Page 3 of Meet Me in the Garden

Adele smiles sympathetically. “Are you sleeping okay on this old thing?”

“She looks tired,” Claire says. “Honey, are you tired? It might not be a bad idea to take a break from all this anyway.”

“Iknow,” Adele says. “Come out with Al and me tomorrow night. Claire’s babysitting. Invite Delphine along if you want to.”

The next evening after dinner, while my sisters and I wash up in the kitchen, I ask Adele if I can borrow a dress for our night out.

“Sure. But not the pink one,” she says. “Or the polka dot.”

Claire takes my hand in her softer one, scrutinizes the paint around my cuticles and under my fingernails. “Look at this,” she says. Adele turns the faucet, peels off her washing gloves and sets them aside. My sisters study my nails, my face, my hair.

“Poor thing,” Adele says.

“Let’s get her fixed up,” Claire says. “Maybe she’ll catch a cute boy’s eye tonight. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? A little sparkle to cheer you up?”

Soon my hair’s brushed and pulled back, my fingernails passable. My brows are darkened, my cheeks rouged and lips pink. I’m wearing a pale-blue dress with a red belt and matching heels. Adele and Claire are pleased. Delphine knocks on the door in the same dress as yesterday.

Claire looks her over. “That’s an unusual silhouette,” she says. “I haven’t seen a waist dropped like that in a long time. Is the style coming back?” An insincere question. Claire’s always up on the trends.

“I wouldn’t know,” Delphine says. “I just like the way it moves when I’m dancing.”

Now Adele and Al are here with us at the doorway, in navy, arms looped around each other’s waists. The rosebud in Al’s lapel matches the burgundy of Adele’s mouth. Next to them, no matter what we wear, Delphine and I are just girls.

“It’s been ages since I’ve gone to Les Jeunes Amis Hall,” Claire says. “Have a wonderful time.”

But as soon as we’re up the block, Adele glances over her shoulder at Delphine and me. “I’m assuming you two can keep a secret.”

“Sure we can,” Delphine says.

“We aren’t going to the Jeunes Amis.”

“We’re going to the Drop,” Al says, easy, like it’s a small thing to goagainst Claire and my mother and Delphine’s mother, too. Delphine reaches for my hand. Squeezes. Not only the two of us, keeping secrets. We’re buoyant now, the four of us in on something, and just a few blocks later, we’re following Al and Adele inside the Dew Drop Inn, past the barbershop and into the lounge, set up with white tablecloths, full of cigarette smoke and finely dressed colored people. No one checks wrists at the doorway here. “You girls go pick us a table,” Al says. “I’ll buy us some drinks.”

A few players are assembling their instruments on the bandstand, no music yet, but the room is loud with voices. “Their house band is the best in New Orleans,” Adele says. “Just wait until they start.”

“How many times have you been here?” I ask.

“Oh, just a few.” She’s coy. Conspiratorial. I’m trying to get my bearings.

“Let’s sit close to the stage,” Delphine says.

The crowd’s thickening, the room warming, men and women leaning against the walls, women perching in men’s laps at the tables. Al brings us four beers in amber bottles. We clink them. The lights dim. Someone behind us is looking for a chair. Delphine notices, slides next to me, our sides touching, sharing the seat. The musicians look to one another, and the crowd senses a shift, grows quiet save for awhoopand a “Come on now,” and the drummer counts to set the rhythm and we’re off. All the players at once, sudden and complete as a downpour.

Bright blare of the trumpet. Body thrumming from the bass. Richness of the piano notes. Melody and rhythm and I’m not only here anymore. I’m also with Papa again, he’s bent over his gramophone in the moment between the crackle and the music. All around me in the club are faces full of feeling. Next to me, a woman presses her cheek against a man’s and I flush, thinking of Hattie kissing my neck. Loudness all around me, safe to dream. Everything gone or forbidden is mine. And here are the musicians finishing a song and smiling, sipping water, sipping liquor, communicating to one another with raised eyebrows and sweeps of their hands. Here’s Adele’s head resting on Al’s shoulder and Delphine saying into my ear, “This is everything I ever want.”

Several songs in, a young man joins them on the bandstand, blissful ashe sings “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye.” The older men play softer as they accompany him, shake their heads in admiration. I want someone to look at me in that way. With such appreciation and wonder. Papa used to, but he’s gone now. The boy croons. Delphine takes my hand in hers, laces our fingers together. And then the set ends and when the applause fades, Al turns to Delphine and me and says, “Let’s none of us forget that our birthplace is the birthplace of jazz.”

Morning comes and I wake up with humility. All night, my head was full of music, the sound oftrueartists. Meanwhile, my attempt at Papa’s chair dries against the mantel, the latest in a series of failed paintings. Papa’s black oxfords. His last pack of cigarettes. Our blue house from the outside with its side-by-side front doors and the brick walk where he stumbled on the morning he was taken away. None of them close to what I’d envisioned. None of them worth stinking up the house with turpentine. From the kitchen I hear my sisters’ voices, Al’s low laugh, Baby Rudy’s squeal. I meant to get up before the rest of them and clear the sofa, brew the coffee, show that I’m useful. Instead, I’m the last one to rise.

By the time I fold the blanket and stash it in my corner, use the bathroom and brush my hair and tie my robe over my nightgown, something is happening in the kitchen. A hush, only Bernard’s voice now, all of them watching him and listening as he nods along with whoever is on the telephone. I wait in the doorway.

“Yes,” Bernard’s saying. “Wonderful. Maybe French Restoration. Still elegant but not quite as ornate. I’ll draw up some concepts.” Waiting. Listening. Claire’s whole body tilting toward him from her place at the stove. She nods when he nods. Her lips mouth his words after he says them. The conversation goes on and Bernard stands taller. I get a flash of his younger self, five years ago when he and Claire were married at Saint Peter Claver. No one was surprised when she chose Bernard. He walked down the aisle smiling, boyish and open, tall with russet eyes and hair, an ease about him that got lost in the war. “Three o’clock is just fine,” he says. “See you then.” He hangs up. “Twenty-two tables,” he says.

“Twenty-two?” Claire’s jaw drops and Bernard kisses her forehead, holds her close against him. He lets himself smile—the old smile, the one that spreads across his face.

Al gives a low whistle. “Twenty-two tables,” he says. His arm’s slung around Adele’s shoulders and she’s leaning into him, bouncing Rudy on her knee.

“Who’s the client?” she asks.