Fourteen #2
“Did you hear it? The tapping?” Her scratchy voice, the hope in her question. I wish I could lie to her.
“No. But I’d like to know what it was like for you, if you’ll tell me.
” I can see us in the garden again, sharing secrets.
I wait and hope but nothing comes. “I’m sorry if I’m saying the wrong things.
I’m here and I want to help you. When you’re all better, I’ll take you home with me. You won’t have to be alone again.”
“I wasn’t alone. I had Nathalie.”
“Right, of course,” I say. “She misses you. We love her so much—all of us. We’re taking good care of her. I promise. I have a son. Clément. He’s just half a year younger than Nathalie. And Adele has three children now. Nathalie’s surrounded by cousins.”
“I can’t keep her.”
“I know. I’m so sorry.”
“It makes me want to die.”
I don’t trust myself to speak. “I’d feel the same,” I finally say.
“I tried to starve myself, but they forced food down my throat.”
“Delphine,” I say, but I can’t finish the sentence.
“You need to tell her I’m dead.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean: Tell her I died.”
Thunder in my ears. Blood rushing. “There’s no way I’d ever do that.”
She’s holding perfectly still, so passive I’m certain she hasn’t heard me, until she says, “It’s the only way I can survive.” She stands, raises her arm. “Nurse,” she calls, and she’s ushered through a door.
Barrenness, on the drive home. Away from Camarillo, through mile after mile of nothing, holding my breath until I reach the edge of Los Angeles.
“We’re having a surprise guest for dinner,” Claire says when I walk into the house.
Adele’s apologetic. “I know it isn’t the best timing, given your day, but he called and asked to stop by. I couldn’t say no.”
I’m unstrung, exhausted. I want a whiskey and my bed, Clément and a storybook, illustrations to look at so I don’t keep seeing Delphine. “Just tell me who it is.”
“Felix. He’s in town for the next couple of days.”
“He’s had a standing invitation for a year now,” I say, taking off my shoes. “You’d think he’d give us a little notice.”
“So,” Adele says. “How was she?”
“Not well,” I say. “It was awful. She said to tell Nathalie she’s dead.” Claire and Adele stand very still, their eyes meeting. “We could never do that,” I say. “Tell such a horrible lie.”
And then Rudy bursts in from the yard and Claire and Adele go back to what they were doing—arranging fruits and nuts and cheeses on a plate, mixing a batch of Manhattans, taking the crackers from the cupboard.
Felix is soon at the door, an autumn bouquet in his arm, orange flowers and magnolia leaves.
Despite my resistance, seeing him warms me.
Adele takes the flowers. “Oh, these are so lovely. You shouldn’t have. Look at you, Felix. How has it been so many years and now you’re here?”
My sisters and I embrace him. The men come in from the yard, shake his hand, pull him in for hugs. We lead him to the living room and the children descend. Clément stands tall and says, “This is Uncle Felix. We know each other from the train station.”
“You remember that?” Felix asks, touching his hand to his heart. “It was some time ago.”
“It isn’t just any day that a boy gets to go see a train come in with a bird on it,” I say. “Let alone gets a handshake with a real porter.”
“Wanna to play Jacks, Uncle Felix?” Titter asks.
“You don’t have to,” Adele tells him.
“I sure do want to play Jacks,” he says. “As long as you don’t mind teaching me.”
He sits on the floor with the children, and they show him how to bounce the ball and scoop the metal pieces between bounces. He fumbles the ball the first time and the children cackle. Clément speaks over them. “I used to do that, too. It’s okay. You’ll get it next time.”
Over dinner, Al says, “Now, Felix, remind me. Who was the man who organized the movement for the Pullman porters, back when we were children?”
“The great A. Philip Randolph,” Felix says.
“That’s right,” Al says. “And before Mr. Randolph came along, the conditions were far worse, weren’t they?”
Bernard sighs, shakes his head. Averts his eyes as Al continues asking questions he already knows the answers to.
“All right, Al,” Bernard finally says. “If Columbia starts forcing us to work sixteen-hour shifts for nothing but tips, I’ll sign on.
Until then, I’m keeping my nice office and my free lunches and my family health insurance.
Remember this?” He raises his right hand, the thick scars on his palm visible, before closing his fingers to make a fist—not as tight as the rest of us can, but tight enough to swing a golfclub, turn a doorknob, pick up a baby.
“I agree that the insurance is nothing to laugh at,” Al says. “But a man should not allow himself to be bought. Complacency is the enemy of progress.”
They go on like this through dessert, through the children’s bedtime, until Al and Bernard leave to play cards with some other managers.
They invite Felix along, but he says he’d rather stay here.
In the yard, while my sisters wash up, he says, “That’s a sweet young boy you’ve got there.
And Nathalie—I see how you care for her.
Al and Bernard told me Delphine’s in the hospital but not much else. What happened to her husband?”
“All I know is that he left them.”
“Seems like a lot of trouble for nothing,” Felix says. “Moving out here just for that.”
“I couldn’t explain it to you. I wish I knew. I can’t believe he’d come all this way just to break Delphine’s heart and abandon her. It’s too cruel.”
“You don’t believe people are cruel?”
“I’d rather believe that people are misguided and scared. That they make bad decisions.”
“Ah yes,” he says bitterly. “Misguided.”
“Don’t tease,” I say. “Let me try to believe that Bill really loved Delphine and Nathalie, that he left because of a failure of character. It’s too awful to think it was some kind of trick.”
“All right,” he says. “All right. I’m going to refill my glass and by the time I’m back I’ll have something new to talk about.” He returns with beer for himself, a whiskey for me. “So…” He leans closer, glances over his shoulder. “What the hell kind of name is Titter?”
I laugh. “Rudy called her Sister, only he couldn’t say it. He said Titter instead, and it stuck. Her real name is Elizabeth.” Felix shakes his head. “Bobby’s real name is Paul. I don’t have an explanation for that one.”
Felix smiles. He glances at my hand, holding the drink. Looks back at my face. “Hard to imagine that the youngest Honoré sister wouldn’t be taken by now.”
“I’m a Laurent, remember.”
“That’s right. Poor Cyril.”
I close my eyes. “I thought we’d moved on to lighter topics.”
“My fault. Anything you want to know about home? I was in New Orleans less than a week ago.”
I open my eyes again, lean closer to him.
It’s as though he’s cast in a warmer light now, like he’s standing under a streetlamp on Magazine Street, and if I get closer maybe I could be in that glow with him.
“Less than a week,” I say, my voice low.
I want to smell him, to see if home is still on his skin.
“How has it changed since I’ve been gone? ”
He starts to answer but he’s talking about people I barely remember, bars I never went to.
I want to know what took the place of Bill’s studio.
I want to know if the trumpet vine is fragrant in the garden.
I want to know if the best jazz musicians still play at the Drop.
I want to know if Hattie misses me, if she’s in love with someone else.
“Actually, don’t,” I say, interrupting. “It hurts too much.”
Later, when he says it’s time to call a cab, I offer to drive him to his hotel instead.
I’m careful to say it easy, with no trace of flirtation, and he accepts.
“The city’s going to build a freeway along here,” I tell him once we’re on the road.
“It’ll cut down on our commute to Columbia, maybe even by half. ”
“A real working girl.”
“I’m a supervisor now.”
He whistles. “You don’t say.”
The night’s drawing to a close. Once I’m alone, Delphine will be in my head again. “Mind if we take a detour?” I ask him. “I could show you something.”
“I’ve got all the time in the world.”
So I drive us up to Hollywood, pull over and park. “See that building right across the street? That’s where I’m moving. Right after the New Year. Me and Clément.”
I find Lawrence’s window, five floors up.
A light shines through the curtains. Just over two months from now I’ll be living inside it, keeping my own hours.
Clément and I will get ourselves a television set.
We’ll eat in front of it if we want to. We’ll play games on the floor.
We’ll have people over, spend hours listening to records.
I’ll pick out my own plates and flatware and glasses. I’ll choose what to hang on the walls.
“That’s mighty impressive, Odette,” Felix says. “Just you and your boy in a Los Angeles apartment. It’s really something.”