Page 24 of Home Again

Her shoulders fell. “Well, okay then.”

“You didn’t tell me; how did you like NYU?”

“Cut the hooey, Sebastian. We’re not on a date. I want to hear what you found out about Etta Rose.”

Sebastian turned over the ham slices, then nodded at the loaf of bread next to the other pan on the stove. She went over to it and turned on the heat, then turned to him and crossed her arms over her chest. “So?”

“Gotta give a little before I’m willing to share,” he said as he went back to the table for his cup of coffee. “I still don’t know what Lazar has to do with you.”

Gianna dipped two pieces of bread in the batter and put them into the skillet. “My mom was once an escort for Etta Rose, and Lazar was one of Etta Rose’s biggest clients. I want to find out if he knew my mom.” She waited to see how he would take that.

“I know a little bit about your background, Baby. From what I found out about Etta Rose, it doesn’t sound like your mom was the type to be one of her girls,” he said gently.

“Then you only got part of the story.” Gianna flipped over the slices of toast and soaked another one in batter. “Shelby Fayette, my mom, got an academic scholarship to Loyola, but she still needed to work to afford housing, and her parents were sending money from home. I found her old roommate and she talked to me last year.” Gianna plated the first pieces of toast.

“What did the roommate say?” Sebastian asked.

“It took a lot for her to finally talk to me. I had to show her the police report that had been filed when they found me before she would say anything. She’d tried to talk Mom out of going to work for Etta Rose, but she knew her parents couldn’t afford much. Not a lot was said around the campus, but the few girls who had worked or were working for Etta were doing well for themselves, and it had never leaked out, so mom went for it.”

Sebastian set the table, grabbed orange juice while Gianna finished plating the French toast and ham. They sat down at the table.

“What else did you find out?” he asked after they started to eat.

“According to Mom’s roommate, everything was fine. She was paying all of her bills and even had money in savings, but then she took a couple of long weekends to Baton Rouge. Mom had even suggested that she should go as well because there would be really good money to be made, but Lori wasn’t having it. After the Baton Rouge trips, Mom started to act squirrely. Two months later she didn’t come home after one of the weekends. Lori filed a missing persons report, but never said anything about Etta Rose. She didn’t want any of the other girls at Loyola to get into trouble. My grandparents were beside themselves. They thought she was dead. Lori told me that a year after she disappeared she showed up on Lori’s door, thirty pounds lighter, beat to shit, strung out, and begging for money. She brought her inside to get her something to eat, then when she went to the kitchen she came back and mom had stolen her purse and was gone.”

Gianna’s eyes were burning. She couldn’t bring herself to eat a bite of food.

“Jesus, Gianna, I’m so sorry.”

She nodded, not looking up. “So I take it you didn’t find all of that out?” she murmured.

“Gideon found the police report and the C.P.S. report. I know that six years after Shelby’s disappearance from Loyola she was found in a crack house with her pimp, Jerrold Prentiss, and you. I know that by the grace of God she told C.P.S. about her folks in Kentucky and they came and got you, and that they tried to take her home too, but by the time they went back to the crack house, neither Shelby nor Jerrold could be found.”

Still staring down at her full plate, Gianna nodded.

Sebastian pulled her hand off her lap and brought it to the table so he could twine his fingers with hers. “You need to eat.”

“I thought you wanted to know how I was connected to Lazar.”

“You told me. He was a client of Etta Rose, and your mom worked for Etta. That’s enough for now.” He tipped his head down to her plate. “Eat.”