Love Finds You in New Orleans(79)

Her hand felt tender and soft and kind. Lottie didn’t want to feel that. She wanted to stay empty.

She rolled toward Agnes, placed her head in her lap, and shook the bed with her sobs.

“You go on and cry. You feel better getting it out. But you just remember, Genevieve Charlotte, Jesus always got a way.”



* * * * *


“Sorry I’m late.” Gabriel removed his hat, gloves, and coat. Then he walked outside, grabbed the hammer and a nail, and came back in. Still holding everything he’d taken off, he pounded a nail into the wall then took the hammer back outside. Reentering the café, he shoved his gloves into his coat then hung his coat with his hat over it on the nail he’d just hammered.

Rosette and Nathalie watched him as if he were a one-man play and they stood waiting for the second act. Gabriel poured his own coffee and sat on the stool, and the two women still looked at him as if he had gone bald overnight. “What?”

“I’m not sure. You look familiar, but you aren’t acting familiar. You’re so far away, you might as well be with André in Paris,” Rosette said, not taking her eyes off him.

“Interesting you said that about André. I’ve been thinking maybe I need to finally do that. Go to Paris for school, that is.”

Nathalie tied on her apron. “I’m going to find something to do in there,” she announced and pointed to the café. “You two may continue your conversation without me.”

“You’ve been thinking about this? For how long?” Rosette took out the flour, sugar, eggs, and spices she needed to make the calas, setting everything down as if a noise might frighten Gabriel away. She found the basket she had brought from home. She had cooked the rice yesterday and left it out overnight so that it would be cold today.

“I grew up thinking about it, remember? Then it didn’t happen. And I thought I needed to stay here to help you, which I did. But you have Joseph and Nathalie now. So I’d feel better about leaving.”

“And when do you plan for this leaving to happen?” Rosette worked the rice with her hands to break up any clumps then started adding all the dry ingredients.

“I don’t have any definite plans yet. There’s a great deal to consider: which school, the tuition, the cost of getting there, finding a place to live, a job…. I need to write André and get as many questions answered as possible.”

“Certainly.” She added the eggs and vanilla and started mixing. She handed Gabriel a few grains of rice she’d kept out of the mix. “Here, test that oil for me.”

Gabriel dropped a grain of rice in the hot oil, but it floated lazily to the top instead of popping right up and starting to sizzle. “Not yet. Maybe another minute or two.”

“I need to ask Nathalie about coming in tomorrow. Would you please watch over the oil for just a minute?”

“Yes. I will call you when it’s ready.”

The conversation with Rosette had gone so much better than he’d expected. He heard the caution, maybe skepticism, in her voice. He understood how surprising this announcement was to her. It was to him as well.

Gabriel dropped in another grain of rice. Almost the right temperature. Like Rosette, he had learned that being impatient and rushing the oil produced calas that no one would purchase, much less eat.

He had awoken early this morning. After yesterday’s talk on the levee, he knew his life had to change. He could not live in the city when Charlotte LeClerc would become Madame Bastion. But he determined that leaving New Orleans had to be about what he wanted, not what he wanted to run away from. For over fifteen years, he’d awakened in the same garçonnière, gazed out the same window to see the same rooftops, looked over the same courtyard, and looked over the same life. It occurred to him this morning, when he was capable of more rational thought, that what had happened with Charlotte forced him to examine his life just when he needed to. Perhaps, in its own way, it was a blessing.

Gabriel dropped in the next grain, and it burst through to the top with just the right sizzle.

When it was ready, it was obvious. He just had to wait for that one right moment.





Chapter Thirty-Three

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March 1841

Dear Mama and Papa,

I have not written for days, and I am loath to write now, because I do not want to compose with my own hand how wretchedly miserable I am.

Though I cooperated with all that my grandparents asked of me in the coming-out party, I allowed myself to nurture the dream of being with Gabriel. How very, very childish.

It must be sufficient, for today, for me to reveal that there is no longer a future for me with Gabriel. I contemplated the possibilities, recognizing what having a life with Gabriel would mean. What we would both be required to sacrifice. I wonder now if I would have been as willing to leave if you were here instead of Grand-mère and Grand-père. Could I have endured, knowing the disappointment I would have caused you?