Searching for Tina Turner
Page 30
Ruby leaned back in her chair and tilted it ever so slightly until she disappeared into the shadow of the walls behind her.
“He will see me, cherie, and then he will know that you are here.”
“One minute more.” She scooted farther back, her chair moving soundlessly on the planked wood floor. “Sometimes a girl just needs a minute.”
“Ruby!” Arnett rushed to the café, his eyes wide, hair tousled from fingers working through his waves. “I didn’t know where you were.”
“You were in one of those spells, baby. I’m right here and see? Yvette is with me.”
He stood at the edge of the table and eyed their two cups. Two big men sat behind the women. Arnett glared at them. “I didn’t know where you were.”
“And you found me.” Ruby smiled at Arnett in that way that soothed him when he wallowed in uncertainty. She backed away from her chair and waved at Yvette. They would settle the cost of the afternoon coffee later. Ruby guided Arnett back to the rue Ventimille and walked him up the five spiraling flights of stairs, him holding her hand as if he couldn’t make it without her help.
“You’re gonna be fine, baby. That man today, he liked you. Just play like you do for me. I’ll be there. Aren’t I always there?” The door to their room was wide open. She made him sit on their narrow bed and lifted the saxophone from around his neck. Carefully, she rested the sax on its case. She took off her dress and set it on his practice chair, then lay beside Arnett and pondered this change that had come over her man.
In her arms, his body was limp and clammy, drained like his practice had taken his spirit. She rocked and sang a little “God Bless the Child” until he drifted off. The street lamplights glowed below the window. Trapped in the half-dark and the length of Arnett’s body, Ruby was left with nothing to do except wonder why Arnett had become this way in Paris when never in all of the days they wandered away from Mississippi had he been so concerned about his playing.