Summary:
The story’s title produces an expectation that characters soon to be introduced will share nostalgia of bygone days and long for happier hours that can never be fully recaptured. A few opening words laced with irony, however, dispel this anticipation. The appearance of a particular white woman in a jazz club, the Palm Cafe, jolts the narrator, whose surprise is intensified by the fact that the lady in question appears to be dating a black man. Faced with a seeming impossibility the narrator consults her long-term memory, checking for accuracy, and concedes that this nemesis of her past, and not a double, is indeed sitting there, waiting to hear the Sunday afternoon matinee of the Cal Callen band.
As the band leader introduces the instrumentalists, the narrator, Philomena Jenkins, hears his usual hip patter with half a mind; the other half is captured by the spectacle of Miss Beth Ann Baker, former Georgia Peach and Miss Cotton Queen, the richest girl in the town of Baker, Georgia, sitting beside a good-looking black man. When Cal Callen introduces the lady piano player by name, Philomena sees Beth squint at her in mutual recognition. This brief acknowledgment causes Philomena to miss her cue in the opening interlude. While a few bars of the music escape her, Philomena detects in Beth’s expression a look that is familiar, but too vague to name. Philomena uses the feelings that look evokes to dig down into the next jazz number, “Round Bout Midnight.” Beth’s presence now seems to facilitate Philomena’s finding “the places between the keys where the blues and the truth lay hiding.” As Philomena identifies with the inconvenience, lack of privilege, and heartache the song calls forth, the notes blend with her understanding of how these realities have shaped both her life and her music. The tangible symbol of all the pain and hurt the knowledge engenders is now embodied by Beth, the little rich girl who had everything.
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