Any Way You Want It. Kathy Love

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СКАЧАТЬ called, her voice shattering Maggie’s thoughts, sending the notes scattering. Maggie opened her eyes, having no idea how long she’d stood there absorbed in the song.

      Her friends had moved on and were waiting at the intersection for her.

      “I like that music,” Maggie said as she joined them.

      “Is there any music you don’t like?” Erika asked.

      “Not much,” Maggie said. “After all, music is my life.”

      “But,” Jo said pointedly, “you are not here to think about your work. You can think about dancing. You can think about singing.”

      “I did see a karaoke bar when we were riding into the Quarter,” Erika added.

      “No karaoke,” Maggie insisted.

      “You can even play music,” Jo said, continuing her train of thought.

      “Where would I do that?” Maggie asked, but Jo was not going to be distracted.

      “But you cannot think about music in the context of your work,” she said.

      “That’s right. You are here to live a little. Not work.”

      Maggie sighed. “I like my work.” Not to mention she hadn’t been thinking at all about the items she’d received in the mail just a day before she was to leave for this trip. Well, not until her friends mentioned work.

      “I like my work too,” Jo said. “But I don’t intend to think about kids or grammar or reading comprehension. I want to dance.”

      “Yeah, me too,” Erika agreed.

      Maggie laughed, but she lingered behind, still hearing bits of the music. Still seeing the notes in her head. The way they would look written down. Some bits she couldn’t quite see. Having heard the song just this one time, and now from a distance, she couldn’t see it exactly. But she could make out most of it. Black and white notes dancing the different beats of zydeco across sheets of paper.

      “Are you coming?” Erika said, as they started down the street away from her again.

      “Where are we going?” Maggie asked, doubling her steps to catch them.

      “Bourbon,” her friends said in unison, then they dissolved into tipsy laughter.

      Maggie smiled too, but then she shook her head. “Why don’t you two go on? I’m kind of tired.” Which wasn’t untrue. Their flight had left Dulles Airport at six that morning, and they had only dropped off their luggage at the hotel before they went right into tourist mode. They were staying right on Bourbon Street, but she knew her friends were not headed there to go back to the hotel. And Maggie really did feel the need to rest.

      Even now, this newly sensed energy was swirling around her, making the air thick and her head a little woozy. The wine wasn’t helping, but she didn’t really believe it was the alcohol—not solely.

      “No way,” Jo said, catching Maggie’s elbow, pulling her along. “You are not sneaking off to read or listen to classical music or whatever boring thing you normally do.”

      “Right,” Erika agreed.

      Maggie laughed, but she did try to get her arm out of Jo’s grasp. Jo wasn’t letting go—not without a fight, it appeared.

      “Those things aren’t boring,” Maggie argued. Besides, Jo read twice as much as Maggie did, and she had a healthy knowledge of classical music. They’d attended many symphonies together.

      “Okay, they aren’t,” Jo agreed. “But they aren’t what you do on vacation. Especially a vacation in New Orleans. Hotel rooms are for sleeping only.”

      “Well,” Erika said slowly, “and other things.”

      Jo thought about that, then nodded. “Right, but that usually ends in sleeping.”

      Maggie frowned for a moment, losing track of what they were talking about briefly, then she understood.

      She shook her head. “I don’t remember you two being quite so sex obsessed.”

      “And you aren’t sex obsessed enough,” Jo informed her. “Now come on, you can’t come to New Orleans and miss Bourbon Street.”

      “I’m here for ten days,” Maggie pointed out. “We could wait a night. I am honestly tired.”

      “No,” Erika and Jo said, speaking again at the same time—a habit that was actually getting a little irritating, Maggie decided—as Erika caught her other elbow, and her friends pulled her down the sidewalk. She gave in, allowing them to lead the way.

      “Erika and I are only here for five nights. And we need them all,” Jo said.

      Maggie sighed. That was true. Her friends were leaving her early, something she was not happy about. What would she do in a city like this alone? She’d already noted this was a place filled with couples and groups.

      She supposed she’d better take advantage of having both her pals here. Her pace picked up.

      Even unfamiliar with the layout of the city and muzzy from the wine, Maggie didn’t need to be told when they reached Bourbon Street. She blinked at everything around her. The flashing lights, the loud, slightly distorted bass of bands singing party favorites, the distinct smell of trash, beer and…

      Was that vomit?

      Add to that neon signs that said things like LIVE SEX ACTS and FULL NUDITY. Holy cow.

      “This is…something,” she managed, peering around, not sure where to look next.

      Even Jo and Erika, who were definitely worldlier when it came to bars and partying, gawked in awe.

      “This is pretty amazing,” Erika finally said, after they’d all stood mesmerized by a pair of female mannequin legs in black stilettos, kicking in and out of a club’s windows.

      “You definitely don’t see that every day, do you?” Jo said.

      Maggie almost said that she’d never seen that, period, when her attention was seized by a distinct strain of music, somehow reaching out to her over the warring chords of “Jessie’s Girl,” “Living On A Prayer,” and “Summer of ’69.”

      Without thinking, she took a step toward the sound, and then another, until she’d zigzagged through the crowds of revelers to a bar on the corner of Bourbon and some cross street.

      She stopped on the sidewalk, staring at the building. The place was shabby, paint peeling from the wood, the sidewalk around it crumbling and layered in filth. But from her spot on the street, she could see the stage through huge open windows; a band was setting up. And she could clearly hear that distinct melody. Piano notes swirling through the air, a sound as out of place in this world as she felt.

      Again, her feet moved until she found herself in the bar, standing in front of the stage, peering up at the person playing the music. Music that no one else should know.

      Well, no one but СКАЧАТЬ