Crimson Fox by Anne Eston
Synopsis:
When the singer cancels the interview and refuses to reschedule it, Gloria must return to L.A. to face her editor with no story.
After hours on the road, Gloria finds herself at the Silver Cactus, a small bar and grill in the middle of the desert, owned by the former bass guitarist of the all-female rock band Crimson Fox. That pitstop leads to a journey across the country and back to the desert in search of the story that was never told—the story Gloria was meant to write, and the one that will show her who she was always meant to be.
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Faye i.
1962 - Evanston, Il
The afternoon wore on, hot and long, like a migraine that only got worse with every passing hour.
“Faye, come over here!” Ruth Michaels’ voice was much too sharp for someone who was supposed to be enjoying themselves, someone who was supposed to be happy. Then again, Faye couldn’t remember her mother being happy about much of anything since she was a little girl. “Your aunt Susan wants you to open her gift before she and your uncle Paul leave.”
God wouldn’t that be great, if pinched old aunt Susan and lard-ass uncle Paul left? Hell, if everyone left? Faye looked out across the back yard to see most of her mother’s friends and their husbands, who all had a hangdog look about them, milling around and eating too many canapés. These men weren’t even friends of her father’s, because Ruth considered his friends to be a waste of their time as a couple. Jim Michaels’ buddies at the factory hadn’t made it the right this side of the tracks the way the Michaels family had. At least Faye could look forward to Kiki’s arrival. That would mean the real beginning of everything important.
“Can I just call her next week? Kiki’ll be here any minute.”
“Faye Marie Michaels, do as I ask this instant!”
Faye nodded in dejected acceptance. She glanced at the festivities again—that ridiculous tent that looked like it belonged in a circus; the long table with centerpieces more akin to a wedding reception than a high school graduation party; expensive, catered appetizers that most people couldn’t pronounce.
This was her mother’s party, a social triumph that had little to do with Faye’s graduation. Faye almost laughed out loud at the idea that she would have been allowed to invite any of her real friends, who were few enough and rejected by her mother along with her father’s coworkers.
Before she turned to follow her mother into the house, Faye locked eyes with her father. He smiled and raised his hand in a wave. That smile held her whole life, up to that day. She survived the stifling life the Michaels family led only because of him. She suspected that caring for her, and trying to see that she was happy in spite of her mother, was how he survived it too.
The countless Saturday afternoons when her mother was out shopping or playing bridge with her friends were when Faye and her father formed their alliance. For those precious few hours, they were both free to do what they loved best in the garage: Jim tinkering with his old Packard, and Faye watching him. They talked and laughed from the time she could walk and talk. When she was old enough, he might ask her to hand him a wrench, or bring him a towel. And music…there was always music.
If he was doing engine work, her father would tap his foot or bob his head to the sounds of Buddy Holly or Bill Haley and the Comets.
But if he was working on a more delicate wire or engine repair, he required jazz of the likes of Chet Baker and Stan Getz. Her father would talk to her about the brilliance of a saxophone solo, or the musical genius behind a guitar riff. But it was the wild syncopated rhythms that spoke to Faye. In them, she found her own musical heartbeat.
By the time Faye was in the third grade, she knew she wanted to play the bass guitar. Ruth wouldn’t stand for musical lessons of any kind until she saw that her well-to-do friends all had “child prodigies,” if not in math or science, then in music.
Still, she wouldn’t hear of Faye playing anything so crass as the bass guitar. But Jim, in his brilliance, convinced his wife to let Faye play the mandolin. There were enough similarities that would allow her to transition to the bass guitar once she got out from under Ruth’s thumb. It was also classy and unique enough to impress Ruth’s friends.
“Just do this for now,” he’d told Faye. “Just learn music. I’ll figure something out.”
And he did. By the summer of her sophomore year in high school, Jim enlisted his work buddy Fred MacKinnon’s nephew Trace to give bass guitar lessons to Faye. The kid was practically ready to join Elvis Presley’s band he was so good, and he was looking to make some extra money.
Trace was hesitant when Jim asked him to keep the same time slot on Saturday afternoons free, with the actual lesson to be confirmed or cancelled a half hour prior. Saturdays at one o’clock was the only time Ruth was guaranteed to be at her bridge club, which she rarely hosted, because Mildred Farmer had a dedicated game room complete with a wet bar.
Jim’s offer to pay Trace twice his usual rate even if a lesson was cancelled sealed the deal.
Teacher and student hit a stride from their first lesson, Trace being astonished at how adaptable Faye was to her new instrument, and Faye being impressed that someone only a couple of years older than she was, could be her teacher. And once the lessons started, Faye was unstoppable. They’d nearly gotten caught a few times when Ruth came home early from bridge club. But by the time Faye was a junior in high school, she didn’t much care anymore.
Other things got harder of course. She was never encouraged to bring her friends to the house, because they were all artists, or “those awful hippie children” as her mother called them. Faye was constantly making up friendships and activities that Ruth would find more suitable just to get out of the house, like kids from science class, or practice sessions for the debate club.
Eventually, Faye started to play gigs. Only with small local bands that played at places like the bowling alley in the next county, or random weddings. Even in desperation, they hadn’t wanted to let Faye play, until they heard how good she was. At times, she played for no pay. Back then, she wasn’t interested in money. She just wanted to play music.
Faye stayed out of trouble too. She always told her father where she was, even if he didn’t really approve. He always gave her enough cash so that she could leave any place where trouble broke out and catch a cab home.
Now as he waved, Faye smiled back at her father, then put on a mask of stone when she turned back toward her mother. Ruth narrowed her eyes, probably at her father in the background over her shoulder. She reached past Faye and pulled the door shut with a bang.
Just like the mandolin lessons, smiling with false gratitude for whatever tacky, inappropriate graduation gift Susan had decided to foist onto her was just one last thing Faye would have to endure.
“There you are!” scolded Susan as Faye followed her mother into the family room.
“I thought I was going to have to call the National Guard to get her in here,” quipped Ruth.
“Hi Aunt Susan,” said Faye, ignoring the attitude both women were throwing at her.
“Thank you for coming.” She sat down next to her aunt on the sofa and tried not to look appalled at the long rectangular box on Susan’s lap wrapped in the most unattractive pea-green paper, and tied with an equally distasteful bile-colored yellow-green ribbon.
“Oh, we wouldn’t have missed it for the world. But your Uncle Paul needs to get back early. The man is always working, even when he isn’t. Here you go,” she said, sliding the box onto Faye’s lap. “When I saw this, I knew you had to have it for your first year of college—every girl needs sensible—”
“Hush, Susan, you’ll spoil the surprise,” said Ruth. “She’s almost got it open. Hurry up Faye, I want to see!”
Faye took her time, pretending she wanted to preserve the paper and ribbon. They wanted her to tear it open like it was Christmas morning, but she just wouldn’t do it.
When she finally unfolded the dark green tissue paper, she saw the ugliest terry-cloth robe she’d ever seen: yellow, red and green plaid against a mud-brown background. It was hideous.
“Well, like I started to say, every young college girl needs a modest, practical robe to cover herself in the dorm,” declared Susan.
It was all Faye could do not to blurt out “And you found this in the women’s department?” But just as she opened her mouth to spew the biggest lie of her young life about how much she loved the atrocious gift, the urgent sound of a car horn interrupted her. Faye acted on it immediately.
“Kiki’s here, I don’t want to keep her waiting! Thanks so much Aunt Susan, thank Uncle Paul for me too.” Faye leapt up and shoved the box back into her aunt’s arms. “Don’t wait up, Mom.”
The two women protested like indignant hens that had been chased off their roost, peppering her with questions. But Faye ignored them, and kept her eyes straight ahead, until she exited by the front door and slammed it behind her. She wouldn’t be coming back home for the horrible gift, or anything else.
Her best friend smiled and waved from the driver’s seat of a bright orange Jeep idling by the curb near the end of the driveway. Faye reached under the tall bush next to the porch and pulled out her purse and a suitcase she’d hidden there the night before.
The thrill of leaving everything behind propelled Faye toward the Jeep. But a twinge in her heart when she opened the passenger door made her stop and look back one last time.
Through the open gate at the side of the house that led to the backyard, Faye caught her father’s eye again as he stood at the dessert table cutting the cake she would never taste. He gave her a wistful smile that sent a sharp pang to her heart. She blew him a kiss and hoped he’d know how grateful she was for him. How much she loved him. As tears threatened, Faye turned from him and climbed into the car.
Kiki floored the gas before Faye could even get the passenger door closed. Kiki was on her way to Northwestern where everyone thought Faye would be attending with her. But she’d be dropping Faye at the bus station, with only one stop along the way. Faye prayed that the pawn shop still had the guitar she’d been saving up for all summer. Either way, she would be on a Greyhound bus bound for New York City in just under two hours.
The two of them looked at each other and cranked their windows down as they screamed in joyous rebellion. Roy Orbison’s “Sweet Dream Baby” rang out of the open windows, as they tore through the neighborhood and out into the world.
