by G L Rockey
Peggy didn't like that, primped her hair, placed a Parliament filter between her cherry lips, and waited.
I clicked Zippo, lit her, and watched her eyes glow as she drew smoke deep into her lungs. Smoke seeping out her nose, she scanned the lounge and said, “Wonder if anybody saw my show?”
“There's nobody in here.”
Peggy crushed a fist into my cheek. “You're being a shit. What's the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh yes there is, and I know what it is too.”
Fascinated by palm readers and snake handlers, it was not so much the diagnosis that intrigued me, it was the remedy. I said, “What's that?”
“I ain't telling.”
Just then a server—young white male, purple and white hair, gold earrings, looked like, if you dropped a quarter in him, he would start singing rap music—tossed two of the Rebel's red cardboard menus on the table. Filling our water glasses, he studied Peggy.
Peggy said, “I think I'll celebrate and have a champagne cocktail … with a cherry in it.”
“Make mine a double Jack, little ice.”
The server studied Peggy for a stilled second then he put a wrist on his hip and said, “Seen your weather show, Ms. Peggy, cool. Could I get your John Hancock?” The rapper offered his pen.
“Sure thing, honey.” Peggy signed one of the menus with a flourish and handed it to him.
Rapper said, “Cool.”
“Make mine a triple.” I smiled. “Preferably tonight.”
The rapper frowned then left.
I noticed Peggy smiling at the bartender, the help, the senior couple across the way, and while she smiled, I thought of Berry vomiting into his bidet. I thought of Snakebite. I thought of Stella. I thought of Big Joe. I thought about the news room. I thought of Sago Yu and that co-ed’s heart in the Tokyo car mogul. I thought of my stupidity for allowing myself to be in this situation. I thought of the many nights, acid in my throat, I remembered Terri. I thought of Jay. Then I thought how much more I was thinking about not wanting to be where I was, and all the time I was there. Then I thought, ninety percent of your life is being consumed being some place you don't want to be or doing something you don't want to be doing.
What kind of existence is this, anyway. A tree can't do much about where it is, but you … what power is this force ruling the universe, and why? Did I put me in this or did chance? Question of the ages, dear boy. It's not time and chance. That's an excuse. The problem is not a God, a king, a purpose, a love child divining water on the moon. The problem is you, a tree, trying to grow in a water less land. But, you have legs, you can WALK! No guts. Guts is hard. TREE!
“Jack, dear.” Peggy interrupted, “Your lips are moving. Sign of old age, darlin’. Better marry me now and we'll grow old together. I love you.”
I massaged the bridge of my nose and thought, did she just say what I think she said?
Peggy turned my head to hers, stared into my eyes, squeezed him gently, said, “I said, I love you.”
Just in the nick of time, Rapper arrived with our drinks, served them, and left.
I took a long sip.
Peggy ran her finger around the rim of her glass and said it again, “I said I love you.”
I glanced at her. She's really serious. Change the subject, quick. I looked at the menu. “What would you like to eat? I hear the Reubens are good here….”
”Bastard.” She sunk fingernails into my right cheek and dragged them slowly down to my chin.
“Fries are good too,” I said.
“Fuck you.”
“Me either, let's just drink,” I put the menu down and touched a white napkin to the stinging sensation on my cheek. I looked at the cloth. Blood.
She turned my head to her. Her eyes primordial, she whispered, “I said, I love you.”
She had said that a week ago, amid things at Tara. I didn't feel the same way. I mean, some love can send you to hell. Anyway, I wasn't interested in the kind of love I think she was suggesting. Our short relationship had been, to my mind, a reciprocal kind of thing, basic anatomy. And besides, I was not ready to even like myself, let alone love somebody else, not until I figured out what play we were in. I mean, it wasn't like I was divining this, I mean I had been thrust into the situation.
I felt myself gagging, thinking, I wondered if this is the time to get out, spill my guts, tell her the truth.
Instead I said, “Peggy, tonight, on the 10:00, when you finish with your singing you need to intro the….”
“Bastard!” She hissed the words and threw her cocktail, cherry and all, in my face. Not satisfied, she poured her glass of water in my lap, forced words through her teeth, “I said, I love you.”
The senior couple across the aisle chuckled.
I dipped the corner of my napkin in my water and, wiping cocktail from my face, thought, I should excuse myself and leave. But a tree couldn't do that so I lied, “Me too, you.”
She gripped him, said, “You sure?”
I felt him stir and thought how dumb that was.
“My my.” She crushed her cigarette out, put another in her mouth, and waited for me to light her.
Holding Zippo out, my hand started to shake.
She said, “You okay, darlin’?”
“Super.” I flicked Zippo.
She touched her cigarette to the flame, inhaled, and blew thick white smoke past my face. “Penny for your thoughts.”
“Nothing. Just happy.” I swallowed an ice chip and motioned to Rapper. He arrived. I said, “Another champagne cocktail.”
He looked at wet me for a long moment.
“With a cherry,” Peggy said.
“…and I'll have another Jack, triple, in this glass.”
Rapper left.
She said out of the blue, “I have a surprise for you, Jack dear.”
I was afraid to ask … more afraid not to. “What's that?”
“This Friday, after my ten o'clock weather, we're going to an intimate little private party.”
I lit a new Salem with old Salem, remembered what Sago Yu had counseled about explosions in my face. “We are?”
“Yes, my house. Stella is throwing a premiere party for me. She wanted to have it tonight but, you know, who wants to have a party on Monday night.” She squeezed him. “We'll have to leave right after my ten o'clock show. The party is going to start around nine. I told Stella we would get there around eleven. I figure you go home early, put on a nice suit, come back to the station, we can have dinner at Figlios, come back to the studio, I'll do my show, then we'll go to the party. Even invited my producer from Duke Label, Buddy One Take.”
“There's a problem.”
“What?”
“I don't own a suit.”
“Silly, we'll just fix that tomorrow, we'll go buy you one.” She pinched my right leg, I think. “And you know what they're going to do?”
I closed my eyes.
She said, “Stella is gonna video record my ten o'clock weather show and when we get there she's gonna play it back. I'm thinking of recording all of the shows, making a CD, TV Weather Hits. Isn't that exciting?”
I opened my eyes. “Super. So, who else is invited to the party?”
“Few of our newsroom people.”
“Our?”
“Oh you know, TV12, just a few. And some friends from Clip&Snips, few from Music Row.”
Thinking how ‘our’ and ‘we’ cause problems, I said, “Berry gonna be there?”
“Such a worry wart … of course not. “
Rapper arrived with fresh drinks and left.
I said, “Say, you know, do you think Stella can keep our little secret.”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“I mean Snakebite.”
“Damn it damn it damn it! I knew it from the beginning. It's been Snakebite that's been bothering ya from the beginning. I knew it!” She slammed her glass down. Some champagne sloshed out. “Yer jealous of him, ain't ya, I damn knew it.”<
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The senior couple strained in silence.
I tried to soothe her. “I didn't mean it that way, I just thought, he might be invited and….”
“Well, he's not. Be in Memphis with that new club, and even if he wer’nt, I wouldn't invite him. This is a small private party for our news department, darlin’, just us.”
I felt her studying the scratches on my cheek. “Did I hurt you?”
I closed my eyes and slurped to the back of my eyelids: blame it on time and chance, and I heard time and chance had nothing to do with this. Blame it on Berry. No. You alone did this, you alone to yourself. Master of “mine” time.
“Jack, you’re lips are moving again.”
I opened my eyes. Silence from Peggy, I detected a mood swing. She put her cigarette in a The Berry Inn cut glass ashtray, laced her fingers together on top of the table, paused, and stared at the white tablecloth like movie stars do when they're in deep thought about matters of life and death, going to say something profound, self-revealing, purge a wicked past, confess wrongs. She said to the backs of her hands: “Jack, when I … I used to think I wanted to, you know, have a career, singing, show biz, it was my whole life … I thought, you know, that was everything….” She paused, picked up her cigarette, tapped it on the ashtray. “But, since I've met you … oh … damn it, you're on my mind all the time … it's like I can't get enough of you. I don't even think of that other stuff anymore, oh a little bit, but not like before. I've never been so satisfied, so full.” She turned my head to her and looked in my eyes for a long moment. “You see what I'm saying, suga?”
Get off this quick. I looked away. “We have to go over the way you handled the local stats….”
”I'm talking nuptial, sweetheart, long term … gold.”
I pinched my thumb. Yep, still here.
After a dramatic pause, she made an announcement. “I'm gonna quit singing at Felix The Cat, tell Snakebite him and my business relationship is over, all together.”
I crushed Salem out and thought, I get it, I did something very bad in another life and this is like a video they replay, make you watch, until you get it right, but there is no right, so they step on your neck. I said, “Let's think about that.”
“I don't need to think about it.” She blew thick white smoke in the air. “And I have another confession.”
I sipped.
“It's Berry, he's been … he's been making advances toward me … inviting me up to his office … I'm going to tell him he better stop or I'll tell you.”
I sipped. “I wouldn't do that.”
She said, “Don't worry dear, Berry can't fire us. I know too too much.”
I thought, if she quits Snakebite, Berry doesn't need her “too much”. In any case, if she tells Berry she talked to me about any of this, “us” and “our” problems are solved, as in pianissimo finis. Then I realized that nothing, ever, anywhere, is that simple.
She said as a follow up, “I know where all the skinny little skeletons are buried.”
Brave lady, I thought and then I fathomed one of those deep things you don't want to know, so you let it slide, but you know it anyway: I was in deep, what Angelo called merda. I patted her hand. “Let's don't do anything rash.”
We returned to TV12, and, after the 10:00 weather show, at Peggy’s insistence, Winston and I followed her to Tara. Settled in nude and nicely on the floor in front of her bar, the phone rang and after a recorded, “We’re not in just now” Snakebite’s cut glass voice: “In Memphis, see ya tomorra’, picks me up at the airport, Delta, 3:00 … calls me.”
She stood, summarily erased the message, took me by the hand and led me to her pool. We took a dip, did some underwater research, and ended up in her bed. Around 1:00, I couldn't sleep; she asked, when I got out of bed, where I was going. I told her I had to get home, big day tomorrow. She didn't like that but understood.
I left and drove to Felix The Cat for a nightcap. I also needed to sort out some things.
* * *
Nashville downtown pretty much empty, I parked on Church Street and walked to Felix The Cat. Felix, blinking dimly in the night, looked lonely, like he wanted to tell me something.
Inside, three customers at the bar, juke box playing Marty Robbins’ “El Paso”, a guy in my seat 1A, I sat next to the service bar.
Looking at 1A then me, Angelo said, “Whan are you gonna do?”
“Make it a double.”
“You look like shit.”
“Thanks.” I lit a Salem.
Pouring me a drink, “Hey Jack, I saw Peggy's weather, whan's wrong?”
He put a glass of ice in front of me and poured Jack Daniels.
I was thinking of a response, sipped, and as I did, out from the back room came a very tall Kitten. Making her way, she stopped at the service bar, turned my way, and smiled.
I smiled back, saluted, said to Angelo, “You going to introduce us.”
“This is Gillian, just started.” He looked at her. “This is Jack Carr, big shot at TV12. Stay away from him. Trouble.”
Taking all of her in—high cheekbones, rum-colored eyes, arched nose that came to a delicate point, full lips, rounded chin, caramel-colored hair cascading around her face down to and over her bronze shoulders—something puckered in me as my nostrils filled with her knockout fragrance, exotic actually, peppery, touch of incense in there. I felt a rush of something going way back, said, “Hi.”
She said “Hi.”
I said, “Could I buy you a drink?”
She looked at Angelo, “I don't think so.”
I said to Angelo, “I think that guy in my seat wants a drink, buy him one, on me.”
He grunted and left.
I said to Gillian, “Don't I know you from someplace?”
“I don't think so.”
“I thought so.”
I studied her face, her dark rum eyes, darting around the room, and it was coming back to me: you see a face, something about it, you could look at it forever, it's everything … second time in my life, imagine that.
She lowered her eyes for a moment (just right lashes) then locked my eyes. “What do ya all do at TV12?”
Detecting something wrong with that “ya all” accent, much too refined around the edges, I said, “News Director, so, when can we get together, dinner, a show.”
She titled her head back and smiled. “I gotta go.” She stepped away.
“Wait a minute, I need to ask you something.”
She stepped back. “What?”
I studied her hair reflecting The Cat's ambience. “I don't believe this.”
“What don't you believe?”
“When did it happen?”
“What?”
“Your arrival on earth?”
“Old line, I gotta go.” She looked around the room.
“I'm Scottish.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I don't believe it.”
“What don't you believe?”
I detected a mocking in her voice like she was beyond this kind of bull shit. But she was sticking around. I said, “This love at first sight business.”
She looked around. “Could be.”
Caught off guard, I choked on a cough.
“You okay?”
“All this smoke.” I offered my pack of Salem. “Want one?”
“No thanks.”
Angelo yelled, “Last call.”
I looked at the Budweiser clock. Closing time. I said, “Say why don't we go have a cup of coffee?”
“No.”
“Breakfast?”
“No.”
“Fly to Hawaii?”
She turned to leave.
“Wait, let me give you one of my business cards, ever need anything, call me.”
She stepped back and took it. “Drive careful,” and went to the dressing room area.
Angelo started turning The Cat lights off. “Go home, Carr.”
CHAPTER 4
Real Time
After Jack left, in the dressing room, Neon told Gillian she saw her talking to that TV12 guy who came in.
Gillian said, “Rough round the edges, looked familiar, like I’d seen him somewheres. Who was he?”
Neon turned a twisted smile, “Regular, Jack Carr, kinda cute, drinks like a fish.”
Leaving, dressed in her street clothes, Gillian saw Angelo on the phone. He beckoned her. After hanging up, he said to her, “That was Snakebite, long distance, wants you to meet a date.”
She declined, touch of intestinal flu.
“Snakebite ain't gonna like that.”
She shrugged. “Shit happens.”
CHAPTER 5
Jack’s Time
Entering my office area Tuesday morning, Joy, glancing at my right cheek, wanted to know how I got the scratches on my face. I told her my Norelco had thrown a blade. She smiled like she did when she knows exactly how many stars there are in the Milky Way.
Other than that, a news producer meeting, lunch with Sago, “getting closer to the bone” he said, Berry again in New York, back Friday, Galbo sticking his second banana nose everywhere, Dillards had called him, unhappy with the weather.
I told him to give Peggy a few days off, he didn’t like that.
Otherwise, I couldn’t get that Tall One, Gillian, I met last night, out of my mind
CHAPTER 6
Real Time
Tuesday Afternoon
3:00:00 P.M. CDT
Delta flight from Memphis arrived Nashville International on schedule. Snakebite—black leather outfit, white hat, wraparound sunglasses—deplaned and, no luggage, went to the arrival pickup area.
Peggy, in a pink chiffon outfit, pulled her Cadillac to the curb.
Snakebite entered and she allowed him to kiss her only on the cheek. She had to hurry, weather show at 5:00 and 6:00. He wanted to go to the station to watch the performance. Not a good idea, distraction, still had new show jitters.
Dropping him at Felix The Cat front door, Peggy declined dinner at The Haute Cuisine. She wanted to go, after her 6:00 o’clock show, some place different so they could talk, had to be quick, her 10:00 weather show. Why didn't she just meet him at Arthur's, 6:45ish.