Page 44 of The Big Easy & Other Lies
I wanted color.
* * *
“Rhett!” I called, hurrying to catch up as he strode toward the auditorium. “Rhett!”
He stopped and waited. “Hi,” he said, when I reached him. It was not a particularly warm hi.
“Hey,” I said, then paused to catch my breath while I decided what to say next. I hadn’t planned this far. I sort of thought it would come to me when I saw him.
He waited a moment, and when I still said nothing, he frowned and moved toward the theater doors again.
“Wait.”
He waited.
“I...” That was it. That was all that came out. “I.”
He stared.
“I wanted to say that, um...” And I stopped again. No other words even came into my brain.
His forehead furrowed. “Um back at you.”
The warning bell rang. I struggled through the brain paralysis. “I wanted to say that you did a great job last night. I had a great time listening to you. I wasn’t sure that came across.”
“It didn’t,” he said. “You took off like you couldn’t wait to leave.”
“It wasn’t that.” I looked down at my bag and fiddled with the zipper on the outside pocket. “I had to get home. Things there are kinda complicated. I swear it was nothing personal.”
By now, we’d reached the doors, and he held one open for me. “Okay,” he said. “I understand complicated home life.” We walked through the foyer, but he stopped before the doors into the auditorium itself. “But what was that at lunch today?”
“I have issues?” I offered hopefully.
“Yes, you do,” he said, but I saw a small smile playing around his lips. He held the next door for me.
“I thought all Northerners were mannerless heathens,” I said as I slipped past him.
“You keep forgetting my mother grew up down here. She’d kill me if she ever caught me not opening a door for a girl.”
The final bell rang, and we found seats just in time. Mr. Gervis took roll and we shuffled off to our places, me to the design room and Rhett to the stage. I caught the words “Shakespeare” and “soliloquy” and “original interpretation” from Mr. Gervis before the door closed on his directions.
Livvie’s skirt was done. Everything was stitched, hemmed, and pressed. Since we still didn’t have an assignment from Mr. Gervis, I pulled out my sketchbook to examine the first look I had drawn for the Urban Renewal line. I wasn’t an artist the way my mom was. She could capture the essence of her subject in a few simple curves. My sketches were vague, merely suggestions that came to life under my hands once I found the right fabric and started pinning.
The first outfit showed a utility pant with drawstring ankles and a tailored white ruffle-front blouse. Post Katrina New Orleans in a nutshell: something sleek rising from the nuts-and-bolts construction, with the flair of excess that gave the city its character.
Even as I studied the design, my attention strayed to Rhett. Had my apology been enough? After all the mixed signals Livvie said I’d been sending, I knew I’d have to be super direct about wanting things to keep going between us.
Rhett had commented a couple of times on how I wasn’t exactly open about myself. True. I didn’t spew about the crazy in my life. While most of it was Delphine’s crazy, not mine, to other people it would cling to me like a stench. In eighth grade, I’d been judged and convicted for Delphine’s issues.
All Rhett needed to know was that it was complicated. But there were other things I could tell him, like...
I whipped out my cell phone and punched out a message to Bran.Are your parents home tonight?They went out often because his mom was a dean at the Tulane law school, and she had a lot of social commitments that kept them busy.
He texted back almost immediately.No. They’re at a drilling conference. NO JOKES. My dad’s doing a speech.
My plan could work.Witch Mountain?I asked.
A much longer pause passed before he answered.Party at my house?
