Love Finds You in New Orleans(49)
“Les’ just get it over with,” said Agnes, carrying the petticoats to Lottie.
Somehow they avoided disturbing the complicated hairdressing Lottie had sat still for that morning while the stylist twisted her hair into a pattern of braids and curls before finishing it off with a pair of diamond combs. While Agnes fastened the dozens of hooks and eyes from halfway between Lottie’s shoulder blades to the end of her hips, Lottie held on to the bedpost, already feeling the weight of the gown.
The Lottie encased in this dress bore no resemblance to the sultry young woman in cranberry-red who’d attended the opera. Her face and neck had been lightened and softened with pure pearl powder, and her lips shimmered as if covered with the juice of strawberries.
Her grandmother and Madame Olympe had achieved their objective. Lottie could have stepped out of a castle, a princess down to her satin slippers. But though she may have looked like a princess, she felt a tower surrounding her everywhere she went.
* * * * *
For most of the evening, the only reason Lottie needed to move from the receiving line was to dance. Imagining Gabriel’s face when a man came forward to request a dance made the obligation bearable. Her hand cradled in Gabriel’s, his eyes waiting when she’d look up at his face. What would it feel like to have his body close to hers as he led her across the floor?
She remembered the toe-smasher, the tight-hand-grabber, and the breath-offender. Rolling her eyes at Justine while a gentleman navigated her around the room would have disgraced generations of LeClercs, so Lottie devised an alternative. When dancing, she was a model of deportment, eyes downcast, sufficiently demur. When the dance ended, she and Justine would make eye contact and, depending on the partner, one or both would pinch the bridge of her nose. In a break between dances, she and Justine met over a tray of ginger cakes. Lottie could do no more than nibble a bite for fear her corset would pop.
“We’ll have to devise another, more creative system of messaging when it’s time for my party,” said Justine as she finished her cake in a few bites.
Lottie shrugged. “By that time I will not need to concern myself with the idiosyncrasies of dance partners. I will already be married to the man my grandparents have selected for me.”
Her first dance had been with a man, Lottie whispered to Justine, whose face was une figure de pomme cuite when he pretended to want to smile. So, when the young man whose face resembled a baked apple asked for a second dance, Lottie grew suspicious. The third request proved her right. Paul Bastion’s detached, bored demeanor before, during, and after every dance actually comforted Lottie. His obvious and yet, unbeknownst to him, equal disinterest in the object of their parents’ pursuit meant she would be saved from an emotional relationship. Grand-mère had, unwittingly, prepared her for marriage after all. Lottie knew how to conduct herself in that kind of relationship.
The day after the event, Lottie remembered jigsaw pieces of the party but couldn’t put the entire puzzle together. The first piece was of her grandparents’ countenances as they watched her, with Agnes’s help, descend the stairs. Years faded from their faces, pushed away by whatever joy filled them as she moved toward them.
“I actually saw your grandmother smile more than once,” Justine told her as the two perched on Lottie’s bed.
“At me or in general?” Lottie’s raised eyebrows as she sipped her café au lait signaled her disbelief. Justine’s hesitation provided her answer. “If you had said at me, I would have thought you lied. Though I do appreciate your considering it to protect my feelings.”
* * * * *
Justine gathered her apricot gown as she readied to leave. “I am sure we will remember even more tomorrow.”
“Yes, we can talk about what food was served, since no morsel could make its way through the grip of my corset.” Lottie’s waist and hips still felt bruised from being restricted by fourteen long whalebones for hours. She held the offender in front of her with both hands. “If my fate has already been decided, then I can rid myself of you.” Maybe this article of clothing would make an appropriate donation to a prison.
Her back to the doorway of her room, Lottie heard her grandmother before she saw her.
“Are you leaving so soon, my dear?” Were it not for the molasses voice, Lottie might have been startled, thinking her grandmother could be addressing her.
“My parents haven’t seen me since yesterday, and they should be home from church by now,” Justine said. “And now that the party is over, Lottie and I will have more time together.”
Grand-mère glanced at Lottie then back at Justine. “Well, perhaps you won’t confine your visits to your classes.”