Edie Gorme died yesterday.
She and her husband, Steve Lawrence were married over five decades, proving that celebrity marriages can make it. They sang together, but she also did some solo performances. One of my favourites was Blame it on the Bossa Nova.
In my book, Riding the Thunder, I used references to a lot of period music from the early 1960s, and that song was a small part of recalling the period. Here is my own personal salute to a talent lost....
Behind
her, Asha heard Jago calling, but his words were carried away on the waves of
memories fighting to surface within her.
As she circled around the side, she heard a flapping noise. Her steps slowed as she neared.
The sound came from an odd addition to
the building. Originally, she’d judged,
the structure was a simple L-shaped house.
Possibly someone had lived here once.
At some later date, the extension― what looked like a small pavilion―
had been grafted onto the back. There
were no walls to this part of the structure, just sheets of unpainted plywood
covering the two open sides. One wooden
panel had been pulled half down, hanging diagonally by a single nail. Behind the boards was a heavy circus tent
quality canvas, gray from age and ripped in a couple places. The wind caused the end to flutter, the metal
grommets of the rings knocking against the wooden post.
Asha hesitated for a moment, uncertain
if she wanted to pull back the sailcloth and see what lay beyond. Just as she worked up enough nerve, Jago
touched her arm. Her mind snapped back.
“Asha, are you all right?” He reached out and brushed the back of his
hand to her cheek.
She
offered Jago a fleeting smile, trying to reassure him, only her attention
remained divided. The clanking of the
metal grommets against the poplar wood post was a siren’s song, calling her.
In
a sad voice, she told him, “It seems so small now.”
“What’s small?”
She heard his words― ignored
them. Moving forward, she grasped the
canvas and lifted it back. In a flash,
everything about her surroundings shifted, changed― as they had by the
pool. Instead of the dingy, forlorn
pavilion, the white canvases were rolled up to the roof and tied back, leaving
everything open to the night air.
Colored Christmas lights were tacked along the poplar wood rail that ran
along the outer edge of the small skating rink.
Eydie Gorme's Blame It On The Bossa Nova played over
the speakers hung on the walls. The
skaters could rock to the music while going around and around. Laura loved the dizzying sensation, loved the
spinning colorful lights, similar to the feeling of being on a merry-go-round.
No,
no, the bossa nova…
Then she saw him, standing by the
post, watching her. Tommy. So handsome. And she loved him more than she loved life.
“Asha, damn
it.” Jago jerked her around by the arm
to face him. “What the hell is wrong
with you? And don’t bother telling me
you need a soda.”
With a faint
shudder, Asha’s mind returned to the present.
She glanced about the dingy building.
No Christmas lights. The hardwood
floor was ruined by the decades of the lack of care and intruding rain. No
music. No skaters. No Tommy and Laura. However, Tommy Grant and Laura Valmont had
once stood here on a hot summer night over four decades ago. For some strange reason she was being shown
their young lives, their special passionate love.
Though all about her was now back to normal, an oppressive
air of sorrow lingered; it pushed against her mind to where a tear came to her
eye. She wasn’t sure why seeing a
beautiful memory like the one she had just experienced should leave her so
profoundly shaken. The couple’s love was
so clear, so beautiful. Laura and Tommy
were extraordinary people. Though these
flashbacks left her rattled, she felt Laura was giving her a gift. That gift should bring joy, happiness. Instead, she was overcome with a poignant,
heartbreaking sadness.
Silent tears
streaming down her face, she smiled at Jago, trying desperately to hang
on. Just hang on. “I wish I had known them.”
Poor man, he
stared at her, totally confused, fearful.
“Who?”
“You’re now sorry
you went to bed with me, eh, Jago?
You’re scared I’m crazy as a loon.”
She reached up and touched his beautiful face, cupped his cheek. “I’m not sure I can explain, since I don’t
really understand myself.” Dropping her
hand, she walked in a small circle.
“This used to be a skate rink.
They came here on summer nights.
Played music. Mostly the girls
skated. The guys just watched them in
their tight Pedal Pushers. They decorated with strands of Christmas
lights, made it festive. Others would
park their cars out here, and would sit on the hoods observing, too. The nights would flicker, alive with
lightning bugs, turning everything magical.
It was a gentle time. A happy
time.”
As she talked the
images grew so strong, the music filtered around her. “’I
wonder what went wrong, with our love, a love that was so strong,’” ― she
sang the lyrics to the tune she could hear.
“Del Shannon’s Runaway,” Jago identified.
Asha’s head
whipped back to him, almost hopeful.
“You hear it?”
If he could hear it, too, maybe she wasn’t going
insane. She gave him credit. He listened for a minute, but then shook his
head no.
“You’re hearing
Del Shannon?” he asked solemnly.
She chuckled,
trying to make light of the bizarre situation.
“Actually, no. You’ll think I’m
totally nuts. I’m now hearing Alley Oop.”
“Alley Oop?” Jago huffed a small laugh, but concern filled
hid dark green eyes. “Sorry, I missed
that one.”
“I’m sure it’s on
the jukebox at The Windmill. I’ll play it for you when we get back.” She smiled, fighting the tears. Her tone sobered. “I’m not crazy, Jago.”
“You just go
around hearing Alley Oop?” He shoved his hands in his back pockets and
looked at her, guarded. “I read once
about a guy, his tooth was turning his mouth into a radio. Somehow, he was receiving music through his
filling. Maybe you need to have your
fillings checked.”
She
shrugged. Walking to the rail, she put
her hands on it and gazed out at the abandoned property. “It might account for the music. Only, it doesn’t cover Tommy and Laura.”
“Tommy and
Laura?” he echoed, his disbelief
rising. “The lovers from that song on
the demented Wurlitzer?”
“Yeah, Tell Laura I Love Her by Ray
Peterson. It was very popular in the
early ‘60s.”
“Maybe you’re
fixing on that song― for some reason?”
“Tommy Grant and
Laura Valmont. They used to come
here. They were very much in love.”
“Used to? Were?” he challenged.
A flock of birds were suddenly flushed
from the stand of trees, the crows’ caws filling the late afternoon sky. Jago took her elbow. “Come on, we can figure out Tommy and Laura
later. We need to get out of here.
Montlake/Amazon Publishing
Available in Tradesize and Kindle
Available in Tradesize and Kindle
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