Mazie Baby (6 page)

“No buts!” Cullen smacked the edge
of the counter with both palms and spun around.

Ariel backed away. “Okay. I’m
going.” She glanced at her mother, turned, and took the stairs two at a time.

Mazie stared at the floor, at the
ice cream that dotted her jeans, at her big toe that stood in a sticky puddle.

“Tell me again.” His shadow neared
her feet. “Tell me how I never use math.”

“I was just pointing out —”

“What? What were you pointing out?”
He stood inches from her, but her gaze never left the floor. “That I’m a
failure? That rig pigs and garbage men don’t need no stinking math?”

She swallowed. “You haven’t worked
the rigs for years.”

“Yeah, that was my point. Fuck.”

“Ariel wants to be a writer. Or a dancer.
Does it matter if she gets good grades in math?”

He shook his head and rolled his
eyes. “She needs to be more practical. There’s no money in dancing. Unless you
want her hanging naked from a pole.”

“So we don’t encourage her to
follow her dreams?”

He threw her a withering look. “Dreams
die. They suck the life out of you until you’re a fucking zombie. You want that
for her?”

She winced.

“If I hadn’t married someone so
stupid, maybe I could have lived out my dream, huh? Not be schlepping other
people’s trash day in and day out.”

She mustered enough courage to look
him in the eye. “You have to stop blaming me for your life.”

His fist swished through the air
and connected with her temple. A flash of light illuminated his face before everything
went dark.

~~~~~~~~

Mazie sat in the dim bar, her eyes
riveted to the stage. She took a long inhale, intoxicated by the haze of
cigarette smoke that wafted around her, the pinch of it at the back of her
throat, the darkness interrupted by a single white spotlight aimed at the singer.

It was the first time she’d seen
him and she was hooked in an instant. He sat on a stool, another stool beside
him. A lit cigarette rested in an ashtray, a wisp of smoke curled into the air,
past the beam of the spotlight, and disappeared into the blackness of the
rafters overhead. He sipped from a tumbler between songs. Not water. No, he wet
his lips and tongue and throat, kept those sultry vocal chords supple, with
amber liquor. Whiskey perhaps.

That first Friday night she sat in
the periphery, just outside the circle of stage light that he shared with a few
chosen admirers. She admired from afar. But not too far. Close enough that the whisper
of his guitar strap across the shoulder of his black leather jacket caressed
her ears, the clink of ice cubes in the tumbler punctuated the din of the bar.
His audible inhales of cigarette smoke made her long to light one up. Even
though she’d never put one to her lips before.

He strummed the guitar, stared at
his hands, watched his own fingers stroke its neck and pluck at each string.
His chocolate hair hung in front of his face like a stage curtain about to go
up. He built anticipation in her like a skilled lover brings his partner to the
edge of orgasm.  She held her breath until the climax, until he began to sing.

The first lyrics filled the room
and he looked into the faces of those who sat close by. His style was an odd
but intriguing mix of soul and blues with a touch of country twang. No covers,
all original songs he’d told his anticipating audience.

His voice pierced her heart. She
couldn’t take her eyes from his, though his were looking anywhere but at her.
Under the cover of the dark room she felt like a stalker, watching his every
move, lost in the emerald of his eyes that glowed with golden fire when the
spotlight hit him just so. His olive skin was luminescent, sweat beaded on his
forehead.

He removed his jacket and laid it
on the stage. He lifted the guitar strap back over his shoulder. The muscles in
his arm rippled and took her breath from her. When the set was finished, he
leaned into the microphone and thanked the audience, reminded them to stick
around for the main event, and hoped they enjoyed their night.

He gathered his jacket and stood to
his full height. She immersed herself in his black T-shirt, the sleeves
bisecting his pronounced biceps, admired the cut of his Levis and the black
boots with three-inch heels.

He held his cigarette between his
lips, squinted to keep the smoke out of one eye, snatched his drink, and walked
off stage, his back to her.

Her heart beat heavy in her chest.

“Mazie?” A hand tapped her thigh.

She shook herself from the trance
this man held her in and looked at her date for the evening. Allan. Nice young
man. Cute, if not a bit too skinny. Accountant in the making. Terribly polite
and chivalrous. Boring as hell.

“He was pretty good, I guess. Can’t
wait for the main act, though. They’re really going places.”

When the date ended, Allan took her
home. She didn’t invite him in. Turned one cheek to him when he leaned in for a
kiss. Said she’d call him. But she never would.

The next night, she returned to the
same bar. She sat alone at a table just inside the glow of the stage lights,
off to the right, directly in his line of vision. She wore her lowest-cut top, her
impressive cleavage impossible to miss. Her short skirt and highest black
patent stilettos accentuated her legs. And she wore her hair down for a change,
parted in the middle. Her raven locks draped over her shoulders and hung almost
to her waist. Only a bit longer than his.

What a striking pair they would
make.

A man stepped on stage and took the
microphone in hand. “Good evening, folks. Please give it up for our opening
act, Mr. Cullen Reynolds.”

Scattered applause popped pitifully
around her, but Mazie clapped with enthusiasm. The crowd was thinner, the
audience preoccupied with each other, their cell phones, the silent hockey game
on televisions that dotted the bar.

Cullen stepped onto the stage, put
his drink and cigarette down in their rightful place, and sat on the stool. He
reached his guitar strap over his head and adjusted the microphone.

Mazie leaned forward, her elbows on
the table, and ran one finger around the rim of her glass. The clatter of
dishes and murmur of voices disappeared and the bar went silent in her ears
except for the clink of ice cubes in Cullen’s drink.

He strummed his guitar, his hair
hanging in his eyes. A replica of the night before. When he lifted his head and
sang the first words, his eyes met hers. He hesitated, missed the second line.
“Fuck,” he said under his breath. He let out a small laugh and tapped his
fingers against the guitar strings to stop the music. “Sorry, folks. Got a bit
distracted there.” He said it to the room, but stared at her. He smiled, winked,
dropped his head, and started again.

This time he didn’t miss any words —
but he watched her like she was the only one in the audience and he was singing
just for her. About her. About them.

Near the end of his set, he shot
the rest of his drink and repositioned the microphone. “Going to try something
different tonight. Something I’ve been toying with. Bear with me, folks.”

He launched into an acoustic,
bluesy version of Rush’s
In the Mood
. Instead of the rocking, up-tempo
song she’d grown up with, it was slow, sensual. And aimed directly at her.

When he sang that he wanted to rock
and roll her until the night was gone, he flashed his eyebrows up and down at
her.

Heat rose in her cheeks and flooded
her belly. She crossed her legs and wiped a bead of sweat from her upper lip.

At the end of the set, he came
straight over and asked if he could join her. They made small talk, learned
each other’s names. He was from out west, doing a cross-country tour of small
bars and pubs, anywhere that would let him play. North Bay was just one stop on
a long list. Toronto and Montreal were next. He had demo CDs in the hopes that
agents or music industry professionals would hear him and be interested, but
hadn’t had a bite yet.

She got stoned off his cologne, the
fire in his eyes, off his dreams and dogged determination. She could barely
look away. But she had to pee.

She excused herself, turned back to
catch a glimpse of him. He watched her, their eyes met. From across the bar,
the arch of his one eyebrow was as obvious as his satisfied smile.

When she came out of the bathroom
he was right outside the door. He took her hand and led her to the end of the
hall, leaned her against the wall and brushed her hair back from her face, his
finger trailing across her neck and shoulder and down her arm.

Her heart nearly jumped from her
chest. Heat seared between her legs and sliced through her abdomen. She licked
her lips and leaned in. Their kisses were furious and passionate and wet. The
taste of his cigarettes and bourbon, yes, bourbon for sure, heightened her
arousal. He was a complete departure from her usual, steady, predictable,
clean-cut guy. She barely drank and she hated cigarettes. But he pushed every
button she had, and a few she didn’t know existed.

He ran his hands behind her and
pulled her hips to his, guided her along the wall, through a door, and into a
supply closet. In the darkness of that tiny room, the air thick with dust and
bleach and spilled beer, he hoisted her skirt, slid off her thong, and fucked
her silly. His lips moved from her neck to her cleavage and back to her mouth
where he buried her in kisses, his whiskers leaving a scratchy trail of goose
bumps in their wake.

After he climaxed, he zipped his
pants while she pulled up her underwear and shifted her skirt down.

“Wow.” He ran one finger between
her breasts. “Can I see you again?”

A pen on a string dangled from a
clipboard hanging next to the door. She wrote her phone number on his palm and dotted
the ‘i’ in her name with a heart.

He smoothed her hair, placed one
finger under her chin and kissed her with a simple tenderness that would stick
with her for years to come. Then they made their way back to the table so he
could gather his guitar and ‘work the room.’

“Gotta say, I fucking hate that
part, but you’ve got to do it if you want people to remember you. Maybe to buy
a CD.” He signed the jewel case of one with a sharpie, handed it to her, and kissed
her cheek. “Thanks. It was really great to meet you,” he whispered in her ear.
Then he turned and walked away.

She arrived home sated but aroused,
loopy with his sex and his smell. The next morning she was nothing but
embarrassed. She didn’t know where he was staying. Had no idea how long he’d be
in town. She was probably just one of a string of back-room trysts. And she
hadn’t even been careful about it, didn’t use a condom.

When her period arrived a week
later, the relief was overwhelming. She felt like a fool calling bars in town
to see if he was playing. But he was gone. And she was an idiot.

~~~~~~~~

Strange voices called out. A
cacophony of clicking and beeping and honking and wailing assaulted Mazie’s
ears, each noise like another punch to her head. Her hand found a metal bar
running alongside her body. She blinked against the bright lights, focussed on a
thin clear tube hanging above and followed it to a needle stuck in her arm. She
lifted her head. Stars exploded behind her eyes. “Shit.”

“Mommy?”

Her eyes sprung open. “Ariel?” She pulled
herself up, but a firm hand on her shoulder kept her down.

“Try to relax, Mrs. Reynolds.”

She looked up into the face of a
young man, a stethoscope dangling from his neck. The room swayed and jerked. No.
Not a room. She was in an ambulance.

“Ariel?” Mazie twisted her head until
she found her daughter sitting across from her, eyes swollen and nose red.
Dread filled her. “Where’s your father?”

“Ma’am,” the baby-faced EMT patted
her arm. “He’s being kept in holding. Domestic violence.”

“Oh no. No, no, no.”

“Ma’am?”

“How?”

“Your daughter, ma’am. She called
nine-one-one.”

“Ariel, why?”

Ariel started to cry. “I thought he
was going to kill you.”

Mazie closed her eyes. “Damn,” she
said under her breath. “I want to talk to the police.”

“They’re meeting us at the
hospital. They’ll take your statement there.”

She looked over to Ariel and held
her hand out.

Ariel took her hand. “I’m sorry,
Mommy.”

“No, don’t be sorry. It’s not your
fault. Nothing is your fault. We’ll go home and have a bath. Maybe you can
sleep with me tonight.”

“What about Daddy?”

“I won’t press charges.”

“You don’t have a choice in that,
Mrs. Reynolds.” The EMT pressed a finger to her side.

She cried out against the pain that
shot through her torso, gasped and turned to glare at him.

“Charges are automatic, he’s
already being processed. He broke a couple of ribs. I thought your eye socket
was broken too, but it looks like it’s just swollen. We’ll get it X-rayed to be
sure. You’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”