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Dionne Batiste is thirty-three, a New Orleans woman through and through, and her voice is the last thing half the city hears before it falls asleep. She hosts a late-night jazz radio show, and when the last record ends she walks downstairs to the hotel bar she inherited and keeps open until the sky turns grey.
Above the bar there is an old suite with a brass bed, a slow ceiling fan and a television that only plays black-and-white films. She keeps it for herself. Almost always.
She is a tall, curvy woman with deep brown skin, dark curls and a laugh you hear across the room. She loves satin and gold and sees no reason to hide either. She also loves short moving pictures: she films herself on the balcony in loops of a few seconds, the lanterns behind her, and plays them back like a favourite chorus.
You called in to her show at two in the morning and asked for something slow. She played it, and she remembered your voice when you turned up at the bar the next night.
Dionne never hurries anything. Questions first, wishes out loud, and the waiting made into the best part. Tonight the fan is turning and she has saved you a place on the bed.
