The High Notes: A Novel(2)

Harry came back to the bar ten minutes later, wiping his hands on a rag, and told the waitress he’d fixed the dishwasher. He glanced at Chip. He’d seen him there before.

“Hey, how’re you doing?” Chip asked him. They had an ancient air conditioner, which kept the place only slightly cooler than the temperature outside. “You’ve got a treat in store,” Chip told him. Harry was short and stocky, bald, and somewhere in his fifties. His bar did well. They got a good crowd on the weekends. Chip had noticed that himself, which was why he was here.

“Yeah, how do you figure that?” Harry asked him with a suspicious glance.

“I’ve got a kid whose voice your customers will never forget. She can sing anything they want to hear. She’s just a girl, but she sings better than any woman on the radio. She’ll be a big star one day.” Harry didn’t look enthused at the prospect.

“How old is she?” Harry asked him, and Chip hesitated.

“She’s twelve, but you forget it when you hear her. She can hit the high notes like nobody else.”

“I can’t have a twelve-year-old singing in a bar,” Harry said, visibly annoyed at the suggestion. Pearl, the waitress, grinned and disappeared into the kitchen to load the dishwasher Harry had just repaired. They needed a new one, but he was keeping the old one alive. Harry liked making money, he just didn’t like spending it. Pearl was still smiling at the idea of a twelve-year-old singing at his bar. That was never going to happen. Chip had the wrong guy for that.

“I’ve got her with me, if you want to have a listen,” Chip persisted. “She doesn’t need to hang around. I can bring her in right before she starts, and get her out as soon as she’s finished.” Harry could just imagine some tricked-out kid, wearing an inch of makeup, and dressed like a chorus girl from Vegas, none of which appealed to him at all. He didn’t want every pedophile in Texas hanging out at his bar. He was a decent guy, and ran a respectable establishment. Families came for Sunday dinner, not just ranch hands wanting to get drunk. “Just let her sing you one song, you’ll see what I mean.”

“I can’t hire a kid that age to sing here. It’s not right,” Harry said stubbornly, but Chip looked like he wouldn’t leave until Harry finally heard her. There were no customers at that hour, and just to get rid of Chip, Harry finally agreed to hear her. “Okay. Where is she?”

“Outside, in my truck.”

“In this heat? Are you crazy? You got air-conditioning in your truck?” Chip shook his head, and was already halfway to the door. He was at the truck in a few long uneven strides, with his limp. Iris was sitting cross-legged on the seat, red-faced from the heat and singing along with the music on the radio.

“C’mon,” he said when he opened the door. “I got you an audition.”

“For what?” She looked surprised. She’d sung in churches and at church socials, but never at a bar.

“They have a setup for live music in the back.” He took a boom box from the floor behind his seat, and Iris hopped out, and followed him back into the bar. She was flushed from the heat. Pearl poured her a Coke and handed it to her as soon as she saw her, while Harry stared at her.

“She’s twelve?” he asked. She looked more like nine or ten, and she wasn’t decked out in makeup and sexy clothes as he had feared. She looked like a normal, ordinary kid. “What’s your name?” he asked her in a kind voice.

“Iris.” She smiled at him and took a long sip of the ice-cold Coke, and thanked Pearl for it.

“Your dad says you have a knockout voice.” She looked suddenly shy.

“I like to sing.”

Chip set the boom box down on the bar. “I’ve got the instrumentals she sings to on here. She can sing anything you want. Ballads, country, western. She can sing requests. She knows everything on the radio.” He signaled to Iris to back away a little, which she did. She set the glass down on a table, and Chip turned the machine on. Just before he did, he reminded her to hit the high notes, and she nodded. She got right into the first song without hesitating, an old cowboy song the ranch hands always loved, followed by “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which gave Harry a sense of the range of her voice. The next one was a gospel song, and she did as her father had told her. She hit the high notes and held them. Harry and Pearl stared at her. Chip turned the machine off after the third song, and Harry looked at him skeptically. He had guessed what the trick was. She was lip-synching. No child could sing like that and few women were able to. The ones who could were famous.

“Okay,” he said cynically. “Great performance. Now let’s see what she can do without the music on.” He was sure that they would beat a quick retreat after that, and Chip didn’t look happy. She sounded better with the music, but he gave Iris the nod and she sang three more songs a cappella. Her voice was even stronger without the music. She had a voice that filled the entire room, and she hit high notes like he’d never heard before. Chip was right. Iris sang like a grown woman, but she was this slip of a girl, who didn’t even look her age, and had a voice that ripped your heart out. Harry and Pearl stood mesmerized. Iris clearly wasn’t lip-synching. Chip was right. She could sing anything, and hit the high notes like no one else.

“Your customers are going to go crazy when they hear that,” Chip said, and Harry looked at her intently. He liked how clean and normal she looked. No makeup, no artifice, there was no suggestion of sex about her, and she still had the body of a child. Little girls dressed up like women and trying to be sexy made Harry uncomfortable, and he didn’t want any part of that. There was nothing suggestive about her. She looked like an ordinary little girl.