while she was alive. I wouldn't be able to prove to her that I wasn't the rebellious girl she thought I was, with the messy room that drove her crazy. "Georgia, I can't see the floor in here," was her mantra. I had been angry for so many years, and she had loved me when I didn't deserve it, and now she was gone.
Casanova Jones came to the wake. I remember sitting in the front of the muffled and velvet funeral parlor, my mother in her best dress—the one she'd been saving for a "special occasion." She looked serene, but most definitely not like my mother. She was thin and bony and looked as if she was made of wax. Damon was wailing in the bathroom, unable to even come in to view her body. Nan sat next to me, patting my hand and accepting my used tissues, which she discreetly shoved into her vintage clutch purse.
I looked up, face blotchy and red, and mascara-streaked, my hair an unkempt mass of curls, and saw Casanova Jones heading straight toward me. He even had on a tie. His black curly hair fell past the collar of his white shirt, and his swagger, half man, half boy, was still evident, but as my grandmother whispered to me, "He cleans up good." Rick, aka Casanova, mumbled an "I'm sorry" in the awkward way of high-school kids unsure of what to say when thrust into an adult situation. I loved him in that moment. Actually, I'd been in love with him all of high school. Something about how he pushed his hands through his luxurious head of curls—curls that behaved, unlike my own—and sort of shook his hair into place, about his pale blue eyes, or how he played with a lock of my hair while flirting with me threw me right over the edge. He was my crush. He was my obsession. And he picked my mother's funeral to show he really cared and wasn't just toying with me. I was too numb to care.
The last few months of high school passed in a blur of grief. I had originally planned to go far away from my mother after I graduated. I wanted to go to college in Manhattan, rooming with Damon, who longed to go to the Fashion Institute of Technology. Instead, I chose to go to the Newcomb Department of Music at Tulane. That way I could live with Nan. She possessed the spirit I wanted. She could bring out the Georgia who was buried beneath wild hair, hateful adolescence, and all that eyeliner. In Nan, I had a kindred spirit. She saw something in me—a spark of life she called it. I don't think she ever forgave my mother for living an ordinary life, for being a homemaker and not burning her bra and changing the world.
Nan was the first person to encourage me to sing. My mother said I had a pretty voice as a child, before my father left, but she was the kind of person who didn't believe in showing off or attracting attention. I remember once being invited to a birthday party when I was a little girl. More than anything, I wanted to wear my new pink dress with the ruffles and crinoline—okay, so what did I know about fashion then? What I didn't realize, until years later, was that the birthday girl was poor. If I wore my new party dress, I would outshine her at her own party. So my mother made me wear something old and, to my eyes, ugly. This was another of a thousand misunderstandings that only made sense after she had died.
With the wisdom of hindsight, now I see that she couldn't risk me leaving New Orleans to follow my fortunes as a musician or a singer. I needed to do something "steady"; I had to have "something to fall back on" when I failed, as she was certain I would. The odds of succeeding as a jazz singer or musician are a million to one. For every Harry Connick Jr., every Wynton Marsalis, every Diana Krall, there are ten thousand men like my father, broken down and tormented by their music just as much as they desire it. Some blues singers, like Billie Holiday, embodied both success and destruction. Strung out on heroin, she was a poster child for how the music business can destroy you. My mother wasn't about to let me
Casanova Jones came to the wake. I remember sitting in the front of the muffled and velvet funeral parlor, my mother in her best dress—the one she'd been saving for a "special occasion." She looked serene, but most definitely not like my mother. She was thin and bony and looked as if she was made of wax. Damon was wailing in the bathroom, unable to even come in to view her body. Nan sat next to me, patting my hand and accepting my used tissues, which she discreetly shoved into her vintage clutch purse.
I looked up, face blotchy and red, and mascara-streaked, my hair an unkempt mass of curls, and saw Casanova Jones heading straight toward me. He even had on a tie. His black curly hair fell past the collar of his white shirt, and his swagger, half man, half boy, was still evident, but as my grandmother whispered to me, "He cleans up good." Rick, aka Casanova, mumbled an "I'm sorry" in the awkward way of high-school kids unsure of what to say when thrust into an adult situation. I loved him in that moment. Actually, I'd been in love with him all of high school. Something about how he pushed his hands through his luxurious head of curls—curls that behaved, unlike my own—and sort of shook his hair into place, about his pale blue eyes, or how he played with a lock of my hair while flirting with me threw me right over the edge. He was my crush. He was my obsession. And he picked my mother's funeral to show he really cared and wasn't just toying with me. I was too numb to care.
The last few months of high school passed in a blur of grief. I had originally planned to go far away from my mother after I graduated. I wanted to go to college in Manhattan, rooming with Damon, who longed to go to the Fashion Institute of Technology. Instead, I chose to go to the Newcomb Department of Music at Tulane. That way I could live with Nan. She possessed the spirit I wanted. She could bring out the Georgia who was buried beneath wild hair, hateful adolescence, and all that eyeliner. In Nan, I had a kindred spirit. She saw something in me—a spark of life she called it. I don't think she ever forgave my mother for living an ordinary life, for being a homemaker and not burning her bra and changing the world.
Nan was the first person to encourage me to sing. My mother said I had a pretty voice as a child, before my father left, but she was the kind of person who didn't believe in showing off or attracting attention. I remember once being invited to a birthday party when I was a little girl. More than anything, I wanted to wear my new pink dress with the ruffles and crinoline—okay, so what did I know about fashion then? What I didn't realize, until years later, was that the birthday girl was poor. If I wore my new party dress, I would outshine her at her own party. So my mother made me wear something old and, to my eyes, ugly. This was another of a thousand misunderstandings that only made sense after she had died.
With the wisdom of hindsight, now I see that she couldn't risk me leaving New Orleans to follow my fortunes as a musician or a singer. I needed to do something "steady"; I had to have "something to fall back on" when I failed, as she was certain I would. The odds of succeeding as a jazz singer or musician are a million to one. For every Harry Connick Jr., every Wynton Marsalis, every Diana Krall, there are ten thousand men like my father, broken down and tormented by their music just as much as they desire it. Some blues singers, like Billie Holiday, embodied both success and destruction. Strung out on heroin, she was a poster child for how the music business can destroy you. My mother wasn't about to let me
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