you’re sleeping
And I’m never the one on your mind
And on like that to the instrumental bridge, then he’s holding his breath waiting for her to come in early and start the note and slide it down and he’s kicking himself that they’ve never practiced it this way, they should have stopped and run through it a couple of times at least, but it’s too late. And then it comes, not the way he heard it in his mind when he asked her to try it but a hundred times better, her whole heart in it, hell yes, and his insides are so excited he almost forgets which place he’s supposed to come back in on harmony, which is . . .
And faithful don’t mean just trying
And trusting you
Has got to mean more
Than another way to lose
Oh-h-h, trusting you
Has got to mean more
Than another way to lo-o-o-ose . . .
Hot damn, that was it. They just about nailed it, that time. Never sounded better.
Silence from the group of boys. A couple of nods.
“Nice. Very nice,” says Crews. “So tell me. What are you selling, here?”
Travis glances at Jenny, but she looks back blankly. “Beg pardon?” he asks.
“Your song? The act? Your vocal, her vocal? What? I need you to give me a little direction here.”
“Oh. Uh, we’ve got a band . . .”
Crews looks puzzled. “A van?”
“A band. Our, uh, drummer had to work today. He couldn’t come. And, uh . . . well, we’ve got a van we’ll sell you, too, come to think of it.” He laughs at his own joke to break the ice a little. Four stone faces look back.
“Do you pick, hon?” Crews asks Jenny.
“Some. Yessir,” she nods.
“Actually, it’s more than ‘some,’” Travis butts in. “She can play bass, dobro, mandolin, banjo. Hell of a fiddle.” The reason they never push this in auditions, unless somebody asks, is that Jenny can play and sing but not both at once. Strangest damned thing. Try as she might, it just won’t work. And the best answer she can ever give as to why she can’t play while she’s singing makes her blush a little. It’s like trying to type while you’re . . . you know. No, I don’t know; what? You know. Making love.
“So you’re not pitching songs,” Crews says to Travis.
“Well . . . sure. Yeah. That too.”
“I mean, you’re not against selling one to somebody who can si— . . . uh, a singer that’s more established in the business, is what I’m saying. Sort of a known quantity.”
Travis forces a smile. “I’d sell ’em a song in a heartbeat, yessir. You bet.”
In the silence that follows, one of the golf boys drums his fingers softly on the table, and another uses the stub end of his ink pen to slide one of the green computer pages toward himself without being too noticeable about it.
“Tell you what,” Crews says brightly, “I’ll walk out with you.” He puts one arm around Travis and the other around Jenny, steering them toward the door.
It’s not until Crews has told them good-bye and gone back inside, and they’re waiting for the elevator, that Travis realizes how expertly he’s given them the old blow-off . . . Where y’all from? Really? I’ve got some good friends near there . . . so smoothly that Travis just now remembers he failed to leave a demo tape and a business card.
When they go back, the dark wooden door is locked. Travis kicks it once with the toe of his boot, then realizes this is unprofessional behavior and heads back toward the elevator.
“Trav?” Jenny says. She’s still at the office door. “Shouldn’t we . . . ?” When he looks back, he sees what she’s nodding toward, looking a little ashamed. Beside the door is a wooden crate, the kind fruit is shipped in, with a sign on it in curlicue lettering: demos here, please.
He’s heard that this is done nowadays, but has never seen it till now. With morbid curiosity he looks inside and sees cassettes scattered on the bottom a couple of layers deep. Three or four dozen of them, easy. He looks Jenny solid in the eye. She looks down at her feet. “Just a thought,” she says.
He takes the cassette out of his pocket, a business card rubber-banded to it, and draws back his arm high and hard as if he means to throw the tape clear through the bottom of the crate. Then he catches himself and looks over at Jenny, but she’s staring away from him, down the hall. He leans forward and lays the tape carefully on the middle of the pile, its distinctive yellow plastic shell and light blue business card immediately lost in all the colors of cassettes and cards underneath it, like an oversized Easter basket.
Out on the street he walks fast, not saying anything, and Jenny has trouble keeping up.
“Travis? Where are you going? I thought the van was back this . . .” He doesn’t answer, keeps walking.
“Oh,” she says.
The city is coming slowly to Saturday-morning life. Vagrants change sides of the street to catch the warmth of the sun, and too-early tourists, with cameras around their necks, rub their eyes and plod in search of breakfast.
Three blocks on the right, at the end of a row of pawn shops and X-rated theaters, Travis turns in under the sign for Momma Lee’s Place and Jenny follows him. It’s a beer and short-order joint, little lighted signs everywhere for Heineken and Miller and Michelob still turned on from the night before. There’s only five or six people in the booths, but the air is blue with cigarette smoke and the smell of frying sausage.
Travis goes all the way to the back and slides into a booth opposite an old black man with little gold-wire glasses who’s reading the morning paper. Jenny slides in beside Travis, but it’s still several seconds before the man looks up and sees them.
“TeeBo!” Travis says. “What it is, man?”
TeeBo shows big white teeth and raises his arm for Travis’s high-five. He tips an imaginary hat toward Jenny. “How you, darlin’?”
He folds up his newspaper and drains the rest of his coffee cup, making a face at the taste. “So what brings y’all to Gomorrah this fine day?”
“More of the same, bud,” Travis says sadly. “Listen . . .” He glances side to side to see who’s overhearing, and then lowers his voice. “My rear end’s dragging. You, uh, know what I’m saying? I need a little pick-me-up. Little boost.”
The transaction is an old one, but TeeBo is obliged to act troubled by it, a little unsure, scratching at his chin and considering. “They was ever to catch me,” he says to Jenny, as if she’s the jury, “I’d be one gone black child.”
“Hey, man, we’re discreet,” Travis says. “We’ve never made you look bad before, have we?”
But TeeBo already has out what he needs, extending it across the table in a closed fist like candy, dropping it into Travis’s hand: an ancient door key, tarnished almost black by time and use.
“Fitteen minutes,” TeeBo says sternly. “The touris’ starts lining up at about nine.”
“You got it,” Travis says, the two of them sliding out of the booth to go. As Travis gets up he says, “You wouldn’t play me an E-flat for luck, would you?”
The man looks offended. This, a part of the transaction too.
“TeeBo don’t play flats,” he scowls. “Just sharps.”
He whips a tiny silver harmonica from the shirt pocket of his janitor uniform and, shutting his eyes, plays a note as long and lonesome as a train whistle, warbling a little at the end as it passes from hearing.
“Much