Diary of a Blues Goddess (14 page)

Tuesday night, Jack came into my room, and we laid in bed and kissed slowly.

"Jack, we can't keep doing this. It's stupid. The band will pick up on it, and it's just not what I want right now."

"You wanted it the other night." He grinned.

I slapped his hand playfully. "Jack, we've been friends a long time now. Let's not fuck it up."

"All right. You win." He rolled over and slipped on his gym shorts. "What were you and Tony talking about last night?"

"Honestly?"

"No, lie to me. I really enjoy that in my relationships."

"You're an ass… We were talking about getting out of the wedding business. It's not what I want. You know it. Everyone knows it but Gary. He knows it but won't face it. Tony wants out, too."

"Tony plays with that other band some. What are they called? The Blues Exchange?"

"Yeah. But he doesn't want to be playing here and there. He wants to play the blues all the time. Sunday, he even said he wants to go back to Ireland."

"Think he can?"

"What do you mean?"

"We're always joking he's on the run."

"Yeah. I think he can. Maybe under an alias," I kidded.

"I'll see you in the morning." He pulled his T-shirt over his head. "Tomorrow night we have the corporate gig."

I groaned and threw my covers over my head.

Corporate gigs are my least favorite. I don't understand how captains of industry, suits-and-ties, executive men and women who make more money in a year than the entire band does, end up drinking so much they start thinking: a) they can actually dance; and b) they can actually hold their liquor.

Tony didn't play with us that night: he had a conflict with a scheduled limo run. So we were forced to use Dave the Rave. Dave is a surfer, despite the fact that there isn't any surf here in the Crescent City, and he punctuates the end of every sentence with "dude."

This event wasn't different from any other. Except I remembered the words to "Celebration."

That night I slept alone.

And on Thursday morning—
really
morning, an indecent nine-thirty—Casanova Jones called and woke me.

"Georgia?"

I mumbled something incoherent.

"It's Rick."

I had almost forgotten about our date. Not really, but I was steeling myself for the eventuality that he wouldn't call. You know, "Let's do lunch sometime,"

"I'll respect you in the morning,"

"Give me your number and I'll call you"—the ultimate male-bullshit lines.

"Hey… Rick."

"You didn't forget about our date, did you?"

"No? It's just early… I'm a little groggy."

"Early? It's nine-thirty. On a Thursday."

"Spoken like a suit."

"Well, what do you say to this suit taking you to Brennan's tonight?"

Brennan's was famous for its bananas Foster, my favorite dessert, and its hefty prices. He didn't have to ask me twice. "Sounds heavenly," I rasped. I needed coffee. Badly. "What time? I'll meet you there."

"No… I'll pick you up. Do you still live in that crazy house of yours? The one with all the bedrooms?"

All of New Orleans knew about our house. Besides being historic, and equipped with enough narrow bedrooms to accommodate a whole slew of prostitutes, the fact that Nan thought it was haunted had also been depicted in local glossy magazines, including one big article on the ghosts of New Orleans, which included an interview with Anne Rice. When people found out I lived in the DuBois house, the ghosts were what they asked about first. However, the idea of explaining Dominique, who was having a preshow gathering of four drag queens to celebrate Angelica's one-year anniversary as a New Orleans resident, not to mention Jack, didn't sound like good first-date material.
Let me give you the tour, Rick. Up here is the haunted bedroom. And over here we have five queens carrying on
—
and yes, beautiful as Angelica is, she is, indeed, a man
—
and by the way, this is my guitarist. Did I tell you I slept with him? And he lives here
?

"No… I'll meet you. Really. There might be a party here. It would just be better if I met you at the restaurant."

"Okay, then. I have dinner reservations for eight o'clock. Meet you in the bar at seven-thirty?"

"Sounds perfect."

"See you later, then… I'm really looking forward to it."

"Me, too."

I knew if Jack saved his money for an entire month he couldn't afford to take me to Brennan's. Between his car, music lessons he still took from his old college professor, and the fact that while we made enough to live on, split five ways it was actually a pathetic pittance of money, he and I—all of Georgia's Saints—were always broke. Hence we often played poker for candy, with a Snickers bar the pinnacle of the candy pyramid—we were too broke to play for money But we'd honed our betting system over many years, many vacations and many nights on the road. Junior Mints were worth double a Necco wafer. A Snickers bar beat a Nestle's Crunch. I smiled at the memories… then rolled over and went back to sleep.

Even after I finally woke up, I avoided Jack. When he rapped softly on my door, I pretended to be sleeping. All I could do was pray he would go out before I descended the staircase in my best dress—most decidedly not sequins!

At six o'clock, I put on my red silk dress with its mandarin collar. It's actually a hand-me-down from Nan, who bought it in Hong Kong. When I wear it, I feel exotic. It says "Fuck me"—but says it in a unique "way. You know how "when you're eighteen, you think fuck-me clothes are all about tits and how high your skirt is? The height of your stilettos? When you get a little older, you realize it's about mystery.

My hair had decided not to cooperate. It didn't say "Fuck me" as much as "I've been fucking all day long and just rolled out of bed"—which wasn't true. The humidity was cloying. The "misery index" was high. The misery index was created, I think, for New Orleans. The weather forecaster on the five o'clock news noted that with the temperature and the humidity it was really a hundred and ten degrees in the shade, therefore misery-inducing, and then some. So my hair was going to overtake my entire head. Nothing I could do short of shaving it off.

I poked my head out of my room and, seeing no sign of Jack, dashed down the hall to Nan's room. I tapped on the door.

"Nan?"

"Come in, Georgia."

I entered her room and twirled around for her.

"My Hong Kong dress!" she said admiringly. "You look stunning, dear. Stunning. That man is not going to be able to eat, looking at you."

"Can I borrow your black shawl in case the restaurant is cold?"

"Sure, honey."

The black shawl was once my great-grandmother's. I love vintage clothes, and I am always grateful my great-grandmother was close to my height, with timeless taste in fashion, just like Nan.

Nan opened an antique armoire and pulled it out, its lacy stitches looking like a delicate fine-spun spiderweb. "Here you go, Georgie."

I wrapped the shawl around my shoulders. "What do you think?"

"Smashing. Have you told Jack you're going yet?"

I looked at her and plopped down on a velvet tufted hassock.

"How did you guess?"

"Please. I'm pushing eighty years old, Georgia. You think I don't know what's going on under my very roof?"

"It just happened, Nan. We didn't plan it. But somehow it doesn't feel right… Besides, if things fall apart, it will just create problems."

"Sometimes we do that," she said, sitting down in her chair.

"What do you mean?"

"Sometimes we create problems as a way of forcing ourselves out of our own inertia. If things with the band become complicated, you might make some different decisions."

"So what are you saying? That I'm sabotaging the band?"

"No. That you have a destiny you need to fulfill. As my yogi once said to me, 'We create the ripples on our own pond.'"

"You know, Nan—" I stood up "—I adore you, but there are times I wish you were just a polite grandma who drank tea and ate little biscotti and handed me a quarter each time you saw me. Instead of being so wise it's scary."

"Well, come give your polite old grandmother a kiss, and I'll give you a quarter."

I laughed and bent over and kissed her cheek and went back down the hall to my room. I put a dab of Chanel No. 5 on each wrist and in the hollow of my neck. And then for good measure on the back of each knee. I slipped on my best pair of black heels and put on a pearl choker. Placing a few things into a small evening bag, I turned off the light to my room and crept downstairs. Still no sign of Jack.

The queens were in the living room. I walked in and spread my arms wide. "Well, ladies?"

Dominique stood up, "Will you look at you, Miss Sequins. Decked out in… dare I say, vintage?"

"Yes." I twirled.

"On the fuckable scale of one to ten, you're a ten, doll baby. I won't expect you home until after breakfast," she laughed. Dominique cracks herself up. She swept a hand around the room. "You do know the ladies—Angelica, Lady Brett, Monica and Desiree, right?"

I smiled at the ladies, and mused, as I always do, why there are never any drag queens with names like Mary and Doris. Only glamour names. They reinvent themselves completely, and I love them for it.

Lady Brett was in her tiara and a Union Jack tank top with a miniskirt. Actually, with the queens, mystery
isn't
what it's about. They're still concerned with tits and how high their skirts are cut, the height of their stilettos. Lady Brett loves all things British and wears "God Save the Queen" T-shirts and pins. She has a British accent, though Dominique says she was born in New Jersey.

"Lady Brett, love the tiara."

"Isn't it just ducky?"

"Ignore Lady Brit here. She just rented
Emma
with the uber-fake-Brit, Gwyneth Paltrow. She's feeling
very
aristocratic today," Desiree joked. Desiree seems to believe in the why-have-a-36C-chest-when-you-can-have-42DD's theory. I'm not quite sure how she pulls it off, but she does. It's her look.

"Shut up before I say, 'Off with your head,'" Lady Brett commanded.

"Wasn't that a Marie Antoinette thing?" Monica asked. She channels Jacqueline Kennedy of the Camelot era.

"No," I laughed. "She said 'Let them eat cake.' I believe 'Off with your head' is the Queen of Hearts in
Alice in Wonderland
."

"Tell me
that's
not some male's dick fantasy… going down into a black hole," Monica said derisively.

"It was a rabbit hole," I said.

"Still a hole." Desiree nodded.

"Don't pay any attention to these queens. Where are you off to, Georgie?" Angelica asked me. She is easily the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. She wears a honey-colored wig. She's part Cuban, and her skin color is creamy, her makeup always perfect. But her bone structure is exquisite. She really looks like a high-born aristocratic beauty. Her nose, her cheekbones. I find myself unconsciously staring at her every time she comes over.

"I have a date."

"With the love of her life," Dominique chimed in.

"He's not. He's an old friend."

"Don't let her tell you this bullshit, Angelica. This girl
loves
him."

"Does she now?" Jack's voice came from the doorway.

Dominique looked first at him, then at me in panic.

"Ladies," she squealed, her voice suddenly an octave higher. "It's time for us to
go
."