Again, Kali nodded once. “I want you to call him. That’s why I told you.”
So Faye did. When she hung up, Kali said, “Guess she changed her mind. About going out with Armand, I mean. Tell me something. When I grow up, am I gonna start doing dumb things because of men?”
Faye couldn’t help smiling. “It happens to most of us. And they do dumb things because of women. It doesn’t always turn out bad.”
Kali rolled her eyes. “Coulda fooled me.”
Faye stood in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel, surrounded by marble and bronze and the trappings of wealth, and she knew that she had made a mistake.
Standing just outside the doorway of Chez Philippe, the Peabody’s flagship restaurant, she lingered in the grand hotel’s lobby, surrounded by hundreds of tourists who weren’t even dressed as well as she was. In comparison with their touristy shorts and sneakers, Faye’s clothes might even be called upscale. This was not the case inside Chez Philippe, where there were children wearing shoes that cost more than she had paid for her wedding dress.
When they’d entered the hotel’s lobby from the street, a throng of people had blocked their view of the grand fountain rising in its center. Carved from a single block of granite, the fountain dominated the room, but she and Kali couldn’t see much but the towering mound of fresh flowers that topped it. Monumental chandeliers shone down on the fountain and its flower crown.
“What’s everybody looking at?” Kali had whispered, but Faye had said only, “Keep looking.”
Holding the child by the hand, Faye had snaked through the crowd and secured them a spot so close that they could feel the cool air rising off the fountain’s flowing water. This choice viewing spot had put them less than an arm’s-length from the five mallard ducks paddling nonchalantly in the fountain. Kali had nearly had a spasm when she saw them. Their soft feathers and bright beaks had been so unexpected amid the lobby’s opulence that Faye had almost joined the girl in jumping up and down, flapping her hands, and squealing. Among the overexcited tourists, Kali’s exuberance had blended right in. Above them, more tourists had leaned over the mezzanine’s railings to get a look at the Peabody’s famous ducks, swimming unperturbed among the tumult around them.
Kali had laughed every time they paddled their feet, rose out of the water and flapped their wings. She’d cooed over their broad yellow feet, slick and leathery. When they had quacked, she had quacked back.
Faye had hung back and let the girl entertain herself as long as possible, but she’d been lucky to land the last reservations of the day, and time was getting on. Dallying too long would cost them their tea at Chez Philippe. When she’d tugged Kali’s hand, the girl had given the ducks a final longing look, then she had followed, looking around for the door that had brought them in from South BB King Boulevard.
“I can’t wait to tell Uncle Laneer about those ducks. They were so cute! Did you take pictures?”
Faye nodded and said, “You’re not ready to go home yet, are you? I know where we can get a special meal before we go. Then maybe we can see the ducks again.”
Kali’s face had brightened. “And the river?”
“Yes. I promised you a river. A big one.”
Their trek across the lobby to Chez Philippe had been arduous. The lobby’s many tables, all occupied by tourists wearing shorts, fanny packs, and souvenir t-shirts, had stood in their way.
The t-shirts and their ribald slogans had added an extra element to the trip. By Faye’s observation, the younger the tourist, the edgier the t-shirt’s caption, so the slogans on the chests of teenagers had ranged from suggestive to obscene. Wishing Kali couldn’t read, Faye had led her on a twisty path between the tables, eventually getting them to the doorway of Chez Philippe, where they were on the reservation list for afternoon tea. And now, here she was at the gilded doorway to the finest restaurant in Memphis, realizing that she’d made a mistake.
Faye peered through an imposing doorway into the most sumptuous room she’d ever seen. She wore a trim beige sundress and a pair of flat leather sandals. Her hair was slicked down with a bit of pomade. She even wore a smear of cinnamon-brown lipstick on her lips. If she’d been at home in the Florida panhandle, she would have blended in at a restaurant, a church, a business, a bar, anywhere. Here at Chez Philippe, she was painfully underdressed.
Kali, in her orange-and-gray elephant dress, stood out even more. Seeing the girl in this light, among these people, Faye saw things that hadn’t been obvious before, not even under the sun’s unforgiving light.
Kali’s dress was faded from repeated washings. The soles of her shoes were worn at the heels. The colorful barrettes in her hair, though brand-new, adorned the hair of a ten-year-old who had combed it herself. Faye personally saw nothing wrong with the way Kali’s hair looked, but none of the children in Chez Philippe wore the hair of ten-year-olds. They wore hair that had been blow-dried and flat-ironed and hair-sprayed into submission, and Faye hated herself for not helping Kali more. The difference between Faye and the parents in this room was that Faye thought Kali looked beautiful the way she was and she, quite frankly, thought the other children dining at Chez Philippe looked a little plastic.
Faye and Kali hadn’t been the only people of color when they were standing in the Peabody’s lobby, and they weren’t the only people of color in Chez Philippe, but Faye was realizing with the sting of a physical slap that socioeconomic prejudices hurt, too. When the maître d’ approached to ask whether they had reservations, she answered, “Yes, we do. We do have reservations,” and she said it just a little too loudly. The restaurant’s heavy draperies dampened the sound and
