Diary of a Blues Goddess (24 page)

I felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me, like when Andy Franklin punched me in the stomach in third grade. I missed a line in my song, recovered and finished. The crowd applauded. I walked over to Gary and told him I needed to take a break.

"What? You've only done one song."

"Rick is here with another woman."

"Shit. Georgie… don't make a scene. I'm begging you."

"I won't. But I can't sing right now." A lump rose in my throat—more than a lump, it felt like a stone the size of a lemon. "I need to pull myself together. You sing a couple of tunes, and I'll be back as soon as can."

Gary, with all his heart, I'm sure, wanted to yell at me. Beads of sweat gathered on his forehead. But then I watched sympathy slide down his face, first misting into his eyes, then softening his mouth.

"Okay, Georgia. And if you need one of us to punch his lights out, ask Tony. He's beaten the rest of us in arm wrestling."

I walked off and out of the lights, and made my way to where I'd last seen Rick. He must have hustled the lovely lady to one of the bars. I walked from one, to the other, as Gary sang "New York, New York." It was supposed to be a very "Liza Minnelli" number—the groom was a Manhattanite. But now it was a very Frank Sinatra version with a male singer, which I guessed they wouldn't mind, since they had chosen OF Blue Eyes for their first song.

I finally caught sight of Ms. Versace, as she towered above the crowd in superslim, model-like fashion, in a plunging neckline showing off perfectly balanced, perfectly tight-globed breasts. The fucking bastard had rhapsodized poetic about my real ones, but maybe he actually liked breasts that didn't fall slightly to the side when you lay flat on your back. Perhaps he wanted them to sit up there, perched like hard melons.

My eyes caught his. There was no hiding now.

"Hello, Rick," I said evenly, determined not to cry. "Who's this?"

"Carrie." She smiled and held on to his arm tighter.

She leaned her head to one side and gave a toss of her mane, a very practiced move.

"Hi, Carrie… You know, I'm an old friend of Rick's from high school. My name's Georgia."

"Hi, Georgia." She smiled but didn't extend her hand.

"I wonder, how long have you and Rick been dating?"

She gazed lovingly at Rick. "
Richard
and I have been dating for a while now. My father does a lot of legal work with Richard."

"Richard, is it? Let me guess. Is your father Hiram Crawford?"

"How did you know?"

"Lucky guess. I've seen your dad. You look a lot like him."

She giggled. "People usually say I look like my mom."

"Georgia," Rick whispered, face very pale, "let me walk you back to the stage. I want to talk to you about something."

"What could we ever have to talk about? Could it be about how when we FUCKED, when was the last time? Oh… Thursday night… could it be you didn't really mean all the things you said?"

Carrie's mouth opened in shock, revealing perfectly capped, superwhite teeth. Her lower lip trembled.

"Georgia, please lower your voice. Don't make a scene." He gripped my elbow. "I can explain."

"Don't bother." I yanked my elbow away. "And you know, I've got to go sing for the happy couple.
God, I give up
. Who can believe in love anymore, you know? Toss the rice, then scoop it up and recycle it because chances are you'll need it again at their second weddings. Rick… keep the fuck away from me. Carrie… good fuckin' luck, honey."

I made my way through the crowd of wedding revelers back to my band. They all looked at me with concern. Jack mouthed, "Are you okay?" I shook my head. No, I wasn't, but I had to go on.

I sang love songs when I wanted to sing the blues.

I sang "Crazy for You," by Madonna. "All the Way" (the Celine Dion song), "Can't Help Falling in Love," (Elvis!) and "Fly Me to the Moon" (Frank Sinatra again). I sang them though I felt as if I wanted to curl into a ball onstage.

At our break, the four guys clustered around me. I'd lost sight of Rick in the crowd. Either he took Carrie home, or he'd sweet-talked her into staying, but they were steering clear of my line of sight, and most especially the dance floor.

"Georgie?" Mike spoke first. Mike never spoke first. Of course, Mike the Cynic would likely tell me I was an idiot. I braced myself.

"Go ahead, Mike. Let me have it. I was a jerk. I fell for him hook, line and sinker. Go ahead. Tell me."

"Nah. We just want you to know we nominated Tony to deck him in the parking lot."

"That's sweet, guys, but."

"We're not kidding. No one hurts our Georgia and gets away with it," Gary said.

Jack made a move to open his mouth.

"If you do the I-told-you-so-routine, I'll kill you, Jack."

"No. Just say the word, and he's history."

"What are you, the wedding-band mafia?"

They laughed and gathered around me, each rubbing my back or kissing my cheek.

"He's not worth it, lass," Tony said. "You're too good for him." His arm was around my waist. Tony was built solid as a rock. I leaned into him for strength, but at this outpouring of affection, I fell apart. Gary went over to a waiter and got me a linen napkin to blow my nose in.

Jack joked, "They're not gonna want that napkin back now, you know."

"Shut up… Damn, I can't
believe
it… " I cried. "I thought he really loved me. It was fast, but we had a connection. I thought. What an idiot I am. I thought he cared about me. And did you
see
her?"

Tony patted my arm with his free hand. "She wasn't anything great, Georgie."

I looked at him and rolled my tear-filled eyes. "She is everything I am not. Blond. Tall. Stick-thin . With breasts that stay put when she lies down."

"Breasts like those are overrated, Georgia," Mike offered.

They all nodded in agreement.

"I can't believe you guys are comforting me over implants." I tried to smile.

"Let's all take a walk," Gary suggested. It looked as though we were having a love-in by the stage.

The five of us went outside to the sidewalk, and I inhaled deeply. "Was I blind? What is it about me? What is it that sends me these
losers
? Can one of you tell me that?"

The four of them stared at me blankly.

"Where is Dominique when I need her? She would know the answer to that." I smiled wanly, and they seemed relieved that I wasn't going entirely off the deep end. We did have a wedding to play, and I tried to make myself laugh a little. Tony dashed down the street and around the corner and returned with a box of Junior Mints.

"I had this in the van."

"Thanks." I took the box from him and opened it. Chocolate can heal the human heart, so I ate my chocolate-and-mint medicine and declared myself together enough to sing "When a Man Loves a Woman" at the beginning of the next set.

En masse, we marched back to the courtyard to begin playing. Tony held my hand. I looked at him from the side. He kept clenching and unclenching his jaw. A small vein on the side of his head bulged.

"I'll be okay," I whispered.

"The bloody fookin' bastard," he said, with the funny way he pronounced "fucking." "I'll bloody well kill him."

I squeezed his hand and moved up on the bandstand. With my heart limping along, I sang the song with a rich, bluesy voice. If Red had been there, he would have said, "You got it, sugar." I was in that place, that place where my mother and father took up a room in my heart. If the human heart is a mansion with many rooms, I was in their room, the room that belonged to an orphan girl. An orphan with a shattered heart. I was shocked, when I was finished, to see people giving me an impromptu standing ovation—at a wedding.

True, indeed—heartbreak is good for a blues singer. As torn apart as I was, I had found that spot. That blues goddess spot. Maybe that was what my aunt Irene had been trying to tell me in my dream. I had the same lonely heart she did.

After the wedding, at which Rick was never spotted again, we helped Gary and Mike pack up Gary's old van. As we packed it up, Tony pulled out a suitcase from the back.

"What's that?"

"Didn't Nan tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"I dropped by to see her today. They raised my rent two weeks ago, and I just can't afford it. That and I can't take the damn palmetto bugs in that place. God, they're like my bloody roommates, Georgie."

I got the heebie-jeebies. Palmetto bugs are like New Orleans cockroaches. Some of them are big enough to saddle up and take for a ride. I had never even seen where Tony lived. Never even heard him mention the neighborhood. And I was shocked that he'd want to move in to the Heartbreak Hotel. The Heartbreak is long on love but short on privacy. There's no hiding anything from anyone.

"You're moving in?"

"Until I figure something else out. I insisted on paying her the same rent as my old place."

"She must have refused."

"She did. So we made a deal. I'm going to tear up her old garden in the courtyard and put in one that'll look like a regular English garden. And I'm even going to have a butterfly garden in one corner. She can sit out there and watch them."

"Tony?"

"Yeah, Georgia?"

"You are a man of mystery."

"I am. But I'm a bloody good gardener." He grinned in the darkness of the street. I was grateful he was there.

We loaded Tony's bass in the back of Jack's car, and then put his suitcase in the trunk. Gary and Mike came over and kissed me. Mike actually pressed his lips to my cheek. Underneath that gruff exterior, he was an old softie. Albeit an inebriated one. I smelled Wild Turkey on his breath.

"Is Sunday Saints still on… in light of the turn of your romantic fortunes?" Gary asked.

"Yes. If I canceled Sunday Saints for every broken heart I suffered, we'd never have them. I'll see you guys tomorrow." I leaned down to kiss Gary and up on my tiptoes to kiss Mike. "Thanks. I really mean it."

I climbed into Jack's car, and he and I crossed ourselves out of habit as he started the engine. Tony followed our lead, and we pulled out from the curb and headed home, I nestled between them. Jack kept patting my knee, and Tony held my hand in a show of solidarity. We drove through the city and back to the Heartbreak. As we pulled up, we saw Rick sitting on the front steps, his head in his hands.