Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do (20 page)

36

W
HEN BLUE PICKED ME UP EARLY
Saturday morning, I was wearing jeans and a light turtleneck sweater. He was wearing a dark suit and tie. Out of consideration for the warm weather, he wasn't wearing his usual overcoat, but otherwise nothing about his appearance suggested the beach.

“I feel a little underdressed,” I said as we headed downstairs.

“You're fine,” he said, laying my bag in the trunk. I noticed he had no luggage, but I guess you can travel light when you're going from your house to your house. “I'll change when we get down there.”

“Why not here?” I said as we headed toward the freeway.

He thought about it for a minute before he answered. “Part of what I do is prevent foolishness before it gets started by being a visible deterrent.”

“A visible deterrent?”

The lush green of the trees on either side of the rushing interstate traffic was a perfect complement to the clear blue of the cloudless sky.

He nodded. “If these young hardheads see me and clock me immediately as someone who is not going to tolerate confusion, if they've got any sense left at all, they calm down and make another choice. Dressing this way helps them make the correct identification on sight. They've all seen Hollywood's idea of a big-time gangster. Michael Corleone set the standard. All I have to do is stick with that same sartorial model, and they transfer his power to me without me having to lift a finger.”

It wasn't just the hardheads. When I first saw him, I immediately thought of the
Godfather
scene where Michael steps out of that big black car to greet his former true love after having completed his transformation from war hero to the next Don Corleone.

“Good thing for you Michael had a little style,” I said. “Think if you had to go through this life dressed like Al Pacino in
Scarface
.”

He laughed. I did, too. In fact, we talked and laughed all the way to Savannah. With apologies to T. S. Eliot, there is nothing cruel about April in Georgia. Whatever little piece of cold they get down here for winter had disappeared, and the heat that defines southern summers had not yet appeared. Everything that can bloom
does
, including the omnipresent pink and white dogwoods and every color of azalea in every possible combination.

We got off the interstate just past Macon and took the old state highways to the coast. Blue had played clubs in most of the little towns we passed through, and he had enough stories about his adventures and misadventures on the chitlin' circuit to fill twice as much time as it took for us to pull into Savannah and see the signs that say beaches and point you in the direction of the ocean.

We hit the causeway and, over the first rise,
the water.
Blue opened all the car's windows, and I could already smell the salt in the air. Blue was looking at me with a smile, and I smiled back.

“What?”

“Do you remember the sea?” he said.

It sounded so theatrical, the way he said it like that—
the sea
—but what are you going to do? The whole idea of past-life memories is already pretty over the top. A little theatricality is probably not out of line.

“From before?”

He nodded without taking his eyes off the road ahead. His face looked peaceful, unguarded in a way it never was in the city.

“No,” I said. “I really don't remember anything like that.”

“Did you ever want to live at the beach?”

He had me there. “Since the first time I knew there was beach.”

He smiled. “That's why.”

“A lot of people want to live at the beach,” I said. “You think we're all being subconsciously guided by our past lives?”

“I think
you
are,” he said calmly.

Something about all this was starting to make me feel weird. The
me
he thinks he knows is a woman I don't remember being. He can't help but judge me against the standard I set last time around, and, from what he's told me, I was pretty amazing. Fearless, committed, brilliant. Am I going to be competing with myself, once removed?

“You don't even really know me,” I said. “You think you do because of what happened … what you
believe
happened before.”

“I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable,” he said. “I'm sorry.”

“I'm not uncomfortable,” I said. “I just don't want you to confuse me with that woman you knew before.”

He didn't say anything to that, but I knew what he was thinking.
You are that woman.

“I'm not her.”

“I understand,” he said. “Would you rather we not talk about this anymore for a while?”

That was exactly what I wanted, so, of course, I denied it. “I don't mind talking about it, I just—” I stopped.

What is that insane impetus to tell a man what you need, what you think, what you want, and then retract it the second he takes you up on it? I took a deep breath.

“
Yes.
That's exactly what I'd like.”

“Done,” he said, smiling.

I smiled back.
How easy was that?

“Can I tell you something?” he said as the car headed across the last of the causeway and cruised onto Tybee Island.

“Sure.”

“You can always tell me what you really want,” he said. “Whatever it is, that's what I want for you, but I'm not always very good at mind reading.”

“All this time travel and no mind reading?”

“What time travel?” He looked at me with a grin.

I laughed.
What time travel indeed?

37

T
YBEE IS A SMALL ISLAND THAT
experienced a crushing level of commercial development after it placed itself front and center in a bid to be part of the 1996 Olympic Games up the road in Atlanta. The tiny year round population was being forced to move as the time shares and big-chain hotels crowded out the dusty beachfront cottages and seedy mom-and-pop lodgings that had been the comfortable norm for years.

But off the main drag, bustling with new construction and weekend traffic, the island retained the charm that had drawn Blue there twenty years ago. He turned down a street that wound through a neighborhood of islanders and then meandered past the island's historic lighthouse and opened out onto the Atlantic Ocean. We pulled up in front of a large beachfront house with two sides of windows, a widow's walk on top, and a spectacular view of sea and sky that almost took my breath away.

Blue turned off the car and smiled at my obvious surprise. The ocean was less than a hundred yards away over a small rise of dunes. Seagulls and pelicans swooped and called to one another in the sunshine. For someone like me who has never gotten enough of the beach, it truly was a slice of paradise. Blue got out and came around to open my door.

I stepped out into the salty air. “
This
is your house?”

He nodded, amused at my reaction.

“You
own
it?”

“Peachy and I bought it when we were still touring.”

“So you'd have a place to bring chicks?” I teased him.

“So we'd have a place to regroup. The road will kill you if you aren't careful. Then when he got married, he sold me his half and got a place in Savannah.”

“Didn't his wife like the beach?”

“She was afraid of hurricanes. Savannah was as close as she could stand to be.”

I followed Blue into the house, feeling like I was walking into a fantasy I didn't even know I had. Aunt Abbie's dream said blue eyes, but it never mentioned a beach house.

The house's great room looked like it had recently been featured in
Architectural Digest
. The couch and chairs were draped in those artfully rumpled white slipcovers that movie stars favor for their Malibu digs. The table at one end of the room could easily seat six people and now held a bowl of fresh fruit with a note propped against it.

Blue read it quickly and smiled. “Peachy came by to open up. He said to tell you hello and he'll be back in a little bit.”

That was fine with me. I needed a chance to take all this in first. “When you said you had a place on Tybee Island, I thought you meant a time share or something,” I said, gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows that seemed to extend the living room almost to the ocean's edge. “But this—this is something else altogether!”

He laughed. “I'm glad you like it. Let me show you your room.”

I liked that even though we both knew this weekend held the potential for us to take our friendship to the next level, he didn't assume anything. I followed him up a short flight of stairs that opened out onto a sort of atrium with four doors facing it. He led me through one into a lovely room and put my bag down by the door. It not only had the same giant windows that I had loved downstairs, but over the bed, it had a huge skylight that was currently framing a cloudless expanse of blue sky. Other than the bed, which was covered by a spotless white duvet and a jumble of pillows, the only other thing in the room was a huge basket of birds-of-paradise that provided all the color the room required.

I turned to Blue, who was standing in the doorway. “It's beautiful.”

He came over to stand beside me at the window. “I'm glad you like it.”

“Are visitors allowed to walk on your beach?”

“I only own the house,” he said, smiling, “not the beach.”

This was an important distinction. People who forget it are usually the ones you see on TV after the hurricane, standing in front of their ruined mansions, shaking their fists at the ocean just for being the ocean, which is why they paid all that money for those houses in the first place.

“I'll take that as a yes,” I said.

“If you can wait for me to change, I'll join you.”

“I got nothing but time,” I said, wondering what he could consider appropriate attire for a walk on the beach. “I'll meet you downstairs.”

I couldn't be inside another second. Even with all the windows, I wanted to feel that breeze on my face and smell that air. I slid open the door to the back deck and stepped out of the great room and into the sunshine.

The beach was empty except for a young woman and a small boy figuring out how to fly one of those stunt kites that dips and swoops and skims the ground like it's spiritpossessed. They were tinkering with the length of the tail, and several attempts to get the huge, brightly colored kite up in the air ended in its bumping along the beach like a wounded seabird.

The little boy chased it down and brought it back carefully. The young woman tied off a piece of the long tail, and they tried again. This time, the kite lifted off as if it had wings ofits own and absolutely
soared
. Against the bright blue sky, the pink-and-orange flutter ofthe kite looked like a tropical parrot that had wandered over from the Amazon jungle just for the day. The little boy applauded and actually did a little dance of joy. I could hear his delighted laughter carry on the wind, and it made me smile, too.

I closed my eyes and turned my face toward the warmth of the sun over my shoulder and sighed deeply. Maybe Blue was right. Maybe what I was feeling was a blood memory of another time and place on another side of another world. But how can you tell the difference? How can you distinguish between what is known to you specifically and what is known simply because you're a human being? My father gave me a book once in which the author claimed that if you went anywhere in the world and set a toddler down in front of the ocean, the kid's first response would be to open her arms as if to embrace it. I felt that way now. Safe and happy and curious about whatever was going to happen next.

“And what do you think that is?”

Blue was standing beside me holding a bottle of champagne and two glasses. I hadn't heard him walk up, but that was nothing new.

“I thought you said you weren't a mind reader,” I said.

“Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't.” He grinned.

He had traded his suit for a pair of wheat-colored slacks and a white linen shirt that was a perfect contrast to his dark skin. The blue of his eyes reflected the blue of both the ocean and the sky, and I felt that panty-throwing feeling wash over me again.

“Are you hungry?” he said.

“A little.”

“I'll be right back.”

The kite fliers had moved farther up the beach, but I could still hear the wind whipping through their amazing
almost a bird
. Blue brought out a tray and laid the food out efficiently without making a big deal of it. There are some men who enjoy creating a perfect moment but can't let you enjoy it for reminding you how perfect it really is. They have no idea that nothing breaks the mood like somebody telling you how hard he worked to create it.

Blue popped the cork on the champagne and poured us each a glass.

“Welcome,” he said.

We tapped our glasses for the toast and sipped our champagne like we had always lived this way, and maybe we had. Just not recently. He had brought out a tray of assorted cheeses, a small basket of bread and crackers, some hot mustard, and two small plates. He had added a bunch of green grapes from the bowl on the table and a half-dozen giant strawberries.

We served ourselves a little of this and a little of that, and I realized I was hungrier than I thought. Everything tasted fantastic and too fresh to have been sitting here for longer than a few hours.

“Do you have an invisible staff or a family of elves that makes sure you always have such a beautifully stocked refrigerator?”

He laughed. “Peachy looks after things for me when I'm not here. He's got the room right next to Lu's.”

As if he heard us call his name, a car pulled into the driveway below us and Peachy stepped out, grinning from ear to ear. “Well, I see you Negroes made it in one piece,” he said. “Welcome, Miss Lady.”

“Come on up,” Blue said. “I just opened a bottle of champagne.”

“You ain't got to ask me twice,” Peachy said, “but you gotta help me get this stuff upstairs first. I'm too old to be carryin' groceries.”

Blue laughed. “What groceries you got? I thought we were taking you out.”

Peachy grimaced and shook his head. “Too many tourists. I'm prepared to let you cook for me instead.”

That appealed to me a lot. I never wanted to leave this deck again in life.

“And what am I cooking?”

“Seafood, man, seafood!” Peachy opened the trunk to reveal a large red cooler. “What else you gonna cook at the damn beach?”

Blue set down his glass and headed for the steps. “Be right back.”

I watched them greet each other with a handshake and a hug. Peachy looked even smaller than he had at Club Zebra. Without the padded shoulders of the white dinner jacket he'd worn that night, he looked older and more vulnerable. Blue had said the death of his wife, Lillie, had been hard on Peachy. She was the true love of his life, and Peachy was a man who believed in love.

Childless by choice when Lillie said he could have babies or the road, but not both, they always traveled together. She went with him to all the holes in the wall at the beginning without complaint, and, later, when Blue stopped touring and Peachy's talent put him in demand as a stellar studio player and a valued backup musician, she was never impressed with the stars. She spent most of her time knitting backstage, unless Peachy had a featured solo, at which point she would appear in the wings where he could see her and direct his passionate playing to the object of his affections.

When she died after a long struggle with breast cancer, Peachy was inconsolable. He was better now, but her birthday was going to be a challenge. That's why we were here, and, so far, Peachy seemed to be in high spirits. He preceded Blue up the stairs, wearing a pair of old khakis and a tropical shirt that looked like it was on loan from the wardrobe department of a Cheech and Chong movie. He came straight to me, and we shared a hug that expressed our mutual pleasure in seeing each other again.

“Welcome to the island,” Peachy said as Blue carried the big cooler into the house. “Do you eat seafood?”

“As long as it's cooked,” I said. “I don't do sushi.”

Peachy wrinkled his nose. “Don't no niggas do sushi unless they been hangin' out with white folks,” he said, picking up the champagne and ushering me into the house where Blue was opening the cooler.

“Sushi?” Blue said, coming in on the end of the exchange, and raising his eyebrows in immediate disapproval.

I laughed. “I think we all agree,
no sushi!
So what are we having?”

“Depends on the chef,” Peachy said, helping himself to a glass of champagne.

Blue was unpacking the cooler. Several varieties of fresh fish, a huge bag of fresh shrimp, and enough crab legs to be against the law.

“You must have met the boat,” Blue said. “This stuff is
fresh
.”

Peachy beamed. “We got a guest, man. You know I'm gonna bring the best.”

Blue stashed all the seafood in the refrigerator and ushered us back outside. “We were heading down for a walk. Are you up for a stroll?”

Peachy shook his head. “I've done all the strolling I can take for one day. Go on. I'll stay and finish off this champagne before it goes flat.”

Blue laughed as Peachy settled into a lounge chair, put up his feet, and sighed contentedly just the way I had a few minutes ago. Maybe that was the required posttoddler human reaction to all this beauty in one place: a sigh and a smile.

“Go on and get your rest, old man. I'm going to put you to work in the kitchen as soon as we get back.”

“I stand ready to be of assistance,” Peachy said. “Who taught you how to cook in the first place?”

“My mama,” Blue said, leading me down the steps to the path that led over the dunes and down to the beach. “Now what you got to say about that?”

“She did a fine job in that, as in all things.” Peachy's laugh floated behind us.

I liked their ease with each other. They'd been friends for twenty years, and they were beyond secrets. We crested the dune, slipped off our shoes, and walked barefoot down to the water's edge. The kite fliers had disappeared, and we were the only people around. The sunlight sparkling on the waves looked like a painting, and I dipped my toes in the water. It was cool like the sandundermyfeet.

I looked at Blue standing beside me, and I hoped he really could read my mind because it was nothing but a big ball of absolute contentment. I owed him one for bringing me here. I turned back toward the water, and we just stood there in silence for a minute. Two minutes. Three. I could feel the stress flowing out of my body in waves. The pace of the city was being replaced by
beach time
, when standing stock-still in the surf is acceptable behavior. In fact, it's expected.

Anybody who isn't humbled in the presence of the ocean isn't looking. We stood there as if we were trying to burn the picture on our memories for this lifetime and the next one, and then, just when I thought it couldn't be a more perfect moment, a slender black fin came into view. Then another one.

“Sharks?” I whispered.

Blue smiled and shook his head. “Dolphins.”

Just as he said it, one of them leapt out of the water, twisted itself as if to catch the sunlight, and crashed back down into the waves. I had never seen a leaping dolphin before, and I was as delighted as the kid with the kite. I clapped my hands as another one rose up effortlessly and crashed back down. Just seeing them jumping like that made me so happy that I felt my eyes fill up with tears.

“Oh, my God!” I said.

I turned to Blue, and he was looking right at me.

“Exactly,” he said.

And then he kissed me. He didn't touch me in any other way. He just leaned over and kissed me smack on the mouth, and I kissed him back, and it felt so good and so right that I decided to stop worrying about past lives or next lives or anything except his mouth on mine and the sunshine on our faces. When he drew back to look into my eyes, I smiled and waited for him to break the spell or complete it.