Alex Bledsoe - The Hum and the Shiver

“Get it yours— Oh,” he answered. “Yeah, right, forgot. Sure thing.”

A moment later the door opened, only instead of Deacon, Terry-Joe appeared holding a cup on a saucer with both hands. It still didn’t keep the two pieces of porcelain from clattering. “Uh… here,” he said as he extended the cup to her. “Finished your chair, too. Should roll a lot smoother now.”

She placed it on the small table beside her. “Thanks. You’ve changed a lot in the past two years, Terry-Joe.”

“You, too. You didn’t have an oil rig on your leg last time I saw you.”

She smiled. “That’s a fact. So shouldn’t you be in school?”

“I graduated in the spring. Doing odd jobs until the fall, when I go to college at UT.”

“And Dwayne?” She tried to make the question innocuous, but there was no hiding the catch in her breath when she said his name.

“He’s still around. Out on parole, not that he’s acting like that matters. Want me to tell him anything?”

“No,” she said quickly. She felt far too weak, in every sense, to deal with Dwayne Gitterman. “I’ll catch up with him one of these days.”

Terry-Joe put his hands in his jeans pockets and seemed about to say something. Finally Bronwyn prompted, “What is it?”

He leaned close. “Bliss also wants me to, ah… teach you.”

“Teach me?” she repeated, eyes wide.

“Mandolin,” he added quickly. “Help you relearn how to play. She said you were having trouble with that.”

“She did.”

He nodded.

“I didn’t know you played.”

He shrugged. “I don’t talk about it much.”

“I never saw you at the barn dance.”

“Back then I didn’t want to go because Dwayne was around.”

She nodded. “That makes sense. Well, mine’s under my bed. Go get her and let’s hear you.”

He retrieved Magda, sat on the porch steps, and spent a moment getting the feel of the instrument. Then, with no introduction or warning, he launched into a blistering instrumental version of “June Apple.” He stared into the middle distance, not watching his fingering. He played with the certainty of instinct married to skill, and Bronwyn’s mouth dropped open in response.

In the kitchen, Deacon heard the music and smiled. Chloe came in the back door, and he swept her into his arms and kissed her passionately.

She responded, her arms twining around his neck. When his hands began to roam knowingly, she quietly warned, “There’s kids just outside.”

“Then we best be quick and quiet,” he said as he nibbled her neck.

She giggled. “You’re never quiet.”

On the porch, Terry-Joe finished with a flourish and looked up to see Bronwyn’s reaction. She clapped, genuinely delighted. “Wow, Terry-Joe, you’ve been hiding that light under a bushel, all right.” Then she made a gesture, fingers curled in a specific way, she hoped he would recognize. But his expression didn’t change.

He stood, dusted off his pants, and extended Magda to her. “Want to try?”

She shook her head. “Not now.”

“Bliss wants me to—”

“And I will, Terry-Joe, just… not now.” She looked away. “I’m supposed to get this monster off my leg this weekend. Come by next Monday and I’ll seriously try, okay?”

He nodded. “Okay. ’Scuse me while I put this away.” He went back inside.

She watched robins dancing across the still-damp lawn as they sought worms. She’d known Terry-Joe wasn’t a full-blooded Tufa; he was close, but that difference could be crucial. Why would Bliss send someone like him to teach her? She was a First Daughter, after all. But Bliss would have her reasons, and most likely they would become clear later on. All she could do was wait, and endure, two things the Tufa mastered long ago.

Terry-Joe returned, followed by Chloe. “See you Monday, then,” he said as he went down the steps, awkwardly stumbling at the bottom. He rushed to his dirt bike propped under the tree and zipped off down the driveway.

Chloe shook her head. “That boy has a crush on you, you know.”

Bronwyn nodded, frowning at her mother. Chloe’s hair was disheveled, and her shirt was now on inside out. “He has since he was fourteen and caught me skinny-dipping with his brother.”

Chloe took several quick, deep breaths, as if calming down after some exertion. “Have you heard anything from Dwayne?”

“No, and I don’t want to. I’ve seen enough combat to do me for life.”

“Good,” Chloe said as she sat down on the steps. “That boy was bad news on toast. I wouldn’t have swerved to miss him if I’d seen him lying in the road.”

“He wasn’t that bad, Mom.”

She looked up at her daughter with the clear, steady eyes Bronwyn always feared. “He’s wired backwards, Bronwyn. He smiles when someone’s hurt.”

“Well, he won’t be around anymore.” Then she took a deep breath and added, “And some people worry the same about you.”

Chloe nodded. “I know. There’s been some signs. But there’s two things to remember: One, a sign can mean more than one thing, and sometimes we read them wrong. And two, nothing’s set in stone. The night wind don’t blow the same way twice.”

Bronwyn nodded at the charm hanging inert in the still morning air. “And better safe than sorry.”

Chloe smiled and undid the tie holding her black hair. “I’ve seen you and Kell graduate high school. I intend to see Aiden. Like to see grandkids before I’m done.”

Bronwyn wasn’t fooled by the optimism. “But you’ll teach me the song.”

She nodded. The passage of the family song from mother to eldest daughter was a major thing to the Tufa, and in this case, since both Chloe and Bronwyn were hereditary First Daughters, it was monumental. The loss of this song would devastate their community. “As soon as Terry-Joe has you able to play.”

“I’ll work real hard, Mom,” she said softly.

Susie Swayback stood in the bedroom doorway, hands on her hips, and said, “Donald Carter Swayback, what the hell are you doing?”

Don looked up from the floor, where he knelt as he pulled things from the closet. “Looking for my old guitar. Have you seen it?”

“Lord, do we still even have that thing?” Susie put her purse on the bed and sat down to remove her shoes. Susie had been adopted from China but raised across the line in Georgia, so she had a thicker Southern twang than even Don. It often disconcerted people when they traveled. “And why do you want to find it? Planning to sell it online?”

“No,” he said petulantly. “Thought it might be nice to start playing again. Just fooling around with it, you know. Is that okay with you?”

“You didn’t lose your job, did you?” Susie said accusingly.

“No!”

“Well, good,” she said as she took off her scrub pants. Susie was an X-ray technician at the county hospital, and for the past three months she’d been pulling third and first shifts to cover vacations, which meant she went to bed almost as soon as she got home in the evening. Don was beginning to feel like they were college roommates with mismatched class schedules instead of husband and wife.

“Ah-ha!” Don said. From the very back of the closet he pulled out the battered black cardboard case. He placed it flat on the foot of the bed.

“Don’t get dust on my comforter,” Susie warned. “And put that other stuff away.” She went into the bathroom; a moment later he heard the shower start.

Don opened the case. Inside was his cheap old Sunburst acoustic guitar, now some thirty years old. The remains of a sticker, probably for Nirvana or Pearl Jam, marred the surface. He lifted it, rested it across his lap, and lightly strummed. The sound shimmered, mingling with the shower noise. He adjusted the G string slightly, but otherwise it sounded in tune.