Gabriel understood her pain in a way that only someone who must endure loss can.
Chapter Eight
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“I suppose it is appropriate that I should look like a very large ball of cotton for my debut.” Lottie eyed the yards and yards of watered white silk Madame Olympe presented her grandmother.
The dressmaker launched a barrage of French Creole that ended in “une ’tite poule grasse” in the direction of Grand-mère. Lottie figured Madame did not just call her grandmother a little fat hen and certainly would not, if that had been her intention, until after they left the shop.
Lottie held a panel of the silk that threatened to make her resemble a fat white hen. Standing in front of the mahogany cheval mirror, she draped herself in the milky fabric to assess Madame’s opinion.
“You are beginning to speak like those rude Americans in the Garden District,” Grand-mère declared. “Since your first remark seemed to be an insult, Madame simply stated that she had the ability to transform you into something quite unattractive.” She smiled at the dressmaker, who stared at Lottie. “Not to mention, she could stitch your lips closed, my dear.”
Did Grand-mère truly intend to be funny? Lottie might have remained statue-like longer were it not for Madame’s response. Only the dressmaker’s hands covering her mouth prevented waves of laughter from reaching the ears of nearby shoppers. Not even being the target of Grand-mère’s humor could detract from Lottie’s wide-eyed surprise at the playful tone in her voice. She would have expected the words from her grandmother to be disdainful, for she rarely, if ever, bantered with Lottie.
Perhaps this party, this rite of passage, marked a shift in their relationship. Lottie imagined she might come to know her grandmother as more than someone who dispensed rules in her life. The idea of gaining a grandmother appealed more than the idea of gaining a husband.
Madame Olympe flittered around the store, her fingers pecking at ribbons and laces and tulle. A mound of her choices grew on the table. “A few more selections and we will begin,” she said…though she appeared to be addressing the gold buttons in her hand instead of her customers.
“Is there a pattern selected already?” Lottie moved to the chair near her grandmother and hoped the question might keep open the door to this new space in her heart.
“Pattern?” Grand-mère said the word as if it hardly had the right to burst forth from her lips. “Why would I go through the trouble of a dressmaker for a…well, something anyone could sew?”
The door slammed on Lottie’s heart. Because you have a pattern for everything else in my life. The dress, the party, the wedding, the marriage. Her role was to be present. Lottie feared that if she exhaled all at once, her corset would need replacing. She knew what her grandmother wanted to hear.
“You wouldn’t.”
* * * * *
At midnight, the stillness of Rue Orleans broke with the streams of people leaving the theatre, their passages home made possible by the gaslamps hanging from ropes stretched across the streets. Reflectors and the slight breezes made the faint gold light shiver against the brick and stucco of the homes along the way.
Gabriel buttoned his frock coat as he and André walked out. The air was unusually chilly for a Louisiana night becoming early morning. When they reached the corner of Rue Bourbon, Gabriel heard someone behind them call his name. He turned and saw Nathalie Chaigneau waving a blue glove at him. The well-dressed group she walked away from stopped and folded in, talking to one another.
“Where have you been, Gabriel Girod?” She tapped him on the shoulder with her lace fan. A panel of white wrapped around her bare shoulders and edged the sleeves of her dark-green gown. She stared at André. “Are you—”
“Excuse my rude cousin, Mademoiselle.” André bowed slightly. “I will introduce myself—”
She examined him in the way that one might view a laboratory specimen then interrupted him with a delighted gasp of recognition. “André? André Toutant? I have not seen you for years. Not since…”
“Since he was as tall as you are now?” Gabriel could have patted the top of her head if not for the elaborately tied tignon of moss-green fabric accented with rows of clear glass beads along one side. “André, the three of us tried to learn how to play the piano. We all had lessons with Monsieur Plessis. This is Nathalie Chaigneau.”
“Ah yes, Nathalie Chaigneau. You always wanted Gabriel and me to start the lessons. Remember?”
Gabriel nodded. “Of course. She wanted Plessis to be too tired after our lessons to care how she played.”