Ivory

by Hadley Quinn

  “So?” she asked, leaning against the doorframe. “Are you a breakfast person? I’m not normally but I’m starving.”

  I wanted to tease her about her eating habits, but I knew not to go there with women. Whether they could take a joke or not, it wasn’t worth the risk.

  “Yeah, I could eat breakfast,” I answered.

  “Meet me in the kitchen then,” she winked as she headed down the hall.

  After I’d used the bathroom and at least threw my pants back on, I could hear Bob Dylan playing from the front room, and when I made it to the kitchen, found her quietly singing along as she poured pancake batter onto a grill.

  Holy shit, she had an amazing voice!

  I couldn’t help it, so I stood there at the edge of the kitchen listening to the best duet of “Blowin’ in the Wind” I’d ever heard. Even when the song changed to a Cat Stevens special, she knew that one too and sang along. But halfway through, she called my name as she turned around, and upon seeing me standing there, jumped a mile.

  “Jesus, what are you doing!?” she yelled at me, clutching her chest. “You scared the shit out of me!”

  Laughing, I replied, “I’m not sure I’ve ever been mistaken for Jesus before.”

  She stepped toward me and smacked me on the chest. It fucking hurt too because I didn’t have a shirt on.

  “Ow,” I scoffed, rubbing my left pec. “That’s gonna leave a mark.”

  “Well you’re lucky I didn’t suffer a damn heart attack,” she pointed a finger at me with a playful scowl.

  I shrugged. “I didn’t mean to scare you, was just listening to your beautiful voice while I stared at your ass.”

  She eyed me cautiously for a second. “How much did you hear?”

  I reached past her to flip the pancake that was going to get overcooked. “Enough.”

  “Enough,” she mimicked, rolling her eyes at me.

  “Watch that sassy attitude of yours, miss. You’re asking for a spanking.” I held up the spatula as proof.

  She placed her hand over my wrist and forced me to set it down on the counter. Her lips pressed against the red handprint that had formed on my chest and she whispered, “If you’re gonna spank me, it better be your hand on my ass instead.”

  I’d say my Friday had started off with a bang with Ree on the kitchen counter, and by the time I’d returned home, showered, changed, and headed to The Urchin for the afternoon, I was in a pretty good mood.

  That was until I happened to cast a glance at some of the tables in the restaurant around four p.m. It wasn’t completely packed, but it was close to it. However, the busyness didn’t prevent me from catching a glimpse of a face that I really didn’t want to see again.

  It was that fortune telling chick. Gretta. And she saw me, too. I stood at the edge of the hall that was closest to the stage—where not many people would have noticed me—but she stared at me from across the room. She was sitting at a table all by herself, too. I could have assumed she was holding it for some other friends, but my mood had turned snarky and I figured she was too weird to have any friends.

  “Psst, hey,” a voice called from the bar.

  It was Ree and she was watching me cautiously. She was standing at the corner where the bar turned into the wall; closest to the stage and where I was easily able to stand there and talk to her for a minute if I ever wanted to. Every now and then I’d throw a baseball hat on and sit on a stool while she served me a drink. It was sometimes inconspicuous enough that I got to be a part of her workday when I felt like it.

  It took three steps to move from the dark hallway to the edge of the bar, but I chose to stand not sit. I couldn’t help but watch that weird lady’s movements, like if she was going to wave her fingers or wiggle her nose to put a curse on me.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Ree asked, setting down a glass of Coke in front of me. But when I took a sip, I could tell there was a tad bit of Jack in it. At least that made me smile; my girl knew how to make my drink just right.

  I leaned against the counter and said, “You see that lady over at…what is that, table five or six? –The one in the brown shirt with her hair in a bun thingy?”

  Ree casually wiped a towel across the bar and discreetly took a look across the room. “Table five, yeah. With all the bracelets and stuff on? Why, who is she?”

  “A psychic, apparently.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at me, and even though the smile she had on her face was mocking me, she looked sexy as hell. “A psychic, huh?” she lightly laughed. “Is this what you’re ‘sensing’ about her, or do you actually know her.”

  I could feel that woman watching us and I chanced another glance across the room. Sure enough, her eyes were boring into me like they’d done the other times I’d seen her. I moved to the left about six inches so Ree’s head was blocking her view of me.

  Looking at my girl again, I answered, “Meh, Hayes wanted to stop at a fortune telling place after we left Marc’s bar one night. It was that lady. And this is the second time I’ve seen her after that. Once may have been random at the grocery store, but this isn’t a coincidence.”

  “You think she’s been tracking you down?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Um, maybe you should call Luke over here, Jude. Seriously.”

  “Mm, not yet,” I answered, taking a drink. “I’m curious as to why she’s here.”

  Ree snorted. “To read your palm.”

  “She already did, when I didn’t think she knew who I was.”

  She leaned a hip against the bar. “Oh? You heard a general recap of your life then?”

  Smart girl. “Ha, yep, pretty much.”

  “Nothing impressive, huh?” she joked. “That’s a bummer.”

  “Yeah, she was a complete fraud,” I said with a chuckle. “And she had absolutely zero knowledge about pianos.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I scoffed. “She told me my future was with ivory. Pianos don’t have ivory keys these days. The crazy broad didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.”

  Ree paused, seeming stumped. “But…she said your future was with ivory?”

  Nodding, I leaned my forearms against the bar. “Yes. And she said it more than once. Said she ‘saw the word.’ ”

  I laughed again and shook my head. I thought Ree would be amused too, but she still looked surprised for some reason. Finally she shook herself out of what seemed like a mini stupor and said, “Well…what if she’s right?”

  It was my turn to be confused. “Huh?”

  She leaned onto the counter with her elbows and our faces were two feet apart. “You know ‘Ree’ is just a nickname, right?” She paused, waiting for me to answer. When I didn’t, she added, “It’s not my full name, it’s short for something else.”

  “Short for what?”

  Her smile was coy and sexy and all kinds of gorgeous, and she answered, “Ivory.”

  21

  I’d returned to my dark hallway once Ree went back to work, but she knew I was still there loitering. She would cast me these smiles every now and then, like she’d one-upped me big time. Maybe she had. I was still trying to process what she’d just told me.

  I wanted to go talk to Gretta again, but sometime between Ree’s enlightenment and her return to serve a busy happy hour, the woman had left. I waited in case she’d just gone to the bathroom or something, but she hadn’t returned ten minutes later.

  “It’s a pretty sight, isn’t it?” Blake’s voice said from behind. He stood at my side and added, “I’m still on cloud nine because of the reviews.”

  Smiling, I had to agree. The reviews that had been pouring in about The Urchin were amazing. Not only that, but there had already been multiple articles written on it, from travel magazines to Rolling Stone. The success had been almost immediate, and I was very pleased with it. Not because Blake was now doing well financially, but because he was living his dream.

  To be honest, so was I. This place was fant
astic, from the staff to the services. I couldn’t have been happier to be part of such an establishment, and I knew my dad would be proud too. I think that’s what hit me the hardest because it made me miss him even more, wishing he could be here to share this with me.

  “You think your daughter would sing with me sometime?” I asked out of the blue, nodding my head toward the piano. “She has a beautiful voice.”

  Blake was surprised but shrugged. “I don’t know, Jude. She’s a bit shy like that. Probably not but…I’m not sure. Her mother had a great voice, too.”

  I didn’t know too much about Ree’s mom. I just knew that she’d signed over her only daughter to Blake when she didn’t want to raise her anymore. She was now living in northern California and dating other women.

  “Is her first name really ‘Ivory’?” I asked.

  He glanced at me but looked confused. “Yes, why?”

  Chuckling, I shook my head. “I just didn’t know that. I heard you call her ‘Ree’ once and just assumed that was her name. I’ve been calling her that ever since and have never heard otherwise.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, she has a hard time with the name Ivory.”

  “Why’s that?”

  He watched Ree at the bar for a moment. “Well she’s obviously not pale like ivory. And after she found out why her mom named her that, she preferred not to be called by it.”

  “How’d she get the name?”

  Blake turned for the hall and motioned for me to follow. I walked with him while he replied, “Her mom—my sister—was quite the little flower hippie.” We made our way into his office and he pulled a small photo album out of the desk drawer. He flipped it open and showed me a picture of a lovely blonde with long flowing hair and a daisy behind her ear. “Helen was a…free spirit, I guess you’d say. So much so that she smoked way too much weed until some of her ‘love everyone’ ideas got her into trouble.”

  He sat down at the desk and gestured for me to sit in the other chair. When I did, he handed me the photo album with a new page opened. It was Helen with a black man, all decked out in baggy sports gear and a bandana around his forehead.

  “She felt that Calvin was her chance to ‘bring cultures together.’ She wanted everyone to believe in ‘love is love’, and ‘love see no color.’ I had nothing against any of that, it was Helen’s safety that I was concerned about. That asshole was a gang member.”

  I studied the picture for a moment. Helen looked happy and carefree; Calvin looked defiant as he flipped some gang sign with his hand. “So this is Ree’s biological father?”

  Blake nodded. “Yes. Calvin Kaye. He was shot and killed in a gang feud a month after that photo.” He motioned for me to flip the page so I did. The next photo was of Helen holding a beautiful biracial baby in her arms. “Ivory was born five months later, and Helen was still on a peace rally kick when it came to diversity. Our parents weren’t too happy with her choices at the time, but Helen was set on raising Ivory by herself. You asked why she was named Ivory? All the black verses white arguments Helen was always in the middle of. Times had already come a long way, but there was still a lot of hate around here. Had Ree turned out with paler skin, Helen would have named her Ebony.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond. Obviously Blake was okay with the humor of it because he laughed, but he went on to explain that Ree hated the fact that she’d been named to make a statement. I couldn’t really blame her, but the idea that her mom had about stereotypes was kind of interesting.

  “So how did you end up raising her, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  He adjusted in his seat with a sigh. “Well, I did what I could to help Helen, but I had my own problems at the time. I had a little girl, too. Felicity. She was two years younger than Ben, one year older than Ree. She was diagnosed with leukemia when she was three years old. My princess battled it for over a year before she died. It was a rough time. My marriage didn’t survive it. And then Andrea—my ex-wife—didn’t stick around when I adopted Ivory. She took Ben and wouldn’t let me see him much, and then moved to Missouri for several years.” He paused like he was reflecting on that time. “Anyway, long story made shorter, Ben came to me as a teenager, interested in getting to know me again and…we’ve been close ever since,” he shrugged.

  I nodded my approval. “That’s awesome. About you and Ben, I mean. I’m sorry about the rest of it, though. I didn’t know.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” he shook his head. “Yes it was a difficult time, but I’ve gained so much from it. I lost a little girl, but I gained another one in the process when her mother became too busy to care for her very well. Felicity wasn’t meant to be on this earth longer than a few years but…maybe there was another life that was meant to be saved instead.”

  I knew he meant Ree, but I was still dwelling on the fact that Blake and I had both lost children at about the same age. I’d felt from day one that I could connect with the Millers, but maybe it was in ways I hadn’t realized yet.

  “Thanks for sharing all of that with me,” I told him.

  He smiled kindly and said, “Jude, I know you pour everything out in your music, but if you’d ever like to talk candidly about your life…I’m always here. And Ree, too. She’s a wonderful ear and sounding board. She’s also got a pretty solid grasp on life, too.”

  I knew that about her, and judging from the look on Blake’s face, he may have known that I’d been shutting her out lately. Perhaps he was just encouraging my relationship to progress with his daughter, but maybe my guilty conscience was making me feel exposed more than I really was. I appreciated his support but was still set on taking things slow.

  As I stood, I told him I’d be in the lounge for a while. I was scheduled to perform at nine and had a few hours to go, but I felt some lyrics going on in my head and needed to write them down.

  When you feel it, you just gotta go with it.

  The show that night was healing for me. I’m not sure if there was any one factor that made me feel that way, but it must have been a culmination of reasons for me to experience an actual shift in my overall frame of mind.

  I loved that I could sit there at a piano and play for an audience, and at the same time, be thirty feet from Ree while she worked. Sometimes she would take a moment to lean against the counter and just watch me, but I knew that she was always listening even when she was busy. There was strength in knowing that; it made me feel invincible.

  It became customary that I’d do a sit-down interview—twenty minutes tops—with any notable reporter that had scheduled their time for The Urchin. We had people from New York and Los Angeles almost every weekend, and mixed with the local broadcasters and writers, there was always a publicity opportunity. Scott took care of scheduling those, and he and Ben worked together via phone, email, text, etc. to make sure I was only committed to one interview after each night I performed. Some media had even been scheduled two months out.

  I was just finishing up a Q & A with James Donaldson, a guy from L.A. that had done other interviews with me in the past. He worked for a very highly esteemed label over there and I respected him and his work. He still had about two more minutes left, so I was waiting for his last question.

  Finally he set his notebook and pen down, and turned off the recorder. He looked at me and said, “Do you have anyone special in your life right now, Jude?”

  I’d been asked that question before, but there hadn’t been a reason to pause like I did this time. I thought about Ree and whatever it was that we had. I didn’t know where it would lead, but yes, she was a special part of my life right now.

  “Yes, there is someone taking priority in my life at this time,” I answered.

  His smile was subtle but noticeable. He nodded slightly and replied, “Between you and me, I’m happy to hear that.”

  I knew that meant ‘off the record,’ but honestly, I didn’t care if he wrote that in his article or not. It was better that the facts were straight from a source I trusted than some asswipe
making up names or scenarios.

  “You can quote me on that,” I gave him a single nod.

  James slowly smiled and then picked up his notebook and pen. “Thanks, Jude. I appreciate it.”

  “I appreciate the fairness in your writing,” I commended. “You’ve gained my trust over the years.”

  He paused in the middle of documentation and looked up at me. “I value that. I truly do. Thank you.” After jotting down one last word, he handed it over for me to look over. “That okay?”

  It looked word-for-word, so I nodded and handed it back just as Ben entered the room and announced that our time was up. After shaking hands with James, Ben quietly told me, “Jessica Mendez is here from Tidal.”

  I shook my head. “Nope, I’m done for the night.”

  “Okay,” Ben only nodded. Tidal was a huge news show that spotlighted celebrities from music to the big screen, and they held international audiences.

  James hadn’t quite made his way out the door yet, and upon hearing what had been said, told me, “Jude, don’t pass that one up.” With a kind smile, he said goodbye once more and left.

  Ben only looked at me, like he was waiting for me to change my mind, but I shook my head. “She can make an appointment like everyone else.”

  He nodded whether he agreed with me or not. Not to sound like an arrogant prick, but I really was the boss of my own time and had the final say. I wasn’t going to let people traipse into my life at their own convenience, and I especially wasn’t desperate for the attention or where it could take me.

  I was happy right where I was.

  After Ben left, I stood in front of the poster of my father at Carnegie Hall. I loved the look on his face in that photo; it was focused yet happy. He loved what he did and you could tell.

  “Are you sure you want to be passing up those kinds of interviews?” Ree’s voice said from behind.