"Hear, hear," he said, and drank.
Eight
Griffen got out of the taxi in front of the grand, white-painted house on a boulevard in the Garden District, and eyed the house uncertainly. He had grown up in a modest little house in Ann Arbor, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and an eat-in kitchen on a quarter acre in a neighborhood full of similar if not identical homes. This gracious, white-painted mansion with robin's-egg blue storm shutters was easily three times the size of that house, and it stood in its own landscaped gardens. In fact, the gardener, a scrawny man in coveralls who could have been anywhere between thirty and ninety, was on his knees pulling weeds on the left side of the house in the last light before sunset. The Spanish moss hanging from the branches of the enormous catalpa trees just inside the wrought-iron fence drew sinister shadows on the close-trimmed lawn.
"Y'all need to arrange for a pickup?" Doreen asked. An African-American woman in her forties, she ran a cab service based in the French Quarter. Her clientele tended not to own cars, since parking was difficult to find in the narrow old streets. Important clients like Griffen she drove personally.
"I'll phone you," he said absently. He leaned in the window and handed her a five. "Not sure how long I'll be."
"You got it, baby," she said. She glanced at the big house and patted him on the cheek. "Don't believe the half of what you hear in there. You can keep your head on your shoulders, I know it."
"I try to," Griffen said. "Sounds like you already know what's going on."
Doreen grinned at him. " 'Course we do, baby. We're all proud of you. I'm gonna be out to see your parade with my grandbabies on a ladder. Make sure you throw us something, you hear?"
"I promise," Griffen said. All the new customs he had to absorb in a short time made him feel a little overwhelmed. Doreen seemed to pick up on his mood. She poked him in the arm.
"Don't you think a thing about these people. They all came into the world the same way as you and me."
That was true, he mused, as he straightened his shoulders and marched toward the Greek-Revival portico held up by four pillars painted green. At least for him. Doreen wasn't a dragon, though he doubted few people of any descent could stare her down. She was noted for getting fares--and tips--out of drunk tourists when other cabbies were just grateful to get them out of their cars without having them vomit all over the upholstery. Still, it was good advice not to let dragons who were better established than he was lord it over him. Always walk in as if you own the place had been his longtime motto.
Easier said than done, he realized, as he entered the grand house. A tall, thin woman with large eyes and an ascetic nose in a nice blue dress admitted him with all the airs of a duchess. She leaned back slightly to regard him. Though he was several inches taller, he felt as if she were looking down on him instead of the other way around.
"May I help you?" she asked.
"Mrs. Fenway?" Griffen asked.
"No, I'm the housekeeper, Edith," she said, the austere look changing to a kindly smile. "And you must be Mr. McCandles. The Fenways are in the den with Mr. de la Fee and the others. This way, please."
The intimidation quotient ratcheted right into overdrive as he sauntered behind her through the high-ceilinged corridor. The interior walls were painted white over stuccoed plaster. The doorways were outlined by wooden edging stained dark brown and as wide as his outspread hand. Each piece had been routed with five parallel lines that converged in a roundel every three feet and at the corners of the frames. He realized every one of them had to have been made by hand. All the knickknacks gleamed with the warm flicker of money. Griffen had seldom been in a home like that which wasn't a museum with little labels on it indicating the name of the piece, the designer it had been made by, and in what year. No one he knew lived like this. He thought he might like to have something like it himself one day.
At last, Edith opened a door into a glass-walled observatory. It alone was as large as the house he had grown up in. Exotic plants hung from wrought-iron or knotwork hooks. He recognized orchids and miniature roses, but he had no idea what the rest were. The room was divided unofficially in half by a slate-bed pool table that made him more envious than the rest of the display of wealth had. On the far side, a couple of dozen comfortable-looking armchairs were arranged in a rough circle. Small, circular tables about the size of a dinner plate stood at the elbow of each one, no doubt to hold drinks. Griffen approved.
The twenty or so people already present in the other half of the room turned to look at him. All of them, of white, African-American, and mixed heritage, were men except for one woman in a deep green two-piece dress suit. Griffen had learned a little about clothes in the last few months. Everything they wore was so understated and well fitted that he knew they had top-tier designer labels hidden inside. He was glad he was wearing his best black wool pants and a handsome, long-sleeved Fuji silk shirt in pale blue, but he still felt as if he had been hired for the afternoon instead of invited as a guest.
Etienne was the only one who was dressed as casually as he was. He spotted Griffen and wormed his way out of the crowd he was talking to. He came up with his hand extended.
"You here!" he said. His grip was powerful enough to make Griffen wince. "Good! I was just tellin' Mr. Fenway how much you liked the floats. He is in charge of the floats committee. Let me introduce you to everyone, all right?"
By the time he had dragged Griffen over to the largest group, the most elegant of the men had his own hand out to take Griffen's. His long, almost spidery fingers wrapped around Griffen's hand and shook it firmly.
"Callum Fenway, Mr. McCandles," he said. "Nice to meet you."
Callum Fenway's narrow face threw his large, dark brown eyes into relief against his cafe au lait skin. His hair had been straightened into shiny, floppy waves that made him look like a romantic hero or a cocker spaniel.
"Call me Griffen, Mr. Fenway," Griffen said.
"Well, thank you, Griffen," Callum said, with the air of a schoolteacher speaking to a first-grader. The attitude made Griffen nervous and annoyed at the same time. "We do hope that you will be joining our exclusive little number." He turned to speak to a woman at his side. "My dear, Griffen McCandles. Griffen, my wife, Lucinda."
Lucinda Fenway was a surprisingly lovely woman whose face was almost a perfect heart shape. Her long, nearly black eyes boasted sweeping eyelashes like delicate lace fans. Her figure was tiny at the waist but lush above and below. If she hadn't been a dragon, he would have put her at fifty, but he did not dare guess her real age. "How nice of you to come. Will you have a drink?"
"Irish whisky, if you have it," Griffen said, making it sound as suave as though he were James Bond requesting a vodka martini. "Thank you."
Lucinda turned her head and raised her eyebrows just a trifle.
One of the infinite number of young, twentyish women who worked temporary jobs serving at private parties on their days off from the elegant restaurants downtown slipped through the crowd and pressed a cold tumbler into his left hand. Griffen took a grateful swig as Lucinda recited name after name to him. He did his best to retain them, but he had a dozen tricks for getting people to reintroduce themselves to him. He just smiled and shook hands.
". . . And Terence Killen, who is in charge of our membership committee. I hope you two will be having a nice little conversation later on," Lucinda concluded, coming to the last person, a plump, ruddy-faced man with a head of executive-class silver hair.