The High Notes: A Novel(55)
It was a terrible end to their successful, joyful concert tour.
Why the gunman had gone berserk at the concert remained a mystery. He had no close friends, no family, no one to shed light on the reasons. It was senseless and heartbreaking. Boy was released from the hospital on Sunday, and by then they had been told that Pattie’s body would be in Biloxi on Tuesday night. Mrs. Maybeck, Pattie’s neighbor whom Iris had spoken to, had made arrangements for the funeral on Friday, and had put a notice in the paper.
“I want to be there,” Iris told Clay. He helped her move her things from the Plaza to his apartment. He was surprised by how little she had. She had none of the trappings and accumulations that most people had when they moved. She was grateful that she had left Rosie at the hotel the night of the shooting.
Clay volunteered his plane to take Iris to Biloxi. He had important meetings on Friday, and couldn’t go himself.
He was continuing to see her album and Boy’s singles climb the charts, but the tragedy at Madison Square Garden overshadowed the news for them all. Iris didn’t want to think about it. She called Harry and Pearl to tell them she was all right. They had seen it on the news and were grateful she hadn’t been shot. She didn’t tell them how close she had come.
She stayed home and was quiet and subdued until she left for Biloxi. She went down on Thursday night so she could visit Pattie’s mother and Jimmy. Pattie’s mother was already in the hospice facility, and Mrs. Maybeck said that Pattie’s mother wasn’t up to attending the funeral. It was just as well. Jimmy was staying at Mrs. Maybeck’s. It was too depressing to be in the empty house now without his mother, and there was no one to care for him there.
“A social worker came yesterday,” she told Iris. “They’ll let him stay with me till Sunday. And they’ll take him on Monday. One of their regular foster homes has agreed to take him. They have another boy his age.” Iris felt sick when she heard it, but there was nothing she could do or say. He was starting a hard journey, and already had. Pattie had enough money saved to pay for the funeral, but there wasn’t enough to provide for Jimmy and a caretaker, and she rented her small house, she didn’t own it. They needed to empty it as soon as possible.
Iris checked in to a hotel not far from Pattie’s home when she got to Biloxi, and then she went to see Jimmy at Mrs. Maybeck’s. He came downstairs, looking very small and pale. He was blond with big blue eyes, and Iris told him that she and his mom had been best friends.
“I know, she talked about you a lot,” he said, looking at her with serious eyes. Mrs. Maybeck had told him that he was going to live with a new family on Monday. Neither of them knew if he understood all the changes he was about to go through. His life would be altered forever. She said she heard him crying every night, and he’d had nightmares since his mother’s death.
After she saw him, Iris went to the funeral home where Pattie was, in a coffin Mrs. Maybeck had picked out. It was a simple pine casket, and it was closed. She was too damaged for a viewing, and there was a guest book several people had signed, and a few arrangements of flowers people had sent. She led a small life in Biloxi and had few friends. She spent all her time with her mother and Jimmy when she wasn’t working.
Iris sat quietly in a pew and thought about her and the years they’d been friends while they toured. She would have been lost without Pattie. Everything she did or thought about or earned was always for Jimmy, and now he had no mother or father and no one to look after him. Pattie didn’t even know how to contact Jimmy’s father, he had given up his parental rights years before and had no interest in him. He’d never even seen the boy, and wanted no contact.
Iris lay awake all that night in her hotel room, thinking about Pattie, and Jimmy.
Clay called her, and she barely had the energy to talk to him. He said they were making progress on the memorial concert, and Boy was helping too. Half of Nashville wanted to come. Clay already had seven major stars lined up. He told Iris the names, and she was impressed. They were huge names, and had said yes immediately. Clay had set up an entire staff and dedicated an office to the memorial concert, and the finest gospel choir in New York had signed up.
“If I hadn’t begged her to come, she’d be alive today,” Iris said to Clay, “and now her son has no mother. I wanted her to hear me in a real concert.” She felt acutely guilty and had agonized about it ever since the concert. A week after Pattie had come to New York, Iris was going to her funeral. Everything about it was so wrong.
* * *
—
On the morning of the funeral, Iris got up early and dressed in the simple black dress she’d brought, and black stockings to go with it. She went to the Maybeck house to help Jimmy get ready. She made breakfast while Mrs. Maybeck dressed.
The funeral was being held at the church Pattie attended irregularly. All of her coworkers came from the restaurant where she worked as a waitress, and several neighbors. There had been a photograph of Pattie on the front page of the paper, so word had traveled quickly within her small circle.
It was a somber, respectful service, with a soloist from the church choir singing “Amazing Grace,” and an elderly man playing the organ. Iris had wanted to sing for her, but didn’t think she could get through it. So she stayed with Jimmy and held his hand through the service. He sat bravely the whole time, with a devastated look. Mrs. Maybeck sat on his other side. Iris was flying out that night on Clay’s plane. She spoke to a number of people after the service, and everyone looked shocked. And then Iris went to the hospice facility to pay a respectful visit to Pattie’s mother, and was told that she was sleeping, and that she was awake only for short times now, and didn’t recognize most visitors. They said it would only be a matter of a few days now, so Jimmy would lose his grandmother too. A clean slate for him, of everyone he had ever known and loved, and who loved him.