The high notes, p.1
The High Notes, page 1
Danielle
Steel
THE HIGH NOTES
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
To Beatie, Trevor, Todd, Nick,
Samantha, Victoria, Vanessa,
Maxx, and Zara,
To my darling children,
May you be blessed and lucky and happy,
and may you find the right person to love you with all their heart,
and may you love them, with all yours.
With all my love,
Mom / d.s.
“The only lie I ever told you is that I liked you when I already knew I loved you.”
—THE LOS ANGELES–BASED STREET ARTIST KNOWN AS WRDSMTH
Chapter 1
Iris Cooper was small for her age. She looked more like ten than twelve, in her cut-off jeans with ragged edges, a pink T-shirt, and scuffed pink cowboy boots her father, Chip, had bought at a yard sale.
She stood watching the horses tethered under a tree on a blazing hot day in Lake City, Texas, kicking pebbles with the toe of her cowboy boot.
She was humming to herself, as she always did. She could hear music in her head. She composed songs on her father’s guitar, and they sounded pretty good. She’d gone to school in Lake City for four months. She’d been to three schools so far that year. Her father liked to move around a lot, looking for opportunities to make some money. He got tired of the towns they went to pretty fast. He rented a room for each of them in someone’s house, stayed for a few months, and then they moved on. Iris liked it when they stayed in a town with a church. She could sing with the choir, and they were always happy to have her. She could hit the high notes better than anyone else. Once they heard her sing, they let her stay. She could go to the church socials and eat pot roast and fried chicken, potato salad or mashed potatoes. The rest of the time, they lived on fast food, and whatever her father could afford that day, sometimes just a can of beans or some chili.
Her name had been prophetic. She had deep blue eyes, the color of an iris, and a mass of soft blond hair that framed her face. She wore it in a braid that she could do herself.
Her mother, Violet, had left her and her father when she was two. He never told her, but she’d once heard him say that Violet was killed during a bar fight in East Texas after she left. She and her boyfriend had been at the bar when someone pulled out a gun, shot into the crowd during the fight, and killed them both. She and Chip had a rocky marriage. And when she left Chip, it was easier to leave Iris with him. Iris didn’t remember her, so she didn’t miss her. You couldn’t miss someone you’d never known. But she missed having a mother, like other kids. Chip had grown up as an orphan, living with two unmarried uncles who paid as little attention to him as possible, and made him sleep outside when they brought women home. Chip had left them at sixteen, and never saw them again. He got work wherever he could find it doing odd jobs, and used to ride the bulls and broncos in the rodeo, until he got trampled by a bull and hurt his leg. He walked with a limp now, and his rodeo days were over. Iris liked going to rodeos with him. Sometimes he saw old friends. They lived now from the work he picked up wherever he found it, tending bar, doing carpentry, working on a ranch when they needed extra help. He always found something, and when there were no jobs, they moved on to another town, and started all over again. Iris’s dream was to stay in one town for a long time, like other people, and go to the same school for years at a time. Her father said they’d settle down one day, but they hadn’t yet. They’d been roaming around the small towns in Texas for the last ten years. She wrote a song about it that she played on his guitar.
She was still watching the horses when Chip came out of the house where they were staying, and told her to get in his truck. They were going for a ride. It was an old green truck he’d had for as long as she could remember. It got them from one town to the next, with everything they owned in boxes tied up in the back, a plastic sheet over them, secured with ropes.
She hopped onto the passenger seat, and he got in and started the engine. They drove off a minute later, down a back road in the direction of the town. She never asked where they were going. It didn’t really matter. She watched the cattle and the horses as they drove past them. They stopped at a bar just outside of town. A red neon sign read “Harry’s Bar.” Chip parked and turned off the engine, and looked at her.
“Stay here. I’ll come and get you,” he said, and she nodded, and turned the radio on after he left. He had parked under a tree and the air was still and hot. There was no air-conditioning in the truck, and Iris watched as he limped into the bar. She wondered if he had gone in to have a beer, or if he was looking for work. They’d been eating canned beans again, so she knew he was short of money. If he didn’t find work soon, they’d be moving on again. She hoped they wouldn’t have to. She liked it here. The woman they rented rooms from was nice to her. She had a granddaughter the same age who was bigger than Iris, and she gave Iris her old clothes sometimes when her granddaughter outgrew them. Iris had never had anything new to wear. They got all her clothes at yard sales, secondhand shops, and church bazaars.
Chip Cooper limped up to the bar and glanced at the heavyset blond waitress. Her hair had black roots, but she had a friendly smile.
“Is Harry here?” he asked her, and she cocked her head toward the kitchen.
“He’s fixing something. He’ll be back in a minute. The dishwasher’s broken. Coffee?” They served lunch and dinner. It was early to start drinking, although some did. Chip wanted a beer, but settled for a cup of coffee while he waited, and drank it standing at the bar. There was a small stage set up at the back of the room, and once in a while they had a live band. The ranch hands liked it, and when they had live music it drew a fair crowd.
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.
“Have you had singing lessons?” Harry asked her, still amazed by what he’d heard, and Pearl handed her another Coke.
“No, I’ve just been singing all my life. I sing in church choirs sometimes, when we stay somewhere long enough,” Iris told him. There was no way her father could have paid for singing lessons, but she didn’t say that because it would embarrass him. “I listen to the radio a lot.”
“She knows all the hit songs,” Chip intervened again. “So what do you think?” he asked Harry.
“I think you have a prodigy on your hands.” The contrast between the way she looked and the way she sang was utterly incongruous, and he didn’t know how people would react, particularly since she was so small and looked so young.
“Why don’t you try her for a couple of nights? I guarantee your customers will be begging you to get her back.” It was entirely possible after what he had just heard. Live entertainment was hard to come by. They had to rely on the occasional cowboy band, or a group passing through on their way to somewhere else.
Harry turned to Chip and asked him, “What did you have in mind?” At night there were two waitresses, Pearl and Sally, and Harry tended bar. It was a small operation, but a profitable one. The ranch hands left pretty good tips when they drank. The food was decent and he had a loyal clientele. The cook came in at night. Harry made lunch himself.
“Six nights a week, twenty-five a night.”
“Weeknights are slow. Maybe Thursday through Sunday,” Harry countered.
“Five nights at thirty bucks a night,” Chip said, “and she gets to keep her tips. You won’t be sorry. And weeknights won’t be slow if she’s singing.”
Harry wondered if Chip might be right, and he felt sorry for Iris, with her father dragging her around bars to have her sing, at her age.
“You’ll keep an eye on her so no one hassles her?” He looked at Chip sternly, and he nodded. “We’ll try it for a week and see how it goes. If people love it, she can have the job, five nights at twenty-five a night.” That would give them five hundred dollars a month, which would make a big difference for them. It was easy money, and Harry could afford it.
“And I’ll get her in and out. She can wait for me in the truck.” It sounded like a miserable life for a kid her age, but she didn’t look unhappy. While the men were talking, Pearl offered her a piece of peach pie with vanilla ice cream on top, and Iris stared at it hungrily. She sat down and gobbled it up immediately, and took the plate out to the kitchen. The equipment was old, but the place was clean.
Chip had a beer before they left, and told Iris to wait for him in the truck. She left quietly after thanking Harry and Pearl. After Chip left, Harry turned to Pearl and shook his head.
“That poor kid. He’d have her singing in a coal mine if it made him a buck. But her voice is a gift from God.”
They’d agreed that she would go on at nine o’clock and do a full set. She would be starting in two days, on Wednesday.
“What if they don’t like what I sing?” Iris looked at her father nervously as they pulled up at the house where they were living for now.
“They’re going to love you. And you’re going to be a big star one day. Don’t forget that. What are you going to wear?”
“My blue dress.” It was the only nice dress she had, and she rarely got a chance to wear it. She had a pair of sandals to go with it. She wore that when she sang in church.
“You’ll make some money on tips too.” Chip was smiling, pleased with himself. They needed the money, and this could be the start of her singing career. The possibilities were endless. He’d been waiting for this moment for years. She had found her voice at six.
“They’re nice,” Iris said, thinking of Harry and Pearl, and the peach pie and Cokes.
“So is the money.” Chip grinned broadly, as they got out of the truck, and Iris went to check that her blue dress looked all right. She was nervous about singing at the bar, but she liked the idea too. As long as she got to sing, everything would be okay. Singing always fixed everything and made her happy.
On Wednesday night, Chip drove Iris to Harry’s at eight-thirty. They got there in ten minutes, and he told Iris to wait in the truck, just as he had told Harry he would. Once inside, he sidled up to the bar, and had a beer with a whiskey chaser. By the time he finished, it was time for her to go on.
Harry told him to bring Iris in through the kitchen. The stage was set up for her with a microphone, and Chip plugged in the boom box for the instrumentals.
When Harry saw her walk in, in her little blue dress the color of her eyes, he wondered what he was doing and if he was crazy. No one saw her arrive. He dimmed the lights, and got up on the stage himself and said that he had a surprise for his customers. They had a special guest with them that night, Iris Cooper.
She hopped onto the stage when Harry stepped down and smiled at the people finishing dinner and standing at the bar. Her father turned on her music. No one knew what to expect, and then she started to sing. She sang a few country songs made famous by well-known singers, moved into ballads, and some show tunes, sang a couple of current hits, and closed with a gospel song that had everyone applauding as soon as she finished. People were stunned by what they’d heard. She bowed and thanked them, and suddenly looked like a girl again. It was as though she morphed into an adult when she sang, and then turned back into a child again when it was over. She grinned from the stage, and said, “See y’all soon!” then hopped down and disappeared into the kitchen, where Pearl handed her a plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes to take back to the truck with her.
“You were fantastic!” Pearl whispered to her. “They loved you!”
“It was fun, and thank you for dinner,” she said, before scampering back to the truck with the plate. Harry had left a bowl on the stage for people who wanted to leave a tip for her. Several people got up and dropped a dollar bill or two in the bowl. People talked about her for the rest of the night, and Harry grinned at Chip when the performance was over.
