Red’s Hot Honky-Tonk Bar (2 page)

T
he phone was ringing. Ringing wasn’t truly an apt description. The small, personal-communication device was pinging out the familiar refrain of “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels” in tinny musiclike tones.

From beneath a tangle of bedsheets, Red unhappily opened one eye. She had blackout shades on the windows, but one of them was caught up unevenly on the edge of the windowsill, allowing a broad shaft of early-morning sunshine to penetrate the room.

She pulled her pillow over her head, muffling the sound and hiding the sight. When the phone finally went to voice mail, she relaxed into the mattress. She was almost back to sleep when it started up again.

Now thoroughly annoyed, she threw back the covers and rotated to a sitting position. This elicited a slight moan from her lips. Cam, still beside her, didn’t awaken, making only an
ugh
sound of protest. She retrieved the phone from the bedside table and, squinting, tried to make out the numbers on the front of it. The area code was not one she recognized.

“Telemarketer,” she muttered like a curse.

She flopped back down on the bed, slinging one arm across her eyes. She was exhausted, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep. Deliberately, she turned away from the window. On that side, her view was all Cam. He looked even younger than usual, almost boyish, with his face relaxed and his hair askew. Red edged up closer. She really liked him. No, she
really
liked him. Walking around in the world, he made her feel admired and desired. In bed, he made her feel…wonderful. She allowed a sigh to seep through her like warm molasses.

Then she caught herself, physically pulling away from him. It was crazy to let her guard down like that. And what was he still doing in her bed? She didn’t let guys sleep over. Once they were done, it was time to get out. Men were a lot like stray dogs. You think you’re just throwing them some scraps. But it doesn’t take much for them to start making themselves at home.

Red got to her feet and walked to the foot of the bed. She ripped the covers off him.

“Sun’s up, cowboy,” she announced. “Time to hit the trail.”

“Damn,” was his inarticulate response.

Red continued to the bathroom. Without turning on the light she sat on the toilet, elbows on knees, her face in her hands, her hair falling around her like a curtain.

The phone went off again.

“Do you want me to get that?” Cam called out.

“No.”

When she’d finished and flushed, she flipped on the light switch above the sink. She pulled her hair back and tied it in one giant loose knot to keep it out of the way as she washed her hands and face.

Afterward, she stood for a moment in front of the mirror,
assessing her body for imperfections. The nightlife had left her skin perfectly pale. Her breasts weren’t very large, but they were still high and pretty, she thought. She turned slightly to survey her backside. Her butt wasn’t as good as it once was, but it was still better than most, she assured herself. And the armadillo tattoo that had been inked into her right buttock a quarter century earlier still looked perfect.

Not bad for forty-six
, she thought to herself. Not bad at all.

Naked, she walked back into the bedroom. Cam was sitting on the edge of the bed. He glanced up and when he caught sight of her, he smiled.

“Come on back here,” he said, patting the mattress beside him. “We don’t have to get up yet.”

Red appreciated the gesture, but she didn’t take him up on it. “I’m going downstairs to make coffee,” she said. “You can be first in the shower.”

She didn’t bother with underwear as she pulled on a pair of ratty jeans and a T-shirt. She grabbed her keys and her phone and stepped out the door of her apartment. She went down the stairs to the back patio, which was strangely serene in the midmorning light. Shaded by the building, it edged up against the San Antonio River—the
real
San Antonio River, not the beautifully controlled and manicured park of the River Walk with its wide pedestrian walkways and its quaint overhead footbridges. This was no Venice of south Texas, but the narrow springfed waterway that had made the area habitable for thousands of years.

Red unlocked the back door of the bar and propped it open. The distinctive smell of beer and cigarettes could never be obliterated, but she still liked to air the place out.

Inside, she went behind the bar and got a pot of coffee
dripping. She checked the floor safe and found it undisturbed. She had been robbed several times over the years. It always made her angry and scared, but intellectually she knew that it was a typical hazard of her business and not worth getting killed for, which was why the floor safe was still downstairs and everyone knew it.

The bar area was clean and neat, a place for everything and everything in its place. That was Karl more than Red, but she appreciated it. She ran her hand along the eighty-year-old mahogany top, already knowing that it would be completely free of sticky spots or water stains.

She found her ancient coffee mug in the back of the shelf. It was once bright white, now more eggshell, so well-worn that a whole network of tiny lines were visible in the finish. Many, many long years ago, a small hand had painted the name RED in block letters on the side. It was almost faded into complete obscurity, but she knew it was still there.

As soon as the coffee was ready, she filled her cup and took it out to the patio. The end of August was still terribly hot, but the morning shade was surprisingly nice. She put her coffee on a table and then sat down, propping her bare feet in a chair nearby.

Red pulled her big knot of hair away from her neck and back and held it atop her head. She’d grown so accustomed to the posture that it had become comfortable. She gazed out at the river flowing by, south toward downtown. Much narrower in this wild stretch, little more than fifteen feet across, the water ran faster as it made an easterly meander behind the property. Beyond the far bank were vacant lots that were heavily wooded, giving a pastoral feel that was only belied by the traffic noise of the nearby freeway interchange.

In moments like these, Red could sometimes be caught
letting her guard down, remembering long-ago times in a distant farmhouse near the town of Piney Woods. She almost allowed herself that memory, then she jerked herself back into the present with a start. She didn’t want to look back. She refused to remember.

Instead, she sipped her coffee and speculated on the future, dismissing all rumors of change for the area. She foresaw the years ahead as not much different than here and now. She’d continue keeping her customers coming in. The younger bands would bring in younger patrons, and once they got accustomed to the place, they would gradually take their parents’ places in the booths and at the bar. Her absentee landlord had surprised her last year with a new lease at a higher price. She had put him off, refusing to sign anything and paying month to month. She was determined to extract some repairs for the higher price. The place looked okay at night, but in daytime, the building seemed neglected and almost sad. She really wanted to paint the exterior. How much could that cost him? Maybe they’d find a compromise. If he just bought the paint, she could get Cam to do the labor. It was her experience that musicians were always excellent and experienced housepainters. Of course, she didn’t know how long Cam would be around. But if she got the paint, a man couldn’t leave in the middle of a paint job, could he? Especially not a guy who played the fiddle.

Red was still pondering this question when her cell went off again. She straightened her legs in order to pull the phone out of her jeans pocket. It was the same strange number that had called before. With a sigh, she decided that they’d never stop calling until she told them she wasn’t interested.

“Hello,” she said.

“God, I thought you were never going to pick up,” a
familiar voice on the other end of the line blurted out. “Hey, Red, it’s me.”

Immediately she sat up straight in her chair. “Bridge?” Just saying the name aloud gave her a strange buoyant feeling. “Are you back in town?”

“No, I’m calling from Kabul,” she answered. “I don’t expect to be back until Christmas. I told you that.”

“Yeah, yeah, you did,” Red agreed. “I just…I guess I just didn’t expect to hear from you. Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied. “But Mike’s mother isn’t. That’s why I called. She had a stroke last night.”

“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. Is she going to be okay?”

“She’s pretty bad off,” Bridge said. “But she’s hanging in there. The report I got is that, assuming they get her stabilized, they’ll move her to a rehab facility for several weeks. They say you can’t tell at first who is really going to benefit from therapy and who isn’t. She’s pretty strong and only sixty-six, but, of course, her diabetes is a big complication.”

“Is Mike with her?”

“Mike’s in Korea, remember that?” She sounded half-annoyed that Red might not be keeping up.

“Oh yeah, of course I remember.”

“He’s working on getting a week of compassionate leave, but it may be a few days before he gets a hop to San Antonio.”

“Well, do you want me to go by and see her?” Red asked. “I’m not exactly a friend, but I could sure put the fear of God in the nurses if it’s needed.”

“That would be nice, Red,” Bridge answered. “But what I really need for you to do is take the kids.”

“Take the kids?” She repeated the words as if their meaning was unclear. “Take them where?”

“Mike’s mom can’t really move or speak. She may fully
recover, but it’ll be a long time before she can even care for herself, much less my two kids.”

“Who has them now?”

“They’re in the Family Services office at Fort Sam. I talked to Olivia about an hour ago. She and Daniel are pretty scared, but you know they’re like me, tough inside and out. Family Services can’t offer much in the way of temporary care for kids that age. They’re waiting for my backup custody to pick them up. That’s you.”

That reality hung out there in an instant of complete dumbfounded silence.

“It can’t be me,” Red insisted. “I don’t know anything about kids.”

“What’s to know? They practically raise themselves.”

“No, they don’t,” Red responded with certainty. “They’re just babies. There’s no way that I can take them in.”

“They are not babies,” Bridge argued. “Olivia is nine and Daniel is six. And you agreed.”

“You said I wouldn’t have to do anything
but
agree.”

There was a heavy sigh at the other end of the line. “Well, I’m sorry about that. There are things beyond my control.”

Those words momentarily gave Red pause.

“That’s a rare admission for you,” Red pointed out.

“I suppose we all live and learn,” Bridge said. “Anyway, you have to do it.”

“Can’t you just come home?”

“The army doesn’t work that way.”

“Have you tried? I’m sure if they knew that the kids are on their own, they’d want to help.”

“Of course they’d want to help,” Bridge said. “But they can’t help. Everybody’s got problems. Before we deploy, families work out their own plan. This is our family plan.”

Red felt a desperate, sinking sense of unpleasant inevitability.

“I’m not any good with kids,” she pleaded. “You, of all people, should know that.”

“I do know it, and if there was anyone else I could hand them off to, I would,” Bridge said. “There isn’t anybody else.”

“Can’t you send them to Korea to stay with Mike?”

“That’s possible,” she said. “But it’s not going to be easy. I’m army. Mike’s air force. That’s two different branches of the military. It’s not just that they don’t speak the same language, they each try to pretend that the other doesn’t exist.”

“But you can get them transferred to him.”

“Maybe,
if
he agrees, though I doubt he’ll be all that willing to give up his hard-won bachelor life. Even if he is, it’ll require a judge’s order to alter the custody agreement. And all the paperwork changing them from army dependents to air force dependents, that takes time,” Bridge said. “Somebody has to pick them up today.
You
have to pick them up. Today.”

Red glanced around her beloved patio bar with new eyes. “This is no place to raise kids,” she insisted.

“Mother!” Bridge said sharply. She never used the term except for the shock value of it. “I haven’t the time or inclination to argue. I’ve already been on this phone longer than I should be. These are your grandchildren. You are now responsible for them. They’re depending upon you. And you will not, under any circumstances, let any of us down. Do you understand?”

I
t was extremely curious that the one person in the world that Red should never have to take orders from—her daughter—was the only person who could consistently compel her to do anything.

Bridge’s forceful admonition, undoubtedly delivered in exactly the same tone that she utilized with the men and women under her command, had so spurred Red that she’d immediately hurried to do her duty.

Without a word to Cam, who was still in the shower, she locked up the bar and jumped into her seventeen-year-old primer-gray Honda CRX. The car made a definite whiny sound as she started it up, but the engine did turn over and within fifteen minutes she was at the guard gate of the nearby army base.

As soon as they stopped her, Red knew she should have thought this out more thoroughly.

“Are you aware that your inspection sticker is out of date?” a soldier, still so young he had peach fuzz on his cheeks, asked her.

“Yeah, I…uh…well, I just hadn’t gotten around to that,” she admitted.

He nodded gravely and made a slight sniffing sound.

“Have you been drinking this morning, ma’am?” he asked.

“Oh no,” Red insisted. “It’s my clothes. I work in a bar and everything I own has that sort of beer smell to it.”

“Please step out of the vehicle.”

His words weren’t merely a suggestion.

Red regretted her hasty departure from home now. Running around town without underwear was a definite no-no. Even if she was completely covered with jeans and T-shirt, she felt indecent, which made her behave guiltily, which, reasonably, made the gate guards suspicious of her.

“What’s your purpose here today?” he asked her.

“I’m picking up my grandchildren.”

Red didn’t see any perceptible rise of the young soldier’s eyebrow, but she felt it.

“My daughter is overseas and…”

Her explanation was much longer and more detailed than she wanted it to be. Red just couldn’t stop expounding, clarifying, justifying. She heard herself talking, but she couldn’t shut herself up. She was out of place. Intent on a task unsuited to her. It was as if she needed to convince both of them that she belonged here.

The soldier directed her to an office. Inside, phone calls were made and her business there was verified. After only a few minutes she was given a paper pass that she carried back to the guard.

“Get that sticker up-to-date before you come in next time,” the young man told her.

Red hoped that, if she was lucky, she’d never have to come back here again.

After wandering through her directions and missing the turn twice, she finally parked in front of the Family Assistance Center. Flipping down the visor mirror, she gazed at herself in dismay. She combed through her wild hair with her fingers and pinched her cheeks to give them a little color. Then, taking a deep breath and placing what she hoped was a confident smile on her face, she walked inside.

The office was a square in pale neutral colors. Light poured in from the windows through utilitarian blinds. A large African-American woman was seated behind a desk, chatting on the phone. Red saw the children as soon as she walked through the door. They were sitting together in a secluded area visible from the main room, but separated from it. It was full of colorful furniture and toys that were being completely ignored. Daniel was stretched out on the chairs, his dark, curly head in the lap of his big sister. Olivia looked up and Red saw recognition in the young girl’s eyes, but she offered no greeting.

Red smiled at her and waved.

When there was no response from the children, Red turned to the woman at the desk. She mouthed, “Hi,” and then waited patiently until she’d hung up the phone.

“May I help you?”

“I’m Staff Sergeant Lujan’s mother. I’m here to pick up her children.”

The boy raised his head when he head her words. He eyed Red suspiciously and then said something to his sister.

“Uh-huh,” the woman responded, and began sorting through the papers on her desk. “We tried to get you last night, but nobody answered and the children weren’t sure of your address.”

“I work nights,” Red explained simply. Her attention was
still on the two youngsters whispering together across the room.

“I need to see your driver’s license.”

Red managed to fish it out of her purse again. At least this time it wasn’t stuck to anything. She was nervous, jittery. She bit her lip to keep herself from going on an explaining jag like she had at the gate. She would only answer questions that were asked. And she would only give as much information as was needed. That’s the way Bridge would have handled it.

Red’s comment to her daughter that she didn’t know anything about kids was more true than any outsider might imagine. Red had been a single, teenage mother, alone, scared and basically clueless. It seemed, in retrospect, that Bridge had raised herself. Everything she was, everything she’d achieved, she had managed all on her own. Her daughter’s childhood was a mysterious blur. Looking back, it seemed as if Bridge had always been a grown-up, responsible, dependable, unflappable. One minute Red was in a charity bed at Santa Rosa Hospital, being ordered to push. And the next, Bridge was marching out the front door in her military uniform.

“Just sign these papers and they are all yours,” the woman said.

Red felt only the very slightest hesitation before she sat in the seat offered and began plowing through the mountain of paperwork she’d been handed. The army, it seemed, wanted to know everything about her and the placement of the children.

Red tapped her pen nervously over some of the questions and even had to ask for help.

“I don’t know what school the children will attend,” she admitted. “I mean, I’m sure my neighborhood must have a school, I guess I just never noticed it.”

“You can write ‘summer recess’ in that blank now. You’ll have to come back with enrollment evidence later anyway.”

Red went back to the paperwork, but not before she caught sight of Olivia’s eyes. Her expression was condemning. Red could almost hear her thoughts.
She hasn’t even thought about where we’ll go to school
.

Red determinedly reminded herself that by then they’d be somebody else’s problem.

She signed the final page and pushed the paperwork across the desk. The woman thanked her and waved the kids over.

“Come on now,” she called out to them. “Your grandma’s come here to get you. Better run give her a big hello kiss.”

Big hello kisses were obviously not paramount in the minds of the two children who gathered up their suitcases and backpacks as if the weight of the world was on their young shoulders.

“I need to go to the library,” were Olivia’s first words to Red.

Daniel didn’t say anything. He just looked at her as if she were a strange alien creature, and a frightening one at that.

“Okay, maybe later,” Red answered. “Let’s go to my place and get you settled in first.”

It was hard to imagine how she could ever get these two settled into her apartment.

Red grabbed up Daniel’s book bag, which was almost as big as he was. He reacted as if she was trying to steal it and said something to his sister in Spanish.

“She’s just going to help you carry it,” Olivia answered the boy.

He didn’t seem happy about that, but as Red led them out the door, he reluctantly followed his sister.

She opened the back hatch of the CRX and began stowing
the gear inside. Daniel was talking again, in Spanish, and this time his sister was answering in the same language.

“Doesn’t he speak English?” Red asked.

“Of course he does,” Olivia answered. “Right now, he just doesn’t want to.”

Oh great!
Red thought as she managed to keep from sighing or rolling her eyes.

When all the baggage was loaded, she urged the kids to the passenger door.

“I guess Daniel should go up in the back, since he’s smaller,” Red said.

Olivia peered inside the car and then gazed at Red in astonishment. “There isn’t anyplace to sit back there,” she pointed out.

Red shrugged. “The car’s a two-seater, but your brother can scoot in there cross-legged and he’ll be fine.”

“He needs a real place to sit and to be buckled in,” Olivia said.

She sounded so much like her mother, Red thought, such a little stickler for the rules.

“Don’t worry. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay, it’s illegal,” Olivia pointed out. “And it’s unsafe. Nobody will let you drive us that way.”

“It will be fine,” Red assured her.

“I don’t think so,” Olivia said. “He needs to be sitting in a seat, with a seat belt.”

“We don’t have a seat with a seat belt, so we’ll make do with what we have.”

The little girl’s sigh was one of long-suffering before she complied.

Red’s plan to make do lasted all the way to the gate. The same grave-spoken young soldier who’d unhappily let her in was now unwilling to let her out.

“I chose to overlook an out-of-date inspection sticker,” he reminded her. “But I cannot allow you out on a public street with a child who is not properly or legally restrained.”

Red argued for several minutes. She’d drive slowly. She’d take only backstreets. She wasn’t going far. None of it made any difference.

Red moved the car into the small waiting lot and she and the children sat down on a bench.

“I told you so,” Olivia said quietly, almost under her breath.

Red didn’t even acknowledge hearing that. Instead, she snapped open her phone. She couldn’t think of who to call at first. It was Friday morning and everyone she knew was at work. Finally she called the only person she was sure would answer.

“Hey, Red,” Cam said as he picked up. “Where’d you run off to so quickly?”

His voice was languid and silky smooth.

“I need you to do me a favor,” she said, very matter-of-fact. “And I don’t want to play Twenty Questions about it, I just want you to do it.”

“Okay. What do you need?” he asked. His tone had changed completely from sweet-nothing whispers to all business.

“Bring your van and meet me at the Walters Avenue gate at Fort Sam Houston as soon as you can.”

There was a hesitation on the other end of the line. She was sure there were a thousand things that he wanted to ask, but she’d told him not to, and he didn’t.

“It may take me fifteen or twenty minutes,” he told her. “I’ll go as fast as I can.”

“Thanks.”

She hung up.

Red glanced over at the children. They were sitting close together at the far end of the bench, as if trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and this stranger who was, not very willingly or successfully, trying to take them home.

They had their father’s looks. Both had tan skin and brown eyes. Olivia’s long dark hair was thick and straight and pulled away from her face with a purple plastic headband. Daniel’s was curly and badly in need of a cut. The too-long curls gave his head an oversize appearance. They both had on shorts and flip-flops. Olivia’s shirt was decorated with tiny purple bows. Daniel’s advertised a pirate movie that he would not be old enough to see for a very long time. They were young and scared and very alone. Red could almost remember that feeling, and it generated an empathy for them that was genuine enough to be uncomfortable.

Daniel was still talking to his sister in a language Red didn’t understand. But she’d lived in San Antonio long enough that some of it sounded familiar. She immediately picked up on the word
abuela
—grandmother—and she wanted to reassure them.

“I don’t know what the regulations are at the hospital where your
abuela
is,” she said. “Sometimes they don’t let people under twelve visit the patients. But I can sure check on that and we can try to go see her.”

Olivia gave her a puzzled look before muttering thanks.

“That’s what you were talking about, right?” Red asked. “I’m sure I heard Daniel say
abuela
.”

“Oh yeah,” Olivia said. “But he wasn’t talking about our other grandmother, he was talking about you.”

“Oh.”

“He doesn’t remember you, but I told him who you are,”
Olivia said. “That you’re our mom’s mother and that we never see you because you’re very busy and you work nights and sleep all day. But you’re still our grandmother.”

“Oh, right,” Red agreed.

“At first he didn’t believe me because he said that you don’t look like a grandmother,” Olivia told her.

Red smiled, pleased.

“Daniel says grandmothers are supposed to look sweet and like you want to hug them,” Olivia went on. “But you look like a stranger, the kind that Mom would tell us to run away from.”

Red’s jaw dropped at the young girl’s frankness.

“I told him, you’re our grandmother whether you look like it or not.”

Red nodded. “So now he’s calling me
abuela,
too.”

Olivia raised an almost disdainful eyebrow. “Not exactly,” she said. “Abuela is our
abuela
. Daniel is calling you Abuela Mala.”

“Abuela Mala?”

Olivia nodded again. “Yeah, Bad Grandma.”