by Rick Boling
The unspoken distance between us often struck me as contradictory, because in almost all other respects we were extraordinarily compatible. We both had quick wits and humorous, sarcastic verbal styles. And, like Aurélie, Doris was extremely intelligent and opinionated. In short, we got along famously, though the interaction of these similar traits often led to some pretty spirited debates. One of those debates had to do with my reluctance to use my knowledge of the future for personal gain or to intervene in ways she thought would be beneficial to the world at large. This particular subject had come up several times, and it was when I mentioned Kennedy’s assassination that it really came to a head.
Kennedy had recently solved the Cuban Missile Crisis, and his popularity was at a high point. I’d already made the mistake of telling Doris that Marilyn Monroe would be found dead, and she’d asked me if there wasn’t something we could do to save her life. I said no, that it wouldn’t be a good idea to even try, but she didn’t understand. And later, when I slipped up again and mentioned that Kennedy was going to be assassinated the following year, she nearly went ballistic.
“What do you mean you can’t do anything?” she shouted. “Tell someone. Call the White House. Call the FBI. You can’t just stand by and let it happen.”
“Keep your voice down,” I said. We were in her bedroom after finishing a long recording session at around 5:00 a.m. “You’re going to wake everybody up.”
“Okay,” she said, lowering her voice to a loud whisper. “But we’re going to talk about this whether you want to or not.”
“The problem with talking about it,” I said, “is that you don’t seem to grasp the complexity and danger involved in messing around with major events. I told you I almost killed an old girlfriend of mine—not to mention myself—by trying to pull off some idiotic scheme I thought would only have affected me. And what you’re suggesting is that I try to alter an incident that changed the course of human history.”
“What about saving your dad’s life? I wouldn’t call that minor.”
“We lucked out there,” I said. “So far, at least. Not only could any number of things have gone wrong, but we won’t know the ultimate outcome for years, maybe decades. What you need to understand is that some things are so deeply woven into the fabric of the future, any attempt to change them could lead to disastrous results in the long run. Besides, I’m nobody. I have no clout, no credibility, no access to celebrities or politicians. Even if I found a way to warn people, no one would believe the predictions of an obscure record producer.”
“Well then, maybe you should have that kind of access and clout,” she said. “You know, don’t you, if things keep going the way they are now, you’re going to be a rich man before long? And who’s to say you have to restrict your creative endeavors to the music business. The patents we’ve applied for on several of the inventions you and Sam have come up with should be bringing in a lot of additional revenue soon. So, for a start, I was going to suggest we set up a separate company or division dedicated to engineering innovations. Jimmy’s become so valuable as your right-hand-man, he could eventually take over the production company with only occasional creative input from you, and that should free you up to do other things.”
“What other things?” I asked. “More sex? Aren’t you getting enough as it is?”
“Now that you mention it, I am. And that’s something else we need to discuss. But what I’m talking about is branching out into other areas: inventions, TV, movies, concert tours. And speaking of concert tours, this crap of keeping Sarah under wraps with those photos and album covers that make the color of her skin ambiguous is going to have to come to an end soon. We’re looking at tens of thousands of dollars in concerts and TV appearances that we can’t tap into as long as she remains out of public view. Sullivan’s already offered us five grand for one performance, and there are half a dozen others who’d pay big bucks for her to be on their shows. Not to mention that TV exposure, plus a tour, would probably triple her record sales. My point is, once we expand the operation, there’s no limit to the possibilities, and in the end, you could become a very powerful and influential man.”
I was trying to think of a rebuttal, when I remembered my conversation with Aurélie about how easily power can corrupt. “What if I don’t want to be powerful and influential?” I said. “Right now, I’m doing fine in my little niche, and if I’m careful, I can probably help some people without stepping on too many toes or making a lot of compromises that end up hurting others. Power corrupts, you know. And the more a person has the more corrupt he’s likely to become.”
“That may be true,” she said, “but you’re forgetting that power can also be used for good. Look at Gandhi, or Martin Luther King, or even FDR: all powerful men who used their clout to help make the world a better place.”
“Don’t even think about comparing me to those people,” I said. “I couldn’t lick their boots when it comes to virtue or value to the world. It’s all I can do to resist the temptation of using what little advantage I have to screw others.”
“Yes,” she said, “and that’s exactly why you probably wouldn’t abuse whatever power you acquire. Besides, I’ll be here to rein you in if you ever get out of line. Which brings me back to the subject of sex.”
“It does?”
“It does. I don’t mean to throw a wet blanket on such a stimulating conversation, but we’re going to have to talk about the possibility of making our arrangement a little more permanent.”
“What? You want a new contract or something?”
“Sort of,” she said, reaching over and grabbing my crotch. “One that involves this and our future together. As I’ve mentioned before, often to your chagrin, I’ve used my knowledge of ovulation and timing to try and keep things between us less, shall we say, obligatory. But playing Vatican Roulette is, after all, only another form of gambling, and depending upon how you look at it, we’ve either hit the jackpot, or we’ve just lost the biggest bet of our lives.”
Karmageddon
A bruised cotton–candy sky hung low over Coffee Pot Bayou—an ominous dome of swollen clouds that obscured the approaching dawn. The threat of early morning rain matched our mood, as we sat together contemplating the crisis we now faced. Following Doris’s announcement, we’d gone over our options: running away together, coming clean and dealing with the consequences, Doris quickly finding another lover then claiming he was the father. Finally, feeling trapped and claustrophobic, we decided to get some fresh air, only to find when we arrived at the small bayou park that the threatening sky compounded the feeling of impending doom.
One thing we had not discussed was abortion. Even if it hadn’t been illegal at the time, I wasn’t about to suggest it. And, apparently, Doris did not consider it an option or she would have brought it up herself.
Emotionally exhausted, we sat on the bench and watched the clouds bulge and droop, making no effort to move as the first fat drops of rain slapped our skin. “Appropriate, don’t you think?” she said, huddling under my arm. “The rain, I mean.”
I didn’t answer, just hugged her and thought about the hopelessness of the situation. Finally, I tried to shake off the gloom and face reality. “We really don’t have much choice, do we?” I said. “We can’t give up the business and run away, too many people are depending on us now. And the bit about you finding someone else to pin the pregnancy on is just silly. Forgetting the repercussions, the question is, do you really want to get married? I mean, we both know our relationship isn’t the kind of storybook romance every woman dreams of.”
“Not every woman, necessarily,” she said, sitting up and shaking raindrops from her hair. “Oh, I’ve had my romantic fantasies—mostly about you by the way. But I’m not blind, Rich. I know there’s someone else in your heart, someone who’s miles ahead of me. My only compensation has been that I’m sure she’s from your previous life, so she doesn’t represent much of a practical challenge in this one. I also know that you care
for me, maybe even love me a little, so I’m willing to take what I can get. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a very practical girl. If I wasn’t, the business would have gone to pot a long time ago, not to mention that your sex life would be a lot less exciting.”
“Oh, hell,” I said. “I’m sorry Doris. I know how hard it’s been for you. If I could do anything to change things—”
“You’d do it in a flash. I’m sure of that. But even you can’t change the past, so we need to concentrate on the future. As for your question, the answer is, yes, I’ll marry you if that’s what it’s going to take. Nothing much will change anyway, other than the fact that we won’t have to hide anymore. We’ll have to weather a minor tornado of embarrassment, and I’ll probably go down a few notches in your parents’ eyes because I’m sure to take most of the blame. Older woman seduces younger boy, and all—”
“Not so,” I said. “There’s no way I’m going to stand for that. I’ll make sure they know I’m the bad guy here.”
“I doubt anything you say will convince them of that, but thanks for offering. What I need to know is if you can handle marrying me. I won’t expect anything more than what we have now, except a sincere, lifelong commitment to the wellbeing of our child. Plus, I’d want to retain my financial independence, just in case things don’t work out. I wouldn’t want to end up dragging our offspring through a nasty court proceeding should you find someone else or decide you can’t live with me somewhere down the line.”
“Not gonna happen,” I said, putting my arm around her. The rain had stopped, but I pulled her close as if to protect her from some invisible threat. “Still, if that’s what you want, we can draw up a prenup.”
“What’s a prenup?”
“Something you’re going to hear a lot about in the future. It’s short for prenuptial agreement, a contract couples sign before they get married that spells out how the finances will be handled in case of a divorce. Even better, though, would be for me to sign over half the company to you right now. Or more than half, if you want. I don’t really care, so long as I’m sure you and the baby will be provided for.”
“Okay, if you say so,” she said. “But there is one other option, one we haven’t discussed.”
“Oh?” I said, kissing her damp hair. “What’s that?”
“I didn’t want to bring it up because I thought you might be shocked, but there’s always the possibility of ending the pregnancy. One of my old classmates knows a doctor in New York who handles that kind of thing, so I could call her and find out where to go.”
I could hear the shakiness in her voice, feel her shiver in my embrace, and I knew it wasn’t the rain causing it; clearly she was only putting the idea on the table for my sake. I also knew that the thought of it was tearing her up, and the fact that she would be willing to make that kind of sacrifice reached deep inside me and grabbed a piece of my soul.
“I do love you, you know,” I said, pulling away and looking into her eyes. “And you can forget about an abortion. I have no idea what kind of parent I’ll make, and the thought of it scares the hell out of me, but I would never forgive myself if I went along with something like that just to make things more convenient.”
After that, there didn’t seem to be anything more to say, so we leaned against each other in the slackening rain until the sun broke through and lit up the bayou with streaks of yellow and orange.
Crazy
Ow!”
“What?
“He kicked me in the ear.”
“Well, that’s what you get for listening so much. And what do you mean ‘he?’”
“I don’t know,” I said, touching the tiny bump on her stomach. “I just figure it’s going to be a boy.”
“Wishful thinking,” she said, ruffling my hair. “It’s that male ego of yours asserting itself again. Now come up here and give me a kiss.”
Doris and I had weathered the storm of moral indignation that followed our announcement, accepting the beratement from our fathers and taking solace in the fact that our mothers were not nearly so outraged. It seemed the prospect of having a grandchild had, at least for the women, cast a magical aura around us that neutralized their anger. We’d spared everyone the embarrassment of a public wedding by sneaking off to Georgia to be married by a justice of the peace, with Sam and Jimmy standing up for me and Sarah serving as Doris’s maid of honor.
We were now seven months into the pregnancy, and I was becoming frustrated with the primitive state of medical technology. “You know,” I said, scrunching down to put my ear back on her stomach, “where I came from we would already know the gender, not to mention a lot of other more important things, like if there are any physical abnormalities or positioning problems. And if there was anything wrong, in many cases, they could fix it before the baby was born.”
“You’re kidding,” she said. “I know some obstetricians in Scotland are experimenting with something called ultrasound, but that’s only for viewing the fetus. Why would any competent doctor risk performing major abdominal surgery on a pregnant woman, let alone her unborn child?”
“It’s complicated,” I said. “And it doesn’t involve major surgery. They use this thing called an endoscope, a thin tube with a light at the end and a high-resolution imaging device—like a movie camera that takes real-time moving pictures. It only requires a small incision and they watch the pictures on a TV screen while they guide the tube to the place they need to go. Then there are these miniaturized surgical instruments they insert through the tube and manipulate from outside the body.”
She looked at me like I was crazy.
“I know,” I said. “It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. They can do all kinds of things, from intricate surgery to delivering medications, with minimal trauma to the woman. But it all starts with an ultrasound exam that lets them see if there’s anything that needs fixing. In fact, the ultrasound exam will be a standard part of obstetric care in the future, and one of the first things they find out is whether the baby is a boy or a girl.”
“Sometimes I don’t know about you,” she said. “I can never figure out if you’re making things up or telling the truth, what with all the fantastic stuff you describe. Computers so small you can hold them in your hand, recording devices that don’t even need tape, this cloud thing that’s supposed to be like some huge invisible brain floating around in the sky. I write all this down in my journal, you know, so if none of it ever happens I’m going to call you on it. Anyway, I haven’t heard of anyone doing fetal ultrasound exams in this country. Does it really matter to you if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“No, I guess not.” She rolled her eyes at me, so I decided to change the subject. “What about names? Do you have any ideas yet?”
“Not really,” she said, “I’ve thought about it, but I haven’t come up with anything I like. I guess if it’s a boy we could name him Llewellyn.”
“Very funny,” I said. She knew I hated my middle name. “What about naming him after your dad? David’s a nice name.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll think about it. What if it’s a girl?”
“Oh, that’s easy. It has to be Doris.”
“It does not have to be Doris! I wouldn’t want to saddle her with such a commonplace name. I’d want something unusual, something pretty like Geneviève or maybe Antoinette.”
“Do you particularly like French names?”
“I do,” she said. “They’re lyrical, kind of like one-word songs. How about you? If it’s a boy we could call him François or Frédéric.”
“Too stuffy,” I said. “I like French names for girls, though.”
“Okay. Any ideas?”
I hadn’t realized it, but my subconscious must have been leading me in a particular direction. “I do know one French name for a girl,” I said. “A pretty one that’s also unusual.”
“Well?” she said when I didn’t continue. “Are you going to tell me?”
“I will, but you have
to promise you won’t say you like it just because I do.”
“You have my word.”
“Okay,” I said, “it’s Hortense, and we could call her Horty for short.” I tried to keep a straight face, but when I saw her disgusted expression I couldn’t stop myself from laughing.
“Right,” she said. “Then if it’s a boy we could call him Scrooge, after Scrooge McDuck. Hortense was his sister you know. Come on, get serious.”
“Seriously?” I said. “How about Aurélie?”
“Aurélie,” she said, pronouncing it slowly, in three distinct syllables. “I like it. And we could call her Ellie. One of my best friends growing up was an Ellie, Ellie Samuels. She died of leukemia when she was only sixteen, so it would be nice to memorialize her that way. And Aurélie Voniossi sounds great. It rolls off the tongue like butter. Yes, I think that’s the one. Now, what about a boy’s name?”
We kicked around a few ideas, finally agreeing on a combination of our fathers’ first names. “David Albert Voniossi” also rolled well off the tongue, Doris said, but that decision became moot when, two months later, on the first day of September, 1962, she gave birth to a healthy six-pound, five-ounce baby girl. This was an unexpected and somewhat disconcerting turn of events; not only had I been expecting a boy, but I had no idea how I was going to raise a girl. The prospect seemed akin to skydiving without a parachute; however, once I caught a glimpse of my newborn daughter, my apprehension took a backseat to an overwhelming feeling of love.
Ellie, whose intelligence and beauty would one day outshine even her mother’s, was referred to by the studio gang as “Super Baby.” Jimmy and Sarah—who were now engaged to be married—agreed to be her godparents, though it seemed as if she had half a dozen parental guardians. Everyone at Blue Note Records made it a point to look after her, and no one ever complained about the fact that she spent almost all her waking hours—first crawling, then toddling—around the studio. When she wasn’t on the move, she would sit quietly, watching Jimmy and Sam operate the huge console, or looking out through the glass partition at the musicians as they played. This silent scrutiny continued for several months, until one day she surprised us all by speaking her first word. Unfortunately, it was not “Momma” or “Da Da.”