Cokie sat in the parlor, his face buried in his cap. His sobs pulled with a pain so deep and sorrowful it scared me. Sadie knelt at his feet with her hand on his knees. He looked up as I left Willie’s room with Dr. Sully. His body quaked with sadness as he spoke.
“Is she really gone, Jo?”
I nodded. “Do you want to see her?”
“No,” he protested through his tears. “I don’t want to see no dead body. Willie ain’t in there. She put her walkin’ shoes on. She gone to see the Lord.”
“Perhaps we can step into the kitchen,” said Dr. Sully. “There are arrangements that have to be made.”
We gathered in the kitchen, everyone except Evangeline. She wouldn’t speak to anyone or open her door. Dora was inconsolable, wailing facedown on the kitchen table while Sweety rubbed her back.
“Word’s gonna get out,” said Sweety. “I think it’s best we be organized. Willie would want that.”
“Yes, she would,” said Dr. Sully, whose face registered complete shock. “Jo, I assume you have Willie’s papers?”
“Papers? No, she never mentioned anything,” I said.
“Well, I know she has an attorney,” said Dr. Sully. “I’ll check with him. In the meantime, you’d best write a death notice and make funeral arrangements.”
Dora sat up, her makeup from the night prior melted across her wet face. “It has to be somethin’ special. Willie Woodley’s gotta go out in style. She’d want that. If I have to, I’ll turn tricks in the street to pay for it.” She sobbed, pulling tissue after tissue out of her bosom.
“Now, Dora, Willie wouldn’t want you in the street,” reprimanded Cokie.
“Willie always said the Laudumiey funeral home was nice. We should have it there,” said Sweety.
I had to state the obvious. “Willie would not want people coming to the house after the funeral,” I said quietly. Everyone was in agreement.
“Let’s have a party after the funeral, a real swank affair,” said Dora. “The fellas at Galatoire’s loved Willie. And the johns can just say that they’re eating at Galatoire’s. Oh, Willie loved their shrimp rémoulade.” This small remembrance sent Dora back into a fit of sobs.
Dora was right. Willie was involved with so many people. Shopkeepers, restaurant owners, liquor suppliers, musicians, accountants, businessmen, and government officials. There was a vast array of people who would want to pay their respects but couldn’t be openly associated with Willie’s house. An event at a local restaurant would celebrate Willie as a member of the community, not just a brothel madam.
“I can’t tell you what a very sad day this is for me,” said Dr. Sully, his voice breaking up. “I’ve known Willie since we were children. The Quarter won’t be the same without her.” He cleared his throat, trying to shake off the emotion. “It sounds like we’ve got a plan. Josie, you’ll be responsible for coordinating?”
“Me?” I said. “Why me?”
“Oh, sugar, you know it’s what Willie would want,” said Dora. “And y’all, I am officially in mournin’.”
“I’ll help you, Josie girl.” Cokie sniffed. “Best I can, that is.” Sadie nodded. Sweety said she would arrange for Walter Sutherland to pay for the event at Galatoire’s.
• • •
Cokie got a black wreath for the door. Word flew through the Quarter. Sadie stood at the front door, Sweety at the side. Flowers began arriving. Sal brought food from the restaurant.
I sat next to Willie’s bed, looking at her, hands folded across her chest. The room felt hot and airless, darkly thick. We were alone.
It was my fault. I looked at Willie’s empty eyes and knew that my selfishness had made her ill. I had seen her swollen hands and ankles, noticed her fatigue, but I was too busy with my own plans to help her. Or maybe it was a desire to prove her wrong. She always warned me, predicted exactly how things would unfold, but every time life lied to me, I tried to rationalize the situation, hanging off some upside-down promise, like Forrest Hearne.
I told Willie all about Mr. Hearne, how he made me feel, and why I held on to his watch. “So I buried it out at Shady Grove,” I told her. “I know he’s not my father, Willie, but why can’t I dream that he is? Aren’t I good enough to believe that the other half of me is something wonderful, that I could be David Copperfield? If the thought that I’m part of something respectable gives me hope, why can’t I hold on to that? He assumed I was in college, Willie. A fancy, smart man like that assumed I was in college, and you know what? It made me want to live up to the vision he had of me. He gave me hope. The dream is still alive in the watch.”
I wanted her to swear at me, call me an idiot, something. But I didn’t have to command her to speak. I could hear her voice, knew exactly what she would say and how she would say it.
“Yes, Willie, but what sort of cruel twist of fate is it that the man I dream to be my father is killed by my mother? It’s almost Shakespearean.”
The undertaker arrived. He seemed disturbed by my casual conversation with Willie’s corpse.
“I know, Willie. I know.” I turned to the undertaker. “She wants us to put the black kimono on her instead. And fresh lipstick.” Sadie and I made sure everything was in the safe. All valuables were put in Willie’s room, and the door was locked.
“I’m not worried about the others,” I told Sadie. “Just Evangeline. She seems outside herself right now.” Sadie nodded.
I walked down Conti toward Royal, not sure how my feet were even moving. My life was encased in a box and someone had picked it up, shaken it violently, and thrown it back down. Everything was in pieces, displaced, and would never fit back together. I wouldn’t make the early morning walk to Willie’s each day, push through her door with her tray of coffee, explain what I’d discovered in the rooms during my cleaning. We’d never go to Shady Grove together, never shoot cans off the fence or laugh about Ray and Frieda driving from their demons at night. I’d never hear her musky voice, full of tar and gasoline, reprimanding me for being too early or too late. Willie was gone, and the gaping hole left behind was so big I felt sure I would drown in it.
By the time I approached the bookshop, I was sobbing. My face was swollen, awash with tears. The light from the streetlamp glowed, revealing Jesse sitting with his back against the door of the shop, one knee pulled up to his chest. I reached the door. He said nothing, just pulled me down into his lap and wrapped his arms around me.
FIFTY-SIX
Cokie picked me up in his cab for the funeral.
“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 i
t 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.
“Is that all you got?” asked Jesse.
“Nope. Here’s one to add to the humiliation pile. Not only am I the daughter of a prostitute, I’m named after one. Josie Arlington, brothel madam, had a five-dollar house on Basin Street. For an extra fee, she offered some kind of French sex circus. And I’m named after h
er.”
“Ding!” Jesse hit a nonexistent bell in front of us. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a match. The two kids both have hand-me-down names of the ill repute.” Jesse turned to me. “But actually, I win. You’re named after a madam. I’m named after a murderer. So mine’s worse.”
My mouth fell open.
“Yeah, my criminal of a father named me Jesse, after Jesse James. Told me to grow up a good outlaw and live up to my name. I tell ya, I really hope that my father never meets your mother.”
“Have you ever thought of changing your name?”
“Nah, Jesse Thierry is who I am.”
“I want to change mine. Willie said I should change my last name.”
“Last name might be a good idea, but don’t change Josie,” he said.
“No?”
“Nope.” He fiddled with a knob on the dash. “I like the way it feels when I say it.”
The cuff on Jesse’s white dress shirt was open at the wrist. I reached for it and slowly began folding it back. He stared at my hands as they touched his forearm. My fingers didn’t ball into a fist, just trailed lightly up and down his skin. He looked at me. I looked right back.
“Okay,” I said. “Your turn. What don’t I know about Jesse Thierry?”
“What don’t you know?” Jesse slid his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. “Maybe that I really wanna kiss you right now.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
“We don’t have a choice. Willie’s attorney has requested us. He has questions,” I said.
“Well, it makes me nervous,” said Cokie. “I don’t want to go sittin’ with no lawyer rattlin’ ’bout Willie. Willie never liked no one talkin’ ’bout her business, and I ain’t about to start now, even if she gone. So I’m not sayin’ nothin’. We’ll let Sadie do all the talkin’.”
Sadie reached forward from the back of the cab and swatted Cokie across the side of the head. Sadie was nervous too. She and Cokie both had their church clothes on and had been bickering since we got in the cab. I was more than nervous, but not about the attorney. The law office was in the Hibernia Bank Building, one floor below John Lockwell’s office. Just the thought of him brought bile to the back of my throat. I had pushed the meeting with the attorney back two weeks but couldn’t delay it any longer.