The Happy Hour Choir (3 page)

I shook off the epiphany and played another hymn with the same cold precision I had used to play the classics.

“Jazz 'er up,” she commanded.

My shoulders relaxed, and I leaned toward the piano as our trip to “Higher Ground” took on a winding Dixieland route.

“That's lovely,” Luke said calmly. “Now, could you please play number eighty-nine from the blue hymnal?”

The blue hymnal?
The last time I'd been at church, those bad boys had done nothing more than gather dust.

Luke cleared his throat. “There's a stack on top of the piano.”

I took one of the books in question, sucking in a deep breath. I could sight-read music—no problem there—but just the thought of something unexpected gave me another chill. I flipped to Luke's request and scanned the hymn, reading all the way to the bottom. Beethoven?

My fingers started slowly, fumbling only once before I recognized the melody as having come from Beethoven's Ninth. By the second verse I was confident enough to add my own syncopation and ornamentation.

“That's enough.” Luke's firm voice echoed through the sanctuary. “I would prefer you play all songs exactly as written.”

“Play it straight, Beulah.” Ginger spoke so softly, I almost didn't hear her. Still, I sat up tall and played as though the Mormon Tabernacle Choir planned to join in at any minute.

“Thank you,” Luke said with something that sounded oddly like victory. “I'll get you the bulletin for this Sunday, but I'm afraid you can't jazz it up. You may be talented, but that's not why you're here. I don't want people to get confused and lose their place while they're trying to sing.”

I slumped the minute he disappeared.
No jazz?
I could think of no worse punishment than having to play high church hymns every Sunday for the rest of my life. My stomach roiled.

“C'mon, Beulah Lou, it's not the end of the world.” But Ginger's tone of voice told me she knew he'd just sucked the life out of me.

I stepped down from the choir loft where the piano sat, and she gripped my hand. “You did a great job. I feel so much better knowing you'll be taking care of County Line.”

“Ginger, I still don't think this is a good idea. Maybe County Line doesn't want me to take care of them.”

Luke appeared and handed me a copy of the bulletin as well as pressing one of the blue hymnals into my arms. “I'm sure Miss Ginger can show you everything you need to know. But remember what I said about ad-libbing. This job isn't all about you.”

His barb stung, but I couldn't keep from looking up to meet his gaze. Was he making this demand because he knew about my piano playing at The Fountain, or did he have another agenda?

I wanted to ask him if the job was all about him, but I couldn't embarrass Ginger like that. Instead, I bit my tongue so hard I tasted blood. We walked down the center aisle, our shoes sinking into deep burgundy carpet that felt as though someone had put new carpet over the old instead of taking the time to rip up the worn-out bottom layer. Disapproval radiated from Ginger's stiff carriage, and I looked over to see her lips pursed. She herself had never been above embellishing the songs on the written page, particularly between verses.

Once outside, Ginger extended her hand for the keys. I hadn't proven myself worthy after all. I hesitated only a moment before placing them gently in her palm and reasserting the natural order of things. I eased around the hood and plopped back into the passenger seat, my seat. She lowered herself into the Caddy with a grunt, then sat as tall and straight as her osteoporosis-humped spine would allow. She threw out sharp elbows as she moved the gear shift on the side of the massive steering wheel. Something about the determination in her profile reminded me of the day she rescued me from my mother. Today, she had tossed me into the lion's den.

I crossed my arms over my modest sundress. Why hadn't he said no? He knew who I really was and still he'd gone along with Ginger. It made absolutely no sense.

But he didn't.

No, Luke Daniels wasn't a man to call out your sins in front of the whole congregation. I shivered at the realization that he might be waiting for another time to resume our argument.

Oh, well. I'd agreed to take the job. He'd be the one to decide if I kept it, and I'd seen a man with buttons to push underneath that unflappable exterior.

Chapter 4

O
f course I waited until Saturday afternoon to look at the hymns Luke wanted me to play. I dutifully plunked through each of them until I came to the last one, the invitation.

“Hey, Ginger, could you take a look at this?”

She hobbled into the room and leaned over my shoulder, squinting to read the hymn, as the familiar scent of Emeraude washed over me. “Never heard of it.”

“There are familiar songs in the book, and he comes up with this?”

“And it's in three-two time. That's going to be fun. Good luck.” She hobbled toward the kitchen before I could ask for guidance.

“Some piano teacher you are!” I yelled.

“The student has surpassed the master!” she hollered back.

“Surpassed the master, my ass. The teacher doesn't know how to play this song,” I muttered.

“Quit grumbling and get to playing! And quit cussing!”

I played through the crazy three-two song until I felt ready, but I had a feeling it was going to be a train wreck. What was that man up to and why couldn't he have been like every other preacher I'd ever known and tossed me out on my ear?

“Beulah, supper!”

I sat at the piano, my hands levitating above the keys. I had forgotten all about supper. I padded into the kitchen to see two boxes of pizza. Apparently, I had missed the doorbell ringing, too. “I like the way you cook, Ginger Belmont.”

“I learned from the best,” she said with a grin.

“Hey, that's my line!” I went to give her a playful slug on the arm, but my fist stopped short. Ginger was so fragile, I was afraid even the smallest touch might bruise her.

We took a seat at the metal-and-Formica table. Air whooshed from my chair.

“Beulah!” Ginger said as she waved one hand in front of her nose. I had to grin because she had to be feeling better to crack a crude joke like that. She passed me a paper plate, then the two-liter soda. “So, are you ready for tomorrow?”

“Not really,” I said between bites of pizza. “That man has no sense of an invitation—that's where he put that crazy three-two song.”

“Oh ho, and I suppose you're the invitational expert, considering you haven't been to church in”—Ginger put down her piece of pizza to count fingers—“nine years.”

“My daddy was a Baptist preacher.” I took a huge bite of pepperoni pizza, savoring sauce underneath melted cheese. “I almost starved to death on more than one occasion waiting for him to wrap things up.”

“I know that's right.” Ginger smiled. “Granny Reynolds was a Missionary Baptist, and sometimes I would go to church with her. They would always keep singing the invitation until someone came down the aisle. If they sang all five verses and no one had been moved by the spirit, they started repeating them. A couple of times I rededicated my life to Jesus just to get to the fried chicken.”

“Ginger!”

“That righteous indignation is rich coming from you! Nothing wrong with trying to be a better person, and being nicer was going to be a whole lot easier with a full stomach. Besides, you gotta admire people who are dedicated enough to sing all of the verses. Nothing lonelier than the third verse of a Methodist hymn.”

I nodded my head. “You know, maybe I should put to use all those Sundays spent on the first pew in black patent shoes and frilly anklets. Maybe Mr. Daniels needs to get a little Baptist in his invitation.”

“Beulah Land, I didn't get you to play the piano so you could cause trouble.”

“I'm not causing trouble,” I said as I stood up from the table and started putting leftover pizza in an oversize freezer bag. “I'm just helping him along. You know as well as I do that the whole congregation is going to balk at singing a bunch of new songs. You told me they can't even handle sitting in a different seat.”

“True,” Ginger said with a nod. “But you don't need to take your vendetta out on that man. He's not the one you have a beef with.”

She had a point. Luke couldn't be held personally responsible for all the things that had happened to me. He hadn't been the one to point and stare at me when I was a preacher's pregnant daughter or, worse yet, blatantly ignore me. He hadn't been the one to patronize me or make me feel like a second-class citizen in my own hometown.

But he had condescended that night at The Fountain. And he had forbidden jazz in his church, so I wasn't the only one with a vendetta.

Shrugging away any thoughts of the preacher man, I got a trash bag for the pizza boxes. Ginger preferred they leave the premises immediately because older houses harbor nooks and crannies that invite bugs, rodents, and other unsavory guests. “Hey, I'm headed to The Fountain. Do you need anything?”

“For you to behave yourself,” Ginger muttered as she crossed her arms over her chest.

I leaned over to give her wrinkled cheek a kiss. “Aw, Ginger, I always do.”

Sunday dawned quicker than I had hoped. Having run out of “respectable” dresses, I had surrendered to Ginger's safety pin even if I was afraid she was going to accidentally stab me in the boob as she closed the gap that showed my cleavage. Far better to risk a prick than to wear one of her shawls from the fifties.

We rode in silence to the church. She insisted on driving again. I didn't want to admit I was nervous, and she, blessedly, didn't feel the need to ask me. She patted my hand before we got out of the car. “You're going to do fine, Beulah. Just fine.”

It sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

I took my seat on the first pew, and Luke nodded at me before making his rounds. County Line only ran six pews deep so it didn't take him long to shake palsied hands and kiss wrinkled cheeks. Most everyone in the place was over the age of sixty.

At fifteen till, I took my spot at the piano in the choir loft. I looked over for Ms. Lola, but she wasn't playing the organ as she always had with Ginger. Instead, she sat on the second row with her arms crossed to indicate she wasn't joining me in the choir loft any time soon. I looked at Luke, and he nodded.

County Line didn't usually have a formal choir, so I waited for the spirit to move the usual suspects to come forward and climb the steps to join me in the loft. No one came. I played another hymn just to be on the safe side and realized the church piano was more out of tune than the one at The Fountain. As warped notes bounced off the walls, I reminded myself to get John the Baptist to tune them both as soon as he got back from Guatemala.

Playing the music as written, I ignored the itch to embellish, the desire to cover up the stark humanity of simple out-of-tune notes. As suspected, the congregation mumbled through the first song. I didn't hear Lottie Miller's distinctive rough-hewn soprano, so I chanced a glance over my shoulder. She sat beside her twin sister, Lola, with her arms also crossed and lips firmly closed. I told myself I didn't care what Ms. Lola and Ms. Lottie did, but my stomach flipped over in betrayal.

I narrowly resisted a nervous tic as I played a spiritual without being able to jazz it up. Luke looked back at me as we finished the song with a whimper, definitely not a bang. I glared at him for the injustice done to “Soon and Very Soon.” He arched an eyebrow that said, “My church, my rules.”

I eased into one of the choir seats next to the piano, immediately realizing the mistake of not going back downstairs to join everyone else. The eyes of the sparse congregation, some curious and some hostile, bore through me, so I studied the perfect crown on the back of Luke's head. He read that judge-not-lest-ye-be-judged passage, and I rolled my eyes. Please. Obviously, I was going to have to think of something, anything, other than what he was saying.

From my vantage point, I couldn't see his feet. Was he even wearing pants? What did he wear under those robes? I had a vision of him taking off his robe to reveal only a faux shirt collar and the old-fashioned sock garters and black socks with his dress shoes. Of course, he had to wear tighty whities. How could anyone as obsessed with rules and propriety not wear briefs?

I smothered a snicker into a cough, but he didn't miss a beat. Looking for something else to keep my mind off what Luke was saying, I almost reached for a Bible to thumb through it.

Yeah, no.

Next week I'd sneak a couple of magazines up to the choir loft. Maybe I'd see if I could read about
Cosmopolitan
's new sex positions while holding a properly pious look on my face.

“When my wife left me, it was easy to blame her.”

I sat up straighter.
Luke was married?

“It was too easy to hold myself blameless, to not see that God was leading us both to a better place. I had to take a look at myself, not just her.”

Intriguing.
I wonder what he saw.

What would it be like to have Luke look at you with affection crinkling those beautiful blue eyes? He'd given me a similarly friendly smile when he first walked into The Fountain. I frowned as I realized he hadn't been as judgmental then as I'd thought. After all, he'd walked in and ordered a beer. He'd enjoyed the music, even looked at me with respectful admiration, not like I was a slab of meat.

No. I wasn't going to feel guilty about that. I hadn't known who he was. Even if I had known, I would've still played the song.

So I probably would've skipped the winking part. Maybe the double entendre at the end. But I still would've played the song.

He looked to his left again, and I studied his profile. Why would any woman leave him? Sure, he was too uptight for my tastes, but there was an undeniable integrity about him. Or was it his decency that had ultimately repulsed her? Lots of women went after bad boys, but I could testify that bad boys were overrated. Still, I'd never survive a relationship with someone like Luke. He was too
good
and too
perfect,
the sort of man who would always emphasize how I fell short.

The congregation bowed their heads for the closing prayer, but I looked straight ahead. I might have fallen from grace so far as those people were concerned, but no way was some freaky off-kilter hymn going to wrap up
this
sermon. Luke said his amen, and I scribbled a number on a sheet of paper and passed it over the choir loft railing to the song leader who sat below me. Jason Utley looked at me like I had lost my mind. I pointed to the paper, and he shrugged his shoulders. Best I could tell, there wasn't a song leader alive who could resist “Just as I Am.”

Jason stood, and I turned to face the piano. He announced the change of hymn, and I could feel daggers in the back of my head, courtesy of one Luke Daniels. They were daggers of Christian love and fellowship, but they were daggers nonetheless. Jason's tenor warbled through all six verses of the song, and I struggled not to add one flourish, my concession for changing his song. I wrapped up the last verse and chanced to turn around. There stood a new family, three of only seven new faces, and they wanted to join the church. The daggers, I noticed, had subsided.

When I finally finished, Ginger clapped. Her lips twisted in that way that suggested she was somewhere between pleased and perturbed. “You played spectacularly. You even found a little heart there in those last numbers.”

“Thanks, Ginger.” I came down from the loft and gave her a hug. “Mexican?”

“Of course,” she said as I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “It's a Sunday, isn't it?”

“Perhaps I could join you?”

I looked up to see Luke still standing at the front door from where he had shaken the last hand. My gut twisted.
How would you feel if someone changed your songs?

Luke rocked on the balls of his feet, waiting for an answer. I wondered if he got nervous energy like musicians after a concert or athletes after a big game. This was his big performance of the week. And, of course, thinking of rock stars reminded me of Luke in nothing but tighty whities underneath his robe. I managed to convert that giggle into a cough as I looked at the floor and was irrationally disappointed to see sharply creased trousers hanging underneath.

“I think we might need to speak about my expectations.”

All of my goodwill dissipated. He wasn't keyed up or lonely; he wanted to ream me out for having the audacity to change his hymns.

“You have to understand, Beulah and I don't talk any kind of business at Sunday lunch,” Ginger said, despite my glare.

His blue eyes bored through us. “What if lunch is on me?”