Little Gale Gumbo (24 page)

“Hi.”

Jack looked up to find Dahlia had arrived. She looked quizzically between him and the older woman. “Mrs. Cooley,” Dahlia teased. “You didn't tell me you were waiting for your date. He's very handsome.”

“Oh, for goodness' sake,” Alma Cooley huffed. “Just get on with it, Jack Thurlow. My soup's getting cold.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Jack grinned and Dahlia's face bloomed into a wide smile, her heart racing. “I was wondering if you'd like to go out with me next Friday night?”

“Yes,” she said, without hesitation.

“Great.” Jack rose, driving his hands into his pockets. “Then I'll pick you up at six.”

“Wait.” Dahlia fumbled for a pen. “Let me write down my address—”

“That's okay. I know where you live.”

Dahlia stilled, smiled. Jack smiled back.

Behind them, Donald Wylie held out his empty coffee cup, clearing his throat to get Dahlia's attention for a refill. In her elation, Dahlia turned and walked right by him. Jack smiled politely at the older man, then turned to Alma. “Have a great day, Mrs. Cooley,” he said, then wove back through the café and out into the brisk morning, smiling proudly. He knew the nearby customers had been watching, listening in expectantly.

Jack was counting on it. He'd wanted to take Dahlia Bergeron out on a date for a very long time, and he wanted the good news of her acceptance to travel as fast and as far as possible.

 

That evening, spread out in the window booth, as had become their routine every Saturday night after the last of the customers had gone home, the two families made dinner out of the day's remainders, but Dahlia barely touched her food. Matthew had noticed her dreamy expression all afternoon, but only when Dahlia passed him the salt when he'd asked for the rice did he finally demand, “What's with you?”

“Oh,” Dahlia said, correcting her error. “Nothing.”

But Josie was bursting with the news. “Jack Thurlow's what's with her. He asked her out.”

“Jack Thurlow?” Matthew repeated.

“You know Jack,” Ben said to Camille, buttering a cold biscuit. “Irene's son. The basketball player who brought in his friends our first day. He's in Matthew's class.”

“He's so handsome,” added Josie breathlessly. “And he's really nice. Tell them, Matty. Isn't Jack Thurlow a supernice guy?”

Matthew reached for the hot sauce, stalling. But he couldn't deny it was the truth. And maybe that was the problem. He hadn't ever had to worry about the jerks who showed interest in Dahlia. They never stuck around, but Jack Thurlow . . . A girl could really fall for a guy like that, a decent guy . . .

Dahlia may not have watched the expression change on Matthew's face as they continued with their meal, but Josie did, and her heart ached to see how his brow twisted, his jaw fixing with a hurt he hadn't expected, and truly disliked.

 

Friday night came too quickly for Matthew and not soon enough for Dahlia. All week she had planned what she would wear (her off-the-shoulder peasant dress), how she'd fix her hair (swept up with a comb on one side), where she'd spray the tiny sample of Shalimar she'd sneaked from Porteous last spring (behind her ears and along her wrists), but when the evening finally came, a thunderstorm came with it, bringing sheets of rain and winds so strong that branches that usually hung far from the Queen Anne's tall windows were brushing against the glass, screeching like a flock of angry gulls.

“Fuck you!” Dahlia shouted at her bedroom window, her pinned hair sagging over one cheek, her peasant dress crooked around her shoulders. Josie watched her sister rage around their room, hurling shoes and bracelets in her disappointment, but it was hard to tell which sister was more crushed. When the limb snapped off the great maple in the front of the house, it dangled helplessly for a few seconds before it crashed onto the porch roof like a cat too fat to turn itself over in time. The aging shingles tore like newspaper under the weight, sending a shriek and a shudder through the whole house. When it had subsided, the sisters looked at each other, then charged out of the apartment and down the stairs, yelling as they ran.

Camille was already in the foyer. The front door was open, a cold spray blowing in as Ben and Matthew studied the damage. The branch had rolled off but not before leaving a noticeable gash in the roof. A ribbon of rainwater came down on the porch floor as if poured from a pitcher. Josie shivered. Camille pulled her close. Dahlia dropped onto the stairs, burying her face in her hands. When she looked up, Matthew was standing over her, looking so calm and relieved she could have kicked him in the shins. When he offered to help her up, Dahlia glared at him as if he were to blame for this, when she knew it wasn't possible.

But Josie knew it was. She knew for a fact that storms this vicious didn't come around without reason, and a heavy sorrow sank in her stomach. It was Matthew's doing. There was no other explanation. Matthew's love for Dahlia was so strong that the sky had dumped out its very worst to keep Jack Thurlow from coming between them.

Camille must have thought so too, because she looked especially worried, Josie thought, her mother's hazel eyes fluttering nervously.

When Dahlia ran back upstairs and slammed the apartment door, Josie said softly, “I knew I should have dressed another love candle, Momma.”

Camille pulled her daughter tighter. “There's no need for it.”

“But the storm . . .”

“Hush.” Camille smiled, gently brushing her daughter's long red hair behind her ears. “Don't you worry about your sister and this young man. I'm not.”

Josie glanced over and saw Matthew at the window, his eyes fixed on the street. She swore she saw him flinch, as if he had heard Camille's decree and the very thought had briefly stopped his heart.

When Josie heard Jack's voice a few seconds later, sailing in on a gust of rough, chilled air, she exhaled as if it had been hours since her last breath.

 

While the women fixed food in the kitchen, Ben, Matthew, and Jack worked together to secure a tarp across the hole in the roof. They returned nearly thirty minutes later, drenched. Jack had come over in a tie and his nicest chinos. Now his shirt was soaked through, his tie loosened. Camille looked at Josie and nodded toward the stairs. “Go get the men some towels, Josephine.” Josie leaped to her feet, dashing up the stairs two at a time. “And take one of Matthew's clean shirts from the pile on the dresser!”

The suggestion implied an intimacy that Jack chose to ignore. He'd heard the rumors of their communal living, but he didn't care what people said. Standing in that kitchen, Jack knew he was in the presence of a true family.

He smiled apologetically at Dahlia. “I looked better an hour ago,” he admitted, running a hand through his wet hair.

Dahlia couldn't imagine how that was possible.

“Best-dressed handyman I've ever seen,” said Ben, patting both young men on the shoulder. “You're a lifesaver, Jack. We couldn't have done it without you.”

Matthew smiled in agreement; he had to. He hadn't been glad to see Jack arrive, even less so to have his broad-shouldered, smiling face on the roof with him, but as the chore had lingered and the rain had slowed, he'd had to admit that Jack wasn't playing at being nice. He wasn't up on the roof, sopping and filthy, just to impress Dahlia. Jack Thurlow genuinely wanted to help. It was going to be hard to hate him if he kept this up.

“We should be fine if another front comes through,” Ben said. “Tomorrow morning, first light, I'll get up there and see what's what.”

“Please sit, gentlemen,” Camille implored, drawing two chairs out from the table. “I've made coffee with brandy to warm you up.”

“Camille!” Ben scolded gently.

“What?” Camille bit back a mischievous smile. “It's only a pinch.”

Josie returned with a stack of towels and a new shirt. “You can change in the bathroom, Jack,” Camille said, pointing to the hall. “It's down at the end. Dahlia can show you.”

Dahlia rose quickly and Jack followed her out of the kitchen. They took the corridor slowly, savoring their first chance to be alone, trying to walk side by side even though the hall was much too narrow. They bumped against each other, apologizing foolishly. Jack smelled of cool, soft dirt. Dahlia wanted to comb his wet hair with her fingers, pull at the places where his shirt stuck to his body.

At the bathroom door, Dahlia pressed herself against the wall, her heart racing. Jack glanced down the corridor, just to be sure they were still alone. “I wanted to take you to dinner. Someone waiting on you for a change.”

Dahlia reached out and touched the wet edge of his cuff. “Momma says I'm the worst waitress she's ever seen. Josie said she heard a few customers complaining just the other day.”

Jack watched her thumb trace his button, feeling his groin ache when her fingertips grazed the inside of his wrist. “Tell me their names. I'll straighten them out right now.”

Dahlia smiled, flushed. When he wouldn't move into the bathroom, she gave him a gentle push. “You should change before you start to mold.”

 

After a lively meal around Camille's table, Jack and Dahlia sneaked out to the porch and sat close on a bleached wicker couch. They sat without talking, listening to the soft spattering of rain overhead, their bodies settling against each other in the cool damp. All around them, blown leaves lay pasted to the floorboards, glistening under the porch light.

“Looks like it's finally letting up,” Jack said.

Dahlia toyed with the hem of her dress. “Bet you wish you'd stayed home, huh?”

He smiled. “Not at all. I loved hearing those stories about New Orleans. All the different places you lived, those people you knew. It must have been a pretty exciting place to grow up.” He peeled a stray leaf off the side of the bench, turned it over in his palm. “Maine must seem like a graveyard after that.”

Dahlia watched the absent way he rubbed his thumb over the wet leaf, her skin warming. “Sometimes,” she said.

Behind them, Camille closed the parlor curtains.

“Momma likes you,” Dahlia said. “But then, I have a feeling everybody likes you, Jack Thurlow.”

“I'm not interested in everybody,” he said, glancing at her.

Dahlia looked out at the night. “You don't have to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Pretend you want something serious with me.”

“Is that what you think I'm doing? Pretending?”

“I think it doesn't work this way.”

“What way?”

“You know,” she said. “Team captains are supposed to go out with cheerleaders and prom queens.”

“Says who?”

Dahlia shrugged. “It's a law of the universe.”

“Ah.” Jack nodded authoritatively. “One of those. Just like you're not supposed to go swimming after you eat, right?”

She grinned helplessly. “I didn't know about that one.”

“You didn't?” He grinned too. “Oh, yeah, that's a big one.”

She reached over to take the leaf from his fingers. He caught her pinkie with his thumb, trapping her briefly. The leaf curled over his knuckle.

They sat awhile without talking, hearing the faint sounds from inside the house: dishes clearing, voices and footsteps nearing and disappearing. It all seemed gloriously distant.

Dahlia laid her head back on the rounded edge of the seat. “Why do they do that?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“Paint the underneath of porches blue.”

“I think it's supposed to look like the sky,” Jack said, watching her. “So it'll seem like the days last longer.” His expression turned wistful. “That's what my dad used to say, anyway.”

Dahlia looked over at him. “Ben told me about him,” she said. “I'm sorry,”

“Yeah, me too.” He turned to Dahlia. “You would have liked my dad. He was like you. He could grow anything. I swear he could pick up an old peach pit off the ground and we'd have big, fat peaches growing in our yard the next summer.”

“God, I'm not
that
good,” she said.

“You must be,” he said, nodding toward the house. “Your mom showed me your roses in the kitchen. She said you practically brought them back from the dead. They're beautiful.”

She shrugged. “It's not that hard.”

“Says you. I'm sure that took a heck of a lot of patience.”

Dahlia chuckled.

“What's so funny?” he said.

“Just that if you knew me, you'd know the one thing I don't have is patience.”

“I'd like to know you,” he said firmly, reaching for her hand. “I'd like to see you again.”

Dahlia let him capture her fingers in his. “If you want to.”

She felt her skin flush hot, her moment of steely indifference as fleeting as a hiccup.

“Yes,” she said, then one more time, suddenly afraid he might not understand how much she wanted it, “Yes.”

 

Upstairs, Matthew rolled around on his mattress, wishing the wind would stir again so that he couldn't hear Dahlia's and Jack's voices floating through his window. When he heard the door creak open, he assumed it was Ben coming in to say good night, but when he squinted into the sliver of light and saw Josie's silhouette there, the hall light ballooning out the skirt of her nightgown, he sat up, confused. She came toward him without a word, and when she stepped into the light of his window, there was just enough reflection to reveal her cautious expression.