The café on Magazine Street had six tables and a chalkboard list of specials that changed daily. Luca described it as a favorite that opened ten years before Katrina.
We left the house on foot at twelve-fifteen. Luca suggested I drive, keeping Dominic out of the oppressive heat, but Dominic wouldn’t accept that.
“I want to return,” Dominic said, “to the matter of the drive-thru coffee.”
“You said acceptable,” Luca reminded him.
“I said acceptable in a vehicle, under duress, in the absence of alternatives. I want that context preserved.”
Luca glanced at me over the silver of Dominic’s hair. I kept my face still.
The café‘s owner met Luca at the door by name and put us at a table by the window. The front door was open to thestreet, sending the blended scents of diesel and sweet olive past us. A group of tourists in the back shared something fried and photographed each other while eating it.
We selected three drinks first. Dominic ordered a small carafe of red wine. Luca’s drink was a Pimm’s Cup, tall and iced, with cucumber and mint bright against the glass. Conscious of being on the job, I ordered sweet tea.
Dominic examined the chalkboard. “They’re offering cassoulet.”
“Excellent choice,” Luca said. “They make the base the night before so the fat has time to settle.”
“In August?”
“They close up the building and run the air conditioning hard until the next morning.”
Dominic weighed the options. “I have opinions about cassoulet in August.”
“You’re going to order it, regardless.”
“I may.”
Our food arrived without ceremony. A wide white bowl was set in front of Dominic, the cassoulet dark and glossy beneath a crust of browned crumbs, with white beans barely visible under duck and sausage. Steam rose from it despite the heat pressing through the open door.
My plate held grilled redfish laid over a bright tangle of shaved fennel and citrus. Luca had ordered a po’boy—roast beef, dressed.
Dominic smiled at his cassoulet, briefly and with clear satisfaction. He glanced out the window where someone in a Saints shirt strolled past.
“Explain something to me,” he said to Luca.
“This should be good.”
“Why do people shout at the television during Saints games as if the players can hear them?”
Luca said, “Because they might.”
I added, “That’s not the strangest theory I’ve heard about Saints fans.”
Dominic sat with that. “It explains the volume.”
Suddenly, a dog bolted through the open front door. The leash was still attached, but the person wasn’t.
It was large and cream-colored; the breed was unclear. It assessed the space in under two seconds: tourists in the back, a tote bag beside the bar, and a man in a Tulane shirt whose left foot became the destination. The dog sat on the man’s foot and panted.
A young woman in a green dress entered the café. “Gravy—“
A voice from the kitchen doorway said, “Gravy, not again—“
The man in the Tulane shirt looked down. Gravy looked up at him with a serene, uncomplicated gaze.
The woman in the green dress began apologizing to the room. Gravy accepted a chunk of bread from the man’s plate. Multiple phones snapped photos.
