Unruly (3 page)

An hour or so later, we were tooling down the streets of Memphis.

“Where to?” Alamo asked.

I directed him to BB King's Blues Club; it was a great spot for everything I needed just then: blues, food, and a great atmosphere.

By the time we had placed our order, Alamo got a call. He frowned and said, “I need to grab this.”

I nodded, but he was already gone. I wasn't particularly displeased by the timing. I liked that it meant avoiding talking. I'd never been much for small talk.

I sipped my drink and watched a couple of women dance. The beauty of blues bars is that there isn't any sort of computer-generated music. Here it was the traditional stuff—guitar, drums, bass, and voice. This was the sort of music I still sang in the privacy of my house. Whether it was blues, rock, or country, the classics worked for me.

“Come on,” a woman said as she shimmied past my table to the tiny dance floor. The band wasn't even on the schedule, and I wondered if they were just musicians passing through who felt like jamming for a few songs. They were all senior citizens, which made me like them even more. They were still jamming at their age and obviously loving it.

“If you're going to dance in your seat, you ought to be willing to dance with us,” the woman said with a wide smile.

I glanced in the direction Alamo had gone. He was nowhere in sight, and even if he was, I didn't owe him—and if he thought I looked the fool out on the floor, I didn't much care. I was sick of thinking about what other people thought. “What the hell.”

“That's right,” the woman said and wriggled up to three other women who seemed to know her.

Two songs later, I was singing out loud as well as dancing. I hadn't realized that the singer had hopped down and was approaching me until he leaned in and put the mic near enough to pick up my voice. I started and stepped back.

He shrugged and finished the song from out there on the floor with us. He looked at me and frowned, and I met his gaze. I'm not sure which of us recognized the other first, but it was he that said, “Little Ellie, all grown up. Well, look at you.”

“Mr. Lavon,” I said with a smile. “Still looking spry and sounding damn fine.”

The band had continued playing as we'd been chatting, and he looked up at them and said, “This here's Roger's little girl, Miss Ellie.”

The drummer nodded at me. The other men might've too, but then Lavon asked, “Just sing us one song, little bit. Been a long time since I heard you sing.”

I wanted to. I might've even needed to. That didn't mean it was easy. I'd not sung in public in years. People had finally stopped asking me to do so.

“I was sorry to hear about Roger,” Lavon said quietly when I didn't reply. “I hope you and your mama been doing well.”

The words at the end of the sentence went up in a manner that told a listener they could be either a statement or a question. It was a courtesy I always appreciated, a Southern tendency to ask without outright asking. Today I wasn't willing to dwell much on anything that could bring me down, and thinking about my father always did.

“We've been good,” I said, being as truthful as anything I said could be when reducing a decade to a couple of words.

He nodded. “Good to hear . . . I've been down in New Orleans these last years. Moved away right before your daddy passed. I'd have been at the service elsewise. I didn't hear he was gone until a whole lot later.”

I nodded. We didn't know each other in a talking way, and I suspect we were both near out of words already. “One song wouldn't be bad,” I said softly.

“I could stand for hearing some Nina Simone. I remember you singing her with your daddy when you were just a wee little thing.”

Briefly I glanced around the bar. There wasn't anyone here who'd hear me and let the folks back in Williamsville know, and it wasn't like singing was off the table when I'd asked to come here.

“Anyone here play piano?”

“Charlie,” Lavon called into the mic, “get yourself up on the stage for Miss Ellie.” Then he looked at me expectantly and extended the microphone to me.

I took it, but I didn't climb up on the stage. Here, standing on the floor with a man I'd only ever met when I was with my father, I felt like I could sing. Here, where none of my family of Wolves would hear me, I could let myself get carried away by the music.

So I did.

I closed my eyes and sang the opening lines of “Feeling Good.” After I'd finished the first verse, the band came in right where they should.

The waitress who had taken my order when I'd been seated leaned in and said something to Lavon. He nodded at her, and she walked away. I was curious, but I figured if it was any of my concern, I'd find out sooner or later. For now I threw myself a little further into singing.

Even though I hadn't been feeling good when I'd arrived at the bar, I was starting to now that I was singing. Music healed. That was sheer truth.

I was
choosing
to feel good. I was choosing freedom. After today I was free of the way Noah had made me feel, free of the humiliation of hiding our relationship, and this was the beginning of a new life. I was going to change things, and no man was ever going to make me feel like I was something to be ashamed of.

Never again.

I channeled all my feelings into the lyrics, and it felt like a weight was lifting from me. This was what music did. It was why I needed to sing, why I still did when no one was listening.

Today, though, they
were
listening.

Lavon motioned to the stage, but I shook my head.

He pulled up a chair and nodded along with the song, as if it wasn't weird to sing from where we were.

When the song ended, he stood, and I handed him the microphone.

The band started playing “Baby, Please Don't Go.” Lavon sang the first few lines to me, and I had to laugh. I danced with him as he sang to me. There was no way around it. He didn't go back onstage, and I didn't go back to my seat. He held the microphone out toward me several times so I could join him. I didn't sing much of the song, but I joined in enough that I was pretty sure we both knew I wasn't done singing just yet.

I danced and sang with a man old enough to be my grandfather, and as it almost always had, music erased any trace of stress for me. My upset over Noah wasn't completely gone, nor was the feeling of loss, but it was easier with every verse. I wasn't weak. I wasn't foolish. I was going to be just fine.

By the time Alamo returned to the table, I was singing the Stones' “Honky Tonk Woman” as a duet with Lavon.

I saw Alamo join the rest of the room clapping their hands in time with Lavon. Then he shook his head in wonder and sat down. It felt good to have him look at me, not that I was planning to do anything about it. I couldn't help preening just a little at being watched appreciatively, though.

I held up my hands in a “what can you do?” gesture and then leaned in to whisper to Lavon, “Just one more song.”

He nodded, and when we finished “Honky Tonk Woman,” he told the band, “Stones' ‘Satisfaction.' ”

We segued into the song, and he pointed at the stage.

Giving in, I gestured for him to precede me. He did so, and then he held a hand down to me like any proper Southern man should.

With a nod, I took it and rejoined him. We continued as we had been, taking turns with the lyrics as the mood struck us. There was something pure about singing like this—no grandstanding, no competition. It was about the joy and the music. Mama never understood why I wouldn't sing for money. I knew I
could
do it. We both did. Maybe someday I'd think about it more seriously; so far, though, that wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to focus on my designing for a career, but I wanted this in order to feel transported and free.

I let go of everything but the music.

By the end of the song, I'd all but forgotten the people watching us. Then they started applauding, and I glanced at them.

“Let's hear it for Miss Ellie,” Lavon said. He grinned and bowed to me.

“And thank you, sir.” I curtsied to him. Then I looked at the rest of the band and curtsied again. When I turned back to face the crowd, I waved and then made a sweeping gesture at the whole band and started to applaud. The listeners joined in. While they were doing so, I hopped down off the stage and walked over to my table.

I hadn't been seated but a couple of moments when the waitress brought our food over and told us that at Lavon's request the bar had comped our meal on account of my singing.

I looked up at Lavon, and he tipped his hat at me.

I blew him a kiss and mouthed, “Thank you.”

“You always sing for your supper?” Alamo asked lightly when I turned my attention back to him.

“Been a long time, actually,” I admitted. “I needed to sing tonight, though. I won't ask you to keep a secret, but I
will
tell you nobody would believe you if you told them I did it.”

“Why's that?”

I shrugged and set to eating my meal. I didn't know him, and I was already far more at ease with him than made sense. He wasn't making a big deal of it. He eyed me curiously, but that was it.

We ate our lunch without a lot of talk. That was something most people couldn't seem to do. I liked talking, but there were times that the only sound I wanted was music. When the band was decent, I saw no need to take away from it with a lot of words. Lavon's band wasn't going to break any new ground, but they were solid bluesmen.

When they took their break, Lavon stopped by the table, kissed my cheek, and told me, “You give us a shout you want to be up onstage where you ought to be, Miss Ellie. I suspect your daddy's old boss man would like you to do so too. Mr. Echo always did like your voice.”

I promised I would, and he left us.

Alamo looked at me. “I feel like I'm missing enough things that I need to ask: Should I expect trouble because of bringing you here?”

A wave of guilt washed over me. He was new in town, and here I was telling him secrets and dragging him halfway across the state. There wasn't any reason to think trouble would be coming from it, though, so I shook my head. “I used to sing all the time, but when my father died—ten years ago now—I stopped. Today I ended things with the guy I've been . . .” I shook my head. I couldn't say
dating
and I wasn't going to say a vulgar word for what we'd been doing. Even if that's all it was to Noah, it had been more to me. “I realized I wasn't in love, and he's never pretended he was. We're friends who made a mistake, and now I'm done.”

“A Wolf,” Alamo asked. “The guy was a Wolf.”

There wasn't a good answer to that, either. Noah was the son of the late club president, Eli Dash, and while Noah might not be flying club colors, he was still an unofficial club member as a result of his father. “More or less.”

“Prospect?”

“No,” I said carefully. There was no real way around it, so I clarified, “Dash's dad was the president before Echo. Dash is . . . commitment shy.”

Alamo nodded, and I could see by the way he looked at me that he understood the words I hadn't expressed as well as those I had. All he said, though, was “So you and Dash split up, and—”

“We weren't ever together,” I corrected. “I was his dirty secret. I'm done with that.”

“Right.” Alamo looked past me, frowning now. “And Echo likes your singing, but you don't sing.”

“Echo knows I'll sing if he tells me to. My father was one of Echo's friends. A Wolf for life.”

“So let me see if I have this, darlin'. You're the daughter of a Wolf who was regarded enough that Echo still cares about you—”

“Echo cares about
all
the Wolves' families,” I interjected. “Echo's . . . there's nobody better for the club or club families.”

Alamo nodded. “I've heard plenty good about him. Not disparaging him. I wouldn't be here if I hadn't heard the right things.” He caught my gaze before adding, “I'm just trying to see what I've walked into here.”

I realized that he thought there was going to be fallout. There was no way to avoid saying the things I'd really rather not. I owed him the courtesy of a blunt answer so he knew he wasn't going to have problems with the Wolves.

“Alamo?” I started. Once he met my gaze, I explained, “Dash doesn't care. As to the rest . . . Mike sent you to pick me up, and all we did was have lunch. There's no stepping out going on here.”

He nodded, but I wasn't sure he completely believed me.

“No one will be
angry
that I sang,” I added. “They might not believe it, but that's all. Echo knows that I sing at home still. My mama . . . well, let's just say that she's pretty sure the Good Lord himself made Echo personally and on a particularly good day. If Echo told her he was able to call God up on his cell phone, Mama would ask him to pass along a few notes. She probably reports exactly what I sing and how often—and how much she'd love it if he'd maybe tell me to do it more.”

Alamo laughed. “You mother sounds interesting.”

This time I was the one laughing. “Oh, you'll meet her. Miss Bitty is like the local news when it comes to anything having to do with the Wolves. She'll be coming round to get the scoop on you.”

We dropped to silence again for a few moments before Alamo said, “You don't owe me an explanation, but thanks all the same.”

We were both quiet, but the ease that I'd been feeling had vanished. There was something else here, something I couldn't let happen. There wasn't any trouble coming right now, but I wasn't ready to start being attracted to another man. I hadn't done anything wrong, and I wasn't looking to do anything, but I couldn't deny the spark I felt with Alamo—not if I kept sitting here with him.