Chapter Four

Eve

When Eve came back downstairs, the sun was setting along the beach, bathing the black piano in a golden light. After taking a nap and a quick, rejuvenating shower, she had changed into jeans and an old Steelers tee shirt. She heard voices out by the pool.

Lucy and Mariah were placing skewers of meat on a built-in grill. Soleil sat at the stylishly weathered table and watched them as she talked. “Yeah, you should have seen that big bandage on her nose!” They all turned to look at Eve as she entered through the open glass door leading from the kitchen.

Lucy smiled warmly. “Soleil just got here. She was telling us about her adventures at Sally’s house.”

“You mean that you actually went over there?” Eve hadn’t thought Soleil had been serious.

Soleil had a mischievous look in her eyes. “Yeah, I was just about done cataloging everything when she came in. She had a huge bandage on her nose. She won’t be doing any acting for a while, that’s for sure.” She looked at Eve’s outfit. “I see that you have decided to get more comfortable.” She moved her chair. “Come and sit. Dinner is almost ready.”

Mariah looked at Eve with concern. “Are you all right, Eve? How did Deidre take the news?”

“She’s pissed off about the money.” Eve sat next to Soleil and watched the meat and vegetables cook on the grill as Lucy mixed a salad. Eve ran her fingers through her hair. Her arm was darker. She must have tanned a little while they were sitting on the beach. Soleil noticed her reaction, but didn’t say anything. Soleil wasn’t much darker than she was.

Mariah came over and squeezed the area between her neck and shoulders. Eve could feel the hard knots under her skin. “I’m not surprised, Eve. Are you?”

Eve turned to look at Mariah. Her neck hurt slightly at the movement. “I invited her out here to visit. I hope that you don’t mind.” She didn’t say what Deidre’s response had been to the suggestion.

Mariah looked at Lucy. “Deidre is always welcome at my house. I have nothing against her.”

Eve felt embarrassed. “I gave her your number,” Eve lied.

Soleil caught her discomfort. “Probably too many black folks for her.” Eve turned red. Soleil started to sing, “We are fam-i-lee, I’ve got all my sisters with me!”

“Soleil!” Lucy shook her head. “Don’t tease Eve. This isn’t easy for her.”

“It’s not easy for any of us, Lu-cille.” Soleil started singing an old Little Richard song. “Lu-cille! Why can’t ya be true?”

Lucy swatted her with a dish towel.

Eve tried to change the subject. “Soleil, what did Sally say to you?”

“She called me all kinds of bitches, I called her a cunt, and she told me to never come back.” Soleil leaned back in her chair. “So I drove off.”

“Do you think that she will contest the will?” Lucy asked.

“I don’t think so,” Mariah said. “She’s got the insurance money, the houses and the cars. She’s got her career. I don’t think she will do anything. Mik had the right to dispose of his assets in any way that he pleased. It was his right and his duty to leave something to his children. Sally won’t want to be portrayed in the media as someone who tries to take money away from children.”

“Maybe that will work for Eve.” Soleil looked at her, assessing her blue eyes and blonde hair.

“What do you mean by that?” Lucy asked.

“Well, I don’t think the media will be encouraging Sally Fountaine to let the bulk of her husband’s estate go to a daughter whose mother is a whore and a drug addict and to a daughter whose mother he never bothered to marry.” Lucy dropped the salad bowl she was filling.

“Soleil!” Mariah looked at her.

“I don’t mean to disrespect you Mariah, I’m just stating the truth. Let’s look at the situation the way the media would. Eve is a nice, pretty white girl who was only a baby when her father deserted the family by running to California. Of course she deserves the money.”

Eve could feel the tension rising faster than the heat from the grill. Mariah went to tend to the grill. She touched Lucy’s trembling hand as she passed. Lucy bent down to pick up the pieces of tomato, carrot and lettuce on the tiled floor next to the upside down bowl.

“Now let’s look at Lucy. How do we know she really is Mik’s daughter? Mariah, after all, was a singer in a rock band during the seventies. And we all know what that means—sex, drugs and rock and roll.” She threw her arms wide. “And look at all of this! How did Mariah get all of this? She was a poor black singer from Alabama! Who’s going to believe black people were investing in real estate in the seventies? Lucy’s real father probably bought it all.”

Eve looked over at Lucy. She could recognize the signs that forewarned a loss of temper. She had seen them often enough in her own mirror. Lucy’s mouth was set.

Soleil ignored her. “And then there’s me. My mother stole Mik from Mariah, got him hooked on drugs, ruined his career, sold herself for drugs, sold me for drugs and sent me to Oklahoma, where I become an alcoholic, just like my dear old grandmother.”

Lucy threw a carrot at Soleil. “Mik DeSalle was my father, too, and you know it. How dare you come here and talk about my mother! She’s nothing like your mother!” She stood up and threw the vegetable in a trash bin.

Mariah put her arms around Lucy. “She doesn’t mean anything, Lucy. She’s just anticipating the things we all may be hearing in the next few weeks.”

“Exactly! Damn, Lucy, don’t be so sensitive. It’s obvious that you are Mik’s daughter. You look just like a chocolate version of him.” Soleil could see the anger in her sister’s eyes. “You’re going to have to build up a thick skin. The media will have a field day over this, whether you like it or not. And once it gets out that we have seven million dollars, every boyfriend or friend any of us ever had will be trying to get in touch with us.”

Mariah smoothed Lucy’s hair. “She’s right, Lucy.”

Eve thought about Brad. Her divorce had become final the day her father died.

Lucy

They ate dinner in silence. Soleil’s earlier statements had upset them all. Lucy tried to calm the tumult raging in her mind. Would there actually be reporters snooping around investigating their pasts? What would they find out about her? The last thing that she needed was for her mother to be hurt. Her mother had always been so proud of her. She didn’t want to let her down.

“What do you think will happen next, Mariah?” She needed to hear her mother’s soothing voice.

Mariah looked around the table at all three of them. “I think that we all need to be prepared for the worst. In fact, it has already started.”

“What?” Lucy felt cold.

“I guess that you didn’t see the pictures from the funeral. They were in the LA Times.”

Soleil waved her skewer in the air. “I was on one of those entertainment shows last night. Apparently, my performance outside of the church was taped.”

“Did you see it?” Eve asked.

“No, one of my friends told me about it. But I have started getting calls.”

“So have I,” Mariah said. “Now that he is dead, everyone seems to be interested in Mik and the old band. I even got calls from Gina and Olivia. It seems that VH1 has already called them.”

“Who are Gina and Olivia?” Eve asked.

“They were the other two back-up singers for Sheffield Steel.” Lucy fondly remembered the brash redhead Gina Malloy and the funky Olivia Stevenson. They had been like her big sisters when she was a little girl on tour with her parents. She could still hear the three singers rehearsing on the bus, as the country rolled past the window. She had loved those days.

“Where are they, anyway?” It had been years since she had seen either one of them. Mariah smiled, thinking of her old friends. “Gina is in Canada—Toronto, I think. Olivia is in Arizona. She has a gift shop in Phoenix.”

“I wonder if Ms. Armstrong has been contacted yet.” Soleil broke the skewer in half.

Mariah looked at Soleil. “You know that Faith never went back to her maiden name.”

“Bitch. Isn’t it strange that she is the only one known as Mrs. DeSalle?” Soleil put one piece of the broken skewer in her mouth and twirled it. “It probably helps her sell drugs. Name recognition, you know.”

Lucy looked at Soleil. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t imagine what went on inside Soleil’s head. She couldn’t imagine what it had been like to endure all that Soleil had had to face. It was no wonder Soleil had several nervous habits and a mouth like a sailor.

Mariah looked at Soleil. “Faith will definitely be a wild card. She may say, or do, anything, to get money. And when she finds out about the inheritance, she’ll be coming after you.”

“Well, she hasn’t killed me yet. And it hasn’t been for lack of trying.” Soleil noticed the shocked look on Eve’s face.

“Why don’t you stay here with us for a few days, Soleil? I doubt if Faith would come down here.” Lucy felt they needed to spend more time together.

Mariah was scratching the scar on her arm again. “That’s a great idea, Soleil. I’d be happy to have you stay here for a while.”

Lucy noticed a look pass between her mother and her sister.

Soleil looked at Mariah’s arm, then into her eyes. “I couldn’t do that to you, Mariah.” Soleil mumbled something else that sounded like, “Not again.”

Lucy said nothing, but she wondered about the look and the comment.

Soleil

The sisters spent the rest of the evening talking and sipping wine on the patio. Lights reflected off of the pool and their glasses. Nothing was resolved about the money, but Lucy volunteered to call Mik’s old manager, Toby Reynolds, to discuss the possibility of a memorial concert. Mariah would call the remaining members of Sheffield Steel and some of her other music business friends. The wine had affected them all, and Soleil decided to spend the night instead of driving back to her apartment.

Soleil knew she should not have drunk the wine. She shouldn’t have drunk the vodka and orange juice at lunch, either. She had fought long and hard to overcome the seductive pull of booze. But today was a special day. Today was the day she found out she was a millionaire. If that wasn’t worth a drink, nothing was! She could just taste the smooth sting of her beloved Southern Comfort. “If it was good enough for Janis, it’s good enough for me,” she used to say to her stoner friends in Oklahoma. She missed her whiskey, missed losing hours and days at a time. But no matter how much time she lost, she never lost her memory.

Soleil sat on the sun porch, listening to the ocean waves. Eve and Mariah had gone to bed. Lucy was still out by the pool. It was peaceful here, a real home. She remembered when Lucy used to babysit her in this very house. Back then, she looked like any other little girl. Faith never hit her in the face. She knew that one day she could use Soleil’s perfect face as currency, just as she had done with her own face. And body. Once Soleil had reached puberty, her little girl days were over. Soleil started drinking alcohol to wash the taste of come out of her mouth.

Lucy

Soleil ran her hands through her hair. Lucy entered the sun porch with a candle. She set it down on a table between the chair where Soleil was sitting and the sofa.

Lucy looked at Soleil’s pale face in the candlelight. She knew that she shouldn’t do it, but she felt compelled to ask. “It is true that you got pregnant by a famous musician when you were fourteen?”

Soleil didn’t look at her, just nodded her head.

“You’re not going to tell who it was, are you?” Soleil seemed to retreat inside herself.

“No. What does it matter, anyway? That was years ago.” Soleil turned to look at her. “You mean Mariah never told you?”

Lucy shivered at the haunted look in her sister’s eyes. She wondered what her mother had to do with it. “How would my mother know about it?”

“Who do you think went with me to have the abortion? Faith?”

“My mother took you?” Lucy was learning that her mother carried around a lot of secrets. She pulled the woven throw on the sofa over her shoulders.

Soleil sighed and started to talk. “Mariah took me to a discreet doctor she knew about. He made a good second income treating those women who couldn’t be seen during regular business hours. She stayed with me the whole time, holding my hand.” Soleil looked down at her shaking hand.

“When the procedure was over, Faith burst in. I must have left the address lying around. Faith threatened Mariah, dragged me off of the table and took me home. Once we got home, she beat the shit out of me. Mik called to find out what had happened. Faith told him that I was asleep because of the medication the doctor gave me. In fact, I had passed out due to the pain. Faith had taken the pills from me. She probably took them herself. I picked up the phone in my room and begged Mik to come and get me. When he heard my voice, he hung up. I didn’t hear from him again for two years.”

Soleil curled up on the chair, tucking her feet under her. “When Faith found out the guy had given me money to keep me quiet, she was furious. Mariah had helped me put it in a special account, so I wouldn’t be able to touch it until I turned twenty-one. Faith couldn’t access it at all. When she found out, she went after Mariah. She tried to kill her, but she was only able to shoot her in the arm. You remember Mariah having her arm bandaged up?”

Lucy thought about the scar on her mother’s arm. “Oh, yeah. I came home one weekend, and she had her arm in a sling. She said she fell while riding her bike and broke her arm.”

Soleil finally looked at her. “You are lucky to have Mariah as a mother. I wish she were my mother.”

Lucy said the words before she could stop them. “At least your mother had a ring. At least your mother is Mrs. DeSalle.”

Soleil stood up. She glared at Lucy. “A ring? A ring? Big fucking deal that Mik married her! How long was he actually with her—a year, two years? Why are you so hung up on the fact that Mik never married your mother? At least he loved her! At least he loved you! I ought to slap the shit out of you! How fucking stupid are you? You had a home, a mother and a father. And you’re fucking bitchin’ because your mother never got a ring? You are the only one of us that actually knew that muthafucka as a father! Why the fuck can’t you be happy with that?”

Soleil stormed up the stairs to the second level and slammed the door to one of the spare bedrooms. So much for sisterly bonding.

Lucy went up the stairs and stood by the door. She tried to open the door, but it was locked. Lucy knocked on the door, but Soleil didn’t respond. “I’m sorry, Soleil,” she whispered so softly she wasn’t sure Soleil even heard her.

She went back downstairs. She blew out the candle and sat in the dark room as the smell of smoke dissipated. Soleil had gone through so much pain in her twenty-two years, and Lucy was causing her even more. Now Lucy understood how Mik felt when she blamed him for everything wrong in her life.

Eve

Eve heard Soleil run up the stairs and slam the door. Just what kind of melodrama had she gotten mixed up in? They are all crazy, she thought. This whole state is crazy! She prayed that an earthquake wouldn’t shake the house into the ocean while she was asleep. But as strange as things had been so far, she wouldn’t be surprised if she woke up to a tsunami.