Joplin's Ghost

by Tananarive Due

  Marc Anthony’s earnest voice and a celebration of salsa awaited her from the poolside boom box, which was playing low so they wouldn’t disturb the neighbors. She’d listened to 100.3 The Beat to try to hear “Party Patrol” all day, and after it came on twice more, Carlos put on CDs instead, complaining that the repetition in pop radio drove him crazy. Salsa was good. Salsa made Phoenix remember Miami.

  “Party Patrol” had played on St. Louis radio, and probably other places, too, but Phoenix had never heard it herself, until now. She hadn’t expected an event so simple to amaze her so much, but it did. Sarge hadn’t come to see her, but he had called to congratulate her, so that was progress. Phoenix felt as wired as someone who’d been drinking coffee all day, with cocaine chasers. Only the silent water calmed her back to normal, the warmth inseparable from her skin.

  Gloria and Carlos sat at the edge of the deep end of the pool with their bare feet dangling in the water, discreetly passing a joint between them while they engaged in the most civil argument Phoenix had ever heard, keeping their voices pleasant, almost playful. They were negotiating Phoenix’s future in the full moon’s light while she pretended not to hear.

  “…I didn’t say you’re actually Satan, but I think you have the guy on speed dial, dude,” Gloria said with a flip of her crimped hair, massaging the back of her long neck. “Every time you show up, stuff goes wrong for my cousin. Don’t fuck things up for her. If she blows the concert in New York next week, her label is going to shit. Let her have a chance.”

  Carlos laughed, shaking his head. The joint pressed between his lips flickered as he chuckled. He didn’t answer right away, hoarding the smoke. “You’re not hearing me, rubia. What’s going on with Phoenix has nothing to do with me. Come on, now.” Phoenix saw the smoke from his nostrils diffuse against the lamplight. “Don’t talk like her father.”

  “Look, Sarge’s controlling bullshit gives me hives, for real, but I think he’s right this time, Carlos. Today I’m trying to get Phoenix on the phone with MTV, and she’s sitting with a roomful of pscyhos—oh, I’m sorry, psychics. Those were your friends, right?”

  “Only one was my friend. But they’re experts at what they do, and they say what’s happening to her is revolutionary. She’s communing with one of our country’s greatest composers, our Chopin,” Carlos said, like a teacher talking to a remedial student. “MTV didn’t call her because of ‘Party Patrol.’ They called because of what she said about a ghost, and because she dared to sing opera on late-night TV. Who knows where else this collaboration might lead? She can bridge the past and the present. Phoenix can create history.”

  “Phoenix doesn’t need help to create history. She’ll do fine on her own.”

  Phoenix had sworn she would never be like the fragile, pampered artists who couldn’t operate a Coke machine without a handler, and yet here she was, listening to Carlos and Gloria talk about her as if she wasn’t there. And maybe she wasn’t. Phoenix dunked her head beneath the water again, and their argument disappeared as water clogged her ears. She kept her eyes wide open, staring at their blurry calves and feet; one pair pale and smooth, one thick, hairy and dark. Gloria was kicking the water gently, creating ripples across the length of the pool.

  Their legs were close together. Carlos and Gloria were probably attracted to each other, Phoenix realized. She wondered if she minded that, and she wasn’t sure she did. She couldn’t claim Carlos for herself, even if she wanted to. Carlos only belonged to Carlos. Besides, she felt spoken for now in a way she had not with Ronn, adjoined to her ghost instead.

  As Phoenix held her breath beneath the water, her future became clear to her. She would do the concert in New York. She owed her label money, and she would make good on her contract. And she would perform whatever songs Three Strikes asked her to, even if she had to fight for control of her own vocal cords. Ronn deserved that, at least.

  But she wouldn’t run away from her ghost. Van Milton was already trying to plan a conference to study her music, and he thought she should record it right away. Phoenix hoped more music would come, that her ghost would come back to her tonight now that the passel of psychics was gone. The idea that he might not come again panicked her.

  Phoenix ran out of air, gasping as her face broke free of the water.

  “You liked me once, Gloria,” she heard Carlos say as he rested an arm across Gloria’s shoulder. “I have Satan on speed dial? Ouch. What makes you think I’m that bad?”

  “I did like you, as a kid. But being fine isn’t everything, dude. This is my cousin.”

  Yes, they’re flirting, Phoenix thought. Or Carlos was, at least, even if he wasn’t trying.

  “You two shut up and come get in the pool,” Phoenix said.

  Obediently, Carlos pulled his feet out of the water and yanked open his rolled-up jeans, hiking them down and pulling his woolly legs free as if he undressed in front of them every day. He was wearing black bikini briefs, pulled snugly across his ample lump. Carlos flung off his T-shirt, and Phoenix enjoyed her first glimpse of his bared chest, the subtle rises that surfaced as he stood at the edge of the pool and raised his arms. Carlos dove, hardly splashing as he commanded the water to part for him. He swam toward her, a quick brown eel under the water. She hadn’t known he was such a good swimmer.

  “This time zone’s killing me, so I’m gonna crash early,” Gloria said, standing up. She shook her legs dry. “Working for you is hard damn work, cuz. You better get rich, because you owe me. You can have the room tonight. I’ll sleep on the futon.”

  Gloria didn’t ask if she would be going to bed alone, and Phoenix didn’t know. Maybe Carlos would want to be here in case the ghost came back, or just because he wanted to be with her. And maybe she would decide she wanted him to stay. Phoenix felt her pores tingling as she wondered what would happen tonight. Sometimes, not knowing was most of the fun.

  Carlos’s head appeared beside her, and he rose, taller, as his feet found the pool floor. “Where’s she going?” he said, watching Gloria retreat. Gloria was wearing white shorts, and her calves were twice the size of Phoenix’s, like a surfer’s. Carlos watched Gloria a long time.

  “Bed, she said.”

  Carlos didn’t say anything for a while, not moving.

  “Float on your back,” he said finally. “I’ll hold you.”

  And so she did. Phoenix allowed her body to float free, her arms outstretched, while Carlos’s palms braced her from below. The lapping warm water caressed her ears and cheeks. She closed her eyes, remembering the sound of her voice on the radio. Phoenix felt her body floating as if she could drift up into the sky.

  Through half-open eyelids, Phoenix watched Carlos staring down at her, and she recognized the look he tried to hide deep in his eyes; Kendrick had looked at her this way in her hotel in St. Louis, as if a deity had landed in his arms.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Phoenix didn’t realize she’d been asleep until she woke up in Solomon Dixon’s parlor.

  At the same time she wondered Who’s Solomon Dixon? another tendril of her psyche recognized the man on sight as he walked past her toward the door; his hollowed cheeks, large ears and a slight overbite that made him look vaguely displeased even when he wasn’t. He was her host, a friend of Scott’s, and he was worried about her.

  Then her certainty she was dreaming broke through the stream of impossible knowledge. She couldn’t be in Solomon Dixon’s parlor because she was at home in her roommate’s bed in Los Angeles. She was not in Sedalia, Mississippi, and Solomon Dixon had been dead for generations. So, she had to be dreaming. The things she knew about Solomon Dixon might be true, but they certainly weren’t real.

  Which meant that this room wasn’t real either, she thought, gazing around her.

  But it seemed very real, an assault of details, a new one with each beat of her heart: a gray cat sleeping on its back near the fireplace, tufts of white fur exposed on its belly. A newspaper called the Sedalia Conservator with a headline about Eman
cipation Day. A pale ring on a wooden table where someone had left a water glass. The blue-and-white woven rug that spanned one length of the room to the other. A black overcoat dripping onto the wooden floorboards from the coatrack near the door. The smell of a roasting sweet ham. The most startling detail came last, so close to her that she hadn’t seen it before: Her Rosenkranz piano. The piano wasn’t old and neglected the way it had looked that day on the stairs; this was the Rosenkranz with elegantly shining rosewood and a gleaming candelabra she had seen in Carlos’s room. It belongs here. It lived here once.

  The only thing Phoenix couldn’t find in her dream was evidence of herself: She felt no body mass, no hint of whether she was sitting or standing, or floating. She was nowhere and everywhere in this room, surrounded by its stoic existence even while her own felt imaginary.

  Solomon Dixon opened the front door, and Phoenix saw the deluge outside. Lightning lit the skies. A crack of thunder mirrored Phoenix’s heart’s leap when she saw a man’s silhouette and realized who was standing at the door. He’s here, too.

  He stepped into the room, and she saw his face, which was softer than in his photographs. His face was round, Sarge’s shade of brown, and wild-eyed, not reserved the way he’d been captured for posterity. His brown coat was nearly too big for him, making him look smaller than he was. “What happened?” he said, breathing harshly. “Where’s Freddie?”

  “Don’t fret, Scotty. She’s here.”

  “M-my hands are shaking so much, I couldn’t use my key.”

  Solomon Dixon planted his hands on Scott Joplin’s shoulders, leaning down to talk to him the way a father might. “Dr. Walden just left. He says it’s turned to pneumonia.”

  “Dear God,” Scott said. “I heard…”

  “He got the fever down, but she’s been talkin’ out her head.”

  “She’s delirious?” Scott said. He looked as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. He snatched his cap off his head and balled it his hand, nervous. He looked right at her, and his sudden gaze sawed into her. “Why isn’t she in bed, Sol?”

  “She won’t sit still. I figger she’ll be all right now you’re here.”

  Scott walked past Solomon Dixon and knelt in front of Phoenix, grasping her hands. She hadn’t been able to feel her hands until he touched her, then her entire body came alive, remembering all of its nerve endings. Scott held one of her hands up to his cheek, which was as smooth as the skin on her own. Her hand vibrated, white-hot.

  “What did he say to do?” Scott said.

  “I got her some water,” a woman’s voice said, “if she’ll take it. Doc said to be sure she don’t go thirsty.” That voice was Olivia Dixon, Phoenix remembered. Solomon Dixon’s wife.

  “ ’Sides that, he says time will tell,” Solomon Dixon said. “He says plenty of folks come through it, Scotty.”

  “Freddie?” Scott said, so close that the tip of his nose almost touched hers as he searched her eyes. His breath smelled like mint sprigs and coffee. “Do you hear me?”

  Phoenix heard him perfectly fine, but she couldn’t say so. She was captivated by feeling the deep ridges of his smooth, damp palm, and the soft pads of his fingers. No touch had ever soaked into her so deeply, seeping inside of her.

  “Come on with me back to bed, dear heart,” Scott said. “You have a fever.”

  Phoenix realized she was sitting at Rosenkranz’s bench. She suddenly smelled the wood polish. The piano’s rack was covered in pages of handwritten sheet music, one piece scrawled “The Favorite.” The dream was intent on convincing her it was real.

  Phoenix decided to say something, or at least to try. “Play for me.”

  Phoenix had never pulled language into a dream, so she was surprised to hear her voice at all. It was a whisper, but it was her, talking to him.

  And he heard her. He looked as surprised as she was. “Please, Freddie, you have to be in bed. You’re very, very sick.” His love for her was unconditional, but the weight of it showed everywhere in his helpless face.

  “Play a lil’ somethin’ for her, Scotty. It’s all right,” Solomon Dixon said. “Give the girl some music. That’s prob’ly the best thing for her.”

  They call him Scotty, she realized. She hadn’t seen that in any of the history books.

  “Play,” she said again, a struggle. This whisper was weaker than her last.

  “Only if you promise me you’ll go back to bed. Do you promise?”

  She tried to speak, but she couldn’t hear anything this time. She hoped she was nodding.

  Scott took her hand from his cheek and laid it across three black notes, F-sharp, G-sharp and B-flat. He rested his hand on top of hers, warm and damp, matching the web of her fingers. His broad fingers felt heavy on top of hers. He pressed her index finger, and the F-sharp sounded, so pure it dazzled her. The piano’s terrible racket was gone, replaced by a fresh, beautiful exuberance. The Rosenkranz hadn’t turned sour yet. Not the way it was going to.

  “Freddie? I sent for Lovie. Your sister’s on her way, so please fight to be better, sweet gal,” he said, leaning into her ear. As he stroked her hair, Phoenix’s scalp smarted, a sensation that raced the length of her body like a mild electric shock. No touch in her dreams, or her waking life, had ever matched it. She might have gasped. Only then did she realize how hard it was to breathe, nearly impossible. The air in the room was too thick to inhale without a struggle.

  Scott squeezed her hand. “Yes, Freddie. Fight.”

  “Play,” she said, the only word she could form in the mouth she had borrowed.

  Scott Joplin played, a familiar trilling. High F. He was playing the introduction to A Guest of Honor, as she’d hoped he would. Thunder cracked so loudly outside that the parlor windows shook. The sound of the storm buried the music.

  “I’d better go see that the barn door’s latched,” Solomon Dixon said.

  “I hope the windows upstairs are closed,” Olivia Dixon said, almost at the same time.

  Scott sank his fingers harder and louder on the Rosenkranz’s keys, and the room erupted into melody. Phoenix watched his fingers at work, transfixed by the way his left hand bounced between the bass notes and chords while his right hand carved out a melody, a practiced liberation dance. The music was so convincing that Phoenix looked up at Scott’s face, expecting to see some evidence of joy there. How could he play such a triumphant piece without a smile?

  Instead, Scott’s face looked gutted of joy. The melancholy she had seen from a distance in his visage was fully realized now, more like terror etched into the bones of his face. His fingers played with joy that was missing in his eyes, as if he were erecting a wall, note by note, between the world and his breaking heart.

  “Scott?” she said. “Sing it for me.”

  Scott’s lips remained so tight, she didn’t think he had heard her. A tear dripped from the tip of his nose onto the piano keys. She was mustering the strength to try again when his gentle tenor voice escaped, hardly a breath: “I am a man with many plans…To lift us from starvation…” His voice was a revelation. His singing was beautiful. Were his talents endless?

  “Record your voice,” she said, “or no one will hear it. No one will know.”

  She gasped again, and the cinching of her lungs made her heart falter with dread. The wall of mucus coating her throat threatened to choke her. This body she wore in her dream was so flimsy. It felt ready to collaspse on top of her.

  Scott sang on, playing the piano’s keys blind while he soothed her with his unbroken gaze.

  Freddie is dying, and Scott knows it, Phoenix realized. They sat at this piano together. If not for the music, their sadness would have smothered her. Phoenix felt tears scald her new face, until they followed Scott’s to the Rosenkranz’s keys.

  Their tears blended beneath his fingertips, inseparable.

  Phoenix was in a bed when she opened her eyes, and she expected to be somewhere else—a place she couldn’t quite remember—but her first sight was Scott sitting
at the edge of her bed in an undershirt, and her chest rose with relief at the sight of him. A graying white towel was slung around Scott’s neck. He had sloping shoulders, and his bare arms were lanky muscle, flexing as he brushed his fingers across his scalp.

  “Where am I?” she said.

  Her voice seemed to startle him, then he smiled at her from everywhere except his eyes. “Shhhhh. You’re at home, in bed.”

  But she wasn’t at home, or anything like it. She had never lived in a room that was wood from ceiling to floor. Or a room filled with the dark, heavy oak furniture of another era, with intricately carved patterns in the bed’s headboard and its matching, mirrored dresser. And lace everywhere, from the curtains to the doily on her nightstand beneath a vase of half-wilted roses. And the scent of cedar and wildflowers, a way her bedroom had never smelled. The light was dimmer than she was used to; a brass oil lamp with a globe embossed with flower patterns glowed from the dresser, the single light in a large room. The clock on the mantel with two angels in white robes blowing long horns looked familiar for a moment, but maybe she’d only seen it in another dream.

  “What happened?” Phoenix said. Talking was much easier now.

  “You fainted,” Scott said. “How do you feel?”

  Phoenix gazed at Scott’s face as closely as she could, because sometimes she could see every eyelash above his eyes, and sometimes she couldn’t focus on him at all, as if the room’s light was dimming. He might be fading, she realized. He was leaving her again.

  “Touch me,” she said. He’d never been as real as when he’d touched her in the parlor.