by G. T. Herren
New Orleans— we’re all about one degree of separation from everyone else in town.
“Ah, irony.” Rachel laughed. “You left the paper because you were tired of reporting on crime and were ready for a change.”
“And now when I start writing again, every piece you assign me ends up being about a crime.” I shook my head. “Maybe I’m just meant to be a crime reporter.”
“Maybe I should start assigning you to write about people I don’t like— want to do a piece on the state legislature?”
“Har har.” I replied. “No way, but I’d be more than happy to write a cover story on the governor, if you want.”
“It’s a thought.” Rachel paused. I could almost hear the gears in her brain whirring. “But for this, I think it would be a lot more interesting if you went more in depth than the rags do— try to figure out what makes these women want to expose themselves this way on television… and why people watch.” She laughed. “Last night, I watched an episode of the Marin County show online, and all I could think was ‘this is just a train wreck.’ But there has to be more to it than that, don’t you think?”
“There’s definitely a camp value to them,” I replied, thinking. “I know Chanse is addicted to them— he watches all of them, I think. And your brother does, too.”
“That’s not a definitive enough sample.” I could hear her tapping her fingernails on a surface. “But we can start with Fidelis’ death— you said foul play was suspected?”
“Yes.”
“That’s an interesting hook for the story, a good starting point.” Rachel went on. “I’d wanted it to be more an in-depth about the cultural relevance— why these shows and the women on them are so popular, blah blah blah, and use the New Orleans show obviously as the anchor of the story. I know those publicity-whores would love to be on the cover, so I’ll start making some calls… I’ll email you later on. You just do some background if you have time— and I mean that— if you have time. You’re off the clock this weekend, understand? Have some fun already— you’ve been working way too hard lately.”
“Yup,” I replied, biting my lower lip as she disconnected the call.
I took a deep breath, tossed my phone into the passenger seat, and rested my forehead against the steering wheel. I’d actually been kind of hoping she’d want me to get to work immediately. That way I’d have to turn around and head back to New Orleans.
There really wasn’t any avoiding this weekend.
I sighed and backed out of the spot. A car passed me as I got the car back up to forty miles per hour. The storm hadn’t let up— if anything, it seemed to be getting worse. But at least I had jazz on the radio to listen to.
Three weeks had passed since Ryan brought up the m word. He hadn’t asked me to marry him, though— he just asked me if it was something I’d thought about or if it was something we should be talking about. We’d been seeing each other for quite a while now, and things couldn’t be better. We had a great routine— we saw each other several nights a week, and we spent the weekends together whenever we could at his place in Rouen, a small town on the north shore. He had his sons every other weekend, and I adored them. They were great kids. It was actually the younger one who’d broached the subject to him. Once that genie was out of the bottle, there was no putting it back in.
Part of me had always known it was inevitable; the longer I continued seeing Ryan, the more likely it was the subject of marriage was going to come up. I’d kept hoping the wonderful long-running honeymoon period we’d been enjoying would just keep going— why mess with a good thing? Ryan’s first marriage hadn’t worked out, after all— although he and his ex were the poster couple for amicable divorce. Maybe we could have gone on indefinitely the way we had been if Brad hadn’t asked Ryan about it, I don’t know.
But I’d pretty much made up my mind to come clean with Ryan this weekend. He deserved the truth. I couldn’t keep avoiding the subject any longer, and if I were going to be completely honest, I liked the idea of being the second Mrs. Ryan Tujague. He was so damned perfect he should be against the law. He liked to cook and clean. He was a great dad. He worked out and kept himself in top shape. He was drop dead gorgeous and smart. He’d served on the board for our local Planned Parenthood and still served as a legal adviser to them. His politics were perfectly aligned with mine, and believe me, it’s not easy finding someone else who makes Jane Fonda look like a fascist. He was successful and from an old, socially prominent New Orleans family. I would be crazy to let him go.
But would he stay with me after I told him the truth?
I cursed myself for maybe the thirtieth time for not being more upfront with him from the beginning. It had never been an issue before— Ryan was the first guy I’d seen more than twice in years. I knew now my thinking my least favorite subject might never come up had just been wishful thinking. Of course Ryan was going to want to get married again. Of course the boys wanted me to become an official part of the family.
It was just hard to think this might be the last time I got to spend the weekend with Ryan and the boys.
Much as I didn’t want to believe that to be true, it was sadly all too possible.
I felt myself start to tear up, and quickly pushed all negative thoughts out of my mind.
If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.
A powerful blast of wind rocked the car, and I struggled to keep control of it as even more rain began pelting down.
Stop beating yourself up already, I reminded myself. It is what it is, and obsessing about what might happen won’t make a difference. Think about the article until you get to Ryan’s. That makes the most sense anyway.
Last night’s premiere episode of Grande Dames of New Orleans had actually been boring, but the first episodes of these shows each season generally were. It always took an episode or two, sometimes even more, for the drama to really get started. It was pretty obvious to me anyway that, because this was a new franchise for the show, all of the women were anxious to come across as smart, intelligent, and emotionally well balanced to start building a fan base. Women who were boring were replaced in the next season. The original show, Marin County, only had one original cast member left: a narcissistic shrew whose normal voice was apparently a loud, high-pitched shriek. Every new cast member tried to win the audience over in the beginning, and sometimes it took a while for their true colors to start showing. The ones the audience hated, of course, never accepted any responsibility for being hated. Without fail, they always blamed it on the way the footage was edited (“they took out the parts where we actually talked reasonably when things calmed down! The producers cut the show to make me look like a raving bitch!”), and while there was undoubtedly some truth to those claims, the producers couldn’t show them behaving badly unless they had actually behaved badly.
The sad thing about the shows was the similarities between the casts of each franchise— so much so the network’s claims they were unscripted often seemed like out and out lies.
Each show, for example, had a woman who was a loose cannon, with a tendency to shoot off her mouth without caring about the consequences of her behavior or actions. This ‘character’ was usually the woman all the drama swirled around. If she didn’t actually cause the drama, she usually insinuated herself into the middle of it and kept things that might have gradually died down going. The viewers were always sharply divided about her— they either loved her or hated her, and fought nastily on the show’s message boards. My money had been on Fidelis Vandiver to play this part on the New Orleans franchise; the previews of the season I’d seen certainly made it look like she was quite happily taking on the role of the bitch— and in the premiere episode, her facial expressions when another one of the women was talking certainly bore that out. There certainly seemed to be some pre-show history between her and Rebecca Barron; they’d behaved very coldly to each other on camera and whenever Rebecca spoke, there was often a shot of Fidelis rolling her eyes or making a face. C
hanse had nudged me with his elbow once, when Rebecca caught Fidelis rolling her eyes and she frowned and narrowed her eyes.
I couldn’t help but wonder if the bad blood between the two women was somehow connected to what I’d witnessed earlier between Fidelis and Billy Barron.
“Bet Fidelis hates her because she’s younger and prettier and a wealthy widow,” Chanse whispered.
As misogynist as his comment was, it was even more annoying because I’d been thinking the same thing.
I wasn’t sure what role on the show my old arch-nemesis Chloe Valence was going to play. My automatic assumption, knowing her as I did, was that she would be the show’s dame we love to hate. Watching her on the show was a horrible dose of reality. From the moment she first appeared on camera it was patently obvious to me that the woman I’d worked with (and hated) for years at the Times-Picayune had either had a complete personality transplant since we’d both left the paper, or had been body-snatched. The Chloe I’d worked with had seen other women as nothing more than competition— unless of course the women could be of use to her. But the Chloe who’d been on the big screen last night was doing her damnedest to make sure the viewers liked her. It was all an act. I could still see right through her the way I always had before. But for people who hadn’t had the pleasure of experiencing her snake-like behavior, she seemed like a reasonable and friendly person, happily married and working on her first novel around her charity work.
I almost threw up.
St. Chloe indeed.
In the cab on the way home from the Joy Theater, even Chanse had brought up how different Grande Dame Chloe was from the City Editor Chloe I’d hated for years.
“She even swore,” he said, referencing the fact she’d set out a mason jar on her first day as city editor— every swear word uttered by someone in the work place would cost them a dollar. Once she’d explained that to all of us, I smiled sweetly, removed a twenty from my purse and placed it in the jar.
“I’m pre-paying,” I explained, my smile never wavering. “In case one day I don’t have any fucking money in my fucking purse.”
If working with her had been awful, working for her was even worse. She was passive-aggressive, which drove me crazy. She nitpicked my work to death, and whenever she could get away with it, assigned me to a puff piece that had me thinking about untraceable poisons. I don’t think there was a single day in my last two years at the paper when I didn’t refer to her as ‘that bitch Chloe.’ I’d hoped when she got engaged to Remy Valence she’d leave the paper, but there was no such luck. She saw herself as a modern girl, balancing married life with her brilliant career. Between her passive-aggressive behavior, my own burn-out from all the crime I covered, and the emotional fall-out of Katrina PTSD, it was really just a matter of time before I left the paper. It was either that or I was going to go insane.
When Rachel offered me the job at Crescent City, I didn’t even have to think twice.
Of course, within three months of my leaving the paper, Chloe resigned to ‘write her novel.’
Bitch.
I took a deep breath and tried to push all negativity out of my mind.
If I had to write about her, it was best not to focus on how much I’d disliked her back in the day. As a journalist I had to be objective and unbiased.
But that didn’t mean I had to look forward to interviewing her, did it?
As for why the shows were popular, there were any number of reasons I could think of from the top of my head. I’d read somewhere that Camille Paglia had called them the modern-day versions of soap operas, and could see some truth in that. A lot of the story lines were predicated on the same things that drove the storylines on soaps— overheard conversations, misunderstandings, talking behind someone’s back, betrayals of trust— without the adulteries and ‘who’s the daddy’ plots that always made me want to scream at the television wear a goddamned condom! Why doesn’t anyone ever get syphilis in Genoa City?
Or did people watch to get a sense of glamour, for a peek inside the lives of women on a higher financial and social plane? I have to admit, seeing the inside of Margery Lautenschlaeger’s castle on the show had kind of taken my breath away. The castle was hard to miss— it was right on St. Charles Avenue, a few blocks downriver from the joint campuses of Tulane and Loyola universities. Made of sandstone with crenellated towers at both ends, it sat at the top of what had to be a man-made hill looking down on the houses on either side as well as the bustling avenue at the foot of its long sloping lawn. I’d always wanted to see the inside of the place, but Margery refused for years to allow cameras inside her home— even for parties she’d thrown to raise money for one of her preferred charities. Her decision to join the cast of the show had caught almost everyone in the city by surprise, and even then I’d assumed she would never allow the show’s cameras inside the carefully guarded privacy of her home. But there, in the very first scene after the opening credits, the cameras were inside the house showing the caterers setting up and her staff decorating while she herself selected the proper turban and brooch to wear to match her stunning white Valentino sheath dress with a black lace waist, which hugged her slender body in an incredibly flattering way. Her shoes were black Christian Louboutin satin ankle strap pumps, and as she maneuvered herself down the grand staircase, I caught my breath.
The ruby-encrusted gold cigarette holder was the perfect final touch.
Well, that and the enormous ruby earrings.
My phone started ringing again as I approached another turnabout. I dared take my eyes away from the road for a moment to glance at the screen. When I saw who it was, I turned on my left turn signal and pulled over into the turnabout, picking up the phone and answering even before I put the car in park. “Athalie!”
Athalie Tujague was Ryan’s mother, and the uncrowned queen of New Orleans society. She could be intimidating— I was terrified of her when I first started seeing Ryan. But as I got to know her better, I’d come to realize she was actually a lovely woman with a big heart and an absolutely wicked sense of humor. “Paige, darling, I hate to be a pain but do you think you could drive back into the city?” There was an uncharacteristic pleading tone in her voice. “I hate to ask— I know you’re up there spending the weekend with Ryan and the boys, but it’s terribly, terribly important. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t.”
“Actually, I’m not even there yet,” I replied, trying to ignore the cowardly voice in my head screaming reprieve! “I’m about halfway across the causeway.”
“You’re on your phone while driving in this horrible weather? On the causeway?” I could literally see her free hand flying to her throat as she said the words.
“I pulled over before I answered,” I replied, struggling not to let my exasperation seep into my tone. Honestly, I am not that bad a driver!
“Thank heaven.” Athalie went on with a sigh of relief. “I hate to interrupt your plans and spoil your weekend, but it really is important. I would consider it a personal favor.”
One doesn’t say no to Athalie Tujague, and it really was about the only excuse that would work with Ryan. Athalie ran her family like a benevolent despot. “We-ell, I—”
“If you’re worried about Ryan, leave him to me,” Athalie interrupted, and I suppressed a grin as she went on, “He’ll understand, and so will the boys. I’ll call him as soon as we’re finished.” Her voice softened again. “Oh, do say you will, Paige. I’ll be in your debt.”
“If you’ll handle Ryan, I’ll turn the car around right now,” I replied, feeling like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Coward, a voice sneered in my head.
I ignored it.
“Consider it done,” she said, and disconnected the call.
I put the car in reverse, and changed directions, driving across and turning left to head back to the south shore.
It was a reprieve— but all I was doing was putting off the inevitable yet again.
I’d call Ryan when I got to his mother’s. I
hated to disappoint the boys… and vowed to tell Ryan the truth the very next time I saw him. I couldn’t count on getting reprieves for the rest of my life.
And besides, I rationalized to myself, wasn’t it better to tell him on my home turf? It would be much easier there.
Not only that, there was no down side to having Athalie in my debt.
I started whistling as I headed back the way I’d come.
Chapter Three
The last person in the world I expected to see sitting in Athalie’s parlor was Rebecca Barron.
It had taken me a lot longer to get back to the city than I’d thought it would. The wind had picked up and the rain was coming down so hard visibility was practically nonexistent. I could hear the waves crashing against the bridge, and every once in a while a wave would hit so hard against the pylons a spray of water would drench the car. I was shaking by the time I finally got off the bridge, but the storm was just as bad on land. The I-10 was under several inches of water, and my Forrester would start to slip into a slide every once in a while before getting traction again. Eighteen-wheelers would pass me going entirely too fast, the big wheels throwing up so much water on my windshield I couldn’t see at all before the wipers did their jobs.
Needless to say, I had some choice words for those idiots.
The drive didn’t get any easier once I took the St. Charles exit, either. The streets were flooding, and while St. Charles was navigable, I knew some of the lower streets were probably under several feet of water. I was tempted to just go home and tell Athalie I’d be there once the storm had passed. The line of cars heading uptown was only going about ten miles an hour, which was enormously frustrating, but there was nothing I could do about it. I was too afraid of getting flooded out to try another street. I just made sure I was taking deep cleansing breaths and tried not to let my frustrations get the best of me.