Delphine smiled. She extended her hand and he kissed it.
The next up was a white-haired man with watery blue eyes. He squinted at Delphine, struggling to make her out. "I am Paxton Alexander, young lady. You may recall that your father and I fought shoulder to shoulder at New Orleans. Remarkable man, your father."
"Thank you," Delphine said, as they shook hands. "I think so too."
It was the next man's turn, but Delphine spoke before he could. "Mr. Aiken," she said, "Howard. I'm really happy to see you looking so well." She moved toward him and gave him a hug.
Aiken smiled—at least that was his intention. Half his face was paralyzed. "Thank you, Delphine. I've come a long way back sin-since…my s-stroke. And thank your father too. His calls have been a tonic." He wobbled, but remained standing.
"Delphine and I know each other," said the next man in line, a man so thin he was almost two-dimensional. "I'm Everett Stokes, of Wildwind. You all know that I served President Bourque as Secretary of Agriculture," he said. "I guess you could say I presided over the crop failures." He put down his cigarette, took Delphine’s hand and kissed it.
"No one's blaming you," Edmund Randolph said. "We all know you did your best." He nodded to the next man, the one in the British suit.
"Miss Bourque, I am Dudley Claybourne," he said, fingering the gold Phi Beta Kappa key attached to his vest. "You may have heard of me. I'm the disagreeable one."
"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Claybourne. And I have heard no such thing."
"Believe me, he's earned the title," said the pale, gnome-like figure at the other end of the table, stubbing out his cigarette in the crystal ashtray. "If it were up to him, we'd be working for the nigras, not the reverse."
"Now, Francis," Randolph admonished. "We've agreed not to start feuding again."
"We also agreed to lend each other money if we needed it," the gnome said. He fished around in a jacket pocket, found a gold cigarette case and lit up.
"Only if we had it to lend," Claybourne shot back.
"Gentlemen, please," Randolph said.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to reopen old wounds," the gnome told Claybourne, almost sounding sincere. He exhaled a cloud of grey smoke, then turned toward Delphine. "Miss Bourque, I am Francis Buford, of Rainbow's End, in Georgia. I am pleased to meet you."
Delphine offered her hand and he took it and, to her surprise, he kissed it. "I visited Rainbow's End a few years ago," she said. "Lovely place."
"Thank you," said the gnome. "Indeed it was."
Delphine took the chair Randolph was proffering and sat. As the men took their seats, she studied them. There were seven of them and her—a very strange casting of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, without anyone who could be even remotely considered Dopey, Sneezy, Bashful, , Happy, Sleepy or Doc, although the name “Grumpy” would fit several of them.
In her childhood, she'd thought of these men as giants—physically as well as politically and financially. They did not look like giants now. They seemed like shrunken shadows of whatever they had been, in various states of decline. And not just old, but dispirited and threadbare.
Now, no one seemed ready to say the next sentence.
Delphine took the plunge. "You wanted to talk to me about my father?" she asked Randolph.
"Yes, we all do. I'm sort of the chairman."
"The emissary," Claybourne hurried to correct.
"Yes, the emissary."
"About the outrageous meeting with that nigra President up North," Francis Buford said. His diction was abominable, the result of poor-fitting dentures.
Delphine had anticipated the topic, of course. And she thought she had a pretty good idea what they were about to say: cancel that meeting, stay away from President Callaway. Or else. And if they acted together, she knew, they might still be able to enforce their will.
And here she was, down a long tunnel, in a secret room, with seven men, seven old but still powerful men, about to receive a message or a warning to carry back to her father. Surely they did not intend to threaten her or harm her. That was not how Southerners treated their womenfolk.
Dudley Claybourne smoothed back his black hair with both hands and took a deep breath. "Miss Bourque…"
"Please, Delphine."
"Delphine, we are concerned about this meeting, about your father's intentions and about the intentions of the NAU as well."
"Yes?"
"We want to know what he is planning," Edmund Randolph said. "We feel we have the right to be informed."
Delphine smiled. "Yes, of course. I'm sure he intends to talk to all of you."
"Why has he agreed to this m-m-meeting, Delphine?" Howard Aiken asked.
"I think mainly he wants to improve relations with the North," Delphine said. "There's really nothing conspiratorial about it."
"That's too bad," Paxton Alexander said, blinking his watery eyes at her.
"Too bad? What do you mean?"
Creighton Sinclair opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, then proceeded anyhow. "Delphine, we need help. We're circling the drain. The whole South is circling the drain. We want your father to ask for long term financial help, a major aid package, something like that."
She looked around the room and was surprised to see the heads nodding in agreement. "You want him to ask Callaway for help?"
xxx "Yes," Randolph said. "For some kind of deal.
Paxton Alexander interrupted. "Tell him we know there's going be a price and that we're willing to pay it. We don't have any choice."
The grey gnome bestirred himself. "What Paxton is saying, Delphine, is that if Bourque can get us enough money from the North, we'll agree to take our boot off the nigras' necks."
Delphine studied Buford, who was not—by a long shot—known as a kind master or political liberal. He was perhaps the most die-hard representative of the Old South, the man who, in younger days, had fought ending slavery to a bitter end and who almost singlehandedly managed to prevent Southern Blacks from getting the vote. "You're serious, Francis?" she asked.
"You mentioned visiting Rainbow's End," he replied. "Remembered how beautiful it was. Well, was is the right word. I can't maintain it any more. It's fading away, just like I am. In a few years, it will be nothing more than a big tract of land, overgrown with weeds."
"We'd h-hoped our children would take what we b-b-built and preserve it," said Howard Aiken.
"But there's precious little to preserve," said Creighton Sinclair, steepling his fat fingers and sounding bereft of hope.
"And our children aren't interested in preserving anything," Randolph said. "They're interested in squandering what little is left as fast as they possibly can, the hell with tomorrow."
"For the first time in my life," said Dudley Claybourne, "I'm glad to say that I won't be around to see what happens."
For a moment, they all fell silent, considering what Claybourne had said.
"W-w-will you deliver our message, Delphine?" Aiken asked.
"Of course I will," Delphine said. "And I can tell you that my father already understands your situation. Our situation."
The meeting continued for the better part of the next hour, during which each plantation owner described his own particular woes, whining and begging, but only in the most genteel terms. Before they let her go, Delphine had to reassure them repeatedly. Then, finally, Edmund Randolph led her away. As she headed back down the tunnel, she could still hear them talking.
“I must say,” said Buford, “the girl surprised me.”
“H-how so?” Aiken asked.
“She seemed very self-possessed,” Buford said. “Especially considering her age.”
“I think she genuinely understands our situation,” said Dudley Clayborne. “I can only hope her father understands as well.”
“Pretty little thing,” said Paxton Alexander, his voice fading away as Randolph and Delphine left the meeting room behind them and continued back through the tunnel, toward the main house.
>
“Seems like you made a good impression,” Randolph said, smiling.
“I hope so,” said Delphine. But what she really hoped was that she’d fulfilled her mission and that what she learned would help Pickett and her father.
Chapter Eleven
The next morning, Delphine called Pickett and told him what the plantation owners had said.
"I can't tell you how relieved I am," Pickett said. "I was afraid they would oppose the meeting.”
"Not these men," Delphine said. "They're genuinely frightened. They're hoping my father can save them."
"Yeah. So am I. So is he.," Pickett said. "So what's your next stop?"
"The Dixie Club, in Savannah." Delphine said.
“Oh yeah,” Pickett said, remembering. Then he frowned. “Do you really think the Dixie Club is an appropriate venue for the President’s daughter?”
“It’s Benny Hicks’ place,” Delphine said. “It’s a grand reopening after the fire and it’s for charity.”
“Benny Hicks again?”
“Roy, if it hadn’t been for Benny’s TV talent show way back when, I wouldn’t be a singer.”
Pickett sighed. “I know, I know. He’s a good friend. But the Dixie Club doesn’t exactly draw a high-class crowd. Maybe I should get you some security.”
“Benny will provide all the security I might need,” Delphine said. “Besides that, this is a terrific opportunity for me to take the temperatures of ordinary people. That’s what you wanted me to do, isn’t it?”
“Mmmm,” Pickett said, intending to mean neither yes nor no. “So how do you play to do this temperature-taking, Delphine?”
"Dunno yet. I'll think of something."
Later that morning, Delphine flew to Savannah and took a cab directly to the Dixie Club. The entryway was framed by giant photo-posters of her face and her name was up in lights on the club marquee: Tonight Only: Delphine Bourque, the Songbird of the South. Cover charge $15/person.
As she stood on the sidewalk, guitar case in hand, admiring the display, an old red Packard convertible with a blue fender tacked onto the passenger side rattled down the street and slowed in front of the building. The passenger window wobbled open and a hand shot out, flinging a glass jar of red paint at one of the posters. On impact, the jar broke open and red paint splattered all over Delphine's picture.
”Down with nigger-lover Bourque!" someone shouted from the car and it roared off down the street, muffler dragging and making sparks. For an instant, Delphine thought the remark had been directed toward her. She’d been prepared to hear it ever since she’d taken up with Roy Pickett. But no, she decided, this time her father was the target.
The nightclub front door opened suddenly and Benny Hicks, thin and wild-haired, rushed out, brandishing a yardstick. "You bastards!" He yelled, threatening the car with his yardstick. "Next time I'll get you." He frowned and looked up, above the marquee, at a primitive video camera. He reached up and wacked at it with the yardstick. "Fuckin' thing worked for 24 hours, then nothin', " he said. Finally, he noticed that he wasn't alone.
"Delphine!" he said.
She smiled broadly. "Hi, Benny."
They hugged. Then he saw the paint-smeared poster. "God-fuckin'-dammit!" he said. "That's the third time since I put up the original."
"You have more?"
"Got ten from last time. I was hopin' to hold on to them. Got a hunch they're gonna be valuable.”
"I'll have my people send you another package."
"You're a doll, Delphine. You know that? A doll. Hey, come on in, We've redecorated. Lemme show you around."
He led her into the club, a huge, cave-like place with a mostly carpeted floor, a low ceiling covered with track lighting and fifty glass tables with chrome chairs.
"Very shiny," Delphine observed.
"Art Deco," Benny insisted. "The designer is an actual German. What do you think?"
Delphine suffered a moment of panic. What could she say? "It's quite a modern look," she told him, knowing how lame that sounded.
"The customers like it," Benny said. "We're pretty close to full most nights. And tonight, well you know, we'll be beatin' them away with a stick. Delphine Bourque and charity? Unbeatable combination. And thanks for coming. I know this is way down-scale for you.”
She smiled. "Don’t be silly, Benny. I’m glad to be of service."
"Well, it’s a long way from a concert hall. And I should warn you,” he said, pointing to the paint-smeared poster, “there've been a few incidents—nothing serious, mind you. But maybe enough to pay attention to."
"Incidents?"
"Yeah. When I was on stage last night and I mentioned your visit, some idiots in the audience started booing, and believe it or not, a fist-fight broke out."
Delphine stopped short. "An actual fight?"
"A little one. We got it under control quickly. Still…"
"That is disturbing."
"Maybe tonight I don't mention your father when I introduce you and you don't say anything controversial."
She laughed. "Me? Controversial?"
"Sorry, I'm just being dumb," Benny admitted.
Then Delphine had a thought. "Should I be worried about tonight?"
"Naw. I'll be at the line, and I got some muscle guys inside. I'll keep the goobers on the outside lookin' in. It's gonna be a nice, peaceful night, no rhubarbs. Everybody's gonna love you, like always."
Delphine spent the rest of the afternoon in her dressing room, working on new songs. She had Chinese delivered, and stole glances at the one-way mirror as the club filled up. It was a young, middle-class crowd, dressed up for the occasion, some married couples, lots of singles—exactly her kind of audience.
The band—five pieces, locally well-known—came out at about 8 p.m. and started playing, mostly country classics. A few couples ventured out through the haze of cigarette smoke onto the little dance floor. Pretty young waitresses in French maid's outfits brought a steady stream of drinks to those sitting at the tables, who were lubricating themselves, she hoped, to get into the mood for the main attraction—her.
Around 9 p.m., Benny Hicks bounded onstage, hair flying, wearing a red shirt, green pants and white cartoon gloves. He did 10 minutes of pratfalls, sight gags and slapstick, mingled with outrageous wisecracks, filthy asides and other assorted drollery. By the end of his set, he had the audience roaring.
Then he stopped and turned on the charm. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to get a little serious. We have a very special treat for you tonight, my favorite singer and yours, the Darlin' of the Delta, Miss Delphine Bourque. Give a big hand to the Songbird of the South!"
Benny extended a welcoming hand and Delphine stepped up onto the little stage, clutching her guitar. The audience burst into enthusiastic applause. But not just applause. From the back, the darkest part of the room, came a small but clearly audible chorus of boos, and they were soon joined by derisive shouts. "Tell your Daddy he’s wanted at home!" "Buddy Bourke is a nigger lover!" and "We don't need your kind in Georgia!" And these shouts were countered with their opposites: "Sit down and shut up!" "Let the lady sing!" "Take it outside, bigots!"
Two very large men—Mr. Clean and his younger brother—rolled toward the sources of the invective, apparently intent on squelching it, or them.
"Wait," Delphine called out to the audience. "Let them talk." She turned toward the hecklers, fire in her eyes. "You have something to say? Then stand up like men and say it." She waited, hands on her hips, ostentatiously tapping a foot on the stage. No one spoke.
"C'mon you cowards," Benny said, "this is your chance. Your last chance."
"Why is your father going to meet that nigger President in the NAU?" It was a woman's voice, harsh and angry.
"Yeah," a man said, with equal anger. "Is Buddy Bourque a nigger lover?"
"My father," Delphine said, shaking with anger. "Loves this country more than any of you. He's put his life on the line for it more than once. He is the heart and s
oul of the Confederacy."
"So why is he meeting with Callaway?" asked a tall, pimply-faced man, fiercely gesturing with a lighted cigarette..
"To help us," Delphine shot back. "To improve the relations between our two countries, so we can help each other, cooperate on mutual problems."
"Tell him don't bother to come back," came another shout from the audience.
"He's just another fuckin' traitor!" another man called out, his words slurred with drink.
Benny grabbed the mike, his furious expression belying his clownish outfit. "If you can't be civil," he said coldly, "you can get out. Now."
Silence, for a moment.
"Bourque's trying to make a deal with someone who hates us," a young dark-haired woman said, from the left side of the room.
"Hates us? What do you mean hates us?" Delphine said, genuinely puzzled.
"They all hate us," a young man piped up from the other side of the club. "They say we're racists."
"Not just racists," someone else chimed in. "They think we're a bunch of brainless rednecks."
"Married to our brothers," his girlfriend added. "Or sleeping with our fathers."
"Yeah," someone else shouted out, voice dripping with scorn. "I'm my own grandpa!"
"They act like their shit don't sink. I mean stink." This time, it was a drunken businessman, sitting at a table close to the stage.
Delphine shook her head, frustrated. "You know, we're all people. And we’re a lot alike," she said. "Don't you see it? We all want the same things. We all love our families. We all want to live in peace and harmony. We all want to make a decent living. They even like the same music—my records sell pretty well up North, you know."
A pretty young woman in the middle of the room shot to her feet. "Delphine, that's all bullshit and you know it. They're nothing like us."
"That's just not true," Delphine insisted. "We share a lot of history with them—the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812. We have the same birthday, the same Founding Fathers, and we come from the same basic political philosophy."
"We may have started out together," said the pretty girl's boyfriend, a young man with a scraggly beard, "but we've gone our separate ways. They don't think like us anymore or act like us. And they sure don't want anything to do with us."
ReUNION: What if the Civil War had never happened? Page 19