Ciji Ware (48 page)

Willis spent the rest of the afternoon coaching the three women through several new numbers. Daphne was grateful she could put aside thoughts of her latest historical flashback and concentrate on matters at hand. Before they broke up in time for Daphne’s steady teatime obligation at the Eola Hotel, she laid out her idea for a benefit to aid Bailey Gibbs’s bird preserve and his efforts to keep a toxic waste dump out of the Natchez area.

“A ‘Concert for the Birds’
…
what a great idea,” Kendra said enthusiastically. “We got these cute lil’ sparrows or somethin’ that hang out in the pecan trees all ’round here, but there’ve been less and less of ’em since we were kids. Somebody says it’s the smoke from the ol’ tire plant’s killin’ ’em off, but I dunno if that’s true.”

Jeanette and Willis nodded agreeing with Kendra’s assessment. Then Jeanette said excitedly, “Maybe you could even get our sister Mary Jo’s kindergarten class to sing the ‘I tawt I taw a puddy tat’ song. Remember? From the old cartoon? I saw ’em do it at the Spring Sing this year. Some kids play the kitty cats, and the others play the birds. They’re cute as can be.”

“That’s brilliant!” Daphne said, relieved to have gotten all three musicians to sign on to the idea. “We want to involve the entire community. I’ll let you know when we have a date nailed at the auditorium
…
probably in late September or early October, when folks are back into their normal routines.”

The rest of Daphne’s week was filled with performance dates, as well as a series of phone calls to line up the auditorium, along with booking Althea and the LaCroix brothers from the family jazz band in New Orleans and a few other possible participants in the benefit concert. Several times a day she wondered how Sim was doing tracking down the story of illegal shipments of exotic parrots from South America and prayed he was keeping to his promise to stay out of danger.

On Thursday, Maddy called her attention to an article in the
Natchez
Democrat
detailing the passionate testimony given by Dr. Bailey Gibbs in front of a low-level environmental committee hearing in Jackson. The story referred to the meetings held to discuss “possible Southern sites for disposal depots that would allow for the safe disposition of chemicals no longer allowed in the environment.” The article mentioned that Able Petroleum had attended the confab with several of its “scientific staff members” in tow, as well as “a veteran from industry-environmental skirmishes in California, corporate attorney Francesca Hayes, who has been hired by the company as a legislative consultant.”

“Sim’s former wife,” Daphne announced to Maddy, pointing to a picture showing an army of witnesses sitting at a table dotted with microphones. “Jack tracked her down in San Francisco through the Internet and hired her to work for AP. She’s a celebrated corporate pit bull, specializing in getting big, polluting companies off the hook.”

“Oh my land!” Maddy peered more closely at the photo. “Hmmm
…
” she said, and Daphne knew her cousin thought Sim’s former spouse looked very attractive, even in the grainy newspaper picture. It showed a slender woman with high cheekbones and dark, shoulder-length straight hair conferring with her colleagues. Attorney Hayes wore a classic dress-for-success suit that Daphne would bet her next paycheck had an Armani label inside.

She turned the article facedown on the kitchen table and began to outline the entire situation concerning Bailey Gibbs and the controversy simmering in the state capital. Earlier, Maddy had readily agreed to help with any enterprise aimed at raising money to protect her old friend’s bird sanctuary.

“Jack sure likes to stir the pot, doesn’t he?” Maddy murmured, retrieving the newspaper article and scrutinizing the picture carefully.

“That’s exactly what I tried to tell Sim,” Daphne exclaimed.

Maddy pointed to the picture showing Jack and Francesca bent close in consultation. “To think that he deliberately brought this
particular
lady all the way back here to help him persuade the bigwigs in Jackson to put toxic dumps in Mississippi.”

Suddenly, a thought struck Daphne like a lightning bolt in her solar plexus. What if Sim had
not
actually gone to South America? What a perfect way to tell everyone he was totally out of touch and couldn’t be reached, and, instead, had slipped up to Jackson for a reunion with—

Daphne, get a grip!
she castigated herself. She was shocked at how quickly her thoughts went to The Dark Place when it came to a man in her life.
Sim
probably
left
the
state
before
Francesca
could
even
call
him
here…

The following day, Maddy and Daphne set off on a recruiting mission for the benefit concert. They headed for the downtown office of Amadora Bendhar, the East Indian-American orchestra conductor and executive director of the Natchez Light Opera, an organization that had developed as an offshoot of the world-famous Natchez Opera Festival.

“There are those who love
Carmen
and those who love
Cabaret.
Amadora’s outfit does the lighter stuff,” Maddy explained on the short drive from Bluff House. “Her father was from India and came to Boston to study and met her mother there, whose people were Italian.”

“And was she welcomed in Natchez?” Daphne asked carefully, knowing that the conductor’s race would be a factor in a state like Mississippi.

“She was one of the first women of color ever to get a job conducting an orchestra in the Deep South,” Maddy replied. “I was on the search committee eight years ago and cast the decidin’ vote,” she added proudly.

Dr. Bendhar’s office was on Pearl Street, not far from First Presbyterian Church where King and Corlis had been married. The June morning promised to be the first really hot day of the summer. The building’s air-conditioners were humming full tilt as they entered from the steaming pavement and made their way to the second floor.

“Doctor Bendhar is expecting you,” said a young woman who Daphne guessed doubled as a local music student.

“Why, Maddy Whitaker, how wonderful to see you,” Amadora exclaimed, rising from a desk littered with file folders, a large portfolio that Daphne suspected contained a conductor’s score, and a small glass fishbowl full of coffee candies. On shelves above her desk sat a variety of unusual stringed instruments one of which Daphne knew to be a sitar, an eastern cousin to the western guitar.

The artistic director of the Natchez Light Opera was a tall, stately fortyish woman with a prominent nose and cheekbones that looked round and pliant as persimmons. Her wide mouth was defined with a slash of bright red lipstick that contrasted well with her honey-hued skin. Her eyes were nearly as coal black as her hair, which was severely drawn away from her dramatic features and fastened in a coiled bun at the nape of her neck. Amadora’s lush figure, clad in a navy blue sari, was bedecked with gold jewelry that dangled from her ears, throat, and wrists. When she stepped from behind her desk to shake hands, Daphne noticed that on her feet were gold lamé sandals, and her toenails were painted the same five-alarm red as her lips.

She was stunning. A star. And she filled even her small office with an unmistakably grand presence. Daphne could only imagine the audience’s reaction when the glamorous woman mounted the podium and raised her baton.

The conductor’s arrival eight years earlier had been a watershed of sorts in the cultural history of the town, Maddy had said. Dr. Bendhar’s charm, training, talent, and arresting looks had won over not only everyone on the search committee—but the season ticket holders as well. Slowly, she’d built her part of the music festival into a nationally recognized event.

Daphne and Amadora exchanged smiles, and the conductor invited her and Maddy to sit.

“We’re here to ask a huge favor, Amadora,” Maddy declared bluntly.

Dr. Bendhar laughed. “Well, I have one to ask as well,” she replied genially. “May I go first?”

“Of course,” Maddy said.

“Considering your stellar training, Daphne,” the conductor began. “I hope that I can interest you in serving as principal harpist in my orchestra next spring. Our season only runs the month of March, so it wouldn’t cut into your jazz performing too terribly much.”

“You’ve heard about my straying from the fold,” Daphne said dryly.

“Oh, yes indeed. I was present at your official debut at the Under-the-Hill Saloon,” Amadora said with a twinkle. “How could I not have been, given the article about your Juilliard background and that intriguing picture of you in the paper?”

“I didn’t see you there,” Maddy exclaimed.

“I was way in the back and slipped out at the end. Didn’t want to cause talk with my benefactors, you know,” she said, winking. To Daphne she added, “But I loved the Aphrodites, and I especially loved your musicianship, my dear. I know you’ve headed off in another direction, musically, but perhaps you’d still like to keep one oar dipped in familiar waters?”

Astonished by the conductor’s positive reaction, Daphne gratefully smiled her thanks. “By next spring, I might well be dying to play a little Bernstein or Andrew Lloyd Webber. I’m honored to be asked.”

“Excellent.” The conductor nodded, appearing pleased to have accomplished her mission so easily. “Now, tell me why you’re here.”

“We want your help with something that’s very, very important to this community
…
important to its survival!” Maddy announced dramatically. Then Madeline and Daphne launched into their explanation and a request for musical assistance from the celebrated artistic director.

“We need you to organize and conduct a Natchez-based chamber orchestra to be the centerpiece of the concert,” Daphne explained. “We want every single part of the benefit to show the scope of music to be found in Mississippi and appeal to all musical tastes in the community—black and white. That means we could use your advice and counsel on every aspect of the concert. Most of all,” she said earnestly, “the evening should be
fun.
” She took a deep breath, and said, “For once, race should be set aside in this city. A toxic dump in this region could affect the health and well-being of everyone.”

Silence filled the room. Amadora smiled sadly, and then said, “Believe me, as a woman of color, I straddle those two worlds, as you know, so of course I endorse your aims. And the beautiful birds…” She heaved a small sigh. “Remember, Maddy, when Doctor Gibbs and his wife hosted a wonderful party for the Friends of All Opera out at Gibbs Hall our first year?” Maddy nodded. “That sweet Caroline Gibbs gave me a personal tour of her birdhouses modeled after the historic homes of Natchez. What a dear woman she was
…
”

“And she died of a rare brain tumor that’s been
linked
with the type of chemical waste these petroleum people want dumped next door,” Daphne said urgently. “Doctor Bendhar, we need your help so much to make this benefit a success.”

“Call me Amadora, please,” the conductor urged. “And of course I’ll help.”

“You will?” Daphne asked, realizing, suddenly, what a pleasure it was to deal with a musical director so unlike the self-absorbed Rafe Oberlin. “That’s absolutely wonderful!”

“Some of your contributors may have conflictin’ opinions about this,” Maddy warned. “They might grow cotton and need to fumigate and defoliate, and others may get their money from investments in the oil business in these parts.”

Amadora shrugged. “I’m sure I’ll hear from people whose ox is gored in this controversy, but I’m used to dealing with that sort of problem.”

“Do you think we could actually field at least twenty-five decent local musicians for a chamber orchestra?” Daphne asked with a worried frown.

“As you probably know, we import a lot of our solo musicians for the festival, so it might take scouring the colleges throughout Mississippi and across the river in Louisiana, but yes,” Amadora said, banging her bangled wrist on her desk. “If I can tell them Daphne Duvallon’s agreed to be principal harpist, I’m sure others will help us as well.”

“Sign me up,” Daphne replied. She pointed to the shelves above their heads. “What about playing something on those exotic instruments of yours as part of the program?”

Amadora glanced overhead and laughed. “I think they’re a bit
too
exotic for Natchez, my dear.” She paused, and then revealed, “I use them as a form of therapy, actually. The vibrations when I play the sitar, for example, soothe me and literally transport me to my father’s family home in the mountains north of Delhi. I can practically hear the temple bells ringing and the laughter of little children outside on the street.” She laughed. “It’s a good antidote for homesickness.”

Startled by this revelation, Daphne said, “Really? How’s that so?”

Amadora’s eyes took on a dreamy cast. “The intensity of the sound almost has the effect of putting me in a trance. I allow my mind free rein to wander where it will and magically it takes me wherever I want to go.” She laughed and added, “On a
good
day, that is.”