by Karen White
“What?”
She looked at me, that odd expression on her face again. “Is there something you need to tell me?”
I remembered Bonnie then, her music. Her words. Go back. Go back and find my daughter’s eyes. “Yes,” I answered. “Bonnie saved me. She’s the one who helped me come back.” I burst out crying for a bunch of reasons I couldn’t name. “I’m sorry,” I said, blotting my eyes with the edge of the sheet. “I don’t know why I’m so emotional these days.”
My mother gave me that look again, as if she were waiting for me to say something. When I didn’t, she said, “We are sometimes given angels when we least expect them. And that’s not the first time Bonnie’s interceded on your behalf, either.”
I shook my head. “No—she saved me in the Circular Church cemetery, though I don’t know why she feels protective of me. Maybe because of Nola, and how I’m sort of her surrogate mother now.”
My mother sat back in her chair and actually rolled her eyes. “Mellie, I’ve always considered you to be an intelligent woman. Surely you can figure out why Bonnie feels the need to protect you. Or why you’ve been so teary-eyed lately.”
I glared at her. “Other than my heart being brutally ripped from my chest, no, I can’t imagine why.”
She sighed heavily. “Mellie, your feet are swollen. You’re weeping all the time. Your pants and skirts feel tight. You’re exhausted all the time but can’t sleep. You’re craving coconut cream pie. Are any of these things ringing a bell?”
Little pinpoints of light erupted in the back of my head as I stared at her blankly, unable to process something my brain was trying to tell me. My mother actually rolled her eyes again.
She leaned forward, her eyes intent on mine. “Did it ever occur to you that you might be pregnant?”
I continued to stare at her blankly as my mind sluggishly tumbled through my mental calendar, checking off the number of days since my birthday party, resisting the inevitable conclusion that I kept reaching regardless of the different paths my brain tried to take. At least because of a lifetime of irregular periods I couldn’t claim complete stupidity in not recognizing what was probably the most basic of all biological changes in a woman’s body. And the whole time my mind was shouting at me, No! No! No! No!
Taking my numbed silence as a reason to keep talking, she continued. “Before administering treatment to an unconscious woman of childbearing years, they’re required to do a pregnancy test.” She paused as I held my breath. “It came back positive.”
I continued to blink rapidly, unable to make my tongue and mouth work in a collaborative effort. Finally I managed, “Pregnant? But how could that happen?”
My mother closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Sweetheart, I know I wasn’t there for your growing-up years or for when the time was right to have the birds-and-the-bees talk. But you’re forty years old. I sincerely hope that even without my being there you have somehow managed to figure out where babies come from.”
I felt myself blushing. “But I’m forty. I can’t be having a baby at forty! And I’m single.” This last word was hissed.
She took both of my hands in hers. “Mellie, older women are having babies all the time now. We’ll just make sure that we get you the best prenatal care. And I’m sure that as soon as Jack knows . . .”
I shook my head, the tears coming so hard now that I didn’t bother wiping them up with the sheet. “No. I don’t want him to know. He can barely stand the sight of me right now.”
“That’s not true. And this could be the thing that brings you two together.” She squeezed my hands and smiled brightly. “I’m going to be a grandmother! And I know your father and Jack’s parents will be so happy, too. We all love Nola and try to spoil her as much as she’ll let us, but having a baby to spoil from the beginning, well, those are two lucky grandchildren, is all I’m going to say about it.”
“But I don’t know anything about being a mother!”
She smiled again. “Most pregnant women say the same thing. But you, Mellie, are an excellent mother. Just look at Nola. Since the moment she turned up on your doorstep, you’ve known exactly the right mixture of guidance and affection to offer her. I think you can take most of the credit for her somewhat smooth adjustment to her new life. It’s not been perfect, but I don’t think any mother-child relationship is supposed to be. That’s what makes it so special.”
She squeezed my hands again, and when I looked into her eyes I saw that she was crying now, too.
I felt a small glimmer of hope that she might be wrong. “When Bonnie saved me in the Circular Church cemetery, I hadn’t . . . um, Jack and I . . . well, there was no reason for her to be protecting me.”
My mother gave me a patient smile. “As much experience as we’ve both had with spirits, surely by now you realize there’s so much more we don’t know. Maybe she knew in advance where you and Jack were heading. Or maybe it was because of Nola and your relationship with her. We can only guess.”
I sat up suddenly. “Oh, my gosh. Nola! Where is she? I need to tell her. I’d die if she found out from somebody else or figured it out before I could tell her. I’ll tell Jack first, though. Promise.”
I was already pushing for the call button so I could get a nurse to unhook me and discharge me when my mother took my arm. “You need to stay here and rest, Mellie. Everything else will work out.”
There was something alarming in her tone of voice, and I stopped trying to get out of bed to look at her. “Where’s Nola?” I asked again.
“It’s all being taken care of, Mellie. Jack has everything under control.”
“Has what under control? What’s wrong?”
I pulled away from her and began dragging my IV toward the door. Seeing that I was serious about leaving, she moved to block my way. “Nola’s missing. Jack dropped her off with Mrs. Houlihan at my house before coming to the hospital to check on you. Mrs. Houlihan says that after Nola ate an early dinner she went upstairs to get her mother’s guitar and then left without a good-bye. She did leave a note for Jack, however, saying she needed time to take care of something for her mother. The good news is that she left her backpack, which makes us think that she’s telling the truth. Jack’s handling it and doesn’t want you to worry.”
Go back and find my daughter’s eyes. I was already trying to peel off my hospital nightgown. “I need to find him. I can help. And I have something important to tell him.”
My mother frowned meaningfully.
“Okay,” I said. “Two things, although not until I know for sure about the second thing—pregnancy tests have been known to give false positives. And if you go get a nurse to come help me speed up the discharge process, I promise to stop by a drugstore on the way and pick up a home pregnancy test so that I’m absolutely sure before I tell Jack.”
She pursed her lips, then nodded. “And at least a bottle of water. Promise me. You need to keep hydrated.”
I started ripping off the tape that held my IV needle in place. Watching me, she said, “Stop that before you hurt yourself—I’ll go get a nurse.”
“Hurry,” I shouted after her, then headed to a chair where my clothes had been neatly folded. With a shudder, I shook out the mom jeans and began to put them on, pressing my hand against my abdomen and feeling the truth I wasn’t yet ready to accept. Bonnie had saved my child and me. The very least I could do was repay the favor.
I let my mother drive, wishing I had Amelia behind the wheel instead. Amelia would have taken stop signs and other traffic indicators as mere suggestions and gotten us to Alston’s house in half the time. I’d had my mother call Jack to suggest he find out from Alston anything he could about Nola’s recent Facebook activity. I wanted him to assume that I was still in the hospital. Dealing with my mother trying to discourage me from leaving the hospital was bad enough. Besides, I wasn’t sure Jack would even want me near.
We arrived at Alston’s house at the same time Jack did. I wanted to run to him and put my arms
around him and assure him that everything would be all right. But he made no move in my direction and instead I found myself fumbling with my purse.
“Shouldn’t she be in the hospital?” Jack asked, facing my mother.
“She thought she could help. She cares a lot about Nola and is sick with worry. If I didn’t bring her myself, she would have found another way.”
“Unless Nola told her where she was going, I don’t think she can help.”
“She says—”
“Stop it,” I interrupted. “I can hear you, you know.”
My mother at least looked embarrassed. But Jack just looked angry, albeit an angry Jack who was under a lot of stress. He still wore his dirt-covered jeans and shirt, his hair spiked around his forehead as if he’d spent a lot of time running his hands through it. “You shouldn’t have come,” he said, and for a moment I wondered whether he’d guessed my secret. “I need to know that at least one of you is safe.”
My heart melted a little, and it took all of my strength not to throw myself at him. “I feel fine.” I held up a water bottle my mother had forced me to buy at the drugstore along with a pregnancy test—which I did not hold up. “I promise to keep hydrated. And there’s no way I could stay in bed while knowing that Nola is out there somewhere and might need me.”
He took a deep breath to argue, but I interrupted him. “I don’t know whether this will help, but I figured out what Bonnie’s been trying to tell us about ‘my daughter’s eyes.’ It’s a song—the song I’ve been hearing since Nola walked into my house. She’s asking us to find it—the music. She must have written it and then hidden it for some reason.”
We began walking up to the Ravenels’ front door. “Why would she hide it?” my mother asked. “Don’t songwriters want their music to get out there?”
“Only if they get paid for it,” Jack said.
I wanted to ask him what he meant when the front door was pulled open by Alston. “Hello,” she said. After closing the door behind us, she asked, “Is my mother expecting you? It’s my parents’ date night, so they’re not here.”
Jack smiled, but I could see his anxiety in the pulsing of his jaw muscle. “Actually, we’re still looking for Nola. When I spoke with you earlier you hadn’t seen her, but I was wondering whether maybe since then she might have called.”
She hesitated just for a moment. “I tried calling her about thirty times, figuring she’d answer a call if it was from me. She finally called me back about an hour ago.”
Jack inhaled sharply. “I asked you to call me if you heard from her.”
Alston’s bottom lip trembled. “I know. But she said she was here in Charleston and not to worry, that she was just taking care of something and would be back home tonight. She told me not to tell you because you would just want to interfere. I figured it was okay to wait and tell you because she’s okay.”
Jack closed his eyes and I could tell he was trying to keep his temper in check. “Do you have any idea what sort of thing she needed to take care of?”
Again, she hesitated.
I stepped forward. “Please, Alston. We’re all worried about Nola and we need to find her to make sure she’s safe. Has she used your computer recently?”
She began to cry. “Please don’t tell my mom. She’ll kill me. I promised her that I wouldn’t break my promise to you to not let her use it. But when Nola was here yesterday I left her alone in my room while my mom made me fold a load of laundry downstairs. When I got back, my laptop was in a different spot. And when I used it later it was on the Facebook home page, and I knew that’s not where I was the last time I used it.”
“She didn’t say anything about it?” Jack asked.
“No. And I didn’t ask. It was like we were both keeping the same secret so we wouldn’t get in trouble.”
“It’s okay, Alston,” my mother said as she put her arm around the young girl. “We understand you’re trying to protect your friend. But we need your help now. Can you go get your laptop and let us see whether we can find out anything?”
She nodded eagerly. “I know her Facebook password, if you think that will help.” She was already running upstairs.
When she returned she led us to the kitchen, where she placed the laptop on the table, the Facebook home page already showing. She sat in front of it and typed something before Nola’s home page filled the screen. Her profile picture surprised me; it was a photo of her, Jack, and me at my birthday party that Alston had taken using Nola’s iPhone. I felt the now-common prick of tears in the backs of my eyes and quickly blinked them away.
“Can you go to her messages?” Jack asked.
Alston nodded and made a quick click to the message page, where a single name appeared: Rick Chase. She clicked on it and a string of messages, the last one from the previous day, ran down the screen.
Jack cursed under his breath and leaned forward to read them.
Alston vacated the seat. “Sit here, Mr. Trenholm, so you can see them better.”
Jack sat and began scrolling through the messages. Without looking up, he said to Alston, “It doesn’t look like she’s been using Facebook since I told her not to—at least until last week. I’m guessing that’s why you know her password—so you could let her know when she had a new message?”
Slowly, Alston nodded. With her gaze firmly glued to the floor, she added, “The last time she spoke with him on the phone, she told him to message her on Facebook, since you wouldn’t have access to that.”
“But what would they have to talk about?” I asked, leaning forward and squinting but still unable to read the screen.
“Bonnie,” Jack said. “And the untitled song she was working on when she died.” He leaned forward, his finger hitting the down arrow button harder than necessary. “According to his messages, Rick apparently has it and wants to give it to Nola, but first he wants to hear her play it for him on Bonnie’s guitar. He’s coming to Charleston.”
He was silent for a while as he continued to read. “Damn,” he said, pushing back the chair with sudden force. Glancing at his watch, he said, “They were supposed to meet at the John Calhoun statue in Marion Square half an hour ago.” He stood, then turned to Alston. “Call me if you hear from her; do you understand? No matter what she says, call me.”
“Yes, sir. I promise this time I will.” She blinked rapidly, but not fast enough to stem the flow of tears that poured down her cheeks. “Is Nola going to be okay?”
I squeezed her arm and gave her a reassuring smile before racing after Jack, who was striding quickly out of the house toward his car. I followed while my mother hesitated. Calling out to Jack, she said, “I’ll go back to the house and wait there in case she comes home. Let me know if you need backup and I’ll send James.”
Jack nodded, then sent a glowering look in my direction. “Go with her, Mellie.”
“As if,” I said, using my favorite Nola expression as I opened the passenger door of his car and stepped inside.
CHAPTER 30
The first bubble of nausea hit me as Jack’s car crossed Broad Street. I wasn’t sure whether it was the breakneck speed and two-wheeled turns as he hurtled down Meeting Street that started it, or the two Twinkies I’d bought at the drugstore because I’d been so hungry. Either way, I found myself with my eyes closed as I prayed I wouldn’t throw up in Jack’s Porsche.
I swallowed heavily, then turned to Jack. “What did you mean—about songwriters only wanting their songs out there if they’re paid for it?”
“I found something out about Mr. Chase. I flew up to New York last week to have a little discussion with my agent before firing him. As a parting gift, he got me in touch with an old friend of his who’s an agent in the music business who happens to know Jimmy Gordon’s agent. He made a few calls for me and I got three minutes on the phone with Jimmy himself.”
I sat there for a moment, trying to digest the Twinkies and what he was telling me at the same time. “What did he say?”
“That when he met with Bonnie and Rick, it was because she was the known writer of ‘I’m Just Getting Started.’ Just her. No partner or anything. Jimmy wasn’t even aware that Bonnie wasn’t getting credit for it after he recorded it.”
“So how come the song is credited to Rick Chase?”
Jack sped through a red light, narrowly missing a cluster of women carrying shopping bags. “Think about it. Bonnie was an addict. Rick would supply her until she was barely coherent, maybe make her sign papers giving up her rights to the song. I think that’s how he stole it from her. From Nola.” I watched him swallow. “He probably killed her, too. In a way. The disappointment and sense of betrayal she must have felt when she heard the song on the radio and knew she hadn’t received any credit for it must have devastated her.”
I swallowed down a ball of nausea. “Poor Bonnie,” I said. “And poor Nola. All this time thinking it was Jimmy Gordon who stole her mother’s song. Rick must have fed Nola some story to make her believe that—you don’t have to look very hard on the Internet to find the writer of a song. But Rick must be feeling some guilt. Don’t you think that’s why he wants to give Nola the new song—so that he can make it up to her?”
Jack shot me a look. “The guy’s a slime bucket, Mellie. My guess is he doesn’t have the song but thinks Nola does. He lied that he had it to get her to meet him. I bet he’s planning to take it from her.”
“But she doesn’t have it, or at least doesn’t know she does.” I thought for a moment. “He’s come all the way from California. What do you think he’ll do when he finds out she doesn’t have it? Maybe we should call the police.”
Jack responded by pressing harder on the accelerator. “I can get there faster.”
I closed my eyes, not wanting to register how fast we were going. “Why would Rick ask her to bring the guitar?”
“Knowing what I know about him, he probably wants her to sing it while he videos her on his phone or something so he can re-create it. That’s assuming she even knows it.”
