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Authors: John Ed Bradley
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women either having their nails done or sporting elaborate hairdos. An electric sign standing out by the curb, and burning even in daytime, said HAIR NAILS SKIN . Another over the entrance said WHEELER BEAUTY ACADEMY .
I checked the address again to make sure we’d come to the right place. The post office, apparently, was no more, replaced with a school for aspiring hairdressers and cosmetologists. It was a dumpy, neglected building in an Uptown district crowded with dumpy, neglected buildings. To imagine the young Asmore bounding up the stairs andpushing past the wide double doors, on his way to install a masterpiece, required more creative steam than I was able to muster at the moment. “Nothing beautiful about this beauty school,” I said and issued a low whistle.
I drive a nice car, a late-model Audi sedan with a leather interior and power everything. But it was so nice as to draw attention, so earlier, when Rhys and I left the French Quarter, it was in her van: the ancient, rust-ruined one with an expired brake tag and magnetic signs on the doors advertising the Guild. We were sitting in the van now, parked on the street that ran alongside the school. “Can I trust you with something, Jack?” she said. “You think I can do that?”
I turned and faced her. I didn’t answer.
“Let me make a proposal,” she said. “Whatever we’ve learned so far today about Levette Asmore—and whatever we learn when we go in the building—is privileged information that stays between the two of us. It’s to be shared with no one else, not even Patrick Marion. Can we agree on that?”
“I hear you, Rhys.”
“But can we agree on it?”
“Sure. Sure, we can. Let’s agree on it.”
It was around four o’clock in the afternoon. Classes must’ve just let out, ending the day, because about a dozen young people suddenly came charging out of the building, most of them African-American women of college age or older. They were lugging books and knapsacks and talking in animated voices. Some headed for the bus stop, others for the pizza restaurant across the street; a few more sped off on bicycles. Every good-bye seemed to inspire more joyful noise, more grab-ass.
The last person to leave the building was an elderly white woman who came down the stairs sucking on a cigarette, sucking so hard that her face appeared to cave in on itself. She was wearing a loose-fitting polyester arrangement with her skirt hiked up near her chest, forming ripples along the beltline. Her stockings hung like flab at her knees, and a crocheted sweater rode her shoulders attached by a single pearlbutton at the neck. As she slowly made her way to the sidewalk she stopped to pick up gum wrappers and flattened potato chip bags. At the bottom of the stairs she dropped the trash in a can and stood gazing up at the building, the cigarette sticking straight out from her mouth. She cleaned off her hands by patting them together, then she made loose fists and propped them against her hips. Her eyes tracked from one window to the next, and her thin lips moved as she mumbled something I couldn’t make out for the distance. Finally she lowered her head and walked over to a car parked on the street in front of us.
Passing in front of the school, she braked and came to a stop and leaned across the seat and once again stared up at the building. Maybe she was checking for damaged flashing where the gutters hung from the roof, or for broken windowpanes, of which there were plenty. Or maybe she was looking at all the pigeons roosting in the eaves, or for roof tiles that had blown away in a recent storm. But her expression suggested something else. It was only a building, and a dilapidated one at that; and yet she looked at it with expectation and longing, as though, in a window upstairs, she hoped to find the face of someone she loved.
“Tell me what you think about when you imagine Levette’s mural,” Rhys said.
“How’s that?”
“Do you think about
I checked the address again to make sure we’d come to the right place. The post office, apparently, was no more, replaced with a school for aspiring hairdressers and cosmetologists. It was a dumpy, neglected building in an Uptown district crowded with dumpy, neglected buildings. To imagine the young Asmore bounding up the stairs andpushing past the wide double doors, on his way to install a masterpiece, required more creative steam than I was able to muster at the moment. “Nothing beautiful about this beauty school,” I said and issued a low whistle.
I drive a nice car, a late-model Audi sedan with a leather interior and power everything. But it was so nice as to draw attention, so earlier, when Rhys and I left the French Quarter, it was in her van: the ancient, rust-ruined one with an expired brake tag and magnetic signs on the doors advertising the Guild. We were sitting in the van now, parked on the street that ran alongside the school. “Can I trust you with something, Jack?” she said. “You think I can do that?”
I turned and faced her. I didn’t answer.
“Let me make a proposal,” she said. “Whatever we’ve learned so far today about Levette Asmore—and whatever we learn when we go in the building—is privileged information that stays between the two of us. It’s to be shared with no one else, not even Patrick Marion. Can we agree on that?”
“I hear you, Rhys.”
“But can we agree on it?”
“Sure. Sure, we can. Let’s agree on it.”
It was around four o’clock in the afternoon. Classes must’ve just let out, ending the day, because about a dozen young people suddenly came charging out of the building, most of them African-American women of college age or older. They were lugging books and knapsacks and talking in animated voices. Some headed for the bus stop, others for the pizza restaurant across the street; a few more sped off on bicycles. Every good-bye seemed to inspire more joyful noise, more grab-ass.
The last person to leave the building was an elderly white woman who came down the stairs sucking on a cigarette, sucking so hard that her face appeared to cave in on itself. She was wearing a loose-fitting polyester arrangement with her skirt hiked up near her chest, forming ripples along the beltline. Her stockings hung like flab at her knees, and a crocheted sweater rode her shoulders attached by a single pearlbutton at the neck. As she slowly made her way to the sidewalk she stopped to pick up gum wrappers and flattened potato chip bags. At the bottom of the stairs she dropped the trash in a can and stood gazing up at the building, the cigarette sticking straight out from her mouth. She cleaned off her hands by patting them together, then she made loose fists and propped them against her hips. Her eyes tracked from one window to the next, and her thin lips moved as she mumbled something I couldn’t make out for the distance. Finally she lowered her head and walked over to a car parked on the street in front of us.
Passing in front of the school, she braked and came to a stop and leaned across the seat and once again stared up at the building. Maybe she was checking for damaged flashing where the gutters hung from the roof, or for broken windowpanes, of which there were plenty. Or maybe she was looking at all the pigeons roosting in the eaves, or for roof tiles that had blown away in a recent storm. But her expression suggested something else. It was only a building, and a dilapidated one at that; and yet she looked at it with expectation and longing, as though, in a window upstairs, she hoped to find the face of someone she loved.
“Tell me what you think about when you imagine Levette’s mural,” Rhys said.
“How’s that?”
“Do you think about
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