by Julie Smith
“Your case?”
“No, you.”
“Me!” He couldn’t have looked more bewildered if she’d set him on fire.
“I guess I was upset that you went to Cookie’s the other night.”
“But why?” Now he seemed hurt too—as if she’d said she wanted to break up.
“I guess I thought you didn’t want to be with me.”
“I didn’t want to be with you?” He leaned back to look at her. “Listen, Skip, you don’t have to worry about that. You can believe what I say. If I say I want to give you some space, you don’t have to think I got a better offer or something. Tell me you aren’t feeling crowded in here.”
She shrugged, starting to feel embarrassed. “Sometimes. But it’s getting better, don’t you think?”
“I thought it might be getting worse. The three-day guest theory, you know?”
“I feel silly.”
“Don’t feel silly, feel secure. I want you to feel secure.”
“Okay.” It was all she could think of to say. On the one hand, he’d made her feel ridiculous for being so absurdly neurotic; on the other, she was conscious of a funny resentment she couldn’t identify.
What am I mad at? He’s perfect.
It’s easy to be perfect when you only have to do it a week or two at a time.
So that’s what it was. She wanted a bigger piece of him. Well, that was her problem and she’d have to get it under control.
He said, “Remember that first time I was here? At Mardi Gras a year ago? How I didn’t know anything and you had to keep giving me New Orleans lessons?”
“And you more or less thought you’d landed on Mars?”
“I can barely remember that now. This place is starting to seem like home to me. I bet you never notice the air here.”
He got up and took his beer to the open window. It was a window that opened from the floor and reached almost to the ceiling. The legs of his shorts blew slightly in the breeze. “It’s like velvet,” he said. “Soft and deep, like you could fall into it and sink; you can hardly stand it on your skin it’s so soft. But it can be smothery too. Like wool sweaters in July.”
“I do notice it; I notice it all the time. I think I might be addicted to it.”
He nodded. “Yes. Maybe that’s what gets you about the place. I miss this air.”
“I’d think in L.A. you’d miss any air.”
“You know, you’ve still never come to visit me there.”
“Well, I want to; it just hasn’t worked out yet.”
He sat beside her again. “This place is its own little world.”
“Well, we like it.”
“Hey, don’t get defensive. You’re the ones who call it a Third World country.”
“It’s not exactly an apple pie kind of place. The last bason of hedonism.”
“That’s not all. Remember when you had that case that had us all going to twelve-step programs?”
“You only went once or twice, I thought.”
“Shows how much you know. I went to three or four. And, actually, I’d been to one or two in California.”
“Why, Steve Steinman, you never said so.”
He looked embarrassed. “Well, I went with a friend. And in California, they’re extremely polite. No ‘cross talk’—you can’t answer back—”
“I thought there was always no cross talk.”
“There’s never supposed to be. And there’s a certain language for these things. Everybody’s real sincere; kind of reverent, like it’s church or something.”
“They’re like that here too.”
“Ha! The first one I went to, the speaker calls on this guy and he says, ‘I’ve really been giving it some thought lately and I’ve decided Al-Anon is for neurotic wimps with no brains and no balls.’” He paused. “What do you think the speaker did?”
“Said ‘thank you’ and called on the next person—that’s the protocol.”
“Fat chance. He started arguing with the guy.”
“What do you mean? Those people don’t do that.”
“Well, they did. So, then the next person who gets called on puts in her two cents worth, and the speaker answers her back. Then the original ‘neurotic wimps’ guy answers him. Next thing you know, everybody’s mixing it up.”
Skip was laughing now, able to see the scene all too clearly, to recognize the rugged individualists of her home state in a true-life vignette. “The Louisiana legislature’s exactly the same way.”
“That’s what Ham said when I told him about it.”
Ham. The word had a sobering effect on Skip. She drew in her breath, but Steve didn’t seem to notice.
“You know what I thought when I saw that? I thought, I’ve got to find some way to move here—people this crazy are my kind of people. A whole state like the Rum Turn Tugger.”
“Like what?” She was only listening with half an ear.
“One of the cats in Cats: ‘He do do what he will do and there’s no doing anything about it.’”
She gave him a vague smile.
“So what do you think?”
“About what?”
“About my moving here. Did you hear a word I said?”
“What—you’re moving here? Sorry. I was thinking about Melody.”
He turned away. “Well, I thought I might.”
It started to sink in. “You’re moving here?”
“We need to talk about it. I’m in deep, you know.”
“Uh—well, I—What does that mean exactly?”
“With you, Skip. In deep with you.” He touched her arm lightly, but that was all. He was behaving shyly, which wasn’t like him. “I wasn’t trying to get away from you last night. I’m falling more and more in love with you.”
“You are?” She wanted to look around and see if there was anyone else in the room.
“Look at me!” Her eyes must have followed her impulse. “You know, it doesn’t make me feel really great to have you looking around for a way out.”
“That’s not it. Believe me, it’s not it. Would you really move here?”
“Well, half-time maybe. Something like that. If I could get work. Maybe I could get a more or less regular gig with the foundation. Or something else—all I need is one semiregular kind of thing.”
“You mean it? You really mean it?”
“Yeah, I mean it. And you know what else I mean? You are the most beautiful, curly-headed, green-eyed amazon I ever saw in my life.”
“Amazon?”
“Goddess. I misspoke. Would you make love to a mortal?” He was tugging on her arm.
“I’m all sweaty.”
“Well, okay, let’s get in the shower.”
If the air felt like velvet, the water felt like liquid silk. It washed the case away, washed away her worry about Melody, even temporarily banished what she was beginning to see as her towering insecurity.
She could swear she saw rainbows, but there wasn’t enough light.
“Skip, Turn around.”
She turned away from him, in a haze of love and passion, her mind mud, mud so wet it shook like jelly. Her focus slipped to the center of her body and her legs shook, like the mud of her mind. Steve ran his hands once over her butt and let them settle on her hips, lightly, so very lightly, and then her eyelids exploded in gold and silver stars, rivers of them, bursting out of a sun somewhere in her head.
“Skip, don’t fall. Hold on, help me or you’re going to fall.”
His voice brought her back; she had almost fainted from the pleasure of him. She was desperate to put her arms around him, but she couldn’t or they would disconnect. A little scream of love and delight and frustration came out of her, and then she slipped away again.
Next he was holding her tight against the shower wall, literally keeping her up with his body, and finally her legs stopped shaking.
Later, lying squeaky clean on her folded-out sofa, she said, “Do you see things when we make love?”
&nb
sp; “I saw purple irises this time.”
They did it again, and she saw a Japanese landscape, perfect in the moonlight, orderly and ideal, unlike the rest of the flotsam that cluttered her mind. Steve saw the ocean—and a mermaid, he said, but she thought he embellished.
When the Boucrees were together and they played, it was some of the finest music Melody ever hoped to hear. When they weren’t playing, it was a wall of sound. For some reason, she’d associated the old phrase gumbo ya-ya—everybody talks at once—with women. It was clear to her now that men had invented it. They were like a bunch of black Brocatos, she thought sometimes, always arguing over business matters, digging at each other, hurting, going for the weak spots. They could be nasty, and that upset her. She’d run away for the same old thing?
But they were warm too. They’d solve the problem and then they’d make up and play the piece they were arguing about and the music would be all the sweeter for it. All the more soulful, Melody thought, and wondered if that was racist. But she thought it wasn’t —soud meant feeling to her. The Boucrees wore not merely their hearts on their sleeves, but their spleens and guts and balls as well. They might not be perfect, might have their differences, but they made it work for them.
Raymond said,
“Fuck it, Tyrone, you’re screwing up again.”
“Fuck you, Raymond. What the fuck do you know?”
“I know what I know. Hey, Daddy, tell Tyrone to knock that shit off, will you?”
“Knock what shit off, baby brother.”
“That cornball crap, that white padly bullshit you were just play in.”
“Why you talk that way in front of our guest?”
Raymond remembered his manners and apologized. But Melody, mind made up so firmly on the Boucree side, convinced they were turning their troubles into art, couldn’t help wondering how long she could stand them. Maybe being a Boucree was as much a pain in the ass as being what she was.
She was watching Joel to see how he took it. When they got into it, he dragged his drumsticks on the floor and kind of hunched over till it passed. He even looked a little as if he were taking a nap. She wondered if this was why he didn’t want to be a musician. A doctor worked alone.
She particularly wondered about his relationship with Tyrone. As far as she could see, the man was pretty close to a saint. She loved the way he’d been with her—firm and strong, but at the same time gentle and warm. Perfect qualities for a dad—hers had none of them except strength, and he used it only to erect a wall between the two of them.
He never speaks to me as if he actually likes me, she thought with surprise. No wonder it hurt so much to be around him.
Joel seemed genuinely fond of Tyrone, had always spoken fondly of him, and seeing them together was good: they were nice to each other. Yet this model father had had his whole family yelling at him this morning, purportedly for abandoning his wife. As Joel seemed to take his side about that, Melody did too. But still she wondered.
Was anything simple?
Not lately, anyway.
There were eleven of the Boucree Brothers, but one was usually drunk or out of town or otherwise unavailable, and tonight was no exception. The one named Mark was said to be “indisposed.” But ten male Boucrees of three generations, instruments and all, were crowded into that garage, every one of them focused on Melody.
At first they argued about her too—the four who “discovered” her had to sell her to the others, and the negotiations weren’t pleasant. What it came down to was that Melody had to audition for them, something she hadn’t counted on, and that made her so nervous she nearly blew it. But Tyrone had said, “Take your time now. Start over. That’s it. Just sing it like you sang it this morning. Take your time now.” His voice had been so gentle, so encouraging, she’d felt she could do anything, but he nearly clutched till he sat down with her and started playing “Brickyard Blues.”
“Play something sweet, play something mellow …”
She chimed in on the next part:
“Play something I can sink my teeth in like Jell-O.”
She finished it with him and by then was so warmed up, she swung into a completely new song, abandoning “St. James Infirmary” for Janis’s “Ball and Chain,” which the other brothers—who didn’t know her—liked so much they wanted to close the set with it.
But Melody wanted to close with “Blues for a Brother,” having finished it after her shopping trip, flying so high on adrenaline it only took about half an hour. Tyrone said that was a much better idea, that “Ball and Chain” wasn’t really a nineties kind of song, and anyway, they’d never learn it by tomorrow.
The real question was what to begin with. Melody wanted to do another of Janis’s songs—“Turtle Blues.” To which Tyrone and Terence and Joel, of all people, objected violently, the band having settled yesterday on “Iko Iko.” But at least three other Boucrees said that was the most overdone song since “Jambalaya,” and that was good for twenty minutes. In the end they agreed on the tried-and-true “Something’s Got a Hold on Me,” with “Turtle Blues” to follow.
After a couple of hours they took her home for dinner, and she thought she’d died and gone to heaven. It was so different from her house—so many people, so little furniture, the television on with everybody talking. There was a picture of Martin Luther King— she’d never seen that in anyone’s house—and lots of family pictures. And there was a strange altar with colored bottles on it. Joel said his family were members of the Spiritual Church, but when Melody asked what that was, he got vague. His mama had made greens and fried chicken, and fried okra and rice. Patty would have fainted at the fat content.
They went back and worked five hours, and Melody wasn’t even tired when it was over. It was the most exciting time of her life. They wanted her. They loved her. They changed their whole act for her and loved doing it. Despite the constant arguing, the jabs and digs, the rivalry and meanness (none of which was directed at her), they were taking care of business like a team of Clydesdales. Heavy lifting was getting done.
She hadn’t worked with pros before, except for Joel, and she couldn’t believe how exhilarating it was. She wished—almost wished—she was going to live to do it again.
Joel drove her to the Holiday Inn near the River gate, only to find it filled. Melody was glad, in a way. There was something too comfortable about a hotel like that—it would remind her of things she’d put behind her.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I never checked out of the Oriole. My room’s still there, and anyway, I think I forgot something.”
“What were you doing there anyway? I thought you were staying with us?”
“Well, I wanted a shower. Look, could we walk by the river awhile? I’ve got to come down.”
Joel nodded. “Me too. The Boucrees’ll do it to you. High maintenance, huh?”
“High voltage.”
Melody was so far gone on adrenaline she knew she wouldn’t sleep for hours. She wanted a beer, but didn’t dare—wanted to be perfectly tuned for her biggest and last public performance, the pinnacle of her short life, and her second-to-last act. (The last would be finding the right building to take the walk from.)
“I’m sorry I said that thing about your being white.”
She was surprised. “That’s okay. You explained it.”
“Yeah, but that’s only what I thought. I mean, I guess I thought that. It seemed logical. But it wasn’t what I was feeling. I felt mean when I said it, mean, Mel, like I knew deep down I wasn’t doin’ right.”
She couldn’t think of anything to say.
“I guess I really had to face how jealous I am of you.”
“Jealous? But you’ve always been so supportive.”
He smiled. “Well, I guess it was just a cover-up. When it comes right down to it …”
She waited, but he didn’t seem inclined to finish. “Yes? When it comes right down to it … ?”
“I guess I’d kill to have your talent. I mean,
I never thought so before, I thought I’d be happy being a doctor, and I guess I will, but maybe …”
“What?” He was driving her crazy, stopping in the middle.
“Maybe what we all want is to be a star. I mean at least a star in your own family. When I saw everybody fussin’ over you, arranging everything just for you, making you the big cheese, I thought ‘I wish that was me. I wish my daddy thought as much of me as he does of Melody.’”
She was embarrassed. “I’m no star.”
“Mel, listen to me—something’s wrong with you. You’ve got no confidence, and I don’t know why. You are a star. A star’s exactly what you are. You’re not going to want to sing with the Boucrees very long. You’re going to cast us aside like a snake shedding its skin, and you’re going on to the big-time. You’re gonna leave Ti-Belle Thiebaud in the dust, did you know that?” He didn’t give her time to answer. “No, you didn’t. ‘Cause you got no confidence. You gotta wake up, girl!”
She loved him so much she could barely take in what he said. All that stuff about being a star. But it was true about the craving to be a star in your own family, in your own neighborhood, even, your own hometown. Nobody at home, or school or anywhere, had particularly thought she could sing. Except Ti-Belle, and Ti-Belle had never indicated she was that good, as good as she herself, and Melody knew she would have if she thought so. Ti-Belle just thought she was a talented kid.
There was Ham, of course. Ham had always told her she was the greatest, but that was just Ham.
Maybe Joel could take Ham’s place. If he could love her, maybe it was a reason to live. Maybe somehow she could find a way. He could help her; all the Boucrees could. Maybe she and Joel could just get married and barricade themselves against the world. It was worth a try. It could keep her alive.
They were standing side by side, looking at the river, the wind blowing a little. When they talked, they looked at the West Bank, not at each other. His skin looked so smooth, his cheek, in profile, so round; so perfect. There was a magnetic field between them; surely he could feel it. Something this strong had to be mutual.
She whispered his name, and the sound was so different, he did look at her. She touched his face, leaned forward to kiss him, and automatically he put an arm around her. But he didn’t kiss back.
