If the intention of the party was for several eligible men to attend, why was their son singled out? The one person who might be able to tell her about the Bastions was the one person Lottie couldn’t ask. Gabriel, because of the café, was acquainted with people from political to poor. If a name was not familiar, it traveled the lines of communication until it reached again, who could then attach it to a face, a cottage, a business, or, in some cases, one to avoid. But just the thought of asking after a man she did not care about from the man she did made her stomach turn. As Lottie unfolded herself from the floor, Agnes and Abram returned to the house and interrupted the lull in her grandparents’ conversation. Grand-père asked where his granddaughter was and when Agnes expected her home.
When she heard Agnes answer, “She home right now. Miz Charlotte stay while Abram and me went to the market,” Lottie tiptoed into her bedroom, tucked herself under the comforter and sheets, and burrowed into the pillows. If her grandparents planned to be angry with her, it was better to be because they thought she’d overslept than overheard.
* * * * *
Gabriel entered the well-appointed store of Cordeviolle and LaCroix tailors on Chartres Street, where distinguishing between their employees and customers was made complicated by the popular dress of both. Himself a free man of color, François LaCroix elevated his business with imported silks and linens and fabrics from Belgium for the particular tastes of his clients desiring the latest styles. Even the store’s elaborately scrolled billhead, designed in Paris, reflected LaCroix and Cordeviolle’s attention to detail for “fashionable articles pertaining to the Gentleman’s Wardrobe, imported, and kept constantly on hand.”
Gabriel was there to pick up his new wardrobe—after losing the discussion with his mother several weeks beforehand regarding his need for it. He might have come away victorious but for his one fatal declaration: “Maman, perhaps you should be more mindful of how you spend your money.”
They had been working on a fresh batch of pralines. Gabriel shelled the pecans, and Rosette chopped them to add later to the mixture she had just moved over the fire. He’d stopped to roll up the sleeves of his shirt when she remarked that the cuffs appeared to be frayed.
“Hardly,” he’d said and shrugged. “Where do I go that it matters? The café, to visit the homes? It’s fine.” He rewarded himself with a few of the fresh halves then pushed the hill of shelled pecans across the table to his mother. She scooped the chopped pieces into a bowl then rocked the half-moon blade back and forth over the ones just peeled.
“You attended the opera with André. I doubt his cuffs were worn thin.”
“He lives in Paris. Styles there change too quickly for anything to show signs of wear. Except maybe the dressmakers and the tailors.” He rolled more pecans out of the firkin onto the table and set the wooden bucket on the stool next to his.
“Still. I know you devote much of your time to the business. And to me and to Alcee. But it is important for you to have some joie de la vie, especially while you are still young.”
Not bundled in the yards of fabric required in public, her hair gathered loosely at her neck by a scant piece of lace, Rosette looked far younger than her thirty-eight years. A stranger would not suspect that she no longer lived a pampered life, except for a few places on her hands and along her forearms that had healed darker after being burned. At times, the praline mixture boiled over, sending the thick mixture onto her arms and hands and taking a layer of skin as it did.
“You could use some joie de la vie as well.” Gabriel knew she cut down and reworked some of her own dresses for Alcee. Later, Gabriel realized he should have shared his heart instead of his head because his next statement was, “Maman, perhaps you should be more mindful of how you spend your money.”
If the look on her face could have baked bread, the torrent of French assaulting his ears could have sliced it. Caught off guard by his mother’s considerable reaction, Gabriel decided that riding out the storm of her vexation would be the wiser course. But the damage had been done, and he paid the cost of repairing his mother’s dignity by submitting himself to the tailors.
But what he’d just heard from Monsieur LaCroix was prelude to another tempest.
“I do not understand. Who might have settled my account?” Gabriel lowered his voice, hoping the tailor would do the same. Overheard, the news of the son of a former placée discussing a mysteriously paid bill would appear in the next day’s New Orleans Bee, published in both French and English so as to cause more embarrassment.