Chapter 19 Luca
Chapter nineteen
Luca
Ichecked the latch on the courtyard gate and slid a bakery box onto the kitchen counter when I came back inside. The sound of brass began before noon.
At first, it was only a trumpet somewhere off Magazine, a phrase cut short and picked up again, the sound that might have belonged to a man practicing scales with the windows open. By eleven-thirty, it had thickened into an ensemble. A snare came in. Then distant voices. A second line was underway.
The twentieth anniversary of the city’s celebration of survival had begun.
I set out special coffee for Dominic. The French press stood on a tray beside a small plate with half a baguette and butter. He entered the kitchen a minute later in dark trousers and a white shirt, sleeves unbuttoned. He was calm and composed, the way he was on any performance day.
“A second line already,” he said.
“It began about ten minutes ago.”
“It’s a day of celebration.”
He poured the coffee and drank while standing at the counter. He nibbled at the baguette. On performance days, he rarely ate much.
Thiago passed the kitchen doorway with his phone to his ear and a folded seating chart in one hand. He wore jeans and one of the shirts he’d bought on Magazine. He caught my eye briefly and kept moving.
He had set his go-bag at the base of the stairs that morning. I had noticed it on my way through the hall before six, packed, zipped, and positioned.
With both Eamon and Thiago in residence, the house was busier than usual. Not crowded. Alert.
Dominic set down his cup.
“You’ve checked the programs?”
“At eight-thirty.”
“And the car?”
“Thiago’s driving.”
I heard a slight sigh from Dominic. “Of course he is.”
The bullet hole remained in the salon plaster. Dominic had refused repairs twice. I’d stopped offering.
The front bell rang a little after ten. I dried my hands and crossed the hall. My mother stood on the front steps in a pale yellow linen dress and low-heeled sandals, a structured handbag hanging from one wrist.
“You’re early,” I said.
“You’re alive. That’s a fact worth confirming in person.”
I stepped aside. “Come in.”
Dominic heard us from the salon and immediately joined us. He greeted my mother warmly, took both her hands in his, and kissed her cheek.
“Solange,” he said. “I’m glad you came.”
“I wanted to see the man who’s making my son lose sleep.”
Dominic’s mouth shifted, not quite a smile. “I apologize for the inconvenience.”
She waved that away. “Survive the evening and we’ll call it even.”
They exchanged a look. My mother had met him before at several fundraisers and one funeral reception years ago. She respected his precision in addressing grief. He respected the same quality in her.
He excused himself a moment later and returned to the salon. My mother followed him only as far as the doorway. Then she stopped.
She turned her attention to the wall above the Steinway.
“He left it.”
“Yes.”
She crossed the room and stood beneath the hole in the plaster. The shattered pane in the French door had been repaired. The bullet hole was the only remaining damage.
“He understands buildings remember what they’ve witnessed.”
“He said it in fewer words, but yes.”
She looked up at the hole for another second and then turned toward me. “Your father would approve.”
“He’d want to talk for twenty minutes about the virtues of old plaster.”
“He would, and he would be right.”
I took her into the kitchen and poured coffee. She sat at the table where Thiago had spread maps and schedules all week and wrapped both hands around the mug without drinking immediately.
“You’re tired,” she said.
“I’m busy.”
“Those don’t contradict each other.”
I leaned against the counter. “You came all the way up St. Charles to say that?”
“I came because today matters.” She sipped. “And because if I stayed at the funeral home, four different women would ask whether I’d heard anything about Dominic St. Clair and then tell me what they thought about it. I preferred your opinions in your kitchen.”
“That’s fair.”
Through the open doors, I heard the fountain splashing over the stone. Somewhere farther off, the second line turned down another block, and the brass softened.
My mother set down her mug. “Have you been sleeping?”
“Enough.”
“Luca.”
I frowned.
She ignored it. “And the man from New York?”
“Very competent.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
I crossed to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down . “He’s still here.”
“Yes,” she said. “I noticed.”
She finished her coffee and washed the mug before I could rise and take it from her. I joined her at the sink.
She put her hands on either side of my face. “Be careful tonight,” she said.
I nodded. She held me for another second and added, “Afterward, you can stop being so careful.”
She let go, turned, and headed out the door, beneath the live oaks, without looking back.
***
By early afternoon, the city was in a celebratory mood.
More brass and more foot traffic. More parked cars on the block than there should have been at that time of day.
St. Charles had become what it always was when New Orleans decided it was a festive day: more public and more observant.
More people strolled past the house. No one stopped outright, but several looked.
Thiago was at the kitchen counter when I returned from attending to the lemon trees. He had his tablet open and a list of stage assignments in his left hand. He wore his charcoal jacket with the rust-colored tie hanging loose around his collar.
He didn’t notice me immediately. I stepped behind him and took the tie in both hands.
He went still, not stiff, but still.
I brought the narrow end over the wide, crossed it back, tightened the loop, and drew the knot up under his collar. His skin was warm where the open points of the shirt exposed the back of his neck. He had shaved less than an hour earlier; I smelled soap and whatever aftershave he used.
“Left entrance is covered,” he said quietly, eyes still on the logistics sheet. “Balcony rail has eyes on both stairwells. Eamon will be in the house.”
“You’re telling me this because you’re nervous.”
“I’m telling you because I’m working.”
I tightened the knot and flattened it with both thumbs. “Same thing.”
He turned. Not all the way. Enough that we were almost chest to chest.
“We all come back in one piece,” I said.
“That’s the plan.”
“I mean it.”
I leaned in and kissed him. It was quick. Not enough to derail the day.
I stepped back. He adjusted the tie once with his own hands, though it didn’t need it.
“I’ll be where I’m supposed to be,” he said.
“That has not reassured me once since you arrived.”
“It should.”
“It doesn’t.”
***
We reached the Orpheum a little before seven.
People moved fast. Crew wheeled carts through narrow backstage corridors.
The orchestra manager had two phones in his hands.
A librarian hurried past with a stack of scores.
A brass player ran a phrase in the stairwell and stopped mid-measure when a stagehand swore nearby about a missing stand light.
The air backstage smelled faintly of jasmine drifting in through the loading dock doors. I signed for the final program boxes, handing two sets to volunteers.
Twenty minutes before he went on, I found Dominic sitting in front of a mirror with his baton in his hand. Not moving. Not rehearsing. Holding it.
I closed the green room door behind me and sat in the chair beside him.
Dominic wore black, as he always did for performances, with his pocket square precisely arranged and his silver hair combed straight back. Age sharpened him rather than softening him. The years had stripped him down to line and structure.
He looked at me in the mirror.
“I thought about what I would say in the program notes for Henri,” he said.
I waited.
“I drafted them last night.”
“I’ll see they’re distributed.”
“No distribution here. We’ll add it to the public record.”
He turned the baton once between his fingers. “To acknowledge him in advance of whatever he’s planned would look like appeasement.”
He met my eyes in the mirror.
A stage manager passed outside the door. Dominic rested his free hand on the counter.
“If anything happens tonight—“
“Nothing is going to happen.”
He looked at me directly then, no mirror between us. “You don’t know that.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t.” Then I added, “But you hired someone who does, and he has already adjusted for whatever Henri planned. You conduct. That’s your job tonight.”
He stood. Straightened one cuff and then the line of his jacket.
“Luca.”
“Yes.”
“You will spend most of your life here in this city when I’m gone—“
“Don’t.”
“Consider him. He could be the right one.”
I didn’t answer. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t have sounded like I was arguing. He straightened the pocket square a final time, picked up his baton, and moved to the door.
From the hallway, without turning, he said, “Do try to keep up.”
Celeste appeared from the direction of the house. A woman beside her was in her mid-forties, dark-haired, with Dominic’s posture. I recognized her immediately: Dominic’s niece, Marguerite, who had grown up in Lafayette and now lived in Chicago. I’d met her once at a donor reception three years ago.
While Celeste smiled, Marguerite pulled me into a brief, firm hug before I could speak.
“He doesn’t know,” Celeste said.
“He’s somewhere here backstage,” I said. “You still have fifteen minutes.”
Marguerite nodded. “After, then.” She said it the way Dominic said things: settled, without negotiation. “We’ll be in the house.”
Celeste’s mystery guest. Her refusal to give Thiago a name the night before suddenly made complete sense. She had arranged Marguerite’s attendance without telling Dominic because telling him would have drawn energy away from his conducting.
Celeste looked at me and lifted one shoulder slightly, a perfect acknowledgment. Then she took Marguerite’s arm and steered her toward the seats.
The house filled fast.
The audience looked exactly as New Orleans should have looked on a night like this: men wearing linen jackets darkened at the collar by the August heat, and women wearing heirloom jewelry passed down through generations. The balcony curved overhead in a dim arc of iron and shadow.
I stood in the wings once Dominic took the podium. From there I could see the first violins, Dominic’s profile, and enough of the house to read when its attention shifted.
Bridget sat at first chair where she always did. Her posture was faultless. Her black performance clothes made her face paler than usual. She raised her instrument with controlled confidence.
I couldn’t see Thiago. That was by design. I knew where he and Eamon would be.
The orchestra launched into the opening measures, warm and precise. The weighty section of “Saints,” slowly built toward release, and the brass section filled the Orpheum with impressive gravitas.
A flash detonated in the balcony.
White light slammed across the house. Hard. Precise.
Eight hundred bodies reacted at once. Heads snapped upward. Programs slipped from hands. Someone cried out.
Dominic didn’t stop.
Then I looked at Bridget. Every head in the house went up, but hers. She looked down.
It was only slightly. A dip of her eyes and a tiny angle of her chin toward stage right. Her bow hand tightened and released. Not panic. Recognition.
She knew what was happening next. Not the flash distraction. The real thing.
Thiago was on the other side of the stage. I ran.