Christmas at Home, стр. 97
Tessa leaned on the bar and explained above the noise of the jukebox and the bootheels on the floor as the dancers did different versions of a fancy two-step. “A few years ago a woman used to come into the Tonk every weekend. Her nickname was Chigger.”
“Was she a hooker?” the girl whispered behind her hand.
Sharlene laughed. “No. Hookers charge and Chigger said sex was too much fun to make a dollar on. She said she could put an itch on a man just like a real chigger, and only a weekend in bed with her could make the itch disappear.”
“What happened to her?” the woman asked.
“She got married, had a baby girl, and is expecting another baby by Christmas. She’s happy as a kitten with its nose in a bowl of warm milk. You’d never guess that she used to try to put the make on every good-lookin’ cowboy who walked through the doors. The Honky Tonk charm worked for her,” Sharlene said.
“I heard about that charm. That’s why I’m here. I heard that more people have met and gotten married out of this beer joint in the last three years than on those internet dating services,” she said. “I’m Loralou, by the way.”
Tessa motioned toward the packed dance floor with a bar rag. “Don’t see anything you like yet, Loralou?”
Loralou shook her head. “Chigger woman got the one I might have liked.”
Tessa patted her hand. “Don’t give up, darlin’. See that big old bouncer back there?”
Loralou glanced at Luther standing in front of the door with his arms across his chest. He was as big as the broad side of a barn. His hair was cropped short and his round face serious. She shivered. “Don’t tell me that he’s interested in me, please. Just looking at him makes me want to run home and hide under the bed.”
Tessa laughed. “He’s harmless unless some idiot starts something in here. What I was about to tell you is that he belongs to me. You get a Chigger itch for a big man, you just remember that you got to go through me to get at him. The rest of the peacocks in here are free territory. You don’t like the way that Chigger woman is trying to superglue her boobs to that cowboy, you go out there and tap her on the shoulder. She creates a problem, Luther sends her out the door and lets the next one in.”
Loralou shook her head. “I’m shy.”
“Shy don’t cut shit in the Tonk. We got charm, darlin’, but you got to make your own miracles. You like the cowboy, then you make a move,” Tessa said.
“Hey, could I get a bucket of Coors, Tessa? Merle just whipped me and now I got to buy a round for all the boys,” Amos said.
A black leather do-rag covered up his bald head with a gray rim showing around the edges. His black vest covered a T-shirt, and black leather chaps covered the front and sides of his jeans. When he went to work the next morning in one of the biggest oil companies in Dallas, he’d be dressed in a three-piece custom-made Italian suit and few people would believe that he rode Harleys a couple of days a week. He’d been Ruby Lee’s best friend and possibly her lover for many years.
Tessa crammed six longneck bottles of Coors into a galvanized milk bucket, shoveled two scoops of ice on top, and handed the bucket to Amos. Sharlene filled an order for three quarts of Miller. When they looked down the bar, Loralou tossed back the rest of her drink, took a deep breath, and plowed right out into the middle of the dance floor. She tapped the Chigger woman on the shoulder and stood back.
The cowboy smiled at Loralou and wrapped his arms around her.
The Chigger woman headed for the bar. “Give me one of them longneck bottles of Coors. I need some beer on my breath.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sharlene said.
“Damn young cowboys ain’t got a lick of sense. Don’t even appreciate the taste of a good apple martini. I was going to throw him back to the pack anyway before that Sunday school teacher tapped me on the shoulder. I wonder if her preacher knows where she is tonight. If he does, he’s on his knees at the altar praying for her wanton soul. I bet she don’t even know how to two-step,” she said.
“That so?” Sharlene asked. From where she was standing, it looked like Loralou had a real good handle on two-stepping, and the way the cowboy was looking at her, Sharlene wouldn’t be surprised if the Honky Tonk charm had just pierced her heart.
The woman fluffed back her hair and pulled a tube of bright-red lipstick from her hip pocket. She used the long mirror behind the bar to apply a fresh coat and did a lip pop to even it out. A quick smile at her reflection said she thought everything looked wonderful. “There’s got to be a happy medium. Woman with class like me don’t want a man with a foot in the grave and the other on a piece of boiled okra. But them young ones, fun as it would be to break them in, just don’t see a good thing even when it’s lookin’ them in the eye.”
Sharlene set a cold beer in front of her and made change for the bill she laid on the bar. “Guess you are right.”
She downed half the beer, made a face, and pushed it back. “Well, here goes. I’m going hunting again.”
“Good luck,” Sharlene said.
“So when is a cowboy going to claim a barstool and the charm going to work for you?” Tessa asked.
“Never. Three times, remember. A genie only gives three wishes when he floats up out of the lamp. Larissa, Cathy, and Daisy got the wishes. I got the Honky Tonk.