Colethea grabbed a piece of cheese. “What’s your name, old man?”
“Chester. Maximilian Chester.”
“Or Chester Maximilian.” Colethea laughed. “Your name works forward and backward.”
Hazel poured some gin. “We need to be on our way outta here soon.” She chugged her drink.
“Don’t be rude,” Honoree said. “Chester Maximilian was awful kind bringing us this treat. The least we could do is say thank you.”
“Thank you,” the three girls said at the same time.
Honoree picked up a piece of cheese and a roll and kissed the waiter on the cheek. “Thank you, sweetie. You’re the bee’s knees.”
An hour later, the food had been eaten, the bottle of hooch empty, and the old waiter had left with a much lighter tray.
Colethea yawned. “I need to go home. How about you, Honoree. Ready?”
“I had too much to drink.” Honoree swayed.
“I’m ready.” Colethea put on her coat. “Though I’m feeling a bit cross-eyed, too.”
They left the dressing room and trekked toward the kitchen. But Honoree had trouble negotiating the hallways. Indeed, seeing, thinking, and moving was a problem.
“Ouch!” A sharp pain zigzagged across her elbow. “Damn!” How had she missed that table? She grabbed her elbow as numbness moved down her arm to her fingertips, paralyzing them. She couldn’t hold on to her bags, and they dropped to the floor. “Damn.”
She scooped up the purse, but as soon as she touched it, she remembered—the envelope Trudy had given her for Houdini was still inside.
PART 2
CHAPTER 11
SAWYER
Saturday, June 20, 2015
The city is a blur of tall buildings, green grass (lots of parks in Chicago), and busy roadways. People clog the sidewalks, jostling from one storefront to the next, from one high-rise to another.
The L train leans into a curve. The shrieking sound of metal on metal, train wheels on hot-rolled steel tracks, recedes into the background as white noise fills my ears, and the memories ride into my mind.
Thirteen years ago, I made my first trip to Chicago and disappointed my grandmother for the first time.
A month after my mother died in 2002, Maggie White, then seventy-six, was to receive an award at a black-tie gala at the Ritz-Carlton. I was twelve and understandably screwed up after my mom’s long illness and death. Grandma needed an escort and thought I could use a trip away from Santa Monica and my grieving dad, who seemed to tolerate the company of only his daughter.
On a Friday afternoon a week before Christmas, Grandma and I hopped on a flight to Chi-town.
She used that word, too.Chi-town. Said she was hip for an old lady. And shewaship—hipper than hip. A poet and an artist, her paintings celebrated and hailed as in the style of African American painters like Archibald Motley and William Henry Johnson.
I was her favorite grandchild, but also an odd child who cried watching cartoons. Honestly, the Road Runner was a Shakespearean tragedy. And let’s not mention Charlie Brown. When my mother got sick and died, and with my passion for tragedy, I got mean. My grandmother was the only person who understood my grief masked as rage.
Then one afternoon at the Ritz-Carlton in Chicago, I bolted. Ran as if the hounds of hell chased me.
Later, I realized what had spooked me at the Ritz—the sound of the Christmas carolers.
The hotel lobby’s ceiling reached to the sky, and the moldings and railings were bright gold and extra shiny. The choir’s voices came at me from everywhere, climbing the sides of the walls, landing on my head with the weight of an anvil. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”
A church song my mother sang to me every year during the holiday.
Grandma turned her head for the briefest of seconds, but it was long enough, and I fled.
