20. The Bar

partner n.&v.

-n. 1 a person who shares or takes part with another or others, with shared risks and profits

-n. 2 a companion in dancing

'You may not be able to sing, Boyd, but you sure as hell can dance.'

The truck follows the twisting tracks down through the hollers, putting distance between them and that back-woods nightmare world that the Bennetts call home. The late sun slants low across the sky, a burnished copper that touches the edges of clouds with the pink and gold-gilt of a renaissance painting.

'My mama taught me,' he says.

She pictures it, his grandmother singing and his mama teaching him the steps to the song and it's not the scene that she ever would have imagined in the Crowder household. So much that she still doesn't know, that maybe she never will.

The tension released on her nerves, she feels relaxed and her eyes drift closed.

'Bowman had two left feet.' It's out before she realises it, that name hanging in the air and she stiffens, stares ahead at the road. The response is a light breath of laughter.

'Yes, he did.'

And there it is. She's said it and the sky has not fallen in. They are still who they are. Bowman will always be there but he doesn't matter any more and she can live her life. She settles back against the seat, feeling the soft leather shift and give under her, smoothes the folds of her dress down over her thighs. 'It's a long time since I've been dancing.'

On the wheel his hands are loose but sure, steering them through the bends with an unconcerned certainty that comes from familiarity, not something designed to impress. His eyes slip sideways.

'Anytime you want to go dancing, Ava, I would be more than happy to accommodate you in that.'

'Right now?' It's a challenge and she mimics the intonation from earlier. It sounds ridiculous and in a way it is ridiculous, but she's never known any man to get up and dance just because he's happy.

He had laughed. He still laughs and she laughs and she wants to hold onto this for a little while longer.

The truck eases around a curve, picks up speed as they pull out of it.

'Right now. Anything you want.'

'Then let's go dancing.'

They drive to a place in Corbin, little more than a roadhouse but the music is good and the atmosphere friendly.

After the Bennetts' place, anywhere would feel friendly.

They slide into one of the booths, facing each other; she moistens a finger, running it around the rim of her glass until it sings.

'What were you going to call your rock band?' she asks.

He looks surprised, just a little, and she wonders if it's because she's asked or because she remembers that conversation. The he smiles, a slow spread across his face.

'I never really got that far.'

She tilts her head. 'You should think about it - you never know what might happen.' Earlier she had been in need of a stiff drink, and then maybe another one after that. Now the liquor slides down with its pleasant familiar warmth and one sip is enough. 'I could be the backing singer.'

'I didn't know you could sing.'

She laughs. 'I can't.'

His head lowers and his shoulders shake slightly, silent laughter. When he looks up at her again his eyes are warm. 'Well, Ava, I think that our target audience would be what's known as a niche market.'

'You mean folks who like bad singing? Hell, there's plenty of them about - you heard most of the stuff that's on the radio these days?'

'Now, you can't hold that against them, they just weren't raised right.'

'To good music.' She raises her glasses. He answers with his and a note rings out between them.'

'You know, I never could figure why we do that,' she says, frowning at the glass.

'Do what?'

'Do that, chink them together.'

He leans back. 'It's to bring all the senses together. You can touch the glass, you can see it, you can smell and taste the liquor - only thing that's left out is hearing.'

'I like that.' She smiles. 'It even makes sense.'

His eyebrows raise, mock serious: 'Are we dancing or not?'

They spin through the fast numbers until she's breathless. She enjoys this, enjoys the respectful circle of his arm around her waist and the work-roughened hand that holds hers.

When the tempo slows there is a moment of uncertainty - strange, she thinks that after everything he's the one who seems so unsure - and his grip on her loosens; but she keeps hold and is already swaying in time to the music.

They dance. Slow, shuffling steps that take them in a lazy spiral around the floor. She rests her cheek on his shoulder. Most people would probably say that in herself she's a happy person and she tries, has always tried, to be but she's always found happiness to be a fragile thing. Now she feels it, a strong core of it running through her.

He holds her a little closer, his hand resting just beneath her ribcage, fingers steady against the ridge of bone.

If he were to kiss her now, she wouldn't mind. She thinks about his lips against hers, about the way he would look at her; she thinks about him saying her name in that way he has and about his hand leaving the safety of her waist and actually touching her. Going home together and him not sleeping in the room that has become his. She wouldn't mind, not any of it.

But he doesn't kiss her, not then, and not the next day or any that follow, not even when he leaves her.