“I’m sorry about your mama,” she said, patting him on the back. “Damn tragedy, but that’s life sometimes. How’re you holding up?”
“As good as I can be.”
“And who’s this?” Francine peeked around Nick and eyed Rosalie with interest.
Rosalie shuffled uncertainly on the spot before she stepped forward and held out her hand for a shake. Francine chortled loudly like it was the funniest thing she’d seen all day.
“She’s cute,” she said to Nick. “Girlfriend?”
“Waitress,” Nick answered. “Which brings me to why we’re here. Ady’s is looking to return to before.”
“You mean before you ditched us for the Save Mart?” Francine said derisively with hands on her slim hips. “You know you ain’t shit for that, Nicholas Fontaine. Your mama was our biggest business here for years.”
“I know, I know. It’s just things have been…uh, difficult,” he said with an awkward scratch of his scalp.
“Well, promise me one thing—even if y’all don’t return to Coffy’s, at least keep your mama’s place going. Ady loved the hell outta that restaurant. It was like a child of hers.”
Nick knew all too well. He had watched from the time he was a boy as Mom built Ady’s from the ground up. Rather than cry over her divorce with Dad, she decided to turn her passion into her profession. She opened Ady’s on a hope and a prayer and wished for the best.
He grew up in that restaurant. He spent afternoons in the dining area doing his homework and evenings in the kitchen shadowing Mom by the stove. He learned the value of a dollar as a pimply-faced teen bussing tables and hauling bags of trash to the dumpster. He saw the pride gleam in Mom’s eyes each year as the love for Ady’s grew in the hearts of diners everywhere.
“I wouldn’t ever give up on Ady’s,” he promised Francine with a reassuring smile. He noticed Rosalie was watching him closely from the sidelines. He wasn’t sure what to think of her interest in the exchange, but he decided to change the subject, motioning to the seafood selection next to Francine. “I see you’ve got them catfish we like.”
Francine beamed. “We sure do. Ain’t ever stopped selling ’em! Follow me and I’ll cut you a deal.”
Once done shopping inside Coffy’s, Nick and Rosalie hauled the bags to the truck. He had purchased enough groceries to last them a week’s worth of cooking lessons. He had also placed an advanced order for next week, picking up Mom’s old grocery habit.
They left Coffy’s behind with the initial attempt of getting back on the highway, but then their stomachs grumbled. They shared a glance. Nick figured he’d be the one to speak it into existence.
“Wanna grab lunch? If I turn onto this main road, the French Quarter’s not too far away.”
“But the groceries—”
“They should be fine for an hour or two,” he answered.
“I’m not going to argue with you when my stomach’s started growling.”
“Is that what that noise is?” he joked.
Rosalie’s answer was a laugh, and he grinned, loving how she could take a joke as good as she could give them.
The neighborhoods they drove through were old but colorful. Yellow houses and blue doors, clunker cars parked on overgrown lawns. Mardi Gras beads from previous years dangled off of power lines. The farther they drove, the louder music blared, welcoming them into the heart of NOLA.
They parked far off, deciding it was their best bet to walk the blocks into the crowded area.
On foot they ventured into the French Quarter. Soon the excitement on the block enveloped them. Every which way they looked, there was a sight to behold. A small parade of costumed street performers danced in celebration of the Halloween season. The band responsible for the blaring tunes was a quartet of men in fedoras. The foursome stood at the next street corner, playing their instruments with such ferocity they turned themselves red in the face.
People flocked from all directions and joined the impromptu party. Nick and Rosalie were no different. The mood in the air was too infectious to ignore. They found themselves cheering alongside the others, swaying to the snazzy beats come to life.
The crowd rolled like an ocean wave and swept them up toward the frontlines. Before they knew it they were falling off the sidewalk’s edge and onto the grand stage that the street had become. The dancers were grabbing them, pulling them along as if now part of their live performance. Nick laughed and went with the flow, but Rosalie resisted, mouth open in mortified shock.
Nick caught her gaze, and he winked. He expected an eye roll, or at worst, for her to about-face and scurry back into the crowd. Instead, she burst into a laugh and surrendered to the dancers, goading her on. Now the focus of the parade, the two lost themselves to the moment.
He wasn’t much of a dancer, and he never pretended to be, but what he lacked in skill, he made up for in enthusiasm. He reached for Rosalie and grabbed her hand. Together they shimmied and side-stepped and spun in clumsy circles. They panted as they tried to keep up with the other dancers, matching the band’s jazzy beat that seemed to blare louder and faster by the second.
Any hesitancy of Rosalie’s was abandoned. She let go of her inhibition and danced alongside him—sometimes out of step—but always with overflowing fervor that had them both feeling like they were floating in a dreamlike state.
The moment began to feel surreal. One of the first times in a while that Nick stopped feeling weighted down by grief, or hiding from it. He wasn’t an actor and he wasn’t pretending. He was himself again, only without the dark cloud that had been hanging over him the past year.
He looked at Rosalie, and a warmth hit his heart. She was a beautiful sight, dancing and laughing as if she wanted to savor the most of the unexpected celebration.
Her wild zig-zagged curls danced with her, bouncing with the beat, and falling into her face. He imagined they were buttery soft to the touch. What would it be like to spool one around his finger?
She looked at him as if reading his thoughts and smiled. He smiled back with a breathless laugh that was drowned by the loud music and cheers.
When the song ended, they held on to each other’s hand and fled the parade. They were sweaty and tired—the good kind of tired—searching for a reprieve out of the spotlight. Back on the sidewalk outside a tearoom, they exploded into disbelief.
“That was unexpected!” Rosalie exclaimed.
“But a good time,” Nick added, wiping his brow.
She gave a nod and stared up at him with a shine in her eyes. “We definitely worked up a sweat.”
“Looks like we’re in front of a good place to check out.”
Nick gestured to the tearoom. He pulled the door open for Rosalie to enter, the fresh scent of mint the first smell to reach them. Harriet’s was a quaint tearoom that, like every other shop and restaurant in the French Quarter, boasted a NOLA flair. The little room was decorated in neon purples and greens, with trombones and trumpets hanging off the walls.
They ordered some sandwiches, tea for Rosalie and water for Nick, and chose seats by the only window. Rosalie reached up and finger combed her curls, untangling the ones that got twisted during the parade.
Even in small moments like these, he couldn’t shake his innate attraction for her. Her beauty was a given, but his attraction was beyond the outward. He enjoyed her for who she was on the inside, the person she was as Rosalie Underwood.