Page 40 of The Big Easy & Other Lies
“You’re not even trying. Hang on,” she said. “Mom? I have to go cover a student performance in the Quarter for the paper. You need me for anything?” She was silent for a moment and then got back on the phone. “I can go with you if we bring Bran or some other big, strong boy.”
“This is crazy,” I said, but excitement bubbled in my stomach, and I didn’t feel the knot of anxiety that sometimes filled my chest. Could I even call myself a teenager if I didn’t sneak out of my house at least once to do something stupid for a boy?
“You have enough crazy in your life,” she said. “This isfun. I’ll honk for you at seven-thirty.”
I hung up and typed a text to Rhett to tell him I was coming but deleted it halfway through. Maybe I still wanted an out. Instead, I walked to my closet and stared at it, stumped. I had an hour. Too bad I was way better at dressing other people.
I shoved aside T-shirts (too casual) and a couple of dresses (trying too hard) and then reached for a vintage dress I had found at a thrift store. It was green with Swiss polka dots and a Peter Pan collar. After cinching it with a skinny belt and pulling on yellow ballet flats, I checked the mirror. It reflected a too-skinny girl with a distinct Audrey Hepburn vibe. I shrugged. It worked.
When I heard Livvie’s horn, I fled down the stairs to hop in Jelly Bean before I could change my mind.
* * *
Daddy T’s looked like a dump from the outside. Most of the best New Orleans places did, maybe to scare away casual tourists looking for the Disney version of Bourbon Street. It doesn’t exist. Bourbon Street is gritty and always smells like pee and stale cigars. It’s littered with fliers for gentlemen’s clubs and private strippers. Corner shops sell daiquiris in to-go cups like they’re Slurpees. And people regularly wander the streets acting a fool, as Miss Nedra reminded us when she followed Bran out to the car to put the fear of God into all of us.
“Your mama really knows the owner of this place?” she demanded of Livvie who nodded. “I don’t like it. Don’t you be getting in this habit on school nights just because y’all are seniors and think you’re too old for curfew. And don’t you let the girls out of your sight, Branford.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and dropped a patient kiss on her cheek before Livvie and I called a polite, “Bye, Miss Nedra.”
The truth is, the Quarter isn’t that scary. It’s full of people who get a little too drunk and sometimes don’t remember their boundaries, but those people are easy to spot and avoid. A Thursday night in the Quarter is only busy for bars showing NFL games. The streets were fairly quiet tonight, the party crowds resting up for the weekend. Despite all its naughtiness, New Orleans natives treat the Quarter like that one uncle in every family who cracks inappropriate jokes at the Thanksgiving table but is otherwise harmless. You embrace it, shake your head from time to time, and move on.
Daddy T’s stood around the corner from Bourbon on Royal Street. A chalkboard on one side of the door advertised a crawfish etouffee special, and on the other, a sign announced the evening’s entertainment. Someone named Hawk Lee was opening for a group called Minor Triad. There was no Rhett on the poster. I’d assumed all along that we were coming to hear him play. What was going on?
“Where’s Rhett’s name?” Bran asked. “Are you sure he meant tonight?”
Livvie grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the door. “We aren’t going to figure anything out by staring.”
No one checked our ID because we weren’t buying alcohol. Even if Bran and Livvie had wanted to flash their fake ones, they wouldn’t out of respect to me. I was funny about the whole underage drinking thing. Came with having a dead dad who had killed himself that way.
Inside, a hostess led us to a table near the stage and took our orders for Coke and beignets. We were five minutes early for whatever was supposed to happen at eight o’clock. Bran and Livvie bickered over something, maybe his insults to her new true love, Trent Kelly. I sat there trying not to look nervous.
The dim light revealed some middle-aged adults and a couple of college-aged kids, but no one else from school. No Angelique, no anybody. The waitress deposited a tray of hot beignets on the table. I automatically reached for one but then left it on my plate, untouched.
“Let me help you out there,” Bran said, snatching up my beignet and downing it in two bites.
Livvie made a mildly disgusted noise and took a couple of impatient swipes at his face with her napkin. “You have powdered sugar everywhere, Bran. You’re like a little kid.”
He scowled while she dabbed at him. I watched without really seeing. A few minutes after eight, a well-dressed white man came out and stood in front of the mic. “Welcome to Daddy-T’s,” he said, and polite applause greeted him. He waved at Livvie.
“That’s Mr. Jerry,” she whispered.
“We have a special treat tonight,” he continued. “A new young artist from Chicago, Hawk Lee, will debut some original songs and then our house band, Minor Triad, will take the stage for some free-flowing jazz. Enjoy.”
A young artist from Chicago? Rhett Hawker. Hawk Lee?
More polite applause sounded when Rhett walked on stage dressed in dark jeans and a deep blue Western cut shirt open over a white tank top. He’d styled his hair differently, his bangs rising in short spikes. He headed straight to the piano without looking at the audience, and when he reached up to adjust the microphone, I noticed a tremor in his hands. He dropped them to the keyboard and the chords of a blues tune, a genre familiar to every Louisianian, flowed from his fingers.
Like most blues, it was a simple song about a love gone bad. It showed off his vocals. The scratchy undertone in his speaking voice sounded cool and raspy as he sang. It sounded...sexy.
The applause was more enthusiastic now. He kept plinking at the keys, but he looked up to acknowledge the audience, and his eyes swept across the room. They locked with mine when he spotted us. A smile flashed over his face, one that seemed tinged with relief, and he looked down at the piano and picked up the tempo. Fast-paced jazz poured out, so intricate it made me dizzy to listen, and I could see heads nodding in time to the beat. He didn’t sing, all his attention on his hands as they flew, teasing out notes in lightning quick succession.
That song ended to louder applause and one whoop from an impressed listener. Rhett’s smile flashed again, and he launched into his next selection, a haunting song that made me ache. His voice wrapped around words about the loss of home and the uncertainty of change.
“That has to be about coming to New Orleans,” Bran leaned forward to murmur, careful not to disrupt Rhett’s performance. “Take notes, girl. I bet you’ll get a crash course in Rhett 101 before this is all done.”
Livvie shushed him and we sat quietly, listening to the sad song. The loudest applause yet exploded when he finished despite the melancholy spell he wove, and for the first time he addressed the audience. “Thank you. These are some original compositions I’ve been working on for a couple of years. I’ve always had this dream of playing in a New Orleans club, so thanks for making it great.” This was met with more hoots and clapping. “I’m only supposed to do four songs—”
Boos and cries of “More!” interrupted him. I smiled. That had to make him feel good.
