Beautiful to the Bone (The Enuis Trilogy #1) (40 page)

“You’re right. Think how differently a Tahitian and an Eskimo might consider what’s beautiful.”

“Based on what they can even see.” His eyebrow went up, roguish.

“Yes,” I said thinking
damn he’s cute
and warming to his interest, “and there are specific criteria analyzing the face, like symmetry using numeric calculations, and perceived visual cues, say about our immune system, and,” I hesitated, “smell. The research indicates that even smell impacts our perception of beauty.”

“So many ways to skin a cat.” He mugged, put both hands behind his neck and stretched.

“Yes,” I flashed on Levi.

He leaned forward, his hands back on the table. “So the day is coming when my pitch to you for a date is ‘I was down there at the end of the bar with my buddies and I couldn’t help notice that your immune system looks very cool. I think your symmetry and my smell would be great together.’”

I laughed. “Something like that.”

“And then the more you see and smell me, the more attractive you’ll find me.” His eyes and cheeks closed in on each other: his pocket smiles.

“Could be.” My crescent moons out of my control.

“Hmmm. But besides my getting a date with you —which I admit is critically important— what is the
purpose
?”

“To make life easier, to make people happier. At least looking like this wouldn’t be a deterrent.”

Something like a hiccup erupted before he covered his mouth, coughing out something between a belch and a small laugh. I couldn’t be sure.

“What?!”

“I’m sorry.” He took my hand across the table. “Has your research shown that to be true?”

I removed my hand from his. “I can’t solve every problem but it seems obvious.”

“Obvious, like the nose on your face?”

That
was
an affront. “Yes.”

He leaned over the table and kissed my nose. “I don’t think it works that way.”

“Can I get you two a drink?” The waitress, a once-attractive thin woman approximately my age had reversed the beauty process by introducing botoxed lips. I flashed on Carly leaving The Cosmetic Center.

“Water,” we said in unison.

“That’s it?” The waitress searched for roving mascara in her eye.

“For now,” Roddy said.

And she left, tossing two menus to the table.

What to do with his kiss? My respiration was up, his eyes searching for a place to land. “Let’s get back to work.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

The afternoon sun filtered through the copse of still-barren black ash, a fall-like backdrop of gold filigree framing the farmhouse. Inside, I hung up my jacket. I could already hear Momma and Carly at the kitchen table in a celebratory mood. They quieted down when I came in.

“All set up?” asked Carly, and I could see for the first time how her good looks had come from Momma; the full lips, the small balanced mid-face, the smile so seldom seen on Momma.

“I think we’re good. There are some flowers and we put up some posters — Roddy’s idea, he gathered them online — places Lyle had played before: Butte, Cheyenne, Laramie, a couple others. It gives the room some color. Is Lyle back?”

“Not yet.” Momma took a drag from her cigarette. “But I think we’re outta the woods.” She smiled, nodding at Carly.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Lyle,” answered Carly. “He’s much better today.”

“I think the medicine is working,” Momma interjected. “He went for a drive
and
a walk.”

“Momma.” I was trying to be sympathetic but I shook my head.

“What? This is what we’re all hopin’ for.” She picked a fleck of tobacco from her tongue.

“Momma,” I said, “his blood vessels, the tumors . . .”

“Can’t you ever be positive?” She twisted to Carly and back. “Damn it, Eunis, do you have to be so fuckin’ negative? Be more like your sister.” She snuffed out the cigarette.

“Momma,” said Carly trying to downplay comparison.

“He’s really sick,” I said.

“Yes, but he’s gettin’ better, anyone can see that. Look for the beauty, for godsakes.” Momma gaining steam. “Look for the goddamned beauty!”

“Momma, I want this as much as —”

“Shit.” Momma rose from the table and stormed out. “You can spook wine into water.”

I exhaled slowly, fully. “Do
you
understand?” I asked Carly.

“Hey, don’t ask me,” said Carly, also getting up. “This house is as fucked up as ever.”

***

Lyle hugged his guitar, the last raging scarlet light from the horizon rippling over him.

“You look tired.” I took my eyes off the road for a moment. “You okay for this? We can head back if you —”

“A course he’s fine,” said Momma from the back seat, requisitioning endorsement from Carly, who looked away. “This is his big night, the beginnin’ of big things, isn’t it, Lyle?”

“I’m good,” he reassured me. “I probably carried a
myling
walkin’ to Kingdom, but I’ll be fine. We’re good.” He tapped the Martin. In the rearview mirror, I checked Momma’s reaction. She averted her eyes.

***

The Drink ‘n’ Dive was filling up; mostly men, hands clenching their half empty glasses, ogling the mermaids in the tank, waiting for the night’s lucky break, a few women trolling for the same. From the stage, Mae waved to Lyle and me as we entered, and Roddy appeared from the side toting a mike stand.

Lyle took shaky steps to the stage and Roddy reached out to help him up the last two. I caught Roddy’s eye and thanked him.

“I’m looking forward to this,” said Mae, kissing Lyle on the cheek. “It’s been too long.” He gave her a weak hug and patted her on the shoulder; Mae gazed past him to me with dismay. I’d given no explanations to anyone, just as I’d promised, but Mae was no fool.

“Oh,” she said, “looky here.” She reached down and provided a bottle of Jim Beam. “A present from Gordon. He wishes he could be here. Says ‘break a leg.’”

“That’s awful white — nice of him.” Lyle lowered himself onto the stool behind the mike. “You thank him for me.”

After the three of us fussed over Lyle for a few minutes, bringing him water, moving the basket of tulips closer, adjusting the mike, he checked his sound levels, and Roddy and I proceeded to our front row table, next to Momma and Carly and Sparky. Seeing Carly next to the multi-pierced Sparky was surreal. The whole thing was.

Two of the off-duty mermaids —big-busted redheaded Sherry and a hawkish younger woman named, appropriately, Birdy— sat close-by and introduced themselves, shaking my hands and inclining me to pull out the hand sterilizer. I refrained.

The house lights went down, the clinking glasses and drifting talk softened, and the spotlight came up on Mae. “I want to introduce someone I’ve known for years, a wonderful local musician who has the voice of one of those —what dya call them, sirens — that can pull you into worlds you probably couldn’t reach otherwise. He’s been gone for a while now — just returned from some engagements in New York City — and we’re so glad he’s come back home. Please welcome Lyle Kind.” Middling applause.

“Thank you, Mae.” Lyle lifted his hand in front of his face, diffusing the spotlight. It was turned down. “And I want to thank my family, friends, all of you for being here tonight.”

He peered into the dim lip of light cast upon the first row of tables, and found Roddy and me. He gave us a small nod, a wan smile. “By the way,” he said, exploring beyond us into the darkness, “Kind is my stage name, but my real family name is Kindsvatter.”

He started his final tuning and I swung around. The community had rallied. Thanks to Mae and Gordon, Carly, Sparky and Sherry, the room was half full with some familiar faces and two surprises: Sandy, the lamb-faced Miss USA judge, and Johnny Ray Bardo.

In the darkness I could imagine the other faces, the ones I’d been studying for years —DeCaprio, Pitt, Anniston— I wasn’t sure I found them beautiful anymore. Not that they were ugly; they just left me numb —and not the refreshing numb of the water, just numb. And there it was: I’d reached the end of my research because the faces and the answers kept changing; there were too many of them for any one of them to be definitive. I could look all I wanted, but I couldn’t see.

Except . . . except in those odd moments particular to me, though I still didn’t understand the lineage of what brought me to those moments any better than when I made the promise to Nemo. I could
see
him. Maybe his smile and his lick meant
you’re so foolish, little girl; I love you because of it; you’re beautiful because of it.
Because that’s how I felt about him too. To see his little face, that smile, the hope. Even now I see him and I suffer. I tell myself to move on. And I do, but I also —always— suffer.

It’s what happened with Lyle. Sensory not intellectual.

Staring up at him, so handsome in the spotlight . . . I’d never seen him that way before. Handsome. Beauty forever shifting —at least for me. Weird. Like a spell got me, like it gets everybody. Unique stories chemically infused in each of us from birth. Triggers of all sorts, everywhere: the neighborhood, the room, the smell, the time of day, the language, the familiar expression (of hope or desperation), the person
next
to the person, the music, the background TV, the smile, the soft voice, the eyes. Message after shadowy message transmitted from within. Treasures and curses from the DNA swamp.

So after all, my weakness was everyone’s weakness; objective versus subjective was beside the point. It was both. I couldn’t outrun my cells, my primitive lineage. I had no choice, I was going to have to be attentive to them, maybe even accept some of them. And I guess, those of others.

Still, I had to be careful. It was, after all, a mire of switches. I’d seen beauty as a virtue. I’d also seen it as subversive. I wasn’t always quick to decipher between the two. I’d needed to work on that, especially as so much of it was out of my control. All of us at the effect of our shadows.

“This’ll be a short set,” said Lyle. “I’m feelin’ a little under the weather but I hope you like ‘em, they’re some of my favorites. This first one is a Lowell George tune.” And cradling his D-35, he splayed his palm on its amber body, and his hand trembled for a moment before he closed his eyes and launched into a slow version of Little Feat’s “Willin’”:

“I’ve been warped by the rain

Driven by the snow

I’m drunk and dirty, don’t ya know

But I’m still . . . willin’. . . ”

I settled in, shut my eyes, the room full of people falling away and leaving me alone, every grainy word verifying his journey. He was steady to the end:

“. . . And if you give me weed, whites and wine

And show me a sign

I’ll be willin’ to be movin’”

The small crowd waited to be certain he was done and then extended an almost reverent applause; as if the audience wasn’t sure that they’d really heard such intimacy and if so, what they should do with it, while I marveled and applauded loudly.

He didn’t wait for the audience to be sure. He pressed on with two Johnny Cash tunes: the itinerant “Guess Things Happen That Way” and “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” which sounded to me like heavy raindrops on a cortege. He paused, and his eyes traveled out and beyond the audience, not saying a word, even after the applause subsided. He reached down and took a sip of water and began again, this time Hank Williams’ “May You Never Be Alone.” And as the last chord lingered, the room filled with louder but still reverential applause, the audience stunned by his ache, and their own.

“Just two more,” he said, and there were groans and someone yelled out, “No!”

“I’m afraid so.” Then, “This one was written by Kris Kristofferson and Danny Timms and is especially for my sister, Eunis.” I eyed him in surprise. He shared his crooked smile with me, me alone. He closed his eyes once more and embarked on “Moment of Forever:”

“Was it wonderful for you

Was it holy as it was for me

Did you feel the hand of destiny

That was guiding us together

You were young enough to dream

And I was old enough to learn something new

I'm so glad I got to dance with you

For a moment of forever”

A wellspring broke open in my belly, frightening me.
That
recurring susceptibility. I wanted to reject it but it rose like a rocket through my chest to the surface, and tears emerged. I didn’t wipe them away. Lyle was . . . inexpressible;
he
was beautiful.

Attempting to quantify that beauty would have been an attack on the sacred. I couldn’t have that; I wouldn’t want to take that away from anyone.
May beauty live on wherever it’s felt.

“Come whatever happens now

Ain’t it nice to know that dreams still come true

I’m so glad that I was close to you

For a moment of forever”

He was done, and the crowd leapt to its feet, applauding and calling out. I sat stunned and cleansed.

The applause receded. He said, “For my final song . . .” — and again “No” rang out from multiple locations in the audience — “ . . . I’d like my sister Eunis to join me on stage.”

What had I been thinking?! Not only was I going to sing, I was going to step onto a stage in front of 100 people. The hot terror of facing the Octagon Homeowners fell in folds over my spine and shoulders. I was burning up
and
frozen.

“Ralph Stanley was one of my father’s favorites; he’d hum Ralph Stanley all day long . . . ”

I wasn’t worthy. I wasn’t prepared. But I’d promised.

“ . . . So we’re gonna sing one of Papa’s favorites.”

I found myself rising from the table and walking toward the stage.

“A Man of Constant Sorrow,” yelled a man in the audience.

“No,” responded Lyle, “I’ve sung that one enough.”

I made my way up the steps and across the stage as Lyle stood stiffly. I discovered myself next to him, eyes downcast. He embraced me and whispered in my ear, “Together.”

Up and out, past Roddy into the darkness, fear vibrated my entire body, my legs ready to buckle.

“They say Ralph found the title in proverbs or folklore. Anyways, they sounded right to my Papa, and they still sound right to me. Ralph used to sing this with his brothers. It’s a song that takes harmony, and I can’t imagine a better partner than my sister.”

At that, he began picking in ¾ time and singing, his voice clear and coarse and angelic:

“The sun is slowly sinkin'

The day's almost gone

Still darkness falls around us

And we must journey on . . .”

He turned to me and closing my own eyes, I found the space above his voice, the one he had taught me, and I discovered myself singing harmony:

“The darkest hour is just before dawn

The narrow way leads home

Lay down your soul at Jesus' feet

The darkest hour is just before dawn”

Lyle played the instrumental bridge, my body swaying willingly. I was in water.

He began singing again: