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The set ended.
“Thank you so much! You’ve been the berries!” Alma said and blew kisses to the audience.
Jericho licked his hand and smoothed back his hair. He looked to Ling, whose lips turned down in distaste. “Did you just spit into your hair?”
The band was headed for the wings. They were full of high spirits and beautiful noise.
“Lupe!” Jericho said, a little louder than he’d int
ended, as she came offstage.
“Yes?”
“You were really good tonight,” Jericho said. I shouldn’t have spit in my hair, he thought. He handed her a towel so she could mop her brow and then looked quickly to Ling, who pinched her lips shut and tried to pretend she was interested in the state of her nails.
“Why, thank you, Mr. Smith,” Lupe said with exaggerated politeness.
“Just Freddy,” he said. She didn’t even know his real name. Was it doomed?
Lupe smiled. “Okay, Just Freddy.”
“Fred!” Doc called. “You gotta clear the stage so Snub Wilson and his Troubadours can go on!”
“Be right there,” Jericho answered.
“No time for flirting. We got a schedule to keep!” Doc snapped.
Jericho blushed so hard he was afraid he’d turned purple. “I, ah, I’d better do as the man says.”
“Well, you know where to find me,” Lupe said coyly, and played a tiny riff against a wood beam.
Lupe watched Jericho march onto the stage and pick up the bass drum with one hand as if it weighed nothing. “Whoo! He is really strong. And handsome. Don’t you think he’s handsome?” She nudged Ling.
Ling regarded Jericho briefly. It was like trying to get excited about her cousin. “I suppose he’s all right.” She remembered she was supposed to be helping Jericho. “That is, I’ve heard lots of girls say so.”
“Oh, are you and he…?” Lupe motioned between Jericho and Ling.
“No! No,” Ling said.
“Definitely not,” Alma muttered under her breath.
Lupe leaned her head against the side of the stage and heaved a tiny sigh. “Yes, ma’am. Verrry handsome.”
“For a brooder,” Ling said under her breath.
Alma looped an arm across Lupe’s shoulder, singing: “I feel so blue, can’t get over you…”
Lupe slapped at her arm. “Would you quit it, Countess Cut-Up?”
“Every day I cry, why, Daddy, oh why,” Alma sang, louder, and even Ling couldn’t help giggling.
“To hell with you!” Lupe said.
Alma put a hand to her chest in mock-umbrage. “How unladylike!”
“Level with me, Alma—does the Big Six have a sweetheart?”
“Don’t ask me, ask Li—that is, ask Miss Chang.”
