Chapter 24
“Two dates with him, and we haven’t met him yet?” my mother asked. “No. He should come here first.”
“His car is in the shop,” I said, thinking quickly. I glanced at my grandmother, who was crocheting a blanket for Betty’s new baby in the corner, an idea forming. “His—uh—his grandmother borrowed his car to pay a shivah call and crashed it.”
“Is she all right?” my mother asked, instantly invested. Which meant she was buying my story, but my grandmother had looked up, her lips pursed wryly.
“She’s fine—it wasn’t a bad accident, but his car isn’t ready yet.”
“Whose shivah was she going to?” my grandmother asked innocently. Her eyes were shrewd though, watching me.
“One of her friends,” I said, staring her down. “You know how it goes. At your age.”
She chuckled. “Why don’t you have his friend bring him here, and we’ll meet both of them? Decide which one we like better?”
I was going to throw out her favorite crochet hook the next time she wasn’t looking. Yes, she had saved me from the cantor, but this was spiteful. She knew I was lying. I knew she knew I was lying, and she knew that I knew that she knew I was lying. Why torture me and risk my mother finding out?
“Because they’re already driving down to DC from Baltimore to Pat—Paula’s house, and we’re far out of the way.”
“Are we?”
I maintained eye contact. “If they’re taking Route 1, yes.”
“Mother, stop interrogating the poor girl,” my father said. “She returned my car without a scratch.” He turned back to me. “It’s fine. But we would like to meet him.”
“I think—” my mother said, but my grandmother cut her off.
“Yes, have him come by when his car is fixed.” She winked at me. “And maybe this Pat—Paula too.”
Once my parents were back engaged in their reading, I scrunched up my face at my grandmother, who blew me a kiss in return. She had never made anything easy. I doubted she would start now.
Outfitted in a red dress that Roberta assured me was perfect for the Bohemian Caverns, I drove with Patricia up to U Street—an area that I had definitely never traversed before.
Located near Howard University, this part of the city was technically integrated, but mostly in the sense that white people sometimes ventured there for entertainment purposes.
Patricia, however, seemed not to notice that we were getting stares at stoplights, and so I decided to follow her lead.
“Have you been to this place before?”
“Once,” she said. “It’s fun.”
Her idea of fun and mine clearly differed, but I wasn’t there for a good time, I reminded myself. I was there to follow a lead. And this singer was the only Havana lead we had right now.
We entered through an intricately carved door, and then went down a narrow staircase decorated with stucco to look like we were in a cave, with faces peering out from crevices.
The staircase opened up into a large room with a low ceiling, stalagmites and stalactites protruding up and down at us.
You had to watch where you were walking, and a tall man wouldn’t last long.
“What is this place?” I asked loudly over the music.
Patricia grinned. “I told you it was fun!”
I looked around the semidark room, my eyes adjusting.
It was a mixed crowd—a little over half of the patrons were white, which seemed high based on the neighborhood.
From the framed posters on the wall showcasing recent acts, this was clearly a place where famous people performed when in the nation’s capital.
The girls from the office waved us over to their table. I chose a seat where I could see the stairs, keeping my eyes open for Fields, who walked in just as we got our first round of drinks. He spotted me quickly and began making his way through the crowd.
“Incoming,” Gladys said, and every head swiveled. I was glad no one noticed my reaction because I was sure my cheeks were as red as the dress I had on, which I now desperately wished was a little higher cut.
“Ladies,” Fields said, then nodded to me. “Hey, Judy.”
Then everyone turned to look at me, and I hoped the darkness of the club hid my flush.
“Jack,” I said, his first name feeling foreign on my lips. I didn’t look at my friends, but I could feel their eyes on me.
“Mind if I steal Judy for a bit?” he asked.
Patricia exhaled loudly. “She’s here with us.”
I looked around the table as they waited to see what I did next. “I—um—I kind of invited him tonight.”
“Why?” Patricia’s tone was incredulous.
I thought fast and then shrugged. “What was it you said? A girl’s got to have some fun.”
Patricia laughed. “I meant with someone actually fun. But whatever makes you happy, doll.” Something caught her eye, and I looked in the direction her head was turned. The congressman had just walked in. “Speaking of which . . .” She stood up.
So much for not getting attached.
Fields offered me his hand, and I took it, following him to an empty table tucked in a corner, with a clear view of the stage. “Well that worked out,” he said.
“I don’t trust that man.”
“Nor should you. But for all her faults, Patricia has a good head on her shoulders. I think she’ll be okay.”
“She wouldn’t give you such high praise.”
“Yeah, well, maybe she’s just too mean to get herself into any real trouble.”
I laughed but smacked his arm lightly. “That’s my friend you’re talking about.”
“A friend who would have ditched you two nights in a row if we hadn’t had other plans.” He had a point there.
The lights dimmed, and a voice announced over a microphone, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Bohemian Caverns is proud to present, straight from Havana, Cuba, home of the mambo, the queen of Morro Castle herself, Senorita Maricela.”
A woman in a long, form-fitting silver dress appeared in a spotlight at a microphone.
She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, with long, dark hair that fell in curls to just above her waist and a tropical flower over her ear.
Her tanned skin glistened in the club’s lighting, and her dark eyes shone with a mischievous glint.
She opened her mouth, and a soulful soprano voice rose in a mournful Spanish song.
I couldn’t understand the words, but it was impossible to take my eyes off her.
Impossible to not feel the pain of whatever loss she sang about.
And even I, who had suffered so little, felt tears welling up as she held the final note.
“Let’s have a little fun now,” she said in a lilting accent over the thunderous applause that echoed off the walls of the aptly named caverns.
The lights illuminated the band behind her as they began a more upbeat song, and her hips swayed seductively as she sang, again in Spanish, but this time a clear dance number.
Couples rose from their tables and came together on the floor in front of her.
“Want to dance?” Fields asked in my ear.
I shook my head, cupping my hands around his ear to be heard over the music. “I don’t know how to dance to this.”
“Neither do most of them,” he said, pointing toward the floor. It was true. While a handful of people were doing variations of the mambo, most were just moving to the music as they saw fit.
I looked back at Fields, tearing my eyes from Maricela. I wondered how she commanded a room like that. I had never seen a woman so powerful, so imperious, so comfortable in her own skin, and it awakened something in me that I hadn’t known existed.
We were there to work. And I had no intention of falling for this man or any other who was just going to get in the way of me becoming the reporter I wanted to be. But, if we were onto something, he was the man who was going to help me achieve my goals.
And more than that, my feet, my legs, my hips ached to move to this irrepressible Latin beat.
I stood up and turned toward the dance floor, looking back at Fields over my shoulder. “You coming or not?” I asked loudly.
He grinned, taking my hand and following me onto the crowded floor.