Haunting Melody

by Flo Fitzpatrick

Savanna guided me back toward the small area of the studio where Teresa’s Baby Grand stood. She forced me to sit on the piano bench then she plopped onto the window seat nearby.

  “That’s interesting, Mel. Considering, if family documents are correct, that Grammy Saree died in 1989 at the ripe old age of eighty-something, you must have either been attending a truly funky séance or you’re beyond looney tunes.”

  I sighed and almost started to cry again. Saree. Beautiful, bright young Saree had become an old woman and died before I’d even had a chance to say good-bye.

  Savanna waited for my tears to subside, then handed me the large box of tissues I’d kept on the window seat. I blew my nose and exhaled. I stared at the ceiling.

  “I have not been hitting either psychics or graveyards. Ready for this? I traveled back in time. To the year 1919. Swear. And I met Saree Goldman and Izzy Rubens before they got married. In fact, I suggested to Izzy that he ask her out since he was too chicken and she was too busy dating rich creeps to realize how much she adored Izzy until I told her.”

  There are good reasons why Savanna and I have been best friends since childhood. One of them is our absolute trust in one another. I’d just begun a tale told by a total idiot, full of sound, fury, and magic - but zero substance. Instead of quietly handing me a Zanax or a straightjacket, she grinned. “I love it. Tell me more.”

  I did. I spent the next two hours regaling her with the story, beginning with the ghost - me - haunting the apartment, and ending with my arrival backstage at The Lion King last night. Her eyes stayed huge and she made various comments, mostly tacky, about the ridiculous number of men who seemed intent on wooing Follies girls and that she wished her family had owned stock in a flower shop, but she listened and better still, she believed me.

  “So, Mel? Whatcha gonna do? I mean, this Briley sounds like not only a serious fox but definitely the love of your life and, damn, he’s actually tall enough for you. Twenty points right there!” she chortled.

  I sniffed and wiped away a tear. “I have no idea what I’m going to do. I haven’t been able to talk to Fiona Belle the vanishing landlady to ask if I can find another way back. Hell, she’s probably out whisking some other patsy into a theatre in San Francisco just before the great earthquake. Or backstage in the Ford Theatre waiting for Booth to assassinate Lincoln. Or. . . well someplace nutty. Anyway, I left that doll there. I mean, here - which was there - only last century.”

  Savanna waved her hand in the air to stop me. “Don’t try to explain the geography, Mel. I understand what you’re saying, although it’s pretty damn inept. Okay. So we have to track down this scone-baking witch and get her to wave another magical doll and either zap you back, or get McShan to somehow appear here.”

  “Well, maybe she just stayed in 1919? She had to figure I’d be pissed at her little practical joke with the sheet music. Lion King. Cute. I don’t remember stuffing that inside my bag three weeks ago. I mean last night.”

  For a few moments we simply sat and thought. Then Savanna tossed a pillow at me. “So, tell me, oh traveling chorus girl, what was G-Granny Saree really like.”

  I laughed. “You! With a bleached blonde bob, about three inches shorter and big boobs. But I swear she had your humor and your giggle and your way of cutting right to the heart of things.” I paused. “And both of you have such a wonderful way of being a true friend. I’ll miss Saree like I would have missed you. I’m so glad I got to know her. Be her friend.”

  Savanna sighed. “We’ll have to make a pilgrimage to the dance studio in Memphis very soon.” She paused. “Have you tried to find out what happened after you left?”

  “Huh? How? I told you the doll and music sent me - with apologies to Stephen Spielberg - ‘Back to the Future.’ I disappeared just as Briley came into that room.”

  “Mel. Dimwit! Get out of 1919! What do you use every damn day when you research stuff for costumes? Sheeit, girl, I can’t believe you haven’t already Googled and Yahooed and Asked and Binged and Banged and whatever else is new from yesterday. Let’s fire up this puppy and see what comes out.”

  She trotted over to the desktop computer and hit the power button. I joined her at the drafting table, leaning over her shoulder while she typed in key words. She looked up at me.

  “Briley McShan, right?”

  “Yep.”

  We waited. Nothing came up. My pulse was racing. Nothing was going to come up. He’d been shot by a power-mad Ptah wannabe over eighty years ago.

  Savanna glanced at me again. “Oh-kay. What’s Peter’s name? Aside from Prince, which will probably bring up the Artist Formally Known As.”

  “Uh, Herzochevskia.”

  I spelled it and she typed it in. “Noop. Nada. Zero.”

  “Try Ptah and 1919 and Memphis and Manhattan and Follies and see what pops up.”

  Four seconds later, we had it.

  “Morris Brown, born in Cleveland, Ohio, 1889. A successful World War One profiteer. Passed himself off as a Russian prince after the war. Arrested in 1919 in a rooming house on East 12th Street after it was determined he was the man behind the abduction and possible deaths of several Ziegfeld Follies chorines, including Francesca Cerroni and Melody Flynn. The latter vanished from that same rooming house in late June 1919. No trace was ever found of her. Morris Brown, aka Prince Peter, was the leader of a cult of worshippers of the Egyptian god Ptah. He was sentenced to ten years in Sing-Sing prison in Ossinging, New York.”

  “Holy Shit!” was Savanna’s response. I echoed the sentiment.

  “Damn. Damn. And damn. Well, at least the creep was arrested and tried and sent to the slammer. That’s good news. Doesn’t mention Briley though. It would if Peter had shot him, right? I mean, he would have gotten more than ten years for murder? Of course, that assumes he would have been charged with murder and not something dumb like assault with a deadly weapon. Why wasn’t he charged with Francesca’s murder either? Oh, wait. Even Briley thought that was accidental. So the cops didn’t really have any evidence about that one. Bastard. Peter - not Briley.”

  Savanna nodded. “Don’t speculate. No news is good news, maybe?”

  Her cell phone rang. “Oh poo, it’s the theatre. I was supposed to be there an hour ago for financial discussions on hirin' more dancers. But you were more important,” she grinned, “and your story far more entertainin’.”

  She rose, hugged me, gathered her belongings and headed for the door. I stopped her. “Savanna. Thanks - for believin’ and carin’. Hey. Wait a sec. I do have designs for the fairies and Oberon.”

  She turned. “You’re kiddin’. When did you do them?”

  “After we rescued Denise and Nevin Dupre. I couldn’t sleep, so I wandered around the old Flynn house, sketched them out and stuffed them in my bag.”

  I handed them to her. She hugged me.

  “These are super! We should send you traveling more often.”

  “Go away, Savanna.”

  “Gotcha.” She paused. “Mel? If nothing else, remember this – you got to be a real live Ziegfeld Follies girl. No, it doesn’t make up for losing Briley, but damn, what a wonderful memory to carry. Even if you can’t share it with anyone but me.”

  She left and I wandered back to the computer. I spent the next few hours trying to find out what had happened to Briley. I discovered that Denise and Frank had indeed gotten married, had children of their own, Denise had opened a restaurant called Follies Francais South and Frank had opened a music store.

  I already knew that Saree and Izzy had spent their lives in Memphis. Saree’s dance studio had been a success; Izzy had become features editor of the Courier-Appeal in the 1930s. I was thrilled to read about my friends. I was in pain not knowing what happened to Briley.

  Lucy and I made about three trips downstairs to knock on Fiona Belle’s door, but there was never an answer. Perhaps she really had stayed in 1919. Perhaps she and Briley had run off to Tupleo, Mississippi to visit Elvis’s birthplace. Perhaps she’d taken over fo
r me in the Follies since she knew every song and probably every dance.

  Around eleven I quit jogging up and down stairs and went to bed. I even slept.

  At two a.m. I heard my door click. The lights flashed on. And I could hear the rain coming through the window.

  Chapter 35

  It was all starting again. How that was possible since I knew I’d done the haunting and I’d already been sent to 1919 and come back was bizarre. But I didn’t care about the how or even the why. I just wanted it to stop.

  Lucy and I checked the door. Nothing. No little gnome of a woman stood outside bearing scones and dolls. I turned off the light in case it started popping on without visible means of support, then I pulled out the cord. I didn’t hear any singing, but from the sound of it, the rain was coming into the living room again.

  “Come on, Lucy. We’ve done this before. Let’s nail that window shut if we have to.”

  She pranced along beside me as we made our way through the dark apartment to the window. The rain had changed to a slow, fine mist, so I leaned outside to see if my leather-clad, umbrella-wielding friends would skate by, or if the pre-teen delinquents were out doing their inept version of carjacking.

  The streetlights were on full, but there was no activity below. I started to move away when a man in a jogging suit came into view. A wet golden retriever pup followed him. An orange cap flashed under the lights, and an orange backpack bounced around his ribs. His face remained hidden.

  I knew that body and I knew that dog. I heard a voice call, “Come on, Dee Gee.”

  I leaned as far out the window as I could and shouted, “Briley! Up here!”

  He stopped, cocking his head in much the same manner as the dog. They both turned as I continued to scream his name.

  He saw me and yelled, “Melody!”

  He and the dog ran toward my apartment building and stopped under my window, four floors below. He waved at me. I waved back. We grinned at each other.

  “Hey!”

  “Hey, yourself! Stay there, okay? I’m coming down.”

  “Or I can come up.”

  “Nope. Lucy needs to piddle.”

  He nodded. Not the most romantic words he and I had ever exchanged, but it was better than anything that moonlight, roses, and violins could provide. Briley was alive! And here. In my time.

  I quickly threw on some jeans and a sweatshirt, looped the leash around Lucy’s neck, ran down four flights of stairs then flung open the doors leading into the lobby.

  Briley stood just outside. We stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, he reached out his hands, took mine, and guided me close. We clung together then his hand gently lifted my chin. I looked up into his eyes.

  “I thought you were dead.”

  “I thought I was too.” He grinned. “I’m so damned glad I was wrong!”

  He pulled me close to him and kissed me with both passion and desperation, as though trying to make up for the time we’d been apart. Or to reassure us both that this was real.

  We broke apart when the sound of applause hit our ears. I turned and saw two black- leather-clad men clapping while the third held the oversized umbrella over the trio. For no good reason, seeing them solidified my whole time-traveling experience into reality.

  We bowed in response to the applause. They bowed back, turned and glided on down the street.

  A cold nose nudged my ankle. I glanced down and crooned, “Duffy! You sweet puppy, you.”

  I reached down and gave the dog a hug. Lucy sat, quietly staring at the two new males in her “mom’s” life.

  “Lucy? Meet Duffy - or you can call him Dee Gee, depending on how he’s behaving on certain days. Your possible new mate, little girl, depending on how well y’all get along.”

  Briley grinned. “Border collie-lab-retriever puppies. Sounds great. They can live with you until we get married since obviously you need to be herded and fetched back home whenever you get the urge to visit other times.”

  I snuggled against his chest for a moment. “If I’m going anywhere, you’re going with me. The dogs can stay with Fiona Belle - if she returns from wherever. Which reminds me, how did you get here?”

  Briley took my hand. “Let’s find someplace dry and private and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  We separated the dogs, who were happily engaged in a bout of sniffing and nosing and licking, and went back upstairs to my apartment. I quickly made a pot of coffee while Briley towelled off the excited pups. We sat on the small sofa and sipped our hot drinks and smiled at each other for at least ten minutes before we felt the need to talk.

  Finally I broke the warm silence. “So, what happened after I vanished into the future?”

  Briley smiled. “You scared that fake prince into nearly having cardiac arrest. He sat in shock for a minute or two then dropped the gun. I took the opportunity to kick it, then him, right across the room. Very satisfying. A few punches and our cowardly so-called god caved in.”

  “Violence. Good. I approve. He deserved a few socks in the jaw.”

  Briley rolled his eyes in a show of innocence. “I never said jaw.”

  “Oh?”

  “Let’s simply say I did not fight clean.”

  “Ah. Got it. Okay. Go on.”

  “I was in the throes of permanently injuring Mr. Herzochevskia but Izzy and Officers O’Callahan and O’Bryan came racing in and hauled him away. Quite honestly, I didn’t care what happened to him after that. Izzy stayed with me while I tried, rather incoherently, to explain how you’d vanished.”

  “Oh, boy. I’ll bet he loved that little tale.”

  “Well, he did seem a bit skeptical. But he was willing to listen, and he’s the one who kept me from throwing myself out the window in sheer despair after seeing you disappear before my eyes.”

  “I wish I could thank him for that.”

  Briley hugged me. “Helping him discover that Saree was the love of his life was thanks enough.”

  I brightened. “I did do that, didn’t I? And here I was being pitiful thinking I hadn’t had an effect on anything in 1919.”

  “Well, that’s just crazy. You got them together, you found Frank and helped rescue Denise and Nevin and you integrated a Memphis bar and….”

  I laughed. “Okay. I’m not sure how much my part was in any of those things, but thanks for making me believe I made a contribution.”

  His voice softened.“Well, if that weren’t enough, Mel, you saved me from a life of mistrust and pain.”

  I grew quiet. “That makes everything worth it.”

  He drew me close and we stopped talking for a spot of what Saree would have termed “canoodling.”

  Finally, I came up for air. “Oh! Was Saree there too? With you and Izzy in the room with our Prince?”

  “She came in five minutes after the police had gone. Heard my whole story about my lost love and her sheet music and cell phones and dolls. She, unlike Isaac the doubtful, immediately believed it wholeheartedly. She said you were somehow different - she just wasn’t sure what that difference was. And she’s the one who got me back here. Well, got me to travel into the future.”

  “Really? How? Don’t keep me in suspense here.”

  “She saw the doll you’d dropped in your haste to avoid the bullets aimed at you. And she said if that was how you got here in the first place and got away in the second place – her words - then maybe I could do the same.”

  “Oh boy.”

  He nodded. “Oh boy is right. I took the doll, grabbed Duffy and held him – did I tell you he bit Peter in the rump?”

  I laughed, “No, you did not! But I’m delighted. Steak for him tomorrow.”

  “I see we both will have very spoiled pets.”

  “Yes. Get over it. They deserve the best. Okay. You had the doll. You had Duffy. And?” I prompted.

  “And Saree handed me the sheet music that was on the piano. I said goodbye to her and to Izzy and didn’t stop for anything or anybody. I wound the key in
the doll. The next thing I knew I was feeling kind of sick and then I passed out.”

  “Been there. Done that. Not exactly like riding the Staten Island Ferry, is it?”

  “It’s a different mode of transportation, that’s certain.”

  “So where did you land? I ended up backstage of a theatre performing The Lion King, thanks to one of Fiona Belle’s little jokes.”

  “I ended up in the back of a store. Mac’s Music to be exact. The Mac shortened from McShan.”

  I sat up. “In Memphis? As in the Mac’s Music founded in the mid-Nineteen-twenties in Memphis, Tennessee?”

  “That’s the very place.”

  “Wow. I wonder how that happened. I mean, not that the store opened, but that you landed there?”

  Briley shook his head. “The sheet music I was clinging to was a piece called "Memphis Melody." It had been recorded by a band in a studio next door to the music store. Ready to hear the kicker?”

  “Sure.”

  “The name of the group is called The Dupres. The lead singer is a kid named after his great-grandfather, Nevin Dupre McShan, who was adopted by Mr.Frank McShan after marrying Denise Dupre.”

  “I’m now totally flabbergasted and in the same state of denial as our friend Izzy.”

  “I was too. I woke up surrounded by a bunch of musicians with earrings and strange haircuts and instruments that were hooked up to giant amplifiers. I thought I’d died and been sent directly down. The fact that the air-conditioning in the store had been on the fritz for a week helped add to that assumption.”

  I grinned. “So you bonded with the young Nevin much as you had with our own little dancin’ buddy from 1919?”

  “I did. And he told about his great-grandad Nevin and how he’d regaled his family with tales of courage exhibited by a Follies chorine named Melody, and how she and a stagehand named Briley saved him and his mama from an evil nutcase who thought he was an Egyptian god. Nevin the Fourth wondered what happened to Melody. That’s one reason he wrote that song.”

  “Did you tell him the truth?”

  Briley hugged me. “I fudged a little. May have intimated that you and I were the great-great progeny of the original Mel and Briley. Anyway, Nevin gave me a present to give to you. The odd thing is that Nevin the First willed it to him to give to me should I ever arrive. Spooky. Want it?”