Jazz Funeral

girl!”
    She loved him so much she could barely take in what he said. All that stuff about being a star. But it was true about the craving to be a star in your own family, in your own neighborhood, even, your own hometown. Nobody at home, or school or anywhere, had particularly thought she could sing. Except Ti-Belle, and Ti-Belle had never indicated she was that good, as good as she herself, and Melody knew she would have if she thought so. Ti-Belle just thought she was a talented kid.
    There was Ham, of course. Ham had always told her she was the greatest, but that was just Ham.
    Maybe Joel could take Ham’s place. If he could love her, maybe it was a reason to live. Maybe somehow she could find a way. He could help her; all the Boucrees could. Maybe she and Joel could just get married and barricade themselves against the world. It was worth a try. It could keep her alive.
    They were standing side by side, looking at the river, the wind blowing a little. When they talked, they looked at the West Bank, not at each other. His skin looked so smooth, his cheek, in profile, so round; so perfect. There was a magnetic field between them; surely he could feel it. Something this strong had to be mutual.
    She whispered his name, and the sound was so different, he did look at her. She touched his face, leaned forward to kiss him, and automatically he put an arm around her. But he didn’t kiss back.
    “Hey, hey, Mel. What you doing?”
    What the hell. Why not say it? It was life or death. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
    He turned full face toward her, took both her wrists and held them, as if to ward off an attack. “No, you aren’t.”
    “How do you know what I feel?”
    “Melody, we’re friends. You’re a real good friend to me. And you’re a great musician. But I don’t see us being anything else.”
    She wriggled out of his grasp, so embarrassed she thought she’d die on the spot. And angry.
    Furious. “Well, why not?”
    “Are you crazy? You’re a Capulet and I’m a Montague. Haven’t you got enough trouble without that crap?”
    “You’re such a racist!”
    “I am not. I just know this city. I know what would happen. And who needs it?”
    “Well, what would happen?”
    He shrugged. “People wouldn’t speak to us, in both our families, probably. Lots of your friends’d get pissed off. Some of mine too probably, at Country Day. And here in the real world, all of ‘em would. I got friends you haven’t even met, and won’t. They don’t like white folks.”
    “I can’t believe black people are such racists.”
    “Minority people can’t be racists. It doesn’t apply.”
    “The hell it doesn’t.”
    He lowered his voice. It was obviously an effort. “Mel. Let me take you back, okay? We’re both tired.”
    She slept in her clothes that night, on a bare mattress, having stolen the sheets earlier. The meanness of it, the deprivation of it, suited her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
    Infuriated, hot, impatient beyond endurance, Skip sat in her car on Audubon Place, waiting for Ti-Belle to surface. Today was a prime day to look for Melody—Skip was sure she’d go to JazzFest, was positive she’d try to see the Boucree Brothers, and O’Rourke had saddled her with Ti-Belle. Skip was sending her silent psychic messages to get out to the fairgrounds, to have a yen for Boucrees. They were on at one. At twelve Ti-Belle came out, picked some flowers, and went back in.
    But a few minutes later she came out again with Nick, both in the official JazzFest uniform—shorts, T-shirt, running shoes (it was too dusty for sandals, and anyway, people stepped on your feet), straw hat, sunglasses, and belly pack containing cash and sunscreen. In an hour they’d be as sweaty as everyone else, and probably sticky from having strawberry sno balls spilled on them. Ti-Belle’s hair, pinned up against the heat, would be starting to escape in the same limp tendrils as the hair of the masses. JazzFest was a great leveler.
    Still, Skip wondered. Did you really just go out and mingle if you were a celeb? Of course they’d have backstage passes, but that didn’t seem like enough. There was still going to be the dealing-with-the-crowds problem, the spilled Sno Balls, the stepped-on feet, the prodigious lines for food, the pushing and shoving. It was the last day of the festival—the fans would be nearly eighty thousand strong, and it was eighty-five in the shade. Or would have been if there’d been any shade.