Resurgence (46 page)
“And I you, Mr. Rock Star,” she whispers before they’re again compelled by the glassware-bangers to kiss, and encouraged by all to hook arms and toast each other in the awkward traditional way.
They’ve barely taken respective sips of the last of the champagne when Anthony agitates for freedom and Simon demands release. They’re allowed to join the ringleaders darting between tables and taking their chances with quick glissades across the dance floor.
Sometime when he wasn’t paying attention, the string quartet was replaced by Current Events, ultimate party band, purveyors of a distinctive brand of boogie rock, with a front man who rivals Joe Cocker when it comes to rasping out a power ballad.
The ballad they’re set to perform now is no surprise; soon after the wedding date was decided, he and Laurel chose the great Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer standard, “Come Rain or Come Shine,” as the tune for their first dance. The vocal artist getting ready to perform it is a surprise, however—a massive surprise when he’s able to believe his eyes. Instead of the Cocker clone, he’s looking at Motown’s greatest diva, the one who brought her incomparable gifts to the first independently produced Verge album, made contributions to several of their other albums, and isn’t that keen about foreign travel.
He turns to Laurel for confirmation, but she’s never met Idella Brown other than on video or sound system. Or has she? She’s got that look about her again, the semi-smirk that went with her comparing him to the Pope and subsequently calling herself a hidebound hardass.
“You?” he accuses.
“With a little help from Amanda,” she says and moves with him to the dance floor that’s been cleared of hyperactive children and the dogs who have somehow crashed the party.
“Is this what you meant earlier when you said you had something for me?”
“No, that something is for tomorrow night . . . when we’re alone.”
They could be alone now as the instrumental music expands with a steady, eminently danceable beat, and the vocal line soars with sheer virtuosity. They are alone when they softly recite to each other every promise contained in the lyrics, every condition to be overcome as a test of love.
They’re given no time to recover from this stunning rendition before they’re treated to a fabulous interpretation of “Unforgettable,” the Nat King Cole signature tune from the fifties, deemed appropriate for his dance with his mother and for Laurel’s turns around the floor with her brothers.
Idella spellbinds with a few more old standards before the regular singer reappears and mood and tempo crank up several notches. Laurel works in a request for something the children can enjoy before they’re banished, and the first few bars of “The Hokey Pokey” work better than the Pied Piper at attracting the little miscreants. Emily, Susa, and Amanda join the rush to the dance floor, where Laurel has hiked up her skirts to facilitate foot shaking.
He moves to the sidelines, the margins of the marquee, where the lads are holding forth with whiskies and cigars. He accepts a whiskey, a rain check for a cigar and continues through the crush, thinking to see where Idella’s got to and find out how she was convinced to journey to these foreign shores.
He pauses to watch Laurel and the children for a bit, spots a dense gathering on the opposite side of the tent that can only be the crowd around Idella, and heads in that direction. On the way there, he catches sight of Gemma Earle coming from the house at an uncharacteristic trot, makes nothing of it and wades into the throng mobbing Idella.
“Baby-cakes!” Idella bellows when she sees him, elbows a couple of his peers aside to clasp him to her enormous bosom, then hold him at arms length.
“Look
at you, precious boy, and look at that woman of yours. She is somethin’
else
, I’m tellin’ ya.”
She gives him a good shake before she lets go and launches into a testimonial to Laurel surpassing anything said so far. Then she details the intricacies and mechanisms of the fantastic surprise with the same level of enthusiasm.
“That sweet thang even made sure I’d have a piano on the way over and one at the hotel in London, and that little helper of hers,
that
little doll—you ain’t gonna
believe
the shit she saw to on my behalf.”
Thinking to collect Laurel and Amanda, make them witnesses to all this effusive shit on their behalf, he cranes for a glimpse of the dance floor, where everyone but Laurel is to the point of putting their whole selves in and shaking them about. A glance in another direction shows no sign of Gemma, either.
Idella is still going on about her comped trip on the QE2, swanky accommodations at London’s Savoy Hotel, the car and driver she was furnished with, when he’s forced to make a choice. He won’t hear anything more she has to say till he knows where Laurel’s disappeared to, and if Gemma Earle’s hurry had anything to do with it.
He excuses himself without explanation, cuts Idella off mid-rave. If she’s offended she doesn’t have a chance to show it because, by now, every charttopper in attendance is vying for an audience with her.
From the elevated terrace he still can’t spot Laurel, which ought to be a fairly simple thing to do given that she’s the only one here wearing a white frock with the approximate volume of a World War II parachute.
From the arcade she can’t be spotted inside the house, at least not in the rooms he passes before the kitchen comes in view. And there she is, phone pressed to her ear, Gemma by her side, a worried look on Gemma’s face.
By the time he’s through the two doors separating them—a span of time more like minutes than seconds—she’s laid the phone down and is just standing there with her back to him. Silent, motionless.
“Colin’s here, luv. He’s right behind you,” Gemma says, motioning Laurel to turn round.
She turns, says nothing for a few beats. Then it’s something nonsensical, something about having waited too long. Maybe she means she didn’t get to the phone in time; maybe she means that the caller rang off before she got there.
He knows damn well that’s not what she means; he knows before she drops like a stone onto the nearest chair what she’s talking about. He knows her father has died before she says so in so many hesitant words.
Table of Contents
Two: Midmorning, April 12, 1987
Three: Morning, April 13, 1987
Five: Afternoon, April 13, 1987
Six: Late night, April 13, 1987
Seven: Early morning, April 14, 1987
Eight: Morning, April 14, 1987
Ten: Early morning, April 17, 1987
Eleven: Late afternoon, April 17, 1987
Twelve: Evening, April 17, 1987
Thirteen: Morning, April 19, 1987
Fourteen: Early afternoon, April 26, 1987
Fifteen: Afternoon, April 30, 1987
Seventeen: Afternoon, May 7, 1987
Eighteen: Afternoon, May 10, 1987
Nineteen: Late afternoon, May 10, 1987
Twenty-One: Afternoon, May 16, 1987
Twenty-Two: Afternoon, May 18, 1987
Twenty-Three: Late afternoon, May 18, 1987
Twenty-Four: Early morning, May 20, 1987
Twenty-Five: Early evening, May 20, 1987
Twenty-Six: Evening, May 20, 1987
Twenty-Seven: Early morning, May 21, 1987
Twenty-Eight: Late morning, May 23, 1987
Twenty-Nine: Late afternoon, May 23, 1987
Thirty: Afternoon, May 23, 1987
Thirty-One: Late afternoon, May 23, 1987
Thirty-Two: Afternoon, May 27, 1987
Thirty-Three: Noon, May 27, 1987
Thirty-Four: Afternoon, May 27, 1987
Thirty-Five: Very early morning, May 28, 1987
Thirty-Six: Morning, May 28, 1987
Thirty-Seven: Late afternoon, May 29, 1987
Thirty-Eight: Morning, May 31, 1987
Thirty-Nine: Late morning, June 23, 1987
Forty-One: Evening, June 23, 1987
Forty-Two: Afternoon, July 12, 1987
Forty-Three: Evening, August 1, 1987
Forty-Four: Early morning, August 14, 1987
Forty-Five: Midmorning, August 14, 1987