Free Tender Deception: A Novel of Romance by Patti Beckman Page B

part-time—”
    “Well, that’s great, kid. I’m glad you didn’t let that small town smother you. You have too much talent.” Then he asked, “What the heck are you doing in New Orleans?”
    She hesitated. She couldn’t tell him the truth, that she’d quietly been carrying a torch for him all these years and coming here to see him again was the realization of a dream that had lived in her heart for so long.
    Instead, she murmured, “Just a whim, I guess. I graduated at midterm. I had saved a little money. I thought I’d like to see New Orleans. You know, a kind of pilgrimage to the place where our kind of music got started.”
    “This is the place,” he nodded. “Louis Armstrong got his start playing at Lulu White’s joint in the old Storyville section. Just down the street is the place where Jack Teagarden was playing his last engagement when he died—”
    He interrupted himself, “Come on, Lilly. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.” He motioned to the bartender.
    He led her to a private booth at the rear of the place. The bartender brought them steaming mugs of coffee. Jimmy sipped the black Louisiana brew with its sharp chicory flavor. He leaned back against the booth seat, smiling at her.
    His smile brought a flood of emotion to her heart. She wanted to grasp this moment, to distill every bit of feeling from it, to memorize the sound of his voice, the touch of his gaze. She had waited so long.
    “You’ve—you’ve gotten really good on that horn, Jimmy. I remember how good you sounded back in high school, but you’re even better now. Your tone is bigger. Your technique is improved. And you have some wonderful ideas—”
    “Yeah, well, there’s something about this old city that inspires you to play good jazz,” he said. His eyes half closed and he seemed to gaze past her, at scenes in another time and place. Dreamily, he said, “So much of it happened right here, back in the early days when it all got started. King Oliver, marching with a brass band down these very streets. The riverboats with their jazz bands coming down the Mississippi, docking at the levee. The funeral bands playing Didn’t He Ramble. You kind of feel it in the air.” He looked directly at her again and grinned. “Y’know, sometimes I have the feeling that the ghosts of those legendary old horn men—Buddy Bolden, Freddie Keppard, Bunk Johnson—are still around and some nights they come in out of the fog and mist and put their fingers on my keys when I’m playing, showing me things I never thought of on my own.”
    Lilly felt a shiver run down her spine, but she nodded. “I think I know what you mean. I have a feeling kind of like that, walking down the narrow street of the old French Quarter. You feel so close to the past, you can almost reach out and touch it.”
    Then, as if suddenly embarrassed at the direction their conversation was taking them, Jimmy said, “Well, tell me, kid, what are your plans now that you’ve seen New Orleans?”
    “I—I really don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t guess I have any. I suppose I’ll spend a few more days here until my money starts running out. Then I’ll have to go somewhere and find a job. I have several teaching possibilities—”
    “Teaching? That sounds like a drag. You’re too good to waste your time teaching, kid.” He fell silent, a slight frown shadowing his brow as if he was wrestling with an idea. Finally he said in a slow, thoughtful manner, “Hey, would you be interested in a temporary job playing in a jazz band?”
    Her heart turned a sudden flip. “What do you mean?”
    “I guess you know my regular piano player, Tiny Smith, died suddenly this week. The substitute I hired for tonight is a dog. You heard how badly he plays. The guy’s all thumbs. I was just thinking that putting you on the band might spark things up. Tiny’s death has got all of us down. The band’s in a slump. You’re young and full of fresh ideas. You’ve got a good style