For the Love of Grace

For the Love of Grace

The summer of 1927 was a memorable one. It was the summer I was forced to grow up. At the time I was a zealous young woman with what I thought were unrivalled dreams of Jazz music and liberated travels. I know now, of course, that I was a naive flap with her head in the clouds, and a definite Dud. Looking back, I see how innocence blissfully averted my gaze to the realities of the world, and although I believe my experiences have moulded me for the better; I would give anything for that innocence to be returned.

They used to say I was deranged to dream of such a life, that I was foolish to follow my friends blindly into such scandalous affairs. To this day I still purse my lips in confounded disbelief, if that's what they wanted to call dancing then that was their prerogative. It was that agonising and demoralising summer that changed my life forever but it was the spring where my story truly began; the spring of The Great Flood, and the spring I met John Dalton Jr.

14thApril 1927

Lincoln Park, New Orleans

I stood within the suburban crowd, swaying idly to Buddy Bolden play over a choir of animated chatter, with a dincher in one hand and a bottle of Blue Ribbon in the other. Where was Frances? Lord only knows. I can't believe she stranded me here alone just to go off to waste her hush money on a slimp. And they call me foolish. I looked up to see the clouds thickening in a menacing shade, enclosing heavy layers of humidity and cigar smoke. Why didn't I bring a jacket? Why did I bother to come here at all? I turned to see a half cut slat approaching in a kluck manner, arms flailing and feet shuffling with his beer spilling down the side of the bottle. When he got to my side, he turned to face me with glazed eyes and a crooked smile.
'Now darlin' you're either a tomato, or a dud,' he slurred with a proud grin, using his free hand to point at me, though his direction was slightly off. I glared at the insult and stepped away.

'At least I'm not a no good dewdropper,' I said and turned to storm away in a composed and graceful manner. My heels piercing the mud as I strutted through a small clump of partners dancing bashfully.

'A dew- what? No, don't go,' he called, following me across the sun-dried field of uneven grass and soil islands. 'I was just jokin'.'

'I ain't no dumbbell,' I shouted back, unsure if he'd heard over the rhythmic beat vibrating from the centre stage 200 yards away.

'Hey now, I ain't callin' you dumb.'

'They both mean I'm stupid,' I huffed loudly, 'and I know that 'cause I ain't.'

'No, wallflower means you're- look, can you stop walkin' away. You're makin' me woozy.'

'I'm walking away because I don't want to talk to you no more,' I replied, sliding through tighter breaks in the increasingly rowdy and enthusiastic horde. I glanced back to see him jostling through, getting shoved backwards then forwards and shouted at by various men and women; his bottle no longer in his drunken grip.

'I was tryin' to pay you a compliment, darlin'. I never said I was any good at it,' he shouted. Some compliment. He might have well as straight up called me pretty, quiet, and stupid. I'd have walked away from that too. 'Look, let me buy you a drink, to make up for it.'

'I have half a mind to throw this dincher at you, Mister.'

'Please don't, this is a new suit.'

I stopped and turned back to him in a flare of irritation, stepping on someone's foot and getting my arm swatted.

'Watch where you're goin',' a girl barked, backing away into the chest of a slat swaying with his eyes closed. I saw the rude man who'd insulted me stumble forwards gracelessly with outstretched arms, I anxiously shuffled back into another person but said man steadied himself in enough time to stand before me with his head just above mine.

'Just who the hell do you think you are, anyway?'

'John,' he smiled, 'John Dalton Junior.'

'Well, John Dalton Junior, you are exceedingly rude and clearly ignorant,' I told him, his smile pressed into a grimace. 'Now, if you don't mind, I have some more walking away to do seeing as being in your presence is ruining my evening.' I dropped my cigarette to the floor and flattened the glow.

'Ruinin' your evenin'? Darlin' you looked as excited as a flat tire,' he said, looking to the oblivious people around him for an agreement of some sorts. I grinded my teeth. 'Oh, please, tell me I'm wrong. Tell me you were havin' a remarkable evenin', the best evenin' of your life,' he said, welcoming my response with an extended arm. 'Darlin' I've been captivated by you all evenin' and if I thought you were havin' the time of your life, I would have kept admirin' from afar.' I wasn't sure what to say so I glanced around at the unfamiliar bopping faces. 'An' might I just add that you are the prettiest girl I ever saw, and I don't doubt you're as intelligent as you are fierce.' Well...that is awfully sweet, kind of. I looked down his grey attire, noticing his bow tie was absent as if it were the last coat of polish on his suit that distinguished him formally or informally dressed. He must have an upper class background if he can afford a silk waistcoat like that, I bet his parents don't like him mingling with these types of people, Christ knows mine don't. 'Like what'cha see?' He asked flirtatiously, shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks. His face wasn't too bad neither, despite his observable intoxication. His smile grew into an obnoxious grin as his shoulders somewhat gravitated toward me.

'I ain't fierce,' I mumbled, regarding him with uncertainty. He inhaled deeply as his response pieced together in his mind, and exhaled sharply with a shake of his head.

'Look, I'm tryin' to pay you a compliment.'

'Okay,' I said. 'Fine.'

'Fine?'

'Yeah,' I replied, 'fine. You said some nice stuff, with some equally not so nice stuff,' I said, he went to speak, 'but I...acknowledge your compliment.' He hesitated and for a second we stood in a silent pause, our bodies expelling our irritation in sync. Our trancelike bliss began to fade as the walls began fanatically clapping and cheering at the end of a song. I watched John clap lightly a few times but I didn't, I didn't know the song nor had I been listening.

'Well good,' John said to me, his smile was back, forming dimples in his clean shaven cheeks. 'So can I get you that drink now?'

'No,' I replied.

'No?' He asked, his voice raised in disbelief.

'No,' I repeated, 'I...made you lose your own, so rightfully, I should buy you one,' I said, moving my weight onto the other foot. I could almost visualise the understanding seeping into the pores of his clammy facial features and sauntering up to his brown eyes, flicking the switch along the way. 'Right?'

'That's awfully kind of you,' he replied, I assume that's an agreement. I nod back the way we came, though the cracks have just about disappeared.

'After you.'

I followed John back through the sweating pack of passionate partygoers, occasionally steering him to avoid further confrontations. I'm not convinced I'm doing the right thing but then it would be foolish to abandon him now and I did owe him a beer.

'So, what do they call you?' John asked as we stood at the wooden beer wagon to be served.

'Depends on who you ask,' I said with a shrug, avoiding his eye contact.

'Your name, darlin',' he said, nudging me with his elbow. 'I can give you one if that pleases you more, how do you like Grace?'

'Alice,' I said, 'my name is Alice.'

'Just Alice?'

'Norton.'

'Well, Alice Norton, it is a pleasure to meet your acquaintance.'


I cannot pretend I held any such wariness as John walked me home that evening. In sobering, he exposed a charm I could not fail to notice. Despite the regalia he wore and his self-glorification, John was not at all who I envisioned gaining the acquaintance of downtown. His nature was easing, his laughter cavalier. He held such compassion for those lesser than himself as if in all their lives, they stood side by side. Embracing the future of change with excitement, his certainty of adventure was intoxicating; binding me to an unspoken promise of living. Really living.

As we neared the steps of my displacement, I dreaded his absence. So significantly so that standing apprehensively on the bottom step of my porch, I fabricated the vastest decision of my life. And everything changed.