“I didn’t say nothing. I swear I didn’t.”
“I didn’t need a little bird to tell me. You think I don’t know when a gal is in love?” Her daddy let out a bellow of a laugh.
Evelyn could feel her face heating on the inside. Renard had told her on one of their dates that he had never seen a Negro woman blush before. Then she had blushed again and smiled.
Now, Daddy got up from where he was seated, shuffled to the parlor and out the door, and Brother followed him. Before Brother left the room, he turned back, “Do that mean no more sandwiches?”
Now that Daddy knew about Renard, Evelyn let him walk her all the way to her porch before he kissed her hand each evening. Renard had settled matters between Ruby and Andrew, and since then, Andrew would walk Ruby to the porch too, only later, and Ruby would allow him more than a kiss on the hand. Ruby had tried to discuss the details with Evelyn, but Evelyn had yawned one night just a few moments in, and Ruby took the hint and began whispering with Mother instead. Evelyn heard them sometimes.
“First of all, you’ve got to see his car, a black 1937 Chevrolet. Just sitting inside it would have been plenty to me, but then he took me up to his house and introduced me to all his family, and friends too, called me his lady out there in front of everyone. Then we drove around, you know; finally we parked somewhere and just talked. I would have stayed out there all night, but it was his idea to come on back. He said he didn’t want to leave a bad taste in my daddy’s mouth. And look at this—” Evelyn didn’t need to be present to know Ruby was referencing the silver-toned rhinestone brooch she’d seen on her sister’s lapel that morning.
“Be careful,” her mother would interrupt. “You’re old enough to know what can happen when you’re not.”
“Oh, it’s not all that serious, Mother,” Ruby would giggle, and after a few seconds Evelyn would hear her mother giggling too.
Daddy sulked around the house, only partly feigning sadness.
“Both of my girls are leaving me,” he’d pout. But one night after a dinner of smothered pork chops and rice, after he set his toothpick down on the rim of his plate, he said it was time for him to meet these boys—no, men, he corrected—these men who’d zeroed in on his daughters’ hands.
Evelyn couldn’t wait to tell Renard the news the next day. It was Mardi Gras, and though Evelyn would normally be dashing between the St. Bernard Market for seafood for the good gumbo or finishing last-minute hems on the ball gowns, she had never enjoyed those rituals. Renard agreed that there was too much made of the festivities each year, so they decided to attend just Zulu, the highlight of the season. Evelyn woke up early to help her mother fry calas, then after she had eaten a few fritters, she joined Renard and the thousands of others crowding the streets at the head of the New Basin Canal. Once the three floats had passed, the black-faced riders had tossed out all their coconuts, and the bands of music had faded, Evelyn and Renard headed back to Dufon’s and shared an oyster loaf between them. As they ate, she told him about her daddy’s offer to meet him. She thought he’d be as relieved as she was, but he only picked at his portion of the sandwich. Eventually he tried to smile, but it came out more like a grimace.
“Andrew will be there too,” Evelyn added.
“I know,” he said, not looking up.
“Isn’t that better? You’ll have less to worry about with your old friend there.”
“Sure,” he said, and he started to say something else, but he stopped himself. “You’re right,” he said, “it will be great. I’ve been wanting to meet your parents. It had to happen sooner or later.”
She tried to console him. “They’ll love you,” she said, “especially my mother. I think she thought I would stay in the house forever. And my daddy loves the idea of having a doctor for a son-in-law, and you should see how he’s been grinning. He’s sad his little girls are all grown up, but he’s proud too, I can tell.”
Renard smiled a little wider, but it was still forced.
Later, after he dropped her off, his mood began to affect hers. She thought about all the ways Ruby or her mother might ruin her night. Her sister would probably monopolize conversation, steer it toward Andrew and his glory so Daddy might think she’d gotten the better catch. Or Ruby might goad Renard into saying something improper to her. That had never happened, and Evelyn couldn’t imagine Renard actually giving in to Ruby’s taunts, but in the light of Evelyn’s dismal talk with Renard it seemed likely. Evelyn’s mother had been saying she was excited, and she’d even taken Evelyn aside one night after dinner to tell her she was proud of her for becoming a lady, but who knew what she’d say when she actually saw Renard, when she was actually in the presence of another man who adored her daughter as much as Daddy did? Mother wasn’t a devil; she wanted to be happy for her child, Evelyn knew that, but something about the moments in which Evelyn commanded love turned Josephine against her firstborn every time.
The morning of the dinner, Evelyn and Renard agreed to meet at the Sweet Tooth. Renard was waiting for her as she walked up, pacing.
“What’s wrong, baby?” she asked when she reached him.
He pulled her to him. “I don’t think I have it in me to meet your father today,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Evelyn stroked his back the way she’d seen her mother rub her daddy’s, up and down, up and down, then in a full circle.
“I’m not like Andrew and the other boys. Andrew could hold a conversation with President Roosevelt if he needed to. I ain’t had to talk to nobody but my sisters for most of my life. What yo daddy gon’ think of me?” He looked down at his shoes and motioned toward them. “I tried to polish ’em today, but wasn’t no use. Only so much you can shine shit.”
Evelyn had never heard him speak in anything but the King’s English, and she had to stop herself from portraying her alarm. “Don’t say that, baby,” she said, still rubbing his back, and she said it again when she could think of nothing else to follow it. “It will be a privilege for my daddy to meet someone like you.” She thought to slacken her tongue to even them out a little. “At the end of the day, ain’t we all just Negroes?”
“But he did something with hisself. He live over there in that fancy house. And he got him a nice high yellow wife. That’s something.” He held his head up suddenly from where it had been dangling. “That’s something.”
“And you’re going do the same thing, baby.”
“If you’ll have me.” He seemed to be calming.
“I wouldn’t have anybody else.” They kissed there for the first time. He pulled her closer to him, and she felt him stretching toward her beneath his pants, needing her. She had a primal urge to take him to the alley behind one of the stores and pull him inside her. She didn’t know what it all entailed, but she would figure it out. Instead they started walking. They didn’t say a word; still, she seemed to feel better with each step as if the anticipation of the night was wafting off of her as she moved. She felt Renard relax too. Before she knew it they had reached the end of Esplanade Avenue and were staring up at the broad magnolia trees of City Park. Evelyn was hot as a layer of hell from the walk, and the large trees beyond the park entrance taunted her with their shade. Of course she didn’t dare go in. She wiped the perspiration from her forehead with a handkerchief and caught her breath.
“One day we’ll be able to walk in there,” Renard whispered. “Sit under the magnolias, climb up the steps of the museum.” He pointed to the end of the park where tall columns marked the entrance to the Delgado Museum of Art.
“Of course,” she said, to assuage him. She didn’t know whether that day would come in her lifetime, nor was she so eager to pass into territory people blocked her from. Her life was all right.
But Renard stepped forward. She held his hand beside her, parked where she stood, but he kept walking, gazed in at the winding paths and sparkling