Club Storyville (27 page)

“Hello,” Ariel cautiously greeted when Patricia answered the door with a severe expression that only deepened the longer she stared at us without saying anything, and I had the sinking feeling we had exploited her kindness to its ultimate limits.

“Desmond!” she called back into the house at last, walking off without inviting us in, and, though it was certainly less welcoming than the day before, there was relief in knowing Desmond was there.

Appearing at the far end of the bright hallway, Desmond looked back as he moved toward the door, like he knew our showing up there was going to get him into more hot water, and I was posed to apologize, to tell him I didn’t mean to drag him out into danger by asking my questions about Nan, and to promise I would never bother him again.

When Desmond turned to step through the door, though, my mouth filled with a gasp instead as the sunlight cast his eye, swollen so thick black it couldn’t open, into glaring display, along with the darkly dried blood at the corner of his mouth.

“I’m glad to see you ladies are all right,” Desmond breathed, and, seeing the genuine concern he had for us when he was the one who bore the marks of the night before, my hand rose to my mouth to stifle the sob that got away from me. “It looks worse than it feels,” Desmond tried to assure me, but I doubted it very much.

It was no wonder his wife hated us.

“Did you see a doctor?” Ariel questioned him.

“Nah,” Desmond waved off the suggestion. “It's only a few bruises.”

“Do you mind?” Ariel held her hands up in request.

“She’s a nurse,” I told him when Desmond looked unsure what kind of hex Ariel was about to put on him.

“Well, that’s handy,” he joked, glancing toward the street, and our waiting driver, in what could have been casual observation, if I didn’t know Desmond was trying to see how many witnesses there were to such intimate fraternization between him and a white woman.

Watching Ariel carefully brace the less bruised side of Desmond’s face as she felt for hidden damage on the other, I felt sick to my stomach, wincing along with Desmond when Ariel touched a sensitive spot, and realized, yet again, I simply didn’t have the constitution for suffering life.

“What did they hit you with?” Ariel asked.

“They didn’t,” Desmond answered her. “I went face-first into a table.”

Nodding as if she expected something of the sort, Ariel didn’t even pause in her examination. Utterly strong and unflustered, the exact opposite of me, she walked her fingers down Desmond’s cheek, and I tried to imagine what it must have looked like, the scene below ground, as people were beaten up and dragged away.

Chaos had always seemed such a large-scale thing to me, something that unleashed over a place in a storm. Like the Depression. Or the war. Inevitable events. Unstoppable forces. Just the nature of things.

Trying to picture the man who sent Desmond flying into a table, though, remembering the man who had stood on the other side of the statue to order the church lady back inside, it hit me chaos wasn’t some abstract concept. It was always personal. Those shadows weren’t shapeless monsters. They were other people. Whatever the reason, there was always someone who had to choose to pull the trigger or swing a fist or toss someone into a table.

I had thought a lot about Edward in the months before he died, imagining how scared he must have been alone at war. I thought the same of Scott. Somehow, though, I had convinced myself that what Edward and Scott feared was the war itself, the chaos around them, when it must have been the other soldiers, the enemy combatants willing to kill them for a cause.

Watching Desmond try not to show pain under Ariel’s touch, it was the first time I realized that, all those foreigners I worried about putting a bullet through one of my brothers, they must have been afraid too, and it was Edward and Scott they had to fear.

“Your cheekbone is likely fractured,” Ariel pulled me back to the porch with her assessment. “It will heal on its own if you’re careful, but you do have to be extremely careful. No blowing your nose, no playing instruments that require your mouth. No chewy foods.”

“No steak?” Desmond acted absolutely put-upon. “I may as well throw it all in. Come on now,” he gave us a painful-looking smile when neither of us laughed. “I'm just kiddin’.”

“I’m sorry,” Ariel returned instantly.

“Me too,” I whispered, and, feeling strangely cold on the day that had no business carrying a chill, I reached for Ariel’s arm, not sure if she was giving me the warmth I needed or was seeking her own as her hand covered mine.

“Don’t be sorry,” Desmond shook his head. “It’s my business. It’s not the first time I’ve taken a few hits by people who don’t agree with it. Look here,” he reached into his back pocket, flipping a small photograph toward me. “I found it for you.”

Though I knew it was meant as distraction, recognizing Nan, I still couldn’t help myself. Releasing Ariel to reach for the photograph with greedy fingers, any doubt I’d harbored in the back of my mind surrendered instantly at the visual proof of Nan’s love affair.

A scandalously unwed woman in her early thirties, Nan only had eyes for the man who looked so much like the Desmond before us they might have been brothers instead of grandfather and grandson, and the man grinned back at her, as if there existed no boundaries between them at all.

“They look so happy,” I said in awe, because they did look happy. The kind of happy people searched the world to find, but rarely did.

“Yeah,” Desmond nodded at the picture. “You keep that.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, glancing up and flinching when I’d already forgotten how bad his injuries were. Not wanting to take something so special from him, I found my fingers weren’t quite ready to relinquish Young Nan and Desmond either.

“Yeah, you keep it,” Desmond said again. “I think Paps would want you to have it.”

“Thank you,” I uttered, pulling the photo against my chest and remembering the box beneath my arm only when I wished I had something to give Desmond in return. “I, um... I have this,” I said, holding it awkwardly out to him. “This is what Nan sent with us.”

“Hmm,” Desmond breathed, sliding the box from the crook of my arm and turning it proper. “Erzulie.”

“What?” I asked.

“The symbol here,” Desmond said, his fingers moving over the heart with its crown and arrow. “It’s a voodoo symbol.”

“Voodoo?” My throat went dry at the word, at all the things I’d heard about the witchcraft religion and those who followed it, and I wondered what a dedicated Christian like Nan would be doing with something like that in her house.

“Yeah,” Desmond returned. “Paps didn’t practice, but a lot of people down here dabble in the lighter side. You know, it isn’t all love potions and voodoo dolls,” he glanced up at me with a small grin, and, feeling the affection in his teasing, I managed a small laugh along with him. “A lot of it’s just, you know, innocent superstitions people hope will bring luck, like carrying a rabbit’s foot or wearing new clothes on Easter.

“The Erzulie, they’re spirits of love. Notice how this here is blacked out, though,” Desmond said, and, edging forward with Ariel, I followed Desmond’s fingers to the part of the symbol shaped like a crown and the dark shading that filled it. “That’s unusual for this design. I suspect this box wasn’t intended for luck or love. I suspect this is about Balianne.”

“Who’s Balianne?” Ariel sounded more curious than me.

“She’s the healer of hearts,” Desmond responded. “She’s supposed to help people let go of past love, forget pain, if you believe that sort of thing.”

“Do you believe it?” I questioned, captivated by the idea of such an easy solution to life’s heartaches, and, trailing his fingers once again over the etching on the box, Desmond considered the question.

“I don’t disbelieve it,” he replied at last. “Whatever helps, right?” When he glanced to me with his one working eye, I realized that was all it ever was, just trying to make sense in a world of senseless rules and senseless divisions and senseless violence.

“Do you think your grandfather gave it to Nan?” I asked him.

“I suspect he did,” Desmond responded. “To help her forget about him, I suppose. But it doesn’t help to keep tokens of old lovers around, no matter what they are. Usually, you might bury this or burn it or by some other means destroy it. That’s how you would forget. Guess Mary didn’t want to forget Paps after all.”

“I guess not,” I uttered.

Watching the small smile lift Desmond’s wounded face, I wondered if I would want to forget, when Ariel left, if there was a way, if I would choose to forget about her to make the going on with life easier.

“There’s a letter inside for your grandfather,” I sighed as I realized I didn’t know what I would do about Ariel, though I doubted there was any way to forget her. “Open it,” I shrugged. “Don’t open it. I don’t know. Whatever you think.”

“I don’t know either,” Desmond admitted, and when he grinned his uncertainty, I wasn’t sure what else there was to say.

“Do you ladies want to come in for a while?” he offered, nodding back toward the house, and, hearing Ariel’s uneasy laugh beside me, I knew she was thinking of Patricia and how obvious it was she would prefer us to never enter her home again.

“We'd better not,” she replied diplomatically. “We have a train to catch.”

“Thank you for everything,” I said, looking down at the photograph in my hand, surprised when Desmond shifted the box to one arm to hug me tightly with the other.

“You take care of yourself now, you hear?” he whispered.

“You too,” I responded, feeling something longing and sad within me as I hugged him back, as if I was saying goodbye to someone I knew much better for much longer than I had.

“Goodbye,” Ariel said, much less surprised than me when Desmond hugged her too.

“You be good now,” I heard him say, but, Ariel’s mouth on the other side of Desmond’s head, I couldn’t hear her answer, and I knew not knowing her reply would haunt me for the rest of my life as we walked down Desmond’s walkway to the car and our colored driver rushed to get the doors for us.

“Elizabeth!” We were almost inside when Desmond called out. Whirling back, I watched him wave an envelope next to his head. “This one's for you.”

“What?” I uttered, but, though it sounded very quiet in my head, Desmond heard.

“It has your name on it,” he declared, and, pinpricks trailing along the back of my neck, I wondered why that would be, why on Earth Nan would send a letter meant for me all the way to New Orleans when she could have just handed it to me from her bed.

Glancing toward Ariel, I could tell by her rigid stance she wasn’t coming with me, and I took the path back to Desmond on my own, each step uncertain and unconvinced. Sure enough, though, when I got to him, there it was, my name written in Nan's distinctive handwriting, shaky from old age, a mighty opponent even she couldn't defeat.

Desmond’s gaze unblinking on me as I took the envelope out of his grasp, my own hands trembled, as Nan’s must have when she wrote it, as they tore the plain white envelope and unfolded the letter inside.

Dear Elizabeth
, it began, and, breeze blowing just enough to make the wooden chimes clack together at the corner of Desmond’s porch, I could almost hear Nan’s voice on the wind.

By now, you must know Desmond isn't what you surely pictured him to be. I try to imagine how you will react to that, and I find that I can't. Even those times when I feel like I know you inside and out, you always do have a way of surprising me.

I loved your grandfather, I want you to understand that. My life has been blessed with many wonderful people, and once you were in this world, I was glad I didn't have to get through it without your mother and you and Edward and Scott.

Even your Daddy has his moments.

Breaking into a small laugh, in spite of myself, I realized that was what I was going to miss most, Nan’s way of making me smile no matter how bleak things would get.

Sometimes, though
, she went on to admit in her fanciful curves,
I do wonder if I could have had it all.

Desmond and I, the world did not favor us. We were not free to make any choice, but we were also not forced to make the choice we did. Love shouldn't come with consequence, but when it does, you have to be strong. You have to be brave.

It’s okay to be afraid of things in the world, but don’t you ever, ever be afraid of love. Love is never the problem. It is always the answer.

I have lived a lot longer than you, so you have to trust me when I say this –

The world changes. It does. It is slow, and it is infuriating, but it does change.

Someone always has to be first.

I love you, and I love Ariel.

Tell her, would you?

Nan

P.S. I do hope to see you both again.

Just making it to the end of the letter before the words blurred to unreadable, I watched the ink run on the paper, smearing it further as I brushed my tears off in panic, knowing it would be the last thing Nan would ever write to me. Folding the letter back into three to protect it, I felt my nose start to run as I slid it into the envelope, and remembered my handkerchief, useless, once again, inside my suitcase.

“Here,” Desmond said, pulling a cream-colored bandana from his pocket, and I held it to my nose just in time to keep from making a very grotesque sight.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“So…” he let the two letters linger, as if he thought it wasn’t his business, but couldn’t help his curiosity. “What did she say?”

Though Nan had made it Desmond’s business when she sent me a thousand miles from home in search of him, I knew Desmond wouldn’t fault me if I chose not to answer. Because he was my friend. In the short time we had known each other, he had answered my questions, had taken risks for me, had suffered pain for me, and he still didn’t think he had the right to ask me what Nan said in return.