What You See in the Dark - Manuel Munoz [29]
His boots sounded against the floor and he emerged from the other side of the cantina with a plate in his hand, the swinging door to a kitchen padded red with a diamond-shaped peep window. “I’m not much of a cook, but I can make sandwiches,” Dan said. “You looked hungry.”
“You didn’t have to bother,” Teresa said, but her stomach gurgled at the sight of the plate, and she held her hand over her stomach as if Dan could have heard it.
He stepped behind the bar and set the plate down, spying her empty glass and refilling it, even tossing the old ice into the sink and giving her fresh cubes. He pointed to the sandwiches as he poured himself a beer. “Go ahead and eat. It’s just ham and butter. That’s all the kitchen had back there that I knew what to do with.”
She took one of the sandwiches. The butter gave it an unusual taste, but Teresa didn’t complain, even though the bread was thick enough to catch in her throat. She had to swallow water with every bite.
“Aren’t you going to join me?” she asked.
“Oh, no,” he begged off. “You eat as much as you want; it’s all for you. But you’ll have to sing for your supper, of course. That’s the only requirement.”
She smiled at him as she took a bite, nodding her head in agreement. “So there’s a little kitchen back there?”
“Just basics. Nothing fancy. We cook a few things and bring them out to people with their beers. See the tables?” He motioned. “We’re a little less rowdy than Ed’s place. More dancing over there, more coming and going.” Dan tipped a thumb back to his mouth as if taking a drink. “Too much sauce over there sometimes. Gets out of hand. Very … worldly, if you know what I mean.”
“Worldly?”
“Things go on in places like that,” he said, sighing.
“Right across the street?”
“You’d be surprised what’s right across the street, no matter where you go.” He slid the plate closer to her. “Go on. It’s all for you. I already told you you’re singing for your supper.”
She took another sandwich and he busied himself behind the bar, washing glasses and counting beer bottles. She tried to eat as slowly as she could, and the thick, heavy bread helped, but before she knew it, her hunger had won over and the sandwich was gone. Almost as soon as Dan Watson saw the empty plate, he said, “So how about that song?”
From her seat at the bar, she could see outside to El Molino Rojo, across the street, but Cheno wasn’t there. She took a drink, the water having warmed some in the dissipating heat of the cantina, so it wasn’t too cold for her throat. The song she had practiced was one she had tried to recall from her mother’s record playing, a simple set of repeated chords, but now the idea of singing in front of someone besides Cheno felt ridiculous. “I’d be terrible,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Come on, now,” Dan said. “I gave you a sandwich.”
She laughed. Cheno was still nowhere on the street. “I suppose,” she said, a bit defeated, yet somehow relieved that her number wasn’t going to be a real audition. She smiled at Dan’s good nature and bent down for her guitar, adjusting herself on the blue velvet stool and looking down at the strings in preparation.
“No, no,” he said. “Not there.” Dan pointed to the center of the cantina. “Over there.” He stepped from behind the bar and grabbed another blue velvet stool, handling it as lightly as he had the guitar, bringing it to the center of the room and setting it gently on the dusty floor. “Right there,” he called, then retreated toward the kitchen. She didn’t have time to imagine how the cantina might look at night, full of people, the sound of boots on the wood drowned out by song and laughter and chatter. A honey-colored spotlight came on from above. “Go on,” Dan called, but she couldn’t see him anywhere. “I can hear you.”
She laughed nervously but took her place, her stomach sinking and her hands beginning to shake. So this was what it was like to perform, to call out while everyone was hanging on your words. Her knees felt watery and wooden at the same time. None of it felt right: