by Arden, Alys
A faint rattle was coming from behind me.
I strained to listen. It’s just the old pipes, I told myself. But the rattling sounded way too close to be coming from behind a wall.
Scrubbing again, my nerves began to fry, but I refused to look back, feeling safety in not knowing the truth. The noise grew louder and louder, chipping at my curiosity like an ice pick. Chip. Chip.
Breathe.
Without moving my head, I slowly raised my eyes to the mirror and blinked a couple of times at the reflection. Across the room, the metal hand-crank was aggressively jerking, causing the entire music box to shake. I spun around, dropping the rag.
As I gaped at the machine, the handle slowly began to turn itself, and the music started up again.
“What the…?”
Am I losing my mind?I wondered as I went back to cleaning. Experiencing some kind of Storm-induced post-traumatic stress disorder?
The next time the volume died, the sounds of my own heartbeat pounding were interrupted only by the sound of creaking metal. I knew what was making the noises, but my brain could not adjust to the idea.
Breathe.
Creak.
Breathe.
Creak.
Bowie’s voice warbled back to full volume, and the room was back to feeling like a 1970s rock opera.
I bent and swooshed the rag around the bucket of soapy water, racking my brain for logical explanations, never landing on anything scientific. Maybe it’s a ghost?A lost spirit who really, really wanted to listen to “Ziggy Stardust.” I couldn’t blame it. Wait, do I even believe in ghosts?
The volume died again.
Getting annoyed by the start and stop, I whipped around to the machine. The metal handle flew around so quickly that the album hardly skipped a beat. David Bowie’s voice parachuted in to keep me from going into panic mode.
I had no idea if I was dreaming, awake, crazy, or sane, but as the B-side repeated, I began to relax, and my thoughts moved from a recently grayed-out New Orleans to Mr. Bowie’s fantastical world.
I hadn’t realized that I was full-on rocking out with the mop until my father appeared and spun me around, but I was loving it too much to be embarrassed.
“There is absolutely no denying that you are my daughter,” he yelled over the music, twirling me around.
He grabbed the shadeless floor lamp and belted out the “Lady Stardust” lyrics, doing his best David Bowie impression. I burst out laughing.
“Oh my God, Dad, stop. You’re ridiculous.”
He sang even louder.
The more I laughed, the more dramatic he became. I hadn’t seen him act this silly since I was a kid. Maybe we were both going loopy? He slid across the piano bench and banged out the chords on the long-dormant instrument.
His ridiculousness escalated until I was doubled over with tears pouring down my cheeks. I couldn’t remember the last time I had laughed so hard. My ribs hurt, my cheeks hurt, and I was gasping for air.
A really good laugh could change everything.
He jumped up from the piano bench just in time for the last verse, twirled me around a few times, and then slowly rocked me back and forth. As the song finished, so did the crank, and the music stopped.
“Everything’s going to be all right, Adele.” He kissed the top of my head. “I promise.”
I willed myself to believe him, but when I opened my eyes, I saw the metal crank vibrating, as if it was trying to figure out what I wanted it to do. And then, even stranger – I felt myself commanding it to stay still.
Chapter 11 Absinthe vs. Wheatgrass
Dancing turned into a dinner date. My father cooked a bland feast of plain red beans ’n rice (all the while playing Hunky Dory loudly to further my Bowie indoctrination), while I took on the gag-inducing task of cleaning out the fridge. It was funny experiencing such a domestic scene in our home. Usually we just sort of coexisted, sharing the occasional cup of coffee and discussion about art when our schedules overlapped.
After dinner, he hurried off to Le Chat Noir, and I was left alone, trying to change the overhead lightbulb in my bedroom. Even standing on my toes on top of the piano bench, with my arms fully extended, I wasn’t close to reaching the ceiling fan.
I sighed. “What were you thinking, Adele? You are way taller in your mind than in actuality.”
Fetching the ladder wasn’t an appealing task after having hauled all of my clothing, books, sewing paraphernalia, and sixteen years’ worth of God-only-knows-what else up the stairs, but, unless a bottle of potion labeled “Drink Me” was suddenly going to appear and make me grow, there were no other options.
With one foot out the door, a ridiculous idea entered my mind. I stepped back onto the bench, looked up at the old bulb, and imagined it turning.
Nothing happened.
“This is insane,” I said, before realizing that talking to myself only confirmed the statement. The old bulb shook a little. My heart skipped. I had this strange feeling that it wanted to move.
Focus. Who knows when the lightbulb had last been touched? Maybe it’s stuck. I concentrated explicitly on the metal ridges of the bulb’s base, picturing it moving in a slow circular motion.
“Come on, you can do it!”
It budged a millimeter. This time, instead of fear, I felt exhilarated.
“That’s it. Slow and steady.”
I watched in amazement as the bulb slowly unscrewed itself and then plopped into my cupped palms.
My hand shook as I pulled the new bulb from its box and extended it upward. When my arm reached its full length, the bulb left my hand, gracefully floated up to the fixture, and slowly began to turn itself into place. My shoulders tingled with excitement as the base of the bulb was swallowed, and the bright light popped on.
“And then there was light,” I whispered and looked around, almost fearful that someone had witnessed me bend the laws of nature.
My pocket vibrated before I could further freak out.
* * *
“Please, please, please tell me you are moving to L.A.!” Brooke screamed before I could even say hello.
“It’s so weird here without you! How is Los Angeles? How are your parents?”
“Oh no, girlfriend. Don’t think I am letting you off the hook that easily. Are you moving to L.A. or what?”
“Well…”
“What? Nooooo! I already cleared out half of my closet for you. I mean, it’s not like I really have any stuff, so it wasn’t that hard, but still. Adele, this school is uh-mazing. Last year they worked with Rodarte, Chanel and Project Runway.”
I tried to pay attention as she rattled on about the fashion program, but I was stuck on how casually she had mentioned having no stuff. In New Orleans, Brooke cleaning out half of her closet would have been a major feat.
“The program sounds cool.”
“Cool? Adele, it’s Chanel, as in the empire built by Coco Chanel, your idol! This is your future we are talking about—”
“I know! it’s just that… everything is so messed up here. I don’t really know how to explain it. I can’t abandon the city, not unless I absolutely have to… I mean… not that I think y’all abandoned the city. We just had something to come home to…”
She didn’t say anything.
I turned off the light and headed downstairs to snuggle into the quilt on my bed. “So… have your parents been back?” I asked. “Has anyone been to your house?”
She remained silent, which was usually impossible for Brooke, so I knew she was crying, which was also unusual for her. I was usually the crier of the two of us.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just waited.
“We don’t know anything for sure, but there’s not much hope – our whole neighborhood was obliterated. Dad’s going home next week to see if anything is salvageable, and to speak with our insurance agent. The settlement has already turned into a big battle. I begged him to let me go with him, but he refused.” She paused again. “He says there’s
nothing left there for us anymore.”
I knew it was selfish of me, considering the circumstances, but I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of high school without my best friend. And I couldn’t imagine Brooke’s father actually feeling that way. Alphonse Jones was—isa part of this city. His horns could be heard on most of the major records to come out of the Big Easy in the last decade.
A giant lump formed in my throat. There was no way I would be able to get words out. Do not cry, Adele.
“I’m sure it will only be temporary,” I said, choking back tears. “No one is back yet, I promise. Seriously, the streets are empty. It’s deathly quiet.”
“Quiet?”
“Yeah… it’s creepy.”
There was another long pause and a wet sniffle.
“Enough of this mopey stuff,” said Brooke. “We haven’t talked in like two months… tell me a story. Bonjour, how was Paris? And don’t say anything about it being lame, or I will jump through this phone and smack you!”
Classic Brooke. This was why I loved her.
“Well, Paris was…” I struggled to find the words to describe the raw magnificence of the city. “Paris is amazing. It’s Paris.” Giddiness rushed over me as I curled into the covers. “It’s so hard to describe it without sounding like a sappy cliché.”
“Well, I already know you’re a sappy cliché, so try.”
“‘There are only two places in the world where we can live happy: at home and in Paris.’”
“Whoa, that’s deep, Adele.”
“Oui,but I can’t take credit; it’s Hemingway.”
Émile had turned me on to Hemingway, yelling in a fiery fit, “How iz it possible zhat you’ve never read Hemingway? He’s even American!” Mortified, I had spent the rest of my stay devouring all the Hemingway I could get my hands on. Luckily, Émile was totally right (about Hemingway, anyway).
“Again, in your own words, please.”
“Hmm… It has this joie de vivre that devours you. Kind of like New Orleans, but times a hundred. My feelings were heightened just by walking down the street. If I was happy, I wanted to dance. If I was sad, I wanted to weep openly in the street.”
“And if you wanted to love…?”
“God, shut up! Do you ever think about anything but guys, Brooke?”
“Uh huh… sore subject, much? Go on, but don’t think I’m going to let you keep the Émile saga a secret forever.”
It was exponentially harder to focus now that I was thinking about Émile again. I dug deep for words.
“There are so many emotional things on every street corner – a café where a poor Toulouse-Lautrec used to drink absinthe, a scene from a Baudelaire sonnet, a street Marie Antoinette had once rode down, a corner where a revolution was sparked. Hugo, Sartre, Piaf, and not to mention Coco – the list is endless! Everyone says you fall in love with Paris, but sometimes I had this burning jealousy of her.” I paused to take a breath, astonished by how much I had been suppressing over the last couple of months – burying anything good that had happened in Paris out of fear I wouldn’t want to return home to help rebuild.
“And?”
“And what?”
“And tell me about the boy!”
“Hello, it’s your turn! What’s L.A. like?”
“Mmm… hmmm…”
“I mean, besides celebrities and wheatgrass shots?” I pushed.
“Fine. It’s not New Orleans, but I get why people love it here. The weather is perfect – like, always perfect. From the Santa Monica Pier, you can listen to the ocean and see mountains in the background at the same time.”
“Wow, mountains?” I laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mountain in real life.”
“Yeah, the nature in California is out of control. It’s the polar opposite of home. Everything is clean; no one smokes – well, not cigarettes, at least. Everyone is beautiful, and everyone is always on, from their hair to their clothes to their cars – like they need to be ready for a magazine shoot at any given moment.” She paused. “The hardest part is my mom. She’s upset about the Storm, but she just seems so happy here. She’s totally back in her element. We were here for like a day before she was offered this high-powered position at Capitol, and my dad’s been getting all these gigs and recording sessions. She thinks it might be his big chance to ‘break out of the New Orleans scene,’ whatever that means.”
Brooke’s mother, Klara, was a California girl more akin to a Russian supermodel. She had met Mr. Jones when he was on a West Coast tour. They got married when the tour stopped in Vegas, and she had been running her own entertainment public relations firm in New Orleans ever since. Brooke always joked that she got the best of both worlds from her parents, and I tended to agree. She had a totally exotic look and a voice that could silence a stadium. No surprise she focused on music at NOSA. There was no doubt in my mind that she would become a famous singer one day.
“Adele, I’m going to freak if I have to stay here!”
“Don’t worry. When NOSA reopens, you can come and stay with us if your parents end up relocating.” I didn’t tell her how bad a shape our school was in.
“Wait a second, if you aren’t coming to L.A. and NOSA isn’t reopening for a while, why isn’t Mac sending you back to Paris?”
The inevitable question I had been dreading.
“Apparently, the Academy of the Sacred Heart has reserved a seat for me.” I moved the phone away from my ear.
“What! Oh, hardy-har. Good one, Adele.”
“Yeah… I’m not joking.”
“What? What does that even mean, they reserved a seat for you?”
“That’s exactly what I asked.” I explained the situation as best as I could, realizing how few details I actually knew, but once Brooke started ranting about prissy girls and Catholic schoolgirl uniforms, my nerves began firing up. “Next thing you know,” I said, “my picture is going to appear in the society column of the Times Picayune—”
“Okay, spill it. What are you hiding? Did you do it with him?”
“Jeez, Brooke, we didn’t do it!” My face burned red through the phone. Thank God I hadn’t slept with Émile. I couldn’t imagine thinking about him more than I already was. “I’m not hiding anything. I just don’t really know what to say about him. He’s very hot and very French.”
“What exactly is the problem?”
“He’s very much my mother’s assistant! And very confusing. It was almost like he was too perfect. He was kind of the bad boy, but he always managed to say the right thing. Loved art! Always knew how to cheer me up even with everything going on.” I didn’t know how to explain that he always made me feel like he had some unfair advantage, like he had read an operating manual on me before we met.
“Oh my God, Adele! Can’t you ever just let something good happen to you without sabotaging it?”
“See! This is why I didn’t want to talk about him. He made me feel crazy all the time! He was fascinated with my banal existence – always wanting to know more about me but never revealing anything about himself. It started to seem like he was hiding something.”
I was still spending countless woeful hours trying to figure out if he had been genuinely interested in me or had some ulterior motive for trying to pry information out of me, like spying for my mother. Every time I had let him get closer, a million tiny warning bells had exploded throughout my body.
A sigh came from the other end of the line. My eyes rolled in return.
“What does it matter, now? He’s in Paris. With my mother.”
“Have you heard from him since you left?”
“No.”
“Jerk.”
“Have you heard from her?”
“No.”
“Jerk.”
“And I’m starting to feel like it was all in my head, like I just read into him too much—”
“Adele, are you still there?”
“Yeah, can you hear me?”
“Are you there?”
I hung up and tried to ring her back, but the call wouldn’t connect. I can’t say the idea of ending the Émile conversation broke my heart. I pecked a text and prayed it would go through.
Adele 11:09 p.m. Call dropped. Can’t reconnect. Reception here is abysmal. Talk mañana! xoxo
11:10 p.m. Dad is out past curfew again.
Worried, I aggressively fluffed my pillow.
Before the Storm, there wasn’t a waking hour in which Brooke and I hadn’t communicated in some way, shape or form. It’s so strange how an external event can suddenly change all of that. We had barely spoken since I left Miami two months ago and put a nine-hour time difference between us.My heart told me Brooke would stay in L.A., and I hated that idea.
I felt myself drifting off to sleep as I lay there staring at the ceiling, thinking about the little things that were slipping away. Things I had taken for granted before the Storm. But I couldn’t muster my lead-like muscles to get up and turn off the light. The long ball ’n chain dangling down from the ceiling-fan started swaying back and forth.
Tension spread through my body until I was stiff as a board.
The chain slowly gained momentum until it swung in a small circular pattern. I was so tired, it was difficult to focus on the blur. I imagined a forceful pulling motion.
Click.
Darkness.
Breathe.
Chapter 12 The Truth
October 12th
My fingers tapped the kitchen counter, waiting for the pot of water to boil, and my eyes kept moving to the clock on the wall – it wasn’t even 7 a.m. yet. I was starting to like the residual effects of jet lag. Before the Storm, I had certainly never gotten excited about waking up early for work before, but now I was just eager for life to return to normal. My eagerness, however, was no match for my muscles, every inch of which were sore.
I groaned as I bent over to stretch. My legs immediately started to shake. “Thirty more seconds,” I whispered and began to analyze my afternoon with Ziggy Stardust to distract myself from the pain. I barely made it to the half-minute marker before my torso flung up. The head-rush made the magic music box incident seem even more surreal. It wasn’t just the Victrola, and the keys, and the shutter – everything was different now. And it all felt like a dream.