February 18, 2024
Breeze Walker (January 3, 1900–unknown) was an American stride jazz pianist and composer. Popular during his Harlem Renaissance heyday, he recorded several hit songs from 1924–1928, but the music hasn’t survived and Walker is largely forgotten today. In 1927, he was hired to lead the house band, The Friday Knights, at famed Harlem cabaret Eden Lounge. Sometime in early 1928, Breeze Walker vanished and was never seen again. His disappearance remains unsolved.
In 1929, an electrical fire burned Eden Lounge to the ground—and with it, the only known recordings of Walker’s songs, all of which had been stored in the basement, including “Happy Sad,” “Hotcha Gotcha,” and “Midnight Jasmine.” There were no fatalities, but historians cite Eden Lounge’s demise as the symbolic end of the Jazz Age.
Walker is believed to be from South Carolina, but no historical records exist.
Ricki hadn’t left her apartment—or opened Wilde Things—since coming home with Ezra the night before last. She was spiraling just a smidge. She’d started to think the piano was watching her, and so whenever she needed to cross the room, she walked in an exaggeratedly broad circle around it. She curled up with her laptop on the shag rug where she and Ezra had slept, and obsessively googled every piece of his tall tale, from his anecdotes with famous musicians to details about Eden Lounge. She watched interviews, read liner notes, and bought multiple ebooks by music historians (there was no time to wait for physical books to be snail-mailed). She’d devoted an entire wall to multicolored Post-its tracking key details, like a TV detective. And she refused to take off Ezra’s shirt.
Ricki was going nuts.
What was she supposed to do? Everything Ezra told her was completely unbelievable: a fever dream of a story. He was creative; she’d give him that. But utterly crazy.
At least, she kept telling herself that. The more she analyzed everything he’d said, the less insane it seemed. Ricki had to admit that if she’d been hearing this story as an uninvolved third party—like, if she’d been following it on a podcast or a documentary series—she might have believed it.
Ricki wasn’t not open to metaphysical stuff or the idea that there was more to the universe than what she could see. Her favorite books were Eva Mercy’s Cursed series, about a witch and a vampire in endless love (the author’s signing later that week was the only thing keeping her going at this point). She sort of believed in the power of crystals, specifically amethysts to bring luck in business and pyrite to combat imposter syndrome—the only part of the Ali experience that had any value. She crossed the street when she saw a black cat. She was in touch with her internal witchiness enough to at least consider the possibility that burning sage cleared negative energy. Did Ricki name her plants? Yes. Did she talk to them? Also yes. Did she think that maybe, somewhere deep inside their stamens, they could perceive her voice in some way? Absolutely. After all, she was convinced that peace lilies couldn’t grow without Stevie Wonder.
Her eyes fluttered closed. Ezra had supposedly worked on that Stevie Wonder album.
To believe in some magic is to believe in all. You couldn’t be terrified of demons without believing in angels, too. If you believe your good Yelp reviews, you’ve got to deal with the shitty ones, too.
Ninety percent of her believed Ezra’s story was impossible. It was the other ten percent that had kept her up all night.
Night-blooming jasmine flourishing in winter was impossible, too. And yet they’d both smelled it in the community garden. And what about the inarguable erotic power of that goddamn piano? And Ezra’s sheet music throughout time? And what about the song he played for her—with her, through her, in her—was that the one he’d been piecing together for a century, finally come together?
Either this was the most complicated con of all time, or it was true. There was no in-between. And if it was a con, what for? Her parents were wealthy, but she was barely scraping by. There was too much unexplainable shit happening, too many connections tying them together. Even now, being away from him, she felt an inexplicable tug she couldn’t do a single fucking thing about.
With every man before Ezra, Ricki realized that she was playing a role. With one guy, she was a seducer. With someone else, an innocent. Within five minutes of meeting a man, she knew who and what he wanted, and she’d mold herself into their dream girl. She rarely gave men her true opinion; she usually acquiesced to their harebrained schemes, and the worst part was she actually thought she was being savvy by preventing men from really knowing her. Who could hurt her if she was unknowable?
But now Ricki realized that was a lie. She’d wanted to be easy to be around, because deep down, she believed that her true self was too much. The Wildes had certainly reinforced this idea her whole life. Ricki was always too much. Unlovable.
With Ezra, she hadn’t had a chance to be anything other than herself. He never gave her the option. Every encounter felt so big and all-consuming that she never found her footing enough to put on an act. He was a mystery; she had no clue what he wanted. So Ricki was Ricki.
And he really seemed to enjoy her. He delighted in the things about her that her family made her feel were absurd. Nothing seemed to surprise this man, which, if his story was true, would make sense. What would shock a 124-year-old guy?
But how could it be true?
She lay on her bed, the clock ticking closer and closer to her scheduled tea with her de facto grandmother. Ms. Della—a woman who minded everyone else’s business without a degree of subtlety—knew she’d gone on the date Friday and was going to ask about Ezra. What the hell would she tell her? The truth? No chance. Ms. Della was the most stridently practical person she’d ever known. She wasn’t about to have her new grandma out here thinking she’d gone nuts.
Even though all signs did in fact point to “nuts.” Ricki was too scared to leave her apartment, because she knew she’d run into Ezra. And yet the house freaked her out now, too! She considered the details she’d taken for granted and never thought to investigate.
There’s a boarded-up ground-floor apartment that’s been empty since the 1920s, Ms. Della had said when they first met. Wouldn’t it make a pretty flower shop?
Ezra had told her that Felice’s suicide never made the papers. She trolled the internet for info anyway. But there was no mention of the building, a scandal, or even a rent party anywhere online.
Just then, Ricki bolted upright in bed with a gasp. Her cloudy thoughts cleared. If what Ezra said happened in the early morning hours of February 29, 1928, was true, Ms. Della might know the story. Weren’t property owners and management companies legally obligated to release the history of a building before selling it?
Ricki tore off Ezra’s shirt, replaced it with a Georgia State sweatshirt, threw on holey jeans, and ran upstairs, holding her breath the whole way.
“Ricki Wilde, you look like you’ve seen a ghost! And your cheeks are on fire. Do you have a fever? And why are you so early? Lord knows this is a first.”
Ms. Della placed the back of her hand on Ricki’s forehead. Then, with a disapproving tsk, she hooked her wispy arm through Ricki’s and led her into the living room, depositing her on the chaise lounge. Ricki sat there, trying to catch her breath and attempting to not look as stressed as she felt. Ms. Della handed Ricki a toasty-warm cup of tea and then sat across from her on her favorite plush wing chair.
“You ought to take better care of yourself, dear,” said Ms. Della, straightening the shoulders of her emerald caftan. “All you do is work at your shop. Do you even sleep?”
“I’m fine, Ms. Della. Don’t worry. Um, I… uh… wanted to talk to you…”
“Oh, I know why you look so dazed,” she interrupted, her eyes crinkling with wickedness. She slipped her glasses atop her vivid fuchsia ’fro and leaned forward eagerly and shakily. “How was your big date with Ezra?”
“It was great. But I…”
“Good for you!” She winked. “You deserve it. I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but Ali wasn’t right for you. He didn’t look like he was adept at… horizontal refreshments, as it were.” She cocked a brow knowingly. “I saw him dance at your art night, dear. No movement from the waist down. Like one of those floppy, inflatable gas station tube figures.”
“Ms. Della…”
“When you two came up for brunch, he ate a cream doughnut with utensils. That’s not a man gifted in the sensual arts.”
“Ms. Della, I need to talk to you. It’s about… Well, it’s going to sound strange. But just go with it, okay?”
“Mmm, sounds serious.” She placed her teacup back on its saucer, and Ricki noticed the IV taped down in the crook of her left elbow. Alarmed, she did a double take. But before she could ask what had happened, she was interrupted by a peppy young nurse wearing Figs scrubs and an arm tattoo of Lana Del Rey’s face. She bounded into the room, clutching her hands together in a gesture of polite, cheerful service.
“How are we doing, Ms. Della? Time to take some blood!”
“Can you give me just a few, Naaz? This is Ricki, my granddaughter. She has something important to discuss with me.”
Even with all the madness swirling around her, Ricki felt a surge of warmth at Ms. Della publicly claiming her as her granddaughter. It was like snuggling under a weighted blanket.
“Hi, Naaz, it’s nice to meet you,” said Ricki, shaking her hand. Who was this person, and why did Ms. Della need a nurse?
“Oh, hi. Ms. Della’s file says she has no descendants.”
“She’s chosen family, dear,” explained Ms. Della.
“Framily,” said Naaz. “A friend that’s family. I host Framily Friendsgiving, actually. Last year, I cooked the frozen turkey from Popeyes’ holiday menu. It’s pre-seasoned!”
Naaz winked and exited the room.
“Who is that?” whispered Ricki, wasting no time getting to the bottom of this.
“Her? Oh, she’s just my new in-home aide. Turns out, getting older is not so fun. I have a benign cyst. It’s nothing, but she’ll be staying with me for a bit, just for monitoring. She’s quite… peppy. Before she was a nurse, she was something called a ‘party motivator,’ getting people to dance at bar mitzvahs and weddings. Did you know that was a job?”
Ricki had never heard Ms. Della speak so fast. Ms. Della made this new development sound casual, but it definitely didn’t seem casual.
“Dear, close your mouth,” she continued. “You’ll catch flies.”
“But… a home aide? Not like hospice, right?”
“No,” she scoffed, chuckling softly. The chuckle turned into a hearty cough. “I just dislike hospitals. Receiving care in the comfort of your own home? Underrated luxury.”
Ricki tried to play along, but she knew in her heart that Ms. Della was lying. She was ninety-six years old! Being sick at this age was most likely fatal. But Ricki also knew she wouldn’t reveal the truth before she was ready.
I can’t lose her, she thought, staving off preemptive sorrow. She’s my rock. And we haven’t had enough time together.
It was a crushing, creeping fear, this idea of losing this woman she loved. They’d had each other in their lives for less than a year. It wasn’t fair.
Ricki respected Ms. Della far too much to push her on the topic. When Ms. Della was finished with a conversation, she was done. But now, in the face of an obvious health crisis, Ricki felt ridiculous introducing the unsolvable mystery of Ezra Walker. Especially since if it was true, there was a distinct possibility that she might die.
Growing up in funeral homes, Ricki was exposed to death and dying at an early age. She was well versed in wakes, dead bodies, and last rites. She’d hang out with the morticians and makeup artists, hearing stories of corpses reflexively surging upright or changing complexions mid-makeover. Death was spoken about so frankly—as if it were no more than the period at the end of everyone’s sentence—but it never felt banal to her. It felt like something to dread, to rail against. Whenever she’d attended a funeral for work, she couldn’t stop thinking about the people left behind. The despair on a weeping husband’s face. The middle-aged people who, after losing a parent, were lost, abandoned orphans. The little ones who were too young to intellectualize that their beloved grandma or grandpa would never return from wherever they’d gone.
Ricki couldn’t give in to the inevitability of death. Instead, it made her want to live harder than anyone else, go deeper, feel everything, grow things, and approach the world with sharpened senses.
And despite all the anonymous death around her, no one close to her had ever died. Her great-grands and grands had all passed before she was born. She still had both her parents, and her sisters. Ricki wasn’t prepared to experience personal loss.
Stop overreacting, she told herself, trying to stave off her slowly mounting panic. Yes, the woman is elderly, but she’s in great health. You had your own benign ovarian cyst scare in 2013. You had a laparoscopy and lived to see another day!
The idea that Ricki might be facing down her own death sentence passed through her mind again. No. She rebuked the thought. It was a hill too steep to climb. She’d confront it only after she’d confirmed that Ezra was, indeed, telling the truth. Until then, she’d compartmentalize.
Ms. Della tapped her flame-red nails on her teacup, snapping Ricki back to reality. “You’re acting real funny today. What’s on your mind, dear?”
Ricki stared out of the window at the street, trying to figure out where to start. “I’ve been curious about this house.”
“Curious how?”
“The history of it. You told me that it was boarded up in 1928 and stayed abandoned until you bought it a few years ago, right?”
“It’s true. I had my eye on it for a while. It was a great day when I finally convinced the good doctor to buy it.”
She coughed again, into her elbow, and then patted her chest. Ricki tried not to flinch.
“Do you know anything about this building’s past? Like, why was it boarded up? I googled it, but no information came up.”
Ms. Della nodded slowly. “That’s because no information would. Tragedy struck that year. February 29, 1928. It was a leap year, like this one.”
Ricki’s stomach dropped. No, it plummeted, roller-coaster style. “What happened that night?”
The elderly woman squirmed in her seat. “Why are you asking now?”
“Oh, no reason,” she said with a wan smile, trying to seem light. “Old Harlem history is my new obsession. You know I’ve been doing those flower Instagram posts around the neighborhood.”
“All I know was a young showgirl from Louisiana committed suicide at a party that night,” Ms. Della revealed, her voice hoarse and weakened from coughing. “Threw herself off the roof, for some reason. Her death was a mystery, really. Because she was an unknown Black girl, of course. But also because the owners of the building buried the news. See, there were these German brothers, the Schumachers, I believe their name was, who owned most of this block. They didn’t want the story reported, because who’d want to rent an apartment in a brownstone where a girl leapt to her death? But they couldn’t find renters, anyway. Because people talk, you know.
“So the Schumachers could never fill the vacancy. And the property just sat here, changing hands. I like to think it was waiting for me. And you.” She smiled warmly.
Ricki had gone numb. For want of something to do, she grabbed the Wedgwood cup and drank her peppermint tea down straight. She was hoping the warmth would smother her nerves and quiet the screams in her brain. It didn’t.
Okay, so it happened, she thought. It happened, but Ezra could still be lying about his involvement. But what would be his motive?
“Can I ask you something?” Ricki ventured slowly. “If the brownstone had a weird reputation, why did you want to live here? You say your eye had been on it for a while, but you lived your entire married life in Atlanta. How did you know this address existed?”
Naaz, who had an enviable knack for timing and an irrepressible love of gossip, burst back into the dining room, holding a syringe and gauze.
“Ten more minutes, please, Naaz,” said Ms. Della, not breaking eye contact with Ricki.
“All good.” She winked jovially and walked out, backward, without skipping a beat.
“That girl’s fixing to give me a heart attack,” muttered the older woman. She sat back in her chair and shut her paper-thin almond-brown lids. After taking a couple of labored breaths, she then opened them again.
“Ms. Della, you seem tired,” said Ricki. “Just tell me if you want to stop talking.”
“Don’t be silly. I don’t know why we never spoke about this before. I reckon I’m just private. Most folks are about as trustworthy as a crooked senator at a rigged chili cook-off.”
Ricki couldn’t help but smile. Ezra spoke like that sometimes.
Oh God, thought Ricki. If the curse is true, Ezra is generations older than even Ms. Della!
“Anyway,” continued Ms. Della, “I always knew about this building. Since I was small…” Ms. Della’s face grew unreadable. “The showgirl, Felice Fabienne? She was my mother.”
Ricki dropped the empty teacup on her lap, and it toppled to the rug below. She didn’t move to retrieve it. She didn’t move at all, in fact.
With sharpened eyebrows, Ms. Della watched Ricki watch the cup fall. Only then, under her disapproving gaze, did Ricki snap out of her trance, picking it up.
“I never knew my mother,” Ms. Della told her. After a lengthy cough, she continued. Her voice sounded even raspier. “Well, I don’t remember her, I should say. I was born in 1927 and she died in ’28, when I was just a baby. My nana raised me in Louisiana, where I lived until I met Dr. Bennett at a church social. He was a handsome young Morehouse student visiting relatives. I married him two days after my high school graduation, moved to Atlanta, and never looked back.” She smiled. “Anyway, story has it, Felice moved to Harlem to be a star. I’ve heard she had a flair for the dramatic; it’s no wonder she named me Adelaide. A mouthful, isn’t it? I’ve always been called Della.”
Adelaide. Ricki sank into her chair. God help her, it was true, then. It was true.
“Have you heard of Eden Lounge? It was a short-lived contemporary of the Cotton Club. She danced there. Do you know how prestigious it was to land that job during the Renaissance? It’s funny—even despite everything, I’m proud of her. Nana told me that when she saved enough money, Felice’s plan was to send for me. But that day never came.” Ms. Della said this flatly, her teacup clinking against the saucer. “I suppose I’ve always been sort of… angry with her. You can’t help but hold it against a person, you know. I can’t imagine being a mother and leaving my child behind.” She sighed, her cloudy eyes staring down at her cup. “She’s a hole that’s never been filled in my life. So I’d always vowed to buy this building one day. Maybe get some answers. Feel closer to her. Stop feeling blue about her.
“New York is a moody town. I’ve learned this since living here. It requires a certain armor, a resilience that must come naturally. Felice might not’ve had it. Look like to me she had a touch of the up-and-downs, or what people today would call mood swings or bipolar or something like that. Borderline personality disorder? I’m no doctor, obviously, but you learn a few things after being married to one for over seventy years.” Her expression was far off, thoughtful. “The apple doesn’t fall far, I reckon. I’ve suffered the blues my whole life, but medication evens me out. My mother was born too early to get the right treatment. Or any treatment at all.”
Ms. Della paused and glanced out of her window. “This is speculation, of course. I really don’t know that much about her. Nana barely spoke her name. It must’ve been painful, losing a child that way. All I know is that Felice was a dancer and Nana’s only daughter.” And then, as an aside, she added, “I also know she could dress. Style to beat the band.”
Without warning, Ms. Della took a strong breath, hoisted herself up out of the chair, and disappeared into her bedroom. “Be right back,” she called over her shoulder.
Using her last functioning brain cell, Ricki desperately tried to talk herself off a ledge. This can all be explained. Ezra must’ve heard Felice’s story somehow. There has to be an oral history of Old Harlem that didn’t make it to newspapers or biographies. If you speak to the right elders, you can find out anything. It’s like that in Atlanta, too. It’s like that wherever Black people are—we carry hidden histories, passed down from generation to generation. Maybe Ezra really is just a weirdo antique furniture collector, like Tuesday said, and he got a little too wrapped up in a Harlem Renaissance obsession, injecting himself into a juicy story he’d once heard.
After all, Ms. Della hadn’t mentioned Breeze Walker even once.
When Ms. Della came back, she was wearing a four-strand pearl bracelet. It was nicked and dull but still beautiful.
“This was Felice’s,” she said. “Glamorous, isn’t it? I once read that showgirls were so desired, they’d receive all sorts of opulent gifts from admirers after shows. The clasp is inscribed, see? BW + FF. I’ve always wondered who BW could be. Now, I bet that’s a story.”
Ricki didn’t hear the last sentence, because she’d fainted dead away.