“I guess,” Eli said to his father. “We were having so much fun. I guess I forgot about the time.”
“You need to be a little more responsible, Son. Anything can happen to you out there,” his father said.
Like being tattooed. Eli reached for the glass of freshly squeezed orange juice the cook put before him. “Yes, I know. We stayed in a well-lit area and we all came home together.”
“You have to be careful. There are some pretty shady characters in the French Quarter just looking to pounce on impressionable kids,” his father continued.
The smell of bacon distracted Eli from the conversation and then his mind wandered back to last night. Someone had called him cute.
Oh! Now he remembered. Some guy tried to hit on him in a restroom.
Blond hair, blue eyes, tattoos up and down his arms, and a nice voice.
Eli shuddered. He didn’t even want to think about it.
“Are you listening?” his father asked, breaking the memory.
The cook placed a plate of food in front of his mother and walked out of the room. “Let the boy eat in peace,” his mother told his father.
“I’m sure it won’t happen again.”
Unlike his father, his mother only saw the good in him. He looked down at the stack of blueberry pancakes and his stomach growled.
“One time is all it takes,” his father said. “And I suppose you’d been drinking.”
“No,” Eli said. “I won’t be turning into an alcoholic anytime soon.”
His mother giggled but did not comment. She just added a sugar substitute to her grapefruit.
Eli couldn’t remember the last time he saw her eat anything else for breakfast in a long time. She was always on some diet, which she didn’t need.
“Make sure you don’t. One or two beers can turn into hard liquor real fast,” his father said as he buttered his wheat toast.
Eli loved his parents dearly, but his father preached too much and his mother just looked at everything through rose-colored glasses.
Sometimes he wondered what they were like as teens. Probably different than they were now since his mother was only nineteen years old when she had him. Apparently his parents had gotten busy sexually when they were his age. Why didn’t they want him to grow up and experience life before he got married and had kids? Eli cut into his pancakes and ate a piece.
“Do you have practice today?” his mother asked him.
Eli swallowed the food. He’d been taking violin lessons from Mr.
Dubisson every Saturday since he was five. “Yes, and I have swimming practice, and I have an appointment to get a haircut.”
Nope, nothing had changed except he now had two tattoos that his parents would never see.
His mother stopped eating and looked over at him. “I don’t understand why you want to get your haircut. I think you look cute with all those curls.”
He would scream if another person called him cute. “I just want something different.” Eli broke his bacon into tiny pieces and sprinkled it on his grits. “I need a more adult hairstyle. I can’t go off to college with curls.”
His father chuckled from behind his newspaper. “No, that just won’t do. I have to agree with him on this one, honey. Eli needs a more masculine cut.”
His mother pouted. “The women in my book club think he’s adorable.”
Eli frowned. He didn’t want old ladies admiring him.
“He’s eighteen going on nineteen,” his father said, lowering the newspaper. “He needs something that says, look at me I’m a college student, not hey, look at me, and squeeze my cheeks.” Eli nearly choked on his food. His father rarely made jokes anymore. He supposed it had something to do with being a judge.
“And he’ll have plenty of time to date older women once he graduates from college and lands a job with an orchestra.” So never going to happen. Older women didn’t do a thing for him.
Eli finished his breakfast. He wanted to get an early start to his day and he wanted to ask the guys about last night.
“Drive safely,” his mother said. “And wear your seatbelt.” Eli kissed her on the head. “I will.” He waved good-bye to his parents and left through the back door. The gardener waved to him from atop the riding lawn mower. Eli waved back and walked to his car. Moments later he drove his BMW out of the front gate past the security guard shack.
* * * *
Dimitri got out of bed and headed to the bathroom to relieve his full bladder. He and Greer had worked until three in the morning and they had people scheduled to come in at eleven for tattoos. The other tattoo artist, Jose, wasn’t scheduled in until noon.
Soft jazz music filtered into his apartment as he fixed himself some coffee and toast a few minutes later. Hearing music in the morning was just one of the perks of living in the Quarter. Dimitri hummed along to the familiar song as he buttered his toast. Another song followed as he fixed his coffee. This one had a big band sound to it. Dimitri did a little dance and then he sat down at the table to eat.
He’d grown up in the heart of New Orleans and doubted if he’d enjoy living anywhere else. The place was in his blood, like beignets and chicory. And where in the world could he go to hear such a wide variety of music? Nowhere. When he died he wanted a jazz funeral complete with a second line procession. He wanted the mourners to celebrate and drink White Russians in remembrance of him.
The door to the tattoo parlor opened downstairs, which meant Greer had arrived. Greer lived in an apartment a couple of blocks away.
Dimitri finished up his breakfast, poured the remainder of his coffee into a travel mug, and went downstairs to greet his partner.
“I didn’t expect to see you so early,” Greer said as he prepared coffee in a maker in the tiny rest area of the shop.
