I appreciate that you’re trying to save my bacon, and save your own while you’re at it, but I wish I could make you understand: To change the dynamic between Doug and Lucida is to change the heart of the story. I never wanted to tell the story of a weak boy becoming strong. There are plenty of those stories already. I wanted to tell the tale of a woman, strong already — but accepting of (and even loving toward) a partner who can’t keep up. Apparently that’s as baffling and obscene as the gory undead.
You’re not wrong, and there’s a story to be wrung from a partnership’s shift in power dynamic, but that’s never been the intent of Lucida Might. Lucida Might must be a challenge to the usual, not a capitulation toward some loathsome standard. But the loathsome standard is law of the land, and I’m already so beaten down by the nasty business between you-know-who and I (which I fear has not yet found its end, God help us), and I simply lack the stamina to struggle onward and fight both him and the CCA on top of everything else.
I’m getting old, and life is short, Marty. It’s just too damn short.
Denise sat on the floor and put the pages in order, one letter and then the other, side by side. She read them over and over again, while the faint whiff of flowers faded from her nose. The soft whispers of soot and ghosts from the fireplace retreated, and there was only a residue of black grime that coated the mantel, the tiles, and the old pages themselves.
Word by word. Line by line.
If this wasn’t Joe’s house … then why were these letters stashed in the fireplace? Was the mystery lady keeping them to blackmail Joe? Denise considered the possibility. Maybe she’d stolen the manuscript too; maybe there was something incriminating written inside. If so, Denise hadn’t found it yet. She didn’t see anything incriminating in these letters, either—nothing she couldn’t have gathered from her limited Internet research.
Joe was unhappy, so Joe was quitting. Marty didn’t want him to quit. Joe was quitting anyway.
Then what about the lady? Who was she? What was her role in this weird vintage drama?
Denise didn’t know, and she had no idea how to find out.
Come Saturday, Denise told Sally and Mike that she was going to visit Tulane, and they didn’t quite believe her. “I thought you were hell-bent for Houston,” Mike said.
Sally hushed him. “Stop it. If she wants to go visit Tulane, then by all means let her go forth and research. How are you getting there? Are you going by yourself?”
“What prompted this?” her stepdad added, more suspicious of her motivations than eager to see her off.
She answered her mother first. “I’m taking the bus, so can I have a few bucks for fare and lunch? And no, I’m not going by myself. I’m going with Norman. His mom works there, and he said he could show me around.”
“But why are you going there?” Mike pressed.
“Because I want to look at their library,” she said truthfully. “I read something that said they have some archives of Joe Vaughn’s stuff.”
“The comic book guy?” Sally asked. “Our resident dirtbag ghost?”
“Yeah. If he died outside my bedroom door … then I want to know more about him. Maybe I’ll find out why he’s such a jerk.”
Sally was looking at Denise through narrowed eyes. “All right,” she relented. “Fine. You can go, as long as you promise to answer your phone if I call—and you swear you’ll be home by dark.”
“We could always drive you two,” Mike suggested.
“Oh, for crying out loud,” said Denise. “I ought to learn the bus system anyway, right? I’ll just … I’m meeting him at the stop near the school. If we get stuck or lost somewhere, I’ll call one of y’all to pick us up.”
Mike relented, and Sally told her to take a few bucks out of her purse and to have a good time. Denise went straight for Sally’s purse before she could change her mind, and pulled out an overstuffed wallet that was mostly full of baby pictures, shopping lists, receipts, discount cards from assorted stores, a pen that didn’t work very well, half-sucked cough drops wrapped back up and saved, reminder cards for various appointments that were at least a year old, and Band-Aids.
So that’s where all the extras went. She pocketed a couple of those too. On principle.
Inside this wallet that was roughly as fat as a sandwich, she also found about three dollars in change and eleven one-dollar bills.
She pulled out all the quarters, and took six of the ones. She hoped it wasn’t too much, and Sally wouldn’t regret giving her permission to raid her bag, but she didn’t want to look too broke if they got lunch at the market. After bus fare, five bucks ought to be enough to get at least a pastry and a soda. She could always say she was on a diet.
“Thanks, Mom!” she shouted on her way out the door.
Her messenger bag was slung across her chest, and her flip-flops slapped up and down as she ran down the front steps.
It was hot as hell outside. Maybe as hot as literal hell, for all Denise knew. She wasn’t halfway to the bus stop in front of the school before she started wilting and wishing she’d remembered the sunscreen—but it was too late for that, and she wasn’t sure that they even had any. Six ones and some change wouldn’t buy any. Not even a sample size from a drugstore, if she planned to buy lunch too.
She wiped her forehead, and swabbed at the back of her neck with the rolled-up sleeve of her button-up. It was mostly white with a hint of black plaid, and very soft, and although the extra layer trapped a little heat, the cotton kept the worst of the sun off her shoulders. Her hair was tied up and back in a ponytail because there wasn’t anything else you could do with it, in that humidity.
The bus stop near the school had a rickety-looking shelter over it, covered with graffiti both scrawled onto and scratched into every inch. It also had Norman, who grinned when he saw her. “Hey!” he called out, and he stood up. “You made it!”
She smiled back, and wiped a line of sweat off one cheek. “When does the bus come?”
“Another five minutes, if it’s running on time. On the weekends they’re pretty reliable, but during the week, they’re crowded and kind of iffy. Did you ride the bus much in Houston?”
“All the time.” She took a seat on the bench beside him. “For about a year, we were in this place where the school bus ran really late in the afternoon—like, if I took the school bus home, I wouldn’t get back until after dark, so I took the city bus instead. It usually got me home before the sun went down.”
He nodded. “Right on.”
“I had to change buses downtown, at the main depot. Sometimes, I’d skip the last bus and walk down to the library instead. I’d call my mom and tell her I’d missed it. Then she’d have to drive out and pick me up.”
“I bet she loved that.”
“Totally. But there was this creeper who took that second bus, and sometimes I just didn’t feel like dealing with it, you know? The driver never did anything to stop him.” She wasn’t sure why she was telling him that part, but it was true.
“Did your mom believe you?”
“Yeah, but she was working ten-hour days at this hotel restaurant, and when she was done, she wanted to go home—not drive all the way downtown to collect my sorry butt. I tried not to do it too often.”
He nodded again, and stared straight ahead. He had a pair of sunglasses perched on top of his hair. He pulled them down onto the bridge of his nose. “Creepers gonna creep. Dom got a guy kicked out of school for like, a week, for being a creeper on the school bus last year.”
“Oh, that’s right, she’s your cousin.”
“We have a grandma and a great-grandpa in common. Or we did, but grandpa died in the Storm.”
Denise nodded, and shifted her legs so that her shorts covered most of the bench underneath her. It was as hot as everything else, and she didn’t need the chicken-fried thighs. “My grandma did too. And my dad. We didn’t lose anybody else, though.”
“I’m sorry about your dad and grandma.”
“I’m sorry about your great-grandpa.”
The bus picked that moment to come around the corner, so they both stood up. The big, rumbling vehicle stopped, the doors opened, and a thin drool of cool, damp air rolled down the steps. “After you,” Norman generously offered.
“Thanks.” She asked for a transfer, and went back to the first seat that was empty enough for two.
Norman joined her, settling down beside her.
The bus pulled forward. They both lurched, then settled back.
He asked, “So what did you mean? When you said you didn’t lose anybody else?”
“Oh, you know how it goes.” She shrugged. “When the water hit, everybody went in a million different directions. My aunt and uncle ended up in Atlanta, and my mom’s cousins went to Minnesota. Mom’s half sister went to Chattanooga. We don’t see very much of any of them, not anymore. We’re Facebook friends with everybody, but … nobody’s home for the holidays, if you know what I mean.”
“I know how it goes. I’ve got two uncles who are still in Fort Worth. They just … never made it back.”
“We’ve got a couple of cousins who came back, but I don’t know them real well. And one of my aunties got us the real estate agent, and helped find the house.”
“How’s it working out? Living in that big old house?”
“You say that like it’s fancy or something.” She smiled without showing her teeth, and without meaning it. “You know good and well it’s just a big craphole.”
“But y’all own it. It’s your craphole.”
“Sort of. My mom got some kind of historic business mortgage for it, because of the bed-and-breakfast. But if people keep getting hurt, I don’t know.” She waved her still-bandaged hand. “Everything feels so dirty, all the time.”
“Sounds typical to me,” he said with a knowing bob of his head. “Mom and me live in a duplex that used to be a single house. She goes crazy trying to keep it clean, but there’s mold in the walls, so it always feels kind of dirty and wet.”
It was Denise’s turn to nod. The mold remediation in the Agony House was technically finished, but she was still pretty sure there was more mold lurking around somewhere. She could always smell it in the bathroom, no matter how much bleach she used.
Before long, Norman pulled the string to signal he wanted the next stop. “The market’s right up here. Have you been to it yet?”
“No. I haven’t really been anyplace.”
“You’re gonna love it.”
When she stepped off the bus, back into the heat, she was prepared to believe him. The sidewalks around the market were bustling with shoppers, and the outdoor seating was all occupied, despite the late morning warmth. A few trees and a handful of umbrellas offered shade around the tall, long building that looked freshly restored from top to bottom.
It made Denise think of an old train depot, with all its windows and two stories’ worth of height. The front entrance on St. Claude Avenue added to that feeling when she followed Norman through big double doors, into the market proper.
Inside, the lovely high ceiling was supported by a row of painted white columns, with vendors on either side of a central dining hub. All around, Denise heard tourists chattering about the seafood, and locals asking what was new, and sellers announcing the daily specials. Coffee grinders and juice machines hummed and ground and blended in the background. Kids ran back and forth between the front and rear, trailing balloons, or beads, or paper streamers and laughing their heads off, begging for a visit to the booth with all the sweets. She swiveled her head around, taking it all in. She almost lost Norman, but his back was moving ahead of her, ducking and weaving around the kids, the tables, the shoppers, the tourists with their too-big bags and goofy sunglasses. She followed him farther into the center.
The air was still too warm, but it was too warm everywhere and all the terrific collection of smells stirred and stewed. She got a whiff of coffee from over here, and a sharp note of the salty catch of the day from over there. Chocolate too—and the fluffy light sweetness of meringue. A quick gust of spiced rum, not that she was supposed to know what that smelled like, but it was one of Mike’s favorites.
Norman stopped in the middle, between two white tables with black metal chairs. “Well, what do you think?”
“It’s pretty great,” she said. What she didn’t say, was that she hoped she could find something she could afford to eat.
Almost as if he’d heard her thoughts, he said, “There’s some pricey stuff here, but there’s also a lot of stuff you can get on the cheap. What do you like?” he asked, gesturing around at the vendors of po’boys, and seafood, and candies, and booze.
“What do um … what do you like? I’ve never been here before. What’s good?”
“Everything. I usually go to the Haitian guys, down over there,” he pointed. “Good island food, if you’re into that kind of thing. They’ve got …” He squinted around. “Tex-Mex too. Over there. You came from Houston, right?”
“I moved back here from Houston.”
“That’s what I meant.”
He pointed out a counter that offered all kinds of promising and familiar food. “You can get street tacos pretty cheap. And chips and salsa, that kind of stuff. The guac is good too. Then you’ve got, juice and salads, crepes, and have you ever had Vietnamese food?”
“Nah, never. Maybe the Tex-Mex?”
“Okay, sounds good. I’ll meet you back here …” he waved his arms around to indicate the general vicinity of these particular tables, “… in a few minutes.”
She ended up getting two street tacos, a side of guacamole, and a glass of water. It didn’t look like a lot of food, but by the time she’d finished it, and Norman had killed off some crawfish étouffée that probably didn’t come from the Haitian vendors, she actually felt pretty full and pretty awesome.
“Thanks for this,” she said to him as they bused the contents of their table into the nearest trash can. “I’m really glad I got to see this place.”
“Me too. You ought to get out more. Get to know the neighborhood beyond the golden fried food of Crispy’s. Which is great, don’t get me wrong. But you should see the rest of it sometime too. Don’t hole up in the nail house, just because it’s weird.”
“What’s weird?”
“Oh, come on,” he said, ushering her back out the door and toward the bus stop.
She had a feeling she knew what he meant, but she didn’t want to say it herself, so she let him do it. “What do you mean?”
“White girl, coming from Texas, moving to a black neighborhood. A mostly black neighborhood,” he adjusted, probably thinking of Terry. “Then your parents go off and buy a big house—even if it’s not the world’s greatest house, it still looks like money coming in from outside. Nobody around here could afford to buy it at all, much less get the money to fix it up. Nobody but the gentrifiers.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“I didn’t.” He took a deep slurp through his straw, finishing up all his water and maybe sucking up a little bit of melted ice. Then he chucked the cup into a trash can beside the bus stop. “But that’s what happens around here. People come in from someplace else, they buy up crapholes and turn them into mansions. Everybody used to think it was funny. We used to joke about them.”
“How come?”
“Oh, they’d take one house on a block and fix it up real nice, and then it was the only nice house on the block. They’d try to sell it for ten times what any other house would go for … and it’d sit for a while, nobody living in it. Finally, maybe they’d get a renter. Usually some white family, on a mission to save the city from itself, coming in after the Storm like they’re gonna make a difference. Then maybe those renters buy a place, and maybe they bring some friends. Pretty soon, you’ve got a little block like an island, like a fortress. Bunch of people who see a couple of black guys waiting at a bus stop and call the police, like we’re casing their houses or something.”
&
nbsp; Denise blushed. “But it’s good if they’re fixing the old houses, making the neighborhood nice again, right?”
“Good for somebody,” he said, and stood up to announce that the bus was pulling up. “Not for everybody. I mean, look at this market, right? It was just about demolished, and now they’ve fixed it back up again. Now it’s fancier than it ever was before the storm, and that’s pretty cool—but now a lot of the locals can’t afford the food.”
Denise handed the driver her transfer and went to go sit down. Norman joined her.
“You know we’re not like that. You know I’m not.”
“I know you don’t mean to be, but you might turn out to be. Your momma turns that place into a bed-and-breakfast, who’s gonna come pay to stay there? More tourists who want to gawk at what the Storm left behind, and more white knights.”
“I hope not.” But the more she thought about it, the more worried she was that he could be right. And she didn’t have any idea what to do about it, so she asked. “What should we do, then? How should we make the nail house part of the neighborhood?”
He thought about it a minute, and said, “Hire people from the neighborhood to work on it, and work in it when it’s finished—and pay them what they’re worth. That’d be a start.”
“Well, they hired you.” She didn’t know if they were hiring neighborhood professionals for the pricey stuff, but she resolved to bring it up to her mom and Mike later on.
“That’s true! And I’m worth every penny.”
The number 90 bus headed uptown, to a stop in “Carrolton,” or that’s what she thought she heard over the intercom. The next one was for the university, and that’s where she and Norman got off.
They climbed down off the steps at the bus’s back exit and stepped into a sidewalk beside a bright, clean campus. Rows of bicycles were locked up on long metal racks outside each building, and everything looked very new.
Denise said, “Wow, this place is nice!”
“It doesn’t all look like this. Don’t get me wrong, the rest of it ain’t bad,” he added, “but some parts are nicer than others. Come on, I’ll take you to the library.”
The Agony House Page 15