His mother. The glow of the gas lamps and taper candles turned the room into a tallow cloud of faces and figures through the glass, and it was impossible to pick her out of the crush. It made him sick to think what her purpose was there tonight.
It wasn’t fair. His father’s death. His father’s wife using the courts to have his mother stripped of the house his father had given her, free and clear. Not fair none of it.
And it was agonizing to think that no employment available to Felix could ever earn enough money to prevent his mother from being forced to take this present course of action. She was nearly forty-five years old, her beauty still intact in his eyes, but a softer, more mature beauty, and she was being forced to compete with ripe twenty year olds for the prize of a wealthy benefactor.
His mother had been the mistress of his father for twenty-seven years. Felix had always known the arrangement. It had been neither a dirty little secret nor something his mother had been particularly proud of, but they had always been an affectionate pair, and Felix had felt secure in their amiability with one another. It had never seemed cheap or harsh or mercenary, and he had grown to manhood in the knowledge that if laws and money and society were not as they were, his parents would have married and been faithful to one another.
Had he longed for acceptance and a different sort of security for himself and his mother? Of course. But he had known enough to understand he was fortunate for his station in life.
But that was before his father’s death. Now his sweet and intelligent mother was reduced to flirting and casting about for a man to sexually service in order to feed herself, and it was devastating. A reality he wasn’t prepared for.
The long-simmering and mostly ignored resentments he had felt growing up were boiling up and over to the forefront. Yet he had no idea what to do to stop this madness, to find his way in a world that would no longer accept him without his wealthy white father’s wheel greasing, or how to retreat to a laborer’s life, where he was equally unwanted, both for the lightness of his skin and the quality of his education.
Felix’s stomach churned, from fear and disgust as well as deep and painful hunger. He hadn’t eaten in three days, and while his mother was imposing on a friend for shelter, Felix had assured her he could manage, so as to not be a burden to her. In reality, he had slept in the alley for the past seven nights. Six months ago various friends had opened their doors, but now he had surpassed their generosity.
“You might be able to see better if you entered the ballroom,” an amused voice said from behind him.
Turning quickly, Felix’s head spun. The lack of food and sleep combined with the sharp movement blurred his vision for a split second in the sudden darkness after the lights of the ballroom. Slapping his hand against the bricks of the house behind him to reestablish equilibrium, he blinked and swallowed the bile that had risen from his empty stomach. There was a man in front of him, dressed all in black, the cut of his coat and trousers elegant, his hat at a jaunty angle. He looked to be in his late twenties, and when he pulled back his coat to reach for his tobacco, Felix saw a gold pocket watch that gave off a gleam even from five feet away. The walking stick he carried swung back and forth casually, its owner seemingly unconcerned with the way it scraped the cobblestones.
A rich man, no doubt.
Felix fought the urge to tug at his own coat sleeve again and started to move past him, intending to leave without speaking. He had no desire to either be heckled or arrested for vagrancy.
“Do you know the story of Aladdin’s lamp?” the man said as Felix skirted him.
“Excuse me?” Felix paused, the voice quiet yet commanding in the courtyard, compelling him to respond.
“I’m sure you do. Aladdin is granted three wishes from the genie of the lamp. If you were to request three wishes, what would they be?”
He scoffed, head swimming again. God, he needed to sit down. Just sink to the ground and rest for a few hours, then he could think what to do. There were no answers to be found staring into the play palace of the rich, or talking to a stranger dressed in black. “I have no wishes.”
“Oh, no? Perhaps a house of her own again for your mother ... a new wardrobe for yourself... never having to wonder where your next meal will come from?”
Anger, humiliation surged in Felix. “How the hell do you know about my mother?”
He shrugged. “I’ve followed you. You seem like the kind of man I’m looking for in my line of work.”
Feeling weaker by the second, Felix shook his head, straining to hold his shoulders up, to hang on to the last vestiges of pride he felt. “I understand how that bargain works. I do your thieving or dealing for you, take a small cut, than you toss me to the authorities to placate them for your illegal doings. Leaving me in prison, my mother on the streets, and you rich and happy. No thank you.”
Felix turned to leave, irritated that he had allowed himself even one second of hope. Organized crime was not a temptation.
“You misunderstand.” The man stepped forward, his hand outstretched as he stepped into the square of light cast from the window. “Allow me to introduce myself. I have different names, but all you need to know is that I am the man who can give you your three wishes and then some.”
Before Felix could reject the handshake, the man’s flesh gripped his and a pulsing warmth rippled through his fingertips and palm, racing up his arm. “What ...”
Felix tried to pull back, break the contact, but the grip was ironclad, and when he tugged harder, panicking, he looked into the man’s amber eyes, their glow bright and vibrant like a cat’s, and his own vision blurred again.
When it cleared, he was standing in a tidy house, filled with tasteful and expensive furnishings, his mother smiling up at him from her position on a velvet sofa. Her fingers played with a diamond pendant dangling from her neck, her gown a rich gold that complemented her coloring.
Only his mother wasn’t smiling at him, but a different him. Felix watched himself stroll into the parlor, dressed in dapper evening clothes, affixing his hat to his head.
“Enjoy your evening, cher,” she told him, the other him, her smile pleasant and content.
“I will, thank you, and you should do the same.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek, his well-shined shoes squeaking on the hardwood floors. “I’m off to dinner at my club. I have a taste for étouffée this evening.” He rubbed his stomach in anticipation. “And a glass of wine or two.”