"Hoffman-KeySignatures" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Abbie)

"This here's Sid," Kelly said, pointing to the bearded man, "and that's Harve,
and that's Walt. They came down from Angel Home." Kelly turned to the seated
men. "This little gal's just started playing, and she's picking it up real
fast."

Zita smiled at them. A foster mother's warning about being alone with men
flashed through her head and vanished. Bill was one of the nicest people she had
ever known, though she had been suspicious of so much kindness at first. He had
been lavish with praise, and cheered her when she learned to return compliments,
a skill she had to learn from him. "Hi," she said.

"Sit right down," said Kelly, gesturing at an unfolded metal chair. "Want
coffee?" Its warm brown scent flavored the air. He poured a mugful for her from
an industrial-sized thermos, handed it to her. Bill sat next to her. A butterfly
waved wings in her chest. She had finally gotten up the nerve to play a tune at
a grange dance last Friday, with Angus playing along beside her and covering up
her mistakes with his own loud accuracy. The experience was amazing: people had
danced, and she had played the tune they danced to. She had felt a queer sense
of power that almost scared her.

There was less room here for her sound to be swallowed by someone else's. What
if they expected her to be perfect?

She put a mute on the bridge of her fiddle. Even she couldn't hear herself play.
After half an hour of her playing tiny tentative notes and hoping they fit the
tunes the others were playing Harve (large in overalls, and wearing a billed cap
that bore the logo of a tractor rental company in Oklahoma) said, "Take that
thing off. Better to make noise than silence."

"Your turn to play a tune, anyway, and you got to play it so we can hear," said
Bill.

She glanced sideways at him. She wanted to try "Chinese Breakdown," but she
didn't know it well enough yet. She thickened out and played "Wabash
Cannonball," which was so simple she had locked it down by the third class.

"Shaping up to be a fine fiddler," Kelly said when she had done. She smiled at
him, then looked at the cracked cement floor.

Bill sang an old Hank Williams song.

"Remember the first time I heard that," said Sid. "We used to have
battery-operated radios --"

Zita, picturing the big garbage-can-sized radios she had seen in thirties
movies, said, "Weren't they wired to plug in?"

"Sure, you could get them that way, but we didn't have electricity in the
cabin," said Sid. "After the sun went down you could pull in the Grand Ole Opry.
And those big old batteries would be running out of juice and we'd scootch over