Love Finds You in New Orleans(42)
As always…my love and affection,
Genevieve Charlotte
* * * * *
“Wake up, child.” Agnes patted Lottie’s shoulder as she lay sprawled across her bed. “What you doing sleeping when you suppose to be readying yourself for the opera?”
“I’m awake. I’m awake,” Lottie said, but her eyes remained closed and she didn’t move.
Agnes attempted again, and again Lottie replied that she was awake, only this time her voice was edged with irritation.
“That’s a mighty fine way of showing you awake. Maybe you don’t need no opera. You putting on your own show right here.” Agnes pulled the curtains open so that the afternoon sun streamed through the gray, dark room and found its way straight to Lottie’s face.
“I’m tired,” Lottie moaned and rolled onto her back with her hands over her eyes.
Agnes retrieved the dress Lottie had removed before resting and brought it to the armoire. “Agnes tired too, seeing as you all over the mattress I done already beat flat this morning.” She placed the dress on a hook and withdrew a cranberry-striped silk with alternating stripes of plain cranberry and a lighter shade of woven flowers. “I got this new dress your grandmother want you to wear, and you better stand up now so’s I can help. More hooks and eyes down the back of this dress than sense.”
Lottie uncovered her eyes and squinted as Agnes drew near with the dress. “Are you sure I shouldn’t wear one less fancy?” She pushed herself out of the bed, stepped into her petticoats, and held her arms up so Agnes could slip the dress over her head. The slight vee in the front of the dress was matched by one in the back, and the basque waist formed a point in the front.
“You think Agnes would forget such a thing? I tell you what she like to forget is all these hooks back here,” she grumbled. “Miz LeClerc say she want you to be seen by some them young bucks gonna be at your party. At least that’s what she tole your grandfather.”
“I don’t know if I should be flattered or insulted by that. Maybe she wants them to see me tonight so they won’t be too disappointed by what they see next week.” Lottie distrusted her grandmother’s calculated moves—the ones that, on the surface, appeared to be in Lottie’s best interest but inevitably served hers as well. Like the time Grand-mère enrolled Lottie in art class when she was eight years old, explaining that she wanted to see Lottie develop her artistic potential. Months later, when Grand-mère no longer had to leave home for her card meetings and held them at her home instead, it seemed Lottie reached the limit of her art skills and no longer needed to attend class. Once those puzzle pieces fell into place, the rest followed the same pattern.
About ten “Jesus, help me” later, Agnes finished hooking the back opening of the dress and directed Lottie to the mirror. She heard Agnes’s gasp at the same time she saw a woman she barely recognized in the mirror.
Lottie spoke as if the woman in front of her would answer. “I was born before my mother was twenty. Do you think she might have looked like…like this?” She held the sides of the skirt and twisted from side to side. Lottie would not have been surprised if the reflection in the mirror had moved too.
Straightening the linens on Lottie’s bed, Agnes answered so quietly, Lottie almost couldn’t hear her. “Oh, yes, I think she mighta looked just like that. Just like you.”
* * * * *
When Lottie entered the parlor to tell her grandparents that she was leaving, they greeted her with the same stunned silence as Agnes.
“Have I worn too many pearls? I asked Agnes to weave the pearl strands in with my curls, but they are easily removed.”
“No. Do not change anything.” Grand-père closed his book and smiled. “Turn around slowly so we can see all of it.”
“With my corset and the weight of this gown, I could not move quickly if I wanted to,” said Lottie. When she turned back to face them, Grand-mère was holding her embroidery hoop and sewing. Her grandfather rose, walked over to her, and kissed her on both cheeks. “You, ma cher, are a beautiful young woman.”
When he spoke, Lottie detected the faraway look in his eyes that came when he told her stories of her father. “Marie,” he said, his voice sounding as if in warning, “aren’t you going to tell our granddaughter how lovely she looks tonight?”
Her grandmother looked up, smiled the same smile she bestowed on Monsieur Fonte next door, who believed the Americans to be nice people, and said, “Of course, my dear husband. Lottie, that gown suits you well.” Her hoop and needle were poised to connect again, except that she seemed to be waiting for permission to resume.