note: this is the final draft of the short story that appeared here months ago with the promise of addition to become a novel. It still has that potential, but I've not the time to gallivant off away from work to settle down and write it. I'd love to publish it beyond here, or, if there were to be interest, take that time off to write the entire novel for publication. Until then, a short story it remains.
Enjoy. ~VMRShe was a late-night chambermaid, in one of those run-down hotels that still clung to their faded grandeur in the midst of peeling paint, faded velvet, and the smell of old food. Subject to the occasionally unwanted advance from a worse-for-the-bourbon guest, but never from where she most wanted. There was the same air of former glory to her features as that of the hotel, though she was far too young for the sort of faded beauty that clung to her ever-shrinking curves.
The town should have been a small town, for the gossip and busybodies that inhabited it, but it was large enough, and held enough history, for the constant stream of visitors looking to catch a glimpse of glory, and those looking to hold it in their hands for a moment. The Montgomery had been a hotel for neither in its better days, but those had been long gone before Genevieve came to work, looking to survive long enough to catch just the amount of success that would allow her to return home to triumph instead of distain.
There had been a man, a boy really, who moved to little Genevieve’s town when she had just grown into the promising beauty she had displayed as a young child. It was the most common of stories, Genevieve’s. Hazel eyes that flashed with anger and love intermittently, a girl who sang in the church choir, not for particularly love for Jesus, but for the love of fellow voices joining together in song. She was no great star in that little town with no name remembered now, but had close enough friends, an interested boy or two, and not enough desire for something more to be malcontent.
Perhaps the beginning of this part of her story would be more interesting, if only there were some great love or tragic scene involving this boy and a shotgun wedding, perhaps unrequited love. Alas, there was not. They found in each other a nurturing spirit and enough desire for something more to become, the both of them, malcontent with their little town and its little people, who generally were quite happy with the lives they had chosen to lead.
There were doctors and lawyers and even the odd writer, who could have made more money and led lives with their mental contemporaries in big cities, moving to that corridor to the northeast that seemed to lure those from Middle America in droves, but they knew they were happier along the Gulf Coast, with its barely slower way of life, and simpler times. Instead, they made a home there, dumping sand out of their shoes from time to time, and popping champagne on New Years’ Eve. Many left, but more stayed.
Genevieve belonged to neither the most successful families, nor their less fortunate kin, but was still raised to be a calm and capable wife, good at raising children but fully willing and able to work for the family’s sustenance. So, when it came time for her seminal moment there was a reasoned explanation of growth and opportunity in moving, and a fellow who promised to work with her, and look after her, so long as she did him. Parents were reassured, and children left with smiles and hopes and tears, setting off on a great adventure to, not one of the far-away cities with bad reputations, but one of the more sinister sister cities a few hours away, with family and friends and destroyed hopes waiting for them.Ginny and William-Butler arrived and set to work. There was a small apartment to furnish and jobs to go to, settling in to a long time. Then the sense of accomplishment wore off and both began looking for more. Unfortunately, WB, as he was then called by friend and stranger alike, has a more than modest talent at the guitar and those old instruments still played around fires on the beach, back home. When the malaise arrived, it hit WB first, because so many of their similarly malcontent friends suggested to him that he was ever so much better than a simple desk job, that his talent had to lie somewhere, anywhere, other than in writing society news for the newspaper. He had a way with strings and with words they consistently reminded him, and so, off he went to the bars and those parties he still attended for work, with his business card and his notebook which was soon filled with lyric fragments and chords and playing times, not who was dating whom, and who had been seen at what charity event. Not so much time passed that he began playing in bars and dance joints, open mic nights and with musicians in the basements of bars.
Ginny often went with him, if only because the rowdiest crowd could be calmed by the presence of a woman, or the dullest encouraged by her beauty, which was then in its finest blossom. The turning point for both of them came one evening, when the crowd was dull but restless. Ginny had been sitting in the corner that Friday, waiting and watching, humming along under her breath and sipping a bit of whisky the region was famous for. There was a good music scene in this city, in fact, it was one of the reasons people moved there, to be discovered and to find that elusive glory that would allow them to return home, unbowed and undaunted. Too used to being part of something, and particularly lonesome for those evenings on the Gulf with driftwood fires in the mist and singing, Genevieve had begun wishing she could sing with WB instead of just being the good partner she was, on the sidelines.
It was during one of the old songs that she, aided by some rye courage, walked up to WB and joined in, and the harmony was fine. Her lilting voice, warmed by the drink, and intensified with WB’s rich depths brought down the house. That old feeling, the one she has subscribed to faith and church, welled up in her again, but it was only the music, finally free and pure and resonating through that dingy bar with its patrons only intoxicated by emotion, and a little alcohol. Together they finished the set and walked out into the street, cooled by winter temperatures but flush with what finally felt like love between the two of them.
It was the beginning of the grand times for both Genevieve and WB. They were successful enough to keep busy and be happy, but never enough to feel content, nor for that malaise to creep back into their minds. They considered themselves in love during this time, they did. There was travel, and enough success for both to quit the regular jobs that had paid the bills for so long and they lived their lives as itinerant musicians, always with a place to perform, and enough money to eat and sleep and drink a bit, but never enough to save. Small city critics were pleased, and it was right about the time they were becoming popular enough for some corporate interest, on the little, independent labels, that everything began to predictably unravel.
Their love was burning as brightly as it ever would, and the heightened emotions for each other led to heightened emotions regarding other things as well. Fellow musicians caught the eyes of both Ginny and WB, but only their eyes. Neither ever strayed, but both considered it too often for the other’s piece of mind. Flirtations with drink, with other forms of music, with various record deals that either Genevieve or WB backed out of made life together more difficult than apart. To say that there were not fights would be a misstatement, but the arguments were never so full of drama or expressed emotion that they became interesting to whoever inhabited the adjoining hotel rooms or restaurant booths.
Still, when they returned to the city, separate and alone, neither had a job or a place to stay. The emotion that had been invested in their relationship and then left without an outlet was not enough to inspire great music from either, and they quietly found work where possible. WB soon returned to their previous town, head held high, dozens of fascinating stories to tell, of which only a third were completely true, and a place in the community waiting for him. Genevieve, however, suffered from either an overabundance or surfeit of pride. She refused to return when WB suggested it. They had reclaimed a bit of their previous, nurturing relationship, though completely without the romance.
Instead, Ginny had taken work as a barmaid in one of their previous locales, singing backup for various groups when not all of their members showed up. She soon tired of music without that feeling of faith she associated with it. When she stopped singing, the bar job was gone as well. She turned to the Montgomery. The work at the hotel was tiring and soon took the rest of the bloom from her cheeks. Instead of the fresh girl, there was a tired woman, not eating enough, not resting, and emotionally unavailable. Facing the end of each day took a bit of that rye courage that got her onstage that first time.
She was a late-night chambermaid, in one of those run-down hotels that still clung to their faded grandeur in the midst of peeling paint, faded velvet, and the smell of old food. Subject to the occasionally unwanted advance from a worse-for-the-bourbon guest, but never from where she most wanted. There was the same air of former glory to her features as that of the hotel, though she was far too young for the sort of faded beauty that clung to her ever-shrinking curves.
Still singing under her breath while she cleaned, though, was Ginny. Once of those times, she was outside the door of the only resident that actually paid his rent. Usually, he told her that he’d take care of his room himself, but that night he asked her to come in. Together, they made music. Genevieve’s old songs were exactly what he was looking for, but hadn’t known he needed. The roles were reversed. No longer the adjunct, only there because the crowds demanded a pretty woman, Ginny flourished. Never would she again be that fresh-faced, earnest young woman, but beauty returned. It was better this time, she felt, being wanted for herself, reason and less emotion tempering youthful exuberance and a headlong rush into beauty and independence.
Together, they began the circuit, a second time for both. What they did for each other’s music applied to their emotions and lives as well. There was money to pay the rent, and no need for those regular jobs that fulfilled neither. He was no WB, but Ginny somehow knew that Sam was better in general, if worse in specifics. Once in a blue moon, she might wonder what might have been, but then it was time to return to the stage, and these new old songs allowed only for the emotion required to sing them, not wondering over past loves.
Sam and Ginny settled again into the lives of itinerant musicians, though this time success came neither too fast nor just at the right time. Older they were, but wiser they often were not. There was more and different emotion between them than Ginny was used to, but it made no difference to their music, which was already far different than before. Genevieve’s voice had more depth now, as time ravaged and youth’s pure tones could not be reclaimed. Still, from time to time, things were well enough that Ginny could go home again. Never for long, never too often, but her pride was assuaged. Sad goodbyes were seldom ever heard, but heartfelt they were, even those with WB.
The two of them, Genevieve and Sam, kept on, even as they grew a bit too old and new sounds grew out of the ground. Too old was a relative word, as they made fine music, complete and haunting. It was haunting as they continued to hope for that love between them that had ruined each of them in their first attempt with others. They hoped, and it flittered through their lives but never returned to either again.
Ginny shook herself out of her musings, wondering how she transported herself into that particular fantasy. She was a late-night chambermaid, it was true, but she had never seen or heard of Sam after that night. There were no broken delusions of ever-lost love, no more rye courage needed to get her back up onto the stage, and certainly no pride necessary to return home. There was no home, nor people in it to return home. The storm had taken away the small town and its beautiful homes and some of its provincial gentility. Few returned to rebuild, though Ginny was one of them. She had escaped to this new place that retained only vestiges of its former inhabitants, escaped into the work she knew well by now, and had opened her own house to those who wished to visit the Gulf Coast they remembered but that did not remain.
Still singing under her breath while she cleaned, though, was Ginny. She was the owner of one of those homey inns that clung to a sense of hospitality even when the guests were many and demanding. She had learned well from Doris and stories of her aunt and so there were no unwanted advances from worse-for-the-bourbon guests, only those from younger men who found her more fascinating than she found herself. The same air of reserve and hospitality that marked her inn as welcoming and discreet shone from her flashing green eyes and disapproving smirk. It wasn’t singing and it didn’t bring fame, but it made people happy and certainly kept Genevieve too busy to be struck too often by the malaise that had marked so much of her younger life.
She occasionally felt like a late -night chambermaid in one of those run-down hotels that still clung to their faded grandeur in the midst of peeling paint, faded velvet, and the smell of old food some mornings at o’God-thirty when she was freshening towels and baking muffins for the morning breakfast crowd. It wasn’t just the guests who arrived in the dining room for a morning meal. Anyone in town up before the sun rose in the winter and with it during the warmer months came in for Ginny’s soft-boiled eggs and grits, muffins or just coffee and camaraderie. It had been a long time since she felt like the invisible girl in the choir or the chanteuse buoyed by rye courage. Days came where she longed for both and neither, where she day-dreamed a life she never knew but that felt real and just outside the reaches of her viscera. She still longed sometimes for that love she’d known at twenty-two, here at thirty-three, but she was content where and who she was, with those she loved and those who loved her. Everything in that old town tasted sweeter for Ginny, who had run away home.
She occasionally felt like a late -night chambermaid in one of those run-down hotels that still clung to their faded grandeur in the midst of peeling paint, faded velvet, and the smell of old food some mornings at o’God-thirty when she was freshening towels and baking muffins for the morning breakfast crowd. It wasn’t just the guests who arrived in the dining room for a morning meal. Anyone in town up before the sun rose in the winter and with it during the warmer months came in for Ginny’s soft-boiled eggs and grits, muffins or just coffee and camaraderie. It had been a long time since she felt like the invisible girl in the choir or the chanteuse buoyed by rye courage. Days came where she longed for both and neither, where she day-dreamed a life she never knew but that felt real and just outside the reaches of her viscera. She still longed sometimes for that love she’d known at twenty-two, here at thirty-three, but she was content where and who she was, with those she loved and those who loved her. Everything in that old town tasted sweeter for Ginny, who had run away home.
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