Love Finds You in New Orleans, LA Page 11

  “Telling Lottie that I love her still may not change anything.”

  “Neither will not telling her. But you are not going to say anything to her about Paul Bastion or Serafina. That is not your place. She is not ignorant of the system. Lottie has known us since she was a child. How could she not know?”

  * * * * *

  Gabriel wished he had taken André’s advice and found a way to go to Paris. Being within arm’s reach of Lottie in New Orleans proved to be no different than being thousands of miles away from her. Except that there would be occasions to see her here, which made erasing her from his heart all the more impossible.

  In her own way, Rosette understood. His mother had told him those stories when he began to ask about the balls to which he would not be welcomed—unless invited to serve food to those who were. Brought to the theatre at the age of sixteen, Rosette had followed her mother into the world of plaçage…not by her choice, but by her mother’s. Rosette, a free woman of color like her mother Elizabeth, dressed like a princess and had been well-educated and properly mannered. All because she had a white father as a protector. Helene had decided that her daughter should maintain the lifestyle to which she had been accustomed. And being a placée, while it would not provide her with a husband, would provide her wealth. A life few women of color—ironically, even few white women—would otherwise have.

  But the exquisite clothes, finely crafted furniture, and expensive jewelry failed to comfort Rosette on the nights she waited for Jean Noel after his marriage. The nights she sewed, waiting for him, nights the inlaid-wood mahogany table set with china and crystal from France, sterling silverware from England, and hand-embroidered damask linens did nothing to warm her heart when she snuffed the candle because he had not come.

  * * * * *.

  Helping Rosette distracted Gabriel, and it prevented him from the likelihood of seeing Lottie. Then, perhaps because she thought he needed more to do, Rosette asked him to help Monsieur Joubert with the designs for both their house and the café. Gabriel noticed how the builder stopped in daily even before his mother approached him about assisting with the plans. When Gabriel mentioned to Rosette the frequency of Joubert’s visits, she told him that Joubert needed to observe the ebb and flow of the business. It appeared to Gabriel that the design plans of interest to the builder had more to do with his mother than the customers.

  The first day Gabriel met Joubert at the house to discuss the kitchen plans, he considered that he might have misunderstood the builder’s intentions at the café. Instead of a discussion of the plans at the table or in the parlor, Joubert wanted Gabriel outside, demonstrating how he and Rosette worked around the kitchen area. While Gabriel modeled, Joubert asked questions and wrote notes.

  “Aren’t you enclosing the space? What is the purpose of this?” Gabriel never felt comfortable performing.

  “Some builders do simply bring the two spaces together. But not everyone works in a space in the same manner. For instance, not everyone has to make the quantity of food that is made here. Or as often. These are important details,” Joubert shared as they walked through the alley to the banquette.

  Gabriel nodded. “I had not thought of building this way. To me, it is a matter of having the money, the materials, and the manpower.”

  Joubert smiled. “Well put.” He pointed to the vocal couple across the street, whose gestures and volume attested to the conversation’s contentiousness. “Think of it as a relationship. All women and men have the same construction. But that does not always mean they fit together well.”

  And that explains why some fall into ruins.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ...........................

  On the way home from her last dress fitting, Lottie asked if she could be let out at Justine’s house so as not to be late for their pianoforte lesson. “You know how Justine hates when people—what does she call it? Oh, ‘dillydally,’ that’s it,” she told her grandmother as the cab turned onto their street.

  Grand-mère parted the inner curtain of the carriage and peered outside. “You don’t have a lesson today So we are going directly to the house.”

  “Is Madame Fontenot ill?” Lottie couldn’t imagine anything else keeping the woman away from torturing her and Justine.

  “No. Justine will have her lesson today as planned.” Grand-mère let the curtain fall. “With the party and the dressmaker appointments… I thought we…you did not need to be bothered with something else that needed attention.”

  If Justine’s lesson had also been cancelled, Lottie might have celebrated the news with enthusiasm. “I will have one the week following, yes?”

  Grand-mère sighed. “Perhaps. We will need to wait until that time is nearer. But you can always practice at home.”

  Lottie held out her hand and placed it against the side of the carriage to steady herself as it jostled over the gutter into the flagstone porte cochère. Practicing alone only sounded inviting if the other choice were sitting alone with Grand-mère. Why would I just begin taking lessons if I would be stopping them so soon? A question better asked of Grand-père, Lottie decided.

  Abram opened the cab door. “Be careful now, Miz LeClerc. These stones still slippery from the rain this morning.”

  “You’d tell me that even if the stones were dry, Abram,” Grandmère remarked, and, to Lottie’s surprise, did so kindly.

  While her grandmother concentrated on her footing, Abram winked at Lottie. “Yes ma’am. Don’t want nothin’ bad to happen to you.”

  Lottie hid her grin behind one hand and reached for Abram with the other.

  “You too, Miz Charlotte.” Abram gave her hand a squeeze and smiled.

  “Abram.” Grand-mère waited for Lottie to alight, and he looked in her direction. “Remember, I need you and Agnes to pick up the supplies from Monsieur Laroche’s grocery. And, Lottie, I am going to take a nap. I suggest you do the same.”

  After standing in a dress that weighed thirty pounds, required a corset made for a twelve-year-old, and overemphasized her décolletage, Lottie needed movement. She summoned her sweetest voice to ask her grandmother if she could accompany Agnes and Abram to the grocery because, as she continued, “Some of the best families in the city shop there, and then I’d know everything available for the dinners I will be planning.”

  Once her grandmother agreed and disappeared inside, Lottie used the back stairs and quickly gathered the dresses in her armoire from Justine that her nieces had outgrown. She stacked them in a basket and met Agnes at the bottom of the stairs.

  “You planning to shop there? I don’t think your grandmother wants you spending her money.” Agnes tugged the basket closer, peered inside, and eyed Lottie as if she had hidden away Henri. “Nobody at the Laroches need clothes. Specially ones already been worn.”

  “Shh!” Lottie held Agnes’s elbow and steered her toward the cab, where Abram waited. “I’ll explain.”

  Agnes mumbled as they walked toward the stable. “Explain trouble. That’s what you about to explain. You muss want Abram and Agnes sold down the river.”

  “You and Alcee practicing for the next drama? If you get shipped down the Mississippi, I’ll go with you.”

  When they reached Abram, Lottie said, “The store is around the corner from the girls’ home. I’m getting out there, and by the time you and Agnes are finished, I should be too. I’ll wait for you.”

  Abram opened the door to the fiacre. “If that’s what you want, then that’s what I do.”

  “You as bad as she is. Double trouble.”

  “Agnes, I’m not going to stop her helping those children. It’s on the way, and she got it all worked out.” Abram took the basket from Lottie. “Come on, let’s get you back in.”

  Once they were both seated and on their way, Agnes said, “Miz Lottie, you got a big heart. But sometimes that gets you big heartache. Even when you mean it for good.”

  “I know, Agnes. I know.”

  * * * * *

 
; Lottie perched on a stool in the parlor, or “greeting room,” as the Sisters called it, reading to a group of girls who sat on the carpet to listen. Sophie, a wisp of a two-year-old, whose blue eyes were set off by her honey-colored skin and dark-brown hair, wiggled her way onto Lottie’s lap and rested her head on her shoulder as she read. The two little ones sitting by her feet slid their hands across the bottom of her velvet dress to touch the soft nap. A girl who appeared to be around ten years old sat cross-legged behind all the others, her round face encircled by Lottie’s bonnet.

  Lottie pointed at the solemn little girl, who twirled a loose bonnet tie in each hand. “Angele, this one is for you.” She read the next limerick from A Book of Nonsense, which the girls enjoyed because the limericks were exactly what the title said they were. “There was a Young Lady whose bonnet/ Came untied when the birds sate upon it;/ But she said: ‘I don’t care!/ All the birds in the air/ Are welcome to sit on my bonnet!” As she read, Lottie sensed someone’s presence in the room even before she glanced at the girls and saw them looking behind her, their quiet smiles and shiny eyes signaling their delight.

  The word “bonnet” at the end of the limerick had barely escaped Lottie’s lips when a few of the girls skipped past her, calling Gabriel’s name. She was certain the warm rush of joy at hearing his name had already risen from her neck up to her cheeks, and she was grateful for Sophie being on her lap, for she had provided a reason to delay turning around. But even the two-year-old, anxious to see Gabriel herself, flopped out of Lottie’s arms and scuttled through the waves of green velvet to toddle off. And it was in her hesitation, the longing to run to him and the need to guard herself from it, that she knew for certain that their relationship was undeniably changed. In the past, she would have jumped up with the little girls, as eager as they to see him. Today, she understood the “sweet sorrow” of which Romeo spoke when leaving Juliet.

  Lottie rose, smoothed her hair, which had gathered into a tumble of curls on one side, and pressed the smashed fabric of her skirt that had been under Sophie’s little body. Her body reacted slowly, as if returning from numbness, pins working their way out of her skin.

  Seeing Gabriel’s reaction as she glided toward him, she imagined what her own face must reflect upon seeing him. That he had crouched down in the midst of a hive of giggling girls, his smiles for them genuine and his care for them sincere, made him all the more attractive.

  “Sophie, Sister said it was time for everyone to eat, so follow the girls, and I will be there as soon as Mademoiselle LeClerc and I finish talking.”

  He patted the top of Sophie’s head as she reached to hold his face between her plump little hands and said, “Oui,” before sauntering off behind the other girls.

  “How are you here? Not that it isn’t…I mean, I’m surprised.”

  “I know. I am as well, actually,” Lottie said. Happily surprised. “My grandmother sent Agnes and Abram to Laroche’s grocery, so I thought it would be an opportune time to deliver a few clothes from Justine.”

  “Do you need to leave soon? I hoped to talk to you.” He looked down for a moment. “I know the last time we saw one another was… brief, so…”

  “Yes. I mean no.” Lottie, you have known this man almost your whole life. Breathe. “Let me start over. Yes, it was brief. No, I don’t need to leave soon. At least I don’t think so. You know how I lose track of time.”

  He grinned. “That I do. Let me quickly tell Sister I’ll be outside, and we can talk while you wait.”

  Lottie nodded, but as she watched him and his long stride covering twice the distance hers would have, she wished she had said she didn’t have time. Some things are better not talked about. Once one knew the answer, one couldn’t pretend that one didn’t. And what if she had been the foolish one? Maybe her feelings for Gabriel were not his feelings for her. Did any of it even matter, considering the circumstances?

  She decided that when he returned she would tell him she thought they’d be returning soon and they could talk later. She fingered the cameo brooch at her neck, a gift from Rosette on her eighteenth birthday. The Wedgwood-blue jasper cameo was mounted in silver and showed a woman selling love tokens. Taken aback by the extravagance, Lottie had refused the gift, telling Rosette she should save it for Alcee. Rosette told her that her daughter was not being deprived and that Lottie had been like a daughter to her, She was adamant that Lottie accept it.

  Gabriel walked up, extending his arm. “Am I destined to always be recovering this for you?”

  If only that could be true. Lottie smiled sheepishly and took her bonnet from him.

  * * * * *

  Set back from the street, the girls’ home featured an expanse of lawn and a cobblestone path that wound its way to the gate leading to the banquette beyond. Lottie appreciated the coolness, as she already felt flushed just anticipating the conversation between herself and Gabriel.

  He set his hat on his head, took it off, and rotated it in his hands. “I hadn’t planned to be at your house that day. Some situations happened, and I knew I could ask Agnes to help. The point is…” He looked across the lawn and then returned his gaze to Lottie. “I probably would not have stopped if I had known you would be home.”

  Lottie wished she had her muff, not that the weather dictated it necessary. If she had it, she could wring out the confusion and disappointment already twisting her hands. She managed an “Oh.”

  He gently placed his hand on her arm. “Wait. I didn’t mean to sound as if I don’t want to see you. I do. But that’s the problem. I—”

  They had reached the gate and Lottie’s attention was drawn to the approaching clip-clopping of horses’ hooves. Abram stopped the fiacre and nodded in Lottie’s direction. She didn’t want to move, because Gabriel would have to let go of her arm, and what was left unspoken hung between them and refused to be ignored.

  She lifted her face to meet Gabriel’s, and she felt him grasp her arm as if to prevent her from disappearing. “Lottie, this is not what I had planned. But if I do not say this now, I do not know if it will ever be said. And even in the saying of it, I know nothing can change. I want you to know that I have avoided you not because I don’t care about you, but because I do. I don’t know when my heart realized that our relationship was more than just friendship. But—”

  “Gabriel,” she stopped him. Lottie despised herself for what she was about to do. She wanted to hear him say more, as she wished she could have said more as well. How many times had she imagined this moment? The moment she would hear him say he loved her. These dreams all ended the same, with Gabriel drawing her close, cradling her face in his strong hands, and kissing her with a fierce tenderness.

  But she had to save him from himself, from sacrificing his heart. She moved his hand from her arm. “Don’t. I treasure our friendship. I hope never to lose you as an important person in my life. As for more than that, I don’t want to mislead you or disappoint you.”

  His pain and confusion etched themselves in the furrows of his forehead, the firm set of his lips. His eyes searched her face as if she had transformed into a stranger. Then, as if she were someone he had mistaken her for, Gabriel donned his hat and took a step backward. “Then, that is what we will be. Comme il faut. I understand.”

  You do not. You do not understand, Lottie’s heart screamed. But all Gabriel heard was silence.

  * * * * *

  The day Gabriel saw Lottie at the girls’ home, he’d thought it was an answer to prayer. But while the prayer might have been his, the answer was not the one he wanted or expected. He had rehearsed the scene so many times in his mind since his talk with Rosette that when Lottie did not follow the role he had written for her, he had no response. Before he could share with her that he loved her, she relegated their relationship to friends. And with Abram and Agnes waiting in the fiacre, was there any point in continuing the conversation?

  So, instead, he’d told her he understood. Understood? No. Gabriel watched her leave and wished th
ey played a grown-up version of tag so he could run after her. He could say, “You’re it. Forever. You always were. You always will be.” But she didn’t turn back to look at him once. Lot’s wife might have saved herself from becoming a pillar of salt had she the same strength.

  Walking home down the side streets, Gabriel ordinarily paid no attention to anyone but Lottie. Today, he heard the lyrical chattering of women gathered on porches. Some rocked sleeping infants stretched across their laps. The others leaned against the slatted shutters, sipping coffee, their faces bronzed by the afternoon sun. Most of the dinner gatherings were ending, and families spilled from porte cochères with their lavish gardens and gurgling fountains. All of it making him aware of how alone he was.

  By the time he reached home, Gabriel had convinced himself that Lottie might have saved them both. The idea of the two of them having an open relationship was as likely as the notion of flying. Would she walk away from her life? And if so, where would they go? Live a life without family, friends? Would that be a life either one of them would want?

  Chapter Eighteen

  ...........................

  February 1841

  Dear Mama and Papa,

  The date draws near for my coming-out party, for it is now only seven days away as of tomorrow. In reading over letters of the last month, I was overcome by how unkind I have sounded about the event. I have decided I must no longer think of this as punishment or be ungrateful for what Grand-mère and Grandpère are doing for me. They are doing what they know you would have done for me.

  I told Gabriel something today that pained me to say and him to hear. Is it wrong for me to deny my true feelings if, in doing so, I believe I am saving someone from heartache? I have come to realize that as long as I allow myself to hope there could be something more between Gabriel and me, I would always be unhappy when left alone with thoughts about my future. I care deeply for him, so much so that I believe what I feel for him is love. I think this afternoon he may have been on the verge of expressing those same emotions for me. I stopped him. I told him that our friendship was important to me, making it seem as if that was the extent of my relationship with him. Oh, if you could have seen his expression after my words slapped him in the face.