by Arden, Alys
The Casquette Girls
Copyright © 2012, 2013 Itzy
Published by: fortheARTofit Publishing
Cover Design: Lucas Stoffel & Alys Arden
Cover Photo: Christina Deare
Map Illustration: Hellvis
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9897577-2-0
No part of this book may be produced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including copying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead is coincidental.
Table of Contents
Note:
Part 1: Adele
Chapter 1 On The Road
Chapter 2 The Final Stretch
Chapter 3 Home, Sweet, Home
Chapter 4 Gris-Gris
Chapter 5 Blue Eyes
Chapter 6 Busy Signal
Chapter 7 Ciao, Bella
Chapter 8 Bisous, Bisous
Chapter 9 Run, Run, Run
Chapter 10 Lady Stardust
Chapter 11 Absinthe vs. Wheatgrass
Chapter 12 The Truth
Chapter 13 The Unexpected Muse
Chapter 14 T - Minus One
Chapter 15 Walk of Shame
Chapter 16 Uptown Girls
Chapter 17 Downtown Boys, pt 1
Chapter 18 Downtown Boys, pt 2
Chapter 19 La Fille à La Cassette
Part 2: Adeline
Chapter 20 Je t’aime Paris
Chapter 21 Knowledge, Beauty, and Metal
Chapter 22 Bon Voyage
Chapter 23 A Whirlwind Romance
Chapter 24 Stockholm Syndrome
Chapter 25 Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome
Chapter 26 Monster vs. Myth
Chapter 27 It’s Bird
Chapter 28 Voodoo Queen Dee
Chapter 29 Blood Sucré
Chapter 30 Plastic Cheese
Part 3: Brigitte
Chapter 31 Mad World
Chapter 32 The Brothers Three
Chapter 33 Death of a Diva
Chapter 34 Carpe Noctum
Chapter 35 Birds of a Feather
Chapter 36 Circle of Seven
Chapter 37 Artemisia Absinthium
Chapter 38 Toil and Trouble
Chapter 39 Fight or Flight
Chapter 40 Night of La Fée Verte
Chapter 41 Plight of La Fée Verte
Chapter 42 Flight of La Fée Verte
Chapter 43 La Fin de la Fée Verte
Chapter 44 Mourning of the Casquette Girls
Epilogue La Toussaint
Acknowledgments
Author Info
Note:
This book is dedicated to the people of New Orleans – past, present and future. To the people who inspired the myths and the legends, to the people who continue to tell them, and to the people who continue to believe them.
Which ones are true?
Well, that depends on what you believe in.
Part 1: Adele
“The city where imagination takes precedent over fact.”
William Faulkner
Chapter 1 On The Road
October 9th
The day had finally come.
The feeling coursed through my head, my chest, my stomach – until the tips of my fingers tingled, as if the sensation were trying to escape the confines of my nervous system.
My father and I were finally on our way home.
Trying not to let the anticipation drive me crazy, I leaned back in the passenger seat and took deep breaths, inhaling the smells of worn black leather and bubble gum. The combination always reminded me of sitting in the front seat as a child. I had always been up for a ride in my father’s prized possession because I knew there would be a sugary pink stick waiting for me in the glove box.
The city wasn’t exactly encouraging people to come home yet, but my father had always been a bit of a rebel. This fact, topped with endless nights of me begging and pleading, had finally made those four little words slip out of his mouth: “Okay, let’s go home.”
As soon as he caved, I fled the Parisian boarding school my French mother had dumped me in while my father and I were “displaced.” She didn’t tell me goodbye. And I never looked back. I wonder if she even knows that I left? I landed in Miami late last night, and we were on the road by six this morning. I didn’t want to give my father the chance to renege.
Ten hours later, we were still purring down the interstate in his 1981 BMW.
But I didn’t mind the long drive. I had never been away from my father for that long. I had never been away from New Orleans for that long. It felt like years since the mandatory evacuation, but in reality it had only been two months – two months, two days, and nine hours since the Storm had touched ground.
The Storm had been the largest hurricane in the history of the United States. Scientists were still debating whether it should even be considered a hurricane because it had smashed all previous parameters used for classification. They didn’t even name it. Everyone simply referred to it as “the Storm.”
Economists were predicting it would end up being the greatest natural disaster in the Western world, and there were even rumors flying around that the U.S. federal government was considering constituting the area uninhabitable and not rebuilding the city. That idea was incomprehensible to me.
The media was all over the place about the devastation. We had heard such conflicting stories that there was really no telling what would be awaiting us (or not awaiting us) upon our arrival. Had our home been damaged, flooded, ransacked, robbed – or any combination of those things? Was it now just rotting away? I fiddled with the sun-shaped charm hanging from the silver necklace that nearly reached my waist, wrapping and unwrapping the thin chain around my fingers.
My phone buzzed.
Brooke 5:12 p.m. Are you close? Text me as soon as you get home. I want to know everything, ASAP! xoxo
I quickly pecked,
Adele 5:13 p.m. I will! How is La La land? <3
I didn’t exactly have a laundry list of close friends, but Brooke Jones and I had been attached at the hip since the second grade. The Joneses had been stuck in Los Angeles since the evacuation, and Brooke was freaking out on a daily basis because her parents were adjusting to the West Coast lifestyle at an alarming rate. Even the thought that her parents might permanently relocate to California made me cringe.
“Waffle House?” my father asked as we sped past the Alabama State line into Mississippi. He proceeded down the exit ramp before I could respond.
* * *
A bell dinged when I opened the door of the infamous southern chain, causing all the employees to shout a welcome without looking up from what they were doing. My father headed to the bathroom, and I jumped into a booth, grabbing a napkin to wipe pancake-syrup residue off the table.
“I’ll be with ya in a second, darlin’,” a waitress yelled from across the narrow diner.
Johnny Cash blared on the jukebox, the air reeked of grease, and the fluorescent bulb in the overhead light gave everything a sickly tint. I couldn’t help but chuckle thinking about the stark contrast of this scene compared to my life just two nights ago: sitting in a café on the Champs-Élysées, eating a Crêpe Suzette with my mother. Well, I had been eating a crêpe. She would never have allowed herself to eat something as appalling as sugar.
Mid-chuckle, my eyes caught the gaze of a guy sitting solo in a booth across the aisle, slowly stirring a cup of coffee. Our eyes locked moment
arily, and my cheeks started to burn. I let my long waves of espresso-colored hair fall in front of my face and grabbed a menu so I could pretend to focus on something. I tried to recall the last time I’d taken a shower – I'd been in transit for more than twenty-four hours at this point. Oof.
I lifted one eye to find him still looking intensely at me.
He was probably a little older than me… and far too sophisticated to be sitting in this particular establishment among the tall hairdos and flip-flops. His black leather jacket was not the biker kind you might find in a diner in the Deep South – it was softer-looking, more fashionable. Possibly custom made. The jacket, along with his dark, slicked hair, made him appear part-James Dean, part-Italian Vogue.For a split second I forgot where I was, as if stuck in some kind of Paris-Mississippi-time-continuum hiccup.
When I realized I was staring at him, I became instantly flustered. His eyes didn’t move, but the corners of his mouth slowly spread upward into an innocent smile. Or maybe it was deceptively innocent? Just as my heart began to speed up at the prospect of finding out, my fork suddenly slid across the table, flew halfway across the room, and clanked against his ceramic mug. I had been so caught up in the moment I hadn’t even noticed myself flick it.
“Sorry!” I covered my face, mortified, and considered crawling underneath the table.
“Don’t worry, honey, I’ll bring ya a new one,” a waitress yelled.
As if I was worried about the fork. I’d nearly taken out the eye of the hottest guy within a fifty-mile radius.
I finally mustered the courage to raise my head and try to catch another glimpse of him, but all I saw was his mug on top of a ten-dollar bill. When I realized I’d been hiding my gaze from no one, I became even more embarrassed.
Of course he ran. I am obviously hazardous.
“You okay?” my father asked as he slid across the orange leather into the booth.
“Yep, the jet lag must have just kicked in,” I blurted out, “but I’m super excited for cheesy eggs.”
“I thought you hated American cheese?” he asked suspiciously. “You always called it plastic.”
“Yeah, well, I guess something becomes more desirable when you can’t have it.” There were certainly no American-cheese-like products in France.
My heart rate began to drop back to a normal rhythm.
We ordered and then sat in silence while we waited for our food. My father turned his head to stare out the window. I knew he was too nervous to ask me about Paris, and I was not readily volunteering up any information. It was weird to spend your entire life with someone, be suddenly separated for two months, and then reunite. It felt strange that it felt strange being together.
* * *
After he polished off a stack of waffles and I forced myself to choke back eggs smothered in plastic cheese, we headed back to the car.
“How about I drive for a while?” I asked.
“How about I drive and you study?”
“Why should I study? I’m not even technically enrolled in a school right now.”
“You are enrolled in a school right now, Adele…”
I unintentionally slammed the passenger door behind me.
“You are technically still enrolled in Notre-Dame International.”
As he pulled out of the deserted parking lot, he added in his best I-am-serious voice, “And if we get to New Orleans and find out you can’t get into a school, then you are going to be on the first plane back to Paris. Back to school. That was the deal.”
“I am not going back to Paris. Non, je déteste Notre-Dame International!” I said in my most dramatic French accent, hoping he would still be able to understand the juvenile words. He had only himself to blame for my speaking French; he was the one who’d forced me to take private French lessons since I was five, a year after my mother skipped town – as if he thought my ability to speak her native language might bring her back. “I can’t believe you shipped me off there in the first place. I belong here, not with rich kids in boarding school. Not with her.” My eyes began to well. I knew my reaction would upset him, but just the thought of having to go back to Paris made me want to jump out of the moving car and run away.
The old Beamer filled up with awkward tension because he didn’t know what to do or say next – any sign of teenage-girl tears made my father uncomfortable. He always tried his best to be paternal, but it never really seemed natural for him, not even after all this time of just the two of us living together.
In my sixteen years, he had never once said anything bad about my mother to me, but I could tell he felt a tiny bit relieved that I’d fight to return to New Orleans with him instead of staying in Paris with her. He was simultaneously terrified and proud that I had inherited his rebellious streak rather than her need for refinement.
He patted my hand. “Don’t get upset. You know school comes first.”
My father, Macalister Le Moyne, lived with a perpetually tired look. He had inherited a popular bar from his father at around the same time my mother left us, which had made him an artist-turned-business-owner and single parent all at once. Since then, he kept mostly nocturnal hours, waking at midday to give himself enough time to work in his metal shop on sculptures and furniture before going back to the bar. Now he was unshaven and a bit shaggier than usual, appearing to have aged a few years in the last couple of months, just like all the other displaced citizens of New Orleans.
The Storm had been peculiar not just because of the suddenness with which it had grown but because its target had been so unexpected. The day before it hit, the Storm was a routine Category 2 hurricane – not something to shrug off but something people knew how to handle –predicted to make landfall somewhere around Galveston, Texas. Eighteen hours prior to hitting land, for no reason scientists could explain, the hurricane changed course and headed straight for New Orleans.
Everyone trying to clear the city at such short notice caused total mayhem. We ended up evacuating to Miami with a few of Dad’s bartenders, never dreaming we’d be gone for more than a few days. But before the Storm left the Gulf of Mexico, it tipped the Saffir-Simpson scale, and once it hit land, like most folks upon arrival in New Orleans, it didn’t want to leave. We watched on in horror as it hovered. And hovered. And hovered. All we could do was stare at the television from afar and wait for our unwelcome houseguest to take a hint.
That was before the levees broke and turned the city into a fishbowl.
When reality kicked in and we were suddenly unable to return home for an undetermined period, my father decided that I would be better off in Paris with my mother rather than in Miami with a bunch of vagabonds looking for bar work. I wasn’t sure if he really believed that or if he’d just cracked under post-Storm pressure, either way, he shipped me off to France as soon as he managed to get in touch with her. As far as I knew, that was the first time they’d had contact in all those twelve years.
I refused to let my eyes get blurry as I looked out the window. I’m not going back to live with her. I won’t let it happen. New Orleans is my home.
* * *
Thinking about going back to Paris made me immediately self-conscious. Up until eight weeks ago, I had always thought of myself as just a normal teenager – not the head-cheerleader type but not being shoved into lockers either. I did pretty well in school but was certainly not in the running for valedictorian. I had inherited my father's artistic tendencies, but (to my curatorial mother's high-art dismay) I channeled them mostly through designing clothes. Despite all of this, I had hardly tipped average by Paris-standards. During the last two months, I couldn’t have felt more plain, more uncultured, and more passé. My Parisian classmates were like ballerinas in three-inch heels, born to analyze haute couture and recite Baudelaire, making my skinny jeans and DIY dresses seem childish and unsophisticated.
I sighed and attempted to push the French memories out of my consciousness: the sparkling Eiffel Tower, the macaroons from Ladurée,and most of all, Émile
.
My stomach twisted.
I definitely didn’t want to think about Émile. Not the way he tilted his head when he looked at me. Not the way his slight smile always made me wonder what he was thinking. Not his Vespa, or his sexy French accent. I’d be kidding myself if I said a small part of me hadn’t wanted to stay in Paris because of him, which was pathetic; it’s not like anything ever really happened between us. It’s not like he was my boyfriend.
The car went over a bump, and I realized that trying not to think about Émile was actually making me think about Émile. Ugh.
Chapter 2 The Final Stretch
Thirty minutes later, we detoured from I-10 onto Highway 90 to drive the scenic route along the Gulf of Mexico, or what used to be the scenic route. The damage to the Mississippi coastline was insurmountable. I didn’t know what to feel, only that nothing felt real.
Every single one of the behemoth antebellum homes that had lined the beach was gone. The humungous casino barges previously anchored in the Gulf had been slammed onto the other side of the highway and shattered. The souvenir shop with the monstrous shark-mouth entrance, where Dad had taken me and Brooke to buy rubber rafts when we were kids, was gone. The mom-and-pop places, the national franchises, the historic landmarks – all gone.
Waves crashed over an enormous pair of golden arches lying in the sand near the tide. I felt like I was floating outside of my body and peering down at the beach from some transcendental reality. Was I really ready to handle the havoc wreaked by the Storm at home?
“The media’s been so focused on Louisiana, we didn’t hear much about the damage in Mississippi,” my father said, attempting to hide his own shock.
“How bad do you think it is in New Orleans?”
“I don’t know, but you should prepare yourself for the worst.”