Livvie's Song (18 page)

She wondered how Will Taylor, a churchgoing Christian, could do such a thing with no compunction. Overwhelmed with regret, she began slinking backward toward the door. And that’s when she made eye contact with Will. A moment after their gazes locked, he started to step down from the stage, eyes still trained on her.

Someone called out, “Hey! You know ‘Bill Bailey’?”

Will paused, turning in the direction of the voice. “Yeah, but I think I’m played out,” he said.

“Aw, come on! You’re just gettin’ started,” someone else lamented.

“You got some talent there, Mr. Taylor,” said one of the band members.

“Is that what they call a ‘C’ harp?” Sam Campbell asked. “How long you been playin’ it?”

Will held up the harmonica for the crowd to see. “Yep, she’s a ‘C’ harp, but I play a number of other types. It’s just that this ten-hole ‘C’ instrument is most compatible. And I’ve been playing since I was about this high.” He pointed near his waist.

Livvie turned around and started walking toward the exit, hoping no one would recognize her. She made it to the door and was about to pull it open when she heard someone call out, “Well, look who’s decided to grace us with her presence!” The voice belonged to Ted Barnes, who owned and operated the Eagles Theater. “Good to see you, Mrs. Beckman. You come up here t’ dance, did you?”

She pinched the skin at her throat and turned. Why did the entire room have to get so quiet? One would have thought they’d all seen a ghost fly across the room! “No, I just heard the music and…grew curious, that’s all.” She looked straight at Will. “Very nice playing, Mr. Taylor. I had no idea you were so gifted.”

“Well, thank you, ma’am,” he said with a grin and a slight bow.

“He’s gifted, all right,” said a dolled-up woman as she stepped into the light of the stage and looped an arm through Will’s, sending a wave of hushed whispers across the room.

Livvie recognized her as Marva Maxwell Dulane. The two of them were close in age, but they’d never been friends, as Marva had often badgered her in school and made fun of her “puritanical” ways. Her blatant dislike of Livvie had never faded, something Livvie didn’t understand but had long since quit trying to figure out. Divorced and living on the outskirts of town, Marva had a reputation as the town trollop, and, truth be told, she made her plain uncomfortable.

“If he can cook half as good as he can play that mouth harp, I can see why you hired him to run your kitchen,” Marva cooed, sidling up cozily to Will as if she’d known him a long while. Could she be any more brazen?

Livvie tamped down a lump of irritation with Marva and Will and pasted on a smile. “Hello, Marva,” she said with a sweetness that almost sickened even her. “Good to see you.”
Lord, help me resist the temptation to say something unseemly.
It was a pitiful prayer, she knew, but she was out of practice, after all.

“And you,” Marva drawled coolly. “Although, I must say, you’re the last person I would have expected to see up here.” She looked around the room and snickered. “We’d better tame it down, folks. Livvie’s a little too clean for the likes of us.”

Yet no one else laughed.

“Actually, we all might be a little too clean for you, Marva Dulane,” said Quinn Baxter, pushing his way forward through the masses as a round of good-natured chuckles arose. “I think it’s great Livvie joined us. It’s about time she let her hair down.”

“Yes, indeed,” someone else said.

“You’re right, Quinn,” said another.

“Um, thank you, everyone.” Her cheeks burned. “If you’ll excuse me, though, I think I’ll go back downstairs. Good night.”

There was a chorus of “Good nights,” and Livvie smiled. But her face dropped when she saw Will wriggle his arm free of Marva’s and step down from the stage, as if he intended to follow her.

“Mr. Taylor, you ain’t leavin’, too, are you?” asked the man everyone called Berk. “We’re just gettin’ started up here.”

“’Fraid so. I didn’t come here with the intention of performing. Like Mrs. Beckman, I was just curious. But you folks have given me a real nice Wabash welcome, so I thank you.”

“You’re mighty welcome, son. You stop on by any Saturday night, and we’ll put you on this stage,” Berk said.

“I might just do that, on one condition: that you all get yourselves to church the next morning. Me, I’ve been going to that Wesleyan Methodist church a few blocks over.”

“I swear, when I even walk past a church, the building starts to tremble!” said a gravelly voice Livvie recognized as Orville Dotson’s.

“Yeah, the Lord don’t look so kindly on that business you run on the side, Orv,” spouted someone she didn’t know. She did, however, know that he was referring to the illegal still on Mr. Dotson’s property. This prompted a wave of laughter and murmurs—the perfect opportunity to escape unnoticed.

Livvie slipped out the door and onto the landing, remarking to herself how brave Will had been to encourage folks to go to church. Dance halls were not exactly considered ideal sites for evangelism.

The air had cooled some, she noticed as she descended the stairs, and an orange glow of sunset still flirted with the horizon. Outside the door to the second floor, she reached inside her pocket for her keys, keeping her eyes on the alley below. A sudden chill chased up her back at the sight of that stranger she’d spotted earlier, still puffing on a detestable nicotine stick, his tall, chunky frame leaning against a thick tree trunk. His eyes looked as if they could burn her skin.

Was it mere coincidence that she’d seen him twice in the same evening, or did he have ill intentions toward her? If so, what were they? And, more important, what was the reason for them? She had never seen this man before and couldn’t imagine what interest he might have in her.

Feeling a surge of rare boldness, she returned her key to her pocket, marched to the end of the landing, and leaned over the railing. “Is there something I can help you with, mister?”

He didn’t acknowledge her but tossed his cigarette to the ground and snuffed it out with his shoe. Then, he gazed up at her for a lingering moment, his face expressionless, before turning and starting down the alley. Seconds later, he had vanished into the murky shadows.

***

Blast! He’d wanted to walk Livvie down to her apartment, maybe even speak a few more words to her. Perhaps, a conversation wasn’t out of the question, if he left now and knocked on her door. But, before he was able to make any headway, Marva Dulane snagged him by the arm again.

“You can’t possibly leave yet, Will Taylor. We haven’t even gotten acquainted.”

“Uh, Miss Dulane, you should know—,” he began, but Quinn Baxter and several others cut him off mid-sentence as they crowded around to talk about his fine playing and barraged him with all kinds of questions, from where he’d gotten his instrument to how he’d come to play it with such skill. He’d intended to tell Marva that he knew her type too well and had even dated women like her before the Lord had come into his life. It was just as well that he hadn’t. Her type was not wont to be convicted by such a statement.

Several minutes later, the band members reconvened on the stage and picked up their instruments for another set. This distracted Marva, or appeared to, and Will tried to excuse himself.

“What about that dance, Will?” she asked, ignoring his attempt.

“Look, Miss Dulane.” He raised his eyebrows at the pesky woman. “I think you have me wrongly pegged.”

“It’s actually Missus,” she corrected him, “but that’s all right. I’m divorced. Call me Marva.”

He sighed. She was a determined thing; he’d give her that. “All right. Marva.” Her long eyelashes made several up and down sweeps, slow and deliberate. She wasn’t a bad-looking woman. Heck, at one time, he would have considered her a catch. But ten years in prison had changed his heart and altered his perspective on many things—his taste in women, for one. Nowadays, a woman like Olivia Beckman, not a minx like Marva Dulane, had the power to turn his head. Of course, he had no business looking at a woman of Livvie’s caliber. Shucks, he wasn’t even interested!

Marva’s eyelashes kept fluttering up at him. If she played her cards right, she could probably find herself a good man, but he was pretty sure the way she played didn’t attract the “staying” kind.

“Sorry, Marva. I’m not your type.”

She set her hands on his shoulders and used her thumbs to play with his shirt collar. “You sure? I got the feeling you’re not as innocent as you’d like us to think you are. You might be a church boy now, but you weren’t always, were you? Fess up, Will. You can tell Marva.”

He quickly stepped out of reach. “You’re a crazy woman, you know that?”

A hysterical giggle spilled out of her. “A few have told me as much, but I don’t mind. Shoot, maybe they’re right.”

He gave a soft chuckle to cover his irritation. “You ought to go to church yourself. You’d soon discover you’re looking for happiness in all the wrong places.”

“Pfff, all that church stuff doesn’t interest me, Will. And, don’t worry; I’m plenty happy.”

“Well, good. Then, you don’t need me.”

He started to turn, but she seized his arm—a little too hard for his liking. “But that’s where you’re wrong, Will,” she said, her voice husky. “I love a challenge, and that’s what I see when I look into your baby blues.”

Unbelievable.
He shook his head several times. “Good night, Marva Dulane.”

This time, she let him go.

“Treasures of wickedness profit nothing: but righteousness delivereth from death.”—Proverbs 10:2

The Family Feast kickoff at Livvie’s Kitchen was fast approaching, and preparations were under way. Cora Mae had had the brilliant idea of decking out the restaurant in red, white, and blue streamers to commemorate the upcoming Fourth of July holiday, and Livvie had purchased enough red and white gingham from the milliner at Beitman & Wolf Department Store to fashion a pretty tablecloth for each table. After the Fourth, the streamers would come down, but the new tablecloths could stay year-round.

Sally and the boys had busied themselves making more colorful posters to advertise the event, then traipsed all over town to tape them up in the windows of stores, banks, service stations, and the post office, and to nail them to lampposts. Nate had wanted to put a sign in the window of another diner, Sky Blue Restaurant over on Canal Street, but Sally had explained that the competition wouldn’t look too kindly on that idea. His standard “Why?” followed by “What’s ‘competition’?” had obliged her to explain as best she could, in terms that a six-year-old would understand. “Well, if a girl likes a certain boy, and then along comes another girl who also likes him, well, that’s competition. They’re both competing for the same boy.”

According to Sally’s account of the episode, they’d trudged along in silence for half a block until Nate, having thought things over, blurted out, “You mean, there’s boys and girls what like each other in Mommy’s restaurant?”

“No, dodo bird,” Alex had responded. “There’s two girls what like the same boy!”

Livvie wasn’t sure which of her sons had missed Sally’s point by a wider margin, so she’d done nothing but smiled.

Will had prepared Clara Gillen’s baked chicken for Sunday dinner last week, and the recipe had passed the taste test by a country mile, according to the judges: Cora Mae, Coot, Livvie, the boys, and Will. “Succulent” described it well, with its blend of five herbs and spices, a squeeze of lemon, and some other key ingredients.

Besides the chicken, Will had served cheddar mashed potatoes and gravy, steamed green beans, homemade applesauce, which had been canned the year before, and his own secret-recipe rolls, which were fast becoming a signature item at Livvie’s Kitchen due to their irresistible texture and hint of sweetness. Many folks had joked that they could make a meal of the rolls alone.

Yes, Will Taylor had basically abolished the notion that men didn’t belong in the kitchen, and yet he didn’t possess one feminine trait about him. Whether tossing a baseball with Alex and Nate in the back alley, lifting heavy crates of produce and other restaurant supplies, or taking the boys fishing with the equipment she’d offered him—Frank’s gear—he was the epitome of manhood. And it rankled Livvie plenty to realize she’d noticed.

The morning of June 29, Livvie dressed the boys in blue shorts, red-and-white-striped shirts, and navy Red Goose shoes, having splurged at J. C. Penney and Miller’s Shoe Store. She’d had to empty her savings jar to make the purchases, but having her boys spiffed up for the opening night of Family Feast seemed worth it. Besides, she’d purchased the shoes one size too big, figuring that if the boys’ feet didn’t grow too fast, they could wear them clear through Christmas and maybe beyond.

Livvie didn’t have a patriotic dress, but she did have a lightweight cotton one of blue fabric with tiny white flowers, a scooped neck, and cap sleeves. With some spare ribbon she’d found in her sewing drawer, she had fashioned a red bow to tie at the top of her ponytail.

A special table near the front of the restaurant had been reserved for the Gillen family, and Livvie had decorated it with a beautiful centerpiece—a Mason jar filled with fresh-cut flowers from Margie’s garden—for Clara to take home. She’d also tied ribbons around four candy sticks and placed one at each setting.

By 4:45 p.m., a line had already formed outside the front door. Livvie tried soothing her jittery stomach but without success. “Oh, my gracious, I’m so excited—and nervous, too, I’m afraid,” she confessed to Will, who was mashing a huge pot of steaming potatoes. With every depression of the metal tool, his arm muscles flexed, and she found the distraction a pleasant substitute for fear.

He paused and looked up long enough to cast a warm gaze at her. “This is your night to shine, young lady. Make the most of it.” He returned his attention to the potatoes, sprinkling them with a pinch of salt and some ground pepper, pouring in a generous amount of thick cream, and then adding a hunk of butter and a mound of grated cheddar. One thing she’d learned from observing him over the past several weeks was that he didn’t have much use for measuring cups and spoons. She’d also noticed other things: his perpetually jovial manner, his gentle way with her sons, his sense of humor, his calm efficiency, and, most intriguing, his deep interest in spiritual things.