Page 6 of A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

“Sounds real nice, like Eden.” Ms. Della’s eyes softened, and a silent kinship settled between the two of them. It was the first time Ricki had heard anything other than ridicule over her idea. It wasthrilling, sharing an instant understanding with a stranger. It felt like relief.

“I’ve been saving half my paycheck for this for years! But the spaces I can afford to rent are all wrong. Too industrial, too modern.” She looked down at her hands. “I just have one chance to prove myself. No one believes in me, and I constantly second-guess myself, but I know I can make this shop a success. You know how some things just make sense?”

“Hmm,” said Ms. Della cryptically. Then she pulled a photograph out of her wallet and passed it to Ricki. “Don’t know if you’re looking to leave the state. But this is my brownstone in Harlem. I live on the top three floors, and there’s a boarded-up ground-floor apartment that’s been empty since the 1920s. Lord knows I don’t know what to do with it.

“Now, this may sound funny, Ricki. But the apartment feels like it’s holding its breath. Just waiting for the right person to bring it back to life. Wouldn’t it make a pretty flower shop?”

Ricki peered down at the photo. Instantly, she felt a physical pull. An insistent tingle in her chest. Heart thudding, she opened her mouth to speak, but Ms. Della had moved on.

“Now. Shall we discuss old Dr. Bennett’s homegoing?”

Later, Ricki couldn’t recall how she had answered. She just remembered knowing, with certainty, that she’d randomly met her real-life fairy godmother and that she’d felt as dazed and dazzled as if she’d been touched by a magic wand.

Much later still, she’d realize that there was nothing random about it at all.

CHAPTER 2

NIGHT-BLOOMING JASMINE

September 2023–February 2024

In early September, Ricki moved in. It was one of those golden New York afternoons when summer overstayed its welcome. Sunshine trickled through the tree-lined streets, dappling sidewalks and illuminating the city in warmth. The day felt enchanted, and Ricki was home.

225½ West 137th Street. Harlem.

Even the address sounds enchanted, she thought, peering up at Ms. Della’s brownstone for the first time in person.

She’d done her research, and she knew that Ms. Della’s house was near Strivers’ Row, the swanky historic district where Black aristocrats had lived during the Harlem Renaissance. But nothing had prepared her for this breathtaking block of impossibly grand nineteenth-century Italianate brownstones. Just as Ms. Della’s photo suggested, number 225½ was a beautifully restored antique, framed by leafy vines and vibrant wildflowers. To Ricki, a lifelong lover of bygone eras, the entire building felt like a gift delivered through time. Magical.

Ms. Della lived on the top three floors. But on the ground level,to the left of a majestic stoop, was the unoccupied, boarded-up garden apartment. Inside, the large front room with a massive street-facing bay window would house Ricki’s shop. And the small studio apartment in the back would be her home. She hadn’t intentionally manifested this faraway place to hold her new life, but damned ifthiswasn’tthat.

Before Ms. Della and Dr. Bennett bought the house a few years ago, no one had lived there since 1928. Immediately, they’d had it structurally updated to modern standards, and because Ms. Della loathed clutter, she’d tossed most of the 1920s relics belonging to the last tenants. (“Nostalgia and melancholia are fraternal twins,” Ms. Della had announced to a horrified Ricki.) Thankfully, in the empty garden apartment, Ms. Della had left a few pieces of original furniture covered in muslin, thinking that the person who finally rented the space might like some historic flair.

Holding her breath in anticipation, Ricki opened the creaky front door to the spacious front room. The parquet floors were sagging, the plaster was chipped, and the air was fragrant with sawdust, Lysol, and Febreze, but oh, it was charming. Ricki pulled a dusty piece of muslin off the wall, revealing a rusted pier mirror reflecting sunlight into the space.

She wandered around the room, designing the space in her head. When she got to the windowsill, she peered outside onto 137th Street, imagining what it must’ve been like back when Harlem was the epicenter of Jazz Age glamour. Flappers shimmying in satin, men in spats and hats. The fast, frenzied craze of the Roaring ’20s. The Black mecca!

Not so much today. So far, Ricki had spotted only chic upper-middle-class white families hanging out outside, with UPPAbaby strollers and toddlers. It was the kind of block where Black Lives Matter flags waved from every stoop, but only a few Black lives resided.

Because Ricki was wired to go superhard for anything she cared about, she’d spent the past three months educating herself on Harlem culture. She reread Nella Larsen, Ralph Ellison, and Amiri Baraka. She streamedMoon over Harlem(1939),Hell up in Harlem(1973), andA Rage in Harlem(1991). She read Pat Cleveland’s memoir and bought Van Der Zee prints. She already knew Mase’sHarlem Worldalbum by heart, but nevertheless, she streamed it forty-seven times as she packed up her apartment.

Just then, Ricki noticed a note card on the windowsill.DELLA BENNETTwas embossed on top in gold, and the note was written in spidery handwriting.

Dear Ricki,

This place was waiting for you. Work your magic. Two conditions upon living here. 1) Pay rent in a timely fashion. 2) Visit your elderly landlady upstairs once a week, for tea and The Great British Bake Off. I hear she’s recently widowed and would enjoy company.

xx DB

Hugging the note to her chest, Ricki spun around, eager to see the rest. In the back of the soon-to-be shop was a door leading to a narrow hallway with a closet-sized bathroom replete with a 1910s-era claw-foot tub. The hall ended with a compact studio apartment featuring a sliver of an oven, a few cabinets, and a sink tucked in a far corner.

The aging floors groaned as she raced around, swiping muslin off furniture, dust catching in the sunbeams streaming through the window. Gasping with delight, she discovered a throne-like dulled-green wingback armchair.

Most spectacularly, she uncovered an antique oak piano and bench.

She’d never seen a square piano before. It was so quaint and old-fashioned looking, like a set piece fromLady Sings the Blues. She slid onto the bench, running her fingers down the well-worn, nicked planes of the oak and then across the ivory keys. With flourish, Ricki did a dramatic roll down the entire keyboard.

There’s such faded glamour in this piano, she mused.Who played it? Whose lives were lived here?

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