“You ate already?”
I shook my head. “I’ll eat with you. We can talk over breakfast.”
In the kitchen I poured myself a cup of green tea and grabbed a muffin. Ginny’s struggling to become a vegan cook, which isn’t easy on an island where two small supermarkets stock limited options. Nevertheless she has learned to make delicious muffins because she knows how much I love them. The muffin today is pumpkin apple spice.
Donny poured a new cup of coffee from the pot Ginny had brewed just for him—I don’t drink the stuff. We filled bowls with cut fruit and berries, and took breakfast outside to the table on the porch where we had greeted the sun.
My house, gated and private, is flanked by porches overlooking the beach, and a stone and tile courtyard in the front. The guesthouse, where Donny stayed last night, is on the beach side, with its own shady patio off the pool and a well-stocked kitchen tucked on one end. Choosing a place to eat at Casa del Corazón is a joy.
We settled in and chatted about his plans for the rest of the week, and then about negotiations he was conducting with Cyclonic Entertainment for my next album. I love the music of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, and I want to do my own adaptations of songs like “See See Rider,” and “Down Hearted Blues.” Lately I’ve been branching out from my standard sound, characterized by more than one reviewer as gospel rock. I’m carving personal niches in bluegrass and jazz, but the blues of the 1930s fit perfectly with the songs that made me famous, songs about strong women who don’t take shit from anybody and don’t need a man to be happy. If the right man arrives? Just something to think about.
Donny cradled a coffee mug in both hands against his chest, as if he needed protection. “If Cyclonic agrees to let you do a blues album, they’re talking about another tour to promote it.”
Donny and I work on the fly, so we find moments to confer whenever and wherever we can. But this quiet time with only waves and seagulls as accompaniment put a fresh spin on the conversation. I wasn’t in the mood to make lists or demands.
“I don’t need another tour. I need more of this.” I waved my hand in the direction of the gulf to make my point. “More sun and sand. More breathing.”
“Then you’ll need to think about what you can offer as a compromise. Limited cities. Smaller venues if that feels more comfortable.”
“How does limited and smaller equate with what I just said? I’ll repeat. I don’t need another tour.”
“Any tour at all? Or just the exhausting variety, like the last one?”
“Right now I need to get through the next few months. This documentary’s not going to be a piece of cake. I don’t know how I’ll feel when it’s over. I might need a straitjacket by the time I’ve spilled my guts and revisited all my nightmares.”
“You can pull back.” He reached over and rested his hand on mine, an unusual gesture from a guy who’s 90 percent business. “Mick told you that. He’s not expecting you to reveal anything you don’t want to. The minute things start to get tough you can stop. Mick can turn a conversation about your favorite shampoo into a masterpiece.”
I decided to keep things light. “Shampoo? Perfect, because I’m still a foster kid at heart. Most of the time I use whatever’s on sale or dip into my storehouse of hotel amenities. Try Rose 31, courtesy of the Fairmont. I think there’s some in the guesthouse.”
He lifted his hand to grip his mug again. “That’s the kind of thing Mick will relish. I guess I’m just saying that if you don’t want to reveal the worst moments, you don’t have to.”
“And to think you got your start as a promoter.”
“I’ll tell Cyclonic the tour is off the table for now, and we’ll see what they come back with.”
“I wonder if I’ll know when to stop touring or recording or even singing in the shower. Don’t you wonder if you’ll know when to let go for good?”
“Sometimes.” He sounded like he was trying to be agreeable.
“I’m serious, Donny. When will you have another chance to watch the sun rise with a cup of coffee in your hands and nowhere you have to be right away?”
“Could you be happy without performing? Because it jacks you up. Every time. You fly high for hours afterward.”
“But I don’t want this to become an addiction, you know? I already have a recurring nightmare. I’m in the audience at a stadium in some city or another, and I’m sitting in a wheelchair down at the front because I’m so old I’ve forgotten how to walk. But that doesn’t seem to matter because I’m still trying to find a way to get up on the stage and perform.”
“You’re making that up.”
“I wish.” I smiled a little. “Well, okay, maybe. But the scenario’s in my thoughts a lot. I’m forty-two, on my way to a facelift, and sure, lots of people older than me continue to do extravagant world tours. The Stones and the Beach Boys are going to die onstage, and maybe Cher. But I paid close attention last time, when we set out on that tour from hell. It took at least two days to set up for each concert. We had four container trucks loaded to the ceiling, six buses and seventy-two staff, if you include my cook and Andy. Remember Andy? The personal trainer who quit halfway through because the schedule was too grueling? And let’s not forget the musicians, dancers, backup singers, the stagehands and construction engineers.”
“So? You gave a lot of people jobs and made a lot of fans deliriously happy.”
“I made myself sick. I made myself crazy. And I can’t know for sure that if I don’t stop pushing so hard it won’t happen again. I’ve been warned.”
“I think about a different life, too. It’s almost impossible to imagine one when every second isn’t a competition or a negotiation or a pep talk.”
“I’ve had my share of your pep talks.”
“Here’s another in that long line. You already know the documentary can both help or hurt your career. You’ll seem more human—that’s the good part. On the other hand, you’ll seem more human and—”
“That’s also the bad part,” I finished for him.
“I know this is incredibly personal for you, that you want to share the realities of foster care with the world. That you want to change lives...”
I nodded, waiting, because I heard a “but” coming.
He hesitated, then he smiled. Donny doesn’t smile a lot, but the room warms when he does. This one was gentle, the way one good friend smiles at another when bad news is on the way.
“Whose life do you want to change, Cecilia?”
“Mine, of course, and the people who watch the film.”
“How about Robin’s?”
I pondered that. “Everything we do changes us, doesn’t it?” I asked at last.
“Nice save. So let me rephrase. Have you invited her to be part of this for herself or for you.”
“Are
