do as I damned well please.”
And I could've done you, but that ain't happening now that I know you're a sanctimonious asshole.
“These people took care of me when I needed help, so my talents aren't ‘wasted' here. You can mind your own business, Preacher Man.”

He winced at my nickname for him, but he didn't stop me when I made for the door. Instead, he shoved his hands in his pockets as though making sure he wouldn't reach for me a second time. “Maybe you don't know that much about me, either.”

“I know you're a holier-than-thou jerk.” The screen door slammed between us for emphasis.

I bellied up to the bar and motioned for a beer. Bill handed me one as Tiffany stopped to load her tray. “Who was that guy?”

“Don't know. Don't care.”

“I care,” she said with an appreciative growl before carrying her wares across the room.

Bill looked from me to the half-full beer on the ledge. “C'mon, Beulah. Please tell me you're not running off new customers.”

“Trust me when I tell you he's not our type.” I chugged the rest of my beer. Time to get back to work.

I sat down at the piano a full seven minutes early, and perversely launched into another hymn. I wondered if my friend Preacher Man was still in the parking lot. Could he even hear me being more sacrilegious than usual? Probably not. I didn't need to waste another thought on him, but the warm circle around my upper arm reminded me it'd been a long time since I'd been touched like that.

I hoped he was still out there fuming. When I hit a verse about the many dangers, toils, and snares, my heart squeezed.
Is this actually guilt?
No way was I going to feel guilty for offending some Holy Roller who should've known better than to come into a bar in the first place.

Of course, if I'd known what was going to happen next, I might've thought twice about playing hymns to piss off the Preacher Man.

Chapter 2

A
t the first whiff of French toast, I knew my day was headed straight to hell in a handbasket. I stumbled into a pair of shorts and made the executive decision to ignore my smoky, matted hair. Playing piano until three in the morning didn't exactly inspire good hygiene. Besides, Ginger had seen worse.

I stopped in the hallway, my toes squishing into shag carpet far older than my twenty-five years. There at the end of the hall sat the one room in the house I refused to enter, the nursery. On a morning not quite ten years ago, Ginger had served French toast. That was the worst morning of my life, so I didn't have high hopes for this one. “Beulah Lou! Get down here and eat before it gets cold!”

I jumped out of my skin and headed for the stairs. At the bottom, I almost tripped, grabbing the newel ball from the post to steady myself. Instead it popped off into my hands and I bumbled into the wall. If Ginger was worried about my well-being after the thud, she didn't say anything. I put the newel ball back gently. House maintenance wasn't my specialty, and what Ginger didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

“Took you long enough.” She turned and smiled as I padded across the well-worn linoleum. She stood with her hands on her hips, holding the spatula in her right hand so it poked from her body at a weird angle. It shook with the palsy that had robbed her of the ability to play piano anywhere but church. These days, even while playing hymns she'd played a hundred times before, she still missed notes, but I doubted anyone at County Line Methodist would ever say anything. That sorry bunch had their own assorted problems.

“Well, don't just stand there,” she said. “Get you a plate.”

I took the spatula from her and opened the cupboard. “I'll get breakfast for us. It's the least I can do since you cooked.”

“Ah, but you'll be doing dishes.” She winked as she eased into a metal chair with a vinyl seat. When she sat over the slash of duct tape that held the vinyl together, you could almost believe the chair was brand-new. Almost.

I slid a plate of French toast in front of her and turned to the coffeepot. Taking two mugs, I doctored the coffee: cream and three sugars for me, black with one sugar for her. My stomach flopped as I sat in my own scarred vinyl chair.

“Eat! Eat! You have to eat it while it's hot!” She cut a generous hunk of toast and dipped it into the pool of syrup on her plate.

“How're you feeling this morning, Ginger?” I already knew the answer because she was still wearing her pink terry-cloth robe with the threadbare elbows.

“Oh, I'm plodding along.” She smiled, but she wasn't wearing lipstick. Ginger always wore lipstick. Without that telltale slash of red, she looked washed-out and faded, just like the gingham curtains behind her. Even her hair was a dull grayish blond from where she hadn't been to the beauty shop to get it dyed. At least she had her eyebrows penciled in. And they were fairly straight considering she always shaved them off before attempting to re-create them with pencil in shaking hand.

I put my fork down, the first bite of my toast still dangling from the tines. “Go ahead and tell me how yesterday's trip to the doctor went. I'm too old to be softened up by French toast.”

She studied her plate. “I'm not doing chemo this time.”

“It's back? But—”

“No buts! Dr. Bowman told me he could only promise me two years with chemo, six months to a year without. I'll keep my hair and take the six months, thank you very much.”

Tears stung my eyes. “Ginger, please—”

Her hand snaked across the table, her skin almost transparent except for the brown spots that did nothing to hide sinew and blue veins underneath. I would've thought it a skeleton's hand if it hadn't still been strong and warm.

“Beulah, we talked about this the first time. I can't stay here forever. I'm pretty sure I've already outstayed my welcome.”

Tears blurred my vision, and I willed them back. Ginger patted my hand. “Don't you worry about me. When I meet the good Lord, we're going to stick our tongues out at you, and I'm going to convince Him to send thunderstorms when you misbehave just because you fuss about getting your hair wet. You think about that every time it rains!”

I laughed a nervous hiccup-laugh. My throat burned.

Her bleary brown eyes searched past their cataracts to find me. “All you have to do is remember what I told you about my funeral. If you let Anderson's Funeral Home have an open-casket visitation so everybody and their momma can gawk at me and talk about how my shriveled-up corpse looks just like me, so help me God, I will haunt you every day for the rest of your life.”

I couldn't help laughing again, but my throat cramped, choking the laugh into a grunt.

She looked absently out the breakfast room window at a fat cardinal perched on the birdhouse. “Now, I do have one last favor to ask of you.”

You took me in when I had nowhere else to go.
“Anything.”

She chuckled, and her bleary eyes returned to lock with mine. “You might want to hear what the favor is before you answer so quickly.”

“Anything, Ginger. You've done so much for me. Without you . . .”

“I want you to take my place.”

“Take your place?” What did that mean? How could I ever begin to take Ginger Belmont's place? I didn't really have the disposition for teaching piano lessons to the neighborhood kids. Was I supposed to troll the town looking for unwed teen mothers? Could it be as simple as ladling out soup at the Jefferson Homeless Shelter every Tuesday? Or would it be defending the need to shelve Harry Potter books at the local Friends of the Library committee meeting?

“I want you to take my place at County Line.”

I felt the color drain from my face. Anything,
anything
but that. I owed my life to Ginger Belmont. But I didn't owe one damned thing to God, and I wasn't about to play piano for Him.

“Ginger.” I fought back nausea.

“It's my dying wish. Would you deny me my dying wish?”

“That's not fair, and you know it,” I croaked.

She squeezed my hand. Hard. “Life's not fair, sweetie, and, oh, how we both know it.”

“But I can't stop playing at The Fountain. Bill needs me,” I said.

“I didn't say you had to stop playing at The Fountain.”

“Well, I can't play at The Fountain
and
at church!”

“Why not?”

Ginger knew very well why not. Last night's stranger wasn't the only one who didn't approve of my song selections.

Her eyes shifted to the floor. “Well, you could always find a new song to sing.”

I crossed my arms and settled in for a fight. “Bill renamed the place because of that song. I'm not changing it now.”

“Beulah, you can't stay ticked off at God forever.”

I slammed my fists down on the table and stood. The metal legs of the table shrieked, but my voice came out low: “Watch me.”

Ginger's penciled-in eyebrow arched to unnatural heights, telling me I needed to take it down a notch and have a seat. “Beulah Lou, you keep punishing yourself. You—”

“How am I punishing myself with
your
cancer? Can you tell me that?”

“Rejoice when a person dies and . . .” Ginger paused, but forced herself to forge ahead. “. . . mourn when a child is born.”

Her words stabbed me at my most vulnerable spot. “I don't know how you can quote that religious bullshit to me,” I whispered.

“Because it's the truth,” she said grimly. “I know you don't see it that way, but it's the truth. Now sit down and eat.”

“I'm not hungry.”

“Sit down. And eat.”

I couldn't argue with her or her penciled-in eyebrow, so I picked up my fork. My stomach pitched at the thought of food. For a moment, I felt sixteen again, and I tried to brush it aside. That was a year I hated to remember, much less relive.

Even with only a kiss of syrup, the sweet, sweet toast gagged me. The bacon didn't look burnt, but it tasted like ashes.

I consoled myself with the idea that the preacher would probably fire me the minute he realized I was the woman from The Fountain. Then, Ginger wouldn't be able to blame me for not fulfilling her dying wish.

Ginger's hand shook as she tried to meet her mouth with a piece of French toast. My smile faded. No amount of thumbing my nose at the new preacher would keep Ginger with me.

And no amount of her well-intentioned roadblocks would save me from the path I'd started down years before.

Chapter 3

G
inger wasted no time calling in her favor. The next morning she knocked on my door at eight, once again too early for someone who played piano in a honky-tonk to all hours. “Beulah Lou, get on up and take a shower. We've got a nine o'clock appointment with Reverend Daniels to talk about how you're taking my place.”

“This couldn't wait?”

“Doc says I could drop dead at any minute, so no. Time is of the essence.”

At least I knew she was feeling chipper since she'd used “Lou,” her made-up middle name for me. As if being named Beulah Land wasn't bad enough, I also bore my maternal grandmother's name: Gertrude. When she took me in, Ginger quickly decided Beulah Gertrude didn't roll off the tongue.

I went through my morning routine in record time, even putting on makeup minus the eyeliner. I hopped down the steps in a sundress and sandals with barely enough time left to get out the door and to our appointment on time.

Ginger did something she hadn't done since I was a teenager. She assessed my ensemble with a long head-to-toe look and pointed upstairs. “Try again.”

“What?” I looked down at my sundress. So, yes, it was cut a little low, but it wasn't
that
bad.

“Go, or I'll wrap one of my shawls around you.” She crossed her arms over her chest and tried to raise her eyebrow. That's when I noticed she hadn't penciled in her eyebrows, which she only neglected to do when her fingers shook their worst. I took a deep breath and swallowed any more arguments before I raced upstairs.

I pawed through my closet until I found a more modest sundress and exchanged outfits with a minimal amount of cursing. I stopped at the foot of the stairs to give a twirl and a mock curtsy.

“Much better.” Her frown didn't match her words, but, before I could question her, she added, “You're driving.”

She placed the keys in my hand, and my mouth fell open. I had never been allowed to drive the Caddy. Even when Ginger had gone through chemo, she had ridden in my antique Toyota hatchback rather than let me drive her Cadillac.

“C'mon,” she said from where she stood at the front door. “And close your mouth before you swallow a fly.”

Walking out into the hazy heat was like walking into an invisible wall of humidity. Ginger shuffled around the Caddy, and I had no choice but to move forward.

After helping her inside, I rounded the car and slid over the slick worn-leather interior of the Caddy. I couldn't help but marvel at the reversal of fortune. At sixteen, I had been newly homeless and pregnant when I crawled in the passenger seat of the Caddy, concentrating on keeping my lunch down. Back then Ginger had been in the driver's seat. She had worn her hair high, never letting the gray show.

“For Pete's sake, start this car and get the AC going!” Ginger jarred me back to the present, and I looked at where she sat in the passenger seat, slumped and with her hair cut short. She had attempted lipstick, but the burgundy color had escaped the natural boundaries of her lips, further betraying her shaky hands.

“Get your head out of the clouds,” she harrumphed. “Most people have the good sense not to leave a dog closed up in a car on a day like this, much less a person.”

I turned the key, and the engine rolled over with a solid, satisfying rumble. Was driving the Caddy some sort of consolation prize for agreeing to take her place at the County Line piano, or was this the first in a long line of things and traditions that would come to me and only me?

We eased through town and out into the country, the Caddy's V-8 purring. After the anemic engine in my Toyota, I felt I could conquer the world with Ginger's classic Cadillac.

“For heaven's sake, Beulah, air her out.”

I grinned and pressed the accelerator almost to the floor.

“Oh, but watch out for that Barney Fife sheriff of ours. He likes to sit there by the pond at the beginning of the swamp. Thinks he's running a regular sting operation.”

I practically stomped on the brakes. We crawled past the pond and into the long, flat stretch of bridges that crossed Harlowe Bottom.

“We're not in a school zone,” she muttered. I sped up again. The Caddy went from a purr to a roar, and I watched the speedometer hit sixty, seventy, eighty. The crooked cypress trees on either side of the car waved in a blurry, macabre dance.

“But look out for deer. And the big curve where people like to take their half down the middle.”

I hit the brakes harder than I meant to, and we both jerked against our seat belts. “Ginger, would you like for me to pull over so you can drive?”

“Don't sass me, Beulah Lou. You are not too big to spank.”

At a quarter of a century old, I was pretty sure I was, but I wasn't about to argue. She would probably hurt herself trying to prove me wrong. I stifled a grin at the thought of Ginger trying to catch me long enough to spank me. Something really was up with her. She wasn't normally
this
crabby.

“Ginger, you doing okay this morning?”

“Some days are better than others.” She sighed as she leaned back into the passenger seat. “This is definitely one of the others.”

She rested like that until we reached the church and the Caddy's tires crunched gravel. Now, I had to face the Reverend Daniels. After the last go-round at County Line Methodist, I had told myself I would never darken another church door. I had reasoned I could even be married by the justice of the peace, if it came to that. Of course, I hadn't counted on Ginger and all of the stupid things I would do for her.

My clammy hand hesitated over the key. If I took it out of the ignition, I wouldn't have a quick getaway. If I left it in the ignition, one of the Gates brothers would probably steal the car for beer money.

“Quit piddling around, Beulah.” She heaved open the heavy door with a grunt. “I'm sure Reverend Daniels has other things he would like to do today.”

I sucked in a breath and grabbed the key. My sandals wobbled over the uneven gravel as we approached County Line Methodist. I stopped at the bottom of the steps of the small clapboard building. There was probably some imaginary line that, when crossed by a heathen like me, would cause alarms and bells to sound. “Are you sure he can't step outside for this conversation?”

Ginger had already climbed the stairs, an indicator that I was, indeed, dawdling. “In this heat? Heavens, child, I wouldn't do that to my worst enemy.” She turned and hobbled into the building.

I took one step then another. No alarms sounded. No lightning came down from the sky. I sprinted up the stairs and landed on the small portico. No angels appeared to block my entrance.

Ginger had left the door open, and cool air rushed past me. Familiar mahogany-stained pews with red velvet cushions sucked the light from the interior. Even the stained glass windows were dark and held out more light than they let in. I reached my toe across the threshold just to see.

“Beulah Land, get in here this instant. The church cannot afford to cool the whole outside.”

I jumped across the threshold and shut the door behind me, then chastised myself for acting like a seven-year-old girl. I blinked several times, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the cave-like interior. Ginger stood to the left of the altar, and there the preacher stood beside her with his hands in his pockets.

In khakis and a crisp button-down shirt.

My Preacher Man really was
the
Reverend Daniels.
Of course, you idiot. What other preacher would walk into The Fountain other than the one who couldn't sleep for all the noise?

Looking ready for a country club picnic, he was most assuredly neither potbellied nor double-chinned. My life would've been so much easier if he had been. Instead, he had to look like a
GQ
model who'd taken a wrong turn and ended up in church school.

At that moment his eyes widened as he recognized me.

He had to be wondering if he'd met my evil twin a couple of nights ago. At The Fountain I never clipped my curly red hair back in a barrette, choosing instead to let it fly free. I also never wore subdued makeup or demure and neatly pressed dresses. Ginger was trying to sell him a wolf in sheep's clothing, and he knew it.

“Why don't we come into my office where we can have a seat and where there's a little more light?” His voice came out more pleasantly than I'd expected, and I had to give him brownie points for not losing his temper and yelling me out of the place.

We followed him through the large all-purpose room behind the sanctuary. My eyes struggled to adjust to windows full of sunlight winking over the metal chairs against the wall, but the good Reverend Daniels didn't share my aversion to the light.

On the other side of the room sat his office, a tiny hole that wasn't anywhere as tidy as I would've expected from his appearance. Thick books stood in knee-deep stacks around the room, and the filing cabinet was open with overstuffed manila folders leaning precariously on top. Behind his desk he had tacked a poster of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road.

“Have a seat.” He took an armful of books from the metal folding chairs that faced his desk. “Sorry about the mess, but I'm still moving in. I hope to get some comfortable chairs soon.”

“That's quite all right.” Ginger eased into a chair and held her leather Aigner purse primly over her knees. “We won't keep you long. I'm sure you're busy.”

“Never too busy for you. It's Miss Ginger, isn't it?” he asked with a smile. His accent didn't hang on the “r” like that of most West Tennesseans, but he obviously knew how to play the respect-your-elders game. “Did you come for next Sunday's hymn numbers?”

“Actually, I've come to tell you I won't be playing piano anymore, but I have Beulah here ready to take my place. Beulah Land, Luke. Luke, Beulah Land.”

We shook hands then stared, each one daring the other to crack first.

“Beulah Land. Like the hymn, huh?”

I swallowed hard. Even after I'd bitched him out, he'd still managed to say my name softly and not at all the way my father used to bellow it. “Yes. Like the hymn.”

He nodded, and I felt unreasonably grateful he hadn't told Ginger any of the things I'd said to him. Of course, he still could.

“Good. That's settled then.” Ginger reached for the edge of his desk to stand up. “You give me those numbers, and I'll get her started Sunday morning.”

“Ah, Miss Ginger, it's not that easy. Playing the piano is a paid position.” Luke's level gaze never left mine and told me he hadn't forgotten a word of what I'd said to him. “Paid positions have to be advertised to everyone.”

I snorted. The “position” paid twenty bucks a week, hardly worth all of the preparation that went into playing each Sunday.

Luke's eyes cut to mine, his glare pinning me to the chair even as his words came out crisply polite. “You know, the Equal Opportunity Act.”

Ginger stared him down. I had seen that look before and was more than happy to not be on the receiving end. “Young man, we can do it your way, but I guarantee you won't find anyone who plays better than Beulah. She's a prodigy, you know.”

I sat up straight. Ginger had never given me such high praise before.

“While we're here, Beulah can audition for you,” she continued as she used the edge of his desk to pull herself to her feet. “Give her a number, and she'll play it. You tell her a style, and she can do it. There's no one in this town—no one in this state—who plays better than she does.”

I blushed and studied the hole in the carpet to the side of the desk leg.

“I don't doubt her talent. There are . . . other considerations.”

Ginger didn't get mad often. Even worse, she didn't scream and cuss like normal people even when she did. No, she got dangerously calm. “Beulah, you go on out there and turn on the lights. Warm up a little. We'll be out in a minute.”

I jumped up and leaped out the door. To this day, I have no idea what Ginger told Luke to make him change his mind. All I know is he wasn't so interested in the Equal Opportunity Act when the two of them came into the sanctuary to hear me play.

She stood beside him, gripping his arm a little too hard. “Pick a number, Reverend.”

“This really isn't necessary at this point,” he said, shaking his head as though still puzzling out how she'd talked him into it.

“Beulah, play two-forty-five. Play it straight.”

I opened a familiar and worn brown hymnal to “Whispering Hope.” Not one of these songs was difficult because Ginger taught me to play them when I was only a girl; playing it without embellishment was going to be the hard part. Technically, I put each note in the right place at the right time, but there wasn't a lot of heart and not even a whisper of hope.

“You taught her how to play using the Cokesbury Hymnal, didn't you?” He marveled. Now he knew how an infidel like me had known about a golden oldie like “Dwelling in Beulah Land.”

“But that's not all,” she said to him before turning back to me. “How about some Bach?”

I launched into the opening of the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. The solemn, menacing notes rang hollow in the little sanctuary, but my eyes cut to the organ to my right.
That
could liven things up, and I'd always wanted to learn to play the organ.

“Beulah, one-twenty-seven.” A flush of revelation ran cold then hot on my cheeks: Ginger Belmont had been grooming me for this moment from the day we met.