Jazzed

by Donna Kelly

  Annie and Alice exchanged glances. We understand the importance of Stella’s words, Annie thought. Alice had been like a sister to Annie during those summers she spent in Stony Point as a child. They immediately reestablished that bond when Annie returned. Stella and Betsy never had that chance.

  “Mind you,” Stella continued, “Leo also very nearly ruined my life.”

  20

  Asta stepped into the spotlight and wrapped her gloved hands around the microphone as piano music filled the smoky air. Conversation in the club stopped as she took a deep breath and released a soft, low note and built it to a crescendo before launching into a sultry version of Billie Holiday’s I Love My Man.

  Music worked its magic, and the small-town girl who grew up with wealth and privilege sang emotionally of loving a man who treated her badly. She felt the power of the song and the adoration of the crowd, first harnessing, then releasing them in her voice. The audience was mesmerized, and Asta knew it. She loved the power in performing, her true identity hidden behind the blond wig and the old Scandinavian form of her name. As Asta, she became the women in her songs with life experiences that Stella would never know.

  Her concentration was broken by a sudden flash of light from in front of the stage. She looked down to see a tall, dark-haired man adjusting settings on a heavy-looking camera. It was Leo Harmon, the photographer from the newspaper and a semipermanent fixture at the club. Why did he show up now? Her composure regained, Asta had no choice but to carry on and ignore the camera. But the more photos he took, the tighter fear gripped her. How would Seymour react if a photo of her turned up in print?

  The song over, Asta disappeared offstage as the band transitioned into an original instrumental number. She ducked into her dressing room to compose herself. What’s the worst that can happen? she thought. The photos might be published in the paper, but would people recognize the blond, sultry singer as willowy, dark-haired Stella? She checked her wig and lipstick in the mirror and studied her reflection. Seymour would know it was her, and it could jeopardize their future. He’d never forgive her if she brought embarrassment on his family. She must stop Leo from using her photograph!

  The band reached the end of their song, and Asta hurried to the stage to sing her final two numbers. Having decided how to handle the photo situation, she gave herself completely to the music.

  At the end of the set, Leo spent time taking shots of instruments, sheet music, and whatever personal items he could round up from the musicians—a glass of ice cubes left onstage by Oliver, a felt hat belonging to the trumpet player. Asta had found her opportunity to speak to him alone.

  “Leo, I need your help,” she pleaded, grabbing his shirtsleeve. She knew Evelyn’s brother had feelings for her, and that gave her an advantage. “I need you to destroy the photos you took of me tonight. I’ll pay you for them, but please get rid of the film.”

  Asta knew Evelyn had told Leo about Seymour and his displeasure about her singing. Leo would understand. He put his cumbersome camera on the top of the upright piano and turned back to Asta.

  “I’m here on official business for the newspaper, so I can’t sell you the photos,” he said, looking into her eyes with a tenderness Stella had not yet experienced from Seymour. “But I’ll dispose of the film containing shots of you. As far as anyone knows, we never had this conversation.”

  ****

  Stella unclasped her hands and placed them on the arms of the chair. “We never spoke of it again. I thought he had destroyed the photos because when the piece about the club was published in the paper, my photo wasn’t included,” she said. “The singer Asta was briefly mentioned in the accompanying story, but the name Stella was never associated with her. Leo and Evelyn kept my secret for the rest of their lives.”

  Peggy pulled a stitch through the finished edge of her quilt and looked up at Stella. “What happened to them?” Movement stopped in the room and all eyes fell on Stella.

  “Leo took a job as a war correspondent and was sent to Korea. I never saw him again,” Stella said. “Evelyn and I grew up and faced reality. We each married. I became Mrs. Seymour Brickson, which carried certain social responsibilities, and she had a baby. When Asta disappeared from my life, in a sense, so did Evelyn.”

  The two women, separated by social class, had kept in touch occasionally through Christmas cards. From time to time, Evelyn had sent photos of Jason—coming home from the hospital as an infant, sitting on his mother’s lap at the piano, dressed for his first day of school.

  “He showed great talent for the piano at a young age,” Stella said, looking at Jason. “Evelyn was very proud of that. She taught him herself, and later she found a way to pay for his piano lessons.”

  Jason looked embarrassed to be the center of the discussion. “When Mom was killed, Mrs. Brickson arranged for me to continue my piano lessons. After I graduated from high school, my father couldn’t afford to send me to college, and Mrs. Brickson offered me a job. I’ve been with her ever since.”

  Peggy, who had grown up wanting to be a teacher but put college on hold to marry and have a family, seemed particularly moved by Stella’s story.

  “Do you miss it? Performing, I mean.”

  Stella seemed lost in thought for a moment. “Eventually I had to choose between Seymour and jazz. While jazz was my passion, sensibility opted for marriage.” She looked at each woman in the room. “Did I make the right choice? I made the only choice that I thought I could. Seymour and I had a good marriage based on friendship—friendship that grew into love. I truly grieved when he died,” she said, “but never again did anything make me feel quite like I did when Asta was onstage at the greatest jazz club in New York.”

  Kate, obviously still basking in the afterglow of the flirtation with Cole, leaned closer to Stella. “You said Leo didn’t really know you. But maybe he really did know—and love you—even though he met you as Asta instead of Stella. After all these years, he sort of reached out from another world to remind this world that Asta really had existed.”

  Just when Annie thought Stella was starting to wilt, Alice created a diversion.

  “There must be something magical about that club, some sort of airborne love dust,” Alice said, her eyes dancing, “because Kate experienced a jazzy spark in New York City too.”

  Suddenly all eyes in the room shifted from Stella to Kate, who squirmed in her chair. “Alice! This isn’t about me.”

  Mary Beth’s jaw dropped. “You were at the shop all day yesterday, and you didn’t mention a thing! I guess I should have known something was up when you kept checking your phone for text messages! That just isn’t like you, unless Vanessa is away from home.”

  Gwen, less given to gossip than Mary Beth, cast a sympathetic smile in Kate’s direction. “Kate, naturally we want to hear your news, but only when you are ready to tell it,” she said, flashing an unspoken warning to the others.

  Once Kate recovered from the embarrassment of Alice’s sudden declaration—and after her cheeks returned to their normal color—she began to fill in the details surrounding Alice’s impromptu announcement. “His name is Cole Cutchins, and he is a trumpet player,” she explained. “I bumped into him and spilled his drink during his band’s break during our first visit to The Avant-Garde. But he was so nice about it that we ended up talking the entire intermission.”

  Alice couldn’t contain herself any longer. “And he was cute too!”

  Kate giggled. “Yes, he was cute too. We saw him three different times. He even took us to dinner at his favorite café, which is where Alice found Asta’s photo on the wall.”

  Noticing a Mona Lisa smile on Stella’s face, Kate stopped, paused, and realized Jason was nodding his head as if this was old news. “What is it?” she asked.

  Getting a nod from Stella, Jason replied, “We heard.” Everyone except Stella began talking at once, demanding to know how the news had reached Jason first. When the buzz among the women died down, Jason continued. “The jazz worl
d is very connected—everyone seems to know each other one way or another.”

  Annie sat quietly, trying to follow the story as it became more complicated. She hoped Jason would tie together all of the loose ends soon. Jason explained how Ernst Michaels, a fan of both jazz music and the work of Leo Harmon, had tracked him down years earlier while working on a research project on the history of the New York jazz scene with a newspaper correspondent. Mr. Michaels kept him up to date on the music world.

  “Ernst knew I was Leo Harmon’s nephew, but he wasn’t aware that I worked for the woman he knew as the jazz singer named Asta. Remember, she resumed using her real name when she married Mr. Brickson,” Jason said.

  As prickly as Stella could be, Annie had always noticed uncharacteristic warmth in her voice when she spoke to the chauffeur. A real affection seemed to flow between them despite their formal way of addressing each other. Like his uncle, Jason had kept Stella’s secret, another sign of his high regard for her.

  Jason slowly tied each string of the mystery together, each strand leading back to The Avant-Garde. Cole Cutchins, he said, first met Ernst Michaels because of the photojournalist’s frequent visits to the club. Later, Cutchins helped Michaels compile a book about contemporary jazz musicians in New York City jazz clubs.

  “Ernst could hardly contain himself when he pulled the prints of Uncle Leo’s negatives out of the developing solution. He recognized them as my uncle’s work immediately and called to tell me of your discovery.” Jason grinned impishly and looked at Alice. “He also said the redhead was a real looker.”

  Mary Beth burst out laughing. “Alice, that’s New York speak for saying you are hot!”

  Tossing her hair, Alice imitated a fashion model pose. “That’s me. I’m a looker!”

  When the laughing subsided, Jason explained the significance of Annie’s discovery. Leo had been an accomplished photographer in his time, but he was still a young man in his early thirties when he died. He stored many of his old photos and negatives at his parents’ house in Ohio when he left for Korea, but his jazz works weren’t among them. When the music experienced a renewed popularity in the 1980s, experts began asking about Leo Harmon’s lost jazz negatives.

  “Who would have guessed they’d turn up in an attic in Maine sixty years after he was killed while on assignment in Korea?” Jason said.

  “I sure didn’t.” Stella said. “And I didn’t expect to see my photo on Alice’s cellphone!”

  “That much was pretty obvious,” Alice said, laughing. “But how did you know we had been to The Avant-Garde?”

  Jason resumed his tale.

  Shortly after Annie, Alice, and Kate had left the club, Cole Cutchins called Ernst with the news that three women from Stony Point, Maine, had showed up at The Avant-Garde with photos printed from Leo Harmon negatives. He turned to Kate. “Ernst also asked me if I knew you. He said Cole had fallen hard and fast for the quiet Kate. Each time Cole called Ernst with an update on Kate and your quest to determine Asta’s identity, he kept me posted on your activities.”

  Annie closed her eyes and tried to absorb the details of Jason’s story. She was still a bit confused when she opened them. “When did you tell Stella about our trip to The Avant-Garde?”

  Annie detected a bit of guilt on Jason’s face.

  “I told her about your trips to The Avant-Garde and Cole’s infatuation with Kate after your first trip to the club. But I didn’t want to upset her with news of your questions about Asta.” He turned to Stella. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the photos. I figured the issue would go away since your friends didn’t find out any concrete evidence of Asta’s true identity. I should have known the mystery would be a group project.”

  Annie realized Jason had been protecting Stella from her past. “A lot of strange things have happened—the phone call, the threatening man on the subway, the ransacked hotel room, and the intruder at Grey Gables. Who was responsible for those?”

  Jason’s eyes widened as he shook his head. “I have no idea. Ernst only told me about the photos and your arrival at the club. And he asked questions about Kate for Cole. Were any of you hurt? Was anything stolen?”

  Annie’s eyes filled with tears. “Boots is gone. I’ve not seen her since last Thursday morning. The door to Grey Gables was open when we came home, and Boots was nowhere to be found.”

  Pulling a tissue from her bag, Annie dabbed her eyes. Her eyes burned, and fatigue had caught up with her. She wasn’t the only one who was overwhelmed. Though every bit as prim and proper as she had been when the group arrived, Stella seemed tired after her trek into the past. It was time for them to go.

  “Thank you, Stella, for hosting our meeting and trusting us with your story,” Annie said, giving a meaningful look to her friends. “Unless you want to share it with others, your secret identity will be held in confidence.”

  Stella looked relieved, although Annie wasn’t sure if it was because her secret was finally out or because the meeting was coming to an end. A chorus of “thank you” was added by the other women as they gathered their belongings.

  The ladies dispersed, and Annie was soon speeding home in her trusty Malibu. She was still trying to wrap her mind around Stella and Asta being the same person, a yin and yang inside one person. The mystery of the jazz singer was solved, even though she still had no idea how Leo Harmon’s negatives landed in her attic.

  She turned into the driveway leading to Grey Gables, thinking of Jason’s reaction to the break-in and the disappearance of Boots. Although he had been protecting Stella from her past, Jason had seemed genuinely surprised when Annie had mentioned the phone call during the convention as well as the subway incident. Surely he didn’t have anything to do with the incidents.

  Annie parked the car and spent some time walking around the yard and calling for Boots. She took the path through the windy dunes to the beach and doubled back to circle the house, stopping from time to time to call the cat’s name. Her heart heavy, Annie trudged up the steps to the porch. Plopping down in a wicker chair, Annie leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “Boots, where are you?”

  21

  Leo sat cross-legged in the sand and watched Charlie’s daughter, Judy, toddle to the sea and giggle as the water washed over her feet. The water ebbed and flowed, and in a particularly strong rush, knocked the little girl off her feet. He grabbed his camera as she reacted to the spill by throwing fistfuls of water and sand into the air with sheer abandonment. “Lele! Lele!” she cried with joy when she spied her father’s war buddy creeping through the sand, his camera poised in the air. He responded by taking shot after shot of the gleeful girl, whose pink-and-yellow swimsuit was now covered with wet sand.

  His photographic instincts taking over, Leo suddenly pivoted in the sand, and dropping to one knee, quickly snapped several frames of Charlie and Betsy looking at their daughter, their eyes sparkling with adoration. This, he thought, is as good as it gets. The late afternoon sun cast a golden glow across the beach—providing the best light for capturing the delight of a small child and the obvious love of her parents.

  Leo placed his camera on a towel and ran toward little Judy. Grabbing her waist, he swept her high over his head and reveled in her giggles. His heart swelled with love for this family. Coming here to visit Charlie before heading to Korea had been the right thing to do. He was heading off to document the devastation of war, armed with memories of fishing with Charlie and little Judy, savoring Betsy’s rhubarb pie, and swapping war stories with the man who had saved his life in the Pacific. That was when he had acquired the nickname “Shooter,” a nickname that would follow him into his career as a professional photographer. He knew these were moments he’d recall over and over again while covering the war in Korea for the newspaper. Yes, he was headed back into a war zone, but this time his weapons would be a pen and camera instead of firearms. He’d need good memories to temper the visions of death he knew would surround him on the battlefield.

  After
a hearty meal and a card game with Charlie and Betsy, Leo climbed the stairs to the guest room. Later, when he heard his friends close the door to their bedroom, he gathered several bottles, a bundle of paper, a few odds and ends, and the film from his camera before slipping down the hall to the bathroom. He surveyed his work space—he’d worked in worse conditions. By the end of the week, when he was scheduled to return to New York before heading to Korea, a nice set of family portraits would be ready to give his friends as a remembrance of the visit.

  Friday arrived all too soon, and Leo packed his bag with reluctance. The days at Grey Gables had been idyllic. He gathered the portraits—one of Betsy and Charlie, and the other with the couple holding little Judy—and negatives from the film he shot during his visit.

  He walked to the window and gazed at the ocean, wondering if he’d ever see Charlie again. His friend had helped him cheat death once; could he escape it again? Would they have another chance to listen to jazz at The Avant-Garde and debate whether Stan Getz or Charlie Parker was the best saxophone player in the world?

  Since visiting his parents in Ohio, Leo had wondered what to do with the photo negatives from his photo shoots at the club. He had carried them from New York to Ohio and now to Maine. Where would they be safe? The answer was clear now—they belonged here with Charlie. The man who saved his life would keep them until they could listen to music together again.