From the back of the bus, the trombone player, who was always cracking wise, said, “Finally, someone decided to roll out the red carpet!”
But the bandleader, who sat over the shoulder of the driver, got a better look. “Keep driving!” he shouted. He was a steady man, as good-natured as a favorite uncle, and this was not his first tour of the South. His voice cracked when he spoke, and his eyes were fixed on the tree at the center of the crowd. “You just keep driving! There’s no show tonight!”
As they drove past the turn that would have brought them into town, Hooper watched that fire burn, watched the towheaded children chasing fireflies on the edge of the vast crowd, and strained to see the terrible weight that hung from the tree’s stoutest limb. In the silence that settled over the band, he thought of Lorena; he hadn’t seen her since Easter, when she had taken the solo on “Were You There,” and now as the bus disappeared into the night, he sat alone in the darkness and felt himself tremble, tremble, tremble. When he returned home, he was convinced of two more truths: his next step musically needed to be away from Howard and in a northerly direction, and life was too short to live another day of it without Lorena Briggs.
By the end of September, Hooper and Lorena were boarding the train to New York City as husband and wife. The Reverend and Mrs. Hooper were capable of moving heaven and earth to bend the world to their will, but even they saw—after a solid week of tears, prayers, and threats—that what bound their son and Lorena was unshakable by mortal force. “I’ll give it a year in New York,” Hooper told them, “and if nobody takes notice I can always go back to school.” The lie, if they chose to believe it, was enough to comfort Hooper’s parents that their son was not condemned to a life of barrooms and dance halls. If they wanted to tell themselves that it was all Lorena’s fault—that their son had been led astray by a no-account jazz singer with dreams beyond her reach—well, they knew that was a lie, too. Hooper might never preach a sermon but he could play like Gabriel himself. As for Lorena, they had heard her voice; they knew the truth.
WHEN LORENA FINISHED with the song, the crowd clapped long and loud, and then parted as she made her way to the bar. On the stage she looked like a queen in mourning, but up close she was buoyant, even elfin. Her mouth was outlined in red, her eyes shaded in blue, and her skin glowed like molten metal.
She rested her elbow on Hooper’s shoulder as if he were a street-corner mailbox and turned her attention on the Dempsey brothers. “Which one of you boys is going to buy me a drink?” she said, and then a half beat later—her phrasing always perfect—she burst into laughter and planted a quick kiss on Hooper’s cheek.
WOODLAWN
ROSEMARY HAD SUGGESTED TO Peggy that they get together at the apartment, where she could keep an eye on the girls while she talked some sense into her younger sister, but Peggy had balked.
“No offense,” Peggy had said, “but your apartment is sort of dreary.”
“How am I not supposed to be offended by that?”
“It’s not like it’s a secret,” Peggy said. “Mother says it all the time.”
Instead they settled on Driscoll’s, a lunch spot in Woodlawn where Peggy often met her friends—brides-to-be and newlyweds who lately had taken to sharing strategies for setting up and running a house of your own, free from the interference of mothers, mothers-in-law, or husbands. As much as she felt a sense of duty about setting Peggy straight, Rosemary dreaded the trip into the old neighborhood, just as she dreaded the cost of lunch and what it would do to the budget now that Martin was up to God knows what.
The lunchtime crowd at Driscoll’s was buzzing. Formica tables gleamed, chrome shone beneath the counter stools and on the legs of the chairs. Two sturdy ceiling fans beat futilely against the muggy air, busboys in wilted white shirts hustled pitchers of ice water from table to table to kitchen and back. Peggy, already a minor celebrity by virtue of her last name, had achieved movie-star status. With only three days until the wedding, everyone had a question, a word of congratulations, a piece of advice. Those who would be attending smiled and parted with a “See you Saturday,” the uninvited tried to ignore the brouhaha, and the decline-with-regrets avoided making eye contact. Rosemary asked for a table away from the window, away from the center of the action, which of course made Peggy pout, but this wasn’t going to be a conversation that Rosemary wanted to broadcast along the invisible wires that connected one Woodlawn home to another.
Peggy ordered a Waldorf salad and when Rosemary asked only for an iced tea, Peggy loudly scoffed.
“That’s all you’re having?”
“Iced tea is fine,” Rosemary said.
“It’s my treat, all right?” Peggy looked up at the waitress. “My sister will have a patty melt.”
“I don’t want a patty melt.”
“Then a Reuben? How does that sound? Or a Cobb salad—yes, a Cobb salad.”
Rosemary had meant to eat before she dropped the girls with her down-the-street neighbor Angela Videtti, but Evie had been slow to wake from her morning nap and Kate had refused, at first, to go to the Videttis. She said Maria, the only girl among Angela’s six children, was bossy and would not let her play with her best doll. Rosemary had known that Peggy would raise a stink about her ordering only a tea—Peggy was allergic to anything that smelled of lack, of thrift, of self-denial. But she was hungry and didn’t want to make a scene—not yet, at least—so she relented: a Cobb salad.
“Thanks,” Rosemary said grudgingly, after the waitress left the table.
“Don’t mention it.” Peggy was enjoying herself. The little sister picking up the tab.
“So,” Rosemary said. “Are you still thinking about calling it off?”
Peggy’s smile evaporated. “Maybe. I mean, why shouldn’t I?”
“Don’t you want to marry Tim?”
“Sure I do,” she said. “Just—not now. Not yet.”
“When, then?”
Peggy threw her hands in the air. “I don’t know. Some other time. After the fair, how about? Has anyone stopped to consider that I actually like the Aquacade, and that maybe I don’t want to give that up?”
“I’m supposed to believe you’re calling off your wedding to pursue a life in water ballet?”
“I didn’t say I was going to do it for life, but I like it—a lot!—and going out with Francis made me realize that sometimes you have to—”
“So this is because of Sunday night?”
“It’s not just that.”
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“What happened is that I had a wonderful time. And it’s been ages since I’ve had a wonderful time.”
“Well,” Rosemary said. “You only get so much wonderful.”
“You sound just like Mother. Maybe I don’t want a life like that.”