I Can't Make You Love Me, but I Can Make You Leave Page 3

  As Roxie passed behind Bob, she said, “Jesus, Eddie, when was the last time you took a shower?”

  Darla gasped.

  Fuck you, the guitarist mouthed silently and raised his middle finger at Roxie’s back.

  “Don’t worry about it, Eddie,” Darla said, placing a supportive hand on his shoulder. “She’s just mean.”

  “I ain’t worried. She keeps pissin’ people off and she’ll get hers one of these days.”

  “Let’s get inside out of this heat.”

  They joined the group in a large corner booth and picked up laminated menus that were greasy and worn from use.

  “Looks like the choice is a hamburger with all the fixin’s or a cheeseburger with all the fixin’s,” Bob said, smiling. “Wonder why they bothered printing menus?”

  “Humph,” Roxie said, too loudly. “I’m wondering why anyone would bother doing anything but leaving a shithole town like this.”

  “Roxie,” Bob said quietly, “lower your voice. This town might not look like much to you, but people are loyal to their hometowns. They don’t appreciate strangers coming in and running things down.”

  “Yeah, hot stuff, where’re you from?” the backup singer named Kay drawled. “Any place anybody ever heard of?”

  Roxie gave her a phony smile. “Oh, maybe. How about Los Angeles? Ever heard of L.A.?”

  “Sure, but I don’t own up to it. That explains why you ain’t fittin’ in as part of this group.”

  Darla let out a sigh of exhaustion. Scanning the room, she spotted an arrow that pointed to the rear of the café for restrooms. She picked up her purse. “I’m going to the ladies’ room. I’m bored with this whole conversation.” Winking at Bob, she slid across the cracked vinyl booth seat. “Y’all try to settle this before I get back.”

  A few minutes later she was standing before the mirror examining her artfully applied eye shadow when she heard the sound of two male voices just outside the door. She opened the door only to be startled by Bob leaning against the wall.

  “Dammit, Bob, you scared me. Are you waiting for the john? ’Cause if you are, the men’s room is farther on up the hallway.”

  “No, I’m waiting for you,” Bob said in a hushed tone. Taking her by the arm, he led her a few steps away from the restroom door. “Honey, we’re in real trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “The green kind you fold and put in your wallet.”

  “Oh, that kind,” she said with a flip of her hand. She started to walk past him, only to be spun around and jerked back to face him. “Bob,” she said testily, “a shortage of green has been our problem from the beginning. Why are you acting like this is some late-breaking news moment?” She lifted her arm from his grip. “I want to go order a burger, if you don’t mind.”

  Bob stepped in front of her and blocked her path. “You can’t afford a burger.”

  Darla stared at him for several seconds, studying his serious expression. “Okay, I’m listening.”

  He explained that minutes earlier, he had been talking to Little Earl Elkins, who had driven out to the bus, completed an inspection and worked up an estimate on the repairs. “Getting the bus fixed will wipe us out until we finish the next paying gig,” Bob said in conclusion.

  “What about our reserve? We had some put back.”

  “I’m including the reserve.” He thrust his fingers through his neatly combed salt-and-pepper-gray hair, a gesture that told of his worry. Darla had always loved his hair. It was just as thick now as it had been when they were kids. No balding for Bob.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s my fault. I should’ve never let you talk me into this. And unfortunately, Darla, I can’t foot the bill for this myself.”

  Darla knew hard times had befallen her former husband. Once he had lived large, but now she suspected his only clients were herself and Roxie. And neither of them was making him rich. “It isn’t like you to jump to conclusions. Let’s wait and see what the real cost is. It could be less than the estimate.”

  “Or it’ll most likely be more. Besides, it can’t be less. Little Earl said he was charging us for parts only. Apparently he’s a big fan of yours. I don’t know anything about repairing engines, but Mike does—”

  “Wait. Tell me again. Who’s Mike?”

  Bob sighed. “Mike’s the drummer.”

  “Oh, yeah. Okay, what did Mike say?”

  “His brother is a mechanic for Greyhound. They’ve talked before about the cost of maintaining those bus fleets. He said Little Earl has given us a helluva good price.”

  Darla’s mind whirled, trying to formulate a plan. “We can cover the repair, right, then scrimp on everything else?”

  “It’s not just the repair, honey,” Bob said softly. He began ticking off reasons on his fingers. “We’re talking days to get the parts in. We all have to sleep somewhere. We won’t be able to use the bus as planned.” He went to finger number two. “We’ve got to eat, so there’s the cost of food for all of us.” Finger number three. “There’s transportation, now that we don’t have a bus. It’s going to take a miracle to get us out of this one, Darla.”

  Darla’s mind was too busy wrapping itself around the situation to comment.

  Bob ran his fingers through his hair again. Now his usually neat hair looked as if it had never been combed. “We might as well go tell the others.”

  “Tell them what?

  Bob’s shoulders sagged, his arms hung limp. “Are you even listening to me? We can’t pay them until at least two weeks from now. We can’t even get them back to Nashville. After I pay for these burgers, I might have two hundred dollars left on my credit card, but I doubt it.”

  “You don’t think they can wait two weeks for payday? Big companies only pay every two weeks all the time.”

  “That’s true, sweetheart, but these people were all broke when I hired them. I promised them a paycheck now. Just this morning, even before we got on the bus, three of them approached me for an advance.”

  “I know how they feel,” Darla said. “I’m tapped out myself. I couldn’t get a dime if I swallowed one and had to wait for it to pass. I maxed out my own credit cards at that Fort Worth beauty salon.”

  “Why, when we’ve got Valetta—”

  “No way am I letting that Valetta Rose touch my face,” she snapped.

  And Darla meant it. Before the bus ever left Nashville, Roxie had demanded that Valetta Rose be hired despite Darla’s protests that a makeup artist wasn’t needed. But wherever Roxie was, Valetta Rose was stuck to her like Velcro.

  “You should use her,” Bob said. “She’s one of the few things around here that’s paid for.” He glanced toward the dining area. “We’ll have to talk to them. Try to make them understand.”

  “We didn’t plan on this. They have to understand. What other choice do they have?”

  Shouting erupted from the dining room. Darla and he exchanged glances. “Hell. That’s them, isn’t it? It sounds like we need to go referee something.”

  “I don’t know what they’re arguing about,” Bob said, “but this news isn’t going to make them any happier. Let me do the talking. I’m better than you are at talking to musicians and singers about money.”

  “I’m not so sure of that,” Darla grumbled as he brushed past her. “You just talked to me about the subject and now I feel like shit.”

  She followed Bob back to the dining room. They found their corner booth empty except for Roxie and Valetta Rose. Roxie was pounding the bottom of a ketchup bottle above a mound of French fries.

  “What the hell happened here?” Bob demanded. “We heard shouting. Where did everyone go?”

  Before answering, Roxie set the plastic ketchup bottle on the table with a thud, then gingerly picked up a fry with her fingertips and popped it into her mouth. “I told them we didn’t have the money to pay them. There was a trucker in here getting coffee. He told the girls he was headed east. He said he’d take them to the bus to get their
things, then they could ride with him to Nashville.”

  Darla’s jaw dropped. “What about the band? Did the guys leave too?”

  “Naw, they’ve got nowhere to go, but the trucker offered to take them to the bus to make sure no one made off with their instruments.”

  Darla looked to Bob, bug-eyed, waiting for a response. His face had turned a bright scarlet and his eyes were watering. She had seen this gentle man really angry few times. She chose to remain silent.

  “You . . . did . . . what?”

  Darla knew he was close to sputtering, but Roxie was unfazed—or unconscious. She continued stuffing French fries into her mouth. “That’s what you told me, Robert. And you didn’t tell me it was a secret that I needed to keep to myself.”

  “But you had to know how they would react. Why in the hell didn’t you let me break the news?”

  “I would’ve been happy to let you tell them,” Roxie sassed, “but you were in the back with country music’s only living fossil. I was left to handle the situation and I did it the best I knew how. Let’s just say it was a judgment call.”

  Darla bent forward, her chin jutted. “Here’s another judgment call, dimwit! You’re a damned idiot!”

  Roxie sprang from the booth, her fists knotted at her sides. “Let’s do it, Darla! Right here, right now!”

  “Damn right!” Darla began tugging off her rings and throwing them into her purse.

  Bob placed himself between them. “No one is going to do anything. Not now or any other time.” He looked from one woman to the other. “We are up a shit river with no paddle and the tide is coming in. Do either of you have an idea to get us out of this? If so, I’d really like to hear it.”

  Roxie glared at her husband. “Don’t you dare offer to pick up a dime of her expenses, Bob Denman. If you do, you’ll never climb into my bed again.” She turned to Darla and gave a syrupy smile. “It’s your comeback show, Mizzz Denman. I guess that makes this whole fiasco your problem.”

  “Hell, this isn’t a problem,” Darla drawled with bravado. “Having five hungry kids and no money to buy groceries or pay the rent is a problem. We’ve still got a band and I’ve still got a voice.”

  “Darla, we need the backup singers,” Bob said. “They’re a big part of the show.”

  “Perhaps. But I’ll tell you who isn’t part of the show. And that’s Valetta Rose. Why didn’t she go back to Nashville with the backup singers? I think I’ve already said if there’s anything we don’t need, it’s a makeup artist.”

  “Valetta Rose is none of your business,” Roxie said. “I hired her myself. She stays.”

  Valetta Rose sat silently in the booth, nibbling on Roxie’s French fries.

  “Roxie’s paying for her,” Bob said.

  “No, she isn’t,” Darla countered. “You’re paying for her, Bob.”

  “Darla, Roxie’s my wife and this is her debut. If she thinks she needs a makeup artist, that’s fine with me.”

  Darla stared into his eyes for long seconds trying to read his thoughts, but finally told herself how utterly silly it was for her to argue with him over something Roxie wanted. Of course he would side with Roxie. She was, as he said, his wife.

  Darla didn’t want to use her energy to argue anyway. A possible solution was forming in her mind. “Look,” she said. “I’ve got an idea. A chance of a lifetime for someone. A chance to become a part of music history. Y’all wait here for the guys to come back. I’m going to the beauty salon. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  Chapter Three

  Debbie Sue Overstreet, lifelong resident of Salt Lick, Texas, and co-owner of the Styling Station and the Domestic Equalizers detective agency, hung up the phone. When she had first seen Sheriff Billy Don Roberts’s name on caller ID, she had dreaded answering, but now she was glad she had.

  His call brought some excitement she could never have foreseen when the day started. She wouldn’t have believed she would have the chance to see, or possibly meet, the Queen of Country Music, alive. She thought Darla Denman was dead.

  Now, after her partner, Edwina Perkins-Martin, had gone home for the day, Debbie Sue had to get her back to the salon. Edwina was a true, diehard Darla Denman fan. Many times she had said, “Next to Patsy Cline, nobody sings country better than Darla Denman.” Edwina’s vintage Mustang was littered with the singer’s CDs. She had seen her perform in venues from honky-tonks to concert halls. And when given the opportunity to drop her coins in a juke box, Edwina always picked Darla Denman’s old songs. Without a doubt, she would flat-out die if she missed this opportunity to see her idol in person.

  Five burrs later, Debbie Sue had Edwina on the line. Bypassing “hello,” she said urgently, “Ed, what are you doing? I mean, are you doing anything you can’t stop?” Not allowing an answer, Debbie Sue rushed on. “Listen, whatever you’re doing, get back to the salon quick. Have I got a surprise for you.”

  “What in the hell have you done?” Edwina asked in her twangy Texas drawl. “Tell me now. Don’t make me come back to the shop.”

  “No, I’m not telling you. I want to see the look on your face. Now hurry up and come back.”

  “Can’t you bring the surprise to me?”

  “Not possible. Stop arguing, Ed. Trust me. If you miss this, you’ll never get over it.”

  “Well, my stars. Okay, then. But it’s gonna take a while. I’m in my robe. I came home, washed my makeup off and put an egg-white mask on my face. And I’ve got a rinse on my hair. That new color we got in, Java Mist. It’s got thirty minutes to go.”

  “Ed, why didn’t you let me put color on your hair here at the shop?”

  “Me? Take a chance on the public seeing me with my beehive hairdo combed out and a rinse on my head? Puleeze. I’d rather be shot.”

  Debbie Sue chewed on her thumbnail. Billy Don hadn’t said how long Darla Denman and her band would be at Hogg’s. They could be leaving any minute, which meant that not only would Edwina miss getting a glimpse of her idol, she wouldn’t get a once-in-a-lifetime chance to meet her in person either. “Dammit, Ed, I don’t know how long she’ll be here.”

  “Who? Listen, hon, I don’t care who it is. I wouldn’t let anybody see me in my current state. Whoever it is, take a picture.”

  Debbie Sue, with the phone still pressed to her ear, stamped to the window. Two women and three men were walking out of Hogg’s. They were too far away for her to identify them, but if she didn’t spill the secret to Edwina soon, she herself wouldn’t get close enough to Darla Denman for a handshake, much less a picture. Panic overtook her. She shook her free hand frantically. “Darla Denman, Ed! Darla-fuckin’-Denman is at Hogg’s Drive-In! Alive and well! Her bus broke down outside of town and I don’t know how long she’ll be here.”

  A high-pitched squeal pierced Debbie Sue’s eardrum.

  Bang . . . clatter . . . crash . . . Then silence.

  Oh, hell. “Ed? . . . Ed, you still there?”

  Debbie Sue couldn’t waste any more time on the call. Her job was complete, her duty done. She had to get to Hogg’s. But first—Edwina had been right about the picture—she had to find her camera. Damned thing was never where it should be when she needed it. Scurrying from one styling station to the other, she opened all drawers and pawed through the contents.

  Frustration building, she thought of the camera on her phone, even though she had yet to make a picture with it that had turned out well. She strode toward the storeroom, shoved back the floral curtain that covered the doorway and grabbed her purse off a shelf. Digging inside it and finding nothing, she had to acknowledge she was getting nowhere at an alarming rate. And to make matters worse, the Christmas bells tied to the front door jangled, signaling the arrival of a walk-in needing a hairdo or something.

  “Dammit, not now,” Debbie Sue mumbled under her breath, throwing a hairbrush out of the purse. “I’ll be there in a sec,” she yelled at the doorway.

  “Where in the hell is that fuckin’ camera,” she whispered throu
gh clenched teeth, finding three tubes of lipstick she thought she had lost.

  “Hey,” she shouted at the doorway again, “you wouldn’t happen to have a camera on ya, would you? You know, one of those disposable things?”

  Now she had a wad of old receipts in hand that had probably been in the bottom of her purse for months. “Shit,” she stage-whispered, then yelled at the doorway, “I need to get to Hogg’s and prove a living legend isn’t dead.”

  She threw her purse back on the shelf and started back into the salon. Yanking open the floral curtain, she halted in her tracks. Her eyes had to be playing tricks on her. Either Darla Denman or a damn good double was sitting in Edwina’s styling chair. Her right leg was crossed over her left knee. Silver high-heeled sandals were strapped onto her feet and she was wearing a pair of jeans that could only have come from BrazilRoxx. Debbie Sue was sure she had seen them in Cowboys and Indians magazine boasting a stratospheric price tag.

  The visitor removed her dark sunglasses and showered Debbie Sue with one of the most photographed smiles in the music industry. “I don’t have a camera. Would an autograph suffice? That is, if I’m the living legend you thought was dead.”

  Debbie Sue jumped as if zapped by a cattle prod and stepped into the salon. “Oh, no, Miz Denman. You are Darla Denman, right? I was talking about . . . uh, I meant that . . . well, you see—”

  “You aren’t trying to convince me there was more than one living legend at that little café this morning, are you?”

  The woman’s crimson smile and the fact she was trying to stifle laughter made Debbie Sue relax and release her own nervous titter. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been a fan of yours for as long as I can remember. It’s just that it’s been so long since we’ve heard anything new from you. We just assumed—”

  “That I was dead? Yeah, I get that a lot. Too bad my creditors didn’t make that assumption. Those bastards will dig you up for a late charge.”

  “God, don’t I know it,” Debbie Sue said.