Joplin's Ghost

by Tananarive Due

  Her suitor was wearing a black suit, high collared white shirt, and neatly knotted black tie, as perfect as a photograph. He walked inside with Sarge, holding a single red rose. After he had greeted Mom by kissing her hand, he finally stood before Phoenix. He smiled with a shyness that proved contagious, making her glance toward her folded hands. He held the rose to her, and she met his eyes again as its scent enthralled her senses.

  “I hope you don’t mind a rose,” he said. “It’s too early for chrysanthemums.”

  “Anyone would be crazy not to love a rose,” Phoenix said. “It’s perfect.”

  Mom cleared her throat, gathering her newspaper. For the first time, Phoenix noticed that Mom was wearing a twilled sateen shirt waist with puff top sleeves and a high collar, one of the nicest spring outfights she owned, although Phoenix couldn’t remember ever seeing her in it. Mom had dressed for this visit, too. “Let them visit awhile, Marcus,” Mom said, lowering her chin until small folds of skin appeared at her tight collar.

  Sarge gave them a long, lingering look over his shoulder before he disappeared from sight. “I’m so embarrassed about the way I acted before,” Phoenix told her suitor. “I can’t believe how childish I was. I can only imagine what you think about me.”

  “I thought you were charming,” he said, laughing. “Don’t be embarrassed.”

  “I’m surprised you would come back, after that.”

  “I had to,” he said, smiling. “How else could I perform the song I wrote for you?”

  “Did you really write something for me?” she said, rising from the piano bench. She checked his expression, and he seemed earnest.

  “Listen for yourself,” he said, and sat at the piano.

  While her suitor played, she heard springtime in his fingertips. Honeybees, blooming flowers, and rain-showers filled the living room. The piece became more somber and thoughtful for a time, pondering possibilities as far as Old World Europe, before winding into a home-style celebration again, ending like the perfect kiss.

  Phoenix couldn’t speak, blinking. No one had ever given her anything like it.

  “Since it was for you, I didn’t call it a rag,” he said. “It’s an Afro-American Intermezzo.”

  “It’s priceless,” Phoenix whispered.

  “I named it ‘The Chrysanthemum,’ after my beautiful young flower bud.”

  “If you keep saying I’m beautiful, I’ll believe it soon. Then I’ll be intolerable.”

  “That day will never come. And you are beautiful. To me, there is no one more beautiful. Not Maxine Elliott, not Ethel Barrymore, not the Queen of Egypt. You are womanhood perfected.” With that, he took her hand. She could feel the shudder of his heartbeat in his warm, soft palm. “Do you know why I’m here tonight?”

  She shook her head, although they all had their suspicions. She had to hear the words.

  “I wanted to ask you a question,” he said, his voice faltering.

  “Oh? What kind of question?” she said innocently.

  “Are you brave enough to leave your home behind?”

  Phoenix stared around her at the living room, which looked changed in the dream. Her piano was here, and the same cream-colored leather sofa set she’d grown up with, but there was also furniture she didn’t recognize, namely an elaborate parlor suit with elegantly engraved wood frames and burgundy satin upholstery—a sofa, a divan, a rocking chair and two parlor chairs. The walls were also crammed with framed photographs, almost like the Gallery of Greats. Her parents were in the portrait-sized photo above the piano, heads close in a loving pose, ebony and ivory. And Gloria in another beside them. And Serena. There was even a photo of Kai, Ronn’s bodyguard, and she barely knew him. The photographs made her feel sad.

  “If I left, where would I go?” Phoenix said.

  He squeezed her hand, very gently. “With me.”

  “We’ll have to ask my parents,” she said, uncertain. Sarge wouldn’t like that at all.

  Her suitor began to play the piano again, his fingers dancing on the keys. “Of course,” he said. “But as long as you say yes, that’s all that matters to me. I’ll be the happiest man dead.”

  “Don’t you mean the happiest man alive?” Phoenix said, sure he’d made a joke.

  Not looking up at her, her suitor shook his head. “I’ll be the happiest man dead.”

  Suddenly, Phoenix wasn’t sure she liked this dream. A shard of ice prodded her stomach.

  “I have to think about it awhile,” she said.

  “Yes, but please don’t think too long. I love you, Freddie.”

  What had he called her? “My name isn’t Freddie,” she said.

  Her suitor didn’t answer, playing on. Phoenix felt unsure for a moment, but then she looked at the photographs on the wall, and she remembered. “My name isn’t Freddie,” she said again. “My name is Phoenix.”

  He only gazed at her sidelong as he played, one eye and half a grin.

  Phoenix, wake up.”

  A man’s voice. Phoenix gasped, and her eyes popped open because she didn’t recognize the voice as her lover’s. Where was Sarge? Where was Mom?

  Carlos stood over her, bare-chested in faded surfer shorts, his nightclothes, and the weakened scent of his cologne swept her true memories back into place, washing the dream away. She was in her apartment in Los Angeles, not at the Miami house with her parents. And she was with Carlos Harris, not with anyone else.

  Phoenix looked down at herself and realized she was sitting at her computer chair in a long T-shirt, which surprised her because she’d thought she was wearing a dress. Her face and shirt were soaked with freezing water, her nipples poking against the thin, sheen fabric across her chest, stunted tent poles. She hugged herself, her teeth chattering. “What the fuck…”

  Carlos grabbed his blanket from the futon and gently draped it across her shoulders, wrapping her tightly, bundling the blanket beneath her arms to trap her body heat. “I’m sorry. You were yelling your name, and I threw some water on you. You wouldn’t wake up when I shook you. I could have tried to wake you up sooner, but I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  “Interrupt wh-what?” she said, still shivering and confused.

  Carlos pointed to her Mac screen, which was brimming with merry, syncopated notes.

  “Your playing,” he said. “You’ve been playing the keyboard more than an hour.”

  Phoenix stared at the music she’d heard in her dream.

  CHAPTER TEN

  None of them noticed the older-model gray Chevy Impala parked at the corner. It was a car meant to be invisible.

  The Impala was there when Phoenix and Sarge left Three Strikes Records at 10:35 A.M., after finishing their publicity meeting with Manny. Live at Night was officially a go: The show’s bookers wanted Phoenix to sing “Party Patrol.” Sarge had hired two backup singers Phoenix had worked with before, and Phoenix fantasized that Serena could make her national television debut singing with her, too. She’d talked to her sister in Atlanta that morning, and Serena said she would think about it, Serena’s typical delaying tactics. She’d been thinking for a year.

  As Sarge drove his rented Grand Prix out of the TSR lot behind the building, past the waving guard at the gate, Ronn’s black Lexus SUV pulled beside them and sounded its horn, the four-toned hook from Ronn’s first hit, “Playa Dayz.” Kai let his window down, signaling from the driver’s seat. Phoenix didn’t recognize the young man in the passenger seat, but he gave her a pleasant smile. He looked like Taye Diggs, except younger. He seemed small to be a bodyguard.

  “Hey, Krispy Kreme, whassup?” Phoenix said.

  Kai’s thumb gestured toward the backseat. “Boss-man wants to holla at ya.”

  “Good,” Sarge murmured. He’d been worried when Ronn was too busy to see her. Sometimes Sarge worried more than Mom, and that was a lot of worrying.

  “I told you we’re cool,” Phoenix whispered to Sarge, and climbed out of the car.

  As she walked to the back door of the L
exus, Phoenix fashioned a smile several watts brighter than the one she would have given Ronn if he wasn’t her label’s CEO. She felt wrecked. She hadn’t done any sleepwalking since she was ten, and she had outgrown her childlike willingness to accept the bizarreness as an adventure. She was tired and freaked out, and Ronn had just broken up with her. This was not a good day.

  “Hey, Ronn,” Phoenix said, leaning inside once Ronn opened the door for her. The vehicle was built so high that she took Ronn’s hand so he could lift her to the running board.

  Ronn was wearing a skintight black shirt that molded to his weight-room physique. The scent of his morning joint wafted out, and he offered her a toke, which she didn’t refuse. What the hell? Phoenix had to admit that she had missed Gloria and her stash the past few days. Phoenix didn’t smoke nearly as much as Gloria and Ronn, but alcohol only knocked her out, and sometimes she wanted to escape the world and visit her head for a while. Ronn’s productivity was all the more amazing when she considered how often he was high.

  After she inhaled, she coughed. She’d forgotten that Ronn mixed tobacco in his joints, and tobacco seared her throat. “Ooh, that shit’s nasty,” she said, handing it back.

  “Sorry, baby girl. I forgot you like your herb straight. Come sit down a minute.”

  While Phoenix settled against the leather seat beside him, Sarge walked to talk to Kai in the front seat, hovering close as usual. Stevie Wonder was playing, Ronn’s favorite morning music. The bass player in “Superstition” was just getting busy. The television monitors built into the headrests facing Ronn played CNN in mute mode. More problems in Iraq.

  Ronn took off his red-hued Kenneth Coles, and his eyes shone with fondness. He rubbed her knee. “How you doin’, Superstar? Manny told me about Live at Night. That’s gonna be off the chain. Your dancers look good for the video, huh?” Typically, Ronn’s question was rhetorical, and he didn’t give her time to answer. “You need anything else from me?”

  Phoenix’s mind stalled. All she could think about was the pile of sheet music she and Carlos had printed out from her computer that morning and mailed overnight to Van Milton at the Scott Joplin House, awaiting his judgment. She wished they could have faxed all 180 pages, but they did fax thirty so he could see them right away. All she really needed today was a musicologist who specialized in ragtime, and Ronn couldn’t help her with that.

  “Can’t think of anything,” she said.

  “Well, if you do, just say it. You feelin’ better today?”

  “Yeah, sorry I got sick yesterday.”

  “Ain’t nothin, ain’t nothin,” Ronn said, nodding. “You gotta take care of you first. We’re gonna sit down with the tapes and get those dancers hired by Friday so they’ll have time to rehearse for the video shoot, a’ight? You’ll meet Jamal in a couple days, ’cuz he’s flying in from London. Then you and me can hit a dinner spot this weekend. Saturday good for you?”

  “Works for me,” she said. “My sister Serena’s coming to town. Do you mind if she comes with us? And her son?”

  Ronn’s face soured slightly, the first hint of his emotions beneath his businessman’s mask, but he shrugged. “It’s cool if they eat with us, but we gotta’ walk in alone and walk out alone. It’s all for the cameras, baby girl.”

  “Right. That’s cool,” she said. She was sorry she’d asked. It was an imposition. Or had he wanted to be alone with her?

  “Remind Manny about that designer, whatchacallum. He has something he wants you to wear. It looks real good. Not too much, but nice for dinner.”

  “I will.”

  “What you gonna do with your hair for TV?”

  Phoenix’s Afro was particularly free-spirited today, since she’d hardly had time to breathe between the time Carlos woke her at her keyboard and when Sarge knocked on her door. Self-consciously, she patted the woolly fringes on the back of her head. “My sister’s gonna hook me up with some extensions. She’s a pro. I told her what you want.”

  “Lemme see a preview Saturday night, a’ight?”

  “No problem.” Yes, sir, she almost said. Damn. She and Serena would have to spend the whole day on her hair, and on her sister’s first day in town.

  At that, Ronn leaned over to peck her lips. “You’re my girl, Phee.” The peck, small as it was, inspired arousal in her, then regret. The magnitude of how badly she had fucked up her relationship with Ronn still dazzled her when she allowed herself to consider it.

  The song playing switched abruptly from “Superstition” to “All in Love Is Fair,” with Stevie’s silken voice oozing through the rear speakers. Phoenix had heard this CD a dozen times in Ronn’s car, and this ballad wasn’t next on the playlist. She glanced up at the rear-view mirror, and saw Kai’s eyes gazing back, watching. Kai was messing with them.

  Ronn noticed, too, shifting beside her uncomfortably. For a few seconds, neither Phoenix nor Ronn knew what to say. In their uneasy quiet, Phoenix heard her father’s booming laughter as he leaned into the front-seat window. “I told you the Dolphins was gonna go after that boy on the Ravens, that big-ass nigger from Alabama State. They better go after somebody.”

  “They could hire an army, and they’ll still be sorry,” Taye’s twin said, dangling his cigarette out of his window. “You’re livin’ in the past, O. G. Marino’s been gone.” That ignited a good-natured debate, the three of them trying to talk over one another, Sarge loudest of all. The men’s easy fellowship brightened the car.

  Ronn offered Phoenix another toke, and this time she inhaled only a sip so she wouldn’t cough. She already felt fuzzy-headed. She couldn’t take her eyes away from Ronn’s manicured nails, remembering how his broad hands had slipped inside her clothes, cupping her breasts while he pressed his primed solidness against her from behind. Stevie was singing about how he never should have left his lady’s side, and Phoenix’s stomach churned with acid.

  “You a’ight?” Ronn said finally.

  “Except for feeling like shit,” she said, choosing honesty. “You?”

  He nodded. “Been better, but I’m surviving.” He clasped her hand, holding it a few seconds while the yearning music submerged them. Kai turned the rear speakers’ volume up, exactly what Gloria would do, but whatever else was in Ronn’s mind, he toyed with it in silence. “OK, I gotta roll. Don’t forget my digits, baby girl,” he said finally. He kissed her cheek a quarter inch from her lips, moist and lingering, midway between a friend’s kiss and a lover’s.

  “Thanks for everything, Ronn.” She felt like she should be asking him for a second chance, even while she wasn’t sure what she would do with one.

  As Phoenix climbed out of the car, and the door closed behind her, she heard Ronn ask Kai, “Man, what the fuck’s wrong with you? Don’t be puttin’ Stevie in my business.” Kai laughed, and they argued like two junior-high schoolboys as the SUV drove off.

  “I know I didn’t just see you smoking grass back there,” Sarge scolded as they walked toward his rental. He was probably more concerned about Ronn’s kiss, if he had seen it.

  “It’s just schmoozing, Sarge,” she said. “And they don’t call weed grass anymore, by the way. Don’t act like you never smoked it. I know what was going on in the sixties.”

  “I was running with Muslims. I didn’t smoke, period. Don’t mess with that shit, Phee.” Ever since his struggle to get Malcolm off crack, Sarge preached as if smoking weed was as bad as doing crack, all facts and statistics aside. Legalize weed and ban beer and cigarettes, and we’ll see which drugs are the worst ones then, she thought, smiling.

  Phoenix noticed the gray Impala down the street just as she was about to open her car door. The car was half a block away, but it moved with a lurch that caught her eye. Its windows were darker than Ronn’s, pure jet, with rims glaring in the sunlight.

  When Ronn’s SUV slowed at the stop sign, the waiting car lunged, catlike. Phoenix caught her breath. That car was going to hit them!

  Kai swerved with a scream of brakes. A man’s voice
shouted from the Impala.

  “Is that guy drunk?” Phoenix said.

  “Down,” Sarge said, a single word. Sarge tugged on her arm so hard that she felt her shoulder snap. She was losing her balance when she heard the pop pop pop, then a frenzied whine as a car sped away. Dual explosions followed—BOOM BOOM—echoing across the row of buildings on the street, rattling windowpanes. The ringing sound of breaking glass mingled with onlookers’ screams.

  “Ronn!” Phoenix called out, forgetting he was too far to hear.

  As she fell to the ground, Phoenix’s right knee hit the pavement hard, sending a wave of pain through her leg. Her heart was bloated with adrenaline, pumping in a fury as Sarge snatched her close, crouching with her beside the front tire closest to the passenger door. Phoenix realized she was thirty yards from a drive-by shooting, one of Ronn’s gangsta films come to life.

  Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Phoenix’s mind raced, matching her speeding heart. She trembled as though she were naked. Running footsteps came from everywhere, witnesses fleeing for cover. With the shouting and running, the street became chaos. A terrorist zone.

  The third BOOM thundered. Phoenix clamped her hands over her ears. It sounded like a river of blood. “Oh, God,” Phoenix whispered, praying as tears flooded her face. “Please, please, please…” Please let them be all right. Please make it stop.

  “That’s Kai, Phee. That’s his .357,” Sarge said. He knew without raising his head.

  “You hit?” the guard from the TSR gate said, kneeling beside them, his black gun ready.

  Sarge waved him away. “We’re fine. Go see about Ronn.” He was hoarse.

  Now, Phoenix smelled acrid smoke and burned rubber in the breeze. An engine revved, more whining tires. The vehicle sounded as if it was coming toward them. Phoenix peered over Sarge to look beyond the hood of their car, expecting to see the Impala coming to ram them. Instead, the Lexus had turned around speeding back. Through the unbroken windshield, Phoenix saw Kai hunched forward, both hands clinging to the steering wheel. Ronn leaned over the front seat, in excited conversation with the young brother who looked like Taye.