Octavia

The male artist put down his trumpet and looked around the room as the applause began to echo all around the small room that had been made out of wood and was painted in white. As he stood up to take a bow, he saw young woman, with long, red hair, large, brown eyes, aged twenty, staring at him and the orchestra. He had seen her there every day and wondered who she was and why she was there.
This was New Orleans and almost everyone knew each other and especially if they were from the French quarter.

“I have noticed that you have been coming every night,” said Tommy Hutchins, with a southern American accent, as he walked up to the woman’s table and noticed an empty glass, “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No thank you,” replied the young woman, rather shyly and nervously, as she looked around.
Hutchins brushed aside his blonde hair and stared at the woman, as he tried to figure out what she liked.
“Do you like listening to jazz?” he enquired.
This broke the ice, as the woman looked at him and smiled.
“I play the piano,” replied the young woman.
“Well! I am sure glad to have met you,” smiled back Tommy Hutchins, as he waved his right hand in the air and stammered to indicate that he didn’t know what her name was, “Unfortunately, my normal pianist decided to leave tonight and I am in search of such a person, miss…?”
“Octavia,” replied the woman, apologetically, as she put her right hand forward.
“Tommy Hutchins,” said the trumpeter and the band leader, as he held her hand and kissed it.
At that moment, one of the band members called him as they were about to start playing another tune for the audience. The musician put his hands in his pocket and whipped out his card and put it on the table.
“Come and see me tomorrow afternoon,” he said, as he smiled and walked away.
Octavia picked up the card and read it and then put it in her purse that she had been carrying, got up and left the bar. The moment she walked through the door, the warm breeze from the gulf, hit her, as she heard sounds of horse carriages being driven, cars driving by and sound of music coming out of the various bars and music halls along with people talking and walking on the pavements. This is what she loved so much about this city – it was vibrant and lively. Soon she turned a corner and came onto a street in which there were shops and windows with slim women of all sorts, sitting and smoking as they tried to catch male attention. Inside these shops, all lights were red. This was the red light area of this city and she hated it. She ran into one of the shops and without looking anywhere else, she ran up the stairs and into her bedroom and locked the door. This was the only room that no male person was allowed to enter. Though her mother Maryanne was a prostitute, Octavia was not and her mother had made sure of that and had raised her in a true ladylike manner.

The next day, she took a cab to the address that was on the card and walked into a small hall. As she entered, she noticed that there was a spot light that was shining on a grand, black coloured piano.
“I am glad you came,” said a voice from behind, starling her as she hadn’t seen anyone.
Slowly all the lights came on and as she turned around, she saw Tommy Hutchins standing behind her with a lighted cigar, hanging out from his mouth. But something more than the cigar caught her eye. It was a sparkle in his eyes and the smile along with his personality that caught her attention. He took her hand and guided her, gently to the piano.
“Take a seat,” he said, as he kept on smiling at her, “I would like to hear some rag jazz.”
She slowly put her hands on the keys and began to play Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer.” Once this ended, Hutchins remarked that it was the best version he had heard and offered her a job in his band. As time went on, the two gradually fell in love and Tommy Hutchins soon proposed to her. This made it uneasy for Octavia to tell her boyfriend her background.
“I can’t marry you, Tommy,” she told him, one night after the concert had finished and everyone had packed up and gone, “You don’t know anything about me! You don’t know my family or my background.”
“All I know is that I love you and want to marry you,” insisted Tommy Hutchins, as he grabbed hold of Octavia and looked deep into her eyes in a romantic manner, “I don’t care about anything else. If it’s about...”

The red haired woman wriggled out of the grip and ran outside.

Tommy Hutchins ran and followed her and it was then that he noticed where Octavia was going – a red light district.

“Octavia,” he shouted at her, as he watched her walk into one of the buildings, “I still love you.”
It was no good; for she had gone inside.
The next morning, Octavia, after breakfast, went to Tommy Hutchins’s office as normal. It was shut and one of the band members handed her a note.
“I have gone to Chicago,” it read, “Don’t know when I will be back – maybe in a few days, months, maybe even years. Tommy.”
“Why?” Octavia asked herself, “Why did I ever let him go? I loved him! I wanted to tell him that I would love to marry him.”
With that she put her head down and began to walk back where she came from and as she did this, Scot Joplin’s “Entertainer” could be heard from one of the bars.