“Then you will have two teachers. I will be here with her,” Gabriel said as he opened the door for them to leave.
Chapter Six
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“You don’t have to protect me,” Lottie told Gabriel.
“Who else would be aware of where you spend your time? If something happened to you, I would not forgive myself. As long as you refuse to be honest with your grandparents about where you are, someone needs to watch you.”
“There isn’t much I do that Grand-mère approves of. I stopped trying to make her happy on my own. It is easier for me not to think and to just do what she tells me when she tells me to do it, no matter how I feel about it.”
“Well, you are visiting the poor. Would that not make a difference?”
“To my grandmother, who cares what everyone thinks of her? Maybe if these visits had been her idea first.”
“What about your grandfather? He has always impressed me as a man who is reasonable. Surely he would not disapprove of your helping out.”
“I don’t know. Sometimes he is so strong, but other times, he seems afraid to disagree with my grandmother. I’ve overheard them a few times, talking about decisions he had made and the consequences of them. And I do feel so much closer to him. But, because of that, I do not want to do anything that would hurt him. Or have it be the reason for a fight between him and Grand-mère.” Then Lottie countered, “But what about you? Why haven’t you been honest with your mother?”
“Of course Rosette knows about these visits. I am not pilfering food and clothes from the house to supply the orphanages.” He scratched his head. “Why would you ask such a thing?”
“Because these visits are not what I am referring to. You have helped Rosette in the café for years, and yet you don’t discuss with her that you still want to study abroad.”
“Rosette needed my help, and she still does. And my not talking to her about school is not the same as your hiding what you are doing.”
“Is it not? You are hiding. You are not sharing what you really want.”
“I don’t discuss it with her because she would ship me off on the next boat. She would never want to stand between me and my dream. And that is precisely why I do not tell her. When the café is more profitable, then I can leave her on her own. Until then, I choose to stay.”
Ahead of them, a maid washed the banquette in front of a house, splashing water on the brick dust she used to clean the steps. When Gabriel gently held Lottie’s elbow and steered her away from the murky brown puddles, Lottie wished for a succession of puddles just to feel the warmth of him. The woman stepped aside as they passed. When Gabriel dropped his hand from her arm, Lottie saw the eye contact between Gabriel and the dark-skinned woman wiping her hands on the stained skirt of her faded calico dress.
“Does she know?” Lottie asked him. They stopped at the corner as a carriage made the turn from one street to another, the uneven cobblestone paths causing it to teeter in a way that reminded Lottie of inebriated men making their way home from Carnival.
“What do you mean?”
“Which one of us isn’t white.” Lottie covered her nose with a gloved hand as they crossed the street to ward off the foul smell emanating from the gutter.
“I don’t…why are…?”
Lottie explained, “Because if we were a white couple or gens de couleur libres, we would not be seen so suspiciously or with such judgment. But how could someone looking at us know the difference? And could they know which one of us was which?”
“Is that what you thought? That the servant knew the difference?” Gabriel sounded surprised.
“Yes, and I just don’t understand why it matters.” She meant to sound observant, not frustrated.
“This is unlike you to be so, well, angry.”
“I know. I know. So much is changing in my life, and I have so little control over it. And…” Lottie turned her face away and pressed her gloved hands to her eyes to blot them before Gabriel could see her tears.
“What are you talking about?”
“My grandparents. They are planning my coming-out party as my birthday party.”
* * * * *
Gabriel watched as Charlotte walked through the courtyard and into her house. Each step took her farther from him, until she disappeared through the doorway into a world he would never be able to join. Loss was not unfamiliar to him. But this…this was more than loss.
A coming-out party meant a prelude to finding a husband. Well, at least to her grandparents, who were finding a husband for her. Marriages in Lottie’s world were business transactions completed for the mutual benefit of both parties. For some, the match kept land in the family. For others, it might bring money. The result was the same. Women often found themselves in arrangements where husbands provided a home, children, financial security. In exchange, wives pretended not to notice that their men spent nights away with their placées, dining in their homes in the Tremé, sleeping in their beds. Creole women, raised to exhibit all means of propriety at all times, could hardly compete with those often exotic, alluring women raised to entice men. Women like his mother used to be.