Little Gale Gumbo (47 page)

Dahlia's eyes filled. “I'm sorry, Matty. I'm so sorry.”

“I'm the one who's sorry, Dee.”

She blinked at him, sending tears down her cheeks. “For what?”

“For refusing to see things the way they were. For making you feel like shit for not loving me.”

“Don't say that,” she pleaded. “I
did
love you. I'll always love you.”

He smiled, his own tears rising. “I know,” he whispered. He reached for her face, wiped her cheek with his thumb.

He turned to the clock above the counter. “I should go.”

“Let me give you a ride,” Dahlia said, following him to the booth where he'd left his bag. “I can cancel my morning appointment. It's just Ada Monahan, and she still thinks I'm planting magic beans.”

Matthew chuckled, slinging his duffel over his shoulder. “That's okay,” he said. “I want to stop by the hospital before I go to the airport. Square things away with the doctors while I'm gone.”

Dahlia tugged a napkin from the dispenser, dragged it across her wet eyes. “We'll be there for him, Matty,” she said. “Every day.”

“I know you will.” He reached out his hand and Dahlia took it, letting him pull her into his arms, linking her hands around his waist and burying her face against his chest. After a few moments, they pulled apart and he walked to the door and let himself out. Dahlia watched from the window as he traveled down the sidewalk; then she crossed back through the café, headed for the kitchen door.

She found Josie at the stove, stirring a cast-iron pot.

Dahlia came beside her younger sister, taking the spoon from her hand and continuing to stir the warming roux.

Josie glanced over. “Don't burn it.”

Dahlia frowned. “I never burn it.”

“You never make it.”

“You never let me.”

“Because you always burn it.”

They each gave in to a slow grin; then they knocked hips. It was their truce.

Within minutes the roux turned the color of peanut butter. Josie looked over and nodded approvingly. Dahlia pushed the pot off the heat and stole a chunk of green pepper from the pile Josie had been building on the cutting block.

“Matty's coming back,” Josie said.

“I know.” Dahlia grinned. “I told you he would, didn't I?”

“Know-it-all.” Josie poured the holy trinity into the pot and blended the chopped vegetables into the roux, moving the pot back over a low flame. She glanced at her sister as she stirred. “So?”

Dahlia smiled coyly. “So, what?”

“So are you and Jack . . . ?”

“Maybe.” Dahlia shrugged, smiled again. “Yeah.”

Josie sighed. “Oh, blessed be.”

“Hey.” Dahlia's eyes narrowed. “You didn't work some spell, did you?”

“Of course I did,” Josie admitted. “Twenty-four years ago. It's about time it took.”

Dahlia laughed, and Josie joined her. Outside in the café, the jukebox changed songs. The smooth, deep voice of Mahalia Jackson sailed out.

Josie set down her spoon, wiped her hands on her sides. “Daddy came back for the money, didn't he?”

Dahlia turned, startled. “How did you know?”

Josie smiled gently. “The Perez. We drove by the gallery on our way back to the ferry last night and there it was in the window, all lit up.”

Dahlia sighed. “Fuck.” It hadn't even occurred to her that Josie would see it. She'd been so blind to getting the money however she could, as fast as she could.

“We'll buy it back,” Josie said firmly, as if it were no more trouble than returning spoiled milk to the store.

“We can't.”

“Then we'll buy something else. How about a new truck?”

“Joze.” Dahlia gave her sister a worried look. “Why didn't you tell me it was his money?”

“Because I thought you'd hate me for it. And because I knew it would break Momma's heart. She'd sooner let the café go under than take a single penny of his drug money, and I couldn't let that happen. Any more than I could tell him no when he asked me to keep it for him.”

“Did Wayne know?”

Josie nodded. “I didn't think there was any harm in it. I always figured we had time to pay it back before Daddy got out. If he ever did.” She shrugged, reaching for a tub of thawed stock and snapping off the lid. “Over the years, I forgot about it.”

“Charles sure didn't.”

“So how did it start?” Josie asked.

Dahlia sighed. “He called the café that day you had to go to Portland last week.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“Because I didn't want you to worry about it. I didn't want you knowing I knew.”

Josie's eyes filled. “You didn't have to do that. You didn't have to protect me.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

Dahlia smiled, her own eyes swimming too. “Because we're sisters,” she said.

“What about Jack?” Josie asked after a moment. “Did you tell him?”

“Last night.”

Josie frowned nervously. “What did he say?”

Dahlia shrugged. “He said he didn't see any reason to report it. He said the case was closed and nothing would be gained by kicking things up again.”

“Wow.” Josie shook her head. “What do you know, Dahlia Rose? Sounds like he might still love you.”

“God, I hope so.”

Josie turned to face the kitchen, looking around as she wiped her eyes.

“She should be here.”

“She is,” Dahlia said, turning too, sliding her hand into Josie's. “She's everywhere. She's in here; she's out there. She's even in that nasty ol' dust you still insist on putting all over the doorstep every time I turn around.”

Josie laughed, even as her eyes filled again.

“I still miss her so much, Dahl,” she whispered. “Sometimes it's so bad I can hardly breathe. But she knows, doesn't she?”

“Knows what, sweetie?”

“Knows we're finally free.”

“Yeah,” Dahlia said, dropping her head against her sister's shoulder. “She knows.”

It was a strange and wonderful word,
free
. Fleeting and fragile as any word, maybe even more so, but in that moment, standing side by side, humming along to Billie Holiday and drowning in the smell of garlic and thyme, they were sisters again, and the world opened up around them, as winding as a live oak branch, as endless as an island summer sky.

To my agent, Rebecca Gradinger, who championed the story of the Bergeron women and never stopped, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

To my editor, Danielle Perez, for giving
Little Gale Gumbo
a home beyond my dreams; it is an honor to be an NAL author; thank you.

To Svetlana Katz, for being so generous with her time and expertise, my warmest thanks.

To Dr. Eugene Cizek and Lloyd Sensat, gifted teachers and treasured friends, thank you for sharing your boundless knowledge and love of New Orleans—the world is a brighter place because of you both.

While it is virtually impossible to live near the French Quarter and not absorb a good deal of information about Voodoo, I must thank Anna Ross Twichell in particular for her part in helping me to understand the fascinating and often misunderstood culture of Voodoo.

To the city of New Orleans, it was my privilege to call you home once upon a time; to the state of Maine, for welcoming me home when I needed you most.

And to my family, my everything. Home will always be where you are.

A native New Englander who was raised in Maine,
Erika Marks
has worked as an illustrator, an art director, a cake decorator, and a carpenter. She currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her husband, a native New Orleanian, their two daughters, and their dog, Olive. This is her first novel.

CONVERSATION GUIDE

Little Gale Gumbo

 

 

 

 

 

This Conversation Guide is intended to enrich the individual reading experience, as well as encourage us to explore these topics together—because books, and life, are meant for sharing.

FLAVORING A NOVEL:

WRITING

 

Little Gale Gumbo

 

 

Cooking has always been a passion of mine. When I was growing up in Maine, the kitchen was where everyone in the house wanted to be. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that eight months out of the year you embraced any excuse to be in close proximity to a hot stove, but I think it had more to do with my mother's love and talent for cooking than climate. In our house, cooking was a social experience, a reason to gather friends around, and no matter the meal, food was something to be savored.

So it was no wonder when I moved to New Orleans that I fell in love with the city at once. From crawfish boils to king cakes, food in New Orleans is meant to be shared and celebrated. Smoky red beans and rice, creamy shrimp pie, sweet and crispy beignets—there's no end to their culinary treasures or their willingness to make them. When I met my husband there and he made me crawfish étouffée on our first date, I doubted I would ever leave.

But when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, we were forced to do just that. In the years since the storm, while we've lived in other places, my husband and I have made sure to keep the spirit of New Orleans alive in our home through cooking. Making the traditional dishes of his native city has been a wonderful way for us to share that piece of our children's history with them.

It was this challenge of how to preserve a place after moving away that was a great inspiration for writing
Little Gale Gumbo
. I wanted to explore how it would feel for a woman like Camille Bergeron with strong cultural ties having to leave her home and make a new life in an entirely different place. And certainly, when the Bergeron women arrive on the chilly shores of Little Gale Island, they feel sure they've landed on the moon, for all of its contrasts to New Orleans. So, to make herself and her daughters feel more at home, Camille promptly cooks up a traditional New Orleans meal, a gesture that secures Camille's commitment to keeping her ties to New Orleans strong, even though circumstances have forced her to leave.

It is that same desire to share her heritage through her cooking that eventually inspires Camille to open the Little Gale Gumbo Café. Once she does, the town finally embraces her, their earlier suspicions dissolving in heaping bowls of gumbo, proving that food has the power to bridge divides between even the most oppositional of people.

In writing
Little Gale Gumbo
, I was also eager to show how food can incite romantic love, as it does with Camille and Ben. On the surface, they are very different people. She is a gregarious Creole; he is a reserved islander. And while their physical attraction is clear from the first, it is only when they share a kitchen and cook together that their love truly blossoms.

I had envisioned the gumbo lesson scene in Ben's kitchen long before I wrote it. In fact, the actual scene itself didn't find its way into the novel until I was several drafts in, but it was the sentiment of the scene—the idea of building intimacy through cooking—that I knew would be the core of Ben and Camille's love story, as well as the foundation of what ultimately bonds the two families. Camille and her daughters, Dahlia and Josie, are barely moved in before they invite Ben and his son, Matthew, upstairs for dinner, and the experience of the two families sharing a meal cements a tradition that will carry them through the years. By the time they finally open the café, they are a fully blended family who cook and eat together regularly, and it doesn't take long before the islanders see that bond for themselves and can't help but be swept up in their evident joy.