Ciji Ware (9 page)

Okay. So King had spotted him. Jack figured he’d just been officially
un
invited to the reception.

So what? He’d already done what he came here to do.

With a renewed sense of purpose, Jack left the cover of the church pillar and slipped into a pew toward the back of the church. Now he was in the perfect spot to see the disaster unfold before his very eyes.

***

Out of the corner of her eye, Daphne spotted the slender, sandy-haired latecomer sliding into a seat toward the rear of the sanctuary. She was halfway through a dramatic glissando when her lingers nearly froze and her brain finally registered that she was staring, for the second time in as many days, at the person she prayed she would never see again as long as she lived.

Jack? Jack’s here? At King’s wedding?

Just at that moment, a dissonant
twang
resounded loudly. One of the higher-register strings near the harp’s graceful harmonic curve painfully lashed her wrist.

“Ow!” she exclaimed under her breath, startled by its sting. She was dismayed to see that a second string had just snapped and was dangling, useless, above the soundboard. The wedding guests sitting closest to her shifted uneasily in their pews.

As her fingers inexorably swept again in a repeat
glissando
, a third string emitted a startling, popping sound. Before she knew it, the last and shortest string on the instrument gave way with a loud ping the instant she touched it.

Four
broken strings?

Never, in her twenty years of playing the harp, had she ever broken
four
strings! She pulled her hands away from the instrument as if it would scorch her fingers and allowed the organist to carry on playing the melody.

The organist’s back was to the congregation and Daphne doubted that the musician’s rearview mirror, which offered a reverse view of the sanctuary, would take in what had just transpired. Frantically, Daphne wondered what she would do when her solo began.

By this time, her palms were sweating and her heart had begun to pound. She silently called upon every ounce of training and experience she possessed. The face of her teacher at Juilliard, Eleanor Beale, swam before her mind’s eye.

“Change keys!” a voice barked in her head. “If you possibly can, whenever you break a string, just
change
keys
and keep playing!”

With sudden inspiration, she raised her right hand, formed a C with her thumb and forefinger, and prayed that the organist would see her discreet sign in his small, rearview mirror. Luckily, he did, for he emphatically nodded his balding pate in a show of understanding. At the next opportunity, Mr. Johns remained silent and allowed Daphne to begin her solo, subtly shifting into the key of C in a maneuver calculated to avoid the missing strings and a host of others that might snap at any moment in the path of the key of G. Fortunately, there was only one remaining glissando during which her hands would be forced to play adjacent to the four empty spaces.

I
will
get
through
this
, she lectured herself fiercely.
Somehow, I will do this for King and Corlis. Screw Jack Ebert!

For she knew, instantly, that her former fiancé was the cause of this musical near-catastrophe. Defiantly, she glared in the direction of her nemesis seated at the back of the church. While Daphne gingerly plucked her harp strings, the mortician’s son, unwilling heir to the Ebert-Petrella chain of funeral homes, stared at her with unwavering hostility.

He
can’t believe I’m pulling this off
, she thought, willing her hands to find their way to the end of the music.

Ignoring him now, Daphne braced for the final trill, her callused thumbs skimming over the thicker bass strings toward the short, thin ones near her right shoulder. She pulled up an octave short of the broken strings, making a reasonable finish to the familiar piece while trying not to wince when another filament suddenly gave way.

The remainder of the wedding ceremony whirled past in a complete blur. Somewhere between the “I do’s” and the exchange of rings, Jack Ebert slipped out of the church. If it hadn’t been for the five damaged harp strings, Daphne might have thought she’d hallucinated the entire scene—not unlike her bizarre encounters with the handsome morphing photographer at Monmouth and the auto-playing harp in Cousin Maddy’s parlor.

Her mind reeled with other questions. Had Jack and her mother driven up to Natchez together—even though King had specifically asked Antoinette not to mention the wedding to any of the Eberts or Petrellas? Surely she wouldn’t condone his plan to damage her harp?

Such speculation was fruitless, she thought, attempting to regain her composure. The only thing that mattered was the cold, hard fact that Jack Ebert had reappeared in Natchez—clearly with mischief in mind. He’d popped through that church door…

Like
a
jack-in-the box
…

Daphne stared with unseeing eyes at the empty seat in the back pew as the bride and groom turned to face each other, both smiling joyfully. Her brooding reverie was brought to an abrupt halt by the sight of King reaching for Corlis and kissing her lingeringly on the mouth. Marge McCullough, her turban slightly askew, looked on benevolently as moisture rimmed her eyes. The minister was beaming as he pronounced the couple husband and wife. Daphne automatically swung into the age-old recessional music, allowing the mellow sounds of the organ to fill in for her missing harp strings.

She was startled to feel a flood of tears course down her cheeks. Helpless to wipe them away as she played the harp, she hastily lowered her eyes. A sudden recollection of the engaging young man with two cameras hung around his neck filled her with poignant, piercing regret.

Daphne watched her mother rise from the front pew and grandly lead the wedding guests out of the church in the wake of the bride and groom without the slightest glance in her daughter’s direction. First Presbyterian’s sanctuary slowly emptied. With a weary sigh, Daphne retreated to a side room and fetched her harp’s carrying case. She wondered morosely if any attempt she might make to forge a new life was simply doomed to failure.

***

The parking lot at Monmouth was nearly full. Daphne drove past a black limousine stationed at the grand entrance and finally found a space for the Explorer at the opposite side near some hedges. As soon as she switched off the engine, she heard a familiar voice hailing her from across the graveled drive.

“Hey, girl! You want some help with that harp, sugar?”

Daphne emerged from the driver’s side and stood in the warm March sunshine, her spirits reviving slightly at the sight of her childhood friend, teetering on wickedly high heels, moving in her direction.

Althea LaCroix’s ample figure was clothed in a salmon pink silk outfit that the thirty-year-old black woman had probably last donned for the confirmation ceremony of one of her numerous younger brothers. Her normal wardrobe consisted of dark slacks and T-shirts printed with faded New Orleans Jazz Fest logos, which she also wore when she played in her family’s celebrated band at their own Cafe LaCroix on Decatur Street in the musical heart of the French Quarter.

“Thanks,” Daphne replied, “but there’s a harp in the parlor I can play, so, for once, I don’t have to lug this thing to hell and gone.”

Althea scrutinized her closely, her dark eyes bordering on coal black. “You all right? You look kinda woebegone, honey.”

“Did you see Jack Ebert sitting in church?” she blurted. She and Althea had been friends so long, there was no need to beat around the bush.

“No,” Althea exclaimed. “Sweet Jesus, was
he
there? I was so nervous ’bout walkin’ in these high heels down that long aisle, I never looked beyond m’ feet!”

“He sat in a back pew and split before the ceremony was over.”

“Then why did he bother to come?”

“He wasn’t
invited
,” Daphne retorted with frustration. “He just showed up.”

She was about to tell her friend about the severed harp strings when Althea said apprehensively, “He’s gone now, right?” She surveyed the parking lot. “Personally, he’s always given me the creeps. ’Member how mean he was when I first got my scholarship to Newman School?” Then she shrugged, and added with a sly smile, “I just thought he held some fatal charm for you white girls. C’mon, darlin’, forget him. Let’s go in and get us a glass of that expensive champagne.”

“You go ahead,” Daphne said. “I’m trying to find the music from
Phantom
… I know it’s in here someplace.”

“Okay,” Althea agreed doubtfully. “But ’member what Corlis tol’ you: you’re a
guest
at this shindig.”

Daphne smiled and threw her arms around her friend. “I am
so
glad to see you, Alth! I’ve missed you like mad.”

“When ya’ll goin’ come down to Cafe LaCroix and play some jazz with us again?” Althea cajoled. “Now that you’re a full-fledged graduate of Juilliard and payin’ your own bills, your mama can’t give you grief ’bout that anymore.”

“Don’t think I wouldn’t love it,” Daphne replied, happily recalling the two times she’d played jazz harp as a backup musician at Cafe LaCroix. Then she smiled. “Why don’t you come up to New York and I’ll show you all the hot spots? I’ve heard some
great
jazz there.” Should she tell Althea, now, about Rafe’s firing her?

Her best friend gave her shoulders a squeeze. “I jus’ might take you up on that sometime, angel girl.” She pointed to the house. “Gotta get in there. See you in five,” she added, and wobbled in her high heels across the gravel drive and down the brick path to the wide, white-columned veranda and the mansion’s front door.

Daphne rifled through a pile of music charts in search of the misplaced music. She located the cheat sheets in question and was about to file them in her briefcase when she heard someone say, “Need a hand with that?”

Her fingers tightened on the handle of her case as she looked over her shoulder to confirm that it was, indeed, Jack Ebert’s voice. He was lounging against the Explorer’s front fender, standing not two feet away.

Where
in
the
world
had
he
come
from?

She regarded his slight frame that was just this side of skinny. No doubt about it, her brief attraction to the man had never been about his looks. His facile mind, however, was something else. Clever. Witty, at times—but invariably at others’ expense.
Evil
genius
were the words Althea had used to describe him when they were in college. At Tulane, his scathing reviews of cultural events around campus published in the student newspaper had been legendary. His cutthroat reputation had grown when he worked for
Arts
This
Week
in New Orleans and reviewed books, concerts, opera, and films on-air for WWEZ-TV, where Corlis McCullough had worked when she first came to New Orleans, fresh from a job in Los Angeles.

True, Jack Ebert could actually be charming on occasion, but she’d learned to her sorrow that he also employed vitriol more effectively than almost anyone she’d ever known.

Face
it, Daphne, he is and always was a skunk. You have lousy taste in men.

“Jack,” she acknowledged with a degree of calm she didn’t feel. “Don’t need any help, thank you. I’m not using this harp.” Jack’s gloating expression said it all. A wave of anger surged over her and it was all she could do not to haul off and hit him for injuring her beautiful harp. However, allowing him to see how much his actions upset her just encouraged his cat-and-mouse games. “You’re not welcome here, you know,” she said in a low voice, marveling at her blunt words as soon as they’d escaped from her lips. “Even if you did come with my mother.”

“Last I heard, Monmouth Plantation is a public accommodation,” he replied coolly. “And First Presbyterian welcomes all worshipers. It said so in the flyer I found on the hall table when I checked into my hotel.”

“How did you know the details about this wedding?” she demanded, feeling her blood pressure soar. She had already guessed the answer he would give.

“You know how,” he said with a short laugh. “Your mama told my mama. Some mutual client of theirs kicked the bucket last week, and while they were coordinatin’ the flowers and the funeral arrangements, Antoinette let it slip. Complainin’ to Mama ’bout you and King, of course. She was thinkin’ then she wouldn’t even come to the weddin’. I called her up late yesterday, though, and tol’ her I’d be happy to drive her up here today—if she decided to attend at the last minute—since I was comin’ to Natchez on business anyway, and there’s no other sensible way to get here.”