Love Me (19 page)

“Fortunately, they’re pretty fair-minded about things down here. If you can pay your check, you can stay.” Eddie grinned. “And lucky for you, I’m paying.” He signaled for the waiter. “Rusty! Over here!”

The red-jacketed waiter made his way smoothly toward the table and clapped his hand into Eddie’s outstretched one. “Eddie. How you doing, man?”

“Not bad, not bad. Just here to catch the show.”

“Well, you won’t be disappointed. It’s going to be a hot one.”

“That’s what I hear.” Eddie smiled. “Oh, Rusty, I want you to meet a good friend of mine from the studio. Gabby Preston.”

A good friend
. It didn’t quite have the ring of
girlfriend
, but it was better than nothing.
Give it time
.

“Oh, sure.” Rusty nodded easily. “I’ve heard you on the radio. Nice set of pipes. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Scotch,” Gabby replied, too quickly, and immediately flushed. Why did she have to do things like that? Margo Sterling would never do something like that. Margo Sterling would daintily sip a single glass of champagne, and even then, only if her date positively insisted.
Eddie’s going to think I’m some kind of drunk
.

But Eddie just laughed. “I guess you’d better bring us a bottle of J and B. And ice?” Gabby nodded. “And a bucket of ice for the lady.”

“Got it. You hungry?”

Gabby shook her head, her magical little green appetite suppressant already in her hand. Maybe she’d blown it with the
drink order, but she wasn’t going to make things worse by stuffing her face in front of Eddie. On this point, sources as diverse as Amanda, Viola, and Scarlett O’Hara’s Mammy were absolutely agreed: you were never, never,
never
supposed to eat in front of a man.

“Well, I’m starving,” Eddie said. “I think you’d better bring us a basket of fried chicken. One of the big ones, with waffles. Mashed potatoes and collard greens with ham hocks on the side. And for dessert … sweet potato pie.”

“You sure? We got coconut cream tonight too.”

“What the hell, bring us one of each.” Eddie turned to Gabby. “Promise me you’ll at least try everything. You won’t be sorry. They’ve got the best soul food here outside of the South.”

Gabby nodded, having taken the distraction of Rusty’s departure to surreptitiously shove the green pill in her mouth. “Whatever you say,” she said, once a couple of practiced gulps had forced the dry tablet down her throat. “You’re the bandleader.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Now,” Eddie said, stubbing out his cigarette. “What was that thing you just took?”

“What?” Gabby felt a sudden stab of panic. “What are you talking about?”

“Whatever you just swallowed. It looked like some kind of pill.”

“It’s just something from the studio,” Gabby said quickly. “To give me energy. It’s mostly just vitamins.”

“Oh, believe me, I know all about those kind of vitamins. Everybody takes them on the road.”

“Even you?”

“Are you kidding me? How else are you supposed to play four
shows a night, seven days a week? Only thing is, though, they make you awful jumpy.”

Gabby shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

“Maybe you don’t, but some of us need our beauty sleep. So then you’ve got to find something else, something stronger to calm you down.”

“I guess that’s what Scotch is for,” Gabby said.

Eddie raised his eyebrows. “I guess so. Among other things.”

He looked like he was about to say something else, but then the lights dimmed and the band came onstage.

The band
. This, Gabby thought, was the real way the Dunbar was different from all the other places. She had never heard anything like the music that was coming out of the horn of the tenor saxophonist.

It started out as “Body and Soul,” a song she’d heard hundreds of times, but after the first four bars, the familiar tune fell away as the saxophone played around it, taking the music through twists and turns she’d never imagined. And yet, somehow she still heard the melody through it all, haunting and clear, and she realized it was all in her mind.
The saxophone’s making harmony in my head
, Gabby thought. It was like …

“Magic,” she whispered.

“You like it?” Eddie asked when the music stopped.

“Oh yes.” Gabby’s eyes shone with tears. “It’s just … I don’t even know what to say.”

“Good.” Eddie grinned. “I knew you had taste. They’ll take a break now. Come on, let’s go backstage. I want to see if they’ll let me sit in on the next set.”

“You?”

“Yes, me. I do happen to play a little trumpet, or have you
forgotten? Besides”—he shrugged—“how else am I going to figure out how to copy what he’s doing in my session tomorrow?”

Gabby frowned. “Eddie, you can’t … you wouldn’t … 
borrow
someone else’s music, would you?”

“Borrow?” Eddie snorted. “Certainly not. Good artists borrow.
Great
artists steal. And I’m the greatest thief there is.”

He held out his hand to her. A little shiver went up Gabby’s spine at his touch. Obediently, she followed as he pulled her through the crowded room and out into the crush of people hanging out on the sidewalk. Eddie steered her expertly around the corner and through a side door, into a kind of anteroom cluttered with the usual musicians’ detritus: the stacks of instrument cases, the discarded reeds. At the far end was another door, half open, through which Gabby caught a glimpse of the miraculous saxophone player and a couple of his side men sitting around mopping their foreheads with their rolled-up shirtsleeves.

“Wait here,” Eddie said, suddenly all business. “I’ll just be a minute.”

He disappeared behind the door, closing it tightly behind him.

Alone, Gabby felt awkward and out of place.
This is why people smoke
, she thought, slouching against the wall, trying to make herself as small as possible.
So they always look like they have something to do
.

“Gabby?”

“Dexter. Hi.”

“I thought that was you.” Wherever Eddie was, it seemed Dexter couldn’t be far behind. He looked at her with a quizzical
expression. A slightly battered cornet dangled from his hand. “What are you doing on Central Avenue?”

“I came to see the show. With
Eddie
,” she added importantly. “He asked me this morning, at the studio, remember?”

“Oh, that’s right.” Dexter looked amused. “I don’t know how I could have forgotten.”

Frankly, Gabby didn’t either. Eddie’s invitation—even if she
had
had to give him just the teeniest little nudge—had been such a momentous occasion she could hardly believe that even Dexter Harrington would fail to understand its import. “Have you been here the whole time?”

“Me?” Dexter looked puzzled.

“Yes. Did you just get here, or did you see that band?”

“See the band?” Dexter began to laugh. “Gabby, I was
in
the band.”

“You were?” Gabby’s eyes widened in surprise. “That wasn’t you on sax. And I didn’t see a piano.”

“I was on trumpet.” Shaking his head, he snapped open an instrument case and carefully laid the horn against the worn velvet lining. “It’s okay. I guess I don’t stand out as much here as on the Olympus lot, huh?”

“It’s not that, it’s just …” Gabby hunted desperately for some way to feasibly change the subject. “I just mostly noticed the saxophone player,” she said finally.
Lame, but not untrue
.

Dexter’s eyes shone. “He’s something else, isn’t he? He’s just moved back from Paris. I met him over there when he was playing with Benny Carter and Django Reinhardt.”

“Jango what?”

“Django Reinhardt. He’s a Belgian gypsy with two fingers,
and the greatest guitar player in the history of the world. It’s surprising you haven’t heard of him.”

“Not really.” Hollywood was an insular place. Gabby listened to records the studio gave her, watched the movies they told her to see. She could name every Broadway play a producer had optioned over the past eighteen months and reel off the vital statistics of any up-and-comer who might challenge her for a part, but the outside world was a lot of noise, consigned to a few blurry black-and-white minutes of newsreel sandwiched between a double feature. Until embarrassingly recently, Gabby had thought Benito Mussolini was just the latest baritone in MGM’s long search for a continental replacement for Nelson Eddy. “I haven’t heard of a lot of things. What’s the sax player’s name, anyway?” she asked.

Dexter looked at her strangely. “Didn’t they announce it?”

“Yes, but it was too noisy to hear. I didn’t hear your name either, remember?”

Dexter pulled a crumpled leaflet out of his pocket. “Here’s the program. You can read all about everything here.”

Gabby looked down hopelessly at the smeared text marching mercilessly across the creased paper. Maybe it was the pills she had swallowed or all the Scotch she had drunk, but the letters seemed to be jumping around more than ever, swarming and multiplying hideously, like a colony of ants on a clean kitchen floor. She squinted, willing them to stay put, making out a
C
here, an
X
there, but it was no use. She might as well have been staring into a black hole.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said quickly. “I was just asking to be polite. I’d better go and find Eddie now anyway.”

Dexter was looking at her intently. “You know, Gabby,” he
said quietly, “if you have trouble reading, just say so. I can help you. Nobody else needs to know.”

“I don’t
need
any help,” Gabby hissed, shoving the program back at his chest. “Especially not from someone … someone like
you
.”

She regretted the words the moment they came out of her mouth, but it was too late now. She’d been assigned to this script, and she was sticking to it. Ignoring Dexter’s look of hurt and confusion, she pushed past him imperiously, flinging open the door that had swallowed Eddie.

“Gabby.” The doorway belched forward a cloud of thick, pungent smoke. Eddie choked out her name in a dry, froglike croak, gazing at her with placid, red-rimmed eyes. “What are you doing back here?”

“Looking for you,” Gabby retorted. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s bad manners to leave your date waiting?”

“No.” Eddie burst out laughing, smoke streaming from his mouth. “I don’t think I’ve gotten to that part yet in my, whaddyacallit, my
etiquette course
.”

Now they were all laughing, all the musicians crammed in the small smoky space. Gabby wasn’t the least intimidated anymore, just angry with all these grown men hiding away in a closet like children sneaking cookies from the pantry before supper.

“Well, it is,” she said, tapping her foot impatiently. “And it’s even worse manners to have some of that and not offer her so much as a single puff.”

There
, she thought.
That’ll show ’em
. And Dexter, whom she could still feel behind her, staring at her back with those wounded puppy-dog eyes.

“Oh, honey,” Eddie chuckled. “See, this here isn’t a cigarette, sweetheart.”

“I know
exactly
what it is,” Gabby said impatiently, “and believe me, it’s
exactly
what I need right now.”

A chorus of hoots went up from the stoned musicians.

“Damn,” one of them said. “Looks like you hooked a live one.”

“Watch out, Sharpie,” said another, “that chick of yours is viper mad.”

Eddie lowered his voice. “You really want some? You sure?”

Gabby wasn’t sure, not exactly, but the gauntlet had been thrown down. “Of course,” she said firmly. “I’m dying for it.”

“All right.” A little smile played over Eddie’s lips. “Benny, pass her the joint.”

Benny, the guy who had called her viper mad—Gabby thought he was the trombone player—dutifully handed over the little smoldering bundle. Gabby held it gingerly between her thumb and forefinger, examining it. Shorter and flatter than a regular cigarette, it looked like one of the tobacco rollups the camera crews were always smoking on set.

“Wrap your chops round that stick of tea,”
somebody sang softly. Another couple of people joined in.
“Blow that gage, and get high with me.…”

“All right, Gabby,” Eddie said. “It’s simple. Just suck it slowly. Breathe in deep and don’t exhale until I tell you to, okay?”

It felt like swallowing a lit match. Her throat, then her lungs felt like they were on fire.
I’m suffocating
, Gabby thought.
I’m going to die
.

“Ready to exhale?” Eddie asked. “Okay. One, two …”

And suddenly, his hot, open mouth was on hers, greedily
sucking in the vapor that erupted from Gabby’s mouth.
This is happening
, she thought wildly.
Eddie Sharp’s lips are touching mine
. They lingered just a moment, just long enough to inhale every last bit of her smoke, before he pulled away again, grinning at her.

“Not bad for your first time,” he murmured.

It was not quite a kiss. Not quite.

But sometimes
, Gabby thought as everything around her dissolved into a warm, happy haze,
sometimes not quite is more than enough
.