The Wood Wife by Terri Windling (the false prince TXT) 📕

He shrugged. “Fine. I hope you have a good time.” He bent over his painting again, blending the rusty tones into the browns. He gave her one last glance over his shoulder. “Tell Fox I’ll catch him next time.”

“You tell him yourself,” she snapped.

She left the barn, closing the door behind her—although her impulse was to slam it. She was torn between anger with him, and guilt. Was she indeed being ridiculous? Weighing a night out in a bar over art? Only, sometimes it seemed inspiration only struck when he was supposed to be doing something else, something for her, or their marriage—and right now that excuse was wearing thin. She went into the kitchen, picked up the phone, and angrily punched in Maggie’s number.

“This is Dora,” she said. Her voice still wavered. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I know this is short notice, but you wouldn’t happen to feel like going out would you? Right now, I mean. To a bar called the Hole. I’m all dressed up and ready to go, but I’ve lost my dancing partner… You would? Hot damn, I’ll be right over.” She hung up the phone and picked up her purse. She was going to have a good time tonight, she told herself firmly, Juan or no Juan.

Dora fetched the keys. She’d take Juan’s jeep. He was like a kid with a new toy with the thing; he still didn’t like anyone else to drive it. She backed from the yard, grinding the gears and aware that her husband would hear the sound. She gunned the engine and sped from the drive, kicking gravel into the yard.

When she turned onto the road, her headlights picked out three shadows approaching from across the wash. The Foxxe sisters. And Angela’s boyfriend, Pepe Hernández. They waved at her to stop, and she did.

“Are you going to hear my brother play?” Isabella asked her.

“That’s right.” She made herself smile, blinking back an onslaught of angry tears. “Do you want to come along?”

“Can we?”

“You’ll have to squeeze together in back, because Maggie is coming.”

The Foxxe sisters climbed into the jeep, with Pepe wedged between them. He was a skinny young man, with a sweet brown face and black hair falling to the collar of his T-shirt. He wore an eyepatch over one eye, and always looked to Dora like an underfed pirate. His T-shirt read, SAVE OUR DESERT on the front, and on the back, VOTE NO TO THE ROCKING K DEVELOPMENT. It was an old T-shirt and a lost cause; that old ranch would soon be history.

“Strap yourselves in and hold on tight,” Dora warned them as she pulled the jeep into Cooper’s yard. “I don’t quite have the hang of driving this thing.” She leaned on the horn and Maggie stepped out onto the porch, looking dashing in her black L.A. suit. She locked her door and came over.

“Maggie, you know Angela and Isabella. And this is Pepe. They’re coming with us.”

“Great, it’s a party.” She climbed into the jeep. “Dora, I’m glad you called. I was just about to go out to the U., to hear a chamber quartet. But I’d much rather dance. I definitely need a night out on the town.”

“Not half as much as I do,” Dora wagered, flooring the gas, speeding down Cooper’s driveway and trailing clouds of dust behind. She steered the Jeep through the dry wash bed and out to the graded dirt road of Reddington Pass. Then she turned the radio to a salsa station, and headed for the lights of Tucson.

The Hole was officially The Hole in the Wall, but no one used that cutesy name. The place itself was not cutesy, it was a bit of a dive, southwestern style. Located downtown in an old adobe building at the edge of the Barrio Histórico, it had remnants of a past glory in its saguaro rib ceilings, carved oak doors, thick adobe walls, and weathered wood plank floors. There were bullet holes in one smoke-stained wall from bandidos back in 1912.

Maggie stopped and read the sign on the door: BIG BAD BAYOU RATTLER BOYS. “Is that the band? What kind of a name is that?”

Dora laughed at her expression. “There are musicians out of four different bands jamming together tonight. Bayou Brew is a Cajun band. Diamondback Rattlers are Tex-Mex, mostly. Big Bad Wolf plays Celtic punk and the Momba Rhomba Boys are reggae. Fox has played with all of them at one time or another.”

“Fox is playing?”

“You bet he is. Fox miss a jam like this?” Dora said, and behind her the Foxxe sisters giggled.

“What kind of music will it be tonight then?”

“Loud music,” Dora answered. “This isn’t exactly Estampie, honey. Anything goes in a jam like this, so long as it’s danceable.”

She took Maggie’s arm and steered her through the door. Inside, the rambling rooms of the bar were already growing crowded. Dora recognized some familiar faces from when she used to live down here: Mexican couples from old barrio families; Anglo yuppies bent on rennovating the neighborhood; Little Bob, the hot-shot environmental writer; Big Jon, the folklorist, sitting in the corner with his banjo in his lap. Aging hippies and Earth First types in faded clothes from Guatemala mixed with U-of-A students in bright gym clothes that exposed a lot of suntanned flesh. Urban cowboys were propping up the bar, tossing back double shots of tequila.

Dora threaded through the hot, smokey rooms, Maggie and the others trailing behind her. She greeted a woman who used to be a neighbor; nodded at a customer from the gallery; kissed the cheek of a young Apache man she’d met in her bookmaking class. Beyond the maze of little inner rooms was a central courtyard, open to the stars. Clematis flowers, big as saucers, covered the vines that choked the walls. Mismatched tables had been pushed back to make room for dancing on the cracked tile floor. The band was setting up