Diary of a Blues Goddess (15 page)

Mayhem broke loose.

The queens scurried, grabbing purses and wraps, clicking along in their high heels, collecting their champagne glasses, and making their way to the kitchen to put them in the sink and then out the kitchen door. All the while, Dominique was rushing them. "Come on, girlfriends, let's
go
." The word
go
had sounded like the high-C of an opera singer.

From the kitchen, Dominique called out, her falsetto still way in her upper range—which she does when she's nervous, "I'll do the dishes when I get home," as she shut the door.

I took a deep breath and faced Jack. "Hi." I smiled.

"You're still going out with this guy tonight?"

I nodded, clearing my throat nervously.

"Why?" he asked, his expression hostile.

"It's not anything, Jack. He's an old friend. And I told you I didn't want whatever this is between us turning into anything just yet. Until we find our bearings. But this is one date."

"From what Maggie told me, he was a cheat years ago, and once a cheat, always a cheat."

"Is that a new blues song, Jack, or your personal take on 'Your Cheatin' Heart' by Hank Williams?"

"Come off it," he snapped.

"Come off it? You're not one to talk, Jack. You told me that years ago you cheated on what's her name—Leigh. With her best friend. And what about the time, when you were with Sara, when you brought that blonde up to our room? On the riverboat. Remember that? I had to drink with Tony in the bar until 3:00 a.m. We ended up strolling on the deck and finding two lounge chairs to sleep on."

"I was drunk."

"That's not an all-purpose excuse."

"You're being unfair, Georgie. That was before we were together. Yes, those things, but those things happened when we were just friends."

"We're still just friends, Jack. Until we decide what the hell it is we're doing. Now I'm late."

"Fine… go off on your
date
." He said
date
like "Go out and commit
murder
."

"You're being an asshole."

"You're being a bitch."

"Do you see why I didn't want this thing between us to continue? You couldn't just give us some time to figure it out." I glared at him and wrapped the shawl tighter around me and walked out the front door. I shivered, and not from the night air, which was still quite humid and heavy, but from fighting with my favorite roommate. Clutching my shawl, I tried to pull Nan's confidence around me like a hug.

Walking through the French Quarter, passing drunken revelers with Day-Glo Hurricanes in "go-cups," I tried to stay aware. The crime rate in New Orleans is high. But I walk purposefully and confidently with a little don't-fuck-with-me attitude. Nan and I took a self-defense course in kav magra five years ago. It's based on a form of martial arts taught in Israel. Nan was the oldest student and, quite frankly, if a guy tried to mug her, he'd find his balls kneed up into his throat.

My mind drifted back to Jack. My favorite memory was of one of our all-night poker sessions. We'd had a Sunday Saints supper, and everyone was there except Gary's wife, Annie, who had stayed home with a cold. Dominique was living with Terrence at the time, and Nan had long gone up to bed. We had drunk round after round of mint juleps, which I hate, but Gary likes and claims to have a "secret family recipe." Then we'd switched to straight tequila and lemons.

"Anyone for poker?" Tony had grinned, those Irish eyes of his twinkling. You didn't have to ask us twice. Suddenly, out of jacket pockets spilled piles of candy. They must have had the idea that they'd wanted to play all along.

I had run upstairs to my poker-candy stash, which I keep in an old cookie tin. The night wore on with much candy-eating until I thought I would be sick, mixed with drinking. Finally, it was down to the last hand of the evening. Tony, Jack and I were the only ones still in the hand. In the center of the table was a
pile
of candy you had to see to believe. If I recall correctly, it contained at least a dozen snack-size Snickers bars, over a hundred Necco wafers, three marshmallow Peeps (it was near Easter… these were high in value… by summer, as they grew hard, the value of a marshmallow sugar-coated chick falls below a Necco), two large Hershey bars, sixteen Hershey's Kisses, three Tootsie Roll Pops, and unbelievably, a half pound of real homemade fudge that Tony had bought at a candy shop in the hopes of trouncing all of us.

Seven card stud, deuces wild. Tony had a pair of eights showing. No telling what his hole cards were. Jack had a possible straight, but I thought he was bluffing. It didn't matter anyway. I lucked into a pair of twos in my hand, and a pair of kings on the table. That's four of a kind. Unbeatable except by a royal straight flush (highly statistically improbable). The pile had my name all over it. Jack had been acting so cocky. Tony called, which means we had to show our hands. Jack said, "Read 'em and weep." We burst into hysteria because he had nothing. Not even a straight. Not even a pair. Nothing.

I won, and my candy could barely fit in my tin. "You jackass," I'd said to him. "Why'd you stay in?"

"To egg Tony on to make sure you got the fudge," he had said.

He'd winked at me then. But now the memory, once full of laughter in my mind, made me sad. What if we had wrecked the friendship for a fast fling? A late night after too much champagne.

I had no more time to consider it, having arrived, safely, on the doorstep of Brennan's. I took a deep breath and walked inside to a blast of air-conditioning. Standing at the bar across the room, I spotted Casanova Jones. And as if time suddenly spun backward, my breath left me. My obsession…

Casanova Jones kissed me on the cheek and pulled me close to him, already laying claim to me the way he used to. He always stood a little closer than he had to. Where Damon and I had groped our way blindly toward sex, he had exuded it, confidently. Being near him brought me back to those moments when I fought to keep from trembling.

He bought me a drink, a flute of Moet champagne, and we clinked glasses. He was drinking scotch and soda. He put his hand to my hair and touched my cheek familiarly. "You look so incredible tonight."

"You're not so bad yourself," I purred. On Dominique's fuckable scale, he was the perfect ten.

The maître d', in a black tuxedo, led us to a romantic, intimate table. Rick and I started talking, not about old times, but about now. We really had no old times beyond a couple of teachers and classes in common, but whatever that unmistakable chemistry was, it was still there.

He asked me about my singing career.

"The guys are my family." I halted a minute and took a sip of champagne, remembering my fight with Jack. "What I'd like to do most is sing jazz, the blues. But I have a good thing going."

"What about House of Blues or Mississippi Mudslide? Couldn't you sing there?"

"I could. But I'd have to leave the band to really pursue it. I'd maybe have to form a new band or join an existing one in need of a lead singer. I will… someday. I rehearse every Sunday with my mentor, Red Watson. He's one of the last of the great bluesmen."

"I never even knew you wanted to sing. I remember you as shy but mysterious."

"I was shy. I don't know about mysterious. I always sang in church, with my mom. But after she died and I was living with my grandmother, Nan encouraged me to sing to help me get over my grief."

"Your band is good. I mean, you guys had that wedding rockin'."

"Gary is obsessed with the electric slide."

"Who's Gary?"

"The keyboard player."

"The little guy?"

"Yup. The little guy. He actually likes that music. Even ABBA."

"That's scary."

"Devastatingly frightening. So how about you? What do you do?"

"Lawyer. Partner in my dad's firm… Don't roll your eyes. Everyone hates lawyers, but we're not all Satan's spawn."

"That's
precisely
what Satan's spawn would say to lull us into complacency."

He laughed, and his dimples became deep crags. He leaned forward, his face illuminated by the candlelight. "Remember how we used to talk about sex?"

"Yes. I remember you came up to me in the hallway once and whispered in my ear, 'What do you like, Georgie. Top or bottom?'"

"Do you remember what you said?"

"No. I was a virgin. What the hell did I know about top or bottom?"

"And now?" He held my gaze.

"Top."

"How compatible," he said slyly.

I thought I would slide off my chair and into a puddle on the floor.

We ordered dinner, and for dessert we did get Brennan's famous bananas Foster prepared and served table-side by our waiter. Bits of caramelized liqueur melted with vanilla ice cream and warm cooked bananas. It was sensual and delicious, and all I could think about was touching Rick.

The waiter brought the check, and Rick looked at me. "Will you think I'm Satan's spawn if I invite you back to my apartment for a nightcap? I promise to drive you back to that haunted house of yours whenever you ask."

"Again, Satan's spawn
would
say that. But… that depends. What do you have to drink?"

"If I don't have what you want, I'll run out and get it. I
have
to get you alone and away from all these people and this crowded restaurant. I want to touch you."

I felt my stomach slip like when you fly down the big hill on a roller coaster. "Champagne."

"What?"

"That's what I want to drink. Champagne."

"That I have."

He paid the bill with a gold American Express card, and we got into his car, a shiny black Lexus. I guess that's what having a daddy who owns a law firm gets you. Leather seats and a shiny new car. Though I had never really wanted for anything my whole life, living with Nan wasn't elegant—it was rebellious. She didn't care if Dominique danced on the dining-room table, or a party lasted two days. She told me during Prohibition my great-grandfather had made bathtub gin. My family, even going back in my lineage, was rebellious and wild and defied social conventions. I had one great-great-great uncle who actually had a duel at New Orleans's famous Dueling Oak. He did not live to continue his lineage, as he lost the duel. But that was my family for you. Creole and black and white and Spanish in a complex, colorful mix. Casanova Jones's family was old Southern guard. He got a Lexus and a law firm; I got a bunch of dusty blues albums and a heartache that never quite goes away.