Alex Bledsoe - The Hum and the Shiver

He fished one from his pocket.

“It’s too high. Look.” She slid the nickel under the twelfth fret. It lay flat against the neck, not touching the strings.

He looked at her and smiled. “I think it’s coming back to you.”

She realized he’d set the action high to see if she’d notice. It would make the instrument louder, but the fingering would be much harder. “That’s sneaky,” she said, but couldn’t repress a smile. “Have you got a screwdriver to adjust it?”

He twirled one in his fingers. “Always.”

After the action was reset, she plucked the two bottom strings and winced at the sound. “That’s not a G,” she said.

“No, that’s a bug screamin’ right before it hits the windshield. You want me to tune it, or you want to try?”

Despite the morning breeze, she was already sweating from the intensity. This had been second nature to her before she left home. The Bronwynator could retune a mandolin, make out with a boy, and sneak tokes off a joint without short-changing any of the tasks at hand. Now, though, she couldn’t quite recall how to tune the instrument, despite her best efforts. God, she thought, I hope I remember how to do those other things.

Before she had to admit it, though, Terry-Joe reached around so that his left hand covered hers on the neck. This brought her close against him. “Here’s how you do it when you ain’t got a tuning pipe or a guitar handy,” he said, and guided her fingers to the pegs. “Keep plucking the fourth string for me.”

She did. As he slowly adjusted the peg, the discordant sound of the two parallel strings merged into one clear note. “That’s it,” he said softly.

She turned to him, and suddenly, like in the movies, their faces were millimeters apart, close enough to feel the other’s breath on their lips. They gazed into each other’s eyes, and all she could hear was her own blood pulsing.

After a moment he blinked, smiled, and said, “Now you do the next one. Remember how?”

It took real effort for her to turn away. “I think… you hold down the fourth and get the third to sound just like that, right? That gives you the D.”

“Yeah,” he said. Her black hair brushed his cheek. “Tune the whole thing. That’ll be lesson enough for one day.”

He went to the edge of the porch and looked out over the yard, his back to her so she wouldn’t feel nervous under his gaze. Bronwyn did as he instructed, adjusting the deliberately discordant strings into the correct tones. As she worked, her memory gave up little flashes of experience so that she gradually recalled the proper tuning.

Movement drew Terry-Joe’s attention to the tree line at the edge of the yard. A greenish brown bird six feet tall, with long spindly legs and an erect neck, emerged tentatively into the open. It looked around, then darted its long neck down to test the grass. Two more emus peered out from the bushes, waiting for their scout to signal the okay.

Bronwyn saw it, too. She put the mandolin aside and raised herself with her arms to get a better look. “What the hell—?”

Terry-Joe waved his arms and shouted, “Hey! Get on outta here! Now!”

The lead emu shivered, its feathers rippling, then turned and dashed back into the woods. All three vanished.

Bronwyn said, “Was that an ostrich ?”

“Naw, one of Sim Denham’s emus.”

“Does he know they’re loose?”

“Know it? He let ’em loose. He had to file bankruptcy because of those stupid things, and when he couldn’t find a buyer, he just opened the pen and off they went. There’s probably a dozen of ’em in the valley, and if they survive the winter, they’ll start breeding.”

“When did that happen?”

“Back around the first of March, I suppose.”

Just before the mission that made her a celebrity, she calculated. “Wow. That’s weird, even for here.”

“Yeah. Most likely they’ll freeze to death, though.” He turned to face her. “So, back to work. How are you doing?”

She ran the pick across the strings. The sound shimmered in the morning air.

“Nice,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“So what sort of music did you listen to over in Iraq?”

“Whatever everyone else was listening to. Hip-hop or country, pretty much. Not a lot of middle ground.”

“Anything good?”

She shook her head. “It all sounds the same after a while. And it’s all…” She sought the right word. “Mean.”

He nodded. “I know. Gave up on the radio myself. Been listening to stuff from England lately, pipers and such. Ever heard smallpipes? Like a bagpipe, ’scept not as nails-on-a-chalkboard sounding.” He looked at his watch. “Okay, your homework: Get Aiden, if he ever wakes up, to knock Magda well and truly out of tune, then you retune her. Right now I have to get down to Jack Tenney’s to help him unload some seeds, but we’ll check your work tomorrow.” He met her eyes in a way that said more than any words. “It’s been a pleasure working with you, Ms. Hyatt.”

“Thank you, Mr. Gitterman,” she said, knowing exactly what the look meant and more, how much courage it took for him to risk it. She’d been his brother’s girlfriend, after all. It made her feel good in a totally new way. He walked down the hill to his dirt bike, the mandolin case in his hand. His wide, straight shoulders and narrow waist lent an echo of Dwayne’s swagger to his stride.

Terry-Joe’s bike passed another vehicle that pulled into the driveway and stopped. Craig Chess parked in the sun, willing to brave the hot interior rather than deal with the sticky residue dripping from the pecan tree. He waved to Bronwyn as he approached. “Good morning. Hope you don’t mind me stopping by.”

Bronwyn managed to keep her voice steady as Craig strode toward her. Terry-Joe was a good-looking boy, but Craig was a man, and the awkward feeling in her belly returned. “Not to tell a man his job, but shouldn’t you be in your pulpit?”

“Already done. The turnout was pretty light. Makes the service go quickly.” He sat on the porch steps at her feet. When he looked up at her, the sunlight edged her in a halo. It was a bit disconcerting. “You look like you feel better.”

“I do. Getting the Eiffel Tower off my leg helped.”

“I bet.” He nodded at the mandolin. “Do you play?”

“I’m learning,” she said truthfully.

“I read somewhere that music’s good therapy for head trauma. And, in my experience, for making life a little better in general.”

“Do you play?”

“I tinker. Piano, organ, some guitar. Never tried a mandolin, though.”

Chloe emerged from the house, barefoot and wearing a comfortable summer dress. Her black hair hung loose. Craig immediately stood. “Mrs. Hyatt,” he said.

“Reverend Chess, what a surprise.” She looked around. “Where’s Terry-Joe? Jack Tenney just called for him.”

“He’s on his way there,” Bronwyn said.

“I hope I’m not intruding,” Craig said. “I wanted to check on Bronwyn and see if she needed anything from town.” And, he thought to himself, to see what the devil Don Swayback meant about not finding the road. And to make up for being a coward on Thursday. “I’m going into Johnson City later this week, so if you all need anything picked up there, I’d be glad to.”

Chloe smiled, and for an instant Craig felt a little dizzy. The resemblance between mother and daughter was extraordinary, but the differences were even more pronounced. There was a hard edge to Brownyn, but Chloe was all soft curves and gentle feelings, an earth mother in the truest sense. And, he realized uncomfortably, as sexy in her mature way as Bronwyn was in her youthful one.