“The world is an interesting and dangerous place, Mr. Jefferson. Ghosts and Diviners. People claiming to see a man in a tall hat. Threats from within and without. Security is the cornerstone of our freedom. And we’re entrusted with ensuring that security.”
“From sea to shining sea, Mr. Adams.” The driver started the car. “Is she the real McCoy?”
“Difficult to say,” the passenger said, opening a bag of pistachios. “I suppose we’ll have to arrange a small test.”
Henry sat in his chair waiting for the clock to strike three and thought about the first time he’d laid eyes on Louis Rene Bernard.
It was May 1924. Henry was fifteen and home from his boarding school in New Hampshire. He’d suffered a bout of measles that had frightened everyone, and so his parents had allowed him to spend the summer at home to regain his strength. Henry’s father had business that kept him in Atlanta for weeks at a time. His fragile mother spent her days in the family cemetery, offering private prayers to stone saints with painted faces made porous by the relentless New Orleans humidity. For the first time in his life, Henry was free to do as he wished.
He decided to take a day trip on one of the excursion riverboats that churned up and down the muddy Mississippi from New Orleans to St. Paul. Most people came to dance. Henry came to listen. Some of the best bands in New Orleans honed their chops on board the boats; it was a floating master class in Dixieland jazz.
The band aboard the SS Elysian was terrific—nearly as good as Fate Marable’s. The sweet swoop of a clarinet rose and fell against the suggestive allure of a trumpet while sparkly-eyed passengers bounced shoulder to shoulder on the boat’s enormous dance floor under ceiling fans that did little to battle the Delta heat or the mosquitoes. But it was the fiddle player who captured Henry’s attention. He’d never seen a boy so beautiful in his life: He had thick, nearly black hair swept back from a face marked by strong brows, dark brown eyes, and a square jaw. When he smiled, his eyes crinkled into crescents; his eyeteeth were slightly longer than his front teeth, and crooked. And he had a name like a stride piano roll—Louis Rene Bernard. By the end of the third song, Henry was utterly smitten.
Louis had apparently noticed Henry, too. When the Elysian docked in New Orleans for the evening, Louis ran after Henry as he disembarked.
“’Scuse me. I believe you may’ve lost your hat?” Louis said, pointing to the straw boater perched atop his head.
“I’m afraid that isn’t mine,” Henry said.
“Well, it surely can’t be mine. Looks terrible on me.”
“Oh, no! I can’t agree. It’s very…” Too late, Henry realized that Louis was right; the hat was far too small on him. He searched for a word to save the moment. “Boaty.”
Louis laughed, and Henry thought that laugh might be the best sound he’d ever heard, better even than the jazz.
“You like beignets?” Louis asked shyly.
“Who doesn’t like beignets?”
They went to Cafe Du Monde, where they chased the sugared, fried dough of the beignets with cups of strong chicory coffee. Afterward, they strolled along the riverbank, listening to the gulls and the call-and-response of distant ships. They stood beside each other for some time, waiting until the others had drifted off and they were alone, and then, after several exchanges of sheepish glances, Louis leaned over and kissed Henry softly on the lips. It wasn’t Henry’s first kiss; that honor had gone to Sinclair Maddington, a school chum back at Phillips Exeter. Their kissing had been awkward and fumbling and a little desperate. It was followed by weeks of mutual avoidance forged by shared shame. There was no shame in Louis’s kiss, though; just a sweetness that made Henry’s stomach fluttery and his head as buzzy as champagne. He never wanted to stop.
Louis placed the boater on Henry’s head. “Suits you better.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. That, my friend, is gon’ be your lucky hat.”
After that, Henry was never without it.
“What is that thing on your head?” Flossie, the cook, asked as Henry swept through the kitchen on his way out, the boater cocked at a rakish angle.
“My lucky hat,” Henry said.
Lair of Dreams
Libba Bray's books
- A Spool of Blue Thread
- It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War
- Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen
- The Light of the World: A Memoir
- The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall
- The House of Shattered Wings
- The Nature of the Beast: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel
- The Secrets of Lake Road
- Trouble is a Friend of Mine
- The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen
- Dance of the Bones
- The House of the Stone