Diary of a Blues Goddess (30 page)

Hours later, as the summer sun started to fall lower in the sky, everyone arrived for Sunday Saints. I had the strange and foreign task of introducing my father to my friends. Each time I said, "This is my father," and he extended his hand to someone, I felt as if I were dreaming. Even the word
Father
, or
Dad
, stuck in my throat. It was an unknown feeling to use that word. Sort of like the first time I used the word
fuck
in order to feel grownup. At first, it tripped over my tongue, sending a thrill through me. After a while, I used it liberally, and it wasn't so different from using any other word.

After introducing my father all around, to which everyone tried to pretend not to be shocked—except for Dominique, who squealed and hugged him. and started crying—I told everyone to be quiet and that their presence was requested at the Mudslide in four weeks for my debut as a blues goddess—at least I hoped that would be how I sang. Jack looked genuinely pleased for me. Even Gary, I think, was coming to some sort of grudging acceptance that sequins and ABBA were not my destiny.

Red had a brainstorm.

"Teddy… don't you play the bass?"

My father, who seemed rather shy suddenly thrust in with our boisterous group, looked happy to be discussing music. "Sure do." He nodded.

"Well, then, why don't you play bass, Mike the drums, and I'll tickle the ivories and we'll be Georgia's trio?"

My father, sitting next to me as Nan ladled out gumbo into bowls, looked sidelong at me. "That's up to Georgia. Tony's been playing the bass with her for much longer."

"That's okay," I said icily. "I'd love for you to play with me, Dad."

I didn't even look down the table to see Tony's reaction.

That night, late, after settling my father into yet another spare bedroom, I knocked gently on Tony's door.

"Its open."

I walked into his bedroom. He was standing looking out over the garden.

"I was waiting for you to come yell at me," he said without turning. "Before you start in, understand I thought it was a good idea at the time."

"You had no right to call him."

"I didn't mean to upset you, Georgia Ray. I didn't even know if he would come… I didn't want to get your hopes up." He turned to face me.

"What were you thinking? How could you do that without even asking me? Without even telling me you
knew
he was alive? I barely know him, Tony."

"I… wanted to do something to show you I cared. And when I saw his picture, I thought that I could do something really great. I don't have a fancy law practice like your last boyfriend, Georgia. I had one thing special I could give you that no one else could."

"I don't understand… "

"You do. You just don't want to. When I called your father, Georgia, he was so ready to come here. So wanting to be a part of your life… just didn't know how to open the door and walk through it."

"You still had no right."

"I know." He turned his back to me.

"Typical, Tony. You're done talking so that's it. I'm left talking into nothingness." I left his room, trembling as I shut the door.

We threw ourselves into rehearsing. My father and I spent hours talking in between rehearsals and at moments when we found ourselves alone. He was a stranger to me. He was also a wonderful listener. And he wanted to hear about every little detail of my life from the moment he left.

I talked to him about my mother. About how I was certain I had hurt her before she died. I told him about the men in my life right up to Casanova Jones.

In turn, I listened to him tell me about how he'd found sobriety, about his AA friends, and about the various jazz gigs he'd had in New York. Turns out as a sober musician, he'd discovered even more layers to his own talent. Going back further in his memories, he told me about his courtship of my mother. It was as if my life had been colored in shades of gray but now it was getting threads of color through it.

But what I liked best were evenings when, after rehearsing, he and I would listen to the old records I'd kept.

"My God," he said when he first saw them. "I just assumed someone would have put them in an attic somewhere and they'd have gotten rained on or something. New Orleans heat woulda melted 'em."

He pulled out a Kid Ory record, The Kid played "tailgate"-style jazz—where the trombone takes an important role in the music. Kid is true New Orleans jazz, and my dad loved him.

"Look at this, my Kid Ory." He looked over at me. "Can we play it?"

"Hell yeah," I said and put it on. The ebullient music filled my room, and my father grabbed me and did a silly-two-step.

Never one to miss a party, however small, Dominique came flying into my room—without knocking, champagne bottle in hand—and joined us. My father stuck to his Canada Dry ginger ale, which was now his "drink of choice," he told me.

I'd spent my whole life longing for this moment, I thought, looking around. All right… I hadn't
exactly
pictured a drag queen in the mix. But the feeling of family, of being with my father, of knowing being a blues goddess was within my grasp, there, like a distant melody. Everything was perfect.

Okay, not perfect. Tony and I avoided each other. We didn't even speak when we played together. I was aware of a greater vacuum than I had thought. No one left me Junior Mints at the microphone. Or sang me Irish drinking songs. Or found me rare blues records and told me stories about the Delta blues that even I didn't know. Most of all, there was no quiet listener who patiently heard all my fears and worries. All those Sundays we had sat and talked. The days we had listened to the rain, the blues playing on the turntable.

Still, I felt very ready to finally step into the spotlight on my own. So if being a blues goddess was my destiny, why on earth—or heaven—was Sadie so angry? For as soon as my father arrived, she was slamming doors like a New Orleans hurricane coming in off the gulf.

"Everyone—" Nan said, smiling as she escorted a tall, elegant woman with dark hair peeking from beneath a turban, and black eyes, into the dining room "—this is Madame Ravel. She's going to conduct the seance."

After three sleepless nights of door-slamming and footsteps, Nan had definitely had enough. It was either find a priest who would clean the spirit out of our house (and we discovered that they weren't too keen on messing with the "other side"—in fact, I think both priests we called thought we were crazy) or find a voodoo priestess. In New Orleans, trust me, they're plentiful.

Nan contacted her old friend, Madame Ravel. They had known each other for years, and Madame Ravel had been to a couple of our Mardi Gras parties. She spoke with a faint French accent. I always assumed her to be a big fake, but Nan believed she could speak to the dead.

Madame Ravel wore a turquoise turban, big earrings, a black sleeveless turtleneck and a long, flowing black skirt. Her eye makeup was dramatic—big smoky eyes. I looked at Dominique, who seemed enchanted. I guessed she would be copying this look as soon as possible. Basically, Madame Ravel looked like a walking, talking ad for Psychics-R-Us.

Madame Ravel swept into the room with a smile and took a seat at the head of the table. Seated around, their faces flickering in the candlelight, were Dominique (who was wearing, not one, not two, not three, but FOUR large crucifixes around her neck from her "Madonna" period; she wasn't taking any chances, she told me), Tony (no crucifix, but bemused by the entire thing, though now admitting the slamming doors were a bit "peculiar"—and still avoiding looking at me), Jack (dying to do a seance since he moved in), my father (opinion on Sadie unknown; he found it all "odd" but after all he'd seen in life, odd didn't surprise him anymore); Nan; Angelica (dressed in a Psychics-R-Us outfit to rival Madame Ravel's); and Maggie (who, after all the years she'd known me, besides being into wearing black and "loving" psychic stuff, was no way missing a real seance).

Madame Ravel asked us all to hold hands. Jack sat next to Maggie, and they seemed to be over their awkwardness. He took her hand immediately. I sat between Tony and my father. This was accidental. Dominique had insisted at the last minute on changing her seat because she wanted to hold Nan's hand on one side and Tony's on the other. She was chicken.

"Now," Madame Ravel spoke, "if anyone here is a nonbeliever, they need to leave their doubts out of the room. They need to be fully present. I will call the spirit into the room, and the spirit will speak to me, we hope. We all need to concentrate our energies toward welcoming the spirit. We don't need to be afraid." She looked at Dominique. "This seems, from what Myra tells me, to be a mischievous spirit, not a malevolent one."

Dominique looked up at the ceiling. "You hear that?" she asked, speaking to Sadie. "We want friendly ghosts here."

"Yeah," Maggie muttered. "Casper."

Madame Ravel stared icily at Maggie and then took a deep breath.

"Concentrate on the candle flames, and I will call up the spirit."

Needing a good night's sleep, I figured I had nothing to lose. I stared into the candle flame and held tight to my dad and Tony—despite my lingering anger.

"We invite the spirit of this house to come forward and speak. We invite her to this room with us. Reveal to us whatever it is you wish to say."

I sat and wondered just how it was Sadie would communicate. I mean, what? Would she just start talking? Would we see an apparition? Or would she be pissed off that we were having a seance and simply slam a door.

Instead… she blew out a candle.

Dominique gasped. "Who did that? If one of you blew that out, I'm going to kill you. Stop freaking me out."

I looked around. No one had done it. I was certain I had felt a burst of cold air, like a rare cool breeze in New Orleans, sweep over me and blow out the candle. I felt goose bumps on my arms.

"If that is our spirit, give us another sign," Madame Ravel intoned.

Another breeze, another candle.

I've seen enough scary movies in my life to know a real ghost when I feel one. This was the real deal. And though I'd lived in a haunted house for most of my life, I was frightened, and held still tighter to Tony and my dad. Looking around the table, I could see that all non-believers had tossed out their doubt. We were all spooked.