* * *
—
The very next evening, Jax drove her to the Officers’ Club on base in Millington. After scouring both hers and her mother’s wardrobe, Miriam had chosen a red sequined shift dress with a low back and a high slit. She paired it with black kitten heels and a small black envelope purse. Her mother knew about the date and let her go, quite happily.
“Young folk should always be together. Lord knows, not a soul on this earth could have stopped me from meeting your daddy,” Hazel had said, helping Miriam sift through closets and chests and armoires for the perfect dress.
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.