Delta Belles

by Penelope J. Stokes

  He shrugged and grinned. “Lots of old folks are coming back to college.”

  Delta cringed inwardly. Old folks. She was not yet fifty, but she supposed she seemed ancient to this twenty-something waiter. “I studied literature,” she said. “Got my masters and did some work on my Ph.D. I was planning to be a professor, but—”

  “You got married and had kids instead,” Gabe supplied.

  “Something like that.”

  “And now you’ve got an empty nest and don’t quite know what to do with yourself.”

  Delta’s mind flashed back to Bowen and Hart, to Rankin, to Grandma Mitchell, to Vinca Hollowell and the others who had gathered to talk about their questions and doubts. “I—I’d just like to be useful. To help people, you know?”

  The young blond waiter nodded and laid her check on the table next to the Diet Coke. “You don’t need a degree to help people,” he said as he turned to go. “Even a bartender can listen.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  THE INVISIBLE HAND

  NEW Orleans

  SEPTEMBER 1994

  Rae Dawn DuChamp sat on the empty stage of Maison Dauphine, fiddling with the piano keys. Deltas call—which she had never returned, even though it had been two weeks—had exhumed years of ancient memories, recollections shed just as soon keep buried.

  Why did she torture herself like this? At night, with the lights and the music and the raucous noise of the crowd, the club came alive, and she could almost make herself believe that going on was worth the effort. But in the harsh light of day she could not ignore the scars across the table tops, the stains in the rug. The place seemed vacant and sad, like an old chorus girl without her makeup. Across the silence of midafternoon, she could almost hear voices in the whoosh of the air conditioning, ghosts come back to haunt her. Choices, the eerie whispers chanted. Choices, choices. …

  Fulfillment, Dr. Gottlieb had told her years ago, was in the choices. You couldn’t determine what life handed you—that part of the equation was out of your control. But you could choose what you did with it.

  And what, exactly, had she chosen? Two decades ago, in her twenties and full of righteous defiance, she would have said that she chose integrity above all else.

  Then her career had rushed upon on her like a freight train on the downslope of a mountain, with all her dreams and aspirations on board. The confluence of work and talent finally paid off. It hadn’t been so easy then to choose between success and love.

  Nobody had told her that the real challenge in life was not the choice between good and evil, between right and wrong. The real challenge was the decision between good and good, between one dream and another. The real challenge was the fact that, unless you paid close attention, sometimes you made choices without even realizing you had made them until it was too late.

  The telephone behind the bar rang, and Nate the bartender answered. “Maison Dauphine.” A pause. “Hold on a minute and I’ll see if she’s here.”

  He covered the mouthpiece and held the receiver out in her direction. “Phone for you, Rae.”

  She shook her head. “Whoever it is, tell them I’m not available.” She lowered her head over the piano keys and heard Nate murmuring to the caller.

  Nate interrupted again. “Remember that call you got a few weeks ago, from a Delta Ballou?”

  Rae Dawn sighed. She wasn’t ready yet. “Take a number and tell her I’ll call her back.”

  “I already gave you her number,” he said. “Besides, it’s not her. It’s her sister.”

  A cold premonition slithered through Rae’s veins. “It’s Delta’s sister? She wouldn’t be calling me unless—”

  She went to the bar and snatched up the receiver. Nate made himself discreetly busy washing glasses at the opposite end.

  “Rae, this is Cassie,” said the low female voice on the line. “I’m Delta’s—”

  “Her sister,” Rae interrupted. “I remember. The little kid who wrote stories and drew pictures of a big rock when we were in college.”

  A chuckle. “I’d forgotten about that.”

  “What’s wrong?” Rae said impatiently. “She called me several weeks ago and I haven’t had a chance to return her call. Is she sick? Is she … ?”

  “No, she’s all right,” Cassie assured her. “I mean, well, she is and she isn’t.”

  Rae frowned into the telephone as if Cassie could see her. “You want to explain that?”

  “Let me start at the beginning,” Cassie said. “You remember Rankin, Delta’s husband?”

  “The minister. Sure, of course. I haven’t seen either of them in years—”

  “Rankin’s dead, Rae. Murdered, actually. It happened back in April, the week after Easter.”

  The chill in Rae’s veins turned to ice, and for a moment she couldn’t speak.

  “Are you there, Rae?”

  “Yes, I’m here,” she managed. “I had no idea, Cassie. She didn’t call, didn’t write. Nothing.”

  Rae listened while Cassie related a tale of unspeakable horror, about an abusive husband who took out his rage on the pastor who tried to help his wife. “Delta saw it all,” she concluded, “and couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

  “God help us,” Rae murmured. “She must be devastated.”

  “She’s putting on a good front,” Cassie said, “but she’s spinning her wheels. I wouldn’t normally interfere—”

  Rae ran a hand through her hair. “How can I help?”

  “You were her best friend in college. As a pastor’s wife, it’s been hard for her to make close friends over the years. There are so many boundary issues—not getting too close to parishioners, conflicts of interest, that sort of thing. Rankin was her dearest friend as well as her husband.”

  “I understand,” Rae said, willing her to get to the point. “What do you want me to do?” She paused, and then it hit her. “I get it. The reunion.”

  “Yes,” Cassie said. “This idea of—what was her name?”

  “Tabby? Tabitha Austin?”

  “That’s it. Tabby. She wants to get the Delta Belles together for one last concert. And although Delta’s been resistant to the idea—to the entire reunion, actually—I think it could be a turning point for her. It would give her something to focus on besides her anger and grief. And it would be good for her to reconnect with old friends.”

  “But the reunion is less than a month away,” Rae protested.

  “I know,” Cassie said. “The weekend of the reunion happens to be the six-month anniversary of Rankin’s death.”

  Silence stretched between them—a deliberate silence, Rae felt sure, a silence designed to emphasize the importance of Cassie’s request.

  “If the three of you say yes,” Cassie said at last, “I think you can convince Delta to join you.”

  Rae hesitated. If she agreed to do this, to go back to the reunion, to play the piano and sing, there was a good chance she would be recognized as Dawn DuChante, the Grammy-nominated torch singer. There would be questions: Why had she quit recording? What happened to her career? Why wasn’t she … married?

  And yet how could she refuse? Delta had been her best friend, had accepted her and believed in her and stood by her at one of the most crucial moments of her life.

  “All right,” Rae said at last. “I’ll contact Lacy and Lauren and see what I can work out.”

  LACY PUT DOWN THE PHONE and sank onto the sofa next to Hormel, who purred and rubbed his head against her thigh. Rae Dawn had sounded stressed and worried, and after hearing what Delta had gone through with Rankin’s death, she understood why. Lacy didn’t want to do this, but how could she possibly say no?

  Still, a heavy lump formed in her stomach at the idea of getting the Delta Belles back together again. Since she had come home to Hillsborough—almost ten years—only once had she faced Lauren alone. Always she had the buffer of family around her, and as if by mutual consent, she and Lauren had kept things cordially superficial.

  Besides, L
acy could tell that Lauren was uncomfortable in her presence. The two of them danced around each other like fire-walkers, forcing themselves across the hot coals and trying desperately not to get burned.

  It wasn’t an issue of forgiveness. Lacy had forgiven Lauren long ago and was glad to see that somehow Lauren and Trip had stayed together. But all of them put on such well-crafted fronts that she could never see behind the mask enough to know what her twin was really thinking.

  Now Lacy had really stepped in it. She had agreed to join

  Rae Dawn in reuniting the Delta Belles for their twenty-fifth reunion. She would have to call Lauren and convince her to come, and then once the four of them were together, she would have to face Lauren without the rest of the family as a shield.

  She blew out a breath and picked up the phone. Putting it off wouldn’t make it any easier. She just had to remember they were doing this for Delta.

  DELTA FUMED AND MUTTERED to herself as she packed.

  How had she let herself get talked into this? She had never intended to go to this reunion, never expected that any of the other Delta Belles would even consider getting back together. And now, suddenly, they were all gung-ho about it, and Rae Dawn had talked her into committing to the insane notion as well.

  Rae had been extremely persuasive, Delta had to admit. But it wasn’t the persuasion that had won her over. It was the shadow behind Rae Dawn’s voice.

  Rae hadn’t wasted any time in small talk but got straight to the point. She and Lacy and Lauren wanted to do the reunion concert, she said, and thought it would be fun to get them all together. Rae had even called Tabitha Austin to make sure she could still get them on the program for the anniversary banquet. Tabby, of course, had been thrilled.

  The reunion was Friday night through Sunday noon, on campus. The anniversary banquet for the class of ’69 was scheduled for Saturday night. The plan was for the Belles to meet on Friday evening at a bed and breakfast Rae Dawn had reserved. That would give them most of Saturday to catch up and practice.

  Delta had hesitated, until at last Rae had said the words that convinced her. “We need you, Delta. I need you. I really want to see you again.”

  I need you.

  “Is everything all right, Rae?” Delta had asked.

  Rae hadn’t answered right away. Then: “We’ll talk when we see each other.”

  What was going on in Rae’s life? Delta hadn’t been in contact with her in a long time. Ten years or more with only a card at Christmas. She knew that Rae had been successful with her music—successful enough to own the club where she once played as a backup pianist. Her dreams had come true. And yet Delta had gotten the impression, largely unspoken, that Rae was in some kind of turmoil.

  She wasn’t quite sure what she could do to help. She was dead certain she didn’t have Grandma Mitchell’s wisdom. And yet, despite her misgivings and against her better judgment, she had finally agreed to join the Delta Belles for one last concert.

  You don’t need a degree to help people, the waiter Gabe had said. Even a bartender can listen.

  A fool’s errand, a voice in the back of her mind nagged.

  Maybe so. But she’d rather be a fool than let down a friend who needed her.

  ONCE THE SUBURBS of Atlanta had receded in her rearview mirror, Delta began to feel herself relax. She adored Cassie and Russell and Mouse, and appreciated their generosity in inviting her to stay with them until she got her feet under her. But only when she got away did she realize how deeply affected she was by the harried pace of the Souths largest city.

  Growing up next door in Stone Mountain hadn’t prepared her for life in Atlanta. The city had mushroomed in the past twenty-five years, and the traffic—eight lanes on the perimeter loop going seventy-five miles an hour bumper to bumper— scared the life out of her. For all its talk of southern hospitality and casual elegance, Atlanta seemed to Delta to be a rushed, angry place where tempers seethed just below the surface.

  The trip to Mississippi would take a little over five hours, not counting food and potty breaks. Delta had left early in an effort to beat rush hour, only to discover that rush hour started at six a.m. and lasted until ten. It had taken her more than an hour to get around the northern perimeter and out onto open road.

  Now at last the traffic had begun to thin out. Exhaling tension on a sigh, Delta pointed the minivan west toward the Alabama line.

  Here and there along the highway she could see hints of coming autumn. At home in Asheville, where the air was cooler and the altitude higher, the trees would be at their peak in mid-October, color creeping down the mountainsides like a spill of brilliant paints against a sky of clearest blue. A longing rose up in her, a palpable yearning for the Blue Ridge Mountains, for the beauty and serenity and protection those hills afforded.

  Cassie had offered to cancel her appointments and come with her on the trip—an offer Delta quickly, and probably not graciously, refused. She had not wanted to be shut up in the car with her sister for six hours, but she hadn’t counted on what it would be like to be locked in alone, with only her own thoughts for company. For the first twenty miles she had tried to listen to the radio, but no one played the kind of music she liked anymore, and by the time she got out of the city, she had become increasingly irritated with the puerile, asinine conversation on the morning shows. Even NPR couldn’t hold her attention, and she hadn’t yet figured out how to use the CD changer.

  At last she turned the radio off and listened to the silence inside the car. Her mind drifted, predictably, to her college years with Rae Dawn and the others, to the early days with Rankin, to her life over a span of two and a half decades.

  Through the years her contact—in Cassies language, her connection —with her college circle had been sporadic at best. Lauren’s marriage to Trip Jenkins had evidently caused an uncomfortable rift between her and Lacy. Somehow Lauren and Trip had managed to make it work; they had stayed together, anyway, and had a grown son. Lacy had gone away and come back still unmarried, and although Rae had said she seemed upbeat and enthusiastic about this reunion, Delta wondered whether the optimistic outlook was real or just a front, a posture assumed for an estranged friend. Theoretically she believed that a person could make a happy, fulfilled single life, but as she had never lived that kind of life, an experiential understanding of it was beyond her comprehension.

  What would her own life have been without Rankin? The question disturbed her more than it should have. On one hand, she had been disgustingly happy with him—so happy, in fact, that Sugar as a teenager would feign retching every time she walked into a room and saw them kissing. The memory made Delta smile, and on the heels of the recollection came the palpable feeling of Rankins arms around her, warm and inviting.

  She had been so lucky. No, not lucky. Blessed.

  It was a word Delta rarely used because of the sappy religious connotations it conjured up. People regularly talked about being blessed with a good parking space or a short line at the ATM. As if God rode around on a Mardi Gras float, throwing down trinkets from on high.

  No. Being blessed was not about trivial answers to equally trivial prayers. It was about being graced with something so unexpected and undeserved that the only possible response was overwhelming gratitude.

  Tears stung Deltas eyes as she recalled the years of unexpected grace with Rankin. The mountaintop experiences—their wedding day, the birth of their daughter, their recommitment ceremony after twenty years of marriage. The transfigurations, when truth pressed in upon her as they discussed theology and philosophy and poetry, those moments when she had, palpably, felt the presence of God. And the huge slices of ordinary time that make up a life together—such as that snowy night, so clear in her memory even after all these years, when they had held each other after making love and wept for the sheer joy of their oneness.

  Yes, she had been blessed. And then the blessing had been snatched away.

  Her mind began to veer in the direction of anger—the see
thing, simmering rage toward God that had burned inside her ever since her husbands death. Spiritual and theological dilemmas haunted her—questions of theodicy, of why terrible things happened to faithful people; questions of omnipotence and impotence, omniscience and ignorance; the reality of tragedy and the unquestioned assumption of divine love.

  She had heard the question asked before, usually voiced by people in great pain: If God loves me and has the power to intervene in my life, why did this happen? Why did my baby die? Why did my wife get cancer? And now Delta herself was asking the unanswerable question: Can God be at once omnipotent and loving?

  Rankin, in his wisdom, never let this surface question get in the way of real responses. This was the “presenting question,” as he called it, this apparent dichotomy between power and love. People in crisis didn’t want or need a theological treatise on natural law and the broken world. They didn’t really want to know why. They wanted to know that God hadn’t abandoned them.

  She shook her head and forced her mind back to Rankin, back to the initial issue that had sent her down this path: What would life have been like without him?

  The other side of the question nagged at her more than she wanted to admit. For all the joy and love and blessing of their years together, how much of her life had been sublimated to his? What had she missed of her own cognitive and spiritual development?

  She remembered early discussions with Rankin, conversations that centered around her Ph.D. work and her sense of mission or calling as a college professor. He had agreed, quite vehemently, that she should have a life of her own, that his work in ministry should not dominate their lives or absorb her personality and gifts.

  And yet it hadn’t turned out quite that way, had it? Gradually—especially after Sugar’s birth, when all her attentions turned to being Mommy to this needy little bundle of warm energy—Delta had become Rankin’s second. The woman behind the man. The pastor’s wife. And most incredibly, neither of them realized it was happening. They just went along, ushered forward by the flow of life’s stream, until the rapids took Rankin and Delta was left alone in the shallows with no idea how she got here.