Ciji Ware (40 page)

“You mean those ugly ones with the woven metal front over on Canal Street?” Althea asked, puzzled. “Well… our family bought
this
building a few years back, thanks to King’s efforts, actually.” Just then Rufus appeared with two cups of steaming café au lait. “Hey, you ever hear Daddy talk ’bout anyone in the family owning buildings over on Canal… way back when?”

“Naw… don’t think so,” Rufus replied, eyeing Corlis curiously.

“By any chance, are you LaCroixs related to a family named Fouché?”

“As in Dylan Fouché?” Rufus replied.

Corlis nodded, her heart quickening.

Rufus looked at his sister. “Didn’t Cousin Keith say we’re all connected somehow? I think Dylan’s a distant cousin, too—though those Fouchés are big-time Catholics. Not exactly the line of business we LaCroixs are in,” he said, grinning widely.

“Keith LaCroix’s our
first
cousin, on Daddy’s side,” Althea explained.

Rufus spoke up. “I get kinda antsy when Keith starts in on all that family relations stuff.” Then his eyes narrowed. “What you wanna know all this for, sugar? Not doing any big exposé, are you?”

“No,” Corlis hastened to assure him. “I’m just looking for descendants of the people who built the Selwyn buildings back around 1840. Grover Jeffries wants to tear them down and build a twenty-eight-story high-rise. King Duvallon and the preservationists oppose the plan. I’m trying to track down the history of the buildings so our viewers can decide if they’re worth saving or not.”

“And you think
black folks
owned those?” Rufus scoffed. “You gotta be crazy! The land’s probably worth millions now. It’s smack in the middle of downtown! No black people own nothin’ on Canal Street
today
!
Ain’t none of us owned that kind of real estate way back
then
,
either. Don’t you Yankees realize that we was slaves before the Civil War, sugar pie?” he added caustically.

“I’m not a Yankee… I’m from California,” she said stiffly. “And Free People of Color
did
put up some of the money and land to build them. I’ve already found records from the late 1830s to prove that.” She turned to Althea. “As a matter of fact, a free woman named Martine Fouché might have been the principal owner of the original property. There’s a possibility she developed it in a partnership with a white man named Julien LaCroix,” she disclosed. “And Martine’s mother’s name was Althea, which is fairly unusual, right?” Althea nodded, her expression kindling with interest. “That’s why I came to talk to you about all this. Is there any way you could introduce me to… Keith, is it? To see if there’s some sort of a blood connection that can be proved between the plantation-owning LaCroixs and the African American LaCroixs and Fouchés?”

“Maybe,” Althea said thoughtfully. “As Rufus told you, Keith’s our first cousin, and he’s a fiend for all this family history stuff. He’s a little older than me. He’s an architect and has an office in the Warehouse District.”

“You’re kidding? I live in the Warehouse District,” Corlis exclaimed.

“Our cousin Keith knows King pretty well, as a matter of fact, ’cause his architecture firm specializes in rehabing old buildings, and King specializes in… well, he specializes in helping people get approved for mortgages.”

“So, Keith, King, and Dylan Fouché all know each other and are involved in historic preservation and restoration together?” The interrelationships were beginning to make sense now, Corlis thought, as well as King’s offstage role of mortgage angel in the city’s Live in a Landmark program.

“Haven’t you figured it out yet, Corlis?” Althea laughed. “In New Orleans, families go back forever. Everybody knows
everybody
,
and most folks round here are related, one way or another.”

“Though lots of folks don’t like admitting it, sure enough,” Rufus added sourly.

“Can I ask you another thing?” Corlis inquired, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. “Do either of you… or maybe Keith… know for sure if your branch of the LaCroixs were… ah… associated with white plantation owners a hundred or so years ago?”

Eldon LaCroix looked up from his music, and the three siblings burst out laughing.

“Associated!” Rufus echoed. “That’s a mighty polite way to put it!”

“
Look
at us!” Althea exclaimed, pointing two fingers at her brothers. “Café au laits!” she said, and all three LaCroixs succumbed to another round of laughter. “Used to be the lighter you were, the better you were, ’cause it proved you were kin to fancy white folks. Nowadays, with Black Pride and everything, the LaCroixs aren’t black
enough
to suit some people!” Corlis stared at her hosts, unsure what to say next. Althea touched Corlis’s hand. “Way, way back, the white LaCroixs owned Reverie Plantation upriver. It’s open to the public now… like a big ol’ museum. If you ever go there, you’ll see a bunch of photographs taken round the time of the Civil War that show some of our great-great-granddaddies working the cane fields.”

“Oh… wow… that’s great!” Corlis enthused, picturing Virgil getting the shots she’d need for the three-part series she was planning. Then she sobered. “How do you know for certain you’re related?”

“ ’Bout the time you’re talking about, and earlier too, those white LaCroix planter gentlemen had their way with some young, pretty African slaves and—” She pointed to her brothers and herself. “Granddaddy told me that’s how we all ended up with the LaCroix name a long time ago. We’ve got the light skin to prove it—but we’re still
black
,
right baby?” She nodded to Rufus and Eldon. “The white LaCroixs all died out.”

“Could you take me to meet Keith… say, later today or tomorrow?” Corlis persisted. “Do you think he’d know what ancestor of yours was the link between the white LaCroixs and the black Fouchés?”

“Hey… girl, you’re real pushy ’bout this stuff, aren’t you?” Rufus said.

“I’m on a deadline,” Corlis said apologetically. “There’s a move to get those buildings torn down really quickly. I’d like to get the facts out about their history before it’s too late.”

“Are you working for King on this?” Althea asked with a knowing smile.

“I’m a working reporter and I’m independent,” Corlis said tersely. “On stories like these, some of our interests might coincide on these issues… and some might be different. I’m just trying to get the facts straight.”

“Those Selwyn buildings are real ugly,” Rufus commented. “And a new high-rise would sure give lots of needy folks round here some mighty good jobs.”

“There are competing ideas about this,” Corlis agreed carefully. “Behind that three-story screen are some beautiful nineteenth-century row houses, perfectly preserved on their exteriors. King and the preservationists maintain that renovating and restoring the old buildings could provide just as many jobs, plus retain their history, which attracts more tourism. You can certainly make an argument both ways.” Of Althea, she asked, “Would you introduce me to your cousin?”

“Sure.” Althea shrugged. “That’ll be real easy. He usually shows up here on Sundays.”

However, it wasn’t until the following Thursday that Corlis and Althea sat down for a formal meeting with architect Keith LaCroix. Engrossed in listening to his cousins’ music, he suggested that the two women drop by his office on Girod Street, just a few blocks from Corlis’s apartment.

***

In the full light of day in Keith’s architectural office, Corlis was struck by the similarity of the cousins’ features. Keith LaCroix was also light-skinned, and like Althea, his facial traits suggested his mixed heritage.

“We’ve also got some Tchoupitoulas Indian thrown in, too,” he said with a laugh, pointing to a Mardi Gras poster on his wall that pictured a swarthy man dancing in the street attired in a bright yellow-feathered headdress and elaborately sequined costume. “That’s Bernard LaCroix. Swamp Indian on his mother’s side, he claims. As they say, New Orleans isn’t just a melting pot. It’s a great big batch of gumbo!”

Corlis explained her mission: to track down some descendants of the original free blacks who’d constructed the block of threatened Greek Revival buildings on Canal Street. “Besides the white partners—Paul Tulane, William Avery, and Jacob Levy Florence—the names that keep popping up on documents relating to the Selwyn buildings are LaCroix and Fouché and…”

“Well, sugar… you’re looking at their direct kin,” Keith declared, referring to himself and his cousin Althea.

“No way!” Althea exclaimed, staring at Keith and then at Corlis, looking pleased. “Really?”

“Just ask Professor Barry Jefferson at the university. He’s got all the family charts to prove it.” He elaborated for Corlis’s benefit. “He teaches history of the South… black history… that sort of thing. He wrote a college text on the Free People of Color in New Orleans.” He swiveled his office chair, pulled a volume off the shelf, and handed it to Corlis, opened to a page with a bookmark and a genealogy chart. Then he cuffed his cousin Althea gently on the chin. “Don’cha know, girl, that your baby brother, Julien, is named for an octoroon who was the black Creole grandson of a mulatto woman named Althea Fouché?” he explained, pointing to the chart.

“Run that one by me again, will you?” Althea said, shaking her head.

“The original
black
child your youngest brother was named after was Julien LaCroix, the son of a
white
man—Julien LaCroix—an early owner of Reverie Plantation.”

“Bingo…” Corlis said on a low breath, staring at the family tree.

“Look here how Professor Jefferson traced it back for years and years…” he said, running his finger down the page. “The names Julien, Etienne, Martine, and Althea are peppered all through the black Fouchés and LaCroixs, here… see?”

“My brother Julien’s seventeen,” Althea explained for Corlis’s benefit. “He plays slide trombone.”

Keith LaCroix turned to gaze at Corlis with renewed interest. “And you think Althea Fouché’s daughter Martine owned the land the Selwyn buildings are on?”

“There’s an old deed and a plot map that says she did indeed take title to the land in 1838. And I’m pretty sure that a white man named Julien LaCroix was involved, too, as a result of having a… personal sort of relationship with Martine,” she said, slightly breathless. “I also believe some other Free People of Color and white investors participated in the building project as well. I’m still digging…”

Not to mention having been whisked back as latter-day eyewitness myself!

Corlis yearned to reveal what she’d “seen” of Julien LaCroix and Marline Fouché’s unusual partnership in commerce, as well as romance. Instead, she returned her attention to Keith LaCroix’s genealogy records.

“Well, Professor Jefferson’s chart proves that black Fouchés are definitely related to our branch of the black LaCroixs, as well as to Etienne and Julien LaCroix—the white father and son who owned Reverie Plantation in the 1830s.”

Althea suddenly squared her shoulders and demanded of Corlis, “And you tell me this Grover Jeffries character wants to demolish these historical buildings—once owned by black folks during slavery times?”

“That’s what I hear,” Corlis said with a sly smile. “Want me to give you two a really interesting tour of the 600 block of Canal Street?”

***

WJAZ’s cafeteria was deserted, except for Virgil and Manny, who sat slumped in one corner recovering from four days of grueling work. Corlis poked her head through the door.

“Now,
that’s
what I call a great crash,” she said cheerfully, the adrenaline still pumping a good five minutes after she’d left the news set. “A three-part series that actually
said
something! How’d you like that shot I used of Dylan Fouché and his eighty-year-old mother standing in front of the Saddlery restaurant?”

“Hey, baby,” Virgil groused, “you’re getting the reputation for being the
Queen
of Crash!”

“And didn’t you love the sound bite of Mr. Levy saying he had no idea that Jewish families had been in business on Canal Street so far back?”

“I never shot so much stuff so fast in my life, and that’s the honest truth!” Virgil declared, shaking his head.

“We musta done interviews with every damn descendant of every damn bricklayer that ever worked on those buildings!” Manny said. “Man, oh, man, Corlis—half this town can claim that
somebody
had
something
to do with that place. They’ll probably turn it into a holy shrine, now you’ve got done with it.”

“I don’t think Grover Jeffries wants the Selwyn buildings turned into any shrine,” declared a voice from the door to the cafeteria. Corlis whirled in place and came nose to nose with her boss, Andy Zamora. He tapped her on the shoulder and pointed down the hallway. “The very man himself is on the phone in my office, along with Lafayette Marchand—a lawyer, as well as a PR guy, in case you didn’t know,” he warned. “Come along with me, McCullough, and you’d better have gotten every single fact right on
this
one, m’girl.”