Diary of a Blues Goddess (2 page)

"Oh my God, why'd she have to die!" Dominique wailed like a Greek woman throwing herself on the casket of a loved one. "Why? Tell me why?"

"Here's a tissue," I said, calmly passing her one as we sat up against huge pillows, side by side on her bed. We were watching
Steel Magnolias
for the
third
time in two days, huddled beneath Dominique's pink Laura Ashley quilt, with a bowl of popcorn swimming in a tidal pool of melted butter and a pitcher of Sex on the Beach on the nightstand—Dominique likes any drink with sex or genitals in the name.

"I don't understand how you can just sit there, stone-faced like that, Georgia Ray Miller. It's unnatural," she sniffled at me.

"Dominique, you
know
Shelby dies in the end. You've known this since the first time we watched this video together in high school, and through every single solitary fucking time we've watched it since then. I just can't cry anymore. I cried myself out five years ago."

"But the cemetery scene… " She hiccupped, and with that, she started blowing her nose.

Drag queens are rarely subtle. Give Dominique a feather boa, platform shoes and a new platinum-colored wig, and watch her strut her stuff. But
believe
me, a drag queen with a nightclub act—and Dominique has a sellout one—doesn't
begin
to hold a candle to the sight of a drag queen with a broken heart.

Dominique was actually our only lonely heart at the moment. Good thing, since she was practically a full-time job. One of the benefits of having a house with twenty bedrooms is providing refuge for the lost and lonely. Nan rarely turns anyone away. She has two rules: no weapons and no drugs. Beyond that, if someone's a friend of mine, he or she is welcome to stay as long as necessary. Rent is minimal. And everyone contributes to meals and kitchen cleanup. We've had as many as six lonely hearts at one time following Mardi Gras two years ago when it seemed as if nearly everyone I knew, including myself, walked in on his or her lover in the arms of someone else. That's Mardi Gras. Getting blind drunk, flashing your tits in the street and fucking up your life.

Dominique sighed, flinging her head against her pillow like Gloria Swanson in
Sunset Boulevard
. I stared at her cocoa-skin and her long jet-black lashes curled slightly and framing eyes such a dark brown you couldn't see the pupils in the irises, just coal black. She was beautiful, her cheekbones so high they seemed to carve out cavernous hollows beneath them, like a runway model's, her chin a dainty point with a tiny dimple in its center. She was stunning, even without her usual Velvet Mac lipstick and eyes made up like two wings of a butterfly "I'm swearing off closeted men, Georgia. I am." She looked at me. "And closeted white men are the worst."

"No, married men are the worst. What am I saying? They're
all
bad, Dominique. It's men. Straight, gay… Of course, I don't include you in that category, Dominique. You're a woman even if… parts of you aren't."

"Thanks… I think." She clutched her tissue, then dabbed her eyes. "Is my mascara running?"

"Running? Honey, you cried it off a half hour ago during the kidney transplant scene. Look, two days in bed is enough, Dominique. Come on… you've left Terrence before."

"But this time there's no going back, Georgia."

"Don't say that."

She lifted her head from the pillow and shook it vigorously. "I am saying it."

"But this moping, this… " I waved my hand at the television. "Endless watching of Julia Roberts on her deathbed… isn't helping, Dominique. You've got to get back out there. You don't see me moping around in my nightie, do you?"

She stared at me. I was wearing a Victoria's Secret black peignoir set. "As a matter of fact, I
do
see you in a nightie."

"This is sympathy nightgown wear. For movie watching. I meant that as a figure of speech. I mean, you don't see me moaning and groaning over my love life. In a nightgown or otherwise."

"Uh-huh." She rolled her eyes at me. "Georgie, you are the original magnet for bad men. Might as well hang a sign on the front door. Married men and mama's boys apply here."

"Yes, but that was the
old
me. Now I have a system."

She snorted. "System? You call what you have a system?"

She was referring to Sadie's ghost.

"Yes, it's a system."

"A door slams, and you take that as a sign. Baby Girl, that's no system. That's plain crazy-talk."

"Yeah, well, you just moved in. You'll see. She'll be slamming doors for you, too. Anyway, at least I
have
a system. I'm not the one who went through two boxes of tissues this afternoon." I stared at the wastepaper basket overflowing with crumpled tissues.

"That's the point. What don't you understand here? This is Heartbreak 101.
Steel Magnolias
is our four-hankie movie. I was
supposed
to have a good cry. We both were. But you didn't so much as shed a tear. You are one cold-blooded woman, Georgia Ray.
Cold
." She pretended to shiver. "I might have to call you the b word."

"I am the b word." I stroked Dominique's white Persian cat, Judy Garland. "Dominique, there's nothing wrong with me. I sing at weddings every weekend, and before long, I sing at the weddings of the second marriages of the very people who were so madly in love with someone else not a year or two before. If I stay in this business long enough, I'll start singing at their third and fourth weddings."

"Sugarplum, if you're trying to cheer me up, you're doing a pathetic job of it."

"That's what best friends are for." I winked at her. "But it's true. Just look at the conventions. Every weekend a new group descends on the city—dentists, insurance salesmen, stockbrokers, engineers, proctologists. I see these guys with gold wedding bands—or telltale tan lines where the wedding band
should
be—and I just know they've got a wife, 2.2 children, a dog named Spike, a picket fence and a minivan at home somewhere, yet they're making a play for every woman at the convention—including the entertainment. It's not a ringing endorsement of the power of love."

"Well, I still believe in love," Dominique said. "And even if you're too damn cynical and stubborn to admit it, you do, too."

Judy rolled over on her back and stretched, demanding, in her regal cat way, that I stroke her belly. This was Dominique's second stay in our house, nicknamed The Heartbreak Hotel. Last time she went back to Terrence again, and I was pretty sure if he turned up at her show tonight with a dozen mauve roses—her favorite—she'd go back to him this time, too.

"I do not," I said rather unconvincingly.

"Yeah right. How is it that I remain best friends with such a liar?"

"Look, you've got a show to think about. You've had your cry. Now it's time to get out of this room and do what you do best, my dear." I stood up and went to her trunk at the foot of the bed that was full of her stage accessories. I pulled out a purple feather boa and flung it around my neck, sending several feathers floating through the air. I sang the first line of Gloria Gaynor's classic, "I Will Survive," the headlining song of Dominique's act.

"That's
my
song, girlfriend."

"Then belt it out yourself." I spun around. "Or maybe you've lost your falsetto."

She gasped as if I'd slapped her.

Never challenge a drag queen to a sing-off. Even without her wig, false eyelashes or makeup, Dominique leaped off the bed, grabbed her own feather boa from her trunk and started singing, transforming before my eyes into her stage persona.

"Get her off the stage," I mock shouted, "She's got five o'clock shadow."

Dominique finally broke into a grin, revealing her dimples. "Thanks, Georgia Ray. Love you." She hugged me, my head against her chest. "Girl, you are so cute, you're lickable."

"Well, I love you, too. Even if your chest does need waxing."

She stepped back in panic. "God! I'm on in
six hours. A
girl's got a lot of waxing and shaving to do." She dashed out of the room toward the shower across the hall. Before she went in, she turned to me and blew me a kiss.

I smiled at her, then lifted Judy the cat and kissed her nose. I left Dominique's room and went into mine and opened the French doors to my balcony. Stretching the length of my room, it has an intricate black wrought-iron railing and a chaise lounge for nights when I want to look at the moon and drink a glass of wine. From this vantage point, I have tossed down beads on the screaming crowds of Mardi Gras. But today I leaned over the railing and saw just a few clusters of tourists and a couple of college kids walking around the French Quarter; otherwise the street was surprisingly quiet. The day was stifling hot, and it was only May. New Orleans has an oppressive humidity. It contributes to the general insanity around here.

I shut the doors to keep the cool air in and went and flopped down on my bed, the goose-down comforter fluffing up on either side of me and letting me sink down into it. With the return of Dominique, the Heartbreak Hotel was officially open.

Heartbreaks seem to come in sets of three. That's another bit of superstition from Nan. I looked up at my ceiling fan spinning slowly around and around. It wasn't a question of when, around this place. It was just a question of who was next.

I didn't have to wait long. The next morning, Jack, my band's guitarist, arrived on my doorstep, suitcase in one hand, Fender guitar case in the other.

"It's over," he sighed, setting down his suitcase. "Is my old room still available?"

I rushed forward and hugged him, my hand instinctively brushing back one of his blond curls from his cheek. "You know the Heartbreak Hotel is always open," I said, stepping aside and sweeping my arm up toward the staircase in a gesture of welcome. He hefted his suitcase again, which bulged at the seams and apparently contained everything he owned, and walked through the frosted-glass front door. Following behind him, I silently clapped my hands and shook my hips back and forth in a sort of we-hate-Sara-and-we're-so-glad-she's-gone dance.

"She was cheating on me," he called over his shoulder, looking at me as he mounted the carpeted staircase. "With her cousin's husband. And you don't have to look so positively ecstatic that we broke up."