The Rhythm of the August Rain (23 page)

The
Daily Gleaner
hadn't been delivered yet when he sauntered into the empty bar with his coffee and hard dough bread thick with marmalade. For lack of anything better to do, he sat sipping and chomping, waving to the children going to Sunday school, the little girls with hair neatly held with a dozen clips, the boys in their starched shirts.

Bored by nine o'clock, he sat his computer on the counter and checked his email. Two letters awaited him. Danny Caines asked about the clearing of the land, and Simone wrote that she was getting ready to make her presentation in DC. He answered both with one finger, saying the same thing: all was on target for the groundbreaking, the site was almost cleared off except for some large trees, and he was looking forward to seeing them.

Shad appeared just after noon. He was wearing the black pants he always wore to church, his head down as he trudged toward the building.

“You're in early,” Eric commented when the bartender approached the bar. “I would have thought you'd be sleeping in.” A stoic mouth was the only response. “A hard night, eh, bud?”

Shad shrugged. “How's business, boss?”

“The usual Sunday—one coffee and a sandwich, both mine.” Eric made a funny mouth of his own.

Shad opened the fridge. “I going to have a Coke.”

“I gather all isn't well.”

Popping the top off the soda bottle, Shad sat down beside him. “You could say that.” He took a long sip of his drink. “I come after church to tell you I can't pay the money back from the liquor—not right away—although is only one bottle of rum and some ginger ale. You can take it out of my pay next week.”

“That bad, eh?”

Eric's bartender took another sip, swallowed, and bared his teeth. “Nobody come.”

“Nobody—forget the rum, then. Let's make it your wedding present, that and the rental.”

“I wish I could pay it, since that was our agreement, you know. I always like to follow my word.” The little man shook his head. “Times tough right now, too. I have to pay Miss Bannister to look after the children while Beth gone to her bridal shower. I can't wait until this wedding business finish.”

“What happened with the party, though? You always have such great—”

“Frank say they didn't come because they coming to the wedding for free. You ever hear such a thing? Is pure freeness Jamaicans like, I telling you. I having a good-good party with food and everything, and they couldn't come and pay a few dollars.” Shad sucked his teeth, pulling the air slowly from back to front in a long, disgusted suck.

“Don't worry about it, bud.” Eric patted him on the arm. “But I can't write off the liquor when it comes to the wedding reception.”

“No, man, I paying you for that. I was going to buy the wedding liquor with some of the money from the party—but you know what? I was lying in my bed this morning and I decide that the wedding guests not going to see no scotch, whiskey, vodka, none of that. They think they coming for freeness, but just punch they getting, with rum and without rum. I been reading a recipe in the book Shannon give me, and I want to try it out, a daiquiri with white rum. And I going to water it down with ginger ale, too.”

Eric couldn't hold back a laugh. “You're kind of bitter, aren't you?”

“You
raas claat
right about that.”

“Who's doing the music?”

“You forget Ford, the trumpet man from New York, is coming back? Before he left last time, he promise me he would play for free at the reception.”

“That's right, I forgot.” An image of the tall, quiet trumpeter came back. He'd been staying with Roper Watson, the artist who lived on the eastern end of the village. When Ford had played at the bar one night, he'd blown them all away with “My Mother's Eyes,” his own mother's favorite, he'd said.

Shad rubbed his scalp. “I looking for a guitarist, though. Ford say he need a guitarist and a drummer. I find the drummer already.”

“What about your cousin? Didn't he play guitar last time when Ford played?”

“He gone foreign. He marry an American girl and get a green card, but he left his guitar with me. He say he going to buy a better one in Philadelphia.”

Eric rubbed his stubbly chin, rubbed it hard. His heart was pumping in his chest already, like the old days. “I tell you what, man. If you can't find somebody to play guitar, I'll stand in.”

“
You
, boss?” Shad's eyes bulged as his mouth dropped open. “You can't play guitar.”

“All I need is a little practice.”

“When last you play?”

“High school, but I was real good. We used to play for proms and weddings.” It had actually been two proms and a rehearsal dinner, almost a wedding, making the young Eric entertain the idea of Hard Nights going professional, until the other band members started talking about marriage or college or office jobs and he hadn't been able to talk them out of it. “Trust me, I can play.”

The bartender shook his head and nodded at the same time, mixing it up. “I want to believe you, boss, but—”

“Just lend me Junior's guitar so I can practice.”

“In one week?”

“In one week.”

“I tell you what, man—I will give you the guitar and you practice up. Then let me hear you.”

“Deal—now let's get that guitar.”

Giving Shad a ride home, Eric talked nonstop, the old rocker in him coming alive again. He described his band's gigs at a bar in Shaker Heights (not mentioning it was the Danny Boy, where his father was a regular, or that the band members were underage). When they got to Shad's house and the black leather case was placed on the passenger seat, Eric opened it, a Pandora's box, with care. Inside was an old Yamaha, exactly like the one his brother David had played, not an expensive guitar but a solid one. Eric had always yearned for a Yamaha. The Pantheon he'd bought cheap from a guy at school had always sounded tinny to his ears and needed an amp to sound decent, except that he couldn't afford an amp.

“You're coming to work at the usual time?” he asked Shad as he ran his fingers across the strings. “I need to start practicing.”

“I coming after lunch, around three o'clock. Then I have to go with Shannon to the Nyabinghi thing—”

“I forgot about that.”

“We probably going around six. Bongo coming with us, he going to meet me at the bar.”

“See you later then.” Eric closed the case gently. He slapped the gearshift into reverse and roared backward to the main road.

T
he dream was so lucid that she'd written it down when she first woke up. She'd seen two pairs of glasses, both metallic, both asymmetrical. Nothing like the readers she bought at the drugstore, these were works of art. The first pair was embellished with flowers and vines that wound around the frame. A straight, thin bar ran horizontally across the middle of the right lens. The second pair was simpler, its lenses clear and the frame geometric, bronze strips above and below the right lens, narrowing to the left lens, almost forming a triangle.

“What do you think it means?” she asked Jennifer, who was perched on the bed, watching her pack her camera bag. “One pair was floral and the other modern and clean.”

“Do they always have to mean something? I've never been one for dreams.”

“My feeling is that it means—let's see, the first one is about nature, perhaps Jamaica. And the right eye was really decorated. Anything on the right side of your body is supposed to represent the masculine, so I think—”

“Who says?”

“I can't remember where I got it from, but I think the right eye is Eric and the past.”

“But there's a bar running across the right lens.”

“Maybe that's Eric blocking me.”

“What about the other pair?”

“Those were more—I don't know, like Toronto, maybe. Chic, straight lines, like the future.”

The second pair, she'd realized while eating a banana that morning, was about making a shift, the shift she'd felt when she'd stood up to Eric for the first time. The words that had been turning over in her head for years had finally been released.

“And you could see clearly out of those second glasses, the modern ones?”

“I could. They were still asymmetrical, heavy on the right side with thin strips at different angles. I think they were both about the creative part of me.”

“The first one is creativity in Jamaica, but held back by Eric.”

“The other is about being creative up north, I think, where I'm freer, more contemporary.”

Jennifer leaned back on her elbows. “I wish I had dreams like that.”

“What kind do you have?”

“They're always about whatever I'm doing at the time, you know. Like last night I dreamed that I was at a groundbreaking for some big building, but, dammit”—Jennifer snorted—“the shovels hadn't arrived in time, so everyone was standing around not knowing what to do. I started to panic.”

“Oh, God, no.” Shannon straightened, laughing. “What happened then?”

“They all started looking at me and pointing. I know it's about the hotel groundbreaking.”

“It's going to be fine. You're so good at event planning.”

“I know, but I still have a million things to do. The member of Parliament hasn't confirmed that he's coming yet. The good news is that the champagne has arrived already, and I've found a caterer, but he's in Port Antonio, so I have to arrange transportation.” Jennifer sighed and swept her fingers through her hair. “The shovels and hard hats are fine, though. They're already in the garage.”

“If push comes to shove, you can just have them dig the holes, drink champagne, and go home.”

“No use digging holes if there's no publicity afterward.”

“You don't have a photographer?”

“He said he had a wedding and they're paying more, so he ducked out.” Jennifer turned to her, biting her lip. “Feel like taking his place?”

“I've never done a groundbreaking in my life.”

“All you have to do is point and shoot.”

Shannon sat down hard on the bed. “I'd love to help you, Jen, but I'm hoping to wrap things up tonight.”

She'd already told Jennifer about her search for information about Katlyn, since Eve had already told Eric, but she'd played down the importance of the mission, not wanting to worry her or Lambert. “I have a feeling that this old Rasta, Ras Redemption, has the answers I need about Katlyn. When I showed him her photograph, it definitely triggered something. You could see it on his face. Something tells me that I'm going to have everything finished in one or two days and get out of here before the groundbreaking.”

“To avoid Simone, you mean.” Jennifer circled the bed and put one arm around her friend's shoulders. With the other, she tucked Shannon's hair behind her ear. “Sooner or later you're going to have to face her, hon, or some other woman.”

“I'd rather not, thank you.” Shannon pulled away and walked to the window, to the view of the bay and the hills beyond. She rested her hands on the windowsill. “God, I love this place, this crazy little town, and I might never see it again. It's so beautiful.”

“Then stay for a couple more weeks. The wedding is going to be fun, and you've got to remind me to bring the shovels the weekend after.”

“It's tempting, but I can see it now.” Shannon squared her fingers to frame an imaginary picture. “Simone hanging on Eric's arm, Eric dying with embarrassment, Eve furious with him for being with another woman, and me looking like Little Miss Left Behind.” She shook her head. “I don't think so.”

“So what? You're smart and beautiful. Maybe you'll meet someone—”

“Like who, Beth's uncle from Port Antonio? Let's be realistic here.” Shannon picked up her bag, collected another with her purse and tape recorder inside. “I better get started. Professor Ransom is meeting us at the bar in ten minutes.”

“That's right,” Jennifer said with a slow smile, “the one with the toffee-colored skin.”

Shannon headed for the door. “Oh, come on, Jen. I was just joking around.”

“Many a truth is spoken in jest, my love.” The hostess slipped her arm through Shannon's as they walked down the corridor. “But maybe Dr. Ransom would like to come to a country wedding—for research purposes, of course.”

W
hat was it about the emperor, Haile Selassie, you know, that made them
worship
him?” Shannon asked in the backseat.

Shad turned around and laughed. “He little but he
tallawah
. Small but strong—like me.”

The professor wasn't laughing. “Selassie represented the power of the black man, that he could be the leader of a large country in Africa.”

Ransom took himself too seriously, Shad decided, maybe he was nervous. When he'd appeared in the bar's parking lot in his nice new Volvo, he'd parked first in one spot and then in another. A neat man in jeans and sneakers, he'd looked uncertain as he approached the counter, and a tourist couple at the end of the counter had turned to stare at him.

“Am I in the right place?” His voice was like a radio announcer's, deep and smooth, commanding attention. “I'm supposed to meet a Canadian woman here.”

“Shannon?” Shad had asked.

“That's the name.” He'd shaken Shad's hand as he introduced himself, something few people did with a bartender. “Richard Ransom.”

“Shad Myers.”

“And Shannon—”

“She coming soon, she never late.”

Just then the boss came out of his apartment, where he'd been playing chords and bars on the guitar. “A customer?” he'd asked Shad, and got a ginger ale out of the fridge. “Aren't you going to serve him?”