by Cutter, Leah
To her surprise, people were dancing.
Francine looked back at her bandmates—Simone on the accordion and Muriel on the washboard. They chased behind her musically as she took off, twirling the tune up on some arpeggios. Then the tune wove back tightly together in the middle and they all played off each other. They ended with a short improv between the fiddle and the accordion, neither willing to give the other the last note.
The second piece ran into the first one, a slower number. Francine heard people clapping along with the beat. She beamed at the crowd, riding on the wave of energy they built, and then she fed it back to them, making her notes brighter and sharper.
People glided by on the dance floor, quick on their feet.
A rush of power thrilled Francine. She controlled their movements. She directed the dance. She wanted it to go on and on. The music set Francine flying—her fiddle was part of her arm, her fingers dancing, and the tune part of her soul. However, eventually, the song drew to a close.
After stopping for sincere applause, Francine announced their third and final number, “Zydeco Queen.” More dancers came onto the floor until it was as packed as it would be later for Uncle Rene’s band. Francine danced with them on the stage, happier than she could ever recall being. She looked up and beamed, wanting to share her joy with everyone: They were all now her family.
That’s when the strangers at the back of the bar drew Francine’s attention.
They were tall, very tall, like Francine and her papa. Some had dark hair and pale skin like them, too. Others were darker, like Uncle Rene. One proud African American woman with white hair caught Francine’s eye and smiled at her.
Francine couldn’t help but smile back.
It was odd. She’d never met these strangers, but they looked familiar, like cousins she hadn’t met yet.
Francine gestured that they should come closer, pointing at the dance floor with her fiddle. The woman with the white hair merely smiled and shook her head.
That seemed like a challenge to Francine, so she played her hardest, even going through the refrain a second time. However, the strangers stayed near the door and didn’t join the other dancers.
The music ended to thunderous applause. Francine felt as though it was strong enough to lift her off her feet. She and her bandmates took their bows, though Francine wished she could play longer. She never wanted to stop making music, pouring everything out and getting it all back twofold.
She also knew if she could play another song, maybe two, she could get those newcomers onto the dance floor.
“That was so amazing!” Francine exclaimed as they got backstage. She hugged both Muriel and Simone.
Uncle Rene came up and gave all three of them a hug as well.
“You girls just stole the show,” he said with a grin.
Francine knew that wasn’t true—people out in the bar wanted to see Uncle Rene and his band. But she knew they’d done well.
Still buzzing with excitement, adrenaline coursing through her, Francine made her way back out front. She ignored her family and their waves, weaving her way to the back of the room, to where the others had been standing.
No one waited there for her.
Francine tried to contain the disappointment she felt. She’d really wanted to talk with them. She didn’t understand why, but she’d felt drawn to them.
She walked back to the table where Papa sat. Mama waved at her from a few tables over where she sat with her sisters.
“That was wonderful, darling,” Papa told her, obviously proud, giving her a big hug.
“It was so much fun! I wonder if we can come back next weekend.”
Francine looked around the crowd, still seeking those others.
“Now, you know how I feel about you playing in bands,” Papa said.
Francine knew. She’d heard all her life how she was supposed to do something more.
“Who you looking for?” Papa asked.
“Some people came in. They kinda looked like us,” Francine said, indicating herself and her papa. “Tall and dark-haired. I’ve never seen ’em before but they looked familiar.”
Papa looked around the room quickly.
“They’re gone now,” he said evenly. “And you stay far, far away from them.”
“Who are they?”
“People you don’t need to know,” Papa said grimly. “We should go.”
“But—” Francine wanted to talk with her aunts, uncles, and cousins. Her blood still buzzed with the energy from playing. Plus, she wanted to hear Uncle Rene and his band play.
Papa wouldn’t be stopped.
“Home. Now.”
Francine angrily went backstage and packed her fiddle away. Who had those people been? Why wouldn’t Papa let her talk with them? It wasn’t fair of Papa to keep her other relations separate.
She was determined to find them.
Chapter Two
The smell of sweet onions frying in butter filled the air in the kitchen. Though Francine had just finished breakfast, it still made her mouth water. Instead, she concentrated on chopping celery for Mama’s mustard sauce, using her favorite cutting board—made by Uncle Leroy—and Mama’s best knife, honed to a deadly edge once a week by Papa.
Mama peeled mushrooms next to Francine, humming softly under her breath, a soft counterpoint to the dripping rain outside. The cornbread was already finished and resting on the counter. They’d both start deveining shrimp next. The family was gathering at their house for this week’s Sunday dinner.
It was just the pair of them. Mama liked to joke that while Papa was good at eating food, he was worse than useless in a kitchen.
Francine didn’t want to bring anything into this cozy place that might ruin it. But she had to know.
“Mama, do I have any cousins I haven’t met yet?” she asked.
“There’s your Aunt Justine, who married that Yankee up in Montana, of all places. I don’t think you’ve met her kids.”
Mama shuddered.
“She sends us Christmas cards every year with pictures of all of them standing in the snow.”
“No, I meant here,” Francine said.
“Why?” Mama asked.
Francine looked up at the flat note in Mama’s voice. It sounded like a warning, but Francine wanted answers.
“Last night while I was playing, some people came in to listen. They just looked familiar, I guess.”
Mama sighed.
“Papa told me they’d stopped by. Now, don’t you go looking for trouble. You stay away from those people, you hear me?”
“But Mama—”
“No. You will walk away if any of them ever comes up to you, Francine Adelaide Guiscard. Have I made myself clear?”
Francine swallowed around the lump in her throat.
“Yes, Mama,” she said quietly.
She didn’t understand. Mama rarely raised her voice or got angry, and never over something as small as this.
Mama sighed.
“I worry about you,” she said, turning back to her mushrooms. “You’re just like your papa. Headstrong and more stubborn than Mississippi mud. Hotter than Tabasco with that temper, too.”
“I’ll be fine, Mama,” Francine assured her.
“I know you will be. I still worry. Now, are you ready for the shrimp?”
Francine let the topic drop, though she didn’t stop thinking about it. She could take care of herself. She’d been doing that at the academy for years.
But no matter what warnings Mama or Papa gave her, she wasn’t going to stop looking for her lost cousins.
* * *
Francine stared at the letter in her hand, the rest of the mail lying forgotten on the floor under the mail slot. She ran her fingers over the embossed symbol of the Louisiana Music College, then across the stark black signature at the bottom. Sunshine streamed through the windows behind her, but she could no longer feel its heat. The words ran together and Francine struggled to read the letter a second tim
e:
Dear Ms. Guiscard,
I saw you perform last week at Slim’s. I’d hoped to talk with you afterward but missed my opportunity. I learned from your uncle that you are a high school senior at Oak River Academy. I sincerely hope that you’ll keep our school in mind when you’re looking to further your education. We have more than one music scholarship that you could apply for.
Please don’t hesitate to call if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Frank Kitridge
Dean, Jazz Music Program
“Mama! Papa!” Francine shouted. When they both came running from the kitchen, she handed them the letter with a shaking hand.
“Is it real?”
Mama nodded while Papa took the envelope from Francine’s hand and looked at it, holding it up to the sunlight and peering through it. He gave the letter the same treatment.
“Seems like,” he said gruffly. “Has a fancy watermark and everything on the paper.”
“Oh, darling,” Mama said, pulling Francine in for a big hug. “I’m so proud of you!”
Francine’s arms shook and she held onto her mama for a long moment, drinking in the comfort. She looked up, thinking that her papa would join in. But he stood apart, his arms over his chest.
“Papa?”
“You shouldn’t be thinking about going to some music school. You need to learn a trade, get a real job.”
“Charles,” Mama scolded.
“We sent you to that fancy academy to have a better life. Not to end up playing in bars, trolling for tips.”
“I know, Papa, but this could be a chance to do something else with my music.”
“What, writing songs for other people?” Papa said dismissively.
“I thought you liked my music,” Francine said, stung.
“Of course, baby girl,” Papa said quickly. “And I love playing with you. But life on the road is no life.”
Francine shook her head. There were other things she could do if she could get into a college like this. Maybe become a studio musician, or teach.
“Now, Charles,” Mama said harshly. “You apologize to your daughter for being an old stick-in-the-mud. You should be happy other people recognize her talent.”
Papa stuck out his chin mulishly.
“Too many have already noticed her talent.”
“You mean my lost cousins,” Francine said hotly.
“You stay away from them,” Papa said, glaring at Francine.
“I’ll talk with them if I want,” Francine said, glaring right back. She hadn’t found them yet; it hadn’t even been a week. But she would.
“You will walk away from them,” Mama said with quiet steel in her voice.
“I am seventeen years old,” Francine said. “I will do what I want.”
“Not in my house, young lady,” Papa said, his tone flat and mean. “And right now, you need to go to your room. Or you’ll learn you aren’t too big to be laid over my knee and spanked.”
For a long moment Francine and her papa stared at each other, both smoldering in anger.
Mama sighed and said quietly, “Both of you. Behave.”
“Your room. Now,” Papa said.
“Fine,” Francine said. She snatched the letter out of his hand.
“It’s not fair!” she complained as she stomped down the hall to her room.
“Not fair at all!” she added as she slammed the door shut.
For a second, Francine was afraid that both Papa and Mama would storm in after her, yelling at her for such behavior. She threw herself onto her bed, telling herself that she didn’t care. They were wrong about everything.
However, Francine couldn’t hold onto her anger. She found herself crying into her pillow.
How could Papa be so hateful? Why didn’t he understand?
Francine loved making music. It was the only time she felt alive. Life on the road would be tough—she’d heard Papa and Uncle Rene’s stories about it often enough. She knew that.
But the rewards were sure to be as great.
Finally, Francine finished crying. She carefully smoothed out the letter, putting it on her desk, determined to apply for those scholarships.
Then, defiantly, Francine got out her fiddle and started playing.
She’d show them.
* * *
Francine took down the oldest photo album from the shelf in the living room. The house was quiet. Golden dust motes danced in the corner, shimmering in the afternoon sunlight. Mama and Papa both napped in the heat of the day, the air hot and heavy despite the constantly blowing AC.
As quietly as she could, Francine took the album to her room and closed the door. It had been over a month since the gig at Slim’s, but she still hadn’t found her lost cousins. She hoped the old pictures would give her a clue because she couldn’t talk with Mama, Papa, or any of her relations about it; every time she tried, they just ended up either fighting or not talking to her.
The smell of musty paper greeted Francine as she opened the album. She flipped through the first few pages, then went back and looked through them again.
It was as she’d remembered. There weren’t any pictures of Papa from when he’d been a boy, though there was at least one or two of everyone else.
Where exactly had Papa grown up? He knew those lost cousins, Francine was certain. He’d never denied them as family, either.
But there were no pictures of them.
The earliest pictures of Papa were of him as a young man, probably from when he’d first met Uncle Rene, when Uncle Rene and his family had claimed Papa as their own.
Francine was just going to have to get answers somewhere else. She turned to stare out the window of her room. The first line of trees stood just across the yard. Though it was hot as blazes outside, they promised shade and escape. She couldn’t smell the woods, but she knew the scent by heart: baked bark and earth, a little sweet mulch, the heavy undertones of the nearby open water.
No one would notice if Francine slipped out for a while. Besides, no one had told her to stay in. They’d just assumed she’d nap like they were.
Heart pounding, Francine opened the window slowly, silently. She wouldn’t be long, she promised herself. Then she slipped into the liquid heat of the afternoon, closing the window behind her.
Francine walked quickly to the woods, ducking under the promised shade. Only then did she take a deep breath, smelling the heated leaves and a trace of smoke from one of the cabins deeper in the trees.
No matter how cautious Papa had told her to be, Francine wasn’t worried: The woods always protected her.
It didn’t take long for Francine to walk to Uncle Rene’s. He lived alone in a small cottage, right on the main road. At one point, the house had probably been cute, but Uncle Rene had never painted it. The carved wood curlicues around the windows were gray and peeling. Moss covered the roof and crept up along the foundation. It looked like a bachelor pad, that kind of place where young bucks stopped by and shot the breeze with the older men.
No one was visiting, and the front porch swing sat empty.
When Francine knocked, Uncle Rene called out from the back, “Come on in if you’re a friend!”
Francine let herself in, saying, “What if I’m a swamp witch come here to steal your spices?”
Uncle Rene appeared in the kitchen doorway, wiping his big hands on a dishtowel. His bright red and yellow apron said, “Kiss the Cook,” which Francine did, on both cheeks. He wore his usual green hat, cocked to the side.
“Then it’s lucky I have myrtle wreath hung over the door, now isn’t it?”
Uncle Rene peered at Francine.
“You look like someone’s stolen your favorite fiddle. Come on back to the kitchen. You eaten yet? I have some crawfish pie just frying up.”
It wouldn’t have mattered to Francine if she’d eaten or not—she’d never turn down Uncle Rene’s food.
“You must have known I was coming.”
“Maybe
yes, maybe no,” Uncle Rene said with a smile.
Francine made herself comfortable on the old white stepstool in the corner as she watched Uncle Rene flip over the first slice of pie, then put in a second. Francine fidgeted on her seat. On one hand, she didn’t want Uncle Rene angry with her, particularly not with the promise of fried pie. However, she still had to know.
“Do I have any cousins I haven’t met?”
“What you talking about, darling?” Uncle Rene said after a pause, lifting the corner of one of the slices, checking to see if it was ready.
Francine explained about the others she’d seen at her first gig.
Uncle Rene merely listened, nodding.
Then only the sound of the sputtering oil filled the kitchen.
Francine shivered and felt cold despite sitting in a boiling hot kitchen, dread filling her gut while her uncle flipped the pie pieces again, weighing them down now with a meat iron.
Finally, Uncle Rene nodded, as if he’d come to a decision.
“I’ll tell you something about them. But you have to promise me you won’t talk about them again, not with your Papa or your Mama. Not ever.”
“I promise,” Francine said, eyes wide. It wasn’t going to be a difficult promise to keep. Every time she brought them up, she got in trouble.
“Let’s finish up in here first. Then we’ll go out back and talk.”
Francine nodded solemnly.
Out back meant private stuff.
Usually, when Francine came over, she sat out front with everyone else. She’d only been out back a few times that she could recall. Mostly when people came over, they sat out front or in Uncle Rene’s tiny kitchen.
While Uncle Rene served up the slices of pie, Francine made lemonade in his pale green pitcher, then helped Uncle Rene carry it out back.
The heat struck Francine as she walked outside, even though the kitchen had been hot as well.
Uncle Rene had a mist fan that he started up, blowing moist air on both of them.
The garden smelled of fresh earth and pungent herbs. Colored bottles hung from the trees. Waist-high iron rods stuck out of the earth, each with a piece of shiny glass, porcelain, or painted clay balanced on top. Kudzu came down over the wall and covered the trees on the far side, a gentle carpet of green.