Getting Wet - It's Raining Men

"You can't be serious," Katy said. "A sweater. You're going to wear a sweater, and it's what, almost 100 degrees here?"

"Last I checked, it said 90," I said, sticking my tongue out at her. "Plus, the air conditioning is constantly on."

"Ally, you're a sexy, curvy, beautiful woman. You're gonna dress like the hot piece of ass you are and then go out on some dance floor and shake your ass. And I'm not taking no for an answer!"

I looked at myself in the full-length mirror and really didn't see what Katy was talking about. I felt fat, I felt old, I felt washed up, too. Even though I tried to pretend otherwise, Royce's dump had taken a toll on my self-esteem. I'd always been fiercely independent, but now I second-guessed myself. I wondered if it was drive or if it was a defensive measure. Never let anyone get close and protect my heart.

I wanted to just curl up in the comfy-looking bed and read a book or watch a movie, but I knew that Katy wouldn't shut up unless I showed her a fun night on the town.

"All right, here is the deal. I'll let you do my hair, makeup, even dress me as long as I am not wearing anything higher than an inch above the knee. We can go out tonight, and party like it's 1999, but that's it. The rest of the time I'm here, you will leave me alone to do my work and enjoy myself however I see fit. Do we have a deal?"

Katy beamed at me.

"Is sex going to be one of the ways you see fit to enjoy yourself?" she asked.

"Maybe."

"I can live with maybe. She spat on her hand and offered it to me.

"We're not five anymore. I am not swapping spit paws with you. Just say deal."

"Deal!"

I hoped that my time in Spring wouldn’t distract me from my mission.

Chapter 2

Hawkley

"Hey Hawk, you gonna sing tonight?" my dad asked. He sat on the barstool, nursing a beer. Dad liked to come in the late afternoons and spend them watching me prep the bar the way he used to when I was a kid. He was retired now but still showed his face in the establishment every day we were open.

"It's open mic night," I said. Dad was probably testing me. Either that or he was getting senile.

"I think you're wasting your time here in Spring. You should be in LA or New York. You're way more talented than half the people on the radio nowadays. Music today sounds like garbage to me. You sing like an angel, Hawk. Got that voice from your mother, God rest her soul."

"Thanks, Dad. I like my life here. With family."

I smiled at him, took his empty beer bottle, and replaced it with a new one. He tipped the bottle toward me before tipping it back in his mouth and taking a large gulp. That was the limit the doctor suggested. Two beers. Let him kick back and enjoy, but more than two might trigger his dementia more. He'd been here since opening today, and if he knew I was singing, he'd probably be here right until close.

"That's mighty kind of you to say, Dad. But you're my father, so you have to say I sound like an angel. To someone else, I probably sound like a braying donkey." I shook martini olives into their metal tin and placed the cup back on the roundabout.

"I'm not blowing smoke up your ass, kid. You've got it!"

"I've already been there and done that. That Hollywood lifestyle isn't for me."

I smiled and continued stocking up for the night. Fridays at Catch and Release were busy. All the locals swung by, hoping to find an unsuspecting female tourist to woo and convince to become their wife. When I lived in LA, women used to complain that there weren't enough good men. It was apparent that they'd never made it to Spring, Florida, where we men outnumbered the women an easy ten to one.

"If your momma hadn't gotten sick, you would have made it. You were getting gigs. It was just a matter of time."

I hated seeing the sadness in his eyes as he talked about my mom. I'd been in LA for just a few months when I got the call. My father telling me that my mom was dying, a conversation I still remembered so clearly on the phone. Stage four. Cancer. Inoperable. He didn't know how to run the house, Mom had always taken care of everything, and my sister was still so young. He needed me. So I packed up and left. Came home to Spring and never left again.

Now, instead of singing in stadiums, I played weekly at my family's bar and contented myself with the fact that this was my life now. As the oldest, I took care of my Dad and made sure everything ran smoothly. Mom's death had been hard on him, and no sooner had we buried her in the ground then Dad started forgetting to lock the door when he went out. Then it was ordering stock for the bar. It all culminated with him walking out of the house in his underwear one night and ending up at a mini-golf course two miles down the highway. I still have no idea how he got there until this day, but when I showed up to retrieve him, he was scared and crying.