Playing For Keeps (18 page)

“With the way I’ve been acting, I would have wondered, too, if I were you.”

“I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“I hope you’ll forgive
me
,” she replied. “But mostly, I just hope we can be best friends like we were before all this stuff got in the way.”

“I want that. I want us to figure out how we can have it all.”

She laughed through her tears. “Because we aren’t satisfied with just some of it.”

“No way.”

“I wish I was there, so I could hug you.”

“I wish you were, too.” I was prepared to tell Bea where I was, so we could mend our breaks in person, but my other line rang. It was Jimmy. I sucked in a surprised breath. “Bea, I have to take this. Is it okay if I call you back in a few?”

“Yeah, okay. I need to blow my nose, anyway.”

I clicked over. “Where the hell are you?” I hissed.

“And a delightful hello to you, too. In case you forgot, I’ve been searching for your stalker. Your safety a priority, and all that.”

“You’ve scared the shit out of everyone, disappearing like that. You scared…me.”

It took a lot to admit that, and it took even more for me to stand there, waiting for his response. I desperately wanted him to say the right thing. To tell me he cared
so
much about me, no matter what.

“Sorry about that.”

I closed my eyes. That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

“Listen,” he continued. “I need to you to come to me.”

“Where are you?”

“I…can’t say. Not yet. I want you to come alone.”

“If you can’t say where you are, then how am I supposed to get there?”

“My jet is waiting for you at Van Nuys Airport. Duncan’s coming to pick you up. I’ll see you later tonight. I promise, it’ll be worth it.”

Duncan must have been pissed to have to come back to the Hilton after having left hardly an hour ago. But his expression was the same faintly grumpy expression he always wore.

“You ready to go?” he asked. I hopped on one foot, slipping my shoe on.

“Aren’t you glad to hear from Jimmy?”

“I’ll be gladder to find out where he is.”

I stopped hopping. “You don’t know, either?”

“I think he’s having too much fun with this spy vs. spy nonsense. So let’s go appease the little boy in him.”

I was caught between wanting to laugh at Duncan’s assessment, and wanting to correct him. Jimmy Keats was, if nothing else, a
man
. I knew that side of him well.

I hugged Diya before I left. She poked out her bottom lip. “Hotel fun is over, I guess? I felt like a real celebrity, living it up on room service.”

“If my music ever goes anywhere,” I told her. “I will order you all the room service you like.”

“I will take you up on that promise.”

Duncan drove like a maniac to the airport, weaving in and out of traffic, using the shoulder like it was an actual lane, flipping off drivers who dared merge in front of him.

“This behavior’s going to give you a heart attack,” I chided.

“Then it’s a good thing I’m retiring to someplace I don’t have to drive.”

“Jimmy told me about that. Sounds exciting.”

“It doesn’t sound exciting at all. It sounds like lazy days and no cares in the world. Which is why it’s a good thing.”

The Van Nuys Airport was almost as busy as LAX, but only a fraction of the size. Private and charter jets peeked at us from the parking lot. Duncan went in first. He spoke to the attendant, who ushered us through to the airstrips. There, Jimmy’s private plane waited for me to board. A man in a navy suit helped me up the steps, led me to a seat, and went to speak to the pilot. In a matter of minutes, we were racing down the strip and launching into the blue sky.

This was how travel should always be: no waiting for hours to board, no bumping into other passengers, no one snoring next to you. It would have been bliss, had I not been so jittery and had so many unanswered questions.

“Welcome.” The voice came on over the intercom after we’d broken through the high SoCal haze. “This is your captain, Margaret Moppet. Please make yourself comfortable. Our flight time to Lakefront Airport is approximately four hours fifteen minutes, nonstop. Please let Charles know if you have any questions.”

Duncan chuckled.

“What’s so funny? And who’s Charles? And where the hell is Lakefront Airport?”

“New Orleans.”

I gaped at him. Why was Jimmy flying me all the way to Louisiana?

The flight attendant in the blue suit strode over to us.

“Oh,” Duncan said. “And this is Charles.”

“Welcome. What can I get you to drink?” Charles said.

I relaxed against my seat, thoughts whirling. “Anything,” I said. “Just make it strong.”

The four hour flight flew by. I spent most of the time staring out the window, watching the sky go from light to dark as we headed east. Charles brought me gin and tonics, which I sipped at dutifully, but it was hard to be thirsty. Or hungry, when that time came and he presented a three course meal of crab cakes, steak and poached fruits. I left most of it untouched. The luxury of the plane was like nothing I’d ever experienced. My fingers moved across the leather trim slowly.

“It’ll be yours someday,” Duncan said, out of the blue.

I drew my eyebrows together. “This plane?”

“This lifestyle. If you want it. If you’re willing to work for it. But it’s not easy.”

“Yeah,” I said, softly. “I’ve figured that part out already. If you were me, what would you do?”

“I always wished I had some musical talent. My sister played the piano. She would have been world class. She died when we were teenagers. Her boyfriend was drunk driving.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It was a long time ago. Anyway, I think I went into this business because it was comforting to be close to people who created great music. People like you.”

“Thank you, Duncan.”

He replied with a grunt.

It was dark, but still sticky and warm when we landed in New Orleans. I stepped off the plane and soaked in the familiar humidity. I loved the west coast, but coming home always felt right and true. I felt the green air in my veins, the sounds of New Orleans music in my ears, the taste of Cajun and Creole foods on my tongue.

I saw Jimmy Keats waiting for me just a few feet away, lounging against a black Towncar. It wasn’t his vintage Mustang, but the classy car fit him just as well. I was keenly aware of the grime that lay on my skin after a long flight. Of how my breath was probably garlicky from the two bites of dinner I took. How there must have been tired bags under my eyes. Jimmy didn’t seem to notice any of it. He offered his hand to help me down the plane’s steps, then, after a split second of tension, when all the questions between us swirled and charged and died away into the thick night air, he pulled me to him.

I put my arms around Jimmy and held him. It was the best feeling I’d had in a long time.

When he pulled away, he put his hands to the sides of my face and brought my lips to his. He didn’t care about my breath or my rumpled clothes or my frizzed-out hair. He only cared that I was there. Safe.

“Welcome home,” he said. “I have a lot to tell you about.”

He took my hand and led me to the car. When he opened the back door, I ducked in. My body froze when I saw who was sitting in the front passenger seat.

“Local Jackson!”

The old man—my friend, my mentor, my hero—turned around and flashed his white-toothed grin at me. “Courtney Dreger. Look at you! I ain’t seen that kind of glamour since the 1940’s.”

“I’m sure I look fabulous,” I said, sarcastically.

“It don’t matter what you’re wearing. Seeing you however you are is the best part.”

I reached awkwardly over the seats to give Local a hug, then sat back and clicked my seatbelt on. Jimmy slid in next to me.

“I can’t wait to see my parents. How did you even know where to find Local?”

“I know people who…know people. And Local’s a big part of the story.”

“What story?”

Jimmy slid his arm around my shoulders. “You’ll see.”

“I hope you’re taking me somewhere to get a shower and a change of clothes, first.”

Jimmy laughed. “Nope. First, we’re going to see more people.”

“Jimmy! I look a wreck!”

His mouth twisted in a slight frown when I didn’t call him Kevin, but he didn’t comment on that. He only said, “It won’t matter, where we’re going.”

15.

We drove away from New Orleans for a while. Long enough that I began to doze off, resting my head on Jimmy’s shoulder. When I woke, I was disorientated. Nothing looked familiar and I didn’t know how much time had passed.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Almost there.”

“Yeah, but where is there?”

“My grammy’s restaurant.”

I sat up quickly, panic constricting my chest. “What? Why are we going there? I don’t want her to meet me for the first time looking like this.”

“It’s okay. She knows you just flew in.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Courtney.” Jimmy leaned toward me, tucking his fingers under my chin. “You look gorgeous. I even think your rumpled, just woken look is my favorite.”

The panic turned to delicious warmth. But the moment was ruined when Local cleared his throat pointedly.

“What are you doing here, then, Local? Just come along for some good eating?”

“That’s usually reason enough, ain’t it? But no, I got some business to attend to, too.”

The only person who remained quiet the whole trip was Duncan, in the driver’s seat. He pulled us off the highway soon enough. We drove some back roads for about ten minutes, then parked in front of a one-story red house, converted into a restaurant. The lights were on inside, but it was empty. Except for the one woman sitting in a booth, cradling a cup of coffee between her palms. When we entered the restaurant, she stood.

She didn’t move toward us. Just looked me over carefully, slid her eyes to Local, and let out a low, throaty sound. I felt like an idiot, standing there, hoping for some kind of approval from someone so close to Jimmy. Either she didn’t care for me, or it wasn’t that type of visit.

“Y’all must be hungry. Sit down. I got some dinner keeping warm for you.”

She disappeared into the kitchen, and I followed Jimmy into the booth. I played with the packets of sugar. Nerves were getting the better of me. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Everyone else seemed comfortable with the silence, but it weighed on me painfully.

Presently, Jimmy’s grandmother returned, bearing plates heaped with ham and gravy, mashed potatoes, greens and cornbread. I watched the men tuck into their food, but once again, I had no appetite.

“It’s an insult to stare at your food with a snarl on your face,” Jimmy’s grandmother chastened.  Her face was round and, in another situation, I’m sure it was welcoming. But now, she looked at me hard. Like I was something she scraped off the bottom of her shoe.

“Sorry, ma’am.” I picked up my fork and ate. The food turned to sawdust in my mouth.

She turned her attention to someone else at the table.

“Well. Local Jackson. Your eating habits ain’t changed in decades.”

“Your good cooking ain’t changed in decades, either.”

“Lots a things have changed, old man.”

“The whole world, darlin’.”

“It’s been years since you’ve been allowed to call me that,” she growled.

My fork paused halfway to my mouth as I followed the volley of their conversation. There was so much there, in the words and between the words, to parse out. Not to mention their facial expressions and body language. Local was sitting casually, but there was a glint in his eye every time he looked at Jimmy’s grandmother. And her body was stiff as a board, the anger of years radiating off her skin in waves.

They had history.

Serious history.

I needed to know every detail.

“Why were you ever allowed to call her that, Local?” I asked.

Jimmy’s grandmother fixed her glare on me, but Local gave me his grit-filled laugh. “Because that’s what she was. My darlin’ lady. Prettiest thing I ever saw. And that voice! Damn near slayed me ever time I heard it. Mm. Those were some days. The cigarette smoke curled in the clubs, the nights were hot and muggy, but when you wrapped your arms around your girl, life was like heaven.”

“That why you wrapped your arms around every girl you saw, Local Jackson?” Jimmy’s grandmother spit.

Local looked down at his plate, his smile fading. “I ain’t saying I done no wrong. I ain’t never said that.”

“You didn’t need to say nothing. Not that day I saw you with her.”

“No, darlin’. I needed to say lots of things. But you never would let me.”

“I ain’t got ears for scoundrels. Not then, not now. That’s why you and your ilk gotta stay away from my family!”

Jimmy tossed his napkin on the table. “Ah, and now we get to the real reason we’re here. Not that your torrid history isn’t fascinating, Grammy.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“I’ve done lots of snooping these past few days. Demanded a lot of explanations.”

“You can wipe that smug look off your face, boy,” Grammy said. “If I hadn’t wanted to come clean, you’d ‘a known nothing.”

Jimmy snorted. “See, Grammy doesn’t want even a thread of connection between herself and Local Jackson. She’s been mad at him for a long, long time. And if there’s anything Grammy does better than cook, it’s hold a grudge.”

Jimmy’s grandmother
humphed
and crossed her arms over her chest. She stared out the window.

“You see, Courtney, Grammy can’t trust anyone Local’s had any influence with. I didn’t know about all of that the day I told her about you, of course, but--.”

Dawning struck me like a bolt of lightning.

“You sent the notes!” I exclaimed.

“Wasn’t just me!” she retorted.

“It couldn’t have been…because someone was in L.A. that night…threw the rock through my window. Who else hated me before they even know me?”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Jimmy said, quietly. “Neither does Grammy. But Smalls helped her out. She’d send the letter to him, then he’d readdress it so you didn’t know it was coming from this small town in Louisiana. Too much of a giveaway, you know.”

“But why would he do that?”

Local cut in, putting the pieces together. “He felt threatened, didn’t he? Oh, you ain’t gotta look at me like that. I keep up on all the music news, even nowadays. That boy gave an interview about a month ago. Talked about World Wonder breaking up. The things he said…well, they seemed innocent enough, but anyone could read between the lines if they tried hard enough.”

Jimmy nodded. “Smalls lost his family. I’m his family, now. And he was afraid to lose us when the band broke up.”

“So he tried to scare off the person he thought was responsible for the breakup?”

“It wasn’t a bad idea,” Jimmy’s grandmother said.

Jimmy breathed impatiently. “Other than it being completely false. World Wonder had run its course. That’s just what it was. Bands like ours eventually grow up. But that doesn’t mean anything changes with my family. Not with Smalls, not with you, Grammy, and not with Courtney.”

“She ain’t your fam--.”

“She is if I say she is.” Jimmy dark eyes burned with passion. My heart caught in my throat. I could hardly breathe. Tears welled up in my eyes. I drank water, quickly.

“How do you know she ain’t just like him?” Jimmy’s grandmother said, pointing at Local.

Local stood. His palms were pressed on the table. “Now look here. That’s about enough of your talk. You can be mad at me till kingdom come, woman, but you ain’t taking your bitterness out on this girl. She’s nothing but good. And these two got potential. Surely just as much as we did, back in the day. And if nothing else, we ain’t gonna ruin their lives the way we ruined ours. Did you learn
nothing
at all?”

I set my glass down slowly. I avoided Jimmy’s eyes, even though I knew he was looking at me. My pulse pounded painfully.

“Don’t talk to me about the life we could’ve had, Local Jackson. My love was so deep…” Jimmy’s grandmother’s voice was low, broken. We all strained to hear her. “…it never stopped.”

Our breaths mingled in the air that followed her gentle pronouncement.

Local sat back down. He reached his hand across the table. “Neither did mine, darlin’. Neither did mine.”

*

My appetite finally returned, as we sat there, listening to Local and Jimmy’s grandma tell their story.

“I’d been a war widow for three years when I met Local Jackson. Oh, I’d heard of him before that. Big time man in the Big Easy. We all knew he was as full of himself as the swamps are full of mud.”

“I was young,” Local said. An excuse. An explanation.

“We all were. It was young days. The war made us poorer than we’d even been before, and that’s some kind of poverty. Ain’t no one seen that kind of poverty, nowadays.”

“You sang for your supper,” Local said. “Came down to New Orleans, got yourself a room with your two kids, and you sang. I’m pretty dang sure you sold out every night after the first. Soon as word got around about that voice of yours.”

“You wouldn’t know it, the thieving ways of the club owners, skimming my checks like I didn’t have babies to feed.”

“It was a hard livin’,” Local Jackson agreed. “But we was happy. We had music. We had each other.”

“For a while, at least,” Jimmy’s grandma said, darkly. “You were good to have around. You were good to my children. You were a good musician. So why, for law’s sake, couldn’t you be the man I wanted you to be, Local Jackson?”

I chewed my ham slowly, watching Local’s face. He thought hard about what he was going to say, and I guessed at the possibilities.
It was all a misunderstanding. The woman was a relative.
It wasn’t him, kissing her, after all.
Anything to give their story some kind of happy ending.

But it wasn’t that simple. Or, really, it was
too
simple.

“I was a stupid, young fool who couldn’t see I already had the best thing, right in front of me. I’ve said sorry about a million times, darlin’, and I’ll say it once more and be done with it. I’m sorry. It was some forty years ago. Maybe time can’t heal, after all, but it can teach us that we shouldn’t be meddling in these young people’s lives.”

He looked from me to Jimmy. Jimmy’s grandmother dropped her arms. Her shoulders slumped, defeated.

“I ain’t going to send anymore notes, if that what you mean.”

“I think something more along the lines of an apology are in order,” Jimmy prompted. “Grammy?”

She was a stubborn woman. If forty years of holding on to a grudge hadn’t shown me that, the way she tightened her jaw and wouldn’t look at me would have. After everything—the fear and exhaustion, the heartbreak and rigorous work schedule—this, strangely, felt funny.

So I laughed. I pushed my plate away and let the giggle that was building up in my chest loose. Let it escape, let it run wild, let it fill the entire restaurant. Let it take root, deep in my belly, and grow and grow and grow. Relief flowed from me. It was like I was emptying out months of torrid emotion, and the more space I freed up, the better I felt.

When I took a breath, I realized I wasn’t the only one laughing. Local Jackson was guffawing with heart, Jimmy was laughing with his head tossed back, and even Duncan, who’d made no more sound than his chewing all this time, was chortling into his fist. The only person not laughing was Jimmy’s grandmother.

But joy softens hard hearts, and after a time, she let a smile creep across her face.

“All right, you two,” she said to me and Jimmy. “You have my blessing. On one condition. Jimmy, you got to talk to Smalls. Explain to him that he’s always got family with us.”

“Will do, Grammy.”

“And you, Local Jackson.” Jimmy’s grandmother stood and gathered our plates. “Well, I can’t be sure I’m going to forgive you, after all, but I will serve you a piece of this chocolate pecan pie I baked earlier today.”

“Darlin’, that’s about as close to forgiveness a man could ask for.”

We lingered a little longer, until the moon was full in the sky and the frogs were croaking a symphony, then Jimmy, Duncan and I left. Local Jackson, the old devil, said he’d find a ride home on his own the next day. And based on the look Jimmy’s grandmother gave him under her lashes, I figured he wouldn’t be back in New Orleans for a few days, at least.

The drive back to the airport didn’t feel as long as the one to the restaurant. I dozed off again, but it was with the comfort of safety and security. My muscles felt relaxed for the first time in a long time. Even so, I knew Jimmy and I had to talk. I assumed we would do so sometime after getting back to L.A., but he sat next to me on the place and covered my hand with his. Duncan slipped headphones over his ears and closed his eyes to give us some privacy.

“Thank you,” I began. “For coming out here. For figuring out who was sending the notes. How did you figure it out, anyway?”

“Grammy’s birthday card arrived the day before I left. It was signed in a strangely familiar handwriting. So I called her up. Asked her outright. She didn’t deny it, but she wouldn’t admit to it, either. And that’s how I knew it was her. As you say, Grammy doesn’t mince words. If she was avoiding the topic, that meant something was up.”