Chapter 1: A Plate for a Song
June Ashby had rehearsed the question all the way down Royal Street, and it still sounded ridiculous in her own head. She said it anyway, because hunger had a way of stripping a sentence down to what was true. She had walked past Maison Lumière a hundred times on her way to dishwashing shifts and church suppers, and she had never once gone through the front door. The restaurant glowed behind its tall windows like a room that belonged to another city, all white tablecloths and low lamplight and a black grand piano sitting in the corner like a sleeping animal.
She was seventeen, and she was not the kind of girl who begged. That mattered to her, even now, with her stomach tight and her shoes pinching and the last of the morning's bread long gone. She pushed the door open and stepped into air that smelled of butter and lemon and something rich she could not name. A man in a dark suit looked up from a reservation book. His smile was the kind people wore when they had already decided what you were.
"Good evening," June said. Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "I know this sounds strange. I was wondering if I could play your piano, in swap for food. Just one plate. Anything hot."
The man, whose name tag read Claude Renard, did not answer at once. He looked at her secondhand dress, at her worn shoes, at the braid coming loose at her temple. Behind him, a woman at a nearby table laughed, a bright, careless sound. June did not look down.
"A plate for a song," Claude repeated, as if tasting the words for their comedy value. "Young lady, this is Maison Lumière. Our piano is not a jukebox, and our kitchen is not a charity."
"I can play," June said. "I am not asking you to believe me before you hear me. I am asking for one song. If it is not good enough, I will leave, and I will not trouble you again."
The woman at the table leaned toward her companion. "Oh, let her try," she said, loud enough for the whole room to hear. "This could be amusing." A few other diners turned. June could feel their attention settling on her like a weight, curious and not entirely kind. She thought about the walk home, about the empty cupboard, about her aunt Pearl pretending she was not hungry so June would eat the last of the rice. She stayed where she was.
Claude's mouth tightened. He glanced toward the back of the restaurant, where a broad-shouldered man in a chef's coat stood watching. Henri Beaumont, the owner, had the look of a man who had heard every kind of request in thirty years of feeding New Orleans. He walked over slowly, wiping his hands on a towel.
"What is this?" he asked.
"She wants to trade music for supper," Claude said, with a small, amused shrug.
Henri studied June. He did not look at her dress. He looked at her hands, which hung at her sides, fingers slightly curved as if they were already remembering keys. "One song," he said at last. "If you waste our evening, you leave quietly. If you play well, you eat. Fair?"
June nodded. "Fair."
Claude led her toward the piano with the air of a man escorting a curiosity to the stage. The grand piano gleamed under the lights, its lid raised, its keys clean and even. June sat down and adjusted the bench a fraction, the way she always did at home. The room quieted in anticipation.
She put her hands on the keys and did not play at once. She breathed. She thought of Pearl's kitchen and the old upright with its chipped keys. Then she began, soft and certain, a melody she had carried since childhood.
The first notes fell into the room like rain on a quiet street. A fork stopped halfway to a mouth. The woman who had laughed went still. June did not look up. She played the way she had always played, not to impress anyone, but to tell the truth of the tune. By the second phrase the dining room had forgotten to pretend it was amused.
When she finished, the silence lasted a beat longer than applause would have. Then Henri Beaumont cleared his throat.
"Young lady," he said, "what is your name?"
"June Ashby," she said.
"Miss Ashby," he said, "you will eat tonight. And you will sit at a table, not in the kitchen." He turned to Claude, whose smile had gone very thin. "See that she is served properly."
June stood, her legs unsteady beneath her, and for the first time that evening she allowed herself to believe that the question she had rehearsed all the way down Royal Street might have been the right one after all.
Chapter 2: The Upright in the Back Room