Haunting Melody (31 page)

“June 14th.”

Good grief. That was the date I’d landed
backstage of the Follies. So I’d traveled forward in centuries but
stayed the same in terms of days. I couldn’t take it in.

“Do you mind if I just kind of sit for a
moment?”

The actor took off the lion puppet head and
placed it on the bed. Concern for me covered his face. “Stay as
long as you like. I have a quick change to make and I’m off.” He
grinned. He looked young. Playing Simba? “I don’t normally get
unannounced visitors backstage, but you don’t look especially
dangerous to me, so feel free to hang ‘til you feel better. Want me
to call someone to come get you? Wanna use my cell?”

I tried to smile. “No, that’s okay. I need to
chill then I’ll be out of your hair. It’s been, well, kind of a
crazy night. But thanks.”

“No problemo.”

He made his change while I modestly kept my
eyes glued to the floor. Then he left and I wondered what the hell
had gone wrong. I’d wound the doll while clutching sheet music. I
should have landed back in Saree’s dressing room. In 1919.

I glanced down “Oh crap.”

I was holding the sheet music for 'The Circle
of Life"; music and lyrics by Tim Rice and Elton John. I’d picked
it up at Colony Records the day before the night I’d gone tripping
back to the past. I peered at the top of the music. There was a
cranberry stain in the upper right hand corner. Fiona Belle had
really hexed me. I was back to my own time and wishing I wasn’t for
one reason only. Briley wasn’t with me.

It had been his voice I heard calling me just
before I’d been zipped, zapped or zinged into the 21st Century. I
remembered a dog barking too, so Duffy must have been with him.
Maybe the puppy helped protect him from Peter?

I came completely awake.

“Damn! He’s back there facing that maniac
Ptah who’s holding a gun. I’ve got to help.”

I quickly searched my carryall, but couldn’t
found my original "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody."

Then it hit me. I’d given that copy to Nevin
Dupre back in the alleyway of the New Amsterdam the day Briley and
I shared lunch during a break in rehearsal.

Having the music wouldn’t have helped anyway.
I had no doll. And I was fairly sure she played a part in time
traveling. The doll was not in my hand. The doll was not on the
floor next to me. The doll was not in my bag nor was it behind, in
front or anywhere near me. I’d dropped it the instant I’d heard
Briley’s voice call my name.

It was lost. Nineteen-nineteen was lost.
Briley was lost.

I placed the copy of Lion King back in my
bag, I dug further inside until I found a small notepad and pen. I
wrote a cheerful thank you message to my lion-headed friend, then
left the dressing room and quietly made my way to the nearest exit
that led to the alley behind the New Amsterdam Theatre.

I didn’t want to hail a cab looking like a
drug addict in need of a fix, so I walked in the rain to the subway
at Eighth Avenue and 42nd, then waited for the next train that
would take me back to East 12th. To the home I no longer wanted to
live in.

It was only about ten o’clock when I trudged
up the stairs to Apartment 413. Fiona Belle’s peculiar method of
time travel seemed to rely on sheet music and a musical doll, but
it obviously had no rhyme or reason as to time of day or even exact
date of copyright.

The door to 413 was locked. I dug in my bag
and found my Elvis key chain, which had amazingly survived both
trips. I dropped the bag in the hall and immediately heard the
click of tiny paws on the wooden floors.

“Lucy! Oh thank heaven, at least something
good is here this night!”

I scooped the dog into my arms and we
exchanged enthusiastic greetings that included a tongue lavishly
sweeping my face and the tears that had started to flow down my
cheeks plus yips and hugs and all the normal doggie owner “welcome
home” perks one so loves about loyal canine companions.

“So, Baby Girl? Did you have a good time with
Fiona Belle, the dognapping witch? Did she feed your little tummy
full of bacon and cranberry scones?”

Lucy buried her nose underneath my chin. Duh.
The answer to all those questions was a big “yes.”

“Come on, Sweetie. Let’s take a quick run
around the block then hit the bed. I’m exhausted and I can’t even
function on a decent level until I’ve had some sleep.”

I changed into some shorts and a pair of
running shoes, grateful to be out of my sodden black clothes. Lucy
and I made use of a break in the cold rain to run for a half an
hour and managed to get back home before it started again. I
stopped at the third floor at Fiona Belle’s apartment and pounded
for nearly five minutes. No answer. Mrs. Donovan was probably
consoling Briley McShan back in 1919 over the loss of his
girlfriend (in a prounounced brogue) while muttering about slimy
sonsabitches who stalked Follies girls and forced them to
vanish.

The dog and I both collapsed about three
minutes after we hit my apartment and got dried off. Lucy actually
didn’t participate in the drying process. She squirmed out of the
towel while I was rubbing her wet fur and made a beeline for the
bed. I stripped out of wet clothes for the second time that night,
found my comfy sweats, and joined the damp dog on the damper
comforter.

I lay there for at least two hours wondering
why. Why had I been sent back? What had I accomplished other than
to fall in love with a man who was probably dead by now? I hadn’t
changed the world for the better unless Briley’s and my tiny
attempt at integration in a Memphis nightclub could be considered
the start of the civil rights movement. That didn’t exactly
compute. I hadn’t stopped the next world war from happening. I had
done nothing. Nothing.

Neither Lucy nor I moved until late the next
morning. I knew it was morning because the clock by the bed said
so, and the TV was blaring out the Today show, but the rain held
steady with a darkness that invaded my mind and my heart.

At least my ghost – me - hadn’t made an
appearance during the two a.m. witching hour. Or if she – me - had,
I’d been oblivious. My head hurt.

The kitchen phone started ringing five
minutes after I was up and about to brew coffee.

“Hey, Savanna.”

“Hey, Mel. Make it through last night? You
sounded a bit nuts, girl I was ready to call little men in white
coats or just come kidnap you.”

I began to laugh. No, I began to keen.
Hysterical laughter mixed with sobs and wails.

“Damn! I’m comin’ over! Stay right there,
Mel. Do not move. Got it?”

I nodded. I’d been rendered incapable of
forming a coherent sentence or phrase or even an “Okay.” I began
twisting the coffeemaker’s cord in my hands until it was in danger
of fraying. Which made me cry harder when I remembered about two
stupid electrical wires in the back of a theatre. Wires that had
been frayed and consequently delayed the man I loved from reaching
my side until I’d disappeared from his life forever.

I was still sitting with coffee pot in hand
and dog at my feet when I heard pounding at the door and the sound
of Savanna yelling, “Open up, Mel or I’ll kick the sucker in!”

I let her in. I knew she meant it. She’d bust
the door to shreds to gain entry if she had to.

We stared at each other for a few seconds.
Then we hugged as though we hadn’t seen one another for a century.
Which, in truth, we hadn’t.

“Crap, Mel, you look like warmed over
dog-doo. Whacha been doing, girl? You look worn out and mangled,
frenzied and frazzled. No offense.”

I stared at her again and smiled for the
first time since I’d left the year 1919. How had I missed seeing it
the very instant I’d landed in Saree’s dressing room?

“I met your great- possibly double - great
grandmother. Saree Goldman Rubens,” I blurted out.

Savanna guided me back toward the small area
of the studio where Teresa’s Baby Grand stood. She forced me to sit
on the piano bench then she plopped onto the window seat
nearby.

“That’s interesting, Mel. Considering, if
family documents are correct, that Grammy Saree died in 1989 at the
ripe old age of eighty-something, you must have either been
attending a truly funky séance or you’re beyond looney tunes.”

I sighed and almost started to cry again.
Saree. Beautiful, bright young Saree had become an old woman and
died before I’d even had a chance to say good-bye.

Savanna waited for my tears to subside, then
handed me the large box of tissues I’d kept on the window seat. I
blew my nose and exhaled. I stared at the ceiling.

“I have not been hitting either psychics or
graveyards. Ready for this? I traveled back in time. To the year
1919. Swear. And I met Saree Goldman and Izzy Rubens before they
got married. In fact, I suggested to Izzy that he ask her out since
he was too chicken and she was too busy dating rich creeps to
realize how much she adored Izzy until I told her.”

There are good reasons why Savanna and I have
been best friends since childhood. One of them is our absolute
trust in one another. I’d just begun a tale told by a total idiot,
full of sound, fury, and magic - but zero substance. Instead of
quietly handing me a Zanax or a straightjacket, she grinned. “I
love it. Tell me more.”

I did. I spent the next two hours regaling
her with the story, beginning with the ghost - me - haunting the
apartment, and ending with my arrival backstage at The Lion King
last night. Her eyes stayed huge and she made various comments,
mostly tacky, about the ridiculous number of men who seemed intent
on wooing Follies girls and that she wished her family had owned
stock in a flower shop, but she listened and better still, she
believed me.

“So, Mel? Whatcha gonna do? I mean, this
Briley sounds like not only a serious fox but definitely the love
of your life and, damn, he’s actually tall enough for you. Twenty
points right there!” she chortled.

I sniffed and wiped away a tear. “I have no
idea what I’m going to do. I haven’t been able to talk to Fiona
Belle the vanishing landlady to ask if I can find another way back.
Hell, she’s probably out whisking some other patsy into a theatre
in San Francisco just before the great earthquake. Or backstage in
the Ford Theatre waiting for Booth to assassinate Lincoln. Or. . .
well someplace nutty. Anyway, I left that doll there. I mean, here
- which was there - only last century.”

Savanna waved her hand in the air to stop me.
“Don’t try to explain the geography, Mel. I understand what you’re
saying, although it’s pretty damn inept. Okay. So we have to track
down this scone-baking witch and get her to wave another magical
doll and either zap you back, or get McShan to somehow appear
here.”

“Well, maybe she just stayed in 1919? She had
to figure I’d be pissed at her little practical joke with the sheet
music. Lion King. Cute. I don’t remember stuffing that inside my
bag three weeks ago. I mean last night.”

For a few moments we simply sat and thought.
Then Savanna tossed a pillow at me. “So, tell me, oh traveling
chorus girl, what was G-Granny Saree really like.”

I laughed. “You! With a bleached blonde bob,
about three inches shorter and big boobs. But I swear she had your
humor and your giggle and your way of cutting right to the heart of
things.” I paused. “And both of you have such a wonderful way of
being a true friend. I’ll miss Saree like I would have missed you.
I’m so glad I got to know her. Be her friend.”

Savanna sighed. “We’ll have to make a
pilgrimage to the dance studio in Memphis very soon.” She paused.
“Have you tried to find out what happened after you left?”

“Huh? How? I told you the doll and music sent
me - with apologies to Stephen Spielberg - ‘Back to the Future.’ I
disappeared just as Briley came into that room.”

“Mel. Dimwit! Get out of 1919! What do you
use every damn day when you research stuff for costumes? Sheeit,
girl, I can’t believe you haven’t already Googled and Yahooed and
Asked and Binged and Banged and whatever else is new from
yesterday. Let’s fire up this puppy and see what comes out.”

She trotted over to the desktop computer and
hit the power button. I joined her at the drafting table, leaning
over her shoulder while she typed in key words. She looked up at
me.

“Briley McShan, right?”

“Yep.”

We waited. Nothing came up. My pulse was
racing. Nothing was going to come up. He’d been shot by a power-mad
Ptah wannabe over eighty years ago.

Savanna glanced at me again. “Oh-kay. What’s
Peter’s name? Aside from Prince, which will probably bring up the
Artist Formally Known As.”

“Uh, Herzochevskia.”

I spelled it and she typed it in. “Noop.
Nada. Zero.”

“Try Ptah and 1919 and Memphis and Manhattan
and Follies and see what pops up.”

Four seconds later, we had it.

“Morris Brown, born in Cleveland, Ohio, 1889.
A successful World War One profiteer. Passed himself off as a
Russian prince after the war. Arrested in 1919 in a rooming house
on East 12th Street after it was determined he was the man behind
the abduction and possible deaths of several Ziegfeld Follies
chorines, including Francesca Cerroni and Melody Flynn. The latter
vanished from that same rooming house in late June 1919. No trace
was ever found of her. Morris Brown, aka Prince Peter, was the
leader of a cult of worshippers of the Egyptian god Ptah. He was
sentenced to ten years in Sing-Sing prison in Ossinging, New
York.”

“Holy Shit!” was Savanna’s response. I echoed
the sentiment.

“Damn. Damn. And damn. Well, at least the
creep was arrested and tried and sent to the slammer. That’s good
news. Doesn’t mention Briley though. It would if Peter had shot
him, right? I mean, he would have gotten more than ten years for
murder? Of course, that assumes he would have been charged with
murder and not something dumb like assault with a deadly weapon.
Why wasn’t he charged with Francesca’s murder either? Oh, wait.
Even Briley thought that was accidental. So the cops didn’t really
have any evidence about that one. Bastard. Peter - not Briley.”