What You See in the Dark - Manuel Munoz [6]
Who knows, really, why they came tonight, if they’ve been paying attention to that girl and noticed her comings and goings. Who knows why they thought this evening warranted ironing a fresh shirt instead of just airing out the one from the night before, damp as it was from dancing and smoky when you put your nose to it. But here they were, their tables cleared but not stacked over in the corner as they usually were on dancing nights. Maybe later, but now just their clean tables and their chairs to sit in and a last round of drinks, the girl gone to the back of the club and the lights dimmed even further, so dark the crowd actually goes quiet and focuses on the small halo of light at the center of the cantina. So quiet you can hear the boots of the bartender boyfriend against the wood floor as he approaches the light, guitar in one hand, a microphone stand in the other, the cord snaking behind him. Someone rises from the crowd to pull over a blue velvet stool for him and Dan says thanks, tapping his fingers against the microphone. “Uno, dos, tres,” he says, perfectly, which prompts an almost nervous laughter from some in the crowd. You think: He knows how to speak Spanish. He might understand what people have been saying. The microphone in working order, he waves off to the side, and out of the dark comes the waitress girl, out of her serving apron and wearing instead a beautiful cowgirl dress. Baby blue satin with white fringe. Of course, you notice that she’s wearing what look like last season’s brown boots, and you foolishly try to make her see that you’ve noticed, but your face is lost in the dark. The boots don’t match the dress, but it’s too dark for anyone else to really care. All eyes are on the gorgeous satin, the way it catches what little light there is, the arrow detailing beginning at her shoulder and descending, circling each breast, the silver lacing deep inside the fringe, which sparkles to attention when she adjusts the microphone.
“Ready?” she says to Dan, and that says everything to the audience: she will be singing in English, no matter what the sign said. She doesn’t look anything like the picture’s promise, and the Spanish nickname feels misleading. But people came because they had seen her around town with Dan Watson. Or because they knew the woman who had been her mother, or they had heard about how she’d been left to bring herself up all alone after her mother left. They came because this girl was going to sing about either love or pain, and some of them felt as if they already knew the story behind both.
People who don’t know English love that Patsy Cline record from last year, all the times her song came over the radio when there was nothing else to listen to, a deep, luxurious voice for a woman, more expressive than the chirpy girl groups indistinguishable from one another. The guitar starts in and they all recognize the beginning of “Walkin’ After Midnight” and the girl seems to look at the audience straight on, the first words a little quiet and her voice too high. But the couple performs the song well, the girl’s hands shaking a bit before she steadies them on the microphone. She closes her eyes for a long while, as if she needs to concentrate, but then opens them again, as if she knows that she has to face everyone to feel the song. She begins to look around the room as she sings, moving her arms as if she were walking down a Bakersfield street, keeping tempo with the guitar, the song close enough to what everyone has been accustomed to on the radio.