“Not this,” he whispered. “Or this…” His hands skimmed downward over her throat…briefly cradled her breasts…stroked the taut planes of her belly, the subtle curve of her hips. “You are beautiful…so incredibly beautiful. But that’s not why I fell in love with you. Here-shall I show you why?” He took her hand and led her out of the bathroom, and she followed silently, stumbling a little like a just-woken child.
He led her through the bedroom and into the living room. Standing in front of his stereo, with her close against him as they’d been before, he reached with one finger and pressed the power button. Music poured from the speakers and filled the room, wrapping itself around them. Phoenix’s music.
She started and tensed against him. “Hush,” he murmured. “Listen…”
“Newspaper says…
‘House Burns, City Woman Dies.’
Paper never says
‘City Woman Dies…Someone Cries…”’
“That’s you,” Ethan whispered. He laid his hand gently over her heart. “That came from the real Joanna…the one that’s in here.” He turned her to face him, his love for her burning hot in his cheeks, stinging in his eyes… thickening in his voice. “I’ve loved you for years…”
She didn’t speak or move, just stood there and looked at him with tears streaming down her cheeks. He took her face in his hands and tenderly brushed the tears away with his lips…then carried the sweet-salt taste of them to her mouth. He kissed her for a long time, deepening slowly, like the ripening of fruit in a hot summer sun. Then he took her back to his bed and made love to her the same way, cherishing her with his mouth, his body, and his healer’s hands.
He came into her slowly, gently…filling her with himself, with all the love that was inside him…fitting them together so sweetly, so perfectly, that it was hard to tell where he left off and she began…then rocked them together as one being, so that when their explosions came the shattered pieces might reform as one inseparable whole.
She wept again, but softly…and this time, when he told her he loved her, she didn’t pull away.
She wept often, in the days that followed, and Ethan didn’t try to prevent or stop her tears. It was necessary, he told himself. Healing.
He did wish, sometimes, while he was making love to her, that she would look into his eyes and smile.
She stayed with him from the night of Doveman’s death until the day of his funeral. She made all the arrangements herself, some by telephone, some in consultation with the other members of her band. Ethan’s living room had become their meeting place, with the grudging consent of the Service-after Ethan had appealed personally to his father, through Dixie, of course. He got used to coming home from the clinic to find his apartment throbbing with music-or arguments-and every space strewn with instruments, bodies, and take-out food containers.
The arguments were mostly about details. Everyone agreed that the services would be simple; that there would be music-lots of music; that in keeping with the traditions of Doveman’s New Orleans jazz beginnings, there would be a procession through the streets. The media would have to be accommodated-there was no getting around that. It would be managed, somehow. Everything would somehow be worked out. On one point, though, Phoenix was adamant. Rupert Dove’s remains would be cremated; she hadn’t decided yet what to do with his ashes, but she was certain of one thing: there would be no internment. A Dove, she said, did not belong in the ground.
The day of the funeral dawned cloudy, threatening rain, but it had all blown over by the time the procession wound its raucous and joyful way through the streets, past The Gardens, past the clinic, to St. Jude’s Church. During the service, which Father Frank conducted, Phoenix and the band played and sang for the select few invited guests inside the church. Among the songs performed was Rupert Dove’s last composition, the hauntingly beautiful, “Hard To Say Goodbye.”
After the service, Tom and Carl took Ethan and Phoenix back to his apartment. When, with the door closed and locked behind them, Ethan turned and found her standing tense and still in the middle of his living room, holding the small rosewood box containing Rupert Dove’s ashes in her hands, his heart began to pound. He knew before she said it, in her raspy, Phoenix voice.
“I have to go.”
He made himself calm and still as she, willing himself to numbness. “I suppose you do.”
“There are so many things I have to do-the album…the tour. We’re way behind schedule as it is.” Her eyes clung to his, begging him to understand.
He went to her and put his hands on her shoulders…brushed his fingers up and down her arms. “I understand,” he said, then bent and kissed her. Her mouth quivered. His throat ached.
She pulled away and would not meet his eyes. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone…where I’ll be…what I’m going to be doing. I’ll call you…”
“Well, I’d hope so.” His smile felt as if it had been carved in his flesh with a knife. He wanted to beg her to stay just a little longer, make love to her one more time, so unforgettably she’d have to change her mind about going. Instead, he said, “I’ll get Carl or Tom to run you home.”
While he was doing that, she went into the bedroom to gather her things. She came out carrying the small sports bag she’d collected from her loft, containing her toiletries and not much else. He walked her down the stairs and out onto the row house steps, where Tom was waiting for them. The dark sedan was at the curb, door open, engine idling.
“Take care of yourself,” he said huskily.
“You, too.” She went down the steps and crossed the sidewalk. At the car, she paused and looked back at him. “I do know one thing I’m going to be doing.” Her eyes shone at him like distant water through trees.
“What’s that?” He could barely breathe…
“Finding Joanna,” she said. She got into the car and the door closed, leaving him gazing at his own reflection in the tinted window.
But she didn’t say it, he told himself.
It wasn’t until he was back in his own bedroom and found the little rosewood box sitting on his dresser that he started to breathe again…that his heart stopped bludgeoning him, and the knife wound in his belly began to heal. He knew for certain then that she’d be back. She’d left Doveman’s ashes in his care.
Though there were times, during the next few months, when he wondered. She did call a few times, but the conversations felt stiff and artificial, the way people talk when there’s someone else in the room. He told himself he had to be patient, that he had to give her time. That she would come to him when she was ready to accept his love, and that it would be pointless for her to come any sooner. But there were times he wondered if he was even alive in her absence. As if she’d taken his heart and soul with her, and left only
He kept busy with the clinic and his ride-alongs, spent time with friends. Now and then he’d catch a glimpse of Phoenix when she appeared on some news show or other, being interviewed about her new album, the upcoming tour, the title of which was being kept a closely guarded secret. He didn’t know what was worse-seeing her like that, a small flat picture, so empty of life, so far away, or not seeing her at all. When things seemed loneliest, when he thought it most likely he’d never see her again any other way, he reminded himself of two things: the rosewood box, and the fact that she’d never said goodbye.
She came back on a late afternoon in early autumn. The only warning he had was a phone call from Tom. A terse “Sir, you have a visitor.”
He barely had time to get to the door. He opened it and she burst through and hurled herself into his arms, laughing and kissing him until he couldn’t breathe. Probably wouldn’t have been able to anyway, with his heart in his throat, and joy and relief and desire and love taking up all the room in his chest.
“My God,” he whispered when he could, “is it really you?”
“It’s me-Joanna. I swear it is. Oh, God, and I have so much to tell you. But-” she danced away from him, vibrating with excitement “-there’s something we have to do-right now…” And she crossed the room with her panther’s stride and disappeared into his bedroom.
Before he could even begin to think whether or not it was sex she meant, she was back, carrying the rosewood
