Dirty Little Secret (5 page)

“You were making a face on your way over,” he explained. Turning back to his dad, he said, “We must be a little off. We’re torturing her.”

“Not as bad as Hank Williams on Thursday,” I assured them. “Yodeling.”

They both nodded sympathetically. “Oh,” Sam said. His dad echoed, “The yodeling.”

“Well, why don’t you start us off?” Mr. Hardiman asked me, nodding to my fiddle. He was back in charge.

Obediently I played a long, low E and let them tune their guitars to it. I felt relieved and strangely giddy that I was getting what I wanted for once. It wouldn’t last, though. Guitars slowly unwound and went flat. In two hours I’d be gathering up the gumption to face off with Mr. Hardiman again.

But for now, I was good. Mr. Hardiman headed through the glass door that had been fitted into the storefront of the ex-Borders. Following him, Sam held the door wide open for me while backing against it so I could squeeze by him and his guitar. This was no big deal. Men held doors open for women in Nashville. They were rude if they didn’t. His dad would have done it if Sam hadn’t.

What set my heart racing was the way his chocolate eyes followed me as I passed him in the doorway, my bare forearm brushing against his. He gave me the smallest smile, soft-looking lips contrasting with the older look he was trying to pull off. The term
handsome devil
came up in country songs a lot. Now I understood why.

He fell into step beside me as we trailed his dad up the wide corridor. He said quietly, as if he didn’t want his dad to hear, “I would kill for perfect pitch.” In his voice I heard admiration of me, and a mournful longing.

“No, you wouldn’t,” I assured him. “If you had it, you’d wish
you didn’t. It’s more trouble than it’s worth.” Life in a tribute band would be so much easier if I didn’t mind Hank Williams’s yodeling—or if, like Mr. Crabtree, I couldn’t hear when the song went south.

“That’s exactly what all of you say,” Sam told me as we parted ways and parked ourselves on either side of Mr. Hardiman, who’d stopped in front of Banana Republic.

“ ‘Five Feet High and Rising,’ ” Mr. Hardiman said, which made me smile despite myself. That song had special meaning to Nashville musicians. A few years ago we got seventeen inches of rain in two days and the Cumberland River swelled to flood the Grand Ole Opry. I expected Mr. Hardiman to add that the song was in B-flat, the key in which Johnny Cash had recorded it. He didn’t. He just started with a strum of major one on his guitar. Sam matched him on the first beat, and I jumped in with the melody. Mr. Hardiman must have taken me at my word—or, rather, taken Sam at his—that I had perfect pitch. Only a very experienced or very jaded musician would accept that fact without teasing or questioning. He’d been around the block a few more times than his son or even Dolly or Hank or Willie or Elvis.

The song was made up of ones, fours, and fives like so many others. But the key kept changing higher, B-flat to D-flat to E-flat to F, reflecting the water rising to flood the farm where Johnny Cash grew up. It also had the characteristic Cash boom-chucka rhythm like a train chugging down the tracks, lots of fun to play after so many sad country ballads this week. Best of all, Mr. Hardiman and Sam were good at this. Mr. Hardiman sang in a deep, strong voice that matched Cash’s nicely, and he and his son both had their guitar licks down pat.

The song featured a slow beat, as if Mr. Hardiman was testing me with an easy pace first. I must have passed, because next he
announced “Hey, Porter,” and both guitars jumped right in with the speeding freight-train beat. I handled the fiddle harmony fine. The challenge came during the solo section in the middle. A fast song like this could easily wreck a fiddle solo.

I might have become a lot of things in the past year. A failure. A bitch. A bad sister. I was not, however, rusty. As I pulled off the solo, first Sam and then Mr. Hardiman looked up at me in surprise.

With the smallest nod, Mr. Hardiman indicated that Sam should take a solo next. In general, playing fiddle was harder than guitar. I didn’t have frets as anchors to tell me where my fingers should go. But fiddle solos were easier than guitar solos. At least I had a bow. All Sam had was one pick to enunciate every note of a lightning-fast improvisation. As I played my staccato accompaniment quietly to stay out of his way, I watched his hands in awe. I’m sure my face mirrored the expressions of so many non-musicians I’d played in front of over the years. Their wide-eyed question:
How’d you get so good?
The answer:
You start when you’re five.
In Sam I’d met my match.

He knew it, too. About halfway through, he looked up at me again and grinned.

Another small nod from Mr. Hardiman told us he didn’t want his turn at a solo. We moved on to the next verse of the song. But I still focused on Sam. He reminded me of a boy I’d met a long time ago at a bluegrass festival. Those days were full of cocky children trying to one-up me. This particular boy had been kind and friendly. We’d gotten assigned to the same impromptu band. And when I’d garnered louder applause for my solo than he got for his, he didn’t stick out his tongue at me. He smiled at me like he’d run into an old friend. I’d looked for him at every festival since, but I’d never seen him again.

My sigh at the end of the song was partly for that lost boy,
partly from relief. Drops of sweat were forming on my scalp and running down to the edges of my wig.

“Why didn’t you take a solo?” Sam asked his father quietly.

“You two were busy impressing each other,” Mr. Hardiman grumbled.

Sam leaned around his father’s back to see if I’d overheard. When he saw I had, his eyes widened in horror. Then, with a little shake of his head, he was back to normal, brushing it off. He crossed behind his father to talk softly to me. “Been at this long?” he asked with a knowing smile.

“A week,” I said, pretending I thought he meant the job rather than the fiddle in general. “But we haven’t been playing this fast.”

“You like it fast?” He was flirting with me, but he blinked at me innocently. He never would have admitted to the double entendre if I’d called him on it. He was testing me, like his dad had, but deliciously.

“Yeah,” I said, “I like it fast.”

“Remember you asked for it,” he whispered. He crossed behind his father again to resume his place. “Dad,” he said. “ ‘Cocaine Blues.’ ”

“Yep” was all his father said before launching the song. This time when we ended, my bowing arm was sore, something I hadn’t felt since I was a young player with no stamina. Sweat crawled down my face and pooled in my subtle 1950s cleavage.

“Let’s walk up to Macy’s and grace those folks with our presence,” Mr. Hardiman said. He took off in that direction without waiting for us.

I didn’t want to look like a groupie, but when Sam didn’t follow his father immediately, I waited with him. Grinning, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it out to me. He’d noticed my unattractive sheen.

“Hey, that’s period,” I joked. The only people I’d seen using handkerchiefs, other than actors in old movies, were elderly bluegrass musicians who smelled funny.

“Isn’t it?” he agreed happily. “Here.”

“I couldn’t. I’ll get Ms. Lottie’s makeup all over it.”

“That’s what it’s for,” he insisted.

I held my bow and fiddle in one hand while I took the handkerchief in the other and carefully blotted the sweat from my face. Sam produced another handkerchief from his pocket and did the same to his brow and the back of his neck.

“Keep it,” he said when I tried to give my handkerchief back to him. I hid it in my circle skirt and made a mental note to always carry my own tissues when playing with musicians who were better than me.

“Let’s go,” I said, inclining my head toward Mr. Hardiman, who’d turned around beside the Hallmark to watch us with an exasperated expression. When we started walking, he continued toward Macy’s.

Quietly I asked Sam, “Has your hair always been that dark?”

He gave me a quizzical look, mouth drawing up into a quirk. “No, it was blond when I was a kid. My dad told me I glowed like a flashlight.”

“Did you ever play at bluegrass festivals?”

“I’ve been to a few. Are you saying we’ve met?”

“Yes.” I marveled at how sure I was and, despite how different he looked, how little he’d changed.

He walked backward in front of me, taking a closer look at me. “Are you blond?”

Definitely not now. “I used to be.” I neglected to add that, unlike Sam’s natural progression from blond child to tall, dark, and handsome man, I’d chopped my blond hair off last year and dyed
it night black. If he never saw me without my redheaded ponytail wig, he’d never know.

He pointed at me. “You have a sister.”

He remembered exactly what I’d been trying to forget.

“But you’re the
older
sister,” he added, weighting his words to let me know older sisters were the world’s most desirable creatures.

I wanted to flirt back, but it was hard for me. I’d lost the ability to laugh without sounding sardonic. And past Sam’s shoulder, Mr. Hardiman stood near the entrance to the department store with his guitar slung over his back and his arms folded, staring up at the ceiling with deliberate patience, as if he’d been waiting hours for us.

“Your dad doesn’t like me very much,” I murmured.

“No, he doesn’t like
me
very much.” Sam gave me one last bright grin before we parted ways on either side of his father.

Mr. Hardiman strummed his guitar. “A little old-time bluegrass?” He wasn’t looking at me, but I figured he was talking to me rather than Sam. I couldn’t picture him okaying anything with Sam before he did it.

“Yes,” I said.

“Awesome,” Sam murmured, lips curving into that adorable smile, pick at the ready over his guitar strings.

“What do you know?” Mr. Hardiman asked.

Again, I assumed he meant me. “Everything.” Even to my own ears, I sounded weary as I said, “I know everything.”

“ ‘Soldier’s Joy’ then, in E.” He had to name a key for me this time. The song was older than America and had probably been recorded in all twelve keys.

I felt my adrenaline spike at the idea of playing one of the first tunes I ever learned on fiddle, a staple of late nights messing around at the edge of a bonfire after the main events at a bluegrass festival were over. The casual audience had gone home by then. Only us die-hard
campers, my family and several other families of musicians we’d grown close to over the years, were left to close down the night with ones and fours and fives and ones. Somehow this happy tune woke up those tired chords for me and made their familiarity a good thing.

Or maybe it was Sam who’d turned my mood around. As was typical, we played a couple of verses, took turns with solos, and then sang one verse. Bluegrass singing was about harmony rather than anyone having a strong voice. I automatically took the higher line in a group. Hearing Mr. Hardiman on the bottom with Sam in the middle, I wanted rather desperately to know what Sam’s singing voice really sounded like, but I couldn’t pick it out with my own voice filling my head.

The singing was over almost before it began. We ended the tune with another instrumental verse, then jumped into “Cripple Creek” almost immediately. This day was so different from my other days on this job. The music was faster, the musicians were better, the backup guitarist was a hunk from heaven, and we gathered quite an audience of customers coming out of Macy’s laden with shopping bags. Some got caught up in the infectious rhythm, tapping their toes. A gaggle of tween girls edged closer to Sam every time he looked up and flashed them that sweet grin. A toddler girl stood so close to me, staring way up at my flashing fiddle bow, that she made me uncomfortable. I looked around for her mother. If this little one caught the bluegrass bug, God help her. Better to spend her childhood watching TV and throwing rocks.

Though we amassed a big audience, we were supposed to be a traveling band. Mr. Hardiman was getting itchy, waiting for the proper time to end the set. It came when some teenage skater boys started their bad imitation of buck dancing at the edge of the crowd. Genuine buck dancing broke out at bluegrass festivals all the time, and admittedly, Julie and I had made fun of those backwoods
people and their spontaneous jigs. But fake buck dancing to our real music was an insult. It reminded me of Toby raising a pierced eyebrow and sneering every time he caught a glimpse of my fiddle.

Sure enough, at the end of that song, Mr. Hardiman announced, “I’m Johnny Cash. Thank you very much,” and started down the corridor without a word to Sam or me. Sam and I exchanged glances—mine startled, his resigned—and hurried after his father.

The rest of the afternoon passed that way. I did twice as much playing as I had with any other band. As we moved from our stop at Zales to our stop at Bath & Body Works to our stop at the Gap, Sam and I practically ran behind Mr. Hardiman. I was sorry Sam didn’t get much of a chance to flirt with me and I didn’t get much of a chance to respond with all the enthusiasm of a block of wood. I got the feeling Sam didn’t want to talk to me anyway. Not in front of his father.

A few minutes before six o’clock, we made our last stop in the food court, which was crowded with weekend shoppers. “Dad,” Sam said before his father could launch a song. “We’ve gone flat. Let’s take a minute to tune to the human pitch pipe here.” He flashed his brilliant grin at me.

People munching pizza and kung pao chicken from plastic trays snapped their heads up at us as I bowed an E for Sam and Mr. Hardiman to tune to. Over the note, Mr. Hardiman said, “I don’t know about you two, but I’m plumb tuckered out.”

He meant the three of us had tested each other that afternoon. He was attempting to be friendly.

“Wow, I don’t blame you,” Sam told his father. “Tired after four hours of work.”

Mr. Hardiman stared Sam down, Sam stared back, and I wasn’t sure what this animosity meant.

“ ‘Old Joe Clark’ in A,” Mr. Hardiman barked. Turning to me, he added, “We dress it up a little with a major G.”

I laughed at the idea of a seven chord turning this ancient song avant-garde. “Wow, a
major
G chord?” I exclaimed sarcastically before I thought.