Page 73 of At Her Will

“Catches the attention, doesn’t it?” Mavis eyes glinted in a way more like her normal self. Then she sobered. “Though we try to recognize it in ourselves, the formally educated tend to hold a superiority bias toward those with less of that. Book smarts may give me access to the wisdom people have put down on a page, but that doesn’t make me wise. Not heart and soul deep. Only applying those words to experience and empathy does that. He’s my daily reminder of it. Not just from that extreme example, but from a lot of other things.

“He told me, ‘Whatever you saw that day, Miss Mavis, was the Lord. Not me. Might as well thank my mop for cleaning the floor.’”

She downed the second drink. “Hell with it. I’m getting a third before you call me nuts.”

“You told me not to let you. And you don’t need it.” What Vera was feeling charged her next words with sincerity. “You’re the most practical person I know. That’s what makes me believe every word. I just don’t know how to process it.”

The musicians started their opening riff with a flourish that made Vera jump. The club, already almost full when the story had started, had reached standing room only in the back. The scents and sounds hit her like a slap in the face.

With a grim and understanding smile, Mavis nodded. “That makes two of us, honey.”

Vera remembered the bull, how Rev had hesitated to tell her the details. Now her imagination filled in the blanks, Rev coming up against a thousand pounds of aggravated animal, pushing his shoulder against the bull’s, his grip sure on the horn, turning him in a different direction, executing a spiral to the ground as he held him. His straining muscles would have been taut, but he would have also believed they were fueled by a power beyond his own strength.

Did she believe that? She believed the Divine could do anything that was for the highest good. But like any practitioner of any religion, saying you believed it and actually believing it when it happened in your daily life… The Pharisees hadn’t believed Jesus was capable of miracles, either.

She ordered Mavis a virgin drink with a skewer of fruit. When it was brought, Mavis sucked the flavor off the cherry and gave Vera a nod of thanks for watching after her. When Vera brushed a smudge of chalk off her blazer, Mavis rolled her eyes and shed the coat, putting it on the back of the chair. “I got out ofthere late. Otherwise I would have changed so I looked like a hot woman hanging out in a club, rather than a stodgy principal.”

“You couldn’t look stodgy if you tried. But here…”

Vera leaned forward and removed the combs holding Mavis’s hair in a tidy twist. She fluffed it out, then unclipped a couple bracelets off her own wrist and put them on Mavis’s. She flicked open an additional button on Mavis’s blouse, showing a hint of white lace. “There you go, Principal Mavis. Now you letting the sexy out to play.”

Mavis laughed, driving back the darker aspects of her story. The drinks had helped, Vera knew. “If only my husband was still here to witness it.”

“You know Landon wasn’t much for crowds, but he would have been happy for you to bring that energy home to him.” Vera pointed to the stage. “There’s some inspiring eye candy up there—not Rev.” Her severe look at Mavis had the principal chuckling again. “And they’re about to do a lot of muscle rippling and hip and booty shaking.”

“Sounds like a fine time to share some details with me about your sessions with Sy and Trey.” Mavis winked. “A story for a story. It’s only fair. I won’t ask you for the ones about Rev. At least not tonight. Ho.”

“Don’t make me stab you with that fruit skewer.”

Trey had sat back down at the keyboard. Whatever he said to Rev had him clapping the blond man on the tattooed shoulder before he nodded to Sy on the drums and stepped up to the microphone.

The lights flickered, signaling the time for the live performance, and the club quieted down a few decibels. Then it went even more quiet as Rev opened his mouth and did what Vera had heard him do at the church.

Instead of a song with recognizable words, he uttered a single note, that connected to another, then another. Notes with a strong hint of R&B.

Sy joined in with a quiet beat on the drums. Trey and the other two members of the band did the same with their instruments, adding to the harmony, letting it build in strength at the same pace as Rev’s voice. The audience responded, calling out encouragement.

Rev’s eyes were closed, his hand around the base of the mic that once again wasn’t switched on. His voice reached every corner and likely spilled out into the street.

A short burst of laughter came from the crowd as Trey leaned over and used a spoon to tap out a tune on three full beer mugs he’d lined up on a table beside the keyboard. The chiming notes worked with the beat. Rev swayed with it, shifting from foot to foot. As he followed the rhythm with the power and versatility of his voice, applause smattered through the audience. More calls of encouragement.

The band was staying with him, doing pure blues improv, picking up his direction, following and expanding it, bouncing off one another with skill and what she thought was a big extra dose of inspiration.

When he hit a final weeping note, she felt like the rest of the room did, as if they were connected to that stage by vibrating threads, threads they wanted to reach for and touch, ask for more of the same current to come into them. Rev had his hand outstretched as if reaching for it himself.

Then he opened his eyes and smiled at the crowd. With a spinning flourish, he produced a harmonica from his back pocket and launched into the opening of “And When I Die” by Blood, Sweat and Tears.

The crowd’s response swelled, cheers and shouts of “Go on, now” and “Yeah man.” When he hit the first chorus, whichpicked up like a train gaining steam, the crowd jumped on, ready to ride.

He put the harmonica away but kept one hand out, then up. His body never stopped moving. The crowd picked up on the clapping parts, following along with him.

All I ask of living is to have no chains on me…

He winked at Vera as he said it. A secret message, that maybe those chains wouldn’t be so bad, not if she was the one putting them on him. Which gave her some very interesting pictures in her head.

Here come the devil…

Witford should have come. He’d have to be possessed by demons himself to miss how effortlessly Rev erased the gap between faith and sensuality, pulling from the joy music gave generously to both. When she found herself up on her feet with everyone else, she danced and celebrated that feeling, letting it into her.

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