Out of the Easy (11 page)

“Hey, Josie. Whatcha got for me?”

“I don’t have anything. Actually, I’m wondering if you’ve got something for me. Do you know where my mother was on New Year’s Eve?”

Frankie stopped. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, bouncing it until a white stick of tobacco appeared. He snatched it with his lips. “This info’s for you?” he asked, lighting his cigarette.

“Oh, I see. You’ve already talked to Willie?” I asked.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well, yes, it’s for me. And I won’t say anything. This is between us.”

Frankie stared at me, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. A group of tourists approached with a camera, pointing at a nearby building. Frankie grabbed my arm and pulled me to the edge of the sidewalk.

“Your mom’s run off with Cincinnati, Jo.”

“I already know that, Frankie. That’s not what I asked. Where was she on New Year’s Eve?”

He looked up and down the street, blowing smoke out of the corner of his thin lips. “She was at the Roosevelt, having a couple Sazeracs.”

“And then?”

“Drinking with some tourists.”

“What tourists? Where? Was she at the Sans Souci?” I asked.

“Whoa.” Frankie put his hands up. “I didn’t say that. Look, I gotta go. And, Jo, I’m in the business of information”—he leaned in close—“but I’m no stoolie.”

I opened my purse and took out my wallet.

“Keep it. Word is that you’re puttin’ together a college fund.”

“Where did you hear that?” I asked.

“I hear everything, Yankee girl.” Frankie grinned, gave an exaggerated bow, and strode away.

I walked back to the bookshop, stopping to look in the window of Gedrick’s. They had dresses on sale for $9.98. I wished I could have worn something new and fashionable to the Lockwells’ party instead of looking like a sad waif. Mrs. Gedrick stepped out of the shop to empty a dustpan in the street. Her shoulders perked to offer a greeting, then she saw it was me and emptied the dirt into the gutter with a scowl. When I was twelve, I came down with a flu so bad I was nearly delirious. I tried to walk by myself to Dr. Sully’s and got as far as the Gedrick’s shop. I collapsed, throwing up red beans and rice all over the sidewalk. Mrs. Gedrick kept insisting that we call my mother. I knew Mother would be furious if we bothered her. So I told her to call Patrick’s father, Charlie. When Charlie arrived, Mrs. Gedrick wagged a finger at him, saying, “Shame on the parents, whoever they are.” I remember driving away in the back of Charlie’s car, looking at the wreckage that was my life in red beans and rice on the sidewalk. There wasn’t shame on my parents. The shame was all on me.

I turned onto Royal Street and saw Cokie standing next to his car, parked at the curb.

“Hi, Coke.”

“Willie sent me to pick you up,” he said.

A ripple of fear pulsed through me. Willie knew about the watch.

“She wasn’t back when I left this morning,” I told him. “She had an appointment.”

“I know. But she back, and she got Mariah packed. She ready to go.”

“Go where?”

“She told me to come and get you, says you two are going out to Shady Grove for a couple days.”

“But what about the house?” I asked.

“She say Dora and Sadie take care of the house.”

Shady Grove was Willie’s cottage in the country, three hours outside of New Orleans just past Yellow Bayou.

“Well, I don’t know, Coke,” I told him. “I have to work at the shop.”

“She told me come and get you, that she ready to leave in an hour. I was happy to come find you. I got somethin’ I think you want.” Cokie reached in the window of his cab and then handed me a newspaper. It was a copy of the
Commercial Appeal.

“Cornbread, he still drivin’ the truck route between here and Tennessee. He picked this newspaper up when he was in Memphis.”

A large headline blazed across the front page:

F. L. HEARNE, JR., ARCHITECT, DIES. STRICKEN ON TRIP TO NEW ORLEANS.

“There’s all sort of information on your rich Memphis man in that article,” said Cokie.

“Thank you! Thanks so much, Coke.”

Cokie smiled wide. “Sure. But don’t be tellin’ Willie I gave it to you. Hurry up, now, she’s waitin’.”

I ran down to the shop, wondering what to tell Patrick. I saw him through the window, at the counter with a customer. I folded the newspaper and put it under my arm.

“Hey, Jo,” Patrick called out as soon as I walked through the door. The man at the counter turned around—tall, dark, and gorgeous.

“Hi there, Josie,” he said.

I looked at the handsome man.

“Ah, you don’t recognize me? Well, it was dark, and you were in your nightgown.”

I felt a rush of heat beneath my cheeks. “Oh, yes, you work at Doubleday’s shop.”

“That’s right,” he said, extending his arm for a handshake. “James Marshall.”

I shook his hand, wishing I looked better, cringing at the thought of this gorgeous man seeing me in my nightgown.

“Cokie came by for you,” said Patrick.

“I know. Willie is insisting I go to Shady Grove with her for a few days. I could argue, but you know how she is when she wants to go to Shady Grove.”

“That’s fine,” said Patrick quickly. He smiled an odd smile.

“It is? Are you sure you can manage?”

“C’mon, Jo, I think I can handle it. I’ll be fine.”

I hadn’t expected such an easy acceptance. “And what about Charlie? Will you two be all right?”

“Who’s Charlie?” asked James.

“My father,” said Patrick. “We’ll be fine, Jo. Just go.”

“Shady Grove—sounds nice,” said James.

“It’s out in the country, quiet,” said Patrick. “Hey, Jo, have you finished the December bookkeeping yet? I want to wrap up the year-end accounting.”

“And the inventory,” added James.

“Oh, right. And when did you last take inventory?” asked Patrick.

I looked from James to Patrick. “Yes, December’s done. Why do you need an inventory?”

“Just trying to stay on top of things for the New Year. Is that Cokie I see waiting for you out there?” asked Patrick.

I nodded and made my way to the back staircase, stopping quietly to peek at E. M. Forster, ticking behind the locked glass.

SEVENTEEN

Willie would be steaming. She had been waiting nearly two hours. But I hadn’t planned to leave town and had things to prepare. I also spent time reading the newspaper article about Forrest Hearne. The story said that Mr. Hearne was a former Vanderbilt player, had come to New Orleans with three other men, that all three planned to attend the Sugar Bowl, but none of his friends were with him when he died. He was a member of the Lakeview Country Club and on the board of several charitable organizations. It also reported that Forrest Hearne’s wife was in shock over her husband’s death. He had called her earlier that evening from New Orleans and was in perfectly fine form. Marion. I remembered him mentioning her name when he purchased the book of Keats. I hid the newspaper article beneath the floorboard near the cigar box of money.

Cokie’s cab slowed to a stop. “I got to find a parking spot. Willie don’t like me takin’ up the driveway. I’ll put your bag in the Cadillac.” I got out of the car. “You need help with that stacka books?” asked Cokie.

“No, I’ve got them.”

“Jo, you really gonna read all those out at Shady Grove?” asked Cokie.

“Every one of them.” I smiled and closed the door of the cab. I walked down the narrow drive toward the garage at the back of Willie’s house. As I approached, I heard Evangeline’s giggle at the back door.

“Sorry I was so early this time,” said a man’s voice. “But I just had to see you.”

“Come back soon, Daddy,” said Evangeline in a childlike voice. I crept past the edge of the house just as Evangeline slipped back through the screen door in her pigtails. I stopped to shift the stack of books.

“Oh, I’ll be back soon, baby,” said the man, putting on his hat and tightening the knot in his tie. My mouth fell open. It was Mr. Lockwell, Charlotte’s uncle.

He stepped into the drive, so giddy he nearly bumped right into me.

“Mr. Lockwell,” I whispered.

He looked at me and then at the back door. “Uh, hello.” Recognition dawned slowly. The lines across his forehead twitched. “I know you, don’t I?”

“I’m Jo—Josephine, a friend of your niece, Charlotte.”

His feet shifted. “What are you doing here?”

My breath caught somewhere in the back of my throat. I looked down at the stack of books in my arms. “I’m delivering an order of books to Willie Woodley . . . she loves to read. I work with Patrick in the bookshop. Do you come here often?” The question escaped before I thought better of it.

“N-no. Look, I’m in a hurry,” he said with a disgusted and condescending tone, as if suddenly I was polluting his space like the Gedrick’s sidewalk.

I saw the shift in attitude. I was just a sad waif from the Quarter, someone he could wave away with his handkerchief like a foul smell. Anger began to percolate. My eyes narrowed.

“Oh, okay,” I challenged, “because I heard that girl call you Daddy and then you said you’d be back soon, so I thought maybe you come here often.”

Mr. Lockwell stared at me, a mixture of panic and irritation on his face. “I have to go. Good-bye, Josephine. I’ll tell Charlotte I saw you in the street.” He grinned at his dig and started down the drive.

I should have let him go.

“Mr. Lockwell,” I called out.

He turned at the sound of his name and put a finger to his lips. “Sshh—”

“I thought you might like to know,” I said, following him toward the street. “I’m going to be applying to Smith.”

“That’s nice.” He continued walking.

“And I was hoping you could write a letter of recommendation for me.”

“What?” he said.

“A letter of recommendation, to include with my application to Smith. A letter from one of the most successful men in the South would be a great help. Shall I stop by your home next week to speak to you about it?”

“No,” he said. He dug through his blazer and thrust a business card at me. “You can call me at my office. Don’t call my home. I . . . I really don’t come out here often.”

And with that, he quickly ran down the drive toward the street.

• • • 

“What’s wrong with you?” said Willie. “You’re gripping the damn steering wheel like you’re trying to break it. I asked you to drive so I could relax, but how am I supposed to close my eyes when you’re hunched over the wheel like a madman?”

I leaned back and loosened my grip on the wheel, watching the gray pavement roll under the headlights through the fog. My fingers ached. The interior of the car was dark, except for the glowing light of the radio dial, tuned to a country station playing Hank Williams. What was I thinking? What if someone had seen me? I had confronted Charlotte’s uncle and blatantly dangled his deceitfulness right in front of his face. It was my pride. My pride took over when he looked at me like a piece of trash. But what if he went back and told Evangeline, and Evangeline said, “Oh, don’t worry, she’s just a hooker’s daughter,” and then he told Mrs. Lockwell, and Mrs. Lockwell told Charlotte?

I hated New Orleans.

No, New Orleans hated me.

“Dora told me you want to go to college,” said Willie.

“What?”

“You heard me. And I think it’s a good idea.”

I looked over at Willie’s dark silhouette in the passenger seat. “You do?”

“You’re smart, Jo. You know how to make the most of a situation. You’ll do well at Loyola. Hell, you might even get in at Newcomb.”

My fingers hooked around the wheel again. “But I don’t want to go to college in New Orleans, Willie. I don’t want to go to college in Louisiana. I want to go out East.”

“What are you talking about? Out East where?”

“In Massachusetts.”

“What the hell for?” said Willie.

“For an education,” I told her.

“You’ll get a fine education at Loyola or Newcomb. You’re staying in New Orleans.”

No, I wouldn’t stay in New Orleans. I wouldn’t spend the rest of my life cleaning a bawdy house, being leered at as the daughter of a French Quarter prostitute. I’d have nice friends like Charlotte and socialize with people like Forrest Hearne—people who thought better of me than gutter trash.

“You’re salted peanuts,” said Willie.

“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re salted peanuts, and those people out East are petits fours. Don’t be cliché, thinking you’re going to be Orphan Annie, who winds up in some kind of castle. You’re salted peanuts, Jo, and there’s nothing wrong with salted peanuts. But salted peanuts aren’t served with petits fours.”

Willie agreed with Mother. She thought I wanted a fairy tale, when I was destined for nothing more than a crummy life skirting the New Orleans underworld.

“I’ll pay the tuition for Loyola or Newcomb,” said Willie. “That was your plan all along, wasn’t it, to threaten to leave so I would pay for your damn college here?”

We didn’t speak for the rest of the drive.