by Julie Smith
Larry got to her first. “What’s wrong, Jackie? What happened?”
“I got sick. The thing in the wall.”
He looked bewildered, but by that time Barb had caught up. “Oh, shit. The rat. I know how she feels.”
“What?”
Between ragged breaths, starting to sob a little, Lovelace explained.
“Barb, that’s disgusting.”
“You brought her over. I didn’t ask.”
“You said you were desperate without Luis.”
“Oh, shit.”
Lovelace started walking.
“Hey, Jackie. Wait.” Larry grabbed her arm. “Hey, Barb. She just got to town. I was trying to help.”
“Yeah? Well, you’re a hero. You and Miss Sorority House have a nice afternoon in bed.”
Lovelace had to laugh. “You’re like Tom Jones or somebody.”
“Picaresque hero, that’s me. Listen, I’m sorry. I wanted to help you.”
“I think you wanted to fuck me.”
“No, really. How can I make it up to you?”
“You can’t. ’Bye now.”
“Listen, I was trying to help you. Don’t you get that?”
“Nobody can help me.”
“What do you need? Just tell me what you need.”
He had fallen into step beside her, which meant she couldn’t even go back to Isaac’s without leading him there. She wasn’t sure how to get rid of him, and besides, he was seriously cute. So she told him. “I need a reference. You think Barb’s going to give me one?”
“A reference?”
“So I can get a good job.”
“A reference? That’s all you want?” He started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” They had now reached the Cafe Marigny, where they’d met, and she sat down again.
“I’ll give you a reference.”
She stared at him.
“Tell them to call Remoulade and ask for me. They won’t know I wasn’t your supervisor.”
It could work. She was pretty sure it could work.
“You’d do that for me?”
“Of course. I like you a lot.”
She wasn’t sure the feeling was mutual, but she really did need a reference. She ended up giving him her phone number.
She went home, sat in The White Monk’s pristine white living room, and worked up the nerve to call the number in the ad, the one for a family of four that needed a low-fat cook.
“Jacqueline? What a lovely name.” The voice that answered, a woman’s voice, was husky and warm, almost intimate; one of those voices that might have been trained but probably wasn’t; that probably made men propose on hearing it. “When can you come over?”
“I—well… now if you like; tomorrow. Whatever’s good for you.”
“Could you really come now? My husband’ll be home and you need to meet him. Oh—I guess I should ask … what’s your experience?”
“Well, I…”
“No, don’t tell me. Let’s meet first.” She spoke slowly and sounded impossibly sophisticated. Her name was Brenna Royce and her husband was “with” a shipping company, though for all Lovelace knew he was a deckhand.
She lived in the Garden District which, according to Brenna, could be reached by streetcar. “You know it?” Brenna asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Good God, you’re even newer here than we are. Well, get your passport and hurry on down.”
As the streetcar began to pass absolutely improbable mansions, mansions as large as a normal city block, it seemed, Lovelace got an idea what Brenna meant. It was a foreign country and not only on an economic level—it just didn’t look like America, certainly not like your average burb in, say, south Florida, where her mom lived.
Lovelace found the Royce home behind an intricate iron lace fence, a gracious, curving, columned structure painted a sort of muted peach color, so that it managed to look both exuberant and stately at once. She was almost afraid to ring the bell.
She expected a liveried maid to answer, someone out of the nineteenth century, but the woman who did was clearly the lady of the house. She was anything but what Lovelace expected, much younger for one thing. She was blond and oddly voluptuous—that is, she had one of those bodies that women of the late twentieth century normally do not allow themselves, fleshy in a sexy way.
She wasn’t thin, but she certainly wasn’t fat. It’s the kind of body, Lovelace thought, that you’d kill for if you weren’t already too busy pumping iron. Brenna Royce looked like she’d never pumped iron a day in her life. She was blond and her hair looked as if it simply grew that way, but Lovelace wasn’t that naive.
All that might be expected. It was what she was wearing that was surprising—cotton elastic-waist pants, smeared T-shirt, and some kind of dust; lots of it. Something gooey in the blond hair. Brownish stuff on her nose.
She must be a potter, Lovelace thought.
“Jackie? Sorry, I was in my studio. Come in and I’ll wash my face.”
Lovelace stepped into the living room. She’d never seen anything like it. Nothing could disguise its stately proportions, but it was painted white now, and full of wonderful, dazzling contemporary things—art glass and paintings and metalwork and giant ceramics fired in some iridescent, incredibly elegant way. These were Brenna’s work, Lovelace knew it.
She sat on a sofa that seemed to let her sink about a foot and a half. Brenna returned, hair loose, face clean, a cigarette in her hand—which partially explained the voice, Lovelace thought.
“The boys are at soccer. They’re just under junior high age—not vegetarians, I’m afraid. But Charles and I are. Would you mind making two separate menus?”
“No. Of course not.” Brenna was acting as if she already had the job.
“There’s Charles now.” The door opened on a man who looked as if he drank too much, ate far too much, and smoked. He was losing his hair as well.
Not as beautiful as his mate. Not at all beautiful. But revoltingly rich, probably. He greeted Lovelace in a heavy, syrupy accent, and without further ado headed straight for the sideboard. He poured himself a drink without offering one to Lovelace and Brenna. He sat heavily on the couch, next to Lovelace and a little too close for comfort.
“What’s your experience?” he said.
“I’ve always cooked.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I used to cook at home for my mom, and then I worked in a pizza restaurant, and then a sort of… soup and salad place—” this was a bald-faced lie “—and then Arnaud’s.”
“Arnaud’s?” Both Royces spoke together.
“Sorry. Remoulade. Do you know it? It’s a kind of spin-off of Arnaud’s—a cafe, sort of.”
Charles raised an eyebrow. “Why’d you leave?”
“Well, frankly, I haven’t yet. I just thought I’d like this better. My boss knows I’m looking—would you like to call him?”
Charles Royce stared at his wife. “I’m intrigued. This one intrigues me.”
She nodded. “I thought she might.”
Lovelace had an odd moment of sensing something under wraps, as if they were talking about something other than her ability to cook. She thought she knew what it was and she didn’t like it. But he turned back to her and said, “You’re the first one yet with restaurant experience—could you handle a dinner party for thirty?”
“Thirty? I don’t know. How about twenty-five?”
“Oh, hell, twenty’s enough.” He laughed, and for the first time, Lovelace realized he was young, that they were both young, about thirty-five probably. “We have two goals. We want to lose weight, and we want to feed our friends really well. You look as if you might be able to help us out.”
“I’ll bet I could. Why don’t you give me a week’s tryout?”
“We’ll call you. We’ve got a couple of other people to see.”
She was shocked. She was so sure she had it. They were acting like she was already hired.
> It was only as she walked out the door and stumbled back to the street that she realized how much she had invested in this. She’d love going to that house, working in those sophisticated rooms, talking to Brenna Royce.
Brenna was somebody she desperately wanted to know, and she even liked Charles a little bit, kind of admired his lord-of-the-manor act. She was pretty sure there was a sense of humor lurking under it.
She absolutely couldn’t believe she had to leave without the job. But, of course, they had to check her reference.
* * *
The Monk woke with an odd sense of foreboding. Foreboding and depression and maybe a little regret—that he’d let this lovely, strange, desperate young person into his life.
He had been so self-contained, so… dare he say it? Happy.
You know what? he thought. I was happy. Now I know what happy is. What I used to be.
He meditated on it.
Life had been so serene. So lean.
And then Lovelace.
Why hadn’t he stayed out of her life? It was he who’d encouraged her to answer the damned ad. Why had he done such a stupid-ass thing?
If he hadn’t, she wouldn’t have gotten involved with that asshole, Larry.
She had been glowing when she got home last night, bubbly almost, a condition that normally put him off. But her happiness made him happy—that was the problem. He felt what she felt. It was like he absorbed what was going on around him.
He had forgotten to lay down rules, and so she had given the asshole her phone number, and before he could say “don’t,” she invited him over and he came.
The Monk had done the only thing he could do—withdrawn to his bedroom. But he heard their voices, quiet, normal, and then louder and louder.
“What are you doing?”
“Come on, baby. You know you need me.”
The Monk instantly grasped the implied blackmail.
“Are you crazy?” Lovelace said. “I hardly know you.”
“Oh, thank you so much, Larry. I think I’ll just use you and toss you aside.” His voice was like a twelve-year-old’s.
The Monk thought it had a dangerous edge, too, but that would have been his own perception. He didn’t know if Lovelace could take care of herself, but he certainly didn’t want to behave like some interfering older brother.
In the end, he just walked to the door of his bedroom, opened it, and stood there with his crook in his hand.
Larry left, and Lovelace burst into tears.
The Monk didn’t know whether she was crying because of what he’d done or not—maybe she was perfectly willing to barter her body—but she came to him and hugged him, and he knew it wasn’t that. He recoiled—he couldn’t bear to think of the germs she carried—and she was horrified at what she’d done, because she understood, he thought, and that shamed him.
She stepped back, crying, looking bewildered, and he had no idea what to do. He was perfectly clear, however, on what he wanted to do, and he did it—stepped back into his room and shut the door. He heard her crying for a long time afterward.
This morning his brain was a tangle of half-baked thoughts, all of them unhappy. He had encouraged her to apply for the job, and therefore she’d allied herself with Larry. But then he’d driven Larry away, and now she wouldn’t get the job. On top of that, he’d hurt her feelings.
Yet he had to get to the gallery, he had to paint, he had to do the things he had to do. There were rules, and they were rules he’d made himself. He had to follow them, or the other thing would take over his brain.
It seemed as if a dark, fierce magnet, maybe even a spirit, were trying to hold him to his bed, stick him there like a wad of chewing gum, bitten and discarded.
It took all his strength to get out of bed, throw on a white robe, and slip quietly into the street.
The morning was overcast—sunlight would have been an insult on a day like today.
He was passing St. Anthony’s Garden on his scooter when someone hailed him. “Hey! Whitey!”
Only one person called him Whitey—the other artist who wore white; the one who was black. They knew each other because of their clothing. They always nodded.
The Monk raised a hand and lowered it quickly, a salutation of sorts, but one that said, “Not now, if you don’t mind.”
“Whitey! Come here! I got somethin’ to tell you.”
The Monk kept going, but the traffic was heavy, and he couldn’t get away fast enough.
The other artist was chasing him. “Goddammit. Goddammit. Shit, man! I’m too old for this shit—I’m gon’ have a heart attack.”
Reluctantly, The Monk pulled his scooter over. “Listen to me, man. I got somethin’ to tell you. A woman’s lookin’ for you.”
The Monk closed his face and, as well as he could, his brain and his ears. One woman was more than enough.
“She says she’s a cop.”
He shrugged his shoulders and pointed to his chest. “Me?”
“They want a white dude dressed in white. Think you an artist. Hey. You an artist, brother?”
The Monk stopped and nodded slightly, raising a hand again, like a priest, to acknowledge the warning. It was as close as he got to saying thanks.
“Shit, Whitey, you trouble. I don’ know why the fuck I bother.” He headed back to his spot.
The cop wanted Lovelace. The Monk knew hardly anyone, talked to no one at all, and had broken no laws. Therefore the cop wanted Lovelace.
Fear clawed at The Monk’s stomach, squeezed at his chest. He ducked around the corner, where no one could see him, and dropped to the curb, taking in air, finding his center.
When he had stopped hyperventilating and could breathe once again from the diaphragm, some oxygen finally got to his brain, along with a good shot of adrenaline. His mind raced.
This was about his father. Daniel had kidnapped Lovelace for his father—why, The Monk had no idea—but somehow the cops had found out. They thought, perhaps, that Lovelace would lead them to Errol.
More likely they’d lead him to her.
It would mean breaking the rules, but he couldn’t go to the gallery now. He had to go home.
Lovelace was gone when he got there.
Fifteen
LOVELACE WAS HUMILIATED at the way she’d acted. She should never have asked Larry over, should have been more respectful of Isaac’s space. And she should never, ever have tried to hug her uncle; she knew how he’d take it, she could sense it. He’d probably had to stay up half the night taking showers.
She was also depressed. She wasn’t going to get the job, that was obvious. The Royces were going to call Remoulade and ask for Larry, and he was going to say he’d never heard of her—if, in fact, he worked there at all. It occurred to her that he might not, since he’d tried to collect on his fabulously generous gift before she even had a chance to claim it.
She lay in bed, on the futon The Monk had bought for her, cheeks flaming because she’d been so stupid, tears flowing because she had no prospects, unable to budge. She heard her uncle open the door and slip out, which was unlike him. Usually she could hear him making breakfast. Clearly he didn’t want to risk her waking up, didn’t want to see her or speak to her; probably just wanted her out of there.
She would have stayed in bed all morning, except that she had to pee so bad. Isaac had the only bathroom on the side of the door he had so abruptly closed the night before.
Once she was up, she saw that it was overcast, but there was a lot of humidity, and that excited her, made her blood flow. She might as well go get some coffee—but at PJ’s, not Cafe Marigny. The last person she wanted to see was Larry.
As the caffeine entered her bloodstream, she began, against all odds, to feel optimistic. She bought a Times-Picayune and looked at the ads.
It isn’t the end of the world, she thought. I can apologize. I can simply say I’m sorry and we can go from there. If he wants me to go, I can… what? Borrow money from Michelle. I can just call her up an
d get her to send some and then check into a cheap hotel. I can go back to doing temp work.
There were ads for sales jobs, some in good stores; even one in a little gallery. Maybe one of those. That might be better than filing. The Royces’ ad was still running. She felt it pull on her. Was there a chance Larry wouldn’t sell her out?
None, she thought.
I could do a free tryout. Why don’t I just call them before they have a chance to call him? Why don’t I say I’d be glad to work a week, free, and see what they say. Who could resist an offer like that?
While the fit was on her, before she had a chance to think it over, she found a phone and called “Mrs. Royce? Jackie Daniel.”
Brenna spoke before she had a chance to finish. “Jackie. We’ve been trying to call you. Someone picked up the phone, but didn’t say anything. Are you home?” She opened her mouth to answer, but Brenna kept talking. “We want to offer you the job.”
“You do?” Surely it couldn’t be real.
“We like your credentials and we like you. When would you like to start?”
Real or not, she was going for it. “How about tomorrow?” It would take her a day to get some cookbooks, get some recipes together.
“Fabulous. It’s Saturday—the kids will be home.”
All she could think about was telling Isaac. If he wanted her to leave, she’d leave, but she had to tell him. He was odd; he was a very peculiar man, but she thought that, deep down, he had affection for her. After all, he’d kept in touch all those years. And he was the only one in the world who’d understand what this meant to her. Michelle was the only other choice, and she couldn’t possibly relate to it.
The thought shocked her. It seemed about a century since she’d left Evanston. She was a different person now.
Michelle was a cosseted college girl who had parents to take care of her—and who couldn’t begin to understand what it meant to have to fend for yourself.
Lovelace hadn’t even taken a shower, had just pulled on shorts and a T-shirt (for which Isaac had given her money on her first day in New Orleans). She went home to get ready to face the day, to plan meals, to think about parents who were vegetarians and children who weren’t.