Diary of a Blues Goddess (36 page)

Dominique was three hankies into the wedding ceremony. They weren't even on the "I dos" yet.

Nan looked like a vision in an ivory silk dress she had bought in Paris when she was younger—it still fit. Red was quite handsome in a dark blue suit. The Unitarian minister stood in the garden, and our family, as motley and odd as we were, sat in white chairs we rented for the occasion, in several rows.

As Nan and Red spoke their vows, I could only think of Tony.

Aching, I looked over at my father. He felt my mother in the garden. I did, too. It was if the ghosts had all along been there, urging us to piece back together our lives. They knew all the broken parts. The ghosts heard our cries and prayers in the middle of the night. They had been there as we knelt by our bedsides and searched for answers in thoughts lifted to God. They had been there in the tears and the laughter. In the loneliness. They saw the shards of grief only voiced by the blues. Then they worked their voodoo to make sure we all came together.

I looked around. The garden was a vision. The corner that Tony had planted for me, in daylight, was delicate and precious. He had coaxed violet morning glories and tea roses, jasmine and honeysuckle, and two fragrant lemon trees that framed Nan and Red at the outdoor cupola we used as an altar. A pale white butterfly drifted on a breeze that Tony must have bought with some magic. The garden spoke in the silences.

When at last the happy couple said "I do," we threw up a cheer in unison and tossed birdseed and then engulfed them in hugs and kisses.

Dominique and I had been bridesmaids, and my dad a groomsman. And Terrence, who finally decided living without Dominique was more painful than even the closet, was there looking at her adoringly in her little hat with a baby-blue veil.

In three days, I was to leave for New York. Red also heard from a record producer who wanted to see me play live in Manhattan. How all the pieces fell together… And then I remembered my mother. How she only wanted stories with happy endings. I didn't believe in them. But she had somehow seen to it that the Heartbreak Hotel would, with whispers and footsteps and slammed doors, make us all believe that might just be possible. All I needed to do was find a tough Irishman who, I prayed to Sadie and all things blues, really did want to be found.

Saying goodbye was sloppy.

Dominique sobbed and clung to me.

"Promise me you'll call every day."

"Yes, Dominique."

"And you'll be careful."

"Yes, Dominique."

"And you won't change."

"Dominique, when you went to New York, you left as a preppie and came back as a queen."

She sniffled. "I was a queen inside since I was five. I was just making the outside match the inside."

"I left you that red scarf you like."

She put her crumpled tissue to her nose. "Well, I stuck a sequin halter top in your suitcase."

I hugged her and then went to Nan's room to say goodbye.

"I'll be back."

"Oh… don't you be feelin' sorry for me, Georgia Ray," Nan said. "I've been wishing this for you for a long time."

"I love you."

"I love you, too. Now scoot or you'll miss your plane."

"Goodbye, Mrs. Watson."

I shut her door, then went to my room one last time. I was traveling light. I had already said goodbye to Maggie and Jack, Gary and Mike. All that was left was saying goodbye to the ghosts.

I looked around the room. Most of my pictures still hung on the wall. I whispered a thank-you. Somehow my aunt's diary had shaken the dust from my dreams. Like blowing the dust off an old record before putting it on the turnstile.

My father and I flew together. We arrived in New York, and I stayed with him for a few days until my sublet was ready. We laughed together a lot now. And he was starting to really know me.

"You're laughing, but it's not reaching your eyes, Georgia," he said to me over breakfast one day around noon—I really
was
his daughter.

"What if I don't find him?"

"You will."

"How do you know?"

"I seen the way he looked at you. I heard it in his voice when he called me. Say he thought I should come to meet my daughter. How she was a blues singer. I heard it in his voice."

I rode the subways and went to blues clubs, ate Chinese takeout and listened to the traffic outside my window.

I auditioned for Red's friend, Hugh. His quartet was tight. On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, in an empty club, I sang the blues for him and his musicians and was hired. We worked on our sets, and if I thought occasionally Red was a taskmaster, he was nothing compared to Hugh.

But I knew the first time I sang in New York City that I had somehow been waiting for that moment since I was five years old and first saw my parents dancing to "At Last" in the living room, me hiding on the stairs, seeing something between them I couldn't quite define yet. I stepped into the spotlight and was transported back to the time of Honey Walker.

My life in New York was a blur. It was about singing and coming home at night with an ache that made even breathing hurt. Every musician, every person in the music business I could ask, I did. But no one had heard of an Irish bluesman looking for a band, looking for work. I even called some limousine companies. Most of the dispatchers hung up on me. One told me, "This ain't a fucking baby-sitting service, lady."

"Come on, just tell me if you have an Irish limo driver."

"This is fucking New York. You know how many O'Malleys, O'Brien's, O'Somethings we got?"

"But this one is off the boat. Irish accent and all."

"Give it a rest. I don't fucking know."

My father and I ate together often. I called Dominique every day. But I had the blues. Where were the ghosts when I needed them?

After three months in New York, as the weather turned bitter, my father called me one Monday.

"I think I found him."

"Tony?"

"Think so. Sittin' in for a friend of mine tonight at a place in Soho."

I scribbled down the address. My sublet studio was tiny. Dominique was right. My old room was the size of a Manhattan apartment. Roaches congregated in the sink. There was a drag queen on the second floor, but all in all it wasn't home. And that was okay. I found, despite the pain, I liked moving forward to someplace unknown.

I looked at the club address on the slip of paper. Out of habit, I talked to Sadie. Let him be there, I whispered.

I spent the day pacing and listening to music, waiting for the time to go to the club. As soon as I walked in and slipped into the crowd at the bar, people in sophisticated New York fashions—most of it black, not a queen in the bunch, I heard the bass and knew it was him.

I looked at Tony. I thought of all the times he had been there, quietly nursing his own blues, yet totally in tune with me. I remembered my garden corner.

I saw him on the stage, in black, intense. As if he could hone in on me, he lifted his face to the bar area. I inched forward, squeezing through spaces between people. Feeling pressed-in, claustrophobic.

We stared at each other, and I felt a shiver. In the spaces between the notes, I knew we understood each other.

On break, he came over to me. His face was etched with dark circles under his eyes. I touched his cheek.