She raised her eyebrows. “It’s an eighteen-and-over bar. I can’t get in.”
My brain chugs through a cloud of confusion. “You don’t go there when it’s closed to help run the business? It’s still in your family, right?”
Except her file says her mother’s unemployed?
Her stare falls to her lap. “Daddy sold the bar when I was ten.”
I hate when I can’t see her eyes. “Look at me when you’re talking.”
She snaps her head up, her voice quiet, flat. “The new owner kept the name and let Daddy continue to play piano there until…”
Until a fight broke out in the bar, shots were fired, and Willy caught one in the chest while trying to subdue the brawlers.
My familiarity with the story must be written on my face, because she says, “You know what happened then.”
“It was all over the news.”
She nods, swallows.
Willy’s death garnered a shitload of attention. Not only was he a white jazz pianist in a black neighborhood, he was also adored and respected by the community. His bar brings a great deal of tourist dollars into Treme, and from what I hear, its popularity has kept the surrounding businesses afloat for years.
I specifically remember watching the televised reports of his murder while visiting New Orleans—that particular visit back home had been a pivotal point in my life. It was…four years ago? I’d just received my master’s from Leopold and was waffling on whether to keep my teaching job in New York City or look for work closer to my hometown.
That same week, I accepted a job offer at Shreveport Preparatory. And met Joanne.
I was twenty-three then, which means Ivory was thirteen when her father was murdered.
She sits across from me, watchful and quiet. As the silence stretches, a subtle transformation works its way into her posture, curling her body into itself and making her appear smaller. She picks at a thread on her sleeve, bringing my attention to the stitching in her shirt and all the places the seams are unraveling. Her clothes are cheaply made, old, or worn from use. Probably all of the above.
There’s not a smudge of makeup on her tan face. No rings, bracelets, or jewelry of any kind. Not a whiff of perfume, either. She certainly doesn’t need enhancements to make her pretty. Her bare beauty outshines every woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. But that’s not why she goes without.
I won’t pretend to understand what it’s like to live in poverty, let alone to lose a parent the way she did. My father’s a successful physician, and my mother retired as Provost and Dean of Leopold. When I returned to Louisiana after college, they moved back with me to remain close to their only child. Their love and support for me is as dependable as their fortune, and to say they’re wealthy is an understatement. The Marceaux family holds the patent on the wooden bracings used in pianos. I’m set for life, as are my children, and their children, and so on, as long as pianos are in production.
Old money is rife among Le Moyne families. Except Ivory’s. So why did Willy Westbrook sell his booming business only to continue working there as an entertainer, earning the kind of menial salary that left his daughter destitute?
I leaf through her file, searching for the payment schedule of her tuition. A small notation on the last page indicates all four years were paid in full seven years ago.
Daddy sold the bar when I was ten.
I meet her eyes. “He sold his business to send you here?”
She shifts in the chair, back hunching, but she doesn’t look away. “He received an offer that was just enough to cover the four-year program, so he…” She closes her eyes, opens them. “Yeah. He sold everything to secure my position here.”
And three years later, he died, leaving her so goddamn broke she can’t afford textbooks.
I don’t bother hiding the contempt in my voice. “That was extremely stupid.”
Twin flames ignite her eyes as she jerks forward, her hands clutching the lip of the desk. “Daddy looked at me and saw something worth believing in, long before I believed in myself. There’s nothing stupid about that.”
She glares at me like she’s expecting me to jump on the bandwagon and believe in her, too. But really she just looks like a defensive, angry little girl. It’s unbecoming.
“You’re not thirteen anymore. Grow up and stop calling him Daddy.”
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t call him!” Her face reddens in a lovely shade of vehemence. “He’s my father, my life, and it has nothing to do with you!”
Christ, this girl has baggage, and given the cut on her lip, it goes beyond Daddy issues. Physical abuse is easy to detect. Sexual trauma, however, is a huge leap. But I’m suspicious by nature and far too curious about her. Despite those bold sparks in her eyes, her posture has a tendency to curl inward in self-defense, evidence that someone in her past or present hurts her.
I want to dig around inside her, carve out the useful facets of her misery, and obliterate the rest. “He was your father, and you have your own life. Move on.”
A twitch bounces in her cheek. “I hate you.”
And I hate how badly I want to punish her mouth by shoving my cock in it. “You’ve succeeded in showing your immaturity, Miss Westbrook. If you want to remain a student under my tutelage, you will stop bellyaching like a schoolgirl and start behaving like an adult.”
She sniffs, shoulders squaring. “You don’t have a very high opinion of me.” She stares across the room, her gaze roaming the wall of instruments. “I’ve really screwed this up.”
“Look at me.”
She does, instantly.
The cloying perfume of her obedience licks along my skin. I want to bathe in it, taste it, and test it. “Why are you here? Because your father decided when you were ten that you would become a pianist?”
Her brows pull together. “No, this is my dream, too, and ‘I’m obliged to be industrious.’”
She can quote Bach. Good for her.
“What is your dream, exactly?” I open the file to the college acceptance section. “According to this, you have no goals, no ambitions. What are you going to do after high school?”
“What?” Outrage screeches through her voice. She launches across the desk and rips the page from my hand, her gaze flying over the empty columns. “Why is this blank? There must be some mistake. I’ve…I’ve… God! I’ve been adamant about—”
“Sit down!”
“Mr. Marceaux, this isn’t right. You have to listen…” Her voice weakens, trailing to frightened silence under the force of my gaze.
She lowers into the chair, face flushing and quivering hands rustling the paper.
I steeple my fingers against my chin. “Now tell me, in a calm voice, what you expected to see on that page.”
“I’m going to Leopold.”
Not a chance in hell.
Except the unwavering strength in her glare argues she has the determination to make it happen, and the lift of her chin challenges me to claim otherwise.
I accept that challenge. “You realize only three percent of the applicants are accepted each year? Dozens of your peers have applied, even though Leopold hasn’t accepted a Le Moyne student in three years. Maybe, just maybe, one of you will make it in next year.”