Moody Food Read Online Free Page B

said.
    â€œSo by now I’ve about had it. I finish up the song I’m doing, put down my guitar, and walk off twenty minutes before the set’s supposed to be over. Go right to the very back of the club to sit by myself for a while and have a smoke and get my head together, you know?”
    I nodded.
    â€œAnd I’m almost starting to wind down when over walks one of the Mynah bunnies in her four-inch heels with a message and a cup of coffee that I didn’t order. ‘Thomas wants you to know he thinks you’ve got a lovely voice and wonders if he can borrow your guitar.’ I take a sip of the coffee and almost gag—the thing is half coffee and half whisky—and tell her he’s welcome to my guitar but that the owner doesn’t let audience members up on stage except during the Monday night hootenanny. ‘Groovy,’ she says, and hops off back to their table. In the time it takes me to light a new cigarette there he is on stage tuning my guitar.”
    Christine was at the window now sitting on the sill, trying to find the moon way up there somewhere between my building and the next.
    â€œAnd then what?” I said.
    Giving up on the moon, she came over and sat down beside me on the bed.
    â€œAnd then the funniest thing happened,” she said.

    â€œDid he finally get to do his country thing?”
    â€œYeah, but ... no. I mean, that’s the weird part. I’m not quite sure what he did. I mean, it definitely sounded like country—you could definitely call it country, I guess. But also, I don’t know ... religious, like gospel music or something. But not in a churchy way, you know? I don’t know how to explain it.”
    â€œWhat was it called? Was it his own tune?”
    â€œAfter he was done he said it was a Hank Williams song. And I don’t know Hank Williams from Adam, but I don’t think any country singer ever sounded like that.”
    â€œDid he say what the name of it was?”
    â€œâ€˜I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.’”
    Christine got up from the bed and fished out of her purse the clear plastic overnight bag she carried with her whenever she was staying over.
    â€œAnd then what happened?” I said.
    â€œJust what I told Miss Universe would happen. Bernie came out from the kitchen and saw that somebody else besides me was up on stage and told him to get off, that open stage was Monday night, and not to do it again.”
    â€œWhat did this guy say? Did he get mad?”
    Christine had her hand on the door knob to my room. The shared bathroom was at the end of the hall. “No,” she said. “Not at all, actually. He just set down my guitar, shook Bernie’s hand, told him, ‘You’ve got one wonderful place here, sir,’ and asked the waitress for a round of coffee and tea and espresso, whatever anybody was having. For the entire house.”
    â€œGet out of here.”
    â€œFor everybody in the place.”
    We both smiled.
    â€œAnd I got this.”
    Back to the dresser and out of her purse, a single red rose.

    â€œWhere’d you get that?” I said.
    â€œAfter I’d finished my whisky and coffee—”
    I started laughing.
    â€œI had to!” she said, laughing along. “If Bernie had found out somebody’d smuggled in booze and that I—”
    â€œOkay, okay,” I said, holding up my hand.
    She looked down at the rose. “After I shot the shit with Bernie for a while and was halfway out the door, guess who comes running up the stairs after me?”
    â€œ He gave you the rose?” I said.
    â€œUh huh. ‘For a fine country lady, whether she knows it or not.’”
    It had to be the same guy I’d run into at the bank the week before, I thought. It just had to be.
    Christine stuck the rose between her teeth and fluttered her eyes her hick-glamorous best.
    I took the rose back out.
    â€œHurry up and brush, you fine