Lies Agreed Upon (35 page)

“The Beauvoir crypt’s in St. Louis Cemetery No. 2,” he answered. “Grampaw will join his parents and Solange there eventually.”

The Mercedes soon drew to a stop in front of the Hotel d’Iberville. Tess glanced at her watch. It was 5:30 p.m. She had hoped for company since Mac was a no-show, but Jon was not offering to extend their outing.

“If you want a dinner companion, ask for one.”

Tess drew a deep breath and blurted out her invitation. “Well, I really learned a lot, Jon. I’d love to thank you by taking you out to dinner. Will you join me?”

Jon stammered, “Oh, that’s not—I mean it’s a good idea, but I have to get back to help with, um, a family party. My mom is depending on me.” Tess did not believe the excuse; Jon probably thought she was presuming on his friendliness.

“Oh, that’s too bad. Perhaps we can get together again before I head back to L.A. on Thursday. I guess I’ll offer a rain check,” said Tess, careful to appear unaffected by his rebuff.

“You’ll have finished all your business by Thursday?” Jon looked surprised.

“It depends on what Tony and I negotiate next week. But I need to take care of some things back home right now, so I’ll come back if I need to tidy up any loose ends. I’ll let you know my plans. Well, thanks again.” Tess smiled brightly and grasped the car’s door handle.

Jon reached out a large hand and placed it firmly over hers on the armrest, momentarily halting her exit. “Then it may be a few days before we see each other,” he said. He removed his sunglasses with his free hand, and his hazel eyes were serious and oddly tentative. Before she had time to prepare herself, Jon leaned forward and placed a quick, soft kiss on her cheek, just catching the corner of her shocked, parted lips. He promptly slumped back into his seat and flushed slightly.

After a brief, awkward silence, Jon began to serve her words in nervous haste. “I hope I haven’t offended you. Please believe me when I say that I really would like to extend our time together, Tess. But
I have this other obligation. Look, I feel bad to think of you dining alone on a Saturday night. Why don’t you give Tony a call?” He uneasily eyed Tess’s expressionless profile.

“That’s a good idea,” agreed Tess, her smile barely lifting the corners of tight lips. “We’ll talk later, I’m sure.” She climbed out quickly before Jon could take any more abashed detours.

“Call Tony,” she muttered, her heart hammering an angry rhythm as she crossed the hotel lobby. “I just think I will.” Before she lost impetus, she fished her phone from her purse.

“Hi, Tony,” she said, hoping he could hear in her voice the friendly grin she had plastered on her face. “Listen, I just got back from a tour of Tremé with Jon. He’s busy and can’t make it to di
nner with me. Are you free to join me?”

“Now, most Saturday nights you’d be out of luck,” Tony answered in an exaggerated drawl to let her know he was teasing. “But tonight, I’d be delighted to squire you. Let’s go to the clubs on Frenchmen Street in Marigny. You need to go clubbing with Tony Mizzi at least once in your life. We can eat there.”

“Great idea!” Tess answered in enthusiastic relief that she had not overstepped.

“OK, I’ll swing by at 6:30 and we can share a taxi there and back.” said Tony.

As Tess showered and dressed for her evening with Tony, she decided she really should not have gotten angry with Jon. He was just shy and socially awkward, and she, of all people, should be sympathetic, because she was socially reticent herself, especially with the opposite sex.

At least he had pushed her into club-hopping, which promised a change of pace. She was sick of her gloomy family saga. She was tired of having to play second fiddle to Mac’s professional ambitions.
There wasn’t any harm in enjoying an evening out with the ever-flirtatious Tony, as long as the relationship didn’t go beyond a friendly good-night kiss on the cheek.

“Don’t make a cost-benefit analysis
out of it. See where the evening takes you.”

Tess spraye
d on a light perfume and firmly told the empty bedroom, “And I’m tired of being haunted by a nag. Go away.”

She carefully applied makeup, donned a pair of navy slacks, a beige silk top and low-heeled dress sandals to spare her feet in case of dancing. She
didn’t want to be burdened by keeping track of a purse, so she slipped her keycard and a generous amount of cash into her pocket. She put on diamond stud earrings and took a final look in the mirror. “Frenchmen Street, watch out,” she grinned.

When s
he slid next to Tony in the back of the taxi, she was bubbling with enthusiasm for their night out. “What’s our first stop? Maybe we should start with champagne,” she declared.

“What’s the occasion? Or is it just the joy of being with me?” he laughed.

“I want to toast the present and forget about my family’s sad ancient history,” asserted Tess. “And I like you, too. So where are we headed?”

“
Where you can be inspired by jazz, blues, R&B, funk or whatever you fancy,” Tony answered, and then in an exaggeratedly sexy undertone, “and then you can invite me up for a ‘night cap’ from your little mini-bar.”

“
I don’t think so,” she answered, her tone carefully balanced between joking mock severity and a more serious discouragement. Tony had stolen a kiss on their last outing, and she hoped he did not plan to try to go further this time around.

On Frenchmen Street, muted drum beats, trumpet calls, and guitar chords drifted from a herd of clubs
housed in traditional New Orleans architecture. Wide front windows framed vignettes: a silhouetted bass beside the golden arc of a saxophone, a woman’s corded throat, the taut cheeks of a cornet player, and swaying female sirens in an island of light.

They started at d.b.a, where the venue’s dark wood paneling was obscured by a packed crowd
of mainly young or youngish patrons. Tony pulled her through the undertow of babbling, eddying bodies, ordered beers at the bar, and deftly snagged chairs in one of the seating areas next to the front windows – just as applause greeted an “indie jazz” band. In a spotlight cameo atop a small stage back-lit by a string of cheap red lights, a singer with a soulful gamine face put her own spin on standards like “Stars Fell on Alabama” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got Swing.”

Tess was not an experienced drinker, and her head was light after
just one beer at d.b.a. But she felt like throwing caution to the winds and ordered an apple-tini when they parked themselves at Snug Harbor’s bar to await a dinner seating. The live music stage was upstairs, but the bar piped in the performance on a large TV screen. Tess watched and listened to five ladies whose gospel roots grounded selections of R&B and jazz. Classics like “When I Get Low, I Get High” alternated with gospel-inspired energy. Tess felt a deeper than usual melancholy in a song like “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?” The diaspora after Katrina had exiled musical talent, and their struggle to return home and revive the performance scene had been financially and artistically difficult. On an even broader level, parts of pre-Katrina New Orleans were just memories now, to be forever missed.

As Tess speared her spicy barbecued shrimp in the dining room later, she asked Tony c
uriously, “You know I only recently learned about Jon’s family. What about you, Tony? How many brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews do you have? What about your parents?”

“You forgot to ask about my wives and children,” Tony remarked.

“What? Oh, I assumed you were single…” Tess was at a loss for words.

Tony laughed. “
Only trying to keep the conversation interesting. Actually, I don’t have any children, and only one ex-wife.”

“Were you married long?” Tess asked after a brief
silence.

“We were married about five years. I’m a great boyfriend but not
a great husband,” admitted Tony. “Long-term commitment is not my forte.” Tess took note of the implied warning. Men did not make such remarks idly, she’d found. The “I warned you” exculpatory comment was the first groundwork of defense in case a lady cried foul after a short-lived affair.

“How about your family?” Tess prodded. While the insouciant Tony should be more open about his personal life than serious Jon, the opposite was proving true.

“Oh, my dad’s retired, but he was a factory foreman at a brewery. My mom’s a housewife, meaning never retired. She is completely devoted to her nine kids and now her 15 grandkids, too. We’re the cliché big Italian family. I’m right in the middle. Six of my siblings are married and producing families of their own. It’s hell on my pocketbook around Christmas time. How about you, Tess?” Tony firmly refocused the conversation on his companion.

There was a flatteringly genuine interest, yet Tess hesitated. It had occurred to her su
ddenly that Tony was endearing precisely because he was so transparent. He had a Don Juan’s real affection and appreciation for women, all women. He was a sporting seducer who cast out his lures and enjoyed reeling in, but he was always going to release his catch. He was a friend, a bed partner, a good time, but he was not a future husband, just as he had said. She gave him a brief biography but kept the tone light, omitting her mother’s suicide and anything about her inheritance he did not know already. Tess sipped her cabernet and gave herself permission to enjoy a light-minded evening with a practiced flirt.

“No need to worry,
Mom,” she reassured her maternal conscience.

“I’ll worry if you keep guzzling liquor. You don’t have the head for it.”

After their meal, they walked, or swayed in Tess’s case, to the Spotted Cat Music Club. They ended up standing by the bar, and Tess proved her commitment to an adventurous mood by trying the signature drink, a rum punch chocolate martini. A four-man band, led by a young saxophone player with a night owl’s pallor, played smooth jazz on the 6-by-6-foot stage, a breath away from the front window and the packed audience.

Eventually, Tony suggested they “head home,” but an electric energy still hummed along
Tess’s synapses, so, when they reached her hotel, she boldly asked Tony up for that mini-bar drink he had proposed.

As soon as the elevator doors closed, Tony read her
liquor-fueled acquiescence and drew her into his arms to begin a series of progressively more intimate kisses, going from a merest touch of shared breath to sealed warmth with a caressing tongue. Tess, her head spinning and her face numb, limply draped herself against his firm frame and allowed the erotic exploration, only vaguely aware of the protesting hiss from somewhere at the back of her mind.

Tony maneuvered Tess to her room on her gelatinous legs and deposited her on the couch in her miniature salon.
She lolled bonelessly and watched him raid the mini-fridge for a mini-bottle of chardonnay. The sofa was hard and not a very comfortable place for romance.

Tess shifted and
feebly began to try to swim against the pull of Tony’s gentle sexual current. “I need to let him know that I’m not really interested, that I’m committed to Mac,” she thought muzzily.

Tony handed her a wine glass, which she accepted automatically. “Cheers,” he smiled. “I haven’t had this much fun in a while.”

Tess solemnly
raised her glass and slurred, “I’m glad you took me out, too. I was kinda mad at Jon for standing me up, but now I’m grateful. You’re a great date. And I gotta admit you’re a great kisser. Jon just gave me a little peck on the cheek after hours of yak-yak-yak.”

“Jon kissed you?” asked Tony. He was suddenly alert and watching her intently over the rim of his wine glass.

“You’re very drunk. He kisses you, and you start talking about another man’s kisses.”

“It was just a friendly
peck. Nothing special,” Tess assured him quickly.

Tony c
anted his head to one side thoughtfully. He then gave her hand a brief squeeze and leaned to place his glass down carefully on the miniature coffee table. “You know I think we should call it a night,” Tony said with a regretful smile and stood up.

“Wha
t?” gaped Tess. She suddenly felt a fizz of anger replace the buzz of inebriation. “Is this some ‘bros before hos’ rule? Did Jon’s little cheek smooch mark me as his territory or something?” Tess stood quickly, lost balance and grabbed the sofa back.

Tony placed a gentle hand under her elbow to steady her, but Tess jerked away
petulantly.

“No, I hardly think you qualify as a ‘ho.’ I like and respect you,” said Tony. “But, yes, Jon is a bro. I know him very well. A peck on the cheek for Jon means more than a roll in the hay for me, Tess. We
could have fun, but I think I’d regret it. I’m not sure, but I think you’re a love-of-a-lifetime kinda girl at heart. As a friend to you and Jon, I’m going to leave now.”

Tony leaned forward and placed a swift, sweet kiss on Tess’s
sulky mouth. “Put the deadbolt on after I go,” he advised. “I’ll see you at Dreux’s on Tuesday, and we can battle your aged legal dragon together. Still friends?” He gave Tess a compassionate, wistful smile and waited.

It was hard to stay mad at a man for being loyal and honest, as well as a good kisser.

“You’re looking petty and sex-starved.”