Page 65 of Meet Me in the Garden

“What is it?”

“I’ve been trying to place you,” Elise says. “At first I thought Italian or Spanish, but no.”

Twist in my stomach. Suddenly hot. I push my sleeves up and she grabs my forearm. There’s a streak of blue paint on it from last night; it didn’t come off when I scrubbed.

“You’re an artist,” she says.

“Oh. Yes.” I can’t keep up with these turns of conversation. “You have a very busy mind.”

“Let’s pay the check. You’ll take me to see your work, won’t you?”

“Sure. Sometime.”

“I’d prefer now,” Elise says. “Unless… you know. Your children need something?”

“My children are away in New Orleans, visiting their grandparents.”

“New Orleans,” she says. “I wondered about the accent.”

“I wondered about your husband’s.”

“He’s from Norway but he’s lived here since he was a teenager. So I’ll follow you in my car?”

“All right,” I say. “But it’s a drive. I live over in Willowbrook.”

“Willowbrook,” she says. She studies me. “New Orleans. You’re colored?”

“Creole,” I say. “Yes.”

Maybe this is why my sisters cling to Les Dames Amis. So they can make friends without the moments of disclosure, the seconds that follow, waiting to see what the response will be. Elise spares me, says right away, “I ate in Little New Orleans a few months ago. A place on Jefferson called the Zydeco. Divine. Okay, I’ll follow you. Try not to lose me at a red light. I’ll go through them if I need to, but I’ve already wrecked one car that way. A little Austin-Healey, earlier this year. Only had it for a month. Such a waste.”

“I’ll stop at the yellow lights, I promise.”

It’s a long drive, with Elise behind me in a dark-blue convertible, the top down, her hair tied in a scarf, huge sunglasses obscuring half her face. What am I doing, having her over? Did I ever fully agree to it? But then we’re parking out front and we’re walking down the steps and inside.

“The décor is fantastic,” she says. “Did you do it yourself?”

“Thank you. Yes.”

“You certainly have an eye. And this is your family?” she asks of a framed photograph on the wall. I nod. It was taken in the backyard, before I moved out of Adele’s house. “They’re stunning,” she says. I can tell she means it, but she doesn’t ask me anything else about them and that’s fine. She looks around. “Mind if I clear a space on this counter? The best light is right here.”

“I’ll do it,” I say. I pick up some dishes and set them in the sink while she takes a rag and wipes off the counter, making sure the surface is clean and dry. I’m flattered that she’d take such care of these drawings and paintings I’ve made. I open the kitchen cabinet and take my box off the shelf. She watches me, amused.

“An interesting spot to keep your work.”

“Well,” I say. “You can see there aren’t many options.”

“I like a small house,” she says, but she says it in a way that implies she’s not been in many. She wears stacks of rings on several of her fingers. One has a large, circular stone, black and blue-green; it looks like a planet. The jewels catch the light as she lifts the lid of my box and sorts through.

She’s quiet for a long time and then she glances at me. “You’reverygood,” she says. “But you must know that. All your paintings are on paper?”

“So far.”

“You should try canvases.”

I lean against the doorway and shrug, though my heart beats fast and hard as she picks the papers up, lays them on the counter. Each piece an intimacy revealed. She scrutinizes, assesses, looks closer, steps back and in again. I expect her to critique my work like the Kandinskys in the magazine at Pickwick’s on the night we met, fear she won’t be able to help herself. She turns to me when she’s finished. “What a rare treat,” she says. “A true talent. It’s always terribly awkward when the work’s no good.”

I laugh. “I’m glad to have been a relief, then.” I remember my manners and offer her a drink. We sit on the patio.