Club Storyville

by Riley LaShea

  Stepping right inside at the invitation, Ariel had no qualms, at least none that showed. I knew, though, such a social call was something people didn't do. As much as Nan had tried to unravel it, I was still bound up in the structure, used to the rules and discipline that made the world work, more of Mama in me than I could help, and it made it difficult to walk through that door.

  As I at last broke the barrier into the front hall, with its brightly-colored artwork of black musicians playing trumpets and guitars and pianos, Desmond's wife came around a corner, and to a sudden stop, as if we weren't at all the company she was expecting.

  “Well, hello,” she came forward slowly to greet us.

  “This is my wife Patricia,” Desmond said.

  “Hi. I’m Ariel,” Ariel returned, and, as Patricia cautiously nodded, I could tell she too had some concern for convention.

  “I’m Elizabeth,” I said, and Patricia turned her nervous smile to me.

  “Well, come in,” she opened her arm toward a doorway, despite her clear reservation, and we followed her into a huge living room with towering ceilings and furniture that looked almost too expensive to sit on. “Could I get you ladies some iced tea?”

  “That would be lovely. Thank you,” Ariel answered for both of us.

  “Just make yourselves comfortable,” Patricia said. “We’ll be right back. Desmond,” she added sternly, and I knew he was being beckoned more for a discussion than for his help.

  Watching Patricia walk from the room, she reminded me so much of all the women I had ever known, so concerned with making a good impression on her guests even as she worried about whether or not we should be there at all.

  “You know, I can see you’re Mary’s granddaughter,” Desmond lingered behind for a moment.

  “You can?” I returned, reaching up to tuck my hair anxiously behind my ears when I knew it couldn't possibly be true. Nan was strong and smart and beautiful, and if I was anything like her at all, it was a shadow, not a reflection.

  “Same nose,” Desmond insisted. “Same smile.”

  “You’ve seen her?” I asked.

  “I’ve seen a picture,” he nodded.

  “Do you have it?” I asked him hopefully.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “It’s around here somewhere.” Then, the clanging from the kitchen reminded him he had somewhere else to be. “I should go help,” he said, leaving Ariel and I to our inspection of his living room.

  What Mama might have called ostentatious, and Daddy impractical, I suspected Nan would have called a hoot. Set amongst the high-backed chairs and velvet sofa that would have fit in just as well in a medieval castle, there were end tables crafted out of old drums and lamps made from saxophones.

  “Well, you can certainly tell a musician lives here.” Standing next to me, Ariel sounded as pleased as I thought Nan would.

  Comforted by the sound of her voice, I pressed into the familiarity of her, my arm brushing her side when I just needed to be closer.

  “Are you all right?” she softly questioned, glancing my way, and a weak breath slowly left my lips as I met her eyes, wondering how it was possible they always brought me such peace and tied me in such knots at the same time.

  “I’m fine,” I returned, because there was no reason to be anything else. For a moment there was nothing that needed to be thought or felt, so I tried to do neither.

  “All right now, Ladies,” Desmond returned to the living room with Patricia a few minutes later.

  Balancing a tray on one hand as she laid out a spread of tea and cookies and figs that looked fresh from the tree, Patricia at last pointed out a small glass dish as she looked up. “That honey is from my cousin’s farm in Georgia,” she said. “We use it to sweeten our tea, but you spread a layer of that on one of those cookies. It’ll make your teeth ache, but your taste buds will say hallelujah.”

  “I’ll have to try that,” Ariel smiled, moving to sit on the sofa when Desmond gestured us toward it, and all I could do was follow.

  “So, Miss Mary sent you to find Paps?” Desmond questioned, as Patricia poured glasses of tea and handed them across the black lacquer coffee table.

  “Yes,” I nodded, holding on more tightly to the glass when it felt slick in my hand. “We have something for him. It’s back at the boarding house.”

  “She’s dying,” Ariel was more candid in her explanation, and when the unexpected reminder made my glass shake, her fingers on my arm gave it strength to hold on.

  “I see,” Desmond uttered softly. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”

  Able to manage only a nod in response, I took a small drink, though it did nothing to alleviate the preemptive pain as it slid down my throat.

  “Has she talked about him?” Desmond asked, and, feeling extremely exposed, I shook my head. “He didn’t talk about her either,” he said. “Not until he started getting sick. I think he just didn’t want to leave this Earth without someone knowing him all the way through.”

  Maybe that was how Nan felt, it occurred to me, like she wanted to be known. Though, it was a hard thing for me to imagine when I was trying so desperately to keep parts of myself hidden.

  “Were they... close... friends?” I asked, feeling a lump form in my throat at the indulgent smile that came to Desmond's face.

  “They were close,” he said.

  “They were lovers,” Ariel was less restrained, and perfectly comfortable with the word, as if it was something one could just state in company mixed in so many ways.

  “They were,” Desmond was equally at ease once the declaration was out in the open, and, feeling my cheeks grow warm as I looked down into my tea, I couldn't believe they would just talk about such a thing. At the very least, it was a private matter between Nan and Desmond's grandfather, and, at most, it was not only illogical, but impossible. “Mary was a few years older than Paps,” Desmond sounded as if he believed himself anyway. “He said she was sexy and sassy and sophisticated.”

  “She is all those things,” Ariel returned, and, glancing up, I watched Desmond's smile grow.

  “When I was a kid,” he said. “Paps used to say to me, ‘You can, and will, love a lot of people in a lifetime. Love as many as you can as hard as you can, but know this, some people you will love so hard the soft way you love all the others sometimes won’t feel like love at all.’ I never did understand what he meant by that until he asked me to take him for a ride one day and had me drive around for hours while he told me about Mary. He let her go, he said, but that day I knew he never did, not really.”

  “But how did they…?” I tried to get my head around what he was saying. Even sitting in the home of a colored couple, though, even with my past two nights spent in a colored boarding house, I couldn't begin to believe such a story. “I mean, how could they...?”

  “They were in the right place at the right time,” Desmond spared me the trouble of trying to finish.

  “How could that be?” I said, remembering the people on the trolley, Buddy riding in the back of his own truck. “It isn’t even the right place or time now.”

  “Ah,” Desmond nodded and settled back in his chair, much in the way Daddy did when he was trying to think up a plan. “You want to know how your grandma could have spent time with a black man.”

  Not sure I did want to know that, or that I didn't, I said nothing, giving no indication I wanted an answer at all, so if Desmond gave me one I didn't like, I could just pretend not to hear it.

  “I can show you,” he said.

  “Desmond,” Patricia's eyes cut instantly his way.

  “I think it's important she sees,” Desmond responded to his wife, but his eyes never left me. “I'm not sure she believes me.”

  Watching him smile as if he was humored by the fact, I realized I had no right not to believe him. I was the one who barged into his home in the middle of the day seeking answers. I owed him my trust. Every word going against what I had seen with my own eyes my entire life, though, my faith was far from
blind and I could see nothing but the holes in his story.

  “You know I don’t like it when you go down there,” Patricia stated. “Didn’t Bobby say they’re expecting a raid?”

  “They're always expecting a raid,” Desmond finally looked to his wife. “It's the nature of the business. Don't you think this young lady deserves to know everything I know?”

  Patricia's eyes turning to me, I felt as if I was the one asking for permission, though I wasn't even sure I wanted her to agree.

  “Fine,” she uttered at last. “But be careful. And you two...” I felt pinned by Patricia's gaze as it slid back and forth between Ariel and me. “You keep my husband out of trouble.”

  Apparently her last word on the matter, Patricia got up and took her leave, and I knew she wasn’t pleased with the extent of our intrusion into their day.

  “So, what do you say?” Desmond turned back to us with a smile once his wife was out of the room. “May I treat you ladies to a dangerous night on the town?”

  Although he winked to take the edge off his words, I had the feeling they weren't entirely untrue, and it was only as I felt my head moving up and down that I realized my desire to understand was greater than my fear.

  “We would love that,” Ariel translated my nod, her hand on my arm again at just the right time.

  “I'll pick you up at nine-thirty?” Desmond asked.

  “Nine-thirty?” I breathed. “Isn’t that awfully late to start a night?”

  “Well,” he glanced to Ariel, and I felt as if they were co-conspirators. In what, I wasn’t sure. “The place I’m taking you isn’t the kind of place that opens early.”

  Nodding as if I understood, I didn't understand at all, and rarely in my life had I been so afraid.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When Ariel suggested we get some rest before Desmond came for us, I couldn’t believe she expected me to try to sleep. Pretending not to watch as she removed her clothing right there in the room with me, and slipped beneath the sheet in nothing but her chemise, though, it was too tempting not to lie beside her, and the next thing I remembered was the soft brush of her fingertips against my forehead.

  “Elizabeth,” she whispered, and, my eyes blinking slowly open as she pushed the hair out of my face, it felt like a dream. “It’s time to get dressed.”

  Somewhat embarrassed I had fallen so quickly asleep when I had spent so much time assuring her I couldn’t possibly, I wiped the traces of the nap from my eyes and rose to get ready.

  Packed as I was for daylight, with little hope of one night, let alone two nights, out with her, I had little choice in eveningwear, so I wore the dress Ariel had given me again, rather astonished as I slid it on that I had cause to wear it two nights in a row, and was glad Ariel was forced to do the same, putting on her clothes from the night before and looking every bit as worth staring at in them.

  Downstairs, Buddy was happy to serve us another late dinner, but, as Ariel's had been earlier in the day, my body was too anxious to eat much.

  “Well, aren’t you two a pair?” Desmond said by way of greeting when Buddy let him into the parlor not long after we finished our meal, but it was Desmond and Ariel who looked a fitted set - he in his vest and tie and brimmed hat, and Ariel just Ariel - as she took the arm he offered her. Trailing behind them through the door of Buddy's boarding house, I felt every bit the child, playing at being an adult.

  “Look at this,” Ariel's voice was sincerely pleased as we went down the front walk.

  “You like that?” Desmond asked her, and, looking around them, I saw a car the likes of which I had never seen. Long and shiny, its red paint and silver trim shined even in the low light of the street, and, the black fabric top laid back, I suspected it would be the nicest car I would ever ride in. “That is a 1936 Horch Cabriolet,” Desmond told us. “This right here was Pap’s pride and joy. Though, I think he bought it more for me to have one day than to drive himself. Paps tried to enjoy the money he made, but he wasn't as into all these fancy things that make me happy. Usually, I keep it garaged,” Desmond released Ariel to open the door and pull the white seat forward, “but it felt appropriate to the occasion.”

  When they both turned to me, as if it was just expected I would be the one to climb into the back, I knew it wasn't going to be like earlier when Buddy opted for the easy way across the city, the way of pretending he wasn’t the vehicle’s proud owner. The child in me wanted to make a scene, to ask why it wasn’t even suggested Ariel might take the back. The lady knew, though, if I were to sit next to Desmond, I wouldn’t have any idea what to say to him, so I climbed through the narrow opening, accepting the consequences that came with being a coward.

  Rolling through the city a while later, I had to hold my hair down against the wind whipping through the car as I watched the buildings turn nicer around us.

  “You all right back there?” Desmond called to me as we came to a stop sign.

  “Fine,” I returned, grudgingly admitting to myself it wasn’t at all uncomfortable. The backseat of Desmond's Cabriolet was almost like a sofa, it was so cushy. If the radio were on, and the top up so I might actually hear it, I could have spent hours escaping the world in that car.

  “Good,” Desmond smiled over the seat at me. “I thought you ladies should have a proper ride through the city. How much have you seen?” he asked, starting off again, and the conversation became more difficult for me to hear.

  “This is the most we’ve seen,” I just heard Ariel say.

  “Well, I understand you’re not here on leisure,” Desmond returned. “Maybe you’ll get to come back one day when you're not on assignment.”

  “Maybe,” Ariel sounded hopeful, but made no promises.

  They stopped talking after that, and the blues and Creole and Cajun leaked out the doors and windows of buildings we passed to tease our senses. I could imagine Ariel in such a rich environment on her own terms, part of the spices and rhythms and colors of New Orleans. She had the kind of flair that could only bring such a place more to life. Recognizing that, I felt a sudden hopelessness, knowing Ariel was so suited to a world in which I could never belong.

  Every now and then, along our drive, Desmond would point something out, yelling back loud enough for me to hear so I wouldn’t miss a sight, and, for a while, I stopped worrying about where we would end up and focused on the passing scenery, in case I never made it there again.

  So often, though, as I turned back, I would catch Ariel’s profile as she looked out at the city, and there was no part of New Orleans that was more important than memorizing her face, because I knew it was just as temporary, and one day far too soon, I would have to find a way to go on without seeing it.

  It felt like we had been riding for hours, and for no time at all, when Desmond finally slowed into a parking lot spotted with cars, not bothering to pull all the way into a space.

  “Sit still now,” he said, and, to my surprise, Ariel actually heeded the instruction, letting him come around the car to open the door for us like a true gentleman.

  “Thank you,” she even gave Desmond her hand to be helped from the passenger’s seat.

  “Miss Elizabeth,” Desmond said, holding his hand out to me as he pulled the seat forward, and I swore I could feel Mama’s eyes on me, setting me aflame for thumbing my nose at other people and their idea of good taste, as I took it.

  “My goodness, Mr. Caster,” a man called from seemingly out of nowhere, and it gave me pause in taking Desmond’s arm, even as I watched Ariel take hold of Desmond's other with a smile. “You have outdone yourself.” The young colored man finally appeared between two cars. Dressed in sharp gray slacks and a pressed black shirt, he looked to be working, though I had never seen such a well-dressed man minding a parking lot before. “You brought out the ole Cabriolet and these here fine ladies all in the same night?” The well-dressed attendant didn't seem the least bit surprised by us, or how we held to Desmond’s arms. “Does your wife know about this?” />
  “You know I know better than to try to get anything past my wife,” Desmond laughed. “Ladies, this is Sam. Sam, this is Ariel and Elizabeth.”

  “Ariel, Elizabeth,” Sam nodded, inspecting us for long enough I shifted with discomfort. “Did you ladies come to eat?”

  “It's a little late to eat,” Desmond answered for us.

  “Well, then,” Sam smiled more brightly. “I regret I’m on-duty all night, because you ladies sure look like you know how to dance.”

  It was so bold, his comment, I looked around for witnesses, unable to believe he would say such a thing out in the open parking lot.

  “Next time,” Ariel smiled, and I could tell Sam wanted to believe there would be one.

  “Well, it’s past high time I get these ladies inside,” Desmond declared, and, though it was why we had left Buddy's boarding house in the first place, I wasn’t sure I was ready for whatever came next. Getting Ariel away from Sam, though, who went a touch beyond the amount of flirting I could take seeing directed toward her, I had just discovered, was almost worth going anywhere. “Will you take care of the Cabriolet for me?”

  “I sure will,” Sam responded to Desmond. “We’ve still got space off the lot. I’ll garage it for you.”

  “No joy riding now,” Desmond told him.

  “I wouldn’t dare,” Sam assured him. “But I do plan to sit inside her for a while, and breathe in that fine car smell.”

  “You do that,” Desmond laughed.

  “It was nice to meet you, Sam,” Ariel smiled.

  “I was nice meeting you ladies,” Sam returned, waiting until we were halfway across the parking lot before he fired up Desmond's car and drove it away.

  If knowledge was power, ignorance must have been weakness, and I felt every bit of it as we walked through the front doors of the lively Café Beni, and all eyes turned our way, despite the band that played on the stage and the people who kicked up a show on the dance floor. Fumbling when I realized we were the only white faces, I wondered why Desmond thought we would be welcome there as we received such unwelcome attention.