Chapter Seven
April stood just outside the gate that led to her walkway.
She noticed Damien’s sleek black car as it turned onto St. Ferdinand Street and motioned for him to grab the parking spot on the opposite side of the narrow roadway.
He smoothly parallel parked, then took a minute to look around for something in his car.
April continued to look on as he pulled a pair of sunglasses out of the compartment that dropped down from just above the rearview mirror.
She wanted to still be upset with him, but the minute he alighted from the car her anger from last night began to dissipate. He wore khaki deck shorts, a starched peach polo shirt and sandals.
God, why must he always look like someone she wanted to wrap up and tie to her bedpost? It made it that much harder for her to remember that she should still be pissed at him. But she’d always had a hard time seeing the bad in Damien. Because she knew, deep down, that he was good.
She just needed to remind him of that.
As she watched him make his way across the street, she had to remind herself not to drool.
“Good morning,” Damien greeted.
“Morning,” April returned. “I totally thought you would stand me up today.”
His brows lowered. “And here I thought you knew me so well,” he said. He leaned over. “In case you didn’t realize it, standing you up is never an option. You’re just too hard to resist.”
It took an unbelievable amount of effort to ignore the tingles that traveled along her skin, but April willed herself to do it.
She knew she’d read more into Damien’s words than she should have.
The same went for the way his voice dipped.
If she allowed her mind to go where it really wanted to go where he was concerned, she would come out looking like a fool.
“Are you ready?” she asked him.
“What, we can’t go inside for few minutes? Didn’t your mother teach you to at least offer your guests a drink of water?”
“We’re going to get all the food and drink we need on our tour,” she said. “Come on.”
She took him by the hand, paying no heed to how much this all felt like a date, instead of two friends just taking a casual stroll. But since he didn’t seem to mind, neither did she.
They walked three blocks up to St. Claude Avenue.
“So, where does this tour start?” Damien asked.
“First, we’re going to get that drink you talked about.”
“I was only kidding about the drink, April.”
“No, you were stalling, but that doesn’t matter, because I’ve been thinking about this all morning. Not only will we have the best coffee you’ve tasted in a while, but you’ll also get to see one of the most charming additions to the neighborhood.”
They walked a couple of blocks east to Clouet Street and came upon a tiny building, no more than eight by ten feet. The sign bearing its name, The Coffee Shack, sat tilted to the side.
“Well, they got the shack part right,” Damien said.
“I’ll have you know that this little shop happens to be one of the best places to get coffee on this side of the city. We’re lucky that the morning rush hour is over, because on any given workday the line is at least twenty people deep.”
“For coffee?”
“Actually, it’s for the owner’s homemade cinnamon rolls, which are quickly becoming legendary.”
April walked up to the counter of the orange-and-white shed and bought two tall coffees and one massive cinnamon roll. She gestured for Damien to take a seat at the single wrought-iron table and chair located just to the left of The Coffee Shack.
She set the cinnamon roll between them and handed Damien one of the forks she’d grabbed.
“Dig in,” April said. “Breakfast is on me, since, you know, you paid a thousand bucks for last night’s dinner.”
His mouth tipped up in a smile. “Thanks for being so generous.”
“Anytime,” she quipped.
April waited, watching him as he broke off a chunk of the cinnamon roll. The moment he did his eyes slid closed and he released a moan that made her belly flutter with too many naughty sensations to name.
“Damn,” Damien said. He looked over at her, his eyes glazed over with pleasure. “That’s good. That’s so good.”
“I told you,” April said in a singsongy voice. “We’re actually lucky there were any still available. These usually sell out by 10:00 a.m.”
“I want to buy a dozen and bring them back to my car.”
She shook her head. “You can’t. They limit four cinnamon rolls per person.”
“What? That’s crazy. Why would they limit what they sell?”
“It’s not crazy, it’s fair. Do you know how many people would buy them up? There would never be any left for others to enjoy.”
“I guess that’s the difference between us, huh? You actually think about other people besides yourself.”
“You’re not as selfish as you claim to be,” she said. “There’s a good heart in there. I remember it.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know about that,” Damien said. “That heart may have taken one too many punches to be any good to anybody.”
April reached across the table. “Don’t say that.
You’ve always been so hard on yourself, but I know you.
You are a good person, Damien Alexander.
And not just because you have a fancy house and drive a fancy car and have a fancy office overlooking Canal Street.
You were a good person when you lived in the shotgun house on Desire Street, and stocked shelves at that little store that used to sit at the corner across from the church. ”
“You remember that, huh?”
“Yes, I do. I remember when a bunch of the kids from school tried to convince you to give them free stuff from the store. You refused.”
He shrugged as if the way he’d stood up to their classmates all those years ago was no big deal, but April remembered what peer pressure felt like.
Heck, she saw it every day at A Fresh Start.
The technology may be different, but the problems and pressures the kids faced today were the same as what she and Damien faced back when they were in school.
“That took a lot of guts,” April said. “A lot of kids would have caved under that pressure, but you did the right thing.”
“You were a big reason for that, you know?”
“For what?”
“For me wanting to do the right thing, to be a better person. There came a point where the thought of disappointing you made me feel worse than just about anything else.” He looked down at the half-eaten cinnamon roll, then back up at her.
“But it looks as if I failed after all. I’d say you were pretty disappointed in me last night. ”
April’s chest tightened.
“Try to see things from my side,” she said.
“Wait a minute.” He held up a finger. “Why don’t you try to see them from mine, first,” he said.
He pulled out his cell phone and brought up a computerized rendition of a seven-story building. The two bottom floors featured large glass windows that stretched from floor to ceiling. The remainder of the building was done in a dusty, reddish-brown brick.
“This is the building?” April asked, staring at the screen.
He nodded.
It was gorgeous, but it didn’t belong in the Lower Ninth Ward. The building would stick out like a sore thumb. She looked up at him with a sad smile.
“You don’t like it,” Damien said. He blew out a frustrated breath. “Come on, April. How can you look at this and not see how great it would be for the community?”
“Damien, I just... I mean, look around,” she said, stretching her arms out to encompass the area. “Can you really look at these houses and mom-and-pop shops and think that a building of that magnitude fits?”
“It’s a vision for the future of what this neighborhood could be.”
“And just what is that, Damien? These high-end shops that the people here can’t afford to shop in?
A slew of implants moving in from all over the country, jogging down the sidewalks and along the riverbank in their high-priced exercise gear and three-hundred-dollar earbuds in their ears?
How can you look at this neighborhood and think any of those things would ever fit? ”
She reached across the table again and caught him by his forearm.
“Instead of trying to change it, why don’t you help make what’s already here better?
There is so much good happening these days, Damien.
From Musician’s Village to the Ninth Ward Community Garden—there are amazing rebuilding projects happening all over this area.
And those projects could be even more amazing if more people invested in them. ”
“April, I hate to break this to you, but you’re not going to get investors to put money into this neighborhood as it is right now.”
“Not outsiders,” she said. “That’s why people from the neighborhood—people like you—need to step up and do it.”
She sipped the last of her coffee and stood. “Come on. It’s time for you to see more of what’s going on.”
They meandered past colorfully painted shotgun houses, all with well-kept lawns and several with residents either sitting on the front stoops or working in flower gardens.
April waved as they walked by. She didn’t know them by name, but their smiling faces were a part of what made this community home.
She and Damien arrived at the entrance to the Ninth Ward Community Gardens. The small garden was filled with people bustling along the rows of freshly tilled earth. April spotted one of the directors, Jodi Martin, standing next to a row of tomato vines.
She walked over to her.
“How’s it going, Jodi?” April called.
“Well, look who finally made it back here.” Jodi greeted her with a hug. The fiftysomething then used her teeth to pull off the dusty gardening gloves covering her hands. “Haven’t seen you around here in a couple of Saturdays.”
“That’s because we’ve kicked off the summer program at A Fresh Start,” April said.
“Oh, that’s right. How is your little garden going over there?”
“It’s still in its infancy stages, but the kids are diligent about its upkeep. Thanks again for the seedlings.” April turned to Damien. “The little garden that’s just outside the coffee shop at A Fresh Start? It was Jodi’s idea.”