Summertime

The Creole Gardens made him feel like he should be single, drunk and slightly depraved. The lock on the wrought iron gate didn’t latch, the bananas from the tree in the middle of the courtyard lay rotting on the ground and the door to their rooms was swollen and needed to be lifted just a touch to pass over the sill without scraping. All the walls of the old two story wooden structure, both inside their rooms and out, were painted in brilliant colors and seemingly not two surfaces the same, as though a hapless but happy house painter had used remains of every can in the garage to give the mid-19th century dilapidated wreck of a building one last hurrah. The whole place seemed ideal for nursing a hang-over, in the hammock in the shade with a rum punch and a contraband Cuban cigar.

But he was not in New Orleans to revive memories of forgotten youthful bacchanals. He was here on the most adult, responsible and loving of missions. He was here to turn his youngest, his darling baby girl, over to the tender care of the Jesuit faculty at Loyola University to educate her. Her path was really more vocational than academic. She was a soprano, a coloratura – one of those rare women who could not merely touch an e-flat but tip-toe up to it, slowly envelope the high pure note and then explodes it with power and volume and all with the effortless ease that made the listener feel like anyone could do it. But just anyone couldn’t do it, but she could.

He wondered at it. She was little and blond and a beach girl. The picture he had of her as his screen-saver was as a twelve-year old, arms spread, toes planted on a surf-board and riding a wave into the shore at Hermosa Beach. How does a California beach kid ever even learn she can do that? Her mother sang a lovely warm alto and was periodically given a little solo by the church choir. And he, who did not sing, but every night until she was seven, had sung her to sleep with his off key and pitchy tenor. He’d sung ballads and lullabies mostly. All badly delivered but they’d both enjoyed the ritual and the comfort and safety it gave her drifting off every night and knowing he was there. But neither parent had the gift, her gift, for song.

The selection of schools had involved a great deal of work, but it led directly and unambiguously to New Orleans. Her voice coach, a woman who had enjoyed a career with her name on the marquee of opera houses around the world, had insisted on one criterion in the college selection process. “Do they stage full operas?” That single filter reduced the universe of colleges from 2,800 U.S. institutions which issue bachelor’s degrees to less than three dozen. And her disregard for cold weather reduced those by half. And then the travel started.

Mothers develop and pass along institutional memory regarding college selection. And what her mother had learned was that colleges make their selections early. They do not wait until the formal audition time to do it. A year before the official process started, she had called ten colleges, worked her way to the music department and then the vocal performance section and finally the soprano’s coach and scheduled “a lesson”. It was a fiction and all understood it to be so. What it was, was early audition.

And what he had discovered was the sopranos are like full-backs. Not all programs want the same things from them. Some full-backs run the football; some just block and some are required to have hands – to catch passes. And sopranos were the same. Different programs wanted different things. Some wanted a mature, robust Wagnerian sound. Some a warm bel canto sound. There was not one best.

So, she poured out her heart with her music, vulnerable to rejection and got some. But from the moment Loyola heard her sing at that first “lesson” they wanted her. They wanted to train her, teach her. And they had a very close connection with the New Orleans Opera so she had hope of singing professionally while training. She had liked the university, being courted by them, and the life, joy and hedonism that was New Orleans.

So here they sat, in the dining room of the Creole Gardens with morning coffee and cresants, just the two of them, for the first time in 18 years without her. Last night, her first night in the dorm. Last night their last dinner as a family until Christmas. The day today holding nothing but a 1,500 mile flight back to Los Angeles. Sitting across the table from one another silent, holding themselves closely and trying to be joyful for her rather than lonesome for themselves. Sun streamed in the high-bayed windows, pleasantly warm but foretelling a very hot day. The only sound, the background music, piped in from the speakers above. It was not elevator music but jazz, blues and ballads reflecting the creative vitality that had been New Orleans music for 200 years.

He sat, sun warming his face and chicoried coffee warming his belly, momentarily indulging in the sadness of loss, and listening to the music. It was just the tune, no vocals. But he knew the vocals. He’d sung them to her a thousand nights. He knew them well and he silently filled them in.

“One of these mornings you’re gonna’ rise up singing.
“And you’ll spread your wings and you’ll reach to the sky.
“But tell that morning you got no cause to worry.
“Your mammy and daddy standing by.”

Tears filled his eyes and rolled down his face. He did not sob. He just sat still and cried. She looked at him across the table and saw him. She sat down her cup, stood, walked around the table and sat in his lap. She hugged his head to her breasts and sat with him in the morning sun.

The End