A Toast Before Dying (23 page)

I thought of Teddi Lovette, with her nervous fingers moving through her hair, moving along the edge of Thea’s casket, maneuvering around the brittle relationship with her mother. And her love for a man whose blackness her mother probably hated and would’ve donated her last dollar to keep him behind bars and away from her daughter.

I wondered what Teddi’d make of the latest news.

I wondered about Elizabeth and what strategy she intended to use now. The way things appeared, the prosecutor could make a case that Kendrick killed Thea because he was jealous of her involvement with Michaels.

Flyin’ Home was gone. Thea’s diary was gone. Rita was gone. Whatever information anyone had was lost. What’s done is done …

I turned my head against the voice, and the cold of the window pierced the side of my face like a toothache. The I heard something—or someone else—somewhere in the still room. I did not look around this time either
for my mother’s presence because I knew I wouldn’t find her.

“
There’s more than one way to skin a cat. I keep telling you that. Don’t you remember anything I say?
” A mantra to strengthen the mind-set. A statement of purpose. Her prelude to probing whatever it was that cried out for a solution.

 … Skin a cat
. I had heard this when I was young enough to still lose myself in the literal landscape of my imagination and wonder why anyone would want to skin a cat in the first place.

I remembered my mother looking toward the ceiling, as if the strength to cope with my mental deficiency resided there.

“Just keep your mouth closed, your eyes open, and watch how it’s done,” she had said.

I had watched and learned a lot, but I needed her here now to show me once more how she did it.

The clock on the night table now read 9
A.M.
and I sat on the edge of the bed and dialed a number, wondering if it was too early to be calling anyone.

Miss Adele picked up before the ring was completed, as if she had been waiting for me. Gospel music, strong and compelling, filled the background, but her voice rose above it.

“Did you have anything to do with this?” she asked by way of greeting. She was wide-awake and her deliberate tone barely hid the indignation simmering in the back of her throat.

“Anything to do with what?” I asked.

“With this … this damned story, this piece of trash in the paper.”

“Which paper?” I knew Marian had contacted every media outlet she could think of, but why was Miss Adele asking me?

“Which paper?” I asked again.

“The damned so-called paper whose mission is to trash and demonize anyone and anything black, that’s which paper!”

“No. No. Absolutely not. I—”

“Well, have you seen it? It’s not about Michaels’s resignation. It’s an exposé of what had gone on at the Half-Moon. Thea’s name and her pageant picture are splashed all over the front page. They’re writing that she’s responsible for Laws getting killed, for Anne’s suicide attempt, and for that other girl killing herself. And they threw in some other stupid shit about Laws not cleaning the four corners of the bar. What the hell is that all about? And who cares? And as far as Thea is concerned, whoever threw the story together got the damn facts backward as usual, the son of a bitch.”

I was amazed at the language. This classically trained Juilliard graduate who had enjoyed all those curtain calls at the Met was talking stuff strong enough to drain my earwax. I remained quiet and listened to the background rhythm of gospel as she applied more choice phrases to describe the newspaper. From time to time I nodded, not having bought that paper in years. I had given up trying to decode their creative grammar and misinformation some time ago. Nowadays I didn’t even glance at the headlines for fear of being led astray.

“Miss Adele,” I said as soon as I found a break, “I would not have spoken to any newsperson, especially one from downtown. My concern was to try to solve Thea’s murder in order to get Kendrick out of jail. The little you told me, I’ve kept to myself. I haven’t even discussed her with my dad, and you know she sang with the band.

“After I spoke to you, I managed to get that bankbook back where it belonged. While I was in the apartment, someone came in—a man. I hid under the bed. He took the bankbook. But he doubled back and caught me hiding, and I could’ve been killed but I never mentioned that to anyone. Not even to my dad.”

“What? Who was it?”

“Probably Michaels. The room was dark, but even so I didn’t hang around to check him out. But whoever it was is out of luck. I spoke to Gladys, and she’s probably put a block on Thea’s accounts by now.”

“You thought to do all that?”

“Well, yes.”

I could hear her breath coming slower now. We both listened to a full minute of gospel. Finally she said, “Girl, I knew your mama and daddy had raised you right. You are a wonder.”

“Miss Adele, there’s something I—”

She cut me off. “I want you to drop by for breakfast in an hour, you hear me?” And she hung up without a good-bye.

I sat in the dining alcove and Miss Adele apologized for the AC being off. “I can’t stand all that humming when I’m trying to think.”

She still walked barefoot and brought plates of French toast, bacon, and sausage to the table. When she popped a bottle of champagne without ceremony, I stared at the label.

“Dom Perignon? For breakfast?”

“My dear, I’m seventy-two years old. The only way to live long is to live well.”

I watched her fill two crystal flutes and thought how Dad only popped this kind of grape once every five years on New Year’s Eve. She extended a glass and drank before I could offer a toast.

I had no idea that champagne could turn an ordinary breakfast into a banquet, but it worked for me.

Miss Adele refilled the glasses and settled back. “I’m sorry to have to go through the long sad tale of Thea’s life,” she said. “We all
have
a sad story, but the trick is not to
become
a sad story.

“I know that young man is in jail for something he probably didn’t do. I don’t know who killed Thea, but I wasn’t entirely truthful when you were here before.”

I leaned back, imagining my mother nodding from a distance as Miss Adele continued.

“I mentioned how Dessie Hamilton had kept herself together after her world had blown apart, and even after her daughter Marcella had disappeared, leaving her to raise Thea.

“Well, when Dessie had gotten sick, Thea had
come home from the pageant. Dessie was in the hospital by then, and Thea was alone in the apartment. Went through Dessie’s things looking for Medicaid papers or something, and came across Marcella’s picture. She asked me who the woman was and I lied, said it was a friend of Dessie’s. I figured Thea was upset enough and I didn’t want things to get any worse. She had a good chance of winning that pageant, and I figured if she did, it would open up a new world for her and she wouldn’t have time to think about the old one.

“I had to talk hard to get her back upstate for the finals. I told her I’d take care of everything. I’d take care of Dessie. But Thea must have known her grandmother wasn’t going to make it.

“A few days later, Dessie died. Her liver just couldn’t take the pressure of lifting a glass night after night every time someone offered a toast. I mean she enjoyed being a barmaid. She was attractive and the center of attention and all that excitement.

“You see, in those days the Half-Moon was the spot. I know because I dropped in every so often to see the musicians and the actors who wanted to be gangsters, and all those gangsters who wanted to be stars. Plus there were the regular politicians, and the big pimps dressed to the nines with their flashy women, and all the gamblers taking a break from their night jobs, just hanging out.

“Everybody knew Seventh Avenue was the strip with Small’s Paradise, Count Basie’s, Connie’s Inn, Mr. B’s Nightspot, Sugar Ray’s, Shalimar, Jock’s Place, and
the Red Rooster. I could name all those flashing lights, but the Moon? There was no other place like it.

“I never stayed long because the smoke was bad for my throat and I had to protect my career. One drink and five minutes later, as much as I wanted to stay, I was out of there.

“But as I said, Dessie was in her element, and the older she got, the more glamorous she became. You wouldn’t believe the serious proposals she turned down. Anyway, when she died I went to her place before Thea returned, and I got hold of that picture and the news clipping—”

“What clipping?”

“The wedding announcement in the
Times.
”

“Who got married?”

“Thea’s mama. Marcella.”

“That made the
Times
?”

“Here, let me show you.” She left the dining table and returned with a flat rosewood box inlaid with silver strips. She lifted the lid and handed me a photocopy of a barely legible article. The couple’s features were indistinct and the writing was blurred either by age, water, or my having drunk too much so early in the day.

“That’s Thea’s mother. She changed her name, but it’s the same person. Dessie knew Marcella was still alive; hadn’t really died in California. She saw that announcement and kept track of her for years without telling Thea. Marcella married a very wealthy man and Dessie had made up her mind to let sleeping dogs lie. She figured she had done all right by Thea. No point in stirring up old dust.”

“So you knew all along?” I asked.

Miss Adele refilled the glasses halfway and added a mix of orange and pineapple juices.

“Mali, when someone disappears—or abandons you—you hold out a hope that somehow, someday they’ll come back into your life like magic and you’ll live happily ever after.

“Dessie had had her share of fairy tales and no longer believed. But she knew death was permanent. Once a person crossed to the other side, they didn’t come back, except in a dream to maybe give you a number. So she told Thea that her mother had died, killed in some car accident out West.”

“How did Thea find out otherwise?”

“Dessie had an old hatbox that I didn’t look in because I was so busy trying to clean out all the other stuff. I thought there were only hats in it. Instead it contained the news article and several letters she had written to Marcella but had never mailed. Thea found them and confronted me. I couldn’t deny it. I told her everything, at least all that I knew. She walked out and that was the last time I saw her.”

“How long ago was that?”

“I don’t know. Five or six years ago. I blocked it out.”

I leaned over the table and tried to study the picture again, but at this point my vision was so bad I knew I’d have to call a cab in order to get home. How could one bottle hold so many servings, I wondered as I held up my glass for yet another refill. My third and it was not yet noon.

We sat there sipping. Miss Adele seemed to cast off the years and we became contemporaries as talk detoured from one thing to another. When she laughed, her head tipped to the side and she opened her mouth wide, as if she were singing. When she spoke of Dessie, the sound grew deeper, richer.

“Do you know how many proposals—I mean
serious
proposals—that woman had by the time she was sixty?”

“How many?” I was fascinated, considering I’d had only four in my life and the only one I’d taken seriously was Ronald’s—shy and handsome but already full of potential when he’d passed that note in the third grade asking to marry me when we grew up. I wondered what had become of him and if he’d ever stopped sucking his thumb.

“One dozen,” Miss Adele said. “Can you imagine twelve offers of marriage and I myself only got to bury three husbands?”

“I can’t imagine,” I said, trying to hold on to the image of Tad, whose features were fast dissolving under the weight of the bubbly. That night at Londel’s had been wonderful, and afterward at his place I had really welcomed him back home.

Miss Adele went to the fridge and brought out another bottle and I wondered who was going to drink all this stuff as I held up my glass for yet another round.

“You ever hear Thea sing?” she asked, changing the subject again.

“At the club,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t spoil the mood by asking what I thought of her performance.

“What did you think of her performance?” Miss Adele asked.

My wine-soaked conscience was a beat behind my tongue and I answered truthfully. “Not much. I mean, she didn’t reach me. All I really remembered is her hand sweeping her hair from her face. I thought it was part of the act. I don’t remember her voice at all.”

Miss Adele shook her head, remembering also. “That was a nervous reaction. Something she did all her life.”

I raised my glass to my mouth, hoping to end this part of the discussion and return to Dessie.

Dad had called her the world’s oldest living barmaid, but according to Dessie age was just a number and the girl had it goin’ on till the day she closed her eyes. She’d even walked to the hospital in five-inch heels. I liked her style.

“Dad said it takes quite a few years for a singer to develop,” I added, trying to soften my hard opinion of Thea. I didn’t want to offend Miss Adele, who, after all, had trained her.