The Song in My Heart (28 page)

“No,” Dess lied. Of course she had been torturing herself with the magazine image, with the memories of Erika in her arms, in her bed, on the stage with her. She missed Erika every bit as much—maybe more—as the day she’d left. But admitting as much to Carol would solve nothing.

Carol continued to casually flip the pages as though she were browsing the shop windows along the Mag Mile. “Her blues song is doing pretty well. I hear it on the radio all the time. She sounds great, don’t you think?”

“Yes. She does.”

“And how about her and that actress, Bethany Dunlop. I didn’t see that coming, did you?” More page flipping, more pretend casualness.

Dess sipped her coffee. “No, I didn’t.”

“They look pretty impressive together, but I can’t imagine they have much in common. And they must never see each other, both with such busy careers and all. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Dess hoped that was true, but she had no idea, and she did not want to spend time and energy worrying about something she had no control over.

“Do you think, you know, that they’re just doing it for publicity, or…” Carol looked up from the magazine. “Or do you think it’s something more?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Dess tried to keep her voice neutral, but it was like holding down the lid on a boiling pot.

“Erika doesn’t seem the type who would date someone just for the attention. She’s not that calculating, right?”

Dess slammed the counter with a closed fist. To hell with pretending not to give a shit. “Goddammit, Carol! I know you’re trying to get a reaction out of me. Well, fine, you’ve succeeded.”

Carol’s eyes softened with sympathy. “I’m not spoiling for a fight. But yes, I’m trying to get you to talk about Erika, because you’re terribly unhappy without her.” Carol reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Dess, honey. Please talk about it. I know it’s killing you.”

“There’s nothing to say,” Dess answered sharply. “Erika is doing what she needs to do. She’s moving forward with her life. She’s with somebody else, and I can’t do a fucking thing about it. It’s done. It is what it is.”

“No, don’t say that. You can still change things. You can still change your life.”

Dess wanted to cocoon herself, to disappear into her habitual solitude. “We’ve been over this before. You know I can’t go back to that lifestyle. Small festivals are one thing, but where Erika’s at now, it’s too…painful for me.”

“All right, fine.” Carol had that take-no-prisoners look in her eyes—the one she’d perfected long ago in looking out for her younger sister. “Yes, it’s painful for you to be around concert halls, airports, grip-and-grins, media interviews, people like Dayna. But it’s goddamned painful the way you’re living too. You ever think about that?”

“Of course I think about it.” Dess’s chest constricted. She and pain were conjoined twins and had been for years. “I live it, for God’s sake. You know that.”

“Oh, honey, you’re right. I’m so sorry.” Carol placed her arm around Dess’s shoulder and squeezed her tightly. “I want you to be happy, that’s all. I hate seeing you sad.”

“I know you do. I’m sorry I bit your head off.”

“It’s okay. I sort of asked for it. But listen, nobody says you have to go back to the music business, to that lifestyle. But you do need to deal with your fears. You’ve never had closure from losing your voice, from leaving your career, the music you loved so much, your fans. You never said goodbye, you never explained. You just…disappeared.”

Dess pulled out of her sister’s embrace and looked her in the eye. For almost seven years she’d eschewed everything to do with the music business, had coldly avoided anyone or anything connected to her life in show business. Setting a toe back onto the stage as Dora Hessler had been as risky, as brave, as she’d ever dared. But that little experiment hadn’t come close to reconciling everything she’d lost. It had done nothing more for her healing process than if she’d dressed up in a costume and played make believe. “What are you suggesting?”

* * *

From behind the stage curtain, Erika peeked at the audience. They were growing restless waiting for her, but what—for once—intrigued her far more than the people was the facility. It was the iconic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, so much like a church both inside and out, and now, as she prepared to walk onto the stage of the legendary shrine to such famous acts as Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and Loretta Lynn, she took a deep breath and counted to twenty, letting the famous faces of the past skitter through her mind like a slide show.

Finally, she tapped the worn, scuffed wooden stage with the toe of her boot, waited for the crescendo to build after the emcee announced her, then trotted out into the spotlight, where she bowed reverently to the audience and waved to those in the upper balcony. She moved to the grand piano, sat down and wiggled her fingers. For a fleeting moment, she wondered what her parents would think of her performing on such an iconic stage. Whether it would make them forgive her for chasing
her
dream and not theirs and whether it would make them overlook her great
sin
of being gay. No, she decided. If they only loved her for her success now, it wasn’t love at all.

“Hello, Nashville!” she yelled into the mic, summoning her stage persona. “Are you ready for a little R & B? A little blues? A little rock? Are you ready for little ol’ me?” The audience stamped and clapped, yelled out a collective yes. “Good, ’cuz I’m ready for you!”

She launched into a spirited version of “Am I the Same Girl (You Used to Know)?” Audiences never grew tired of old R & B songs, she’d discovered, because they made you feel good, made you feel like you wanted to get up and dance. When it was time to slow things down, she decided to take a leap of faith. Departing from her set list would give Dayna a cow, but to hell with it. She wanted, needed, to feel Dess right now. Dess had played in this very auditorium two or three times during her career, and Erika so wished she could talk to her about it, share what it was like with her, what she was feeling, smelling, seeing, thinking about. Performers always listed the Ryman as one of their favorite places and said the experience remained indelibly stamped in their memories. Erika could understand why, as she imagined decades of live music coating and infiltrating every crevice and surface in the place, like thick dust.

On the piano, she began playing the opening notes to the ballad she and Dess had crafted together last spring. When she sang the words “
you are the song in my heart
,” she felt her throat clamp up. Her voice cracked and she stumbled over the next line before she could sufficiently recover. Would she ever be able to sing this song without dying inside? Without tears welling in her eyes? Would she ever be able to forget the swell of joy at having discovered real love, then the profound, soul-busting sorrow of losing it? Matters of her heart aside, it was simply too good a song to bury forever. She would always miss Dess, always feel her loss with every breath she took. But singing about their love gave her the strength, somehow, to keep moving forward. She
needed
the sacrifice to be worth it.

She’d closed out her portion of the show when Dayna, breathless and flushed, cornered her backstage. “What the hell was that song?”

“Something I wrote a while back. With Dess.”

Dayna’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Well. It’s fucking spectacular. I want to talk about recording it.”

Erika sighed. She was too spent to talk business. “Whatever. We’ll talk on the plane tomorrow.”

She retreated to one of the rooms in the basement, which was not much bigger than a broom closet and smelled like one. The stage was above her head, the boot stomping of the next performer tapping out a staccato beat. Looking in the dusty mirror, she tried to tell herself she didn’t care that Bethany hadn’t shown up. Bethany hadn’t exactly promised, but she’d said she’d try, which Erika should have known was a euphemism for I-can’t-be-bothered. Bethany was in Nashville for a couple of weeks, shooting a cameo appearance for the television series that went by the same name. A faint
ding
drew her attention to her phone. It was a text from Bethany instructing her to come to her penthouse suite downtown for a small party she was throwing for the show’s cast and crew.

Erika’s guitar player, a giant of a man with a soft-spoken voice, had asked her if she wanted to join some of the performers for a late dinner at the Wild Horse Saloon. She was tempted to take him up on his offer and teach Bethany a lesson but politely declined. She hadn’t seen Bethany in more than three weeks. Not that she missed her, really, but she did miss sex. Sex between them was fast and furious—hot, but in a mechanical way devoid of all emotion except for the need to get laid. And tonight, she was ready for some sexual release.

A short cab ride later, she entered Bethany’s suite unnoticed. Small clusters of people milled around, stiff drinks in their hands. The room buzzed with laughter and gossip, the way it did when lips had been loosened by alcohol. At least two people were fall-down drunk, with several more well on their way, Erika noticed. Three of the actors from the television show were among the guests, and Erika stopped one of them to ask where Bethany was. The man, who gave Erika only a fleeting look of recognition, pointed toward what appeared to be the bathroom door, which was slightly ajar.

Impatient at having to go on a treasure hunt for her lover, Erika stalked to the bathroom and pushed open the door. There, bent over the vanity counter snorting lines of coke, were Bethany and her lapdog Raymond. This time he was dressed in lemon yellow pants and a bright red shirt.

“Jesus Christ,” she said, too exhausted and unsurprised to work up much anger.

Bethany, her eyes hooded and red-rimmed, produced a lazy smile. “Hey, lover. ’Bout time you got here. Come join the fun.”

“As if,” Erika snorted. Bethany knew damn well she didn’t do drugs and that she didn’t approve of others doing them in front of her. Bethany’s drug use was the only true wedge between them, because Erika simply didn’t care enough to let the daily challenges of trying to maintain a relationship disturb her in any other consequential way. She had long accepted that their relationship was a house of cards, ready to collapse at the least provocation.

Raymond, his hip jutting out defiantly, winked at her but directed his comments to Bethany. “Your girlfriend would be so much more fun if she took that stick out of her ass and stuck some of this up her nose.”

Erika had had enough. She turned to leave. If Bethany preferred drugs and Raymond over her, then fine. It was no great loss. She was stopped cold when Bethany mumbled, “Go ahead and leave. See if I care.”

Erika walked back to Bethany, pointedly ignoring Raymond and his bitchy scorn. “If you pulled your head out of your ass for once—or out of your goddamned coke and Oxys—you might actually give a shit that you and I are through.”

Bethany shook her head, smiling that stupid coked-up grin. “We’re not through, baby. We’ve barely gotten started. And I know you aren’t going to leave me, ’cuz I got something you want.”

“Oh, stop sounding like a badly written song. The only thing I get from you, I can get from a million other women.”

Bethany wiped her nose on the sleeve of her very expensive blouse and glared at Erika. “All except the one woman you really want it from.”

“You,” Erika hissed, “don’t get to talk about her.”

Bethany’s laugh was iced with vindictiveness. “You know something? Raymond’s right. You are no fun. Even that washed-up old singer you’re pining for probably realized that.”

Erika raised her hand to slap Bethany but stopped herself. She’d never hit anybody before.
And I’m not going to start with someone as pathetic as this
.

She left the suite without a glance back. Pining alone for Dess was far preferable than getting a synthetic high with worthless leeches and hangers-on. Her only regret was that she hadn’t dumped Bethany sooner.

In the cab back to her hotel, Erika watched raindrops slither down the window and imagined it was how her soul felt—weeping, gray, cold, lonely. So terribly lonely. She and Dess had made a pact to talk to each other if either of them ever felt despondent or overwhelmed. She could use a good heart-to-heart with Dess right now, but it was a pointless fantasy. Their so-called pact had been nothing but a delusion.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Dess silently prayed that her heavy makeup would continue to soak up the persistent beads of sweat forming at her hairline. She hadn’t produced this much sweat since that hot summer night onstage in Madison, the night that had changed so much for her and Erika. She had to practically sit on her hands now to keep them from shaking, but she offered a tranquil smile to the interviewer—
Good Morning America
’
s
Robin Roberts. She’d given thousands of interviews over her career, which made her an old pro at it, she supposed. Except that she hadn’t done one in seven years, and this one had all the butterfly-producing hallmarks of her first.

Robin was smooth—and nice, which made all the difference. Once they’d gone through the formalities and a review of Dess’s career and her illness, Robin homed in on the most pertinent question, the one Dess was fully expecting: Why the sudden desire to go public again after all these years?

The answer wasn’t simple, and she paused to collect her thoughts. It was time, she explained to Robin, that she began embracing life again, living in the light instead of the dark, and that meant dealing with her fear of the media and the public. What early on was a quest for privacy had blurred into something much more harmful and debilitating. So this was a baptism of sorts, she joked.

“Does this make you afraid, appearing on camera?” Robin asked. “Are you nervous right now?”

Dess laughed stiffly and held out her trembling hand. “Does that answer your question?”

Robin asked her what had changed her mind, what had been the catalyst to make her want to change her life now.

That one was easy, but she treaded carefully as she answered. She realized, she said, when she began anonymously playing music onstage again this past summer, how much she missed connecting with people. How much she missed sharing music, even if she couldn’t sing anymore. And her bandmates, she added with a smile. “They were special. It was a special time, and it made me see there was so much joy out there that I was missing out on.”