Eve touched Lucy’s arm. Lucy stirred slightly and looked at her.
“Are we there yet?”
“Not yet. I just wanted to say something to you.”
Lucy looked as if she were afraid of what Eve may say to her. “What?”
“I’m sorry I hit you when you were three years old.”
Lucy laughed. “I remember when you did that. It hurt!”
Eve bit her lower lip. “It wasn’t you I was striking out at.”
Lucy nodded. “I know.” She touched a bruise on Eve’s cheek. “It looks like Soleil felt the same way about you.” She closed her eyes again and leaned her head back.
Eve lightly rubbed the spot Lucy had touched. She was right. Soleil was also striking out against the mother and father who never lived up to her expectations. At least she and Lucy had mothers, but Soleil had had no one.
When she got to the hospital, she wanted to see her sister. She closed her eyes and decided to rest her mind for a few minutes. She hoped that Lucy was able to rest her mind as well.
She woke up when the cab stopped in front of a hospital. Mariah was waiting at the curb. Lucy jumped out of the cab and ran to her mother.
“Mariah! Mariah! I thought I would never see you again!”
Mariah held her daughter tightly. She held her face and covered it with kisses. “Oh, my baby, you’re safe! Thank God, you’re safe!”
“How about someone paying the fare?” The cabbie yelled out of the window.
Mariah and Lucy walked over to the cab and Mariah took bills out of her wallet.
Olivia was sitting on a bench near the door. Eve went over to her. “How is your arm?”
Olivia shrugged. “I’ll live. It’s just a flesh wound.” She looked at Eve’s face. “How are you?
“I’m doing okay.” She looked up at the hospital’s windows. “How is Soleil?”
“She is better. They gave her a sedative. I think she went back to sleep.”
“I want to go up to see her. What is the room number?”
Olivia looked at her face again. “You want to go in looking like that?”
“Like what? What is wrong with my face?”
Olivia took out a compact and handed it to Eve. Eve was startled by her reflection. The bruises below her right eye and her cheek had turned black and blue. Her upper lip was swollen. She looked almost as bad as Lucy. There were red specks in her light blonde hair.
Olivia took a scarf from her bag. She handed it to Eve. Eve gave her back the compact and took the scarf.
“Put this around your head and pull it around your face if you want to go in.” Olivia looked at Mariah and Lucy. “We’ll wait for you.”
“Thanks.” Eve tied on the scarf, brushed her clothes and went into the building. She kept her eyes straight ahead. Fortunately, an elevator was loading as she walked over. She hugged the corner of the elevator next to the buttons and pulled the scarf lower over her eyes.
On the ninth floor, she followed the sign to Soleil’s room. Eve stood next to the bed and looked down. Soleil’s eyes were closed. Her pale face was paler than usual, except for some red blotches and bruises. The ends of some of her dreadlocks were red with blood. The sheet and blanket were pulled up to her chin, making her look like a sleeping child.
“I’m sorry I called you a white bitch.” Soleil opened her eyes. “You look like hell. Did I do that?”
Eve took off the scarf. “Yeah, you did.”
Soleil laughed bitterly. “I know you were trying to help.”
“I didn’t want you to do something you would regret.” Eve knew as soon as she said it that it was the wrong thing to say.
“The result is the same anyway, isn’t it? Faith is dead.” Soleil closed her eyes again.
Eve didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say.
“How is Lucy?”
“She will be fine.” Eve tried to smile, but her lips trembled. “How are you?”
Soleil opened her eyes quickly and looked into Eve’s eyes. “I’ll be fine.”
Eve put the scarf back on. She cleared her throat. “Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She headed towards the door.
“Eve?”
“Yeah?” She turned around. Soleil was looking at her with a weak smile.
“Thanks for caring.”
Eve felt a genuine smile breaking on her face. “That’s what sisters are for.”
Soleil scratched her hair. “Uh-huh.”
Eve smiled as she went to meet Lucy, Mariah and Olivia.
* * *
It was dark, but Eve sat on the sun porch and listened to the waves crashing. She loved being close to the ocean. The one thing she would miss about California was listening to the waves crashing in Malibu. Mariah had fixed chamomile tea for the four of them. Eve sipped her tea and looked at nothing.
“What are you doing sitting out here in the dark?” Mariah came out in an African print caftan.
“Nothing. I’m just sitting.” The day had taken a toll on all of them. “I’m just thinking.”
Mariah took a deep breath. “Lucy has finally gone to sleep. I’m glad her nose isn’t broken. I hope she is able to sleep through the night. She has nightmares sometimes. I’m sure that she will have even more now.” When they got home, Mariah had called a physician friend to come over to look at Lucy’s nose and face. Mariah sat down in a wicker chair opposite Eve.
“Poor Lucy. She has been through a lot.” Eve gasped as the words left her mouth. She hoped Mariah didn’t deduce the full meaning of her words.
Mariah nodded. “She told you what happened in San Francisco, didn’t she?”
Eve knew she could not betray Lucy’s trust. “Yes.”
Sadness and frustration came out in a heavy sigh. “I wish she would have told me.”
Eve remembered the conversation she had with Mariah when they were driving back from Lieberman’s office. “But you know, don’t you?”
Mariah’s voice lowered. “Mik told me. He had promised her that he wouldn’t tell me, but of course he did. After all, we were her parents. But she must never know that he told me. She must not know he betrayed her trust. Lord knows, he betrayed her enough.”
Eve didn’t want to think about him. “He betrayed us all.”
Mariah rubbed her forehead. “It was agonizing for me, knowing my child was in pain and being unable to do anything to help her. She could have died. I didn’t even try to call her. I knew she would call me when she was ready, or someone would call me if she ended up in the hospital.”
Eve could hear the anguish in her voice. She could imagine Mariah, hundreds of miles away, wondering if Lucy was going to live or die.
Mariah continued, “Ricky called Mik after he called Lucy that night. He told Mik where he hid the drugs and the money. Mik paid back the money to Faith and her cohorts. Lucy eventually found the money.”
“Where was it?”
“Mik had given her one of his old hippie bags, one of the leather bags that an artist friend of ours had made. He gave one to Ricky, too. There was a hidden compartment in the bottom. Ricky knew where the compartment was, but Lucy didn’t. Mik says she came upon it by accident months later. He told her to keep it. She used the $50,000 to move into another apartment. I know she was terrified to stay in that apartment after what happened. The rest she used to start her business.”
Eve felt a wave of resentment. “That’s nice that he was able to help.”
“He could open up his wallet, but he couldn’t open up his heart.”
Eve snorted.
“Eve, look at me.”
Eve looked over at Mariah. She was sitting straighter, looking as if she was getting prepared to do battle.
“Eve, I want you do one thing for me, one thing you haven’t done since you got here.”
Eve ran her fingers through her hair. She had showered and shampooed to get rid of the blood and dirt, but she still felt tainted. “What?”
Mariah looked into her eyes. “Say hi
s name.”
“What?”
“All that you ever say is ‘he’ or ‘him.’ Your father was more than a pronoun. Say his name.”
Eve put the cup on the floor. “My father was named Richard Shelton.”
“He legally changed his name. I was there when he signed the papers.” Mariah’s voice rose.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t say it. She shook her head. “I can’t. I won’t.”
“Whether you like it or not, Mik DeSalle was your father. He may have changed his name, but that didn’t change the fact that you share his blood. And when he changed his name, do you know what his new middle name was?”
“I just assumed it was still the same, ‘Michael.’ ” Eve didn’t know if she wanted to hear this.
“No, his middle name was ‘Evelyn.’ Even though he hated the name when Deidre insisted on giving it to you, he thought it was appropriate, so he would always be reminded of you.”
Eve closed her eyes. The pounding surf was drowned out by the pounding in her ears. “So he took my name and took away Ricky’s name. Ricky was a junior. Once he changed his name, Ricky no longer was a junior. He was all alone, no father to look up to. No wonder he became a drug dealer.”
Mariah lowered her voice. “You were all alone, too. But he loved you. He loved you both.”
“I hate Mik DeSalle! I hate all that he represented! I hate him!” Eve ran off the sun porch. The cool salty air hit her face as she went outside. She wanted to go back to Pittsburgh. She wanted to go now. California had corrupted her father, her brother and her ex-husband. She didn’t want to be tainted by its influence any longer. She didn’t want any money. She wished she had never come out here.
Mariah came out behind her. She put her arm around her. “Do you hate me, too? Do you hate Lucy and Soleil? We never knew Richard Shelton. Mik DeSalle was all we knew. Ricky loved them both.”
“And look what it got him.” Eve willed herself not to cry.
Mariah dropped her arm. “I can’t make you stop hating him. Maybe someday you will. I loved Mik DeSalle with every fiber of my being, I still do. But as much as I loved him, he loved you, Ricky, Lucy and Soleil a thousand times more.”
Mariah walked back into the house. The door slammed behind her.
Eve sat on the bottom of the steps. She could just see the waves.
* * *
Eve thought about her thirteenth birthday. Her father had stopped in Pittsburgh after doing some work at a recording studio in New York City. He had recently left Mariah for Faith. Soleil was a toddler. Ricky was visiting one of his friends down the street. Only she and her mother had been at home.
The small Tiffany bag hadn’t impressed her. He brushed his long blond hair behind his ears and smiled at her. He was such a handsome man, even better looking than he appeared on record album covers. Even though she was tall for her age, he still was a lot taller.
She had opened the bag, taken out the little velvet box and opened it up. She touched the gold heart on a chain.
Her mother stood by watching, her lips pursed.
“It’s 14-carat gold, Eve. Happy Birthday.” He had on a long black leather coat and shiny boots.
“She don’t want it, Rick.” Eve could hear the venom in Deidre’s voice.
Eve had though the necklace was beautiful. But she knew she couldn’t wear it. She had closed the box, set it on the table and ran into her bedroom. She had locked the door, but stood on the other side, listening.
“Why did you come here, anyway? We don’t want you. We don’t need you. Get the hell out of here.”
“But Dee—I just wanted to see the kids.”
“Kids! You never cared about those kids. The only reason that you married me was because I was pregnant with Evelyn. You never wanted to be married. You never loved anything but that damn guitar!”
His voice was cracking. “That’s not true! I did love you, Dee, as much as I could. And I love Eve and Ricky, I have always loved them.”
Eve heard something break. Her mother must have thrown something at him. “Get out, Rick! Go back to your freaks in California.”
Eve had heard the door close. She heard her mother’s sobbing. She was afraid to come out. She had lain down on her bed. She was too angry to cry. Did her father really love her? Did her parents ever love each other? She knew her mother was pregnant when they got married, as she was born seven months later, but she always had the romantic fantasy that they had been madly in love. But now she wasn’t so sure. She couldn’t remember back when they had lived together as a family. She could only remember the arguments her parents had the few times he had stopped by to visit.
When she came out of her room a few hours later, the box was gone. She assumed that either he took it back, or her mother pawned the expensive necklace for grocery money.
A breeze blowing through her hair brought Eve back to the present. She wondered what ever became of the necklace. It was the last time that her father tried to give her his heart.
Lucy
Lucy had forgotten that she could hear outside conversations from her bedroom if people were standing beside the steps leading to the beach. She heard Mariah and Lucy last night, and now she could hear her mother talking to Olivia.
It was early morning. She could hear the birds squawking as they searched for their morning meal.
“Do you think that Lucy will be okay?” Olivia asked.
“She will make it. She always has. She is a strong girl. A strong woman, I mean.”
Lucy looked out the window. They were standing in the grass that separated their property from the sand of the public beach.
Olivia looked up at her friend. “And what about you?”
Mariah folded her arms. “I have to make it, don’t I? I’m the strong one, the one who is always there for everyone.” She shrugged her shoulders. “My mother thinks I’m a fool.”
“Why?”
“I want Lucy, Eve and Soleil to love each other. I want them to love Mik like I loved him. But they are grown women. I can’t make them do anything. All that I can do is be there when they want to talk, when they need a shoulder to lean on.”
“And who do you lean on?”
“Nobody. Nobody at all. I always dreamed that if Mik got a divorce, everything would be different. I even fantasized about getting married. I was hoping we would be able to right some of the wrongs that had been done over the years. But he never took care of me. I had to take care of him. I had to take care of everybody.”
Mariah gave a deep sigh. “My mother hated it when I babysat for Faith when Soleil was little. But I knew what that little girl was going through. I knew somebody had to be there for her.”
Olivia put her arms around her friend. “I’m here for you. Even though I live in Arizona, I’m just a flight and a phone call away.”
Mariah sighed. “Thank you, sister. You’ve been more of a sister to me than my blood sisters ever were.”
Olivia laughed. “That’s because we are soul sisters.” She started singing a song and Mariah laughed.
Lucy returned to her bed. Her parents had been planning to get married? Now she missed her father even more than ever. Once again, she had missed out on the family she had dreamed about all of her life. But as much as she missed her father, she had a new appreciation for her mother.
Brad
Brad rang the buzzer at the large home Sally had shared with Mik DeSalle.
“Who is it?” someone asked from inside the house.
“I’m an old friend of Sally’s. From Youngstown.” He wondered if he had said enough to gain entry.
“Ms. Fountaine does not have any friends from Youngstown.”
“Well, maybe she has some friends in the Sahara.” The gate slid open.
Brad smirked as he drove up the driveway. When he got to the front door, a bleached blonde woman with fake boobs was waiting for him, smoking a cigarette. Sally Fountaine was not amused. He could feel the hatred radiating off of her like a heat
er.
He got out of the car and walked over to her.
“Who the fuck are you?” Up close, he could tell that Sally had altered her face. Most people would not have recognized her as the young, lusty girl who had started her film career on her knees. But he had been her biggest fan.
He ignored her question. “I have a friend who used to have an adult book and video store in Youngstown.”
She took a drag off of the cigarette. “So?”
He could tell she was nervous behind the bravado. “One of his most requested movies was ‘The Whole of Sahara.’ Are you familiar with it?”
She shook her hair. “Should I be?” She looked back at the house to see if anyone inside was listening.
“You tell me. Maybe it was hard to see the camera with your head down and your ass in the air.” She was trying not to show any reaction.
Sally walked over to him. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” she whispered.
“Yes you do, Sahara Sodomie. I remember all of your movies. You were ‘the girl who put the O in Ohio.’ Isn’t that what your Uncle Bob used to say?”
Sally turned pale. “What do you want?”
“What do you think?” He didn’t really know much about this Bob character, but there had always been rumors.
“I’m not giving you anything!” She tried to sound tough, but he could tell that she was scared.
“Well, I don’t know if your movie production company would be thrilled if they found out about your teenage home movies.” He decided to gamble on a statement Faith had made a few days ago. “And they wouldn’t be thrilled to know that you had killed your husband.”
“Get out of here!” Her body was shaking, but her boobs weren’t moving.
“Not without a monetary token of your affection.” He knew that he had her.
“How much?” There were tears in her eyes. She wasn’t acting now.
“How much do you got on you?”
“Fifteen thousand.”
Brad didn’t know anyone who had $15,000 lying around their house. “That’s fine for a start. But add some zeros to that and we can call it a deal.”
She shook her head. “Come on.” She motioned him to follow her into the house. He let her go upstairs unescorted, hoping she wouldn’t call the police. But he didn’t think she would. She didn’t want to risk a sex scandal when her career was finally picking up.
Three Chords, One Song Page 17