Song of the Chimney Sweep Read online

  “You keep that,” she said, “as payment for the show.”

  “Oh, no. I can’t accept it, Princess,” he said, presenting the penny anew, teasing with another little bow. On the porch, the singers counted off an uptempo beat and launched into a bebop version of “Pennies From Heaven.”

  “I insist,” she said. She couldn’t have stopped smiling if she tried.

  “Well, all right, if you insist, I’ll keep it then.” He dropped the penny into his shirt pocket. “But not as payment.” He patted the pocket and flattened his hand over his heart with gallant air. “I’ll save it, as a keepsake.” He slid his hands smoothly into his trouser pockets and stepped backward, toward the house. “To remember you by,” he dipped his head, “Princess.”

  He turned and stepped out of their spotlight. She wished she didn’t want to follow him. She wished she could turn and go, leave the moment alone and find her friends. Or glue beneath her shoes.

  She stepped after him.

  “My name is Betty,” she said.

  He turned back toward her. She offered a hand, the other hand smoothed across the cinched waist of her shirtdress, glad for the little bit of shape it lent her narrow frame. “Betty Langdon.”

  “Betty. That’s a pretty name. My grandmother’s name is Elizabeth.” How could a set of eyes seem to convey so much? “My name’s Dominicus Owens.” He took her hand. “But they call me Mini.”

  His hand enveloped hers, warm and smooth. As she looked up at him, towering over her with a smile she couldn’t believe was for her. “It’s just Betty,” she said. “Not Elizabeth. Just Betty. I wish it were Elizabeth, though.”

  Her hand was still in his. She looked up at his face, at the charming, amused expression and the velvety sheen of his eyes. An explosion of sound broke the cold, quiet of evening.

  Raucous music and shouting split the road as the door of the tavern flew open. Three men in jeans and cowboy hats piled into a pickup truck, laughing and hooting as they tore away. The driver’s dirty-blond hair whipped against his bare arm as he waved it outside the window, squealing around the curve in the road and speeding away.

  Betty and Dominicus looked at each other and laughed. The others hooted and whistled from the porch. “I should get back to my friends,” Betty said.

  “Well, all right, Miss Betty,” he said. A pang of something irrational spiked in her chest. He released her hand and it felt suddenly cold. “You take care now. Come back any time. We practice up there on Sly’s porch all the time.”

  “You fellas a group? What’s it called?”

  “We are. That’s Hank, Zeke, O.T., and Sly. We’re The Downtown Sound.”

  “Are you now?” Betty said. She tried out looking up from under her lashes, but it came out a spasmodic flutter. She pushed her chin out instead. “Maybe I will come back.” She patted the handkerchief behind her ear and said before she could think too much on it: “In fact, I know I will. And when I do, I think I’d rather call you Dominicus. Mini doesn’t suit you at all.” She went on, filled with a sudden boldness, “But I do think Princess will suit me just fine.”

  His eyes narrowed, then widened, and his mouth spread into a broad grin. She grinned back. He patted his shirt pocket and stopped walking, letting her continue on her own. A hot breeze strained through the bushes, kicking leaves up to swirl at their feet. Crickets offered rousing applause from their seats in the bushes as one of the porch singers counted off for another tune, uptempo this time.

  “It had to be you…” The beat made the old song fresh. “It had to be you…I wandered around and finally found that somebody who…”

  Betty turned and walked backward. “Oh, an encore!” she called, bouncing her shoulders to the music. “But I like Ray Charles’ s version best.”

  “Ray Charles’s version, huh?” Dominicus’s brows arched and he nodded, highly impressed. Betty thought she might burst. It was as if the sun were rising inside her body.

  Dominicus watched after Betty until she vanished behind the tavern doors and they closed behind her. Keeping his eyes on the doors, he walked backward to the porch and, catching the beat with snapping fingers, he found his note and took the lead.

  “…It had to be you, wonderful you. It had to be you…”

  Melody

  2019

  Podcaster Melody Hinterson read the last line of her script, adding an extra dash of ominous drama to her voice as she signed off. Her producer Dorian Santos held up one hand, counting down 3-2-1, and then clicked a button on his keyboard with the other hand. “Okay, you’re clear.”

  Across the table, Melody tucked her chin to her neck and found the tiny microphone clipped to her t-shirt. “Thanks, Dor,” she said. She nodded at him and pushed her chair back, snatching a slice of room-temperature pizza from its box and flipping the lid closed.

  “So did you have a chance to think about what kind of song you want to use for the theme?” Dorian said. He glanced at the pizza box, then set his fingers on his keyboard. The twelve bars of music they chose would be the leitmotif of the whole second season, so it had to be perfect. “Do you want something tense like this?” He finished typing with a flourish and clicked a button. A low progression of string chords played through the bluetooth speakers in the corners of the room, Melody’s dining room where they’d set up their recording studio. “Or maybe something more buzzy—more like this?” An acoustic guitar riff played over a melody with a foreboding tone. Dorian’s fingers followed the notes, itching for the strings of his guitar.

  “Oh no!” Melody rolled her eyes dramatically. “Those ‘where art thou’ tunes are done to death in the true crime space, don’t you think? Like, we get it, the South is sooo gothic…” She wagged her head in a slow figure-eight.

  Dorian smiled, then looked back at his screen.

  “Dang it, now that ‘Constant Sorrow’ song is gonna be stuck in my head all day.” Melody stood, took a big bite, chewed it over. Her eyes went wide and her jaw worked faster, pushing the mouthful to one cheek. “Oh, oh, oh!” She swallowed fast. “What are the chances we could get the rights to a Lynyrd Skynyrd tune? How perfect would that be? Jacksonville band for a local story?” Her eyes crinkled the way they did when she went into that faraway thinking mode. Dorian smiled and then looked away, turning back to his keyboard, but Melody couldn’t miss the red flush in his cheeks. He typed something into the search bar, and the first strains of the organ intro to “Freebird” filtered into the room. Melody grinned.

  “Yeah, like that!” she said. “Perfect!”

  “Actually…” Dorian said, clicking the keys again, “this could be really perfect.” The evocative first bars of “Simple Kind Of Man” played — guitar and cymbal, followed by bass.

  “Oooh my goodness,” Melody’s head lolled back, “you’re right!”

  “I know,” Dorian said. He shut his laptop down. “But we don’t have the budget for the rights to that song.”

  Melody’s shoulders sank. “How much can you use before you have to pay for rights?”

  “I think it’s still ten seconds.”

  “How much would full rights be?”

  “More than we have.”

  “What if my mom’s cousin went to school with one of their nieces? Do you think that would help?” Melody took a big bite of pizza.

  “Did he date her?” Dorian checked the pizza box, found it empty, and closed it back up.

  “Kind of, I think.” Melody aimed her slice at him, offering to share.

  Dorian shook his head. “I’ll just starve.” Melody rolled her eyes, but smiled around her mouthful of pizza.

  “Did he marry her?” Dorian said.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Not that you ‘know of.’” He drew air quotes. “Probably ‘no’ then.” More air quotes.

  “Still, we have a better chance than if he had married
her, and then divorced her, like he did all his other wives,” Melody offered. “So there’s that. It wouldn’t hurt to ask. Maybe I should ask.” She made a note in her calendar. Her mom would probably have his latest phone number. Then she wrapped her wavy ponytail around itself till it formed a bun, pulled the end through the middle and tugged.

  She flipped her laptop back open and searched the Lynyrd Skynyrd website. Dorian shook his head and gathered his things. Then he stood behind Melody and looked over her shoulder at the screen as he put on his hoodie.

  “‘Man of Constant Sorrow’ is actually public domain, you know,” he said.

  Melody covered her ears. If she thought about that song, it would be stuck in her head the rest of the day.

  Dorian grinned at the top of her head. “When should we meet back?”

  She pulled her gaze from the screen and looked up at him as he tried to zip his hoodie. She’d given him that hoodie for his birthday when they were classmates in college. He looked so cute in it that she was suddenly glad it was fall. “I thought we might set that up after you’re done editing the trailer and intro episode.”

  “Let’s see. I need to wrap up the ad updates for last season and then I can focus on just this. Probably could have it ready for you to check out by Friday? I can come by and play it—“

  “So you can upload to beta for me to listen—Oh, you mean…” He usually sends this kind of stuff digitally... “Yeah, you could come Friday, for sure! If you want to do that, I mean, if you don’t mind. Instead.”

  “Either way—“

  “No, yeah, in-person is even better. That way we can discuss it in real time. Maybe go over the script for episode two.” Her voice dropped two octaves as she did an eerily spot-on impression of Peter Thomas, the ominous voice of her favorite show Forensic Files. “This week’s episode: ‘Legend Tripping…’”

  Dorian pulled at the brim of his baseball hat. “Great. Check your calendar when you get a chance and let me know what time would work.” He hefted his bag and slipped the strap over his head.

  “Looks like I can do noon.” She pointed to the Friday square in her planner. “I’ll order another pizza.”

  “Did you just jot down ‘order another pizza’ in your calendar?”

  “Yup! See you Friday at noon for an episode review and more pizza.” She tapped the empty box. And if we can’t find an intro song, maybe you could improvise a few bars on the guitar?”

  “Sure, sounds good.” He turned and strode to the door with Melody smiling after him. “See you Friday!” he called over his shoulder. He stepped outside, but gave her a small smile before pulling the door closed behind him.

  The smile dissolved down Melody’s chin. What is going on? She thought she knew all his expressions, knew the meaning of every different smile—amused, tired, pensive, surprised. That smile just now looked like he wanted to say something, but had thought better of it.

  She wanted to know what it was. But also dreaded it.

  Their unspoken understanding since starting this podcast together was that they were business partners, and that meant they could never be a couple. Dopey crushes and silly flirting would ruin everything they were working for here. And yet, the room felt empty the moment he left. She stared after him at the closed door, and then blinked hard when it opened again.

  “Package!” Dorian said. “The new mystery puzzle is here!” He went to a small wooden dining table Melody kept in front of the picture window in the living room.

  She jumped out of her chair and met him at the table. “I was just wondering when it would get here!” Sure, that’s what you were wondering.

  While Dorian sliced the tape on the plain brown box, Melody snapped a picture of a completed puzzle that covered the table. It was a picture of a snow-covered mountain with tiny skiers dotting the white expanse with an enticing ski lodge in the foreground complete with puffs of cotton-ball smoke drifting from the chimney, its roof heavy with more snow. Lights glowed from within. When they’d laid the last piece, the two of them had stared longingly at the lodge, wishing they could see what was inside, behind those windows. She made sure she got a few good shots then quickly broke it down and gathered all the pieces in a basket they kept under the table. Dorian pulled a note from the box and read aloud while Melody rifled through the pieces in the box.

  “’Dear Fellow Mystery Puzzler, Good luck with this one!” he read. “We had no idea what it was until we were halfway through it. Your clue is: Honey Moon.’”

  Neither of them commented.

  Dorian carefully dumped the pieces in the tray, and they both leaned in to spread them out. “So we’ve got yellows, greens, and blues for edge pieces, purple—what are those? Petals?” He held a piece up with one hand and continued shuffling the pieces with the other.

  “Definitely an outdoor scene, drawn, not a photo, maybe a forest?” She looked at the piece Dorian held up, then grasped his hand. “Hold still! Let me see it! Yup, that looks like a little blossom, maybe.” They locked eyes, then both glanced down at her hand on his. She cleared her throat and drew her hand away.

  He wouldn’t want to leave now, not until they’d at least gotten the outer pieces in place. Once they were separated out, they divided the pieces by type: tabs to the left, blanks to the right.

  “I’m gonna run and change my clothes,” Melody said, clearing her throat. “Be right back.”

  Melody hurried down the hall to her bedroom and swung the door closed behind her. She stopped in front of her dresser, her hands on the handles of her comfy-clothes drawer, and stared at the door, imagining Dorian on the other side. What would it be like to be someone who would slip into something silky right now, to let her hair down and shake the curls over her shoulders, and slink back out to the living room? To sidle up to Dorian and drop an arm around his shoulder, look down at the puzzle pieces with him, pause there till he noticed her perfume and turned his head—

  “Mel!”

  She jumped up and grabbed a ratty pair of pajama pants. “Coming!” She wriggled out of her work clothes.

  “Come back!” Dorian shouted down the hall. “I don’t wanna set it up without you.”

  “Coming, coming!” She hopped one leg and then the other into the pant legs, stuck her tongue out at herself in the mirror, and headed back out, singing to herself.

  “ ‘Oh, I-I-I am a ma-a-an of constant sorrow’…Dang it!”

  She stopped in the living room doorway. He was bent over the table, pinching his bottom lip, deep in thought.

  He placed two pieces down and fit them together. A corner. She organized the pieces by color and pattern. They had the process down. They’d lost track of how many puzzles they’d worked on together since they joined the Mystery Puzzlers Club in their senior year of college. It had been the perfect way to fill down time at the local news station affiliate where they both did their internships. The puzzle club director Theodore Philpot (not his real name, for the sake of his ‘personal safety’) could tell any member at any time precisely how many they’d completed, along with how many they’d failed, how long they took to complete each puzzle, and how many pieces another member claimed they’d lost, down to the spot where the piece would have fit.

  Still, it was fun, even if the director did take his job a little too seriously. Dorian’s dead-on impressions of him cracked Melody up, and quoting his emails made up a decent percentage of their inside jokes. Every few months, the club members packed up the pieces to their latest puzzle and mailed them on to the next club member. Then they sent the president a picture of the completed puzzle. Once everyone had a chance at each puzzle, the club director would pack up new puzzles in unmarked boxes and mail them out, starting the next round. High drama broke out once in a while with one team accusing another of losing a piece, inciting the accused to protest that the accuser must be making the false claim with the sole purpose of lowering th
e accused’s point count. Last year, a new rule had been put in place stating that such claims must be made immediately upon receipt of the pieces, and some players went so far as to videotape themselves opening the new box and counting out the pieces. That had been Dorian’s desperate suggestion, actually, mostly to shut everyone up so they could get on with working on the puzzles. Theodore Philpot appreciated that idea so much that he’d agreed to sponsor the season one finale of the Tabs and Blanks Podcast.

  During breaks in recording, while eating lazy dinners or pretending to study, Melody and Dorian always had a puzzle going. When Dorian got tired of working on his thesis, he went to the puzzle table. When Melody couldn’t listen to her own voice in the headphones any more, she went to the puzzle table. When they found themselves floundering with the complicated status of their friendship, they went to the puzzle table.

  While the other members took the rules and the scores to another level, Melody and Dorian were blatantly unconcerned. They knew their score was subject to minute tallies and scrupulous recording somewhere—probably in Theodore’s mother’s basement where he maintained a private puzzle lair—but the fact was neither of them could care less about the score.

  At the puzzle table, things were simple. They worked together, heads bent close enough to touch, and everything fell into place. All the pieces eventually found their place, fit just right. It all made sense. At the puzzle table, the outside world disappeared, and rules didn’t matter.

  It was all about playing the game.

  Tabs and Blanks

  Podcast

  Transcript

  Season 2: Trailer—“The Chimney Sweep”

  Narrated by host Melody Hinterson

  Voice of Melody Hinterson: In the world of jigsaw puzzles, the puzzler’s task is to fit the pieces together into a complete image, a total picture that tells a cohesive story. The individual pieces of a puzzle have their own names—‘tabs’ and ‘blanks’—and only when each one is fitted into its original place will the puzzle be solved. Only then does it all make total sense.