“Yep” was all his father said before launching the song. This time when we ended, my bowing arm was sore, something I hadn’t felt since I was a young player with no stamina. Sweat crawled down my face and pooled in my subtle 1950s cle**age.
“Let’s walk up to Macy’s and grace those folks with our presence,” Mr. Hardiman said. He took off in that direction without waiting for us.
I didn’t want to look like a groupie, but when Sam didn’t follow his father immediately, I waited with him. Grinning, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it out to me. He’d noticed my unattractive sheen.
“Hey, that’s period,” I joked. The only people I’d seen using handkerchiefs, other than actors in old movies, were elderly bluegrass musicians who smelled funny.
“Isn’t it?” he agreed happily. “Here.”
“I couldn’t. I’ll get Ms. Lottie’s makeup all over it.”
“That’s what it’s for,” he insisted.
I held my bow and fiddle in one hand while I took the handkerchief in the other and carefully blotted the sweat from my face. Sam produced another handkerchief from his pocket and did the same to his brow and the back of his neck.
“Keep it,” he said when I tried to give my handkerchief back to him. I hid it in my circle skirt and made a mental note to always carry my own tissues when playing with musicians who were better than me.
“Let’s go,” I said, inclining my head toward Mr. Hardiman, who’d turned around beside the Hallmark to watch us with an exasperated expression. When we started walking, he continued toward Macy’s.
Quietly I asked Sam, “Has your hair always been that dark?”
He gave me a quizzical look, mouth drawing up into a quirk. “No, it was blond when I was a kid. My dad told me I glowed like a flashlight.”
“Did you ever play at bluegrass festivals?”
“I’ve been to a few. Are you saying we’ve met?”
“Yes.” I marveled at how sure I was and, despite how different he looked, how little he’d changed.
He walked backward in front of me, taking a closer look at me. “Are you blond?”
Definitely not now. “I used to be.” I neglected to add that, unlike Sam’s natural progression from blond child to tall, dark, and handsome man, I’d chopped my blond hair off last year and dyed it night black. If he never saw me without my redheaded ponytail wig, he’d never know.
He pointed at me. “You have a sister.”
He remembered exactly what I’d been trying to forget.
“But you’re the older sister,” he added, weighting his words to let me know older sisters were the world’s most desirable creatures.
I wanted to flirt back, but it was hard for me. I’d lost the ability to laugh without sounding sardonic. And past Sam’s shoulder, Mr. Hardiman stood near the entrance to the department store with his guitar slung over his back and his arms folded, staring up at the ceiling with deliberate patience, as if he’d been waiting hours for us.
“Your dad doesn’t like me very much,” I murmured.
“No, he doesn’t like me very much.” Sam gave me one last bright grin before we parted ways on either side of his father.
Mr. Hardiman strummed his guitar. “A little old-time bluegrass?” He wasn’t looking at me, but I figured he was talking to me rather than Sam. I couldn’t picture him okaying anything with Sam before he did it.
“Yes,” I said.
“Awesome,” Sam murmured, lips curving into that adorable smile, pick at the ready over his guitar strings.
“What do you know?” Mr. Hardiman asked.
Again, I assumed he meant me. “Everything.” Even to my own ears, I sounded weary as I said, “I know everything.”
“ ‘Soldier’s Joy’ then, in E.” He had to name a key for me this time. The song was older than America and had probably been recorded in all twelve keys.
I felt my adrenaline spike at the idea of playing one of the first tunes I ever learned on fiddle, a staple of late nights messing around at the edge of a bonfire after the main events at a bluegrass festival were over. The casual audience had gone home by then. Only us die-hard campers, my family and several other families of musicians we’d grown close to over the years, were left to close down the night with ones and fours and fives and ones. Somehow this happy tune woke up those tired chords for me and made their familiarity a good thing.
Or maybe it was Sam who’d turned my mood around. As was typical, we played a couple of verses, took turns with solos, and then sang one verse. Bluegrass singing was about harmony rather than anyone having a strong voice. I automatically took the higher line in a group. Hearing Mr. Hardiman on the bottom with Sam in the middle, I wanted rather desperately to know what Sam’s singing voice really sounded like, but I couldn’t pick it out with my own voice filling my head.
The singing was over almost before it began. We ended the tune with another instrumental verse, then jumped into “Cripple Creek” almost immediately. This day was so different from my other days on this job. The music was faster, the musicians were better, the backup guitarist was a hunk from heaven, and we gathered quite an audience of customers coming out of Macy’s laden with shopping bags. Some got caught up in the infectious rhythm, tapping their toes. A gaggle of tween girls edged closer to Sam every time he looked up and flashed them that sweet grin. A toddler girl stood so close to me, staring way up at my flashing fiddle bow, that she made me uncomfortable. I looked around for her mother. If this little one caught the bluegrass bug, God help her. Better to spend her childhood watching TV and throwing rocks.
Though we amassed a big audience, we were supposed to be a traveling band. Mr. Hardiman was getting itchy, waiting for the proper time to end the set. It came when some teenage skater boys started their bad imitation of buck dancing at the edge of the crowd. Genuine buck dancing broke out at bluegrass festivals all the time, and admittedly, Julie and I had made fun of those backwoods people and their spontaneous jigs. But fake buck dancing to our real music was an insult. It reminded me of Toby raising a pierced eyebrow and sneering every time he caught a glimpse of my fiddle.
Sure enough, at the end of that song, Mr. Hardiman announced, “I’m Johnny Cash. Thank you very much,” and started down the corridor without a word to Sam or me. Sam and I exchanged glances—mine startled, his resigned—and hurried after his father.