Souvenir (18 page)

Twenty-six

J
OHNNY
S
IMMONS’S NIGHTCLUB TOOK UP NEARLY AN ENTIRE BLOCK OF
prime Orlando real estate, not far from some of the area’s biggest attractions. The club boasted three dance floors, each in its own soundproof room, each room featuring a different kind of music. At the center of everything was the main stage, where live acts performed five nights a week. Johnny made every effort to book performers on the rise, and was building a good reputation for choosing quality acts who went on to break into entertainment’s major leagues. Carson listened to Johnny, a swaggering, jovial New Jersey transplant with pure silver hair and a build like a professional wrestler, talk up the place as he toured him around early Friday morning. He was sure the guy could sell ice to Inuits, sand to desert nomads, water to whales—probably all in a single meeting over cocktails. It was easy to see why Johnny and Gene were friends.

“We got bouncers at every entrance and exit, see, and nobody gets in tonight without a ticket. You ain’t gonna be surprised when I tell you they sold out in three hours last night. But me, I’m impressed! Holy Mary in a bathtub, that’s the fastest of any act we’ve had!” Johnny put his arm around Carson’s shoulders. “I’m gonna make a pile of money off of you, you know that, right? And I feel kinda bad about it, ’cause I got pretty much nothin’ to offer
you.
I mean, what’s money to a guy who’s swimming in it, right? So I was thinkin’, you haven’t tied the proverbial knot yet, and I got a daughter, twenty-nine, who’s your biggest fan—whaddya think, huh?”

“You’re offering me your daughter in trade, is that it?” Carson laughed. “Good thing my fiancée’s out shopping!”

Johnny wrapped his arm around Carson’s throat in a mock headlock. “No, wise guy, I’m just saying she’s a pretty girl and nice company and you would be privileged to enjoy that company with my blessing, if you thought you might still wanna look around. And when I say ‘enjoy,’ I don’t mean
‘enjoy,’
got it?”

“That’s kind of you, man. I appreciate it.” He eased out of the headlock and went up the three steps to the stage. “But I’m going to have to just settle for the regular fee.” He wasn’t in it for the money anyway. Never had been—and not for the easy access to women (as well as access to easy women) either. He wrote songs and played music because it kept the demons at bay, and because he loved creating things that came to mean something to others. If anything, he wished his career had not rocketed into the stratosphere of corporate labels and corporate expectations. He wished he’d been able to keep a tighter hold on his integrity, but God, how hard it was to concentrate on something so ephemeral back then, when they were coming to him with wheelbarrows full of cash, and feel-good substances, and inhibition-free women….

He walked the stage, its surface painted matte black to help prevent glare, and looked out into the club. The room was bright right now, as a small crew of employees buzzed about, getting tables and chairs positioned, checking oil levels in the tabletop lights; some of them paused to look his way as he went to the piano and pulled back the bench. He’d asked for a standard grand, plus a bass player, a rhythm guitarist, and a drummer. He hadn’t tried to bring in his band members, all of them either home in Seattle or spending their time off in sunnier locales, as he was. For tonight’s show he would make do with some quality local musicians, who were meeting him in a few minutes for a first run-through.

After seeing Meg yesterday, he’d been haunted by the way she’d looked so frustrated and upset, and his first draft of tonight’s song list was filled with early songs he’d written with her in mind. Then Val had come back from her workout, limp from the exertion and humidity—pitiful, really, compared with her usual peppy self, and he turned his attention back where it should be. The revised song list was more crowd-pleasing, and less bogged down with the distant past. He included his Grammy winners and his 2003 hit “Redheads,” a category that did, of course, include Meg, but only coincidentally. He couldn’t say he’d thought very much about her at all while writing it—thought if forced, he
might
admit to her being the original inspiration.

“How’s about a preview?” Johnny called from the bar.

Carson pushed the cover off the keys and ran his fingers over them in a quick rising scale, limbering up. “Okay, see if you know this one.” He started with the low opening bars of Beethoven’s
Fifth
, then segued into his breakout hit, “Facedown,” a song teens liked to think was about a woman’s sexual position, but which in fact examined his unsavory habit, in those earliest years, of indulging too heavily and waking up sprawled facedown on floors, lawns—the hood of somebody’s blue ’69 Camaro, once.

Without the microphone turned on, his voice carried only to the first row or two of tables; the staff began to migrate there, leaving tasks half done as they were drawn in.

He had always loved this part of performing, the times when it was just him and the piano and a small, appreciative audience. Making music was therapy for him, but giving it to others was like giving a gift that pleased or invigorated or inspired or soothed; he felt humbled doing it, and useful.

To prolong the pleasure a little longer, he ended that song and moved right into another, “Buried Alive,” a favorite ballad he’d left off the program because it focused so much on Meg, and to sing it well meant bloodying his wounds again. Now, though, with this safe, anonymous audience listening, he felt like it was the right time to bring the song out and hopefully exorcise one more demon.

The piano resounded with the sweet, mournful chords of the intro, and he let the notes hang suspended in the now fully quiet room. He felt his stomach clench as he began singing the first verse, felt the resistance of his heart trying not to let go. Like the snowbound hiker in the song, it wanted to hold out hope even when hope was unreachable, denied. He closed his eyes and let the song rise up and out of him, wanting it to wrench free his futile wish for a past that had never been and a future that would never be.

The lyrics came to his lips easily, as though the song was always playing somewhere inside him, quiet but steadfast, waiting—for him to do what? Notice and take action? Like a wild creature, it needed to be either soothed or set free. As he sang the final chorus, though, he knew he’d failed to release it. His love for Meg, established so long ago that he barely recalled a time when he didn’t love her, could not be forced out. Not by drinking, not by drugs, not by recreational sex, not by willful effort, and not even by his genuine, if qualitatively different, love for another woman. He was stuck with it. He tipped his head back as the piano’s final notes drifted upward to the sound of enthused applause.

Johnny joined him at the piano. “Jesus, man! You about have me bawling like a baby!” He wiped his eyes, which Carson saw were truly wet. “You perform like that tonight, we’ll have to hand out fuckin’ tissues with every admission!”

Twenty-seven

U
NABLE TO ENDURE YET ANOTHER STRANGER’S HANDS ON HER BODY
, M
EG
skipped the massage and took one of her mother’s notebooks to read in the hotel’s lounge. She was drawn into discovering more of her mother’s thoughts despite herself, despite the knot that lodged in her stomach each time she read. Each word made her miss her mother that much more, and each discovery or reminder of the past did more to heighten her regrets than soothe them. Still, reading was like taking a dose of horrible-tasting medicine with the belief that it would, eventually, make her feel better.

November 30, 2001
Low: 55º high: 82º. Tied the record! No rain.

I saw in the paper how Carson’s gone and made himself into one of the most popular singers on the radio today. They interviewed him by phone; he’s living way out on the West Coast. How hard that must be for James and Carolyn.

But they must be proud of him—another platinum album! And a song included on that September 11 CD, raising money for families of the victims. Merciful Mother, it’s so hard to understand the world today….

Still unmarried, and living the wild rock-star life, that’s what the article says. Guess that’s nothing to be proud of! But probably they exaggerate, to sell more papers. I mentioned the article to Meggie when she called after dinner, but she didn’t want to talk about it. “It’s his business,” she said, then changed the subject to one of her patients who’s got ovarian cancer. The poor woman, it’s so far gone that she asked Meggie to help her kill herself when the pain gets too terrible. Why can’t our doctors help people this way? What a crazy system we have in this country! The very people who won’t support merciful assisted suicide are willing to see healthy, innocent bystanders killed in the name of war.

My, I’m feeling scattered tonight. I should add that Beth called to say she met someone new, a man who edits some magazine I’ve never heard of. She meets all sorts of people like this nowadays, who have strange jobs and talk about things like world politics and philosophy. I have a philosophy for her: find a good man and settle down! She’s twenty-six, not getting any younger. But she’s set on getting that Ph.D. in Asian history first. I wonder sometimes whose child she is, because I can’t even pronounce the names of the places she’s studied!

Meggie says just let Beth be; she’ll find her place in life like we all do. Can I help it if I want to see all my girls happy? Or settled, anyway. Meggie, she’s so serious anymore, and she works such long hours. She’s good at what she does, but I swear, it’s like her smile has disappeared entirely.

I suppose it didn’t help any to bring up Carson; I’m not sure she ever forgave herself for breaking his heart. Guilt has a big appetite, don’t I know it—I’m the one that let her turn her back on him—so sweet, so devoted to her! That was the surest love she was ever going to find, and there I was, trying to make it out as puppy love. I let her talk herself into dating Brian because I really wanted to believe he was better for her. So much good would come of it, that’s what we all said! But the Blessed Virgin above knows as well as I do that Spencer spends all the money he gets; we are truly no better off today than we were in ’89.

So where is the good? Carson’s rambling all over the world, going from woman to woman, drinking and all that mess; Meggie’s shut up inside an office building or hospital eighteen hours a day. Well, I suppose the good is that we have Savannah—you can always find a cloud’s silver lining if you look for it!

I’m going to include Carson in my prayers tonight, and James and Carolyn, too. And a special prayer for Meggie, that she find her way out of regret and into happiness—Mother Most Beloved, help her—and all of us, really—find the way to the light.

Twenty-eight

O
N
F
RIDAY NIGHT
, M
EG LET
S
AVANNAH TOW HER INTO THE NIGHTCLUB
and up to the second row of square tables where small placards declared VIP, each with a number. Behind the two rows was a section of narrow folding chairs, and beyond that, open space, for standing. The room smelled of stale cigarettes and fresh anticipation, the sweaty excitement of eager fans. The table they stopped at, VIP 12, was so close to the stage and the piano that Meg suspected they’d be able to count the hairs on Carson’s chin, if he hadn’t shaved since yesterday.

“This is us,” Savannah said. “Oh my god, this will be so great.” She stood there, staring up at the stage, enchanted by the display of microphones and amplifiers and guitars, the glossy grand piano, so aptly named.

Meg sat in the chair she judged to be most peripheral to Carson’s view and hoped, feebly, that the footlights and spotlights would prevent him from identifying anyone in the audience at all, even the ones seated almost directly in front of him. After her day today, feeble hope for a solution to a relatively minor problem was the most she could muster.

Beginning with the MRI at 8:15
AM
, she’d spent all day being scanned and prodded and stabbed by a series of effusive technicians, their treatment so deferential that she’d wanted to throttle each of them. No one was ever so friendly or kind when she’d gone for her prenatal tests, years ago, or when she’d spent seven hours waiting in the ER last summer after spraining her ankle dismounting a horse. That day, with that ordinary injury, she’d been as faceless as any other patient to those overworked medical professionals. Only when you were truly marked did you get the kind of treatment she’d had today. She’d been that effusive person herself more than once, and as recently as two weeks ago, when she had to tell a thirty-four-year-old patient that her enlarged abdomen wasn’t a pregnancy but rather a malignancy—endometrial, and so far gone that the woman’s odds of survival were about as good as for a Florida snowfall in August. At least, though, that woman
could
pull through.
Might
pull through, if the hyper-aggressive chemo, radiation, and surgical regimen in front of her succeeded. Modern medicine held a pinhole ray of hope for that woman. For Meg, it held only the blackness of being buried alive.

She watched Savannah, in her plum tank top and low-rise faded jeans, decorated with a prismatic array of rhinestones falling along each thigh. The stones caught the light as Savannah stood there, hair loose on her shoulders, taking in the scene of her first official rock concert. Meg saw how bright her eyes looked, how grown up her face was, with the careful rim of green eyeliner and darkened, lengthened lashes. She was such a pretty girl, unique in her beauty, and so smart, too. What would she make of her life in ten years? In twenty? When she was Meg’s age, thirty-eight, how would she feel about being motherless? Because motherless she would be—Dr. Andre Bolin, the ALS expert, hadn’t been able to say otherwise.

He’d come into the exam room, where she waited in a patterned cotton wrap, and socks, because her feet were freezing. How long had she sat there, legs dangling over the table’s edge? Five minutes? Fifty? She didn’t have any idea by that time, her appointment with Bolin coming at the end of a long day of waiting, coming at the end of the line.

The end of the line. That’s how she already saw it, sitting there, waiting for him. She didn’t need an expert to interpret the down-turned corners of the EMG tech’s mouth, the skittish eyes of the nurse who’d ushered her into the exam room. She could have scripted Bolin’s words—though she wanted desperately to be wrong. He put her through an extensive exam, testing every large muscle, testing her neck, face, hands…he’d asked her to speak and to swallow and to laugh (a rueful laugh is what she managed) and to cough and nod…. Then she dressed and went and sat beside him in his spacious office, its bookshelves filled with medical tomes but also novels—for what purpose? He couldn’t possibly find time to read during the day. Were they there to lend to patients who, like her, would very soon be unable to clasp the book, let alone turn the pages? Save them the precious time of making a separate trip to the library or bookstore? She’d left with that curiosity unanswered. What she did have was Bolin’s “unfortunate concurrence” with Brianna’s finding, plus two informational booklets (
Resources for the Newly Diagnosed
and
Living with ALS
, how droll), and a note on Bolin’s stationery with the names of ALS patients she might want to meet.

Her only question for Bolin was to inquire about the status of drug trials. He said, “There’s nothing significant, nothing that’ll impress you as a patient. The only drug shown to have appreciable effect is riluzole—if we start you on it right now, it may extend your life.”

“How long?” she asked.

He sighed, then said, “Studies find that some patients gain as many as sixty days.”

She laughed when he said this, actually laughed. “
Sixty extra days
of full-body paralysis, with a feeding tube, maybe a respirator—wow. Write out that prescription for me, doc!”

Bolin had let her rant, let her refuse the prescription, and now…now, no matter how shell-shocked she felt, she had to be a mom; now she had to act normally so that her child wouldn’t be affected, wouldn’t be alarmed. She wouldn’t tell Savannah, not so soon, not when the mortal wound was still so raw. She had to tell her eventually, of course she did, but she had no idea when “eventually” would be. How could you ever tell your child you were dying? How could you not?

“These are such great seats,” Savannah said, taking the chair to Meg’s right. “I hope you don’t mind I got VIP tickets.”

“I’m glad you did,” Meg lied. If she had her way, she’d rather be just about anywhere else than seated thirty feet from where Carson would be performing songs she knew were, in many cases, written with her crimes in mind.

As a buyer of his music, as a fan, she’d been able to keep Carson at a safe distance. She’d been able to hear, in his lyrics, their history commemorated, romanticized, and she’d felt sort of special knowing she was the inspiration for some of the songs. The distance between their past and Carson’s voice reproduced on a plastic silver disc was broad and forgiving; it let her taste the bittersweetness of that past without very much of the guilt. It let her have a part of Carson even Brian could not take issue with—and he didn’t listen to the music anyway. First of all, she didn’t play it around him. And second, Brian’s CD library was made up entirely of audio books on investing, management, global economics, and golf.

Once Meg was his, Brian had ceased being jealous of Carson; why wouldn’t he? He was a man who believed in
results.
She’d chosen him, she’d remained faithful—the fact of Carson’s success and notoriety was hardly more to him than an amusing party anecdote. When Carson was charged, in 1998, with some throwback North Carolina law against having sexual relations with another man’s wife, Brian enjoyed relating the news to friends and saying how lucky it was he’d rescued Meg from a life of infamy. As if Carson would have led that life if she had stayed with him. She never said this; she only smiled and shrugged—
How true!
—sharing the derision-laced humor like a faithful spouse would. To defend Carson would only raise suspicion, draw attention to her stubborn, deceitful heart—and make Brian look bad. No, she knew very well not to stray outside the safety of the wagons she’d circled around her life.

The nightclub’s tables filled with lucky fans; Meg overheard a pair of twenty-something women behind them comparing notes with a trio of young men close by: who’d seen the website announcement, who’d gotten the e-mail, how fast they’d acted in order to get tickets…. Savannah, also listening, turned around and chimed in.

“It’s so great my dad gave me a BlackBerry last Christmas, or I never would’ve known in time! Whenever I have an e-mail I get an alert, and so I checked right away and was like, oh my god, I have to get tickets! My mom knows him,” she added.

“No way!” one of the women said, a dyed redhead whose body-hugging T-shirt stretched Carson’s face over braless A-cup breasts.

The other woman, her matching top revealing rolls of pudge, declared, “You should have backstage passes!”

Savannah nodded. “Yeah, I know, but she didn’t want to, like, presume on their past friendship. But probably we’ll see him after the concert. Right, Mom?”

Meg observed this new, animated version of Savannah with interest, but she didn’t contradict her.

A waiter stopped at their table to deliver pretzels and take their drink orders, additional perks of the VIP admission. “Gin, rocks, lime twist,” Meg said. Savannah ordered a Diet Coke.

“I brought all the CDs,” Savannah told Meg, patting her bag slung over the back of her chair. “So Carson can sign ’em for us. And don’t let me forget to buy Rachel a T-shirt. They have some at the front, did you see? Maybe the waiter could get one for us? Maybe I’ll get one too—and Carson could sign those, too, do you think?”

“I don’t know, honey…”

Savannah frowned. “Can’t we at least
try
?”

Meg opened her mouth, ready to deliver another momism like,
We need to respect people’s privacy
or
It’s not polite to impose for your own gain
, but she held her tongue. How many more opportunities would she get to be Savannah’s hero? She truly did not want to impose on Carson—she wanted to see him perform, yes, but otherwise avoid him entirely. For her daughter, though, she could make this effort.

And to be honest, a part of her, the part that still clung to a foolish wish indulged on her wedding morning, thought how interesting it would be to see Carson and Savannah together, side by side. Savannah looked so much like
her
that she had never been able to settle on which of the two men she made love with that day was the more probable father. In person, together, she might find between Savannah and Carson some new glimmer of resemblance.

The comparison game was one she’d been playing for a very long time, from back when she’d accidentally discovered Carson’s first CD while shopping at the Gainesville Target. Savannah, who was four, was strapped into the cart, occupied with a tiny Tigger in one chubby hand and Piglet in the other. The characters were “conversing” in high and low singsong voices, deep in discussion over whether they should cook macaroni and cheese or grilled cheese for dinner that night. It was a week when Savannah would only eat things with cheese. The next phase would be blue foods; she’d eat a lot of raspberry popsicles that week. Meg indulged her so much, that last summer before she began her medical internship; it eased the guilt.

The CD cover was a close-up of Carson’s face, scruffy and shadowed but wearing an enigmatic smile. His eyes were dark green and a little sad. He had a small silver hoop in his left earlobe, and she wondered how his dad had reacted to
that
. Feeling like a kid sneaking a nudie magazine, Meg grabbed the CD from the shelf and stuffed it into the red cart—
This cart’s not cheese colored!
Savannah had complained—beneath a package of paper towels and new summer clothes for Savannah, who was outgrowing everything. Meg looked around to see if anyone had seen her take the CD, as though they might also see her duplicitous heart. She was not supposed to be thinking about Carson, should not have stood there transfixed by the way Savannah’s ears looked so much like his.

If she’d listened to her mother-in-law and her husband, she wouldn’t have been there at all. Brian and Shelly always fussed at her for shopping at Target; they could afford better, and didn’t she want to show it? But she couldn’t get used to having so much money available to her. The checking account balance was intimidating, even after her med-school bills got paid. She could afford the expensive department stores, was expected to shop in those places, but she felt like a trespasser in them. Target was safer. Usually. Before they started stocking Carson McKay CDs.

She’d put it in her new Volvo’s CD player as soon as she got in. Her stomach was tight, hard as glass as she sat there, hearing Carson’s voice for the first time in nearly five years. She knew before the end of the chorus that the song was about her; she let the music pelt her, let his voice fill the space, enveloping her in his melancholy. Only when the stuffed Tigger sailed over her head and landed on the dash did she reach out and snap the stereo off.

“Mommy, Tigger’s hungry. Can we go home now, please? He wants Cheetos and a side of cheese grits, pronto!”

Before Meg complied with Tigger’s request, she took the CD and tossed it into the garbage can in front of the store.

At the end of the blue-food week, she snuck back to Target on her own and bought his CD again.

Tonight, if she saw Carson and her daughter side by side, she might find new evidence of Savannah’s paternity. Or she might not. If not, that wouldn’t prove anything for certain, just as Savannah having what seemed to be Brian’s nose and face shape didn’t prove she was Brian’s—because how, then, to explain Savannah’s musical abilities? Were her eyes, green like fresh-cut lime, her small-lobed ears, the wave in her hair all merely coincidental? Nothing but expressed genes from the extensive Powell and Hamilton pools?

“I’ll try to get us backstage,” Meg said.

Savannah leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, Mommy!” She grinned, her smile a match to Meg’s own—though Savannah’s crooked right eyetooth had been corrected with braces.

How lucky it was that Savannah looked primarily like her. Suppose she had turned out to be the spitting image of Carson? Meg had overlooked that possibility before she’d gone to him, proving just how idiotic she was back then. Ruled by her emotions—a dangerous state she’d tried to avoid ever since.

If Carson
was
Savannah’s father, then very little had been accomplished by marrying Brian. Because as her mother’s diary pointed out, her father simply wasn’t capable of being lifted out of the hole he’d dug—or, once lifted out, he dug another. Yes, her marriage allowed them to hold on to the business and the land, and that was no small thing. But how much had that benefited her mom or her sisters in the end?