Pick up the Pieces Page 3
The guys were already discussing what music to include and rehearsal times and where we could find a cheap place to practice. I was still fighting my internal battle. Staying also meant the possibility of providing the person who’d caused Marigold and Daria to disappear the opportunity to take a crack at me. It was probably a ridiculous supposition, but I couldn’t banish the thought from my mind.
Yet, even with the abundance of emotional trauma swirling inside my brain, I was already planning to call Thea, my dog sitter in New Jersey, and ask if she could look after my rescue collie Clyde a bit longer than a week. I admitted to myself I needed to know if there was anything left of the love Nic Jericho and I once shared.
Marigold’s voice seemed to have bounced from Cam’s brain right into mine. Except, in addition to her demands that we finish the cd, the words in my head included an extra plea, an insistent whisper, which cried, “Find the truth, Bebe. And please don’t hate me anymore.”
Chapter 4
Juniper Rose Blume threw open the double doors of what could rightfully be termed a mansion, and then hugged me for so long and so hard I worried we’d end up melding into one being.
“Bebe, you bad child. You are disgraceful about staying in touch. What’s it been? Christmas? One lousy phone call. Well, not lousy, it was great, but you get my drift. Now come inside before you roast out there. Damn. Why do I live in Texas? And don’t try to give me a decent answer; no one can because it’s a stupid question. At least you were smart enough to move to a climate more befitting a civilized society. Then again, you Jersey folks did have one whale of a nasty winter.”
I didn’t bother trying to respond to what were essentially rhetorical questions and ramblings. This was Junie Blume’s style. Always had been. Always would be. A comforting thought, like the woman herself. If Marigold had been the quintessential earth goddess, Juniper was the earth mother herself.
Before I had a chance to lift a suitcase, a silent, extremely short Latino man wearing a Hawaiian print shirt and khaki shorts swooped down from behind Junie and grabbed the luggage I’d plopped on the ground. He disappeared into the house. I stopped Junie, who’d been grinning at the unlikely bellhop.
“Uh, what was that?” I asked.
“What? Oh, the super-swift guy with your bags? Meet Jorge, my butler. He followed me home one day from a shopping trip in Austin. Sort of like a rescue puppy. Asked for work. I had nothing for him to do but I liked him so much I told him he could be a valet and a general guy Friday. He has this innate sense of when he’s needed and he cooks a mean batch of tamales. Goes great with Miguel’s enchiladas. We’re working on getting him to understand enough English to ace his citizenship test. Jorge. Not Miguel, uh Mickey. Mickey was born in Texas. Actually I believe he’s a Son of the Republic. His family was here way before mine.”
Junie had always had a ton of help around the estate. I could hardly call them servants because, to Junie, they were family. Everyone who entered the Blume house was family. Marigold had had the same outlook. Junie and Marigold both loved picking up strays. Dogs, cats, mice, birds, ferrets, and people. Didn’t matter. All strays welcome.
I sometimes felt I’d been one of them.
A social scientist studying differences between genetics and environmental influences upon one’s personality would have been stymied as to how to classify the two women who had no biological connection to each other if he’d ever met Juniper and Marigold Blume. They looked alike and often thought alike, although Marigold had had a much wilder side to her than Junie. Junie and Marigold had also shared a love of chatter. Incessant chatter. They were champions of the art of talking and usually what they had to say was interesting. Not always logical but never boring.
After describing in rambling but fascinating detail Jorge’s place in the scheme of the Blume household, Junie led me upstairs to the room where I was to stay during this reunion week. She continued with questions I had no chance to answer. “How did rehearsal go? Did y’all snap right back into the groove? Pieces always did have such a cool sound. I’ve missed hearing you guys. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve played your cd and listened over and over again. You shouldn’t have split up. Even after Marigold left. She would never have wanted the . . . destruction. She loves Pieces. Loves every one of you. You should have kept it going. And don’t even get me started on you running away from Nic. Or vice versa, since no one has had the courtesy to tell me who did the original running, although you were the one who landed in Jersey so I suppose you bear the label of ‘I’m gone’. Whichever. We’ll save the good gossip for tea.”
I barely heard Junie’s last sentence. I was getting a macabre and eerie feeling as my hostess guided me down the hall in the wing to what would be my bedroom. Junie stopped in front of a room that was frighteningly familiar.
“Junie. This was Marigold’s room. You’re putting me in here?”
She nodded. “It’s time for you girls to bond again. Make up. You need to forgive her.”
Had Junie Blume gone nuts in the last ten years? She was talking about Marigold in the present tense, as though her daughter was going to step out of her old bedroom and continue the conversation for her mother. Everyone else in the band assumed Marigold wasn’t walking the planet anymore, at least as a physical presence. But then, Junie had always been into occult phenomena. Maybe she and Marigold were communicating in a spirit world?
Junie smiled at me. “No, Bebe. I haven’t lost my marbles and gone all paranormal and loony. Well, no loonier than usual. I have never given up hope Marigold is still alive. Her body was never found. Neither was the poor little sorority girl who disappeared a few days later. Professor Black’s niece, Daria. So sad. I’m sure he never gave up either.”
She opened a closet door and I spotted dozens of Marigold’s outrageous outfits. At the top of a pile lay the purple-spandexed cat suit Marigold had bought as a joke before I ever met her. She’d embroidered gold sequins in the shape of marigolds around the collar and sleeve bands then draped a huge gold belt over the hanger for later use in case she lost any of her extra pounds. She’d worn the outfit (sans belt) around the Southwestern campus during Visitors Week, gleefully making the acquaintance of every parent she could. I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to stem what threatened to be a medley of laughter and tears cascading in a tide of epic proportions.
Junie pointed to the right side of the closet. “She left a ton of sheet music and lyrics here, too. And don’t ask me why or how but I’m positive there was something in her lyrics, which ultimately caused her disappearance. Well, not caused, maybe, but somehow explained it. I’ve spent years looking through her things trying to figure it out, but I can’t. I’m well aware she drank booze like it was soda and indulged in far less legal substances,and it’s no secret she had more than her share of men, uh friends. Marigold was no angel. But she was my daughter and I loved her. You did too, even when she started going mental and chasing every guy in the band and acting like a maniacal bitch.”
“Junie, stop. It’s okay. You don’t have to list Marigold’s lesser qualities. We all knew what they were and you’re right. We loved her anyway.”
“I have to wonder, Bebe. Did someone get jealous? An incensed girlfriend of some random guy she made the mistake of chasing? Did she get on the wrong side of a drug dealer? I mean, she used some of the stronger drugs—yeah, I heard about the times she got hopped up on coke —but she hated the thought of anyone dealing to kids. And while I don’t have a clue about what happened or why, I’m positive there are answers in her music and I’m giving you free access to delve into her past because if anyone can figure this out, it’s you. Find her for me. Please.”
I was too stunned to respond. Junie smiled and pointed across the hall to an elegant bathroom. “Freshen up, Sweetie, then come on downstairs for some chow if you’d like. Jorge is making margaritas and believe me, they’re awesome. Especially with Mickey’s guacamole and homemade chips.”
“I’m n
ot sure I’m up for anything quite so heavy at this hour, but thanks, Junie.”
“No problem. See you tomorrow, then. Sleep as long as you like. My own breakfast is often more like brunch anyway. Mickey is trying out a new lemon almond muffin recipe in the morning, so you’ll have something yummy to look forward to.”
She hugged me and edged out of the room. I let my hand linger on top of the thick, daisy-patterned quilt and gazed around Marigold’s bedroom. Books on poetry and music, and paperback romances and thrillers ten years old were piled in corners. A cosmetics tray, partially cleared of old foundations, eye shadows, mascaras and glosses (Marigold had been a liberal user) sat squarely on top of an antique dresser. Stuffed animals of varying species, size and wear surrounded the tray, but had also been plopped in all corners on the floor.
The open closet door revealed papers and books carpeting the bottom. Behind the confused clutter I spotted five neatly stacked cartons. I grabbed the heavy-duty box cutter I’d found incongruously placed next to a set of eye shadow palettes on Marigold’s dresser, sat down on the floor, and opened the box on the top. It held ream upon ream of sheet music.
Much of it was familiar. Marigold had formed Pieces sometime in her senior year of college, three years before I met her. Marigold had been a huge Fleetwood Mac fan, adored Stevie Nicks, and even named the band Pieces after a line in one of Nicks’ signature songs, Gold Dust Woman. This box contained what must be every song Fleetwood Mac ever recorded. An odd excitement was growing despite the gnawing pain I felt looking through Marigold’s things. We could use these.
I turned my attention to a medium-sized box, which held music from every era over the last five centuries or more. Ballads, folk tunes, jazz, madrigals, big band, rockabilly and opera. Marigold had often come across as the stereotypical ditsy blonde but she knew her music like a doctoral candidate researching a thesis and was considered by the band and fans alike as quite an eclectic singer. She’d taught me to be the same. I wasn’t certain as to whether the guys would be interested in seeing this music, but I personally wanted this treasure trove of words and notes.
The next box was filled with lead sheets dating back to the Sixties. I recognized them as the numbers Pieces had performed in clubs and at dances at various gigs around Georgetown, Austin, San Antonio and even as far south as Houston.
I shifted the smallest box and ooched it close to me. I couldn’t make myself open it. Not yet. The creepy thought that something in this box held Marigold’s very spirit kept pounding in my head.
If that were true, I might finally find some of those answers we’d all been searching for these last ten years.
Chapter 5
The box was tightly sealed with a thin rope. I scooted on my knees over to the dresser where I recalled seeing a pair of nail scissors in a tray, then cut loose the twisted strands of twine. I peered inside, holding my breath, thrilled, afraid, and overcome with sadness.
Marigold’s spirit, indeed.
These were original songs Marigold had written. I had seen a lot of them back when she and I had been musical collaborators. Marigold been a terrific lyricist but a poor writer of melodies. I loved poetry and words but couldn’t create a single verse. My gifts lay solely in composing melodies. A match made in song writing heaven. We had united to create at least fifteen songs in the year I been with the band. There were about seven scraps of paper filled with one or two familiar songs and new (to me) lyrics in the box I had just opened.
The words Nana Banana caught my eye. I remembered this so well, a silly bit of fluff Marigold had written about names matching people’s faces and personalities. She’d wanted me to compose music in a reggae style and I’d told her she’d lost her mind. Then I’d skimmed through her lyrics and started hearing melodies in my head. I’d high-fived her. “Dang! Marigold Blume. This is like groovy, rad and just plain baa-aad. Reminds me of that flaky name song somebody recorded like a hundred years back.”
Marigold had chortled, “Precisely what I was thinking and where my brilliance came from. Junie was listening to a Funny Hits of the Sixties cd and I heard The Name Game. Thought it was time for a wacky name song again. I do love this kind of stuff. It keeps my brain fresh.”
My flashback switched and shifted forward to not long after that day. The entire band been sitting in our favorite rehearsal space on the Southwestern campus discussing what to include in the second cd. The guys had refused to even consider recording anything titled Nana Banana. It was about three months before Marigold vanished. Marigold kept trying to persuade the guys to listen to her brilliant little ditty and the guys had been arguing with her, claiming even if the lyrics could be made to work with the reggae beat and sound, the song wouldn’t fit the mood of this recording. Cam and Dusty began throwing out suggestions as to where Marigold could place her copy of the sheet of paper with Nana Banana scribbles. Most of them were anatomically impossible. Then Cam, Dusty, Glenn, the band’s manager, and even traitorous Nic had thrown up their collective hands and stomped out of the old campus gym.
Marigold and I had waved them away without concern or care, and stayed, crunching on carrot sticks and a slightly melted chocolate bar as we started penciling through each line. All plans about trying to make the lyrics work disappeared shortly after we’d sailed off on a tangent about where our own names had come from.
Marigold had wielded a carrot like a conductor’s baton before stating, “You never asked, so I never told you, but my name makes sensein a Juniper Blume demented sort of way. Juniewho, as we all know, never quite left the Sixties and flower power. Let me emphasize and repeat flower power. But Miss Age of Aquarius couldn’t find want a semi-normal flower name like Iris or Lily for her new daughter. Oh no. As if Marigold hadn’t been bad enough, Junie had to take it further and give me Columbine as my middle name. Columbine. Ouch! It’s a good thing I’m the only girl. If there’d been another, the poor kid doubtless would have gone through life saddled with Ragweed. Now, do not tell anyone this because he’d die of shame, but Stone’s real name is Basil Annatto. Junie picked it out before the adoption papers were ever signed.”
“You’re kidding,” I’d responded. “Basil as in Rathbone from the old movies? Uh, what the heck is annatto?”
“It’s a plant dye. Can you believe? Don’t ask. And yes, Basil of Sherlock Holmes’film fame but bestowed on my brother because it’s a spiceor an herb. Whichever.” She giggled. “Stone was one smart toddler. One afternoon about a week after reaching an age of awareness regarding the name his new mother had bestowed upon him, he came marching into the living room, wearing diapers, and loudly announcing he hated the name Basil, couldn’t pronounce Annatto, loved Fred Flintstone but since Flintstone was too long we could damned well call him Stone. Almost a direct quote, mind you.”
Marigold had then winked at me. “Okay. I’ve fessed up. Your turn. I met you in October and I’m still clueless about the B and the B other than I’m sure they stand for something else and I’m bloody stinkin’ sure it’s not a railroad. In case you’re interested, our male band compatriots speculate about those B’s at least once a week. Nic keeps claiming he’s going to saunter into the registrars’ office and bribe the old biddy behind the main desk to find out what the formal name is on your college app. She adores him. All eighty-two years of her. She’d cave in a heartbeat. But I want to know now. I will, however, swear to secrecy, so come on. Give it up before the gentlemen return.”
“What’ll ya give me to tell?”
She’d smiled sweetly. “I won’t punch your lights out.”
“Seriously? Ms. Five Foot Nothing threatening the amazon alto who signed up this semester for Kung Fu 101 as part of my Phys Ed requirement? Then again, who knows what evil lurks inside your petite frame? So, fine, here’s the true tale.” Or part of it. I had no intention of telling Marigold about my dad, Rafael, who had been deported to Nuevo Laredo two months before I was born, leaving my mother in fairly dire straits. At the time Rafael had been a
seventeen-year-old gangbanger. My mother was very confused fifteen-year-old high school drop out. “Okay. Aileen Becerra, my mom, was waitressing during the last few months before I arrived. She happened to have a steady customer who taught English Literature at Laredo Community College and who apparently looked upon her as his second daughter. He’d been lecturing that semester about the between the women in Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams. He was actually the one who drove her to the hospital and kept her relatively calm throughout labor reciting A Streetcar Named Desire and Much Ado About Nothing.”
Marigold started giggling before I’d even finished. Thankfully she was entertained and not curious as to where “Dad” was in this picture. Since I didn’t even know whether “Dad” was still alive or not, I wasn’t anxious to bring him into any discussions.
I closed my eyes. “Aileen was very grateful for the professor’s help, as well as obviously influenced by his discussion because my birth certificate gives my name as Blanche Beatrice Becerra. Much like your brother taking an early stand, my first spoken words, according to my grandmother, Shannon, who raised me, were ‘Call me Bebe or die.’”
Marigold opened her mouth to comment.
I cut her off before she had the chance. “Could have been worse. Rumor has it Stella Ursula was next on the list.”
“Ursula? Who the hell is Ursula?”
“According to Shakespeare, a ‘gentlewoman attending Hero.’ Frightening. I could have borne the initials S.U.B.like a giant hero sandwich.” I shuddered.
Marigold’s whole face lit up. “I may have to start calling you Urse. Um. Let’s see. Urse, Ursewhere’s the hearse? Or, uh, ‘Blanche, Blanche get off the ranch. Let’s see. Beatrice, Beatrice who’s your Sis?’ Hot damn. The possibilities are endless and possibly obscene.”