House of Blues

Skip
was invited to come back any time she wanted to and bring all her
friends.
    "We glad to have you any time," he said. He
shook her hand.
    " We glad to have you," he repeated. And he
smiled so benignly that it made her wonder why smiles like that were
missing from her life most of the time.
    She had time to go home for lunch before her second
appointment, and when she arrived, the kids were in the courtyard
with Angel, Steve, Jimmy Dee, and Darryl Boucree, the men drinking
coffee at a table under an umbrella. The smaller animals frolicked in
the sun, and the day was so perfect it was as if Arthur Hebert were
alive again and Sally was home with her parents, and Jim had never
gone on that stakeout with her.
    "Darryl. What are you doing here?"
    He got up to kiss her, and she felt the current that
was always there. She wondered if it was visible to the naked eye;
Steve knew she'd been interested in someone last year, but he didn't
know it was Darryl.
    "I came to bring the new baby a toy." She
saw that Angel had some kind of chew—thing, which the kids kept
snatching and throwing.
    "I saw your Aunt Emmaleen this morning. At least
I guess Tyrone's mother's your aunt."
    "Great-aunt, I think. Even I get it mixed up."
    Steve said, "Where'd you see her?"
    " Church. There were less than twenty people
there and one of them was Emmaleen Boucree."
    "Well, if it was church, that makes sense,"
said Darryl. "The Boucrees are very large on religion. That's
why there's so much good music in those churches out there."
    " What's a spiritual church?"
    "You mean you just went to one and you don't
know? Well, I been in 'em all my life—not sure I do either. We're
big on statues, I'll tell you that. And you should see it when
somebody gets baptized?
    Skip was silent for a minute.
    "What is it?" Steve put a hand over hers.
Faintly embarrassed at the gesture, she glanced at Darryl out of the
corner of her eye.
    "I don't know. I was just feeling left out, I
guess."
    " Left out of what?"
    "Oh, a culture worth having."
    Darryl said, "You one of those white people
wants to be black?"
    Skip couldn't think of an answer.
    "Quit looking sheepish," said Jimmy Dee.
    " Well, if you are, I don't blame you," said
Darryl, and he leaned over to tweak her cheek, with Steve sitting
right there. Absolutely undaunted, Steve kept beaming, still covering
her hand with his.
    I wonder what it would be like to trust somebody like
that? Why can't I be like Steve?
    From the first moment they'd met, Steve had never
given her the slightest reason to think him other than utterly
devoted to her, and more than once she'd nearly destroyed the
relationship with her doubts.
    He must have had a nice mama.
    The thought made her glance over at Sheila and Kenny,
who had no mama at all.
    I hope I can be decent to them. Just give them a
little something they can use later. Something; just a little
something.
    "I'm hungry," said Kenny, and Jimmy Dee
went off to make seafood salad.
    They ate outside, Skip between Steve and Darryl,
enjoying as great a sense of well-being as a baby in the womb.
    Why can't I have them both? she thought, knowing she
was a fool for thinking it; wondering if adolescence would ever end.
    Before she left for the Blood of the Lamb Divine
Evangelical Following, Layne dropped by and Steve and Darryl took the
kids to find a park for Angel to romp in. It was a weird setup, she
thought, not exactly Dan Quayle's notion of the ideal family. But for
the moment, just for today, she felt completely happy.
    The Following was in Metairie, in a freshly painted
but modest building meant to be lived—in, but, like its owners,
born again. If the church lady who'd made the appointment had seemed
slightly testy, the one who answered the door more than made up for
it. She had on some kind of white summer dress that perfectly set off
her chocolate skin, and she wore a yellow headband. Her smile was as
wide as St. Charles Avenue and her voice sweet as a pound of
pralines. In fact, she was so full of southern hospitality, you'd
have thought she'd spent her whole life collecting beauty titles,
which she probably had.
    "Welcome to our home," she said in the
voice of a docent at a museum. "I am Nikki Pigeon and I would
like to say on behalf of the Reverend Mr. Errol Jacomine that we are
delighted to have you here today."
    She stepped away from the door so the honored guest
could enter, and Skip found herself staring at a smallish white man
in a guayabera shirt, sitting on a