She Called the Bride the Help, So I Read the Bill Aloud novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Check in the Mail

Reuben's POV

The band manager caught me at the saloon on Saturday morning, before I had even unloaded the bass.

"Three gigs," he said. "Gone since Wednesday."

He was a heavy, tired man who had booked the Silver Street Four for eleven years, and he did not like saying it.

"Which three?" I asked.

"The country club Friday dinners," he said. "The Elks anniversary. The garden tour reception at the end of May."

"Who called?"

"Nobody called to cancel. They all just found they had a conflict."

He rubbed his face. "It's the Claiborne woman, Reuben. Her people have been working the phones."

I set the bass case down on the stage.

That was seven hundred dollars a week, give or take, and it was a third of what the drummer lived on.

"Then we lose them," I said.

"There's a better one waiting."

The manager pulled an envelope out of his jacket. "Garden Club banquet, end of May. Two hundred forty guests, in the Claiborne garden. They want a quartet."

"How much?"

"Three thousand dollars. Her secretary left it on my desk."

I looked at the envelope, and I did not touch it.

"No," I said.

"Reuben."

"I'm not playing a Claiborne event. Not now, not ever. Tell her secretary thank you."

"You've got rent," he said.

"I've got rent," I agreed.

He sighed and put the envelope back.

"For the record," he said, "I'd have thrown that microphone at her myself."

I nearly laughed.

What I felt was harder to name than anger.

I had stood on a bandstand holding a rented microphone.

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