Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans by Rosalyn Story Read Free Book Online

“Guess I dropped a few pounds since I seen you last.”
    “Whoa. I guess you sure did.” Julian nodded, smiling, looking him up and down. “I almost didn’t recognize you. Good to see you, man. You playing much?”
    Casey hunched both shoulders. “Well, you know…,” he started, and glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the highway marker: New Orleans, 30 miles .
    “I was .”
    Julian’s mind hurled back to the seventh grade, Mr. Martrel’s band class. Grady had been a pudgy kid with protruding ears and a girl’s high-pitched voice, alternately Julian’s best friend and worst enemy as the two clashed over bragging rights, each claiming musical dominance over the other. In a town where trumpet players ruled, they had both followed in the city’s great tradition, but since their late teenage years, their lives had evolved into opposing sides of a coin. Julian: hardworking, serious, with a passion for music that bordered on obsessive. Casey: careless, unfocused, but with a talent that dazzled, seeming to draw from some limitless source. As a musician, Grady Casey was, as the close-knit community of horn players in town acknowledged, fierce .
    Their rivalry, mostly friendly but sometimes strained, had carried underpinnings of one-upmanship. Their cutting sessions, intense battles where riffs shot back and forth between the bells of their horns like topspinning tennis balls, usually resulted in a draw, but while Julian would pull out every stop, lips numbed and forehead lathered in sweat, Casey, at the end, always appeared cool and unchallenged.
    But it had been Julian who had left for New York in search of a spot on the big stage while Casey manned the home turf: he married a local jazz singer, a white woman twelve years his senior, Julian had heard, and taught at a local music school by day and gigged at night. While neon marquees back east heralded Julian Fortier as the jazz world’s emerging star (a Grammy followed a top spot on the Downbeat readers’ poll, while club dates and tours crowded his calendar), his brilliant rival was barely known outside the limits of New Orleans, and had no ambitions there.
    Hey, seen you on TV a few weeks back, man,” Casey said, nodding.
    Julian didn’t know what the nod meant—a compliment maybe, but not necessarily. He shrugged, not inclined to mention that the Tonight Show airing was a repeat from two years ago, back when he could still play . Before Japan, he hadn’t played a gig in almost a year. The run-in with a wayward Yellow Cab in downtown Manhattan that totaled his two-seater, broke his chin, and spoiled his dream-like career, had humbled Julian in a way that still felt unfamiliar, unnatural, and uncovered a sensation that was totally new—embarrassment.
    Julian saw no need to go into all of this with Casey; it was hard enough to admit it to himself.
    Casey squinted from the sun, shading his eyes with his hand. “Your daddy and them do all right?”
    Julian looked away from Casey toward the bend where the highway disappeared into a grove of cypresses, then turned back to meet his old rival’s eyes. “He stayed through it, man. We haven’t found him yet.”
    “Aw, man.” Casey pulled a pair of black plastic sunglasses from his sweaty shirt pocket and put them on. “I got three cousins still missing. I think they went to Atlanta, at least I hope. Everybody else, just, you know, trying to deal.”
    Casey shook his head, his brow furrowed, his eyes glassy. He looked toward the highway. “Man I cain’t even believe this mess. It’s like…judgment day or something, you know what I’m saying? You been there? Whole city is wasted, man. You seen your daddy’s house?”
    Julian nodded, turned up the last of his drink, and tossed the can into a nearby trash barrel.
    “The house is a bust, man. I just want to find my father.”
    “I know, man. I know.”
    An awkward silence passed between them. Finally, Julian said, “What’s the deal with your