“Every time I think I’m done cried out, it comes at me all again,” said Cokie. “No one ever showed me respect like Willie, ’cept you and my momma. And it scares me, Jo. Willie was stronger than a tin roof, and if she go that easily, what’s that mean for the rest of us? I can’t put my head around it. One day she here, and we’re worried about Mr. Charlie cuttin’ himself with scissors, some rich man from Tennessee dyin’ in the Quarter, worried ’bout your momma and that no-good Cincinnati. Next it’s all done. Gone quiet. What we all gonna do without Willie? Never gonna be the same.” Cokie reached up and wiped his eyes. “Call this place ‘The Big Easy,’ shoot, ain’t nothin’ easy about it.”
The funeral turnout was enormous. Bankers sat next to bootleggers. Cops conversed with prostitutes. Frankie, Cornbread, Sal, Elmo, Randolph, and Sonny all contributed to the patchwork that created the quilt of Willie’s funeral. Walter Sutherland wore an ill-fitting gabardine suit covered in dandruff. Evangeline wore her hair in two braids with big black bows and an inappropriately short skirt. Jesse watched me from across the room, smiling whenever our eyes met. I had never seen him in a suit. He looked gorgeous.
Willie wanted to be cremated, but Dora insisted she first be laid out in a black coffin lined with red satin, to match Mariah. The funeral director assured us it was the Cadillac of coffins. Dora, and her bazooms, convinced him to rent it to us for the day. The sprays of flowers were enormous, including one from Carlos Marcello. Sweety sang an a cappella version of “Amazing Grace” that broke us all to pieces. Cokie wept openly and without shame, displaying the same love and respect that Willie had always shown him.
The funeral director read some sterile passages that didn’t resonate to Willie. He called her Miss Woodley, which made everyone bristle. Cokie started shaking his head.
“Stop.” Dora stood up and marched to the front of the funeral parlor in her forest green dress, matching glove hoisted in the air.
“Y’all, the Lord has put something on my heart, and I have to speak. First, I once stole twenty dollars from Willie and hid it in my toilet. There, I sinned against Willie that one time, and I had to cleanse myself of that. Now, Willie would not have the readin’ of these depressin’ psalms or passages. There was no ‘Miss Woodley.’ There was Willie. Willie was about life, and she grabbed it by the balls. Y’all know that. She loved a stiff drink, a stiff hundred, and she loved her business. And she didn’t judge nobody. She loved everyone equal—accountants, queers, musicians, she welcomed us all, said we were all idiots just the same.”
Everyone laughed. But Dora started to cry. Tears ran down her face. “She was a good woman, and so many of us will be just lost without her. Please don’t let her be put to rest in some quiet, boring way. That wasn’t Willie. Cornbread, get up here and tell about the time Willie drove over your leg. Elmo, tell how Willie would test the mattresses to know if they were good enough for the game. Come on, y’all, please.”
The tension in the room cracked. People stood up and told stories about Willie, about her generosity, warm heart, and cold exterior. I had so much to say but couldn’t do it. Finally Sadie stood up. She looked around the room and quietly placed both hands on her heart.
I lost all composure. The woman who had never spoken a word in her life said more than any of us could.
Galatoire’s buzzed like it was New Year’s Eve. A large framed picture of Willie stood on a stand in the back of the restaurant. It was so noisy, so crowded, and I was so tired. Patrick had sent a telegram. His condolences left me hollow and sad. Evangeline walked through the crowd sucking a Shirley Temple through a straw. She stopped in front of me.
“So, would you ever do it?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I can’t follow in my mother’s footsteps.”
“Not turning tricks. I mean would you ever take over for Willie? Be our madam.”
I looked at Evangeline. She had to be joking. “What? No, I could never. I’m nothing like Willie.”
She snorted in disgust. “You’re a lot like Willie. She’d want you to take her place.” Evangeline stared me down. “She loved you best, you know.” She returned her lips to the straw and sauntered off in the direction of Dora’s laughter, a piece of toilet paper trailing from her heel.
“Hey, Motor City.”
I turned around. “Hi, Jesse. Have you been here the whole time?” I asked.
“Nah, I just came to see if you needed rescuing.” He smiled. His white dress shirt was untucked at the waist. His cuffed denims and boots had replaced his funeral wear.
“It’s been a long couple of days,” I said.
“C’mon, let’s get out of here.”
FIFTY-SEVEN
We walked, silent. I was relieved to escape the din of the restaurant. Jesse handed me a stick of chewing gum. I gratefully accepted.
He stopped. “Hey, can I show you something?”
“Sure.”
“Close your eyes. Keep ’em closed.”
I stood with my eyes closed on the sidewalk. The sound of a door creaked and then Jesse took me by the hand.
“Now, don’t open your eyes until I tell you to. Keep ’em closed.” We walked a bit, and I tried not to stumble. We finally stopped, and I heard a clicking noise.
“Okay, open them.”
In front of me was the most beautiful car I had ever seen. It was a deep pomegranate, like Willie’s nails, with a finish so shiny I could see myself in it.
“Jesse, it’s incredible.”
“Do you like it?”
“I love it. It’s so beautiful.”
He ran around to the passenger side and opened the door. “Hop in.”
The tan leather interior was smooth and flawless. Jesse got in behind the wheel.
“It took a long time, but she’s almost ready to drive.” He looked over at me, half of his mouth pulled up in a smile. “I’m taking you out, you know.”
“You are?”
“Yeah, on a date. Once it’s finished and running.”
“Who cares if it’s running? We can be like Ray and Frieda and pretend we’re driving.” I leaned back in the seat. “Where are we going on our date?”
“To Swindell Hollow,” he replied without hesitation.
“Where’s that?”
“It’s where I’m from, in Alabama.”
So we drove to Swindell Hollow. The quiet was blissful, Jesse quiet. I laid my head back and closed my eyes. I imagined the two-lane highway rolling under the tires and the breeze sliding in through the open window, lifting the ends of my hair. I felt New Orleans pass behind us, the gray net lifting, the sky becoming lighter, the trees greener.
“I owe you an apology,” I finally said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I started in about the debt to Carlos Marcello. Jesse took his hands off the wheel and turned to me. “I kinda know all about it,” he said. “Willie told me when I worked on her car. She was waiting for you to come to her. But you didn’t.”
“So you know all about it. I feel silly,” I said.
“Don’t feel silly. Just tell me something I don’t know.”
“Hmm, let’s see. Did you know that the day I saw you with your friends, I was on my way to earn fifteen hundred dollars from that sleaze John Lockwell? Well, I chickened out, threw my shoes at him, and pulled a gun on him instead.”
“I didn’t like those shoes,” said Jesse.
“Oh, and did you know that I met that Memphis tourist the day he died in the Quarter? He came into the bookshop and bought two books. He was so kind and nice I created him as my make-believe hero dad. Did you know that?”
Jesse shook his head.
“What else . . . oh, and then I found his wristwatch under my mom’s bed and for some strange reason became completely attached to it. The night you saw me at the river, I wasn’t there to meet Patrick. I was going to throw the watch in and sink it. But then I couldn’t and broke down and cried. So I buried it out at Shady Grove, even though the police were looking for it.”
I peeked at Jesse, expecting disgust or shock. He just nodded.
“Next, I bet you didn’t know that I got a big fat rejection letter from Smith. And instead of inviting me to be a student, they attached a letter from some spinster writer who’s asking me to come clean her house in Northampton.”
Jesse perked up.
“That’s humiliating, but not as humiliating as my new friend Charlotte finding out from her cousin here in New Orleans that she’s invited the daughter of a prostitute to her summer home in the Berkshires.”
I took a breath and looked at Jesse. “God, that felt so good.”
He slid over toward me.
“Yeah? You likin’ Alabama so far?”
“Loving Alabama.” Thousands of pounds lifted from my shoulders and flew out the window of Jesse’s car.