The Way You Make Me Feel (5 page)

The doctor smiled. “You need to give your head a rest, but depending on what your doctor says, I'd think next Thursday would be good. You do have a lot of guts and that's what it's going to take to beat this thing. Now, let's free associate some more.”

And for the next half hour the doctor gently said words and Stevie responded. Only near the end did she remember to tell him about the statement she had made regarding Bretta while Detective Rollins was there. “That's very good,” he said, “and you tell me you're getting more and more images as we talk. Don't be surprised if after a few days, this comes to you in blocks and in a short while you'll remember most of your past.

It may take no more than a week or a few weeks or a few months. I'm very hopeful about this. You're doing beautifully, my dear, and I'm very proud of you.”

 

Damien took Stevie to the Gold Standard restaurant downtown. The place was one of the most popular in Nashville, and if you lingered there for a while, you'd see most of the city's musical people wander in. Damien waved to a young man seated at a table.

“Any table at all,” the maître d' promised, coming up with a wide smile.

“I want Wilson with my company,” Damien told her. “He's as good with gospel as he is with hip-hop, maybe better. Jake's trying to get him. His life's a mess. His wife left him and took his son that he adores. He's clinging to me as a lifeline.” He looked around. “Order for me, too. I'll have whatever you're having. A lot of people here today. I'm just a few tables away and I'll have my eye on you. If this conversation weren't so private, we three would be together.”

“I'll be fine,” she said.

Damien went to the other table and Stevie looked around. A tall, grim-faced man with wavy black hair and ginger skin left his table and made his way to hers. Once there, he glared down at her.

“Well, if it isn't Joan of Arc, on the warpath to save humanity.”

“I beg your pardon.” She looked at him levelly.

He was very angry. His skin seemed to have hot coals under it. She glanced over toward the table where Damien sat and found him studying the scene. She drew a swift breath. “What can I do for you, Mr.—?”

“The name's Keith Muncy and, yeah, I heard almost as soon as I got out that you no longer remember anything. Too bad that didn't happen a long time ago.”

“I've been warned about you, Mr. Muncy, and I have nothing to say to you.”

“Well, I've got
plenty
to say to you. Watch your back, lady, 'cause like the old country song, I always repay every debt I owe, and I owe you big-time.”

His fists were clenched; she remained calm. As Damien started to get up, the man walked away abruptly, looking back over his shoulder. Damien looked at her and raised his eyebrows. She put her fingers to her mouth and blew him a kiss and his nutmeg-colored skin flushed. Grinning, he returned her kiss.

The waiter came and she ordered barbecued baby-pork ribs, lima beans, zucchini squash, macaroni with cheese and a garden salad. She'd let Damien choose the dessert.

She was facing the door so she saw the party when they came in, just as they'd come into Club Insomnia the day before. Jake McGowan, Honi, Jake's bodyguard and his lawyer. As the maître d' led the group to a table and seated them, Jake looked surprised to see her. He glanced around him like the lord of the manor, then got up and made his way to Stevie's table.

“Hello, Stevie, how's it going?”

“Very well, thank you.” Something about him made her flesh crawl even worse than Keith Muncy did. How had she ever married him? Stayed with him?

His eyes narrowed. “I was coming in when you and Steele exchanged long-distance kisses. Moving fast, aren't you, Stevie?”

“I don't see that that concerns you.”

She was aware of Damien's eyes on her again, but Jake kept his distance. “I acted like a dog at Club Insomnia yesterday and I'm sorry. I'd had too much to drink. I'm gonna put it on the line. I love you, Stevie, and I want you back. You don't remember anything, but I've said this to you before…”

“Would this have anything to do with the fact that I'm testifying against you in October? I'm never coming back to you, Jake. You've got to know that.”

Jake McGowan was a man who hated losing and who seldom lost. Now he didn't know whether he was lying or telling the truth when he said he wanted Stevie back. It would surely make his case if she couldn't testify against him. Her coldness toward him was getting to him, and he had a few things to say.

He turned around and looked at Damien, knew Damien was talking to an artist he wanted on his own label and the old competitive itch came up in him. He turned back to Stevie. “Steele's a
player,
” he said bluntly. “You think you can compete with a woman like Honi Holmes, that luscious beauty sitting over there? There's nobody who doesn't know those two are made for each other and in spite of everything, they'll get married one day. Then your little passionate ass will be out in the cold.”

“You always were so kind,” Stevie murmured. “It's one of your many virtues.”

A rough-hewn man who aspired to sophistication, Jake was crestfallen, angry that Stevie could still get to him. “Listen,” he told her, “I'm not a lover like Steele, but I'll change. Anything you want, girl, you name it, you got it.”

It was Stevie's turn to be blunt. “You want me back so I can't testify against you.”

Hell, he'd reckoned that was a no-brainer, but he countered, “What do you mean?”

“You're safe,” she said. “You know I remember nothing and I think there is a lot to remember, maybe about you. If we married again, I couldn't testify against you.”

His eyes half closed. “I want you back because I love you. Period. End of sentence. Think it over, babe. I'll be waiting.” Then he mockingly put his fingers to his lips and blew her a kiss.

By then, Damien was at the table. “Trouble?” he asked softly, squaring off his own six feet two inches with Jake's five eleven.

“Not from me,” Jake answered. “I got the love of your life over at my table and you got the love of my life at yours. Why don't we just swap? Save a lot of trouble that way.”

“It'd save a lot more trouble if you'd just let Stevie alone. She no longer wants to be bothered with you. Hasn't for a very long time.”

“But I want
her,
” Jake said softly. “I've never stopped wanting her. Just like you still want Honi. Don't waste Stevie's time. You know where your heart is.”

Stevie looked up to find Honi staring intently at them, her beautiful face shining. She wished jealousy didn't cut through her. Damien smiled as he looked hard at Jake. “It might surprise you to know where my heart is. One thing I know, I'll never hurt Stevie.”

Jake shrugged and abruptly walked away as the waiter began to bring the silver-covered dishes. “I'll be with you in just a few minutes,” Damien said. “Wilson's coming to Nubian Gold. It didn't take much to land him. It seems he doesn't much like Jake or the deal he's offering him. He
is
crazy about Honi, and he insists that I borrow her from Jake to produce his album.”

The rest of the time went smoothly. Damien came back and brought the young man with him for introductions. “I'm a fan of yours,” the young man said, “right from the beginning. Hurry back, Stevie. It's gone around what's happened to you and I'm wishing you all the best.” He left and joined Jake's group.

When Damien and she were eating, she reflected that it would be a great lunch if it weren't for Keith Muncy and Jake and his party. After a while, Keith got up and left. At the door he saluted her, his face as cold as ice. And Stevie sat thinking, sure she had done the best she could in protecting a friend. Did Keith intend to use Bretta for a punching bag for the rest of his life? No, not if she could help it. And apparently she could and had helped it.

 

After lunch, Damien and Stevie visited music shops. People in the country-music record shops all knew Stevie; she had been relentless in publicizing her songs. A manager in one store shook Stevie's hand. “Now we know we'll be rewarded with some really great songs like ‘I Don't Need You Anymore,' but we want you
performing
again. Your voice is just too good for you not to be singing.” The manager had looked sad. “The news has gone around about your amnesia and I'm sorry. Just pray and keep praying. That always works for me.”

They took in a short documentary about the Iraqi War that Damien wanted to see and they sat in a small park with big goldfish under an acrylic dome. Suddenly she turned to him. “Thank you for a really good lunch.”

“Sorry it was spoiled by those two thugs.”

“They don't matter, but I wonder just how Muncy intends to get even with me.”

“I won't let him hurt you, Stevie. I won't let anybody hurt you.” She was surprised at the fierceness in his voice.

She looked at him tenderly and he felt deeply drawn again. “I told you I've been thinking of a song again…” she began.

“Does it have a title yet?”

She nodded and blushed when she said it. “‘The Way You Make Me Feel.' It's an AABA country song.” She meant the order of the verses and their bridge.

“You'll sing it for me.”

“I will. I want to play your Heart-Hole Zemaitis guitar when I sing it for you. I hear the nuances on the Heart-Holes are out of this world.”

“I'll get you one, or give you one of mine.”

“No. They're much too expensive.”

“Nothing's too expensive for you, Stevie. Didn't I say I owe you?”

She laughed and the merriment did his heart good. Then she sobered suddenly. “Keith Muncy said today
he
owes me.”

His brow furrowed. “You don't sound terribly afraid and maybe you should be, because Muncy comes from a fine family, but he's a loose cannon. Bretta was always too good for him.”

 

Stevie intended to play the part of her song she had finished for Damien, but she was so pleasantly tired she went to bed early. She lay awake in the darkness for a very long time going over the day. So Jake wanted her back, did he? And Keith Muncy intended to repay her. She should be more afraid, but she wasn't. The only frightening thing was what was in her mind that kept her from ever knowing its secret.

She lay there savoring the kisses she and Damien had blown to each other in the restaurant. And those thoughts brought on memories of yesterday's kiss against that very door close by. She let herself thrill to the passion in that kiss. Did it come too soon? And what
was
too soon? She had known him for so long. She wished he loved her the way he loved the faithless Honi. Placing her hand over her flat stomach she thought of her asking him if she had children. He was right, he
would
make a good father.

Her mind was very active with everything that had happened since she'd come to this house and the things she remembered more and more. She glanced at the luminous dial on the radio clock and saw it was eleven o'clock. She drifted then, and she slept a couple of hours before the dream came.

She was in the hundred-acre stretch of woods when she looked over and saw a clearing and a nebulous scene of people. The scene and the people slowly evolved into a large mass, then a smaller mass of orange-red that swirled and grew inexorably smaller. Then it was a ball roughly three times the size of a basketball that kept swirling. Something terrible was going on inside that mass. Jerking up, she screamed,
“Bretta, run!”
and kept screaming.

Stevie came awake frightened out of her wits. She found she was almost too weak to sit up so she slumped back. Then the lights were on and Damien was there holding her, asking anxiously, “What is it, Stevie? What
is
it?”

“I dreamed,” she began and couldn't finish. She was drenched with sweat.

“Lie back,” he told her. “I'll get a towel to dry you off and another gown. I'll be right back.”

He left then and she cowered beneath the covers until he came back. She found herself still too weak to sit up. “I'm going to take your gown off and dry you. We have to do it this way, Stevie, because you've had a shock.”

Very tenderly he removed her gown and blotted her dry with a bath towel. God, what could she have dreamed to cause this kind of panic? He hardly noticed her body because he was so upset with her terror. But she noticed him because she needed him so. He pulled the fresh gown on over her head and when she thought he would get up, she said, “No, please don't go.” And she clung to him. His muscular body felt so comforting. Gradually she relaxed as he held her.

She wanted his mouth on hers again, craved what he gave her. Her mouth found his and she kissed him, passionately, hungrily as wildfire swept her. Then, shaken, she came to herself.