The reunion with Ruthie that El had imagined repeatedly during his weeks in Louisville had been romantic and pornographic. It had definitely not included Ruthie nagging him with her accusations of drug addiction. In his bedroom, undressing for his bath, he thought of the heroin in his pants pocket. He pulled out the foil squares and opened one, just to reassure himself that it wasn’t empty. He touched the four powder-filled capsules with the tip of his finger, rolling them back and forth in his hand. It would serve Ruthie right if he shot up right then. No, she’d know he was high and would throw it in his face. It was better if he waited.
He went to the bedroom dresser and hid his stash at the back of his underwear drawer inside a tin with his needle, his spoon, and a tiny quantity of heroin he’d bought just before his jail stint. He smiled as he thought about how much he would enjoy the look on Ruthie’s face when he showed her the little foil squares a month, maybe two, from now. He would wave them in front of her nose and say, “Who’s hooked, Ruthie? Who’s a junkie?”
He talked a lot through dinner to show Ruthie how sober and alert he was. He discussed some new songs he had written while he was away. He described some ideas he’d had for the band that he’d be presenting to everyone later that evening. By the time he left for the club with his guitar strapped to his back, dressed in his best high-draped, pin-striped pants and a crisply ironed white dress shirt, he felt that he’d made his point to Ruthie.
All of the band members, except for Lily, were at the Pink Slipper when El arrived that night. They began the first set without her. It would have been better with Lily, but the other band members were so happy to have El back that they all played their best. Bubba was on fire. He danced across the stage with his saxophone as if he were gliding over the floor with one of his many ladies. Leroy’s fingers were a blur as he attacked his bass. The drummer had the audience rocking in rhythm.
El was glad to be back at work, but he kept looking for Lily to show up. El and Lily were each good on their own, but together, they were special. While he’d been locked up, El had gone to sleep each night thinking about the music he and Lily would make with the band. It was the only thing that quieted his mind long enough to allow him to rest.
Lily and Harold walked into the Pink Slipper just as the first set ended. They made their way through the crowd and headed for the small greenroom behind the stage. At the sight of Lily, El began planning the playlist for the second set. The other band members hurried to the bar as soon as the applause died down, but with the late-set songs in his thoughts, El parked his guitar in its stand and rushed to the greenroom.
Harold was dressed up that night. Once he’d started dealing, he’d bought a suit every month. He wore each ensemble for four straight days. One day to show off, the other three to prove to everyone that Mrs. Taylor no longer forced him to return his new clothes to Clancy’s Department Store.
He was decked out in a violet-and-gold plaid suit that was as much a country boy’s fantasy of how a wealthy man dressed as Forrest Payne’s yellow tuxedos were. His purple shirt and shiny gold tie squeezed his thick neck, and his hair was slicked with pomade in the fashion of the mobsters he’d seen in Louisville and Chicago. Somehow it all came together in a way that made Harold look even more like a shitkicker than he had before his style transformation.
Lily didn’t look up at El when he came into the greenroom. She sat slumped in her chair with her chin resting on her chest, playing idly with the leopard-patterned scarf draped across her shoulders. The scarf had been a birthday gift from El and Ruthie, a little something special so she would match his spotted guitar.
When Lily finally raised her head, El knew. He didn’t have to roll up her sleeves and look for tracks. He could see it from across the room.
On shaking legs, El walked to Lily and knelt beside her. He asked, “Lily, honey, what did you do?”
She squinted at him, trying to bring him into focus, though he was just a few inches away. Lily smiled as if she were surprised by his presence. She said, “Is it time to sing?”
El stood and glared at Harold, who was admiring his reflection in a full-length mirror on the other side of Lily’s chair. El tucked his hand into his pants pocket and touched the straight razor he kept for protection when he was going to be paid in cash. “I should kill you,” he said.
Harold flicked his fingers at his ear as if he were chasing away a gnat. “You ain’t got it in you to kill anybody, and we both know it.”
El rolled the folded blade in his palm and tried to imagine that he was another kind of man, a tougher man who could lash out in defense of his precious sister. El squeezed the razor for several seconds, before releasing it and admitting to himself that Harold was right. He didn’t have it in him.
Harold said, “You should watch how you talk to me. I’m gonna open up a club in Chicago, and if you behave yourself, I might let you play there sometime. It’s gonna be a real nice place.”
“What the hell are you talkin’ about?”
“The Blues Pot. I bought it. I’m gonna fix it up and make it better than this dump ever thought about bein’.” He stroked Lily’s hair. “I’m movin’ to Chicago, and Lily’s comin’ with me.”
“Lily can’t go to Chicago. We’ve got a whole bunch of gigs comin’ up. We’re gonna make a record this summer. If you want to move to Chicago, fine. But Lily is staying here.”
Harold said, “What kind of man would I be if I left my wife behind?”
“Your wife?”
Harold grinned like a gambler laying out a royal flush. “We got married last week.”
“You’re lyin’.”
Harold turned to Lily. “Sweetheart, show him the ring I bought you.” Lily slowly lifted her left hand and showed El a wedding band. Harold said, “We accept your congratulations.”
“You could never get her to look at you twice, so you got her hooked. That’s as low as a man can go,” El said.
Harold’s jaw flexed, and he balled his hands into fists. He stomped over toward El until they were nearly chest to chest. “Since you and my wife are friends, I’m not gonna kill you for sayin’ that. I want you to remember this day, though. I want you to think about how I came out on top for once. Me, the man whose own mother you turned against him.”
“What the hell are you talkin’ about?” El said.
“Like you don’t know, you damn snake. From the second you walked into my house, you made my life harder, always grinnin’ and suckin’ up to Ma the way you did. She threw you and your songs in my face every day.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it, Harold. Your mother beat the hell out of all of us. Nobody came out of that place on top. That bitch was insane.”
Bits of spittle hit El’s face as Harold shouted, “Shut the hell up! You don’t get to say that about her. She’s my mother. Only I get to say that.”
El watched as Harold began to pace behind Lily’s chair, speaking louder and faster with each step. He waved his hands in the air as he became more agitated. El thought, Shit, if he had a Bible in his hand, I’d hardly be able to tell him apart from his mama.
“From the day you showed up with that guitar, I got the worst of it. I’m not forgettin’ how you tried to steal Lily from me from the moment she got there, neither. But she’s mine now. I’m the one she married. Remember that. I won.”
Harold stopped in front of the mirror and adjusted the lapels of his jacket. He loosened his gold tie and unfastened the top button of his too-tight shirt. Some of the red left his face now that his neck was less constricted. Echoing El’s words from that afternoon, Harold said, “I expected to see some gratitude. We didn’t have to come by to see you. I’m bein’ nice, lettin’ her sing with you one last time.”
Lily asked again, “Time to sing?” She looked at El through droopy-lidded eyes and smiled as if she’d heard a joke that no one else was in on.
Exhausted, El took a seat in an empty chair next to her. The chair’s worn-out springs wheezed as he fell
onto it.
Harold placed a hand on Lily’s shoulder. He said, “Baby I’m gonna go out and get a seat up front, so I can cheer for you.” He bent down and kissed her on the lips. Then he left the room.
El and Lily sat listening to the jukebox music that filtered into the room from the tavern. Soon the sound of the crowd grew louder and they could hear Bubba honking out a few notes on his sax. El extracted himself from the chair and walked to the sink in the corner of the greenroom. He poured a glass of water and brought it to Lily. He knelt beside her as she drank slowly, taking tiny sips. By the time she’d finished the glass, she was more awake.
El said, “Why would you marry him? You don’t love him.”
“Harold loves me. He always has. And I don’t want to be on my own. I can’t be.”
“Don’t go, Lily. Stay here and sing with me and the band.”
She shook her head. “I’m tired of being alone. I want a husband. Maybe some kids. I want what you’ve got with Ruthie.”
“Please, just stay here and sing with me.”
Lily rose unsteadily to her feet. She patted El on the top of his head. “I hear Bubba warming up. It’s time to sing.”
They sang, and it was as good as it had ever been. They performed every tune in their repertoire. When they finally ran out of songs, Lily hugged El and said, “Good-bye, brother.” She stepped off the stage and left with Harold.
Three hours later, after shooting up with Leroy in the parking lot and downing half a bottle of Old Crow, El confronted Ruthie in the living room of their little house in Leaning Tree. He had returned home with his mind thoroughly scrambled, wanting nothing more than to drift further away from reality. But the compact tin box he had hidden away at the back of the top right dresser drawer was missing. Ten minutes after the ensuing argument with Ruthie began, El was waving his razor in the air, unaware that little James was running toward him.
CHAPTER 25
El was exhausted by the time I got him into the guest room. He climbed into bed and was snoring within seconds. I went straight to the kitchen to begin dinner and to figure out what I would say to James.
I had a special meal in mind for James to take the edge off the news that I’d dragged El home with me. Short ribs braised in red wine, green beans with bacon, and twice-baked potatoes, followed up by lemon cake. Was it too much to hope that I could delay James’s finding out that his father was there until dessert? Maybe El would sleep until late. James and I could eat most of our meal alone. Then, as the first bite of cake hit James’s lips, I would whisper, “By the way, darling, your father’s going to be staying with us until you start acting more like yourself.”
“This is a mistake,” someone said. I looked up from the open cookbook on the counter and saw Mama standing next to the stove with her hands on her hips and an expression on her face that I remembered from my childhood as her lecturing face. Mama said, “You can’t just bring somebody into the house without telling James and hope it’s gonna go fine.”
“It’s not just somebody, it’s his father.”
“That’s even worse. It’s like you’re goin’ out of your way to push James’s buttons.”
“I’m trying to help him, not push his buttons.”
“It doesn’t look that way to me. And it won’t feel like that to James.”
It was like I was in high school again, Mama giving me a talking to that I didn’t want to hear. She was even dressed in an outfit I recalled from my teen years—a faded blue cotton housedress with red terry-cloth pockets, black-and-gray plaid sleeves, and an orange wool collar. It was one of the dozens of dresses my grandmother had sewn for Mama and me from the same not particularly flattering pattern. Grandmama loved to sew, and she cranked out clothes for the family like a one-woman factory. She was also blind, which freed her to enthusiastically mix and match colors and fabrics with no regard for how they would look when thrown together. I stopped wearing my Grandmama originals after she passed, but Mama hung on to those monstrosities until the end of her life. Mama had been in one of the worst of my grandmother’s crazy-quilt creations when I’d found her lying lifeless in her garden back in 1999.
Mama said, “You always were too bossy for your own good. Even when you were a child, you were forever tellin’ other people what to do. That’s something you should work on before it gets you in trouble.”
“That’s quite a statement, coming from the woman who jumped across the divide between life and death to stand in my kitchen and deliver unsolicited advice,” I said.
Mama made a harrumphing noise and walked around me to inspect the ingredients spread out on the counter. I felt a childish thrill from having rendered my mother speechless for once. I knew her silence wouldn’t last long, though, so I continued. “James has got to sit down with his father and get some things off his chest. Pretending to forgive and forget isn’t working. James will understand once I’ve had a chance to talk to him. He’ll see that I’m right.”
Mama said, “What if he doesn’t?”
“He will.”
Mama moved over till she stood next to me. In the deep voice that I knew from long experience meant that she should be heeded, Mama said, “Odette, pay attention.”
I stopped chopping herbs and listened.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re right. You think you and James have been together so long that you can treat him however you want and have him accept that it’s for his own good. You watched how I was with your daddy and picked that up from me, I guess.” Though I couldn’t feel it, she laid her hand on mine. “Even after a lifetime together, it’s still possible to put a distance between you and him that won’t ever go away. I know that for a fact. Ask your daddy if I was always thinkin’ of his best interests every time I stepped on his pride, and I’ll bet he’ll say yes. Then think about how often you see him with me now that he can be wherever he wants to be.”
“I understand what you’re saying, but it’s too late to change course now. Besides, I know James better than he knows himself. He might be a little mad at first, but he’ll come around to my way of thinking.”
Proving, once again, that there are no etiquette schools in the next life, Mama said, “I have to hand it to you. You got some big-ass balls.”
“Thanks,” I said, pulling eggs and butter from the refrigerator. I would never admit it to Mama, but I agreed that I had overstepped by bringing El home with me. Until I’d parked the car in the garage, I’d debated taking him to Barbara Jean’s house. She could even have let him choose between staying in the new house in Leaning Tree Estates that she shared with Ray and playing lord of the manor in her Victorian mansion downtown. But if I had taken El to Barbara Jean’s, I’d still be stuck trying to get two unwilling men together. So El was in my guest room.
Mama said, “I don’t wanna nag you about this.”
“Too late,” I interrupted.
Sounding as annoyed with my sassiness as she used to fifty years earlier, Mama snapped, “There is no way James is gonna be happy with you forcing all this high-drama mess on him.”
“He’s not happy now. This can’t make it any worse.”
Mama’s expression softened from irritation to pity. She said, “Oh, baby, things can always get worse. I thought you knew that.”
Like I used to when I was a teenager, I blocked Mama out. I cooked while she offered more of her opinions.
Dessert was in the oven by the time James came in. He was holding a cooler and smelled of the river. As he walked into the kitchen, I plastered on a big smile and asked him how the fish were biting. He put out his hand, palm down, and waggled it to indicate that it had been just so-so.
I announced the dinner menu, emphasizing the lemon cake. Then I waited for him to smack his lips and gush with enthusiasm. That’s not what happened, though.
As had often occurred during the years of our marriage, right about the time that I’d be congratulating myself for knowing every aspect of James, he’d turn it around and show that he
knew me just as well. After hearing what I’d cooked that evening, James placed the cooler on the table and crossed his long arms over his chest. Leaning back against the kitchen counter, he said, “What’s going on, Odette?”
“Nothing’s going on. Not much, at least,” I said. “Why don’t you get cleaned up, and then we can talk about it over dinner?” I repeated that we’d be having twice-baked potatoes, in case he’d missed it the first time.
James stayed put. “Short ribs and lemon cake mean this is a punch-softening meal. Let’s have the punch.”
Right on cue, the blow I’d hoped to cushion with cake pushed his walker into the room and said, “Hello, James.”
“Here we go,” Mama declared.
James gawked at El. He looked as shocked as I imagine I did the first time Mama appeared to me, in this very kitchen, six years after she died. El scraped his walker a few inches closer, and James said, “Excuse us for a minute.”
James stalked out. I excused myself and followed him upstairs to our bedroom.
The moment I shut the door behind myself, James growled, “Why is that man here?” He was as angry as I had ever seen him. His entire body vibrated with barely contained rage, and his eyes bulged as he glared at me.
I led with what I believed to be my most effective pitch. I said, “I had to bring him here, James. When I went to see him, he was about to kill himself. He had pills laid out and everything. I couldn’t just leave him.”
I had hoped that the dutiful-policeman part of James would overcome the pissed-off husband part of him and he would understand that I’d witnessed an emergency situation and been forced into life-saving action. But he stood there clenching and unclenching his fists. He asked, “Why did you go to see him in the first place? Didn’t I tell you to stay out of this?”
I placed my hand on his shoulder and was relieved when he didn’t jerk away from my touch. I said, “James, are you listening to yourself? You just heard that a man was about to kill himself and all you want to know is why I was there. That’s not you, James. I went to see El because you wouldn’t go. I went to see him because you’ve been acting a little less like yourself every day since we saw him at the hospital. And I’m scared.”
The Supremes Sing the Happy Heartache Blues Page 19