Rae Dawn let the lie pass, although she couldn’t have gotten a word in edgewise if she had been so inclined.
“I’ve reserved the best room for you,” Matilda was saying. “The Robert E. Lee. Very spacious, and quite lovely. It’s such an honor to have you here. I have all your albums—”
Rae arched an eyebrow. “All two of them.”
“Yes, and I simply love your music,” the woman went on without missing a beat. “All my friends will be absolutely green with envy when they find out I’ve hosted Dawn DuChante. You don’t mind if I call you Dawn, do you?”
“Ah, it’s Rae,” she said.
“Of course, of course,” Matilda gushed. Then, as if she had only now realized that she was still blocking the doorway, she gave a little jump. “Do come in. Are you hungry? I can whip up a snack, if you like. A sandwich, or some scrambled eggs—”
“No, thank you,” Rae said wearily. “I’d just like to go to bed, please.”
Matilda’s face crumpled with disappointment. “Certainly. We can talk in the morning. I have a fine piano in the parlor if you—”
“Bed, please,” Rae repeated.
“Yes, yes. Follow me.” Matilda put a finger to her lips and dropped her voice to a whisper. “The other girls are already asleep, I believe. Up the stairs. This way.”
Rae hefted her bag and dragged herself up the stairs, noticing as she went how flat Matilda Suttleby’s feet were, her heels rough and red where they stuck out the back of her slippers.
“Here we go,” the woman said when they reached the landing. She opened the door to the right and flipped on the light with a flourish. “Ta da!”
“Thank you.” Rae entered the room and slung her suitcase on an overstuffed armchair in the corner. “Thank you, Mrs. Sut-tleby,” she repeated. “Good night.”
Matilda Suttleby’s eager eyes were still peering at her when she shut the door.
Rae stripped off her jeans and sweater, rummaged in her bag for a nightshirt, then went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth. She was exhausted, and expected to fall asleep as soon as she climbed into the big bed, but once she had turned out the light, she found herself staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.
If it hadn’t been for Delta, she would never have made this trip. Would never have driven up Interstate 59 past the exit for
Picayune, Mississippi. Would never have been inundated by memories of Noel Ridley and the love they once shared.
Illumination from a streetlamp outside the window cast a cold blue light into the room, cut into shifting shadows by the trees and the sheer lace curtains. She stared at the chandelier suspended from the center of the room. Traced the curlicues in the round plaster medallion that surrounded it. Tried to construct a pattern from the random flowers that dotted the wallpaper.
Who was she kidding, anyway? This pain—the sucking sensation in her gut when she passed by the Picayune exit, that sense of all the life being drained out of her in a single gurgling moment—was nothing new. Had there been a single day in the past ten years when she hadn’t thought of Noel and cursed herself, cursed her career, cursed her own stupidity for letting the love of her life slip through her fingers? Had there been a night when she hadn’t dreamed of Noel? A song she hadn’t written with Noel in mind?
The music began to drift through her mind, songs of loss and longing, songs of joy and heartache and love gone wrong.
Did you ever sing the blues?
Did you ever wind up thinking
You’re the only one who’s sinking,
You’re the only one to lose?
Does that melancholy music
Pull your heartstrings out of tune…
She hummed the tune in her head, fingered the piano riffs in her imagination, and finally, as the clock downstairs chimed two, fell into a restless sleep.
SOFT KNOCKING AWOKE HER from yet another dream of Noel Ridley—this time a nightmare in which the Airstream trailer was burning and Noel was trapped inside. Rae’s mind swam to the surface of consciousness, and she pried open her eyes to see golden autumn sunlight streaming into the room. On the bedside table sat the framed photo she always carried with her when she traveled.
“Rae Dawn?” the whispered voice came again. “Are you awake?”
Rae sat up and looked around. “Delta? Is that you?”
The door opened a crack and Deltas face peered around the door jamb. It was an older Delta, a bit plumper, with a few streaks of gray hair at the temples. But the eyes were the same, and the smile. “Come in.”
Delta, in blue flannel pajamas with fluffy little cloud-shaped sheep on them, tiptoed barefoot into the room and shut the door. She launched herself onto the bed and her arms went around Rae in an enthusiastic embrace.
Had it been so long since Rae had been touched? She savored the hug, not wanting to let go, feeling the warmth of Deltas arms through the flannel, through her own nightshirt. Tears stung at her eyes.
“Don’t go anywhere,” she said over Deltas shoulder. She slid out of bed. “I have to pee, and you really don’t want to talk to me with morning breath.”
In the bathroom, with the water running, Rae took a moment to compose herself. She doused her face and brushed her teeth, and by the time she was ready to go back into the room, she had gained control over the unexpected tears.
Delta was sitting upright, leaning against the headboard with a pillow behind her back.
“What time is it?” Rae Dawn asked, climbing back into bed.
As if in answer, the grandfather clock downstairs gave out a full sixteen-note Westminster chime, followed by seven sonorous bongs.
“Seven o’clock. I’m sorry if I woke you. Breakfast is at eight, and I wanted to see you before everybody else did.”
“Seven A.M.? ” Rae repeated. “I didn’t know there was a seven A.M. ” She pointed to the window. “I’m to assume this is sunrise?”
Delta laughed. “That’s right. You’re the night person.”
“Occupational hazard of being a lounge singer.”
Although Delta was still smiling, her eyes were not focused on Rae Dawn but at a point just past her shoulder. She reached out for the photo on the nightstand. “You’ve been holding out on me.”
“No, I haven’t,” Rae said. “I wrote to you—”
“Generalities, not details,” Delta said. “Come on, give, who is she?”
Rae took the picture and looked at it. It was a candid shot of herself and Noel, taken by a stranger during a rare and brief vacation in the Bahamas. The two of them were perched on the windblown seawall with the brilliant blue waters of the Caribbean in the background, Noel seated behind with her arms around Rae Dawn. Rae was smiling at the camera, but Noel, with her head turned slightly, was looking at Rae. The expression captured in that split second of film never failed to take Rae’s breath away, the utter adoration and commitment that shone in those tawny eyes, the contentment, the rightness of their love.
They had walked along the beach that evening, basked in the purple aura of sunset, held hands, eaten mountains of fresh shrimp and crab at a thatch-roofed beachfront restaurant. “It doesn’t get any better than this,” Noel had said.
Rae Dawn closed her eyes and inhaled a ragged breath as the memories flooded in. Bits and pieces of an ordinary life, like millions of other lives. Waffles and scrambled eggs on the balcony overlooking the courtyard fountain. Redfish fresh from the outdoor market. Wednesday movie matinees, Sunday afternoon football, Christmas carols at the piano. Arguments about time or money or who left the shower dripping. Long conversations, cuddling in bed while a white winter sun crept its way across the ceiling. And that one unimaginably beautiful afternoon, standing at a secluded river bend surrounded by a small group of friends, when they joined their hands and pledged to love each other for a lifetime.
It was all still here, so close—the sound of Noel’s laughter, the warmth of her smile, her touch, her scent, her nearness. So painfully close that in the early hours of morning
Rae could feel an arm wrapping around her, a breath on the back of her neck, a body curled around her in sleep.
And then some noise would wake her—
“RAE?” DELTA’S VOICE brought her back from the brink. “Are you all right?”
Rae Dawn blinked. “Yeah.”
“Who is she, Rae?”
“Her name was Noel Ridley. She was a doctor.” Rae avoided Delta’s eyes but could not escape her voice. The voice urging her to spill all the emotion she had been hoarding these past ten years. A voice gentle and full of compassion.
“Tell me about her.”
Rae Dawn had come here to support Delta, to help her through her grief over Rankin’s death. She certainly hadn’t intended to talk about Noel. But it was the first time in years anyone had asked what she was feeling. Besides, pressure was building behind the floodgates, and she wasn’t at all sure she could stop it now.
“Noel was my mothers doctor,” she began. “I’d been in New Orleans for five years, working to build my career, when the call came that Mama had suffered a heart attack. It was so strange— there I was, in the hospital, watching my mother die and falling in love all at the same time.”
“So you knew from the beginning that Noel was the one?”
“I suppose I did—subconsciously, anyway. After they took Mama’s body away, she drove me out to the trailer. It was the middle of the night, and at the sight of it, all those horrible memories came flooding back and I just went crazy. Raged, screamed, cried. Noel accepted all of it in stride and didn’t think I was crazy at all, even when I set a torch to the place and burned it to the ground.”
Delta’s eyes grew wide. “You burned it down?”
“Yes, I did.” Rae smiled in spite of herself. “Did me more good than a year’s worth of therapy too.”
“That took a lot of courage.”
Rae shook her head. “Not really. It was mostly instinct. But I did manage to get out some of what I was feeling, and I discovered that Noel could accept me at my worst. It was quite a revelation.”
She went on talking, telling Delta about the development of their relationship, Noel’s decision to move to New Orleans, the good years.
“She moved down, and we lived together for—” Rae paused. “Almost ten years. Our life together was wonderful.”
Delta reached out a hand and squeezed Rae’s arm. “I know how hard it is to lose someone you love so much.”
Rae Dawn froze, and at that moment she realized her mistake. Past tense. She had been speaking of Noel in past tense. And now she had to backtrack, to correct Delta’s misconception. “She didn’t die, Delta,” she said, trying hard to keep her voice from shaking. “She left me.”
DELTA LOOKED UP at Rae and then back down at the photograph Rae still held in her hands. She had known enough gay and lesbian couples through the years to realize that their relationships were subject to pressures most heterosexual couples couldn’t even imagine. There was no societal structure to support gay relationships. No marriage bonds, no civic connection, no protected rights. Virtually no public support, and often little acceptance from families and friends. And although Delta knew that paperwork did not a marriage make, the lack of legal status rendered same-sex relationships all too susceptible to easy dissolution when things got difficult.
Still, in this photograph, Noel’s eyes were alight with love. It couldn’t have been clearer if she had been wearing a sign. The woman was in love with Rae Dawn.
“Impossible,” Delta breathed, half to herself.
“I’m afraid it’s very possible,” Rae shot back.
Delta leaned back against the headboard. “What happened?” she blurted out, and then, realizing what an impertinent question it was, tried to take it back. “Sorry, Rae. You don’t have to—”
Rae picked at a knobby place on the coverlet. “No, it’s all right. I might as well just get it all out.”
Get it all out and be done with it, she was thinking. But if she wasn’t done with it after ten years—
She pulled in a deep breath and set the photograph back on the bedside table. Noel’s golden eyes, bright with love, shone back at her from the picture. Rae jerked her gaze away and faced Delta. “When I finished college, I went to New Orleans to play as a backup pianist.”
“At Maison Dauphine. I remember. The year Rankin and I moved to Asheville, we came down to visit. That was, what, four years after graduation?”
“Something like that.” Rae nodded. “It was before everything happened, at any rate. My mother died in 1974; that’s when I met Noel. The following spring she moved to New Orleans and worked at the clinic while I played at the club. For a few years things were great. We didn’t have much money, but we got by, and we had each other. Then—” She paused. “I don’t know whether to say that my career took off or my life began to fall apart. Both, really.”
She summarized those difficult years leading up to the separation—the launch of her first album, the long months on the road. “It would have been hard enough just being separated like that. But to have to hide our relationship—”
“Why did you have to hide it?” Delta asked. “I thought the music industry was pretty open-minded.”
“It’s not the industry,” Rae said. “It’s the fans. My agent, Arista Records, even Chase Coulter, who owned the club when I first went to work there—they all believed my career would crash and burn if people knew I was writing and singing all those love songs to a woman. ” She shook her head. “You have to remember, Delta, this was years ago. Things have changed—” She grimaced. “Well, a little.”
“Not enough,” Delta said. “Please, go on.”
“Anyway,” Rae continued, “the last straw came with the Grammys.”
Deltas eyes widened. “You have a Grammy?”
“I was nominated for a Grammy,” Rae corrected. “Best R&B female vocal album. I didn’t win.”
“Yes, but you were nominated, ” Delta said. “That means more records, fame and fortune—” She stopped suddenly. “Why didn’t I know any of this?”
“You’d have to be a big R&B fan, I guess.” Rae Dawn shrugged and held up her fingers in a V “Two albums. Two. I suppose you would say I was moderately well known in very small circles for a very short time.” She gave a self-deprecating grin. “But success can be both a blessing and a curse. Noel and I had both sacrificed so much for my career, and when the Grammy nomination came, I fully intended to share that moment with her no matter what. But my agent set me up with a date and absolutely refused to let me be seen in public with Noel. She didn’t even go to L.A. with me. When I got home, she was packed to leave.”
“Just like that?”
“It wasn’t just like that ”,’ Rae said. “It had been coming on a long time. We had tried to work through the problems, but I was too shortsighted to see that I was choosing my career over the person I loved.” Remembered pain stabbed at her, and she sighed. “It took several more years for me to see what I had done, not just to Noel and to our relationship, but to myself, allowing myself to be locked in that closet. A soul needs light and air and honesty, Delta. Living a lie isn’t living at all, even when the money’s good.”
DELTA WATCHED RAE DAWN’S FACE as she spoke, saw the agony and regret and raw longing that filled her eyes. She knew the pain of loss, certainly, but it was a pain tempered by the joy of more than twenty years with the man she loved. Good years, happy years. Years filled with a love unencumbered by discrimination and prejudice.
“And there was no one else,” she said at last.
“I dated a little, now and then. Two or three of the women I met seemed interested in pursuing a relationship, but I didn’t have the heart for it. It was hard to tell, by that time, whether they really cared about me or were simply in it for the money. Besides,” she finished with a sigh. “Once you’ve known real love—”
“It’s hard to settle for anything less,” Delta supplied. “Rae, whatever happened to Noel?”
“
She went back to Picayune, to her old practice. As far as I know she’s still there.”
“And you’ve never tried to reconcile with her?”
“At first, when I quit touring and came home, I thought about it. I wanted to. But I was ashamed that I had let my career get the better of my values. And then, as time went on, it just seemed like there was too much baggage between us.”
“I’m sorry,” Delta said. She wished she had more to offer. Silently she cursed her own helplessness. From the hallway downstairs she heard the clock chime seven thirty.
“Listen,” Rae said, straightening up with a sigh, “that’s enough of my sob story. I didn’t come here for myself. I want to know how you’re doing. I was so sorry to hear about Rankin’s death.”
Something clicked in the back of Delta’s mind—something Lacy had said yesterday afternoon. Rae Dawn had told Lacy that Rankin had died. But how had Rae known?
She narrowed her eyes and glared at Rae. “What do you mean, you didn’t come here for yourself?”
Rae blanched. “Well, I—”
“You came here for me? Because of Rankin?”
The color returned to Rae s face in a rush. “Yes.” “You put all this together—talked Lacy and Lauren into doing this reunion gig—and then convinced me to come? Why, Rae?”
“Because—” She hesitated. “Because you needed your friends.” Delta puzzled over this for a moment. Then the lights went on, and she understood. Cassie.
“ALL RIGHT, I ADMIT IT,” Rae Dawn said to Delta as they joined Lacy and Lauren around Matilda Suttleby’s breakfast table. “Your sister did call me. She seemed to think you would agree to come if the rest of us did, and that it might be good for you.”
Delta helped herself to a waffle. “Then you phoned Lacy and Lauren.”
“She called me ”,’ Lacy interjected. “I called Lauren.”
“And then Rae called me,” Delta continued, “and convinced me that everybody else was enthusiastic about doing this reunion banquet, but couldn’t do it without me.”
“Yeah, something like that.” Rae scooped scrambled eggs onto her plate and took a biscuit. “This breakfast is excellent, Mrs. Suttleby,” she said as Matilda came in with a fresh pot of coffee.
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