Tender Deception: A Novel of Romance

by Beckman, Patti

  She was dimly aware that Raven and Dr. Marshall were standing beside the piano bar, wide-eyed with amazement...that other people in the room had come over to listen to her. But she was shut away from them in a world of her own, a world filled only with her music and the melodies that had been locked in her heart for so many weeks.

  She felt a need to sing, and somehow knew the words of many songs. But when she tried, her voice, with its new husky quality, was entirely strange to her.

  Then she became aware of the man who had been playing the piano earlier standing at her side, staring at her curiously. Suddenly she felt embarrassed and self-conscious. She wondered with a sense of horror what had possessed her to act like this. “I’m—so sorry,” she mumbled, making an attempt to rise from the piano bench.

  But the male pianist touched her shoulder. “Hey, lady, don’t stop. Where are you from, anyway? I thought I knew all the pros working around town.”

  “Pros?” she echoed blankly.

  He chuckled, “Lady, don’t try to fool an old ivory man. You’re no amateur. You got one heck of a repertoire. You were playing tunes I haven’t heard in years. Hey...have you ever played in New Orleans?”

  “N—no,” she stammered, wondering if she had.

  “Funny. I once heard a young woman down there who had a style just like yours. She was playing with a Dixieland traditional jazz band. Kind of unusual, seeing a lady pianist with a group like that. I’m trying to think of the name of the band. It was led by a young trumpet player. His name is on the tip of my tongue—”

  Lilly’s head suddenly felt as if it would split open. The room swam before her eyes. She had trouble breathing.

  “Ex—excuse me,” she mumbled and fled to the rest room. There, she opened her purse with trembling fingers and groped blindly for her medication. She gulped a pain killer and a tranquilizer. Then she sat on a couch, covering her eyes with her hands.

  Raven found her there. “Lilly, have you become ill?” she asked anxiously, sitting beside her.

  “It’s just one of my headaches,” she stammered. “I’ll be all right in a few minutes, Raven.”

  “I can hardly blame you for being upset.”

  “You mean, discovering that I can play the piano—”

  “Yes, that must have come as quite a shock. And what that man said about New Orleans. Do you think you were ever there, Lilly?”

  She pressed her palm against her throbbing temples. “I just don’t know, Raven. It certainly got me shook up when that man started talking about it.”

  “Why would it upset you unless he touched a vital spot?”

  “I don’t know. Raven, it’s so bewildering to be confused like this. I feel like I’m beating my fists against a closed door in my head!”

  Later, physically and emotionally exhausted, Lilly slumped in the car between Raven and Glenn Marshall.

  Her two friends were chattering excitedly over tonight’s surprising development. “I’d say tonight we’ve come very close to the real identity of Lilly Smith,” Marshall exclaimed.

  “I can’t get over how well you play,” Raven added with a mingled note of surprise and awe. “You’re a superb musician.”

  “Did playing the piano awaken any other memories?” Marshall asked.

  Lilly shook her head numbly. The experience had left her more depressed and confused than ever.

  Raven was on duty at the hospital that night. They stopped at the apartment so she could change into her nurse’s uniform, then drove her to the hospital.

  Marshall then took Lilly back home. “Are you all right, Lilly? You look pale.”

  “I—I think so,” she mumbled.

  But as he was seeing her to the door, a blinding pain suddenly squeezed her head in a vise. She gasped and stumbled against the doctor.

  With a muffled exclamation, he scooped her up in his strong arms, carried her into the apartment and gently placed her on the bed. He left her for a few moments to hurry out to his car for his medical bag. Lilly was moaning with pain, her trembling fingers pressed against her throbbing head.

  She felt the prick of a hypodermic needle. Then Marshall sat beside her, holding her hand. Gradually the excruciating pain in her head eased.

  “That was a bad one,” she whispered, feeling shaky and weak now.

  “Feeling better?”

  “Yes. The pain has eased up.” She gazed at him tearfully. “Why do I keep having these headaches? That was the worse one so far.”

  “Seems to be a kind of migraine,” the doctor said, looking at her thoughtfully. “Though, to be perfectly frank, we’re not entirely certain. It could be a part of the trauma, the confused mental state you’ve been in. Apparently the experience you had tonight upset you and brought on this attack.”

  “Yes. It—it was a scary feeling, as if I were some kind of programmed robot automatically carrying out someone else’s command. I seemed to have no control over what I was doing. I certainly made no conscious effort to play; I was as surprised as you were that I knew anything about music. I just sat there and the music came out.”

  “But obviously you are a musician, and a darn good one. Evidently, the knowledge and skills were coming from your subconscious where all the other memories are locked. If you ask me, it’s a positive sign. It may be the beginning of your remembering other things.”

  Slowly, Lilly said, “I was so eager to get my mind straight again, to know who I was and where I came from. But I’m beginning to wonder if I really want to open those doors. I’m suddenly becoming frightened. What kind of dreadful things will I find out about myself? It’s all becoming scary to me. Something about the music tonight stirred unpleasant emotions. In a way, I felt good about playing. Touching the piano keys was like coming back to an old friend. But at the same time, there was an element of fear, too, as if part of me was about to start down a dark, lonely road, and the rest of me didn’t want to go.”

  They sat together, talking, until the medication made her eyelids grow heavy.

  Glenn Marshall’s deep voice and the strength in his broad hands gave her a feeling of security that dispelled some of the dark, haunting terrors. She could feel the power of his character strength emanating from him, enveloping her in a protective warm cloak of kindness and caring.

  Her thinking grew fuzzy as the sedative effect of the medication took over. Vaguely, she was aware of him picking her up and carrying her to the bed in the next room.

  With surprising gentleness for such a big, awkward man, he laid her down, removed her shoes, and drew a cover up around the lower portion of her body.

  She was vaguely aware of him sitting on the edge of the bed, gazing down at her in the dim light filtering through the doorway from the other room. She heard him murmur her name softly. Then he bent and kissed her.

  A warm, sweet emotion suffused her. She knew without thinking about it that she had come to care for Glenn Marshall a lot. She seemed to be existing between two worlds: her unknown past and a future equally unknown and uncertain. In her present world she had come to depend on this kind, awkward man who had just kissed her with such tenderness and caring.

  His presence gave her a feeling of security. She slipped into a deep, peaceful sleep.

  * * * * * * *

  Toward morning, Lilly woke with a start. Raven was sitting on the edge of her bed, gently shaking her and calling her name. Streaks of dawn came through the windows.

  She sat up, trembling violently.

  “You must have been having a bad dream,” Raven said. “I heard you cry out. I just came back from the hospital.”

  “Jimmy...,” Lilly whispered tearfully.

  Raven gazed at her with a mixture of concern and curiosity. “What do you mean, Lilly? ‘Jimmy’ who?”

  “The face in my locket! The young man...his name is Jimmy!”

  “Jimmy? Are you sure, Lilly?”

  “I’ve never been more certain of anything. I saw him as clearly in my dream as I’m seeing you right now. We
were walking across a field together. It was spring and there were wild flowers all around us. He was holding my hand. I said his name, ‘Jimmy,’ and he looked at me and smiled. But then he let go of my hand and walked away from me. I was running after him, calling, but he kept walking away, faster and faster. I called for him to wait....”

  Lilly began crying. Raven held her, murmuring sympathetically. “Do you remember anything else about the dream?”

  Lilly frowned. Another word flashed across her mind. “Millerdale!” she cried. “I saw the name on a railroad station. It’s—it’s kind of jumbled up. The field we were in was on the outskirts of a small town and I seemed to catch a glimpse of the railroad station—one of those small brown and yellow buildings on a railroad siding that you see in little rural towns.”

  “Those two names must mean a great deal to you...the name of the man in your locket and the name of the town. They may hold the secret of who you are, Lilly!”

  “I’m sure they do! Tonight that man in the lounge said he’d heard a woman like me playing with a jazz group in New Orleans. He said the leader of the group was a young trumpet player. Raven, it’s all beginning to fit together. That’s why I became so upset. He must have been close to my past life, and it caused me to have the dream tonight which brought some things to the surface.”

  “Do you think you really were the woman he heard playing in New Orleans?”

  “Yes, I think so. And I think the leader of the jazz group was the boy I dreamed about. In the dream, we were both very young, like teenagers. Maybe the part about New Orleans happened later.”

  “It sounds as if you might have the key you’ve been searching for,” Raven nodded gravely. “You’d better talk all this over with Glenn Marshall.”

  When Lilly phoned Dr. Marshall after breakfast, he asked her to hurry over to his office.

  They sat together on a couch. He held her hand in a warm, firm grip as she told him about the dream. A strange expression filled his eyes. “Lilly, these past weeks, I guess you know I’ve come to care a great deal for you. From a selfish standpoint I’ve found myself half wishing that you could just go on being Lilly Smith, and I could keep you with me. But in reality, I know it’s vital to your health and to your whole future to regain your memory. When you know your past, we’ll know what the future holds for us.” His smile was rueful. “I’ll just have to take my chances....”

  Impulsively, Lilly moved into the circle of his arms. She clung to him for a moment, needing the security she found there. “Glenn, I have to go to the town I dreamed about. I’m sure I’ll find my identity there.”

  “Let’s see if we can locate the place,” Glenn said. He phoned the research division of the public library and found there was a town named Millerdale in Louisiana.

  “I’m sure that’s the place!” Lilly cried.

  “Okay. It’s certainly worth checking into. Just be prepared for a disappointment if it turns out to be a blind alley.”

  There were no flight connections directly to Millerdale; the town was too small. Lilly flew to the nearest large city in Louisiana and there rented a car.

  As she drove into the city limits of Millerdale, Lilly felt her heart begin to pound. Breathing became difficult. Her hands felt clammy as she turned down the short main street. The buildings were like figures emerging from a fog, slowly recognizable— Thompson’s Drugs, the J. C. Penney store, Fred Boudreaux’s Hardware, Marcie Alenon’s Dress Shop....

  She picked out each name, whispering it aloud, reaching deeply into her confused thoughts to grasp the familiar thread.

  “Turn down this street!” she suddenly exclaimed aloud, not knowing why.

  It was a neighborhood of modest houses. Her attention was drawn to a small, white frame home. She stopped before the house. The front porch had a weary sag. The house had long needed a coat of paint. A window screen was torn.

  A child’s battered tricycle had rolled near the curb. Lilly got out, retrieved the toy and put it in the front yard among the weeds. She gazed at the house through a mist of tears.

  She knew who she was.

  She had been born in this house.

  Her name was Lilly Parker.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The flood of memory that began as a trickle now became a torrent that totally engulfed her.

  There was no turning back now. She had to remember it all, the joyous moments of falling in love with Jimmy LaCross, her childhood sweetheart; the high points when her heart was swept heavenward, and the dark parts, when she was crushed to earth; and Kirk Remington. A shiver ran through her as his presence swept through her mind, shoving aside the other memories. Through her tears she looked down at her wedding band that now seemed to burn her finger. Yes it was all there—her childhood, her music, the men in her life. She had to face it and accept it; it added up to the person she was.

  Much of Lilly Parker was the music that had played such a vital part in her life and had eventually taken her from this bleak little town to her life’s drama in distant cities.

  Her parents had been Martha and William Parker. She remembered them vividly, seeing them before her mind’s eye, hearing again the sound of their voices. William had been a child of the Great Depression and never seemed to outgrow its trauma. He worked at various jobs in the small community, doing the best a man could who had but a sketchy grammar school education and a minimal amount of ambition.

  The strongest influence in Lilly’s young life had been her Uncle Daniel Webster LeDeaux, a fiery backwoods evangelist preacher. Lilly remembered him vividly too—a huge, towering man who wore a broad-brimmed hat and black coat and spoke in a thunderous voice. Himself childless, he had taken a great interest in his niece, Lilly, who was his sister’s only child. He had discovered that the child had a sweet, pure singing voice. He had taken her with him on his crusades through the rural South, standing her on the platform in his tattered revival tent. She captivated the congregations with her singing while her uncle pumped away lustily at his wheezing, portable organ.

  She had barely been five when her uncle had made an astounding discovery about the extent of her natural talent. When not on one of his traveling crusades, he preached in a small frame tabernacle on the outskirts of town. The tabernacle boasted a real piano. Uncle LeDeaux made it his mission to give Lilly an education in music, teaching her the notes out of a frayed hymn book and guiding her chubby little fingers over the black and white keys.

  One day he was plunking on the piano and pointing to the corresponding notes in the hymnal, asking her to identify them. It suddenly dawned on him that she was devoting all her attention to a rag doll on her lap and none to the hymn book or piano but still calling out the notes correctly.

  He stared at the child with an expression of astonishment that bordered on fright. Cautiously, he touched a note on the piano. “Lilly, honey, what note was that I just played?”

  Lilly, busily adjusting the dress on her Raggedy Ann doll said, “D.”

  “And this?”

  “F sharp. Same as G flat.”

  The Reverend Daniel LeDeaux fell on his knees crying “Praise the Lord!” He gave his niece a mighty hug. “The Lord has richly blessed you with a rare gift, child. He’s given you perfect pitch. Do you understand what that means?”

  Lilly shook her head.

  “Why, child, it means you have a perfect musical ear. You can hear any sound and tell right off what the pitch is without looking at the notes or the instrument. Not one person in ten thousand has such a perfect musical ear. The Lord has destined you to go far with your talent.”

  Remembering those childhood scenes flooded her with emotion. Lilly bowed her head and wept.

  Several sources had fed her growing knowledge of music when she was a child. Her uncle, the Reverend LeDeaux, had given her what he could from his limited, self-taught knowledge of music. He had given her a basic understanding of the keyboard and musical notes. Later, a dedicated public school teacher, Miss Wilma Andrews, coached h
er singing voice and increased her understanding of the classics.

  Another influence had come from a black family who lived on “the street behind the Parkers,” the Willard Washingtons. Lilly grew up playing with the Washington kids. Their father, Willard, was a blues singer of some reputation in the area. Lilly often sat entranced in the evenings, listening to Willard as he sat on his front porch in a rickety old hide-bottom chair tipped back against the wall and wrung wailing blues melodies from his battered acoustic guitar, sliding a bottle neck lovingly across the strings.

  Willard, who had grown up in New Orleans, remembered hearing in person many of the great New Orleans musicians—Bunk Johnson, Alphonse Picou, Louis Armstrong, Barney Bigard. He had an extensive record library. Lilly listened by the hour to the classic blues singers—Blind Lemon Jefferson, Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter, T-Bone Walker and B. B. King...and, above all, the great Bessie Smith. The jazz library included early recordings of Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke and Duke Ellington.

  Willard Washington’s love of the blues and his jazz records had a lasting influence on Lilly. She loved the music. She memorized all of Bessie Smith’s blues vocals and tried to imitate that great singer. When her uncle wasn’t around to catch her, she experimented with jazz improvisations on the tabernacle piano.

  As Lilly grew older and could earn spending money from baby sitting, she accumulated a modest record library of her own of jazz pianists—Art Tatum, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Jess Stacy, Oscar Peterson.

  The school choir director, Miss Andrews, discovered Lilly’s talent when she entered junior high and took over her musical education where Uncle LeDeaux had left off. Because of her singing and playing talent, Lilly was often called on to perform for school and community functions.

  Her first year in high school was the great turning point in her young life, and her life would never be the same afterward. That was the year she fell in love with Jimmy LaCross. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a reckless grin and a mop of blond hair that he’d push back from his forehead with a habitual, careless gesture, Jimmy was the most handsome boy in Millerdale High. He was a senior and as unattainable as a Hollywood movie star. Realistically, Lilly expected no more of life than to be allowed to worship him from a humble distance.