Ciji Ware (58 page)

Daphne glanced briefly at Maddy, whose startled expression registered the same surprise that she was feeling. “Yes, of course,” she said, nodding curtly in the direction of Sim’s former wife. Francesca looked excessively chic in an ecru linen pantsuit and pale pink, scoop-necked tee. Daphne shifted her gaze to Jack, who was by now only a few feet away. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for Sim,” Jack said brusquely, as if she were an unhelpful secretary. “Did he beat us down here from Jackson?”

“Nope. Not yet,” Daphne replied, masking her surprise at his question.

“You’re ’sposed to meet him again tonight, right?” he asked his companion.

Daphne stared at the unwelcome intruders, dumbfounded by this exchange.

“That was the plan,” Francesca agreed, adding, “Who should I give Sim’s photographs to?” Her gaze drifted from Jack to Bailey to Maddy and finally settled on Daphne.

Daphne stretched out her hand to receive the large manila envelope. She didn’t know who she was furious with most—Sim or his ex-wife.

Francesca smiled faintly, and asked, “How’s the benefit going to be tonight?” as if their conversation was the most normal thing in the world.

Daphne flashed on an image of the socially connected Ms. Hayes slumming in the wings of the San Francisco Symphony during rehearsals. “I expect this will seem pretty down-home if you’re not from Natchez.”

Bailey Gibbs spoke up harshly, “We have a sellout house, so we’ll have money to hire our
own
fancy lawyers to support our cause.”

A cause that Jack Ebert and Francesca Hayes were working night and day to thwart, Daphne thought, her hackles rising. What were these two
doing
here? she thought angrily. Why was Sim planning a rendezvous with his ex-wife
tonight
, of all times? And what did Jack mean that Sim was supposed to meet Francesca “again”?

Daphne pushed away ugly thoughts about “consorting with the enemy” and abruptly excused herself while Maddy bustled about, herding her students off to the wings to prepare for one last run-through.

“See you tonight and good luck,” Francesca called after her. The barbershop quartet began warbling in the back of the hall.

Amazed by the woman’s gall, Daphne slowly turned around at the bottom of the steps that led backstage and stared at Jack and his hired gun.

“There aren’t any more tickets,” she repeated in as neutral a tone as she could muster. “Like Doctor Bailey says, we’re completely sold out.”

“Oh, we’ve got tickets,” Francesca informed her cheerfully, patting her Chanel handbag with interlocking brass
C
’s on its leather flap. “Sim gave them to us. We wouldn’t miss it, would we, Jack?”

Jack flashed Daphne a grin, and said, “Not in a New York minute.”

***

Backstage, Althea whispered to Daphne and Maddy. “Man oh man, we’re likely to
die
of adorableness here tonight.”

Daphne forced a smile, mentally willing the band of harpists making up the Angel Choir to conclude “When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano”—all at the same time, all on the same note. The bevy of six-to-twelve-year-olds were attired in identical flowing, white dimity dresses with wide, pink satin bows at their waists. Maddy had also fastened pink ribbons in their identical Alice-in-Wonderland hairdos, producing, in fact, a miniature angelic host the likes of which even Natchez had never seen.

The Angels had already marched on stage when Daphne gazed through a spy hole in the curtain in time to see Sim Hopkins slip into his seat next to Bailey in the fourth row. Even her
mother
had shown up in time for King’s wedding, she thought, hurt and bewildered by the events of the last few hours. She pushed such unhappy comparisons out of her mind and did her best to focus on the business at hand.

Staring past the curtains that masked the wings, Daphne’s ire went up another notch at the sight of Maddy’s surgical scar, just visible an inch below the nape of her neck. Hadn’t Sim drawn them all into this enterprise as partners in the effort to make people aware that the health of the Baileys and Madelines of this world was at risk just as much as that of the birds? Why, then, had he taken a powder all week?

“Can you
believe
Sim?” Daphne demanded in a hoarse whisper. “Disappears for three days, lets his ex-wife deliver the photographs being auctioned off to fight
our
side of this battle, and then arrives just as the curtain is going up?”

Maddy and Althea exchanged glances, their gazes troubled. “Bailey was upset, too,” Maddy murmured comfortingly. “Sim must have an explanation.”

“For going AWOL? Whatever excuse he comes up with, I’ll bet it’s going to sound
really
old,” she retorted.

Just then, Kendra and Jeanette McGee sauntered into the wings, decked out in their black leather miniskirts and chain metal bustiers.

“Do you think the Aphrodites will offer the audience a big enough change of pace?” Kendra joked under her breath, pointing at the angelic-looking children on stage. The jazz musicians snorted with suppressed laughter, while Maddy shot them all a warning look to be quiet.

The Angel Choir, seated in a crescent arrangement of harps, next swung into a well-loved excerpt from
Swan
Lake.
The pint-size musicians concluded their part of the program to wildly enthusiastic applause that nearly matched the audience’s response to the next act, the For the Birds Chamber Orchestra, led brilliantly by Amadora Bendhar.

For the benefit concert, the flamboyant conductor had donned an electric blue sari with gold embroidery that winked and glinted under the lights. Following a rousing rendition of a movement from
The
Firebird
Suite
, the twenty-five musicians, including Daphne, segued into a sprightly medley of crowd-pleasing pop tunes that included “Yellow Bird,” “Zippity Do Da,” and “When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin’ Along.”

Next, Miss Mary Jo McGee’s kindergarten brought down the house as expected with a boisterous version of “The Tweety Bird Song.”

“I tawt I taw a puddy tat! I
did
, I taw a puddy tat!”
they sang.

At intermission, some audience members drifted outside the auditorium for a breath of air. Others stood in line to bid on auction items or to purchase souvenir T-shirts that sported a picture Sim had shot of chickadees perched on the miniature veranda of a birdhouse replica of Monmouth Plantation House.

During the interval, Daphne had changed from her flowing black tea gown into her seductive Aphrodite uniform. She adjusted her skintight bustier for the tenth time, critically eyed her black leather miniskirt and sheer silk hose, and peered through the discreet slit in the red velvet curtain at the half-empty hall. She could just make out the fourth row where Bailey Gibbs, Liz and Otis Keating, and Sim lounged, chatting among themselves. Bailey smiled broadly at friends and well-wishers who were making their way outside for a smoke. Sim, on the other hand, looked subdued.

Now, as Daphne gazed at the auditorium from her hiding place, she was taken aback to see Francesca saunter down the aisle, lean over several seats, and whisper something in Sim’s ear, to which he nodded agreement. As Daphne watched Sim listen intently to his former spouse, she was assaulted by the shocking notion that the most important man in her life might well be more involved with his ex-wife than he’d let on.

Bewildered, she watched Sim smile faintly at Francesca and then shrug. To Daphne, their exchange appeared so easygoing… so familiar… so
intimate
.

“Stop peeking at that man of yours and collect your wits, girl,” Althea admonished, “’cause the audience is comin’ back to their seats.”

The acts following intermission succeeded each other in a blur. Daphne was startled when Althea turned to her other fellow musicians and croaked “Standby, y’all! Are y’ready to rock ’n’
roll
?”

No!
Daphne wanted to scream. Added to her preperformance jitters was a surge of anger over the scene she had just witnessed between Francesca and Sim.

What
the
hell
is
going
on
here?
her mind shrieked as she strode on stage. Her gaze swept from a side view of Maddy in the wings to Bailey sitting in the audience—two living examples of why she’d given her all to tonight’s effort. If she could have flung her stiletto-heeled shoe squarely between Sim’s eyes, she would have. Instead, she took her place, along with the other Aphrodites, behind an opaque curtain that would become transparent as the footlights and floodlights gradually kicked up to full strength. She lightly fingered a single harp string to double-check that the microphone inside her instrument’s hollow soundboard was turned on. Summoning every ounce of will, she forced herself to plaster a smile on her face and concentrate on the performance at hand. In an act of mental jujitsu, she pushed aside all other thoughts except for the opening bars of their first number. Later she would deal with the import of Sim and Francesca’s little tête-à-tête. Right now, it was show time. And as she’d been taught since childhood, she inhaled a deep, cleansing breath, and waited for Althea’s count.

When the lights came up on the Aphrodites wailing a double-time version of “Bye, Bye Blackbird,” members of the audience began to clap in time, and some spontaneously jumped up from their seats and swayed to the music. The moment the scrim curtain was fully raised, the eye-popping quintet prompted an avalanche of hoots and hollers from all corners of the hall. The crowd’s first glimpse of the scantily clad all-female band brought many patrons to their feet, and soon a few enthusiasts began dancing in the aisles. Even the most sedate among the audience were either tapping their toes or clapping their hands over their heads in time to the rollicking tune.

Another cheer went up when the group launched into “Rockin’ Robin,” their enthusiasm topped only by the Aphrodites’ rendition of “Lullaby of Birdland.” By the end of the set, Daphne had succeeded in blocking all thoughts of Jack Ebert, Francesca Hayes—and even Sim. However when the spotlight fell on her during a droll jazz rendition of “Tit Willow” from the operetta
The
Mikado
, her gaze was inexorably drawn to Jack and Francesca, heads close together, conferring. Fortunately, Daphne quickly regained her concentration as she and the band began to play the first sweet, swelling strains of “The Wind Beneath My Wings.” Soon, the audience, as one, rose to its feet. Tears welled in her eyes when everyone began to sway in time to the music. Some even sang along with the band, their voices raised in an anthem to courage and love.

When Daphne glanced down at the fourth row, Dr. Bailey Gibbs was holding tightly onto Liz Keating’s right arm, beaming, as moisture bathed his cheeks. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Maddy smiling in the wings through joyful tears. When the last notes died, the Aphrodites left the stage waving and clapping back at the audience. It took nearly four minutes before the wolf whistles subsided. Meanwhile, two seats in the middle orchestra section that had belonged to Jack Ebert and Francesca Hayes were conspicuously empty.

Backstage, an army of well-wishers engulfed the Aphrodites, along with the rest of the performers. By the time Daphne reached her dressing room, her arms were laden with bouquets of flowers. Banks of blooms—including one from Sim—magically had appeared on the table littered with makeup and boxes of facial tissues.

Bailey and Maddy were among the first to burst into the room, giving Daphne bear hugs in quick succession. It was more than a half hour before she was able to shut the door and trade her miniskirt and bustier for a pair of sweatpants and a terry cloth shirt. She cleaned her face of the heavy stage makeup, pulled her blond hair into a ponytail, and returned to the deserted stage to pack up her harp. Sim may have remembered to send her flowers, she thought, angrily flipping open the catches on her hard-shell case, but he sure as hell forgot to come backstage to congratulate her! Her dark musings were interrupted by Althea heading out the stage door.

“I’ll see you back at the house, okay?” Althea called, hoisting a duffel bag onto her shoulder. Maddy had agreed to host a modest cast party for performers and the stage crew at her place, and everyone appeared headed in that direction.

Just then, Kendra, Jeanette, and Sunny appeared in the wings. “Us, too,” Kendra declared. “But remember, you and Sim gotta behave yourselves tonight,” she teased. “Don’t y’all forget, we’ve gotta be at the Under-the-Hill Saloon tomorrow night by eight p.m., sharp. The
Delta
Queen
docks in the afternoon and they expect a big crowd.”

Afraid to speak, Daphne merely nodded farewell, feeling more morose by the minute. Silently, she continued with her customary routine of safely stowing her instrument into its traveling case.