Her mother stopped then. Went over to the edge of Miriam’s bed and sat on it, tired suddenly.
“I’ll be home right at midnight, Mama,” Miriam had said.
Miriam heard a honk. She opened the front door promptly at seven-thirty to find Jax at the curb standing beside what looked like a time machine, holding a small bouquet of African violets and staring at her, open-mouthed.
He made not a move. He seemed paralyzed, transfixed, as Miriam’s kitten heels clicked on the pavement leading from her porch to the street.
She, too, was taken aback. Jax drove a sports car the likes of which she had never before seen. It was a color darker than the night around them. Once inside the car, she noticed that it smelled like Jax: musk, leather, cigarettes, and shoe polish. She took in a deep breath.
At the club, Miriam met Antonio Mazzeo, known to all as Mazz, from Chicago’s North Side. He and Jax had been inseparable since boot camp, five years prior. Both still carried with them their Chicago accents—sharp Cs and even sharper short vowels. They shared their love of the Cubs, of a Polish loaded with hot peppers, of summers in a city that dazzled emerald against the waters of Lake Michigan. Mazz belonged to the only Italian American family living in a hard Irish neighborhood. He could walk out of his family’s fourth-floor brownstone where, below, the first floor held the family bakery that served cannoli and cappuccinos and hand-stuffed potato gnocchi, walk right out to see Ernie Banks at first. Jax and Mazz had formed a brotherhood in boot camp. Jax had been shocked—Mazz was the first white boy he had ever met that didn’t either try to spit on him or kill him. Being spat upon by their drill sergeants instead, they felt a kinship—both hated for their bloodline and both hailing from one of the greatest cities in the world.
Mazz sat between Miriam and Jax at the bar, cheek resting in his palm, staring at Miriam as she sipped her wine and ranted on about the fact that every nigga in Memphis wants a record, but none of them a novel.
“Marry this one,” Mazz said, raising a glass to Miriam before tossing back a shot of tequila.
Miriam blushed. She noticed that Jax shifted in his seat.
“I’m serious. I told him. Didn’t I tell you? ‘Get you a Memphis woman,’ I said. Southern belles.” Mazz let out a long whistle.
Miriam couldn’t help but blush. “I can hear you, sir,” she said.
“I want you to hear!” Mazz exclaimed. “Make a fine man out of him. If you can. Get hitched. Don’t you people jump a broom or something?”
“You people,” Jax repeated, grinning.
Miriam noticed that his lips, already so lovely, blossomed when he smiled.
Mazz took another shot of tequila. Rose from his seat at the bar.
“No, don’t leave,” Miriam protested.
“And with that, ladies and gentlemen, I leave you two fine people to your night,” Mazz said, slightly slurring his words.
Miriam smiled, watching him go. He stumbled into a couple slow-dancing to an Isley Brothers song. Jax used this opportunity to draw closer to Miriam. With a deft movement, he dragged her barstool closer to his. She could feel the metal of his military badges and ribbons brush against her dress. The smell of him—leather and something she couldn’t quite place.
“Oh!” Miriam raised a hand to her face to hide her laughter, only to find her hand suddenly being drawn gently down by Jax’s.
“Don’t ever do that,” he said, his tone serious. “Don’t ever cover up that smile. I think it may just be able to launch a thousand ships.”
Miriam blushed again, and it spread like a small fire all over. Felt it in her toes.
“Come on,” he said, rising.
“Where we going?”
Jax offered his hand.
Miriam considered it. She gave in, placed her hand in his.
“Let’s go downtown. Show me around your city.” Jax kissed Miriam tenderly on the cheek, then ran to fetch his car. The kiss was the softest thing Miriam had felt in her life. She stood waiting with her purse in her hands, again transfixed by the beast of a vehicle that Jax pulled up to the club’s entrance. He hopped out, opened the passenger door, and looked at her expectantly.
“What kind of car is this?” Miriam asked, stepping toward the offered door.
“It’s a Shelby,” Jax said.
Miriam raised her eyebrows, surprised and impressed.
“A 1969 Shelby Mustang GT Three-fifty,” Jax said with pride.
“She sure is something,” Miriam said. She could hear the awe in her voice.
“I thought the same thing when I first saw you.” Jax planted another kiss on Miriam’s cheek before closing her door and running around to his side of the Shelby. He started the engine and shifted into first. “You look amazing in red, by the way,” he said quietly, sounding almost shy.
In that moment, Miriam was certain that somewhere in the deep recesses of this earth, in some underground ocean-filled cave, there was a small but indisputable earthquake.
They drove to Memphis. Downtown was aglow with lights, and the streets were packed with people. The Shelby’s windows were down, and as they drove slowly through the city, she could hear the strumming of guitars filling the night air, the music growing into a cacophony by the time they reached Front. The aroma of hot fried food permeated the night air.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Miriam said.
“Just taking in your city,” Jax said. He downshifted into second and made a left on Front Street. “And taking in what Mazz said,” he added.
Miriam blinked back confusion. Mazz had said a lot of insane things that night; she was struggling to remember what Jax meant.
They stopped at a red light where, to their left, couples were dancing to the blues music being played by street performers in the middle of Beale Street. They watched for a moment, then Jax turned Miriam’s face toward his. “Why don’t we do it?” he said.
“Do what?” Miriam asked. He could not mean what she thought he meant. But what if he did?
“Get married?”
Think, Meer. You don’t know him. This is your first date. Love at first sight happens in the classics and usually does not end well. But Mama said she knew, just knew, about Daddy…
Miriam’s thoughts were a tornado shifting this way and that, toward logic and away from it. But in the very pit of her, in her veins and arteries and sinews, she knew she loved this unknown man.
“Well,” she said, turning to look back out the window rather than at Jax, “because we’ve known each other for all of a day.”
“Thirty-two hours,” Jax countered, pulling ahead as traffic started moving again.
“Thirty-two hours,” Miriam repeated.
“And that’s not enough time?”
“Not nearly,” Miriam said.
“Right.”
They heard the unmistakable wail of a trumpet. Someone on Beale was attempting to play Louis’s “West End Blues” and, like everyone since Satchmo, was failing.
“Who’s your daddy?” Jax asked suddenly, cutting through the trumpet’s moan.
“Excuse me?” Miriam snapped her head from the window to look at him.
“Um. Say, that didn’t come out right.”
“You best not verbalize what foul mess you’re thinking in that Yankee head of yours,” Miriam said. “I’m a good Catholic girl.”