Cindy’s gaze locked on her, and then began to peruse her the way a jeweler examines a diamond. “Who is he?”
“Excuse me,” Clarissa said, went into the ladies’ room and, using her cell phone, telephoned Mrs. Stanton. “Will you and Konny have dinner with us tonight? She asked Cindy when she came out. We eat at seven.” While Cindy’s mouth hung open, Clarissa wrote the address and phone number. After a short visit, she left, because she knew that Cindy would like to prepare herself to greet Konny. That evening, Konny’s approval of Brock Stanton was so absolute that she set aside any remaining reservation about her chance of happiness with him.
They sat in the Stanton living room, sipping cordials and after-dinner espresso. “He’s the Rock of Gibraltar, and he’s nuts about you,” Konny told her in an aside. “That guy would go all the way for a friend, not to mention a wife. You hit the jackpot, babe.”
“Thank you, Konny. Knowing that you feel this way about Brock means a lot to me.”
“I want you to get married here,” Lydia told her Monday afternoon as she and Brock prepared to leave. “If not in my house, at least here in Washington. I want my friends to see how proud I am to have you as my daughter.”
“You ought to see her perform, Mama,” Brock said.
“Yes. I’m singing in Raleigh next weekend. Maybe Sam can bring you.”
“Sam will bring me. I wouldn’t miss it,” Lydia said.
Clarissa answered her cellular phone. “Hello.
“This is Chase. You won’t believe what I got for you. May the thirty-first you and the band’ll be in Carnegie Hall, and I’m getting you some TV dates to make sure you have a full house.”
She grabbed the doorjamb. “I’m going to sing in Carnegie Hall. Lord, what next?” she fairly shouted.
She felt the nerve-rattling effect of Brock’s arm so snug around her that his fingers touched the underside of her right breast. “Wonderful! And there’ll be more to come, far more that you’ve dreamed of,” he said.
She saw Konny take out his cell phone and knew that he was about to phone Raymond. “Our ship has come in, buddy,” she heard him say. “See you tonight. No, Cindy isn’t coming with me. She has to work, but Clarissa has some news for you.”
She walked over to Konny, took the phone, and said, “We’re playing a benefit in Raleigh next weekend.” Then, with the phone an arm’s length away, she stared at it. “Yeah. That’s the news. Part of it, anyway.” She handed the phone back to Konny, winked at him, and said, “Raymond has to know everything. Let him sweat.”
As soon as she checked into the hotel the following Sunday morning, Clarissa asked for the Raleigh telephone book, settled into her room, and began calling the numbers listed for individuals named Holmes. But at one o’clock in the afternoon, tired, hungry, and disappointed, she didn’t have one clue as to the whereabouts of her sisters.
I’m not giving up. I’ll find them if they’re alive, she promised herself.
That evening as the band tuned up, testing the sound equipment, Clarissa suddenly got a sickening feeling. “Raymond,” she said, walking over to him in the dimly lit setting, “I’ve got an awful premonition. It’s like somebody dropped a weight on me and won’t let me get out from under it.”
“That’s not a good sign.”
“You’re telling me? The way I feel, it can’t be. I’m going to ask Mr. Helbrose to put some extra guards or policemen here tonight.”
“Sure,” Helbrose said when she spoke to him. “Anything for you, babe. I’m sold out tonight and tomorrow night.”
“I’m departing from my regular jazz program with this first number,” she told her audience. “I’m going to sing ‘For Once In My Life’ as a tribute to a dear friend.” She glanced down at Lydia, who sat in the front row with Sam on one side of her and Cindy on the other, and smiled. Lydia dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief, and Clarissa began singing the love song to her. But the words soon took on a special meaning, a reflection of her love for Brock. Her voice rounded into a low, mellow torch and the words sprang from her heart. At the end, the audience rose to thank her with a loud and spirited applause. She didn’t look at Lydia, for she knew that if she did, the woman would see her soul.
Near the end of the second half of her performance, she saw a man in the last row, far back from the stage, stand, and then he shouted, “Fire.” Seconds passed before the audience took in the word, and then, to her horror, she witnessed what was no less than pandemonium. She also saw a guard who stood in the aisle near the offender’s seat grab the man.
Raymond jerked the microphone from her. “There is no fire,” he yelled. “Everybody sit down. There is no fire. That man is making trouble. There is no fire.” Half of the audience turned to look toward the stage.
“There is no fire anywhere in this building,” he said, his voice now calm and authoritative. “We will recess for a few minutes and resume the program.”
“How can you be so sure?” Clarissa whispered to him.
“Because I recognize that man. When you were in Washington last Sunday, he came to the hotel looking for you, and told me he was your husband. The guy’s either sick, or terribly reckless. He could have caused a lot of people to get killed.” Slowly, the people returned to their seats.
“I’m sorry for this disruption,” Helbrose told the audience. “The man who caused the commotion has been apprehended. Let’s get it on with the best jazz singer in the country.”
“It could have been a lot worse,” Clarissa said to Raymond as she remembered her feeling of apprehension earlier in the evening. “If Josh did that, he’s coming apart.”
“You won’t have to worry about him for years to come, because what he did constitutes a felony,” Konny told them. “Good riddance.”
Clarissa didn’t like the idea of going to the police station the next morning to identify Josh. To her mind, if he was ill, he needed help, and the man she lived with for fifteen years wouldn’t yell “fire” in a crowded hall if he wasn’t sick. And if he wasn’t sick, how could he hate her so much that he would risk jail to disrupt her concert? Still, she knew how Josh loved money, and the knowledge that living in poverty while she lived in comparative luxury was the price he had to pay for his sexual liaison with Vanessa Hobbs was probably making him crazy. Maybe she should thank him: if his testosterone hadn’t made a fool of him, she might still be pumping water from an old iron pump in order to brush her teeth.
He’s Josh Medford,” she told the precinct captain. “I was married to him for fifteen years. I have a restraining order against him in Kansas City, Missouri, and he probably decided that it wasn’t applicable here.”
The policeman looked at Josh. “You really tore it this time, buddy.”
“I’ll get you for this,” Josh said to Clarissa as he was led away.
“Maybe,” the cop said, “but my guess is that when you get out of here, you’ll be so old you won’t have energy enough to hurt anybody.”
“You make a misstep, just one, and you may ruin your life,” Clarissa said to Konny after the show as they sat in Minnie’s Grill, sipping coffee.
“Yeah, man, that’s the history of the world,” he said
“Well, you keep your good news from Raymond and Oscar, but I want everybody to know mine: Cindy and I are getting married, and soon.”
“I’m so excited for you both. Cindy, this is great news.”
“Yeah,” Raymond said. “It’s da bomb. You guys don’t start pressuring me, now. Been there, done that, and don’t plan to do that anymore. What’s your news, Clarissa? Not that I can’t guess. You planning to hang out with Stanton?”
She moved her head to the side and upward, drawing her shoulder close to her neck to suggest that she was looking down her nose at him, before a grin spread over her face. “Mr. Stanton asked me to marry him, and I said yes.”
Oscar stared at Clarissa. “Well, hell! Yep. I’ll be damned. The guy fooled me. Way to go, Clarissa.”
She read the cl
ipping that Raymond handed her. “You mean our CD has been nominated for a Grammy? Maybe there aren’t many people recording jazz these days.”
“You kidding?” Raymond asked. “With Reeves and Krall in there, we don’t stand a chance, but this nomination will open doors for us, babe. You’ll see.”
Her career was in high gear and she had the love of a good man, but she knew that true happiness would elude her until she could find her sisters.
Chapter 16
Several days later, Clarissa stood at the registration desk of the Chase Hotel in St. Louis, gazing around at its opulence. She didn’t like staying at a hotel other than the one in which her band stayed, but Brock had insisted that if she wouldn’t stay with him at his apartment, she should stay at the best hotel. To make certain that she did, he paid for it in advance.
“I want to know that you’re protected from adoring fans,” he’d said, “and this hotel won’t tolerate nonsense.”
Her band members had balked at the price, so she housed them in a suite that consisted of three bedrooms, three baths, dining room, kitchen, and living room in a nearby hotel. “I wouldn’t feel right in this posh place while you guys had regular fare,” she told them.
She checked in and, on the way to her room, Brock waited with her at the elevator. “Will we have any time for ourselves while you’re here?”
She digested the question, realizing it meant that he wouldn’t interfere with her work or feel neglected because of it. “Every minute that I can find, beginning with tonight after the show.”
“I know how important this engagement is to you, and I’ll be satisfied with whatever you manage.” She ordered breakfast for them in her room and, as they sat at the little table by the window, looking down at the lush green park, he said, “When can we get married?”
He didn’t want it to happen any sooner than she did. “I thought the second weekend in June would be a good time.”
The air seemed to seep out of his lungs and, although a grin rearranged the contours of his face, he said, “I don’t know how I’ll wait that long. I may go nuts in the meantime.” His grin blazed into a smile. “I can hardly believe it. Let’s eat.”
She hated to use their time together for her own purposes. “Do you mind if I spend a little time checking the phone book on the chance one of my sisters may be living here?”
“Of course I wouldn’t, but I’ve checked phone books for about every city in Missouri, and I haven’t found one of them.”
She put the telephone book back in the night table drawer and walked over to him. “You did that for me, as busy as I know you are?”
“I told you we would find your sisters, that I’m in this with you, and I keep my word.”
In the two weeks that followed, she learned what it meant to have the support of a successful man who put her well-being on a par with or above his other interests. “We’re booked into the Village Vanguard in New York for two nights,” she told Brock, and my hair’s been standing straight up ever since Chase told me.”
“Great. You’ve got it made. Tell your agent to put you and the band in the Park Lane Hotel on Fifty-ninth Street facing Central Park. You’ll be in a crime-free area near the heart of the shopping district, and fifteen dollars will get you a taxi to the club. I’ll tell the concierge there to look out for you.”
When she stepped out on the stage that Friday night, she looked out at the audience and gasped, for Brock sat at a table six feet from her. She could feel the glow inside of her, exorcising her every care, and she didn’t doubt that his presence inspired her buoyant feelings. His thumbs-up sign further elevated her spirits. She wrapped her fingers around the mike, opened her mouth, and let the words of “Solitude” flow in sweet, velvet tones. Brock Stanton’s smile was all the thanks, all the praise she needed, but there was more from the audience. Much more, as the patrons embraced her.
The next morning, she raced through the pages of Variety until she found the notice. “A new star in town. Clarissa Holmes takes us back to the days when singers sang, reminding us of Bailey, Holiday, and Fitzgerald, and the band backing her is proof that Kansas City still produces great jazzmen.”
“I’ll have to give the band a name,” she told them at their morning rehearsal. How about Clarissa Holmes and the New Jazz Trio? That way, if I’m unable to sing, you guys can still make it.”
“Works for me,” they said in unison.
She didn’t know how long she would sing or where she would be five years down the road, and she wanted to ease their way if they found themselves without her.
“Just imagine,” she said to no one in particular. “My picture is in Variety. I’d give anything if Eunice Jenkins, my dear foster mother, could see it.” The three men looked at each other, for they hadn’t previously known anything of her background.
“That’s right,” she said. “I have no idea who I am, only what I’ve made of myself.”
Raymond patted her on the back. “You’ve done great with whatever you had, Clarissa.”
“Yeah,” Oscar agreed. “You’re special.”
You’re not going to believe this,” Konny said, waving part of a newspaper when he joined Clarissa, Raymond, Oscar, and Brock at breakfast in their hotel the following Sunday morning.
Raymond held his coffee cup suspended between the saucer and his lips. “What?”
“The Times reported our opening Friday night. This cat swears there’re no flies on us. Man, he compared us to Ramsey Lewis. I’ll have a pot of coffee, two scrambled eggs, four strips of bacon, and lots of toast,” he told the waiter without a pause. “According to this review, we can write our own ticket.”
Clarissa looked at him. “That’s one opinion. By the way, Chase insists we play Carnegie Hall. I told him he was out of his mind.”
“Why not?” Brock asked them. “Even if the auditorium is half full, you’ll be a success.”
Oscar strummed his fingers across the table. “Tell her, man. I always wanted to play in that joint. Benny Goodman rocked it out of its staid snootiness back in 1938, and playing there has been the goal of jazzmen ever since. I want my turn.”
She looked at their faces, bright with eagerness, and realized that they, too, longed for acclaim. “I’ll tell Chase to go for it.” She could almost measure their relief.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Miss Holmes,” the waiter said, but I have a telegram for you. Would you please sign here?” She signed and opened the message.
“Anything wrong?” Brock asked in a voice laced with anxiety.
She folded it and put it in her pocketbook. “Yes and no. The Raleigh police said my ex-husband is not mentally competent to stand trial, so I don’t have to go to Raleigh. He’s had a nervous breakdown.”
Brock picked up the check and stood. “Poor fellow. I’d better pack. What about you, Clarissa?”
Raymond pulled air through his front teeth. “That poor fellow came damned close to getting us killed.”
“I know,” Brock said, “but I pity him for reasons you can’t even guess.”
“Hey, now,” Oscar said. “See y’all at the airport.”
Clarissa looked at Brock. “Pack your stuff, and bring your bags up to my room.”
“They’re already packed.”
She kissed his cheek and whispered, “Hurry.” When he entered her room, dropped his suitcase on the floor, and bolted the door, she dashed to him, and he wrapped her in his arms.
Two hours later, he said to her, “Roll over this way. I love to feel your breasts against my chest.” She cupped her left one and held it, waiting, until the sensation of its feel inside his hot mouth shot through her. He paused and asked her the time.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
He went at her then as if in single-minded pursuit of that moment when she would erupt around him in ecstasy, and every cell in her body mated with him as she gave him all she had until he shouted her name, lost in her. Later, lying in his arms, she remembered that she
was about to leave New York without having searched the telephone books in an effort to locate her sisters. She’d made the search on her previous trip there, but she could have overlooked a name.
“This will be the first time I’ve gone to a place without looking for my sisters.”
His breath warmed her cheek. “I did it. I had plenty of free time, so I checked all five books. After we’re married, we can place television ads. No point in doing it now without a publicist or other professional help. Okay?”
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead, but yes. Thank you.”
He released her, rolled out of bed, and yanked the cover off her. “We’re in this together, and if we don’t hurry, we’ll miss that plane together. By the way, let me know who you’d like to have at the concert, and I’ll see that they get there.”
While she sat with Brock in the lounge waiting for the flight, her cell phone rang. “I got you some gigs on The Tonight Show, The Today Show, The CBS Early Show, and a couple of other big-time TV shows—The Tom Joyner Show and a notice in some big newspapers and magazines. How’s that for a first-class agent?”
“You’re the best, Chase. Just be sure my band goes wherever I go. I want to promote them.”
“You bet. I’m pushing Clarissa Holmes and the New Jazz Trio.”
She shared the news with Brock, who said, “With that kind of publicity, you’ll have a full house.”
I’m not getting on television in a t-shirt and jeans,” Raymond said when they prepared for their first TV appearance. “I’m wearing what I always wear to work—a suit, shirt, and tie. I’m not nineteen, and I don’t plan to pretend that I am.”
“All right. The band will wear suits, and I’ll wear an evening dress.”
“This is a terrific band in its own right,” Clarissa told the show’s host after he introduced them. “Want to hear them?”
“Why not?” he said in response to the audience’s applause.
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