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  Weren't nobody answer, though. I hung up the phone and dragged my laundry bag outside. I dragged it down to the end of the Jameses' driveway and hid it under a thick bunch of bushes. Then I went back to the house and went to sleep. Weren't no use runnin' away at night. I could just as easy run away in daylight.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  NEXT MORNING MR. JAMES drove me down the long driveway to my bus stop, same as usual, only we didn't say nothin' to each other. I could tell he hated me so much he weren't never gonna speak to me again. I got out at the bottom of the drive and held my hand on the car when it rolled on past me, feeling the warm metal of it When Mr. James were gone from sight, I hid the pair of Mr. James's glasses I found on the seat in the car in my already stuffed-to-bulging backpack and got behind the bushes where I left my laundry bag the night before.

  The bus come along a few minutes later, and the bus driver opened the door and waited for me. He waited there 'bout a minute or so, and I looked up through the bushes, watching the kids' faces in the windows, seeing them talking and moving round on the bus like it just another day and they don't got a care in the world. Then the door closed up and the bus driver went on.

  I crawled out from the bush then and waited 'bout twenty more minutes for the taxi I called up earlier from the house to come pick me up, and I got in with my laundry bag and backpack and rode away.

  The taxi driver were real nosy, so I told him how I were gonna visit my aunt Doris, and I told him all about her, and I got so excited thinking 'bout the real Doris, I forgot I weren't really going to see her at all.

  I guess he believed me well enough, 'cause he dropped me off at the bus station and went on. I dragged my stuff inside the station, but I didn't buy me a ticket to nowhere yet. I wanted to call Jaz first, figuring he might want to come to Muscle Shoals with me and watch me get famous.

  I got his number the time he give me his new songs. I said I would take the songs home and practice but in case I had a question, I wanted his number. Never did get nervy enough to call till I were at the bus station, heading out of town. I knew his mama worked, and he didn't have no daddy, so I knew a weekday morning would be a safe time to call. But I forgot how early it were. My phone call woke Jaz up, 'cause he dropped outta school and he didn't need to get up so early. He sounded sleepy and hoarse in the voice.

  "Hey, Jaz. It's me, Leshaya," I said, when he said hello.

  "Shay? What time is it? Where are you?"

  "I don't know. I guess it be round eight. I'm at the bus station downtown. You wanna go to Muscle Shoals with me? I'm goin' to Muscle Shoals."

  "Why?"

  "I'm gonna live down there. I'm gonna meet Etta James and I'm gonna sing. I can't sing and get famous in this poky town. Anyways, I got money."

  "Yeah, how much?"

  "Thousands. Thousands and thousands."

  "For real?"

  "Yeah, Jaz, for real. So, you comin'?"

  Jaz took a second to think, then he said, "Okay. I'll go for a while. I was gonna quit my job, anyway. You say you got lots of money?"

  "Lots."

  "Where'd you get all that money? Never mind. I'll come, but I ain't leavin' my car. She's goin' with us. I'll pick you up. Give me an hour."

  He hung up, and I dragged my stuff over to a chair and sat down to wait I waited more than a hour and a half, but I didn't care 'cause I knew he were comin' and 'cause I were thinkin' 'bout Harmon, and that fill in the time. I weren't even at the Jameses' a month and, fast as that, me and Harmon wasn't friends no more. I thought 'bout that lots, but then I told myself it didn't matter. Didn't need no friend that always thinking he so special all the time. Anyway, I got a new friend. I got Jaz.

  Jaz come on into the bus station lookin' round for me, and I called him over to where I were sitting. He looked at my laundry bag and said, "Man, you was serious, huh? What happened?"

  I shrugged. "I didn't like the way the Jameses was treatin' me. Besides, it's time I be livin' on my own. I'm grown. I don't need to be livin' with no parents watching over me, know what I'm sayin'?"

  Jaz took up my laundry bag and heft it onto his shoulders, and, Lord, he had some fine shoulders. We walked on out to his car with me following behind, holdin' my hand in the back pocket of his jeans so we wouldn't get separated.

  Jaz shoved my bag in the backseat of his little car. The car were a red Corvette, kinda old lookin' 'cause the red weren't shiny, but inside were black and real clean, and when I sat down in it, the seat gave a noise like a squeak. Jaz called his car Shirley or Shirl, like she alive or something, and I got such a kick out of that. I called her, "His Girl, Shirl," and Jaz thought that were a hoot.

  "Yeah! My Girl, Shirl!" he said. He pushed down on the accelerator and we shot outta town, just like that! And the car roared like it happy to be racing away from Tuscaloosa. Jaz turned on some music—a tape of the band—and I started singing and so did Jaz, and we just flew on up to Muscle Shoals in His Girl, Shirl, like she were a jet plane. Seemed like it didn't take no time at all to get there, 'cause we sung songs the whole way, and I had my window down and so did Jaz, and I felt so free singin' and flyin' in our jet. Yeah, flyin' in His Girl, Shirl, goin' to Muscle Shoals to see Etta James and get famous. All my dreams was finally 'bout to come true.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  JAZ SLOWED DOWN when we rolled into Muscle Shoals, and all's I seen were nothin'.

  "Where everybody be at?" I said, leanin' sideways and sticking my head out the window. "Where's the theaters and big studios? Where's all the fancy people?"

  "Girl, what are you talking about? We're not in Hollywood. We're in Muscle Shoals."

  "But Mr. James said all these famous people sing here—Aretha and Etta and the Rolling Stones. They made all those big hits here. Where all the rock stars and jazz clubs and stuff? This ain't the right place. This place is pokier than Tuscaloosa, even."

  "This is the right place," Jaz said. "It just ain't Hollywood."

  "Hollywood? Shit! This place the pits!"

  Jaz rolled on through the nothin' street, and I were so disappointed lookin' out the window, I couldn't speak The shock of Muscle Shoals were so big I just kinda froze in myself.

  Jaz pulled off the road at some hole-in-the-wall coffee shop and said, "Let's eat. You'll feel better after we eat."

  I didn't feel like eating at no poky coffee shop. I wanted to eat at one of them fancy places with tiny lights and dark red carpets on the floors and music playin'. I seen pictures of them places and I thought Muscle Shoals were gonna be full of that kind of thing. But all this small town had was fast-food joints and nothing much else, 'cept the Tennessee River running alongside it, making fog. Were like we all the sudden stepped into some old-timey black-and-white movie. The whole town felt black-and-white.

  "You sure this is the right Muscle Shoals?" I asked Jaz when we sat down to eat and I looked out the greasy window and saw the parking lot.

  "Ain't no other," Jaz said. He waved at the waitress and said we was ready to order. Since I were paying, Jaz ordered most of the menu. Man, that dude could eat. I just had me a Coke and some bread I told the waitress not to toast I made me some sugar balls and drank down the Coke, but I didn't feel much better. But Jaz felt great after he finished off his eggs and two orders of waffles and bacon and hashbrowns and toast and coffee and oatmeal and orange juice.

  When we walked outta there, Jaz put his arm round my shoulder and breathed deep like he just owned the world, and I snuggled in close 'cause felt to me like I just lost it. How were I gonna get famous singin' in a place like this?

  We made up our minds to find us a place to stay, so we asked some guy at a gas station where we should stay and if he knew where we could find the recording studio where Etta James sung or where people be playing jazz or blues music anywhere in town, and he said we come to the right place, 'cause he were a musician himself.

  "I play guitar," he said. He took a cloth he had in his back pocket and wiped at his counter. "I got a band."


  I said, "I heard all these famous people come up here like Etta James and Percy Sledge and Aretha Franklin. Where they be at? I don't want to sing with no gas station worker. I be a real singer."

  Jaz give me a nudge like for me to shut my mouth, but I were too disappointed to act nice.

  The dude behind the counter just kept wipin' over the same clean spot, smiling to hisself like I didn't say nothin'. "We made a CD," he finally said, like it no big deal, but really, I could see that he thought it was. "R & B stuff mostly, some jazz, some blues. You got a CD?"

  "No," Jaz said, "we don't." He reached into his pocket and pulled out our tape of the band. "We made this, if you want to hear us."

  The dude shook his head and kept wiping the counter. "Go on over to the Dragon, the Chinese restaurant a block away, and ask for Jimmy. He'll let you play your tape, and you can hear our CD. If you think you're any good, you can jam with us tonight. Jimmy will tell you. Go on over to the Dragon."

  I were gonna ask again 'bout Etta James and where her studio be at, but then the dude said, "Jimmy'll tell you where Etta James records her music. He knows everyone. He knows all the greats."

  We walked over to the Dragon and told this old bald-headed Chinese man who come up to us how we come lookin' for Jimmy to hear his CD. He said he be Jimmy. And me and Jaz give each other the look, 'cause who ever heard of a Chinese person calling hisself Jimmy?

  He lead us through the dark red-walled restaurant to the kitchen and through the kitchen to a little office stuffed with shelves and papers and kitchen supplies. He said we could come inside. We come in, and a old Chinese lady with a million wrinkles on her face were sittin' at a desk, writing something on a computer, with a stack of them take-out cartons all flattened out, piled up on both sides of her computer. All that stuff round her made her look like some tiny doll, like my Doris doll, only Chinese. Jimmy said she were his wife, Elaine, and Elaine bowed her head at us and went back to writing like we wasn't there. Jimmy pushed a button on his CD player and music come on. It come out loud, and he quick turned it down even though he didn't have no customers out front or nothin'.

  They sounded way good, just like professionals, but weren't no singin', weren't no Etta James. I asked him did he know 'bout her—where her studio be at and when she comin' back—and he said he would draw us a map of how to get to the studio where Etta James recorded "Tell Mama," but he didn't know when she be coming back down. He said, "Lynyrd Skynyrd here now. Jimmy Buffett be here next month, maybe, but no Etta James."

  I didn't want to sing for no Lynyrd Skynyrd. I were thinking I didn't want to sing at all, I were so disappointed. Then Jaz pulled out his tape from his pocket and said for Jimmy to listen to our band, but I didn't pay much attention to any of that. I stared at the old lady with all the wrinkles on her face and thought how I wanted to go someplace and cry.

  I heard Jimmy ask, "Who be singer?"

  I lifted my head and said, "Me. I am."

  He nodded and stared back at the floor. Didn't look surprised or nothin'. He listened through another tune, then he said, "You good here and there, but you uneven. Keyboard good, sax okay, but drums, trumpet, they weak. I like first song best."

  Jaz nodded and said, "Yeah, that's mine. I wrote it."

  Jimmy said, "I play differently if I do keyboard for that."

  "What's wrong with the way we got it?" Jaz asked.

  "Too smooth, too mellow. Listen to words. The sound all wrong. Come tonight and I show you. You jam with us. I draw you map."

  Jaz got all excited 'bout that, like we was invited to sing with a famous band, but even though they was good, ain't never heard of them, so I didn't care none.

  I let Jaz and him do the map thing. Weren't interested in maps, just singin', and I didn't like how this Jimmy dude said nothin' 'bout my singin'. It burned me good him sayin' nothin'. Right away I didn't like him, and I wanted to get back at him, say somethin' nasty.

  When they got through with the mapmaking and they straightened back up from where they been hanging over the desk, I said to Jimmy, "Maybe you say that 'bout the keyboard being wrong 'cause you jealous 'cause we better 'n you and your band."

  The old man bowed at me and said, "Maybe so. You decide tonight." He smiled like I paid him and his band a compliment, and that burned me even more.

  The old man took us back through the restaurant, going through the kitchen first, where good sizzlin' smells was smokin' round the place and a dude dressed like a TV chef were shaking veggies in a pan as big as me. When we got to the front door, Jimmy patted Jaz's shoulder and said, "See you tonight—eight o'clock." Then he took my hand and held it in both of his. He bowed and said, "Young lady, it great honor to meet you. You have powerful gift. Use it well." He looked into my eyes, and I nodded, and it felt like I were making some kind of binding promise to him.

  We left the dark restaurant and stepped out into glaring sunshine and walked back toward the car. My legs was shaking. Ain't never kept no promise before.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  THINGS JUST GOT worse that afternoon when we followed Jimmy's map to the studio where Etta James recorded her music. Turned out it weren't nothin' to look at. No great big building, no lights, nothin' shiny or pretty or nothin'. Were a ugly building with ugly curtains in the ugly windows so you couldn't see into the probably ugly studio. We couldn't even get inside 'cause they was recording a group I didn't never heard of before. We drove on to a drugstore called Trowbridges, 'cause Jimmy said they had good chili dogs there, and Jaz ate four of them while I had me another Coke and tried not to let Jaz know how disappointed I still were 'bout everything. How were I ever gonna get famous in a dump like this?

  We hung out the rest of the day at the river. I sat sayin' nothin', but Jaz wouldn't shut up, 'cause he were excited. He couldn't wait to jam with Jimmy's band, and he said he loved how the town be like something outta the past. He said it be like time stood still in Muscle Shoals, and I said that were exactly what be wrong with it. It done stayed still so long, it up and died.

  Jaz said he were so turned on by the river and the atmosphere of the place, he just had to write 'bout it. He grabbed some paper and a pen from his car and started writing songs right there, with me sittin' next to him with my heart breakin'.

  Some people come along on tubes, floatin' like it be fun sittin' on them tubes in the river. I saw them go round this corner of trees and disappear. I couldn't see or hear them no more. There they was all going along, all innocent like, till they round that corner, and I were just sure they found they come to the edge of that river and dropped off into nothin'. Even though I know from school how the world be round and not flat, I were just as sure as sure that they all dropped off the edge out there. So later, when I laid down in the grass, I made sure I were for enough away from that riverbed. Me and open water still wasn't friends, and I had to fight my thoughts hard not to keep thinkin' 'bout drownin'. I couldn't stop remembering that time I were drownin' in the Gulf of Mexico.

  When Jaz got through with his songwriting, he lay back with me and sighed like he just so pleased with hisself. Then Jaz seen my arms and he rubbed at them. See, all this wet air were just hanging there all round us, invisible, 'cept on my arms. It left spit in the hairs on them. I liked him touching me. I snuggled up close to him on the grass, 'cause it were colder down by the water, and lay my head on his shoulder, my face facing in, looking at his. He run his hand up and down my back, resting it sometimes on my ass, and I got this achy thrill-chill feeling between my legs. Were the first really good feelin' I'd had in a long, long time.

  WHEN SEVEN-THIRTY COME, we left the restaurant where we was eatin' fried catfish and hush puppies and headed out to the place Jimmy said for us to meet. Jaz had me reading the map Jimmy made, and I weren't good at directions, so I told him to take a right when I should have said left, and we didn't find out we was going wrong for 'bout fifteen minutes. Jaz swore at me and turned Shirl round, and we got right again.

  We
come to the house long after eight, and right away we could hear music. I looked up through the dark at the upstairs windows, and I saw the lights on. They glowed from the two windows like them soft lights be made from the sound of the sweet, warm music I heard playin'. Like it be music that make the lights come on—not electricity. I saw them lights and heard that music, and I started to feel a little better. We climbed up the stairs that run outside the building and knocked on the door. No one answered, so Jaz just opened the door and we walked inside. Right away I seen all these people through all this cloud of smoke, and there was all kinds of amplifiers and microphones and all this recording stuff. Ain't never seen a setup like it The whole thing got me feeling jazzed. I just couldn't help myself.

  We got introduced round, and turned out Jimmy were way older than everybody else, and the only Chinese dude. Seemed everybody treated him like a king even though he didn't play much, 'cause he were more like their manager.

  They was all, like, in their twenties 'cept for me and Jaz, but even Jaz be almost eighteen, and they was all kinda dirty lookin'. Some had bare feet, and a couple of dudes didn't wear no shirts, and one lady guitar player named Colray or Tolray—didn't know which—she had a champagne glass tattooed on her boob, which you could see 'cause she wore her shirt so low you could see most everything.

  They was a different kind of band from Mark's band. They noisy between songs and smokin' this and that and drinkin' beer and taking lots of breaks, and the guys was all flirting with me and the lady guitar player. They let me sing, and like always, soon as I got singin' I got feeling so fine. I forgot all 'bout runnin' off from the Jameses and how the town be so rinky-dink and how there weren't no Etta James waitin' for me to sing and weren't no way I gonna all the sudden be famous. I sung, and everything just felt all right again.