Pick up the Pieces

by Flo Fitzpatrick

Glenn turned to look slowly at Cameron, then back at me. “Saffron Baker is blonde, blue-eyed, with a pert little nose and a Marilyn Monroe earth-goddess body.”

  The meaning was clear. My voice shook. “The spitting image of Marigold in both looks and voice. Correct?”

  Glenn stated, “Pretty much. The resemblance is uncanny and almost creepy.”

  Cam slunk down so far into his chair I was afraid he’d end up under the table.

  I quickly inquired, “To be clear, you’re telling me the only soprano who can make this album work is going to be a girl who will remind of us Marigold every time we look at her?”

  Dusty and Glenn both nodded. Glenn added, “Right. She is fantastic, though. I mean, if we can get past the soprano clone thing. Her blend with Bebe’s voice will make Pieces Together a true winner.”

  Cam had avoided looking at me. I could feel the avoidance like a burn. I nodded at him.

  “Cam. Is there something else?”

  “Uh. Possibly.”

  “Yes?”

  “Rumor has it she and Nic hador havea thing going.”

  My stomach dropped like an express elevator. “Oh. Well.”

  “Can you handle dealing with a prima donna pain in the ass who might also have a relationship with your ex?”

  I inhaled. “I’m fine. I promise.” My voice turned husky but I was determined not to let any of the men see how the thought of Nic Jericho dating anyone else ever affected me. After ten years? It was ridiculous to feel this jealous. “Look, Cam, it’s your call. You were Marigold’s fiancé. This will be harder on you than anyone.”

  He stared at me but apparently believed my protestations of being fine.

  “Give me a sec, okay?” Cam rose and began to pace around the dining room. The rest of us remained seated and quiet. Two minutes of hamster-on-a-treadmill activity, and then Cam sat back down. His expression was still grim yet oddly more relaxed. “You have Saffron’s number?”

  Glenn nodded. “I do.”

  “Well, then, give her a call.”

  Glenn pulled out his cell, then rose and headed toward the kitchen. “I’m not the performer you kids are even when it comes to talking on the phone. I need privacy. Be right back.”

  The wait wasn’t long. I had barely begun to nervously butter a toffee-pecan muffin made fresh by Miguel only a few hours ago when Glenn returned.

  “I managed to track her down and she seemed excited and pleased to be asked. Said she’s got some other commitments and obligations but is pretty sure she can work this in. She’ll meet us tonight at nine at the studio for a little ‘check it out’ session.”

  I had to ask. “Did you warn her? Did you tell her petite blue-eyed blonde sopranos who hang around Pieces seem to go missing?”

  Silence, then Glenn stated, “Actually, I did. I couldn’t let her walk into a situation without all the facts. She’s one tough lady. Basically said, ‘Bring ‘em on.’” He chuckled. “I pity any would-be abductor who tries to tangle with her. She’d shred the s.o.b. in a heartbeat.”

  Cam shrugged his shoulders. “I hope to heaven this is worth it. Because right now all I can see is Marigold glaring at me telling me what a rat I am for betraying her and Saffron slapping me in a day or so for putting her into a dangerous situation.” He pulled his baseball cap over his head. “Since I tend to agree with Marigold’s assessment, this particular rodent is going to go jog about ten miles to get the guilt out of his system. Meet y’all at Manny’s tonight.”

  Chapter 13

  Our band had recorded almost all of Pieces of Five, our first cd, at out-of-business storefront just off Interstate 35 close to Georgetown. It had been a “Mom and Pop” electronics shop, but Mom and Pop had retired and moved to Kerrville, leaving a space filled with great counters and lots of electric outlets. Since no one jumped in to buy the property, “Mom and Pop” started leasing it to various creative types who needed cheap space. It had always been called Bobbie Joe’s, named for owners Roberta and Joseph Thompson and once word spread, Bobbie Joe’s doubled and tripled and quadrupled as a post-production facility for film and video projects, but primarily as a recording studio.

  During the weeks ten years earlier when we’d been recording Pieces of Five, we’d been treated each evening to parades of actors in Western costumes circa 1880s, hip-hop dancers in balloon pants and knee pads and musicians working on everything from jingles to country n’western videos to hard rock albums. There’d been a mass of folks affably sticking their noses and curiosities into everyone else’s business. I recalled one group of young ladies in retro hot fuchsia-colored tight workout attire filming an infomercial for an aerobic toning video entitled Buff Broads Beating Bulk. The fitness enthusiasts would hang out in front of the studio after their own sessions to chat up the guys in Pieces. Naturally, the guys had loved the attention. Marigold and I had not.

  Pieces and every other group who’d used Bobbie Joe’s had been forced to change venues and move to Manny’s Mixes in Round Rock, just north of Austin, when one of those major spring Texas tornados came through and damaged about eighty per cent of Bobbie Joe’s, which was enough to close the place down completely.

  I had always loved Bobbie Joe’s. It was warm, inviting and the acoustics had been amazing. I’d been devastated, along with half of Austin and Georgetown’s musicians, when no one snapped up the property to repair the place and continue the tradition of recording.

  I now looked around at Manny’s Mixes, which was still undergoing renovations, and felt faint. It seemed cold somehow. I tried to shrug off feelings of impending doom but I wasn’t succeeding well. A voice spoke behind my left ear.

  “I feel impending doom.”

  I whirled around. “Thank you so much, Nic Jericho, for echoing thoughts I didn’t want to have swirling through my feeble brain, much less hear spoken aloud. Like there’s not enough doom and angst to go around already?”

  He bowed, winked, and smiled. “I figured you needed a jolt to chase the blues away and I just might be able to provide it.”

  “I only pray any premonitions on my part are utterly wrong and we can whip this record into shape with those last songs, and do the dance. Then, I’ll fly up to Newark, take the Metro to New Brunswick, and call the agent who’s been trying to put together this stupid cabaret act we’ve been talking about for August, and find out if it’s going to happen. Assuming the accompanist hasn’t been arrested for fighting with the arranger. They don’t like each other.” I paused before adding, “Come to think of it, I actually don’t like either of them.”

  Nic’s attempted smile failed. “You mean it? Not about your arranger and composer, but about heading back so fast. Are you that anxious to leave? Or is someone special waiting for you there?”

  I didn’t answer. Luckily, I didn’t have to. Stone, Cam, Dusty and Glenn pulled up beside the truck I had borrowed from Junie an hour ago. I stared at their vehicle in amazement. “No way.”

  Nic glanced at me. “What?”

  “Can’t be. Can it?”

  “You didn’t see this the other night did you? Yep. It’s our old van. Illusions. Now going into its twenty-fifth year as a moving vehicle, but still kickin'.’”

  Illusions. Marigold had christened it after she’d bought the vanwhich was more like a small busfrom a used car dealership in Bastrop. Already fifteen years old at the time, it was the ugliest shade of purple outside of Marigold’s cat suit and going cheap. Even the dealer admitted it was kind of a wreck and added, “Quite honestly? No one wants it.”

  Marigold had instantly fallen in love. “It’s perfect! We’ll take out the back seats. Make it big enough for the instruments. Well, except for Nic’s drums but he’s still tooling around in his ratty old SUV so he’s on his own.”

  She’d grinned at the despairing faces of Cam and Dusty while the delighted dealer ran inside to grab paperwork before the mad woman could change her mind. I’d stood next to the guys, pleased to be part of the gang. I was happy because Ma
rigold was happy.

  Marigold had continued waxing eloquently. “We’ll paint half of it gold and we’ll get noticed. Stone is a whiz with anything with wheels. I swear he can fix anything that needs fixin’. What we do with music, he does with auto parts and engines. Let’s call this sucker Illusions and stencil it in purple lettering on the sides. It’s beyond perfect. It’s us.”

  Cam had exploded. “You want to entrust our lives and safety to this wreck and a kid brother who’s what? Fifteen? Are you nuts? Not to mention this thing is going to end up looking like a pimpmobile.

  Two other male voices tried to argue Marigold down but she wouldn’t budge. Pieces bought the bus. Stone Blume spent every day for three weeks once he was out of school of school and his part-time job at an auto repair store diligently doing whatever was needed to put the van into working order. By Christmas, the band had one honkin’ cool, gold and purple painted vehicle that sportednew tires, new brakes, new hoses, and a new engine. The one thing not newpossibly because it never existedwas the AC. It was December, so no one cared, although by March we were making serious plans to install air conditioning for everyone’s sanity. Marigold was right. It held the instruments. People stared at it as the band drove by. We were noticed. It screamed, “We are Pieces!”

  The police had taken about fifteen minutes to search it the night Marigold had vanished. They’d unearthed a few stray scraps of sheet music, two extra microphones with cords, fifteen candy wrappers, a month-old copy of the Austin Statesman, and five plastic cups from the local ice-cream drive through. No blood. No curious carpet fibers. No weapons. No drugs. No Marigold.

  I tried to shrug off these visions while I stared in awe at what was now a ridiculously old van.

  Cam finished unloading one of Dusty’s electric keyboards and then deposited it gently on the ground. “Like it?”

  I smiled. “Well, obviously it still runs.”

  “Believe it or notmaintenance only. I still have to replace the usual stuff but Illusions has never broken down, never dropped a transmission in the middle of the road and never even blown a tire. Stone did one fantastic job back then.”

  Nic hoisted four music stands across his broad shoulders. “When did you repaint?”

  Cam nodded. “About five years ago. I kept it purple and gold for a long time after . . . Finally, I decided it hurt more to look at it. Saw this neat shade of blue on a couple of delivery trucks and figured if it worked for something large, it’d work for this.”

  I remained silent. The shade of blue Cam was talking about was a match for Marigold’s eyes. Striking, almost cobalt in color. I did not point this out. There was no reason to cause even the least possibility of grief. I grabbed the set of headphones before they slipped out of Cam’s hand and hurried into the studio. Manny’s Mixes had an air-conditioning system close to Alaskan ice and I was grateful for the cold. I felt woozy.

  Nic had followed right behind me. He caught me as I swayed. “Bebe, you okay?”

  “It’s the heat. I’ve been up north too long. Not used to it anymore.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “What? You don’t believe me?”

  “Darlin’, I watch more than Texas weather reports. Don’t tell me Jersey’s temperatures aren’t occasionally one step removed from Hades because I don’t buy it.” His voice softened. “It shook you, didn’t it? Seeing the van. Believe me, you’re not alone. My stomach took a nose dive to my toes when Cam drove up in it.”

  He had to get out of my mind. But since he’d obviously invited himself in, I answered, “Yeah. Fine. I admit it. Illusions. Seeing it now? Nic, there are way too many memories in too little time erupting all around me. Hell. Junie has me sleeping in Marigold’s old room in her bed. I feelthis is weird almost suffocated by her ghostly presence. I can sympathize with why Stone avoids the Blume house. It’s as if Marigold is begging me to solve her disappearance.” I paused, tilted my chin up and the words came out. “Her death. Yes. I said it. After ten years I finally have to say, she’s dead. And she’s haunting me. You called it overshadowing earlier? You don’t know the half of it.”

  Nic took both my hands in his. For once, I didn’t draw away.

  “Bebe, you never took the time to grieve. You took off the day after she went missing.” He didn’t add what I knew he was thinking, without even saying good-bye other than to send one lousy note telling me you were leaving. “I mean, we all left or avoided Georgetown but we held a memorial service at Christmas when we were back in the area. We had to find a way to get some kind of closure. I don’t believe you ever did.”

  I choked back tears. “For a very long time I kept telling myself she wasn’t really gone. She was trying to be funny. One of Marigold Blume’s less-than-humorous pranks. I kept expecting her to pop up at Princeton in the middle of one of my classes my senior year there and start singing Alice Cooper’s School’s Out for Summer. After all, how do you say goodbye when your mind is screaming, she’ll be back?”

  Nic gave me a sharp look. “There’s more, isn’t there.”

  I wanted to tell him I’d felt ripped apart with conflicting emotions from the moment Marigold had gone missing. Actually, I could extend the time to the entire month before. Could I tell him I’d been so furious with my best friend I’d been glad she was gone and I still carried guilt over those original feelings? Or reveal that I hadn’t had a single clue how to deal with the knowledge Nic’s father had preferred Marigold to me? Worse. There was no way to say I was terrified one of the guys in or closely involved with Pieces, which included Nic had played a part in Marigold’s disappearance and had a hand in whatever had happened to Daria Black and now Arianna Prentice. I’d been living with a never-ending tug-o-war for ten years.

  Chapter 14

  Stone stopped me before I could start spewing what the kids in my freshman Music Appreciation classes would have termed ‘too much information’ into Nic Jericho’s sympathetic ear. “Hey! Band. Are y’all going to run through your old chain stream to warm-up?”

  The atmosphere instantly felt lighter. Fleetwood Mac’s 1970s hit “The Chain” had always been the way our practice sessions started. We’d go through it once, then get silly singing every old chain song anyone could recall, from Sam Cooke’s classic rhythm and blues hit “Chain Gang” to Chrissie Hyde and the Pretenders “Back on the Chain Gang” and on to my personal favorite, Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools” which always started me dancing no matter the venue. Pieces had had a running contest to try to win non-existent prizes by finding obscure songs with chain in the title somewhere.

  If we’d been recording this night, we wouldn’t have been able to take the time but Cam had managed to work out the deal with Manny (yes, there was such a person) to use the space strictly for rehearsals and “discussions.” Still had to pay but less than half than the normal price. After all the bad stuff that had happened this week, we knew we needed to allow some time to relax and regain a feeling of comfort playing and singing with each other. Cam was the front-runner tonight with the Beatles “Chains” and Pieces was quickly back in the groove as though we’d left the studio only the night before instead of ten years ago. Our first rehearsal had helped a bit with the awkward process of a band reuniting but we’d spent most of the time figuring out which numbers to use for the Beta Zeta Reunion Dance and getting used to being in the Palace Theatre again. The chain ritual was our chance to click and it was working well.

  Nic ended up as winner of the chains stream, coming up with total stumper, “Shackles and Chains” by Marty Robbins.

  “Circa nineteen-fifty-eight,” he proudly informed us. “This, people, is what comes of spending half my time on computers looking up legal precedents and becoming completely distracted by anything outside of the law in order to keep moderately sane. I have found a wealth of songs you slackers never heard of. I’m amazed I haven’t been fired. Fortunately the current Dallas County D.A. is a huge fan of old rock n’ roll.”

  An hou
r and a half later, we’d sung six songs for possible inclusion in Pieces Together at least three times each. Saffron Baker had yet to put in an appearance. Annoyance was rapidly replacing good feelings.

  Then the door shot open and slammed against the studio wall. A female voice filled the space. “I’m so terribly sorry, y’all. I had to stop at a store to get something to eat because I hadn’t had any dinner and then there was this awful accident outside and it was like I’d never get here. I do apologize.”

  Dead silence as everyone stared at the newcomer. Glenn had been right. The resemblance was uncanny and unsettling. Saffron Baker, with blonde hair and blue eyes and a figure mirroring what would have been Marigold’s after ten years of aging (mixed with six weeks of stringent dieting), was an eerie replica of our lost soprano.

  Saffron strolled in and tossed her bag into the chair currently holding my bag, which caused mine to crash to the floor. Saffron gave each male in the room a hug, pausing an extra moment or two with what seemed to me to be a more intimate squeezing of Nic Jericho. She ignored me. She sauntered over to the music stand I had been using, which had every sheet with lyrics stacked in order, picked it up and then carried it to a spot behind the front microphone. She didn’t actually throw the sheets at me but she did hand them over in a manner indicating I did not exist. If I hadn’t been struggling not to show how dismayed I felt because I was about to share space and songs with Nic’s rumored ex (or current?) girlfriend, I would have laughed.

  Diva. I remember telling Marigold ten years ago if we looked up the word in a dictionary, Marigold’s photo would be right under the large ‘D.’ I eyed Saffron sashaying around the studio and felt pretty certain her picture would have been next to Marigold’s. Possibly on top. Normally, I was comfortable dealing with prima donnas as long as they had the musical chops to back up their bad girl behavior. Hell, half the performance faculty in New Brunswick shared the traits now being exhibited. But then, half the performance faculty didn’t have feelings for a certain drummer. And half the performance faculty didn’t look like the clone of a lost friend.