Gabriel broke a praline in two and offered her half. “Would you care to taste this batch?” He saw the “no” in her narrowed eyes and put it back on the table. Since she remained quiet, he knew he needed to ask. “What happened?”
“Alcee asked Monsieur Seligny if she could enroll in the Greek or Latin classes. He informed her that girls learned French.” She released the parasol, held it by her side, and gently tapped it against her lemonand-white-striped linen skirt. “She asked him what would happen if the girls learned the same languages as the boys. He said he didn’t know and it didn’t matter. That’s how the school had always taught and would continue to teach.” Rosette stopped tapping, turned her face upward for a moment, and sighed. “Then she wanted to know, if she wore trousers, could she be in the class.”
They looked at one another, and though Gabriel wasn’t sure which of them laughed first, the exasperation on his mother’s face surrendered itself to the humor of Alcee’s persistence.
“And could you imagine my daughter being told she would be someone’s placée?” She shook her head. “Never doubt, Gabriel, even when you do not understand situations or decisions, that God has a plan and a purpose.”
When Gabriel continued removing the hardened pralines from the slab and didn’t respond, Rosette placed her hand under his chin and turned his face to hers. “Even when He does not reveal it right away,” she said so softly it could have been a prayer.
After the experience at Alcee’s school, Gabriel didn’t want to disagree with his mother. It wasn’t that he doubted God’s plans. But what should be obvious to her was some things God could not change. Even if his skin was lighter than that of the riverfront workers, they would always be white and he would always be a free man of color. And even though he enjoyed Lottie’s company, admired her honesty, and shared her compassion, his feelings for her would stay locked in his heart with his other dreams. Dreams of a life of his choosing. Dreams of a love of his choosing.
Chapter Five
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“And jus’ where you think you headed out to, Miss Lottie, with that cat tucked under your arm?” Agnes looked up from where she sat in the courtyard, stitching a piece from the rippled mound of cream-colored gauzy fabric covering her lap and feet.
“Are you mending a tablecloth or Grand-mère’s summer dress?”
Agnes stopped sewing, leaned over, and, with an abundance of care, rearranged the delicate folds of the froth. Lottie figured she didn’t want her to see her laugh. But even though she concealed her face, Agnes couldn’t hide or control the pulsating top of her body. She straightened herself in the chair and adjusted the gray tignon she wore. She squint-eyed Henri. “You better get a holt of that cat. If he get loose on this, he’ll be finding himself lost in that swampland behind Tremé.”
“Agnes, his name is not ‘that cat.’ It is Ahn-ree.” Not at all impressed with the discussion of his name, the cat squirmed and meowed his dissatisfaction. Lottie transferred him to the other side of her body and hoped she could escape Agnes before Henri escaped her.
“En don’t you go changing what we talkin’ about. Whenever you do that, I knows trouble is arount the corner.” She pulled the thread through the fabric as if the needle were a thin sliver of a silver whip. “We been together too many years. When my heart don’t hear the truth, it most beat out of my chest. Like it doing now.”
Why did I think I could deceive Agnes? She isn’t Grand-mère, whose heart beats rules and manners. “Is my grandmother at the dressmaker’s?”
Agnes looked at Lottie as if she’d asked for permission to play in the Mississippi River. “Why? You want to meet her there?”
“Of course not. I told Gabriel—” Henri let out a mangled meow and then bolted from Lottie’s arms, leaving behind pulled threads on her new violet day dress and a trail of scratches on her arm underneath the sleeves. A rogue cat on tiptoed paws and with an arched back, covered with a patchwork quilt of black, brown, and white fur, had ambled into the courtyard. As soon as the intruder hissed, Henri bounded in the opposite direction.
“Maybe your cat tryin’ to teach you something. When trouble around the corner, best be close to home.” Agnes tied a knot and bit the thread free of what Lottie could now see was her grandmother’s cream-colored cotton skirt. Agnes smoothed the section where she’d been stitching, moving her dark hands back and forth across the fabric like Lottie had seen her do so many times. Her hands, always moving, always doing something for the LeClercs. Sewing, cooking, cleaning, washing. The cycle only changed by more of some, less of the others. And she and Abram lived in a room half the size of Lottie’s bedroom.