The Gradient
It was a quarter to noon when the oven caught fire—the peak of the lunchtime rush. Apparently it had been the work of the rats. The vermin had eaten into the wiring, perhaps, or built their nests too near the heated bits.
The old cook Sunday didn’t much care how it had started for it had wrecked half the kitchen and frightened the customers, and would take, according to the repairmen, at least a week to set right.
He looked on in dismay as the dire appraisal was made. A week’s worth of wages. Forty dollars up in smoke. And however would he spend the next five days? He was weary and cranky, and his back ached something awful of late, and it might indeed do him well to have a rest—but not at such expense.
Still sulking, he sauntered outside to catch the Magazine Street bus, sweating in the heat of the Louisiana summer. There were few folks riding midday; most were still at work, where he ought to be. He thought of Leodice, waiting at home, not expecting him back till well past 8 o’clock. How would he break the news to her? A whole week lost, and with Athalie’s birthday coming up and Jenny Bee’s baby on the way! Leodice would fret. And when she fretted, she yelled. And after she yelled, she repeated, for the umpteenth time, that infuriating saying of her mama’s. How did it go? “What the good Lord borrows, he returns, and always with a dollar’s interest.” She’d say it with such optimism, such certainty, that one would believe she’d never been worried at all.
Presently Sunday became aware of eyes on his back. From two seats behind and to his right, a girl was staring—a white girl in a sky-blue dress. Covertly as he could, he peered at her over his shoulder. She could be no older than eighteen, and her strawberry blonde curls, bound into two loose pigtails, made her appear far younger.
Their eyes met for a moment, then she looked beyond him out the window, as though having done so the entire time. Was he imagining things? But no, she was at it again. Staring. Likely she was offended by his choice of seating—or perhaps by the fact that they were sharing a bus at all. He resolved to ignore her. Confrontation would be the height of foolishness, rude though she may be, and for a while he succeeded in training his thoughts elsewhere. But the girl continued to stare, all the way past Jackson Avenue, First Street, and Third—and Sunday was feeling uncharacteristically ornery that day. Somewhere around Washinton Avenue, his temper got the better of him.
“It’s legal now, you know?” he said.
Silence. Perhaps she couldn’t tell he was speaking to her. Then: “Pardon me, sir?” Her voice was high, like a child’s, with a hesitant, tremulous quality that served only to embolden Sunday.
“It’s legal, me bein’ on this bus… right here in the front. I ain’t breakin’ no laws so why you got to stare that way?”
“Is—is that what I’m doing, sir? Forgive me, I never meant… It’s just… well, it’s your hair, sir.” Her accent was odd. Unfamiliar. Perhaps she’d come from up north or somewhere overseas and had never been taught proper manners.
“My hair?” said Sunday, patting dubiously at his head. “There somethin’ wrong wid it?”
“It’s beautiful, sir.”
“Beautiful? You pullin’ my leg, child?”
“Oh, no, sir! The way it fades ever so softly and gradually from black at the crown to grey at the temples. It is splendid—a perfect gradient. I—I would very much like to paint you, sir.”
“Paint me?” Sunday stared at her, searching the pale, freckled face for evidence of amusement. She was having a joke at his expense—he was sure of it. But there was no laughter, no guile. Like a hopeful puppy, she stared back at him, her blue eyes wide and earnest behind huge tortoiseshell glasses. She’d have been a pretty girl, he thought, if only she were not so skinny.
Beside her, in the empty window seat, was a large leather case. An artist’s portfolio.
“Where you from, miss?” he asked.
“Belfast.”
“Where’s that, up north?”
“Ireland, sir. I’ve been visiting my cousin, Patience. She lives over on Joseph Street with her husband. They have a big yellow gingerbread house with a garden and the most beautiful light. If you like—I mean, if you’re not too busy—you can come with me today and I’ll paint you. Would you, sir? Please?”
“Well… I don’t know, miss. I ain’t never had my portrait done before. Not sure I’d make a good subject.”
“Oh, there’s nothing to it, sir. All you’ve got to do is hold still for a while. Not to worry; I’ve been told I work fast.”
Still, he hesitated. The idea made him bashful. “This goin’ to be alright wi’ your cousin, miss? Bringin’ home some strange fella’ you met on the bus?”
“She won’t mind at all. She gets so bored in that big house. And I’ll make it worth your time, of course, sir, if that is your worry. They give me an allowance—” And she extricated a little floral pocket book from some compartment in her dress, and thumbed anxiously through the billfold. “I have forty-one dollars here, sir… if that would suit you.”
A dollar’s interest, thought Sunday, staring at the bills in her hand. He could never tell Leodice of this. Ever. It’d make her head grow twice its size.
“Why, yes,” he said. “Forty-one dollars will suit me just fine. What’s your name, miss?”
“Eppie. Eppie Dooley.”
“Mine is Sunday,” said Sunday, and they shook hands on the deal like two old tycoons.
And so Sunday got off at Joseph Street, and followed his new acquaintance straight to the door of the sunny yellow gingerbread where he was welcomed by kind Miss Patience. They led him out back to the garden gazebo where Eppie’s easel stood, and he was set on a comfortable wicker sofa beneath a rose trellis, and given chilled white wine and petit fours from a silver tray. Eppie sketched and then she painted, and Sunday did his best not to move, except to lift his glass every once in a while. The two women chatted and giggled and they all got rather tipsy, and Sunday passed the best afternoon he’d had in some time.
It was nearing 7 o’clock when at last he set out for home with forty-one dollars in his pocket. Eppie had indeed worked fast, but portraits take time, and oh, but it was a fine one. The little artist was some sort of genius. A painting prodigy. Leodice would like her. But he couldn’t tell Leodice. Ever. She was already insufferably smug, that woman.
The smell of gumbo greeted his nose as he climbed the rickety porch steps and made his way into the kitchen. Leodice stood by the stove, ladle in hand, her broad hips swaying in time to an old jazz number.
“You’re home early,” she called. “Everything alright?”
“Baby,” said Sunday, “you ain’t never gonna believe what happened to me today!”
Ellery D. Margay is a freelance food and fiction writer currently residing in New Orleans, LA. His work has previously appeared in The Paragon Journal, Tigershark Ezine, the poetry collection Untimely Frost, and in multiple FunDead anthologies. When not dreaming up tales and the occasional poem, he can be found sampling and reviewing the newest restaurants and wandering the world in search of weirdness, wonder, and misadventure.