MadameFrankie

by Stanley Bennett Clay

  Frankie’s eyes widened with glee at the sight of the marquee lineup. It boasted Anita Baker and Esperanza Spalding as headliners. It was the perfect combination of old school and new school jazz crooning and musicianship.

  “Oh Jazz,” she swooned, grabbing his thigh in amazement.

  “That’s my name, baby.”

  He found a spot in the lot and parked, got out, came around to her door and opened it for her. Taking her hand ever so gallantly, he led her around to the back of the car, aimed his keypad and popped the trunk.

  Frankie was thrilled to see the petite gourmet picnic basket and the bottle of champagne in a silver cooler.

  Carrying the picnic basket and the cooler in one arm, Jazz slipped his other around his lady and led her toward the magic kingdom.

  Inside the open-air arena, an eager teenaged attendant, with a brilliant smile and gleaming braces, took Jazz’s basket and cooler and led them down to a third-row center box. Frankie was impressed.

  Throughout the concert, they drank the bubbly and munched on dill salmon pate’ and Chambery Belgian chocolate truffles. But as far as Frankie was concerned, that was just the dessert. Later that night, back at her place, they’d feast on each other.

  In the meantime, they were serenaded by the smooth sounds of Anita and Esperanza, both backed by stellar instrumentalists, while a million sparkling stars smiled down on them.

  Snuggled in Jazz’s warm embrace, Frankie closed her eyes often. She listened as the music resonated throughout her soul. The night breeze against her face was caressing. She was in seventh heaven.

  “Thank you for the sweet surprise,” she whispered in Jazz’s ear.

  “Oh that’s not the surprise, baby,” he whispered back.

  “It’s not?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.”

  “See the dude on bass?”

  The tall skinny white musician, hauntingly handsome—his jet-black hair and careless goatee in striking contrast to his smooth ivory skin—was playing his instrument as if it were his lover. His long, agile fingers plucked the bass strings with varied degrees of delicacy and sensuality. It was as if he were stroking his woman, hitting every spot she wanted hit and more. And the she-bass hummed “yeah” over and over again. “Yeah.”

  It was turning Frankie on. “Yeah.” She found herself humming.

  “And see the hot sister on the keyboards?”

  Frankie slowly turned her head toward the lithe black angel hovering over the keys of the baby grand piano. Throughout the night she’d been mesmerized by the woman. She was as enamored of the smooth runs, syncopated riffs and jazz-savvy solos as she was of her dark, Cleopatrian beauty.

  “Yeah.”

  “So what do you think about them?”

  “God, Jazz. They’re both so talented. And beautiful.”

  “Well we’re going to meet up with them after the show.”

  “We are?”

  “Yep.”

  “Who are they?”

  “My parents.”

  Chapter Eight

  Frankie was dumbstruck, flabbergasted and more than a tad pissed off at Jazz. The last thing she wanted right now was a meeting with his parents. She knew the inference of the gesture and thought the move presumptuous and manipulative.

  When the words fell out of his mouth—my parents—she was at a loss for words. How fucking dare he, she silently repeated to herself over and over again while a stupefying smile stayed plastered on her face. She tried her best to maintain her cool.

  “Nervous?” Jazz asked as he placed a matching backstage pass around her neck.

  “No, not at all,” she lied a little too enthusiastically. The backstage pass around her neck suddenly felt like a noose. That and Jazz trying to bum rush her to the fucking altar with this meet-the-parents bullshit was making her skittish as hell. She never should have told him she loved him she thought to herself as he led her weak-kneed in her Jimmy Choo cork wedge pumps toward the backstage entrance. Yes, she did love him but that didn’t mean she wanted to marry him.

  “I need to check my face,” she whined lightly as they drew nearer to the dragon’s lair.

  “Don’t worry about it, baby, you look fine.”

  “I want to check my fucking face!”

  Jazz ignored her outburst, although it did turn a few heads and some departing audience members even whispered and subtly pointed, recognizing Frankie. She pulled out her compact and checked her face. Jazz waited reverentially.

  “They’re really cool people,” he gushed like a schoolboy, taking Frankie’s hand and forging her through the sea of exiting concert-goers. “You’re gonna really like them and they’re gonna really like you.”

  And yes, Angelique and DeVon Mornay really were as cool as Jazz said they were. And it was easy to see where he got his good looks, mellow demeanor and gallantry. After twenty-eight years of marriage, the Mornays still looked into each other’s eyes like newlyweds. They called each other “Babe and Boo” and spoke in the hip lingo of musicians in love with their art and each other. They were as hopelessly romantic as their smitten son.

  “So this is the soul sorceress puttin’ the spell on my boy,” DeVon gushed, giving Frankie a big brotherly hug. He couldn’t have been more than four or five years older than Frankie. “And I can sho’-the-hell-nuff see why.”

  “Now stop acting so surprised, Boo,” Angelique, looking younger than Frankie, chimed in with a big chuckle. “You know you had a crush on her yourself, seeing her on TV fantasizing about getting underneath her habit.”

  “Angie!” DeVon blushed.

  “Well am I lyin’?”

  “No, I guess not, Babe.” DeVon had to chuckle.

  “So how you doin’, Frankie?”

  “I’m doing fine, Angelique, thank you.”

  “Just plain Angie, girl. I am so glad to finally meet you. You know you are all my baby boy talks about. He’s never been real big on the dating scene. He’s a real bookworm. Course I know you know that already. But when it comes to you? You laid down the spell, sistah and whatever else you laid down…”

  “Ma,” Jazz whined, slightly embarrassed.

  “And he can be a little square too,” Angelique continued, pinching his cheeks, causing him to blush even more, turning his golden skin into a sexy sunset tangerine.

  Frankie felt herself melt at the sight of her gorgeous little mama’s boy. But she had to catch herself. His innocent good looks and disarming sweetness and charm were not going to let him off the hook that easily.

  “But whatever you got, Sister Frankie,” Mama Angie smiled, staring in her little boy’s dazzling hazel green eyes, “it’s dizzying the hell out of my baby here.”

  “Like how you dizzy the hell outta me, Babe?” DeVon growled sensually, coming up behind Angelique, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her softly on the neck.

  “Like how we dizzy the hell outta each other, Boo.” Angelique shimmied ever so slightly in her husband’s arms.

  Frankie, more intrigued than embarrassed, looked from the loving couple to her lover. Seemed as though good looks weren’t the only thing he inherited from his parents.

  On Frankie’s coded glare, Jazz’s complexion flushed near crimson.

  “Are we going to dinner, or do y’all wanna get a room?” he teasingly interrupted.

  And suddenly Frankie was looped out of her flirtatiousness.

  Dinner?

  As lovely as Jazz’s parents were, she was not ready to go out to dinner with them. This was another one of Jazz’s surprises that gained him no brownie points. That smile froze on Frankie’s face again, this time even more stringent.

  “Dinner?” she managed to ask.

  “We’ll go up to Yamashiro’s,” DeVon said, releasing his wife with a pat on the ass. He then shamelessly stripped down to his boxers and began slipping into his street gear—Timbs, low-hanging jeans, baseball cap with the brim facing back. “Get to know each other better. After all, just a matter
of time ‘fo we all be family.”

  Frankie suddenly turned to Jazz with astonished eyes. The forced smile stayed frozen on her face. “Baby,” she managed to whisper through clenched teeth. “I thought we were going to my place, you know…”

  “We will,” Jazz whispered back with assurance and a pat on the hand. “We’ll have a quick bite.”

  “But we had a quick bite during the concert.”

  “Come on, sweetie. I haven’t seen my folks in a while…”

  “Whatch’all over there whisperin’ about?” Angelique asked with a friendly frown, lighting up a joint, catching them in the mirror while DeVon zipped up the back of her paisley blouse. “Wanna hit this?”

  Chapter Nine

  Dinner with the Mornays was certainly no nightmare. In fact, in spite of herself, Frankie actually had a nice, if somewhat guarded, time with them. They regaled her with dishy but sweet anecdotes of their work with some of the music industry’s biggest, naughty snippets from their bohemian lifestyle and other tales out of school. Obviously doting parents, Angie and DeVon took turns embarrassing their son with praises of his great academic and artistic gifts, his political consciousness and his kind and giving heart.

  “Didn’t surprise me one bit when he told me he was working with the president,” Angie bragged.

  “I’m just a volunteer, Ma.”

  “Why that’s even better, baby. Ain’t that right, Boo?”

  “Sho’ you right, Babe,” DeVon stated proudly, grinning at his boy and tussling his hair. “Anybody can do it for a paycheck. You doin’ it ’cause you believe, son. My son is a believer,” he concluded, eyes tearing up with pride.

  By the time Jazz and Frankie dropped Angie and DeVon off at the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel where they were staying, Frankie felt like part of the family. And that was the problem.

  She felt as if she’d been had. The drive back to her condo was relatively quiet.

  “So what did you think of them?” Jazz finally asked blissfully, seemingly unaware of Frankie’s barely disguised malcontent.

  “They’re very nice, Jazz.”

  “See? I told you.”

  “In fact, I probably like them a whole lot more than I like you right now.”

  “Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know, for somebody who’s supposed to be so bright, you sure can be stupid sometimes.”

  “Okay Frankie, what’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Yeah. What’s wrong?”

  “You!”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you, Mr. Jazz-ass Mornay. You’re what’s wrong!”

  “What did I do?”

  “You’re jumping the gun on this marriage thing.”

  “Jumping the gun?”

  “I told you I’d think about it, but you’re carrying on like it’s a done deal, introducing me to your parents, sitting down to dinner like we’re already planning the goddamn wedding.”

  “So what’s so wrong with that?”

  “I haven’t fucking said ‘yes’ yet. I haven’t fucking said anything yet.”

  “What? You don’t want to marry me?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Then you do want to marry me.”

  “I didn’t say that either, Jazz.”

  “I love you, Frankie.”

  “And I’m…I’m very fond of you, Jazz.”

  “Fond of me.”

  “I like you a lot.”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  “Actually it is. But the problem is whenever I tell you I love you, you take it the wrong way.”

  “So asking you to marry me is taking it the wrong way.”

  “Look, Jazz. I loved all four of my ex-husbands.”

  “Even your brother’s husband.”

  “I loved him like a brother. Still do. I’m very fond of him.”

  “See?”

  “What?”

  “Fond is not love. Love is love.”

  “But love does not mean marriage, Jazz. Yes, I loved all my ex-husbands. But they’re all exes.”

  “So you have a problem with marriage.”

  “You want me to be honest with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, Jazz. I have a problem with marriage. I really don‘t want to get married again.”

  “Oh I see. You want the milk without buying the cow.”

  “I want the milk and the cow, baby. I just don’t want to be chained to it.”

  “I’m not an it, Frankie. I’m a man. I’m a man who’s desperately in love with you.”

  “Then maybe you should try not being so desperate.”

  “Oh, is that what I am?”

  “You said it. Not me.”

  “I see.”

  They continued the drive to Frankie’s place in chilly silence. Frankie knew Jazz was terribly hurt. But realizing truth can be painful at times. She was glad she’d gotten it out; let him know exactly where she was coming from.

  Jazz parked the car in front of Frankie’s building. He got out, circled around and opened the door for her. He walked her to her door and waited for her to open it.

  “I’ll never stop loving you, Frankie.”

  “You’re not coming in?”

  “I don’t think I should.”

  “Listen, Jazz. Try to understand.”

  “That you don’t want to marry me.”

  “That I don’t want to marry anyone.”

  “I’ll try.”

  He began to walk away. She took his hand. He turned to her, his head bowed. He looked up into her eyes. She looked into his, with a reassurance he wasn’t quite sure of.

  She kissed him gently on the lips. The kiss made him almost change his mind. But no. He knew he had to go. He couldn’t stay. Not tonight. It would be too hard for him.

  “Goodnight, my love,” he managed to say.

  “Goodnight, Jazz,” she said, kissing him again.

  And with a smile, somber and resolute, he walked down the long path from her door to the street where his car was parked. She watched him, knowing that her truth had hurt him, but knowing she had spoken the truth.

  * * * * *

  Jazz entered his hotel room with a mood as dark as the space. He flipped on the light and heaved at the emptiness of his heart. Listlessly, he peeled off his clothes and left them in a pile in the middle of the room.

  He slowly moved his naked body to the bathroom and climbed into the shower. The warm water was soothing, but not soothing enough to ease the pain that filled his empty, aching heart.

  He stood in the shower stall, beaten, assaulted by the warm spray that rained down on him. Aimlessly he soaped himself, rinsed himself, got out and dried himself.

  A glance of his pathetic self in the mirror was revealing. There was a little boy lost in that mirror, abandoned by the love of his life, rejected by the woman he loved.

  Unable to take it any longer, he turned away from that pathetic mirror image and went back into the living room where his clothes lay piled at the foot of the bed. He stared at the pile, then slowly moved toward it. He bent down and with a trembling hand, reached inside his pants pocket and pulled out the small velvet case, stared at it, took it to the bed with him. He climbed underneath the covers and sat up in the bed. He placed the case on his lap and opened it slowly.

  The diamond in the sterling ring glistened like the tears that filled his eyes and ran down his cheeks. And as one tear fell upon the diamond ring, he couldn’t hold it back anymore. He sobbed and he sobbed.

  All night he sobbed, until he cried himself to sleep. The velvet case containing the diamond ring stayed firm within his hand’s embrace. Even through his sad slumber, he held on to it, wishing in his dreams that it was Frankie.

  Chapter Ten

  “You okay?”

  “Huh?”

  “Jazz to Earth.” She snapped her fingers in his face.

  “Yeah, El. I’m fine,” he responded, coming around.


  “I hope so. Ten hours to ground zero. Bargain Hunter hits the tarmac at fifteen-hundred hours.”

  “Got it.”

  In spite of the previous night, Jazz knew he had to pull it together and concentrate. This evening’s presidential fundraiser was vitally important. Nothing, no matter how heartbreakingly painful, could get in the way of him doing his job. He was determined to make sure everything moved smoothly and went down without a hitch. Crisis situations always presented themselves. But he had a reputation for slaying even the fieriest of dragons. And even though his romantic dilemma with Frankie was an exceptional challenge, he had a national duty to perform. Staff depended on him. El depended on him. The President of the United States depended on him.

  And so he forced the pain he couldn’t shake to energize him. He made sure the heaviness in his heart would fortify, not weigh down his focus on the business at hand. He determined that the look of grief El had seen when he met her in the lobby, would transmogrify into a look of grit.

  With a new stride in his walk El was quick to notice, Jazz headed toward the conference room. It had been designated the check-in and holding area for catering personnel.

  “Morning, Bishop,” he said to the secret service advance agent without looking at him. He took mental note of each member of the catering team waiting to be transported to the Streisand Malibu compound.

  “Hey, Jazz.”

  “Everybody accounted for?”

  “Yep. Cochran and Stevens will do the final security scan as we load them onto transportation.”

  “Great. Need anything else from me?”

  “Just make sure your team’s out front in fifty-five minutes,” Agent Bishop said, checking his watch. “We need to be on the road by noon.”

  “I’m calling El now,” Jazz said, pressing a button on his cell and putting it to his ear, having ignored the incoming call from Frankie.

  * * * * *

  Frankie knew how busy Jazz was going to be today so she wasn’t surprised her two phone calls to him went unanswered. The night before didn’t end as either one of them wanted or expected. She knew that played as much into their incommunicado as did his service to the president. But hell, she thought, it’s not like he’s advising Obama on the fucking Arab Spring uprisings. He’s wrangling the goddamn wait staff, for Chrissakes!