Done in Fifteen Years novel · Chapter 14 of 32

Chapter 14: Two-Step

Vernie read the name three times.

Then she folded the list into a small square and put it in her bra.

"Kilgore's on the Frio," she said. "A pig in a cowboy hat on my roof. Over my dead body."

"Ma'am, I'd rather it didn't come to that," the sheriff said.

"Then you'd better buy a plate on your way out, because every dollar counts now."

He bought two.

He ate them on the hood of his cruiser and left a ten-dollar tip in the TAX can.

We were closed Mondays and Tuesdays now.

Tuesday night the hall was empty and swept and the briskets for Wednesday were on.

Macey was behind the bar feeding quarters into Vernie's old jukebox, which played anything as long as it was from before 1985.

"Deke," she said. "Vernie says you two-step."

Deke was at the counter with a glass of tea.

"Vernie says a lot of things."

"She says you won a contest in Bandera when you were nineteen."

He looked at his aunt.

Vernie, at the far end of the bar with her crossword, didn't look up.

"Teach me," Macey said. "I'm fifteen in August. I've never danced with anybody who wasn't Grandma Doreen at a Rotary thing."

Deke put down his tea.

He walked out onto the pale oval in the middle of the floor and held out his hand to her.

Macey stomped all over him.

"Quick, quick, slow, slow," Deke said. "You're doing slow, slow, quick, panic."

"I'm doing my best!"

By the third song she had it.

By the fifth she was going around the whole floor backward with her chin up, laughing.

I stood at the bar and watched my daughter dance.

I hadn't seen her laugh like that since she was nine.

At ten she yawned so wide her braces caught the light.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Done in Fifteen Years from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.