Pick up the Pieces

by Flo Fitzpatrick

  “Wait. What are you doing?” I’d yelled.

  What the little fiend was doing was scooping up my bag, music and the boots I’d kicked off the instant I’d started practicing. She pulled me into the hall, shoved my bag into the man’s chest and kept mymusic. She continued to ignore my questionsand meand instead addressed the dark-eyed hunk with the black mane, who was struggling to keep my various toiletries, books, wallet and cosmetics from sailing across the floor since the girl had neglected to zip or right the bag when she stole it.

  “Nic? Do we have enough time to do this today? Wait. Stupid thought. Of course we have time. It’s too important.”

  He nodded. He had yet to say a word. He avoided looking at me.

  At least he’d taken my boots from the woman and handed them to me. I frantically tried to zip them up even as I clumsily hopped down the hall after the pair. The pair stayed ahead of me, chatting without stopping to see if their captive was following. I was forced to follow. The co-conspiratorshad my worldly goodsat least the ones most important.

  They led me to a building apart from all the rest on campus, which looked a lot like an old gymnasium. Once inside, I realized my guess was right. It even smelled like an old gymnasium. The pair ushered me down a flight of stairs into a room, which appeared to be an abandoned bowling alley. The lanes had been leveled, the pins were scattered throughout but chairs and tables had been set up all around the space. Posters announcing the dates for various musical performances over the years had been tacked up on every inch of the wall. The ads ranged from Chicago - Live at Reunion 1972 to Neil Diamond at Hogg Auditorium 1985 to Ricky Martin at Southwestern-1997.

  Neither of my two kidnappers had yet seen fit to address me. The ridiculous thought crossed my mind that they were under the very mistaken impression I had money. I wondered if I should inform them my grandmother might be able to scrape up about twenty-five bucks tops out of her most current social security check.

  The blonde started chattering. “This is the Pit, kiddo. Used to be a gym and bowling alley for Phys Ed classes way back when. The students kind of took it over and turned it into a rehearsal space for bands when the new gym was built. The university didn’t seem to mind.”

  Lord Byron nudged her.“Will you quit yapping and let’s do it?”

  I closed my eyesand prepared to meet my Maker. This was it. The end. Within the next thirty seconds or so I’d find out if I was about to become the sex slave of a crazed cult of rich, bored, extremely good-looking bowling aficionadosor murdered when the lunatic sect discovered the Becerra family was incapable of providing a ransom. Two guys entered through a doorway the back of the room. They were toting guitars, tambourines, a lute, harmonica and a guiro. Seeing the musical instruments was mildly reassuring since at least it appeared to be a cultured cult, although I was thrown by the sight of a lute in the midst of modern instruments. The two newcomers headed toward a platform with an electronic keyboard and a full drum set already in place.

  I turned to the blonde to try to get some answers. The girl thrust a sheet of paper into my hands and forestalled any questions by spitting out, “Here. You’re a music major. I assume you sight-read chords. You’re definitely warmed up. Let’s kick it.”

  Apparently my ransom was to sing. Fine, I thought. Anything for my freedom. The music was by the old group, Fleetwood Mac and the song was Gold Dust Woman. I vaguely remembered hearing it on some classic rock station. I did sight-read music quite well, so I launched into the song at the right place and hit all the right notes and made it through without throwing up this morning’s breakfast from fear of what would happen if I blew a single note during the chorus.

  “Yes!” from the blonde girl.

  “Double yes,” from Lord Byron.

  Two voices echoing positives, then two nods from the guitarist and keyboardist. The blonde girl hugged me. “You’re in. I knew you’d be wonderful.”

  I sank down on the floor of this garage-like space, right next to a bowling bag obviously older than I, then summoned some courage and growled, “Enough. I’ve been a good sport. I’ve put up with being kidnapped and traipsing after maniacs into a nasty deserted old bowling alley. I’ve sung stuff that could get me kicked out of the music school and sent home with a ripped-up scholarship in my pocket. Now, will someone around here tell me what I have to do to regain my freedom?”

  She grinned. “You’re in Pieces.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  The twenty-something short guitarist with the mop of wild frizzy hair and a moustache clearly intent on taking over his entire face flashed a set of white teeth at me.

  “The band. Us. Pieces.”

  I shook my head. “I am so confused.”

  The keyboard player held up a hand, shook his own mop of red-blondish brown hair, and looked accusingly at the hijackers. “What did y’all do? Have you gone crazy again, Marigold?”

  The girl flipped her long hair over one shoulder. “We thought we’d see how she performs under pressure.” She smiled. I instantly thought of the theme song from the old Mary Tyler Moore TV show about turning the world on with her smile. This girl could manage the entire galaxy. “I’m Marigold Blume,” she stated. “And my partner in crime guarding your carryall is Nic Jericho. The hunk over there with the guitar is Cam Felsen. Your defender and champion, covering piano and all keyboards is Dusty Sears. And I just realized I have no idea who you areI only know how good your voice is.”

  “Oh-kay. I’m Bebe. Uh. Bebe Becerra.”

  Nic brightened. “Bebe? I like it Very cute. A nickname?”

  I still couldn’t look directly at him but I managed to croak out, “Don’t ask. It’s a family thing. I used to have it as initials but it’s easier to spell without.” I sounded like a complete idiot even to myself.

  Marigold stared at me. “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen. I’ll be eighteen early in April.”

  “Are you serious? A baby. Nic, we’ve kidnapped a toddler from the music department. Could mess up the bar scene big time.” She grinned. “Nah. We’ll get a dispensation or whatever promising she’ll only drink water and won’t even look behind the bar.”

  Nic nudged Marigold. “Wanna throw her backor can we keep her?”

  I rose to my full height of five feet nine inches. Time to take a stand. “No offense, but you people should be on wanted posters at the police station. I may be a baby but I’m from Laredo, which should tell you something about my toughness. So, who are you and what precisely do you want from me?”

  Marigold patted my hand. “We told you. Pieces. It’s the name of the band. We’ve been going nuts all last summer and September looking for a good alto. Scratch that. We want a great alto. We had a girl who took off last May for some sort of European tour and stayed. Honestly, I was relieved I wasn’t forced to fire her. I’m a grad student at U.T. in vocal performance but I teach a class here at Southwestern as part of my fellowship deal. Anyway, I’ve been cruising through the practice rooms since school started looking for fresh meat. Heard your voice in the Chamber Choir at the beginning of the semester but the doors were closed and that idiot Professor Hildebrand wouldn’t let me in so I couldn’t find out your name or what you looked like. Nic is a law student at U.T. but he hangs out with us here in Georgetown for rehearsals. Since he has the best ear for talent, I grabbed him. We’ve been trolling down the hall of the practice building for two weeks trying to find your voice again.”

  Nic took up the tale. “Today when we heard you doing the aria, I told Marigold it didn’t matter if you were the one she’d originally heard or not. I truly didn’t care. I believe my exact words were ‘I want her voice.’”

  “Then you kidnapped me.”

  He smiled and another heat wave seared my flesh. I briefly wondered if the Stockholm syndrome theory regarding captives falling in love with their abductors was true. I didn’t need to study it to realize at least in one caseminethe answer was “yes.” But I wasn�
�t quite ready for a group of unhinged musicians to derail me from my purpose at this school, no matter how gorgeous one of the members was. The scholarship was my life. My ticket away from my past.

  So I said, “Uh, look, it’s very nice that y’all like my sound and I’m flattered and I’m sorry to have turned you into felons but I’m here on scholarship. Something tells me a rock band is not quite what the University has in mind for me.”

  Marigold flipped her hand in the air. “Pish-tosh. We’re exactly what you need. You’ll be so bored with classical and heavy operas in another week you’ll hardly be able to stand it. And I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Never have. Never will.”

  She hadn’t. I became the newest member of Pieces.

  Now, eleven years later, I looked around the table in the Palace Theatre ballroom at Cam and Stone and Glenn and Dusty and couldn’t help smiling. I felt certain each man had also been following his own paths of “Marigold memories” dealing with the woman’s talents of persuasion while I’d been reliving mine.

  I sighed. “I miss her.”

  Cam grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Ditto.” He began to laugh. “I’d’ ve loved to have seen how she would have handled Miss Saffron Baker tonight. Of course, if Marigold were here we’d never have been in the situation calling for us to handle her but you get my drift.”

  I did. Unfortunately, it reminded me Nic Jericho was not sitting with us sharing tales and memories of the past. He was out somewhere doing who knew what with a wild blonde, blue-eyed soprano who had the attitude of a dog winning Best in Show, the voice of a star, and the body of a thirty-four year old goddess.

  Chapter 19

  The Blume music room was located in the east wing of the mansion and had always been stocked with everything a musician and composer could desire. An antique desk held drawers filled with pens, pencils, highlighters, staples, sharpeners and clips. An oversized file cabinet opened to reveal one drawer filled with blank sheets of staff paper. Another drawer held vocal scores from Broadway musicals and operas. Two more drawers contained sheet music featuring solo vocalists and groups going as far back as the rockabilly artists of the 1940s.

  None of us had entered the room since the night Marigold disappeared. I still couldn’t imagine trying to rehearse here without her. It would seem like a slap in the face.

  A state-of-the-art computer sat on top of a new desk made from cherry wood. It came equipped with a Wi-Fi connection, a cd burner, an MP3 player, an all-in-one printer, copier, scanner and fax machine. I almost expected to find a programmable coffee maker attached.

  Framed prints by various masters adorned the walls alongside posters depicting old bands like the Rolling Stones, Uriah Heep and Toto. A huge poster-sized blow-up of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumorsalbum cover had been tacked upusing colored push pinsbetween high-priced copies of Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Monet’s Garden at Sainte Adresse.

  A Baby Grand piano took up space in one corner. Three acoustic guitars, one electric bass, one electric keyboard, three tambourines, a harmonica and a full drum set including bongos filled the other corner. Headphones, microphones and cell phones sprawled over music stands and on top of an old dual cd/cassette player.

  The computerized electronic equipment was new. The instruments, music, the stands and paper were not. Marigold and I used to record our original tunes in this same space. We would sing into those mikes and listen to the playback on tape and howl if we heard a particularly painfully sour note.

  Marigold had also used this room as her practice area, vocalizing here on a daily basis. No matter what else was happening in her life, she was working on vocal technique at least two hours a day if Pieces wasn’t playing a gig out of town. She might have been a disaster in terms of her romantic life. It was widely acknowledged her drug use had been far more extensive than a few joints and she was on a first-name basis with some very iffy street dealers. She drove the Illusions van (when Cam let her) as though she was auditioning for a spot on the NASCAR circuit. But when it came to her voice and her music, she was as conscientious as a Metropolitan Opera veteran worried about a rookie taking over in the new season.

  Marigold and I hadn’t used this room to compose. The ambiance just wasn’t right. Most of the time our songs were written apart from one another. I would come up with tunes while devouring gigantic Tex-Mex dinners at El Topitas right off campus, sitting in a booth away from the rest of the patrons. If I wasn’t chowing down at El Topitas, I’d be hearing melodies in my head while digging into a loaded baked potato at Freddy’s with a digital recorder close at hand so I could hum any brilliant tunes. Marigold normally wrote her lyrics in her bedroom or in the back of the van. She always said she needed total solitude.

  I had spent this last hour staring at the very old Cat Stevens’ Majikat tour poster on the wall and warbling along with Bette Midler’s even older “Divine Miss M” album, which happened to be in the cd player. Sadly, not a single decent idea as to what to do with the lyrics to Chasm had popped into my head. If only I could come up with right melody. The right style.

  “Dipstick.”

  “What?

  I spun around on the piano stool. No one was in the room. “Is someone there? Did someone say something?”

  Nothing. I turned back to the Baby Grand and heard the voice again. It was Marigold. Haunting me. Taunting me.

  “Bebe. You dunce. You and I never did anything creative in this room. Remember? When we’d get stumped we’d head out to the Blue Hole. It’s the only way to get this right. And you need to get this right. For me. Please, do it for me. No matter how much you still hate me.”

  Great. Now I was now hearing a voice from beyond. We’d been so absurdly close my brain was channeling Marigold’s words in her own voice. A voice whose words tore me apart because they were wrong. I didn’t hate Marigold, although admittedly there were still very strong unresolved issues between us. But at least her unseen presence had pegged the problem with creating the melody to Chasm.

  I slung a large handful of staff music paper and about six gel pens into my bag, and then headed down the hall to the garage. Junie had graciously offered me the pick of any of the available five Blume vehicles during my stay whenever I needed them. Four of them were gone. I grabbed the keys off the wall for the remaining piece of transportation, which turned out to be the Blume’s Bloom truck. For years Junie had used her talents in the greenhouse to provide exotic floral arrangements for events around the county. The truck was at least twenty years old but it ran like a dream and I wasn’t picky.

  I backed out of the huge garage and took the first left leading down the long driveway and onto Highway 79, which would lead me back to Georgetown and the Blue Hole Park.

  “This place clears the mind,” Marigold had stated the first time she’d driven me to Blue Hole Park, about a month after I joined Pieces and Marigold discovered her abductee loved to write melodies. “We need fresh brains to allow the creative flow. Blue Hole calls to me like the sirens called to sailors and I’m assuming you’ll feel the same. I’ve written incredible poetry here. If you don’t end up with music to make one’s soul soar? Well, then you don’t have the spirit inside you I thought you did, and regardless of how awesome you sing, I swear I’ll dump you back into your nasty little practice room and you can live out your days in boredom with the Chamber singers.”

  As usual, Marigold had been right. The Blue Hole was inspiring. Marigold and I had written the best of the original songs for the Pieces debut album there. We’d returned to the poster-filled room at the Blume house to record so we could hear what our music sounded like on tape, but it was in the Blue Hole where the real work had been accomplished.

  I shoved away any thoughts that Marigold or Daria might have been taken here when they each went missing. The police had scoured the whole park and lagoon and found nothing and I hadn’t felt any sudden chill as I stepped out of the car. Nothing of either girl lingered in the atmosphere and at first I felt surprisingly
safe.

  This afternoon an intermittent fine rain was threatening to become more substantial, so the park was deserted, but I plopped down in front of a tree stump and stared at the crystal clear water edging across a makeshift dam in the middle of the creek. I stuck a beach umbrella into the ground, which did an amazing job of keeping me dry, took out my writing paraphernalia and shut my eyes, trying to summon brilliant thoughts and praying they might be swirling somewhere inside my brain.

  I normally liked the solitude but it seemed wrong today. I opened my eyes and looked for signs of life. Three different bird’s nests had been solidly built into the branches of a tree right at the edge of the clearing. Mom and Dad must have been out foraging for supper and the babies left napping because I couldn’t hear either rustling or chirping. Two squirrels were snuggled under the same tree, stretched out in centerfold-spread poses. On their backs, legs sprawled, eyes closed, content with the day and oblivious to the world around them. I envied them their serenity and apparent love for each other and dubbed them Frankie and Johnny.

  I peeked my head out from underneath the beach umbrella to get a better look at the squirrels. Perspiration dripped down my cheeks, joining the raindrops falling from the branches of the tree overhead. The perspiration wasn’t from the heat. Someone was watching. Human eyes. Not birds. Not squirrels.

  I tried to dismiss my fears and instead focus on the tune running through my mind. During the drive to the Blue Hole, I’d thought about Marigold’s cryptic words claiming Chasm was not intended to be up-tempo rock n’ roll, but should be sung as a ballad. I’d begun considering different styles and initiated a ghostly dialogue with the absent Marigold much in the same way we used to discuss what type of melody would fit her words. And whammo! It hit. Insight. Inspiration.

  “Yes! Perfect.Whoa, Marigoldwherever you arewe’re good. You have such strong imagery in this song. Truly honest poetry. This, my friend needs to be a Celtic air lifted from a medieval minstrel’s songbook. A tune from another time and place.”