by Arden, Alys
“There is a logical explanation for all of this. You just have to figure it out.” I extended my arm across the counter towards the box of oatmeal and imagined it coming to my hand.
Nothing happened. I felt like a clown.
“Ugh, boil, already!” I snapped at the pot.
The fire under the pot pulsed bigger. Maybe I am going crazy after all?
“Finally,” I said out loud as the water began to rapidly bubble.
When the oats had formed a hot mush, I sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on top, wishing we had milk. I grabbed the nondairy creamer and then stopped myself. Too disgusting. Without looking, I reached for the cutlery drawer, but before I could grasp the handle, it shot open and crashed into my hip. My yelp faded as a spoon jumped out of the drawer and landed in my hand.
I unclenched my fingers from around the utensil, and it vibrated in my palm. My heart felt like it was going to pound out of my chest.
“It’s too early for this.”
On a whim, I popped the spoon into the air. A smile slipped out as it dove into my oatmeal and stirred in the auburn swirls. The scent of cinnamon danced around the kitchen, reminding me of what our home used to feel like. Lived in.
* * *
Without the air-conditioning, there was no discernible difference in the temperature when I walked out of the steamy bathroom and into the hallway. It was an odd feeling. My father used to keep the house freezing because it got so hot in his studio with all the torches he used.
As I walked up the stairs, a breeze pricked my naked skin; I wrapped my towel tighter. I know I didn’t leave the bedroom windows open, last night.
Under the lingering aroma of burnt sage, there was a chemical twinge in the air. Something was different. The place looked magnificent, almost shiny, and all the posters I had hung were nowhere to be seen. The ceiling fan, which I knew I had turned off, was now on high.
“Dad, you are the best,” I whispered, realizing he must have stayed up late when he got home and put a fresh coat of white paint on the walls. I was well on my way to forgiving him for shipping me to Paris.
Craving the connection to the outside world I usually got via the Internet, I pushed the plug of an old-school boom-box into an electrical socket, and was immediately assaulted by voices of varying levels of hysteria. I stopped twisting the dial when I heard a woman with a more grounded tone replying to the disc jockey.
“The real question is why isn’t anyone talking about the fact that people are still dying around here? Are we all really this desensitized to death? And what is the mayor really doing about the crime? This curfew doesn’t seem to be helping anything; in fact, I would suggest it’s making the city even more unsafe. The empty streets are becoming easy target zones for predators.”
Evidently, the early hour wasn’t keeping people from going at it. I sat at the vanity and attempted to put moisturizer on my face, but I was already beginning to sweat. Don’t even think of complaining about the lack of air-conditioning. At least you have a home, unlike Brooke’s family.
“Thanks for calling in, ma’am. Do we have our next caller on the line?”
“Hello? Hello? Am I on the air?”
“Yes, ma’am, you are live on the air.”
“Oh, good, my name is Nora Murphy. My boyfriend, James Manale, is missing, and I want to ask whether anyone out there has seen him—”
“Excuse me, ma’am, this is just a morning radio show,” the DJ said gently, “but I can give you our hotline number to report missing Storm victims—”
“He’s not a missing Storm victim. We’ve been back from Memphis for over a week. Two days ago, he went out to try to find groceries, and he hasn’t been back since.” She broke down in sobs. “The cops just tell me that he probably bailed on the situation, on New Orleans…”
“Do you hear that, folks? Something is going on in this city. Fourteen people reported dead, and countless reported missing in the last couple weeks.”
The woman’s sobs became hysterical.
“Ma’am, please stay on the line; we’ll collect your information and do whatever we can to help.”
I squirted a cloud of mousse into my palms and rubbed it through my quickly drying waves. Without even trying, a flick of my mind twisted the tuner dial.
“Recent figures show that only about twenty-five thousand inhabitants of Orleans Parish have returned. Electricity has been fully restored in Baton Rouge, but there is no timeline yet for Orleans, Jefferson, St. Charles or the surrounding parishes. We also have reports that all gas stations in Orleans Parish are wiped clean, so make sure to fill up outside the city limits. There’s still no news on when any of the major supermarkets will reopen.”
I put one leg into a pair of jeans, but then, immediately suffocated by the denim, kicked them off and dug through the mountain of clothes on the bed until I found a lilac cotton sundress I had made at the beginning of the summer. It had a large sash that tied into a bow in the back – a tad dressy for work, but at least my legs and back would be free to breathe. I slipped on black Converse sneakers to tone it down.
Three commercials came on in a row, each one with different attorneys claiming they could help get your insurance settlement. When I couldn’t get the radio to turn off on its own, I sprang from my seat and snapped the plastic power button before I could hear the empty promise of another lawyer.
Desperate to be out of the hot attic room, I quickly pulled a souvenir T-shirt from my suitcase – a small velvet sack I didn’t recognize came flying out with it.
“What…?”
Inside the drawstrings was a matching velvet box with a tiny folded note. Could it possibly be from Émile? I paused, wondering whether to open the box or the note first, and then feverishly unfolded the stationary. My heart fluttered, pushing my lagging brain to translate the handwritten French faster.
Dearest Adele,
Even though your visit was short, I hope you were able to find joy in the streets of Paris, in the way that I do every day. Enclosed you’ll find a ring that has been in your father’s family for many generations, and now it belongs to you.
I do long for the day when we can be friends.
Bisous,
Brigitte
I was stunned.
Oh Jesus. What if this was her passive way of returning her wedding ring to my father? I popped the box open, and a wave of relief washed over me – it contained a ring of an entirely different sort.
Regardless, the little rush of stress caused me to slam the box down on the vanity. She hadn’t even told me goodbye in person! How had she slipped the little sack into my suitcase? I had only stayed at her house – my grandmother’s estate – for one night before my early-morning flight home. I hadn’t even seen her. She had simply left me yet another two-sentence note with a basket of brioche, and had her driver whisk me to the airport.
My subconscious gnawed at me.
Are you really upset to find a note from her? Or just disappointed that it wasn’t from Émile?
I slipped on my standard silver chain and roughly knotted my hair into a loose bun on top of my head. “He’s not your boyfriend. Don’t let this ruin the morning.”
* * *
As I approached Café Orléans, I now realized how much the little outdoor tables resembled any quaint corner of the Faubourg-Montmartre in Paris. Usually I could smell the coffee beans half a block away.Today, not even close. I could, however, hear the Louis Armstrong sounding through the open doors, which meant Sébastien must have opened up (Jeanne usually blared Beethoven concertos).
It was sad, but not surprising, to see the place void of customers.
This hour of the morning was usually the peak time due to the overlap of the day-job crowd on their way to work and the service crowd retiring from the night shift. This morning there was only one guy, maybe in his late teens, sitting by himself at the corner table in the front window, sketching something on a pad of paper. His messy, light-brown hair hung in his face, and larg
e headphones hugged his ears.
“Sébastien?” I yelled, looking for him. “Tu es là?”
I must have startled the customer because he appeared a little shocked to see me when he looked up from his pad. I smiled at him, and his wide eyes went back to his pencil.
A head of perfectly combed blond hair popped up from underneath the counter. “Bonjour!”
“Jesus!”
“Désolé!”Sébastien said, laughing. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Shouldn’t you be behind a microscope, Mr. Neuroscientist?”
“Haha.” He blushed and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Mémé’s been on the phone with our insurance agent for the last two hours, so I told her I would come downstairs and open up.”
I joined him behind the wooden counter, where the espresso machine was laid out in a million pieces.
“I wanted to make sure there was no mold on any of the parts….”
I scavenged elsewhere for caffeine. Usually, we kept several different industrial-sized vats of coffee brewed at once. Today there was only one lonely pot of standard coffee ’n chicory. I poured myself a cup.
“No milk, eh?”
“Non. No dairy. Nothing fresh, really.” He nodded to the empty pastry case.
“I wonder how long it will be before things go back to normal?”
“I have a feeling we will be redefining what constitutes normal.” Always the pragmatist.
I stirred in a spoonful of nondairy creamer.
“Oh!” I pulled out three boxes of macarons. “I brought something for la famille.”
“Ladurée?” He kissed my cheeks, tore open a box, and stuffed one of the pistachio confectionaries in his mouth.“Merci, Adele.”
“Anything for you.” I sipped the light-brown coffee, trying not to cringe from the taste of the fake milk. “So, where should I start?”
He gave me an apologetic look as he eyed the pile of cleaning supplies in the corner.
“Don’t worry, I’m a professional at this point.”
* * *
An hour later, I had finished the mopping and was at the front of the store dusting the floor-to-ceiling shelves of jars that usually contained fifty different varieties of coffee beans but were now mostly empty. I climbed onto a chair to try to reach the top shelves. My biceps shook when I raised my arms overhead for even a few moments at a time. Just as it became difficult not to complain, a booming voice filled the room.
“Ma chérie! You’re back!”
“Ren!” I jumped down and ran to greet my favorite customer. His giant arms squeezed me into a bear hug, lifting me into the air.
“Ren… crushing ribs… can’t breathe.”
He gently dropped me to the ground. “Sorry about that. It’s just been so long.”
“No worries.” I smiled, having forgotten the magnitude of the man’s hugs.
René Simoneaux was what people call “a character.” He was born and raised somewhere south of New Orleans in the bayou but had been a permanent fixture of the French Quarter for as long as I could remember. At six feet, seven inches, Ren was a pale-skinned giant with black curls that rippled down his back and a Cajun accent as thick as molasses. With his collection of white peasant shirts, red velvet jackets (in winter), black leather pants (all year round) and boots with shiny brass buckles (also all year round), he reminded me of one of those models from the covers of cheesy romance novels. The women on his tours fawn over him, never guessing that he went home and curled up next to Theis – a pasty, Scandinavian DJ who had fangs that had been surgically implanted by a dentist or, as I had once heard him say, by a fangsmith. The tall, blond-spiked guy from the convent yesterday.
“I have something for you, Ren!” I scooted behind the counter and rummaged through my bag.
“For moi?”
I pulled out a large white T-shirt with black gothic script that read, “Equipe Edward!”
“Adele, how many times do I have to tell you?” he said in a very serious tone. “Vampires do not sparkle.”
“Okay, fine.” I pretended to pout. “I’ll give it to someone else.”
“No, you will not!” He yanked the T-shirt out of my reach. “Sparkles or not, I am still Team Edward.” We both laughed, and he hugged me again.
“Ça va?How was Paris? I missed you.”
“I missed you, too. I hated being away for so long.”
“At least you were back in the mothership.”
“I know, that’s what everyone keeps saying. And everyone is right, j’adore Paris!”
I poured him a coffee, slid him the powdered milk, and told him the twenty-minute version of my French adventures. “And you? Where did you guys end up?”
“Theis and I drove to Austin with Fluffy, thinking we’d only be there for a couple of days.” Fluffy was their white Persian cat. “But once the media frenzy turned into a circus act, we kept driving through New Mexico and into the Grand Canyon. We camped there for a couple of weeks. When things still looked grim, we drove north and stayed with friends in San Francisco for a month. Just got back last night.”
“Back last night and already working?”
Every morning, starting at Café Orléans, Ren led crowds of tourists through the trials and tribulations of the streets of “Naw’lins.” There was also a special evening version of the tour, which he touted by promising to spill the secrets hidden in the dark crannies of the Quarter. The odds of even a single tourist being in town were slim to none, but he had still showed up at the rendezvous-point, just in case. Admirable.
An hour went by without a single person coming through the door. After cleaning everything I could reach, I took my place on the stool behind the counter. It was sad to see Ren, who was normally polished to perfection, with droopy bags under his eyes and rumpled clothes.
“Ren, tell me a story, s’il te plaît.” It was a request I usually reserved for slow summer afternoons, when people stayed inside to hide from the heat.
“Hmm…” He carefully twirled the end of his waxed mustache. “Do you know the story of the Carter brothers?”
I shook my head and leaned on the counter. I could tell that even though Sébastien was meticulously putting the espresso machine back together, he was listening too.
Never able to pass up the opportunity to take center stage, Ren walked to the middle of the café and brought his fingers to a point. His flair for the dramatic always led me to question how much truth there was to his stories, but their accuracy didn’t really matter because his entertainment value was ace.
“The year was 1930. Huey Long was two years into his infamous reign as the governor of Louisiana. The country was still recovering from World War I, and the stock market had crashed less than a year prior. With the breakneck decline in foreign trade, warehouses on the Port of New Orleans had emptied, and activity on the docks had hushed. Times were hard all throughout the city, and the French Quarter was in dire straits. The buildings were in deplorable condition, and many of the historic establishments had been temporarily closed or abandoned. The prohibition had created a swell of illegal underground activity, and debauchery ran rampant, even more than usual.” He paused to give me a giant wink.
I rested my head on my hands to get comfortable. He was just getting warmed up.
“John and Wayne Carter were two brothers who lived just around the corner from here on St. Ann and Royal Street. Other than the charm that was expected of Southern gentlemen, they appeared to be just your average men with labor jobs down by the river.
“One cool autumn afternoon, while the Carter brothers were down at the docks, a nine-year-old girl escaped from their apartment and ran all the way to the local precinct. Her face was gaunt, her eyes were sunken in, and her hair was thin where patches had fallen out. At a first glance, she appeared sickly, but uninjured. That was until she held out her arms, palms up. The authorities thought that her wounds were a botched suicide attempt, but upon further examination, they discovered that the cuts ha
d been made in a very precise way—with the skill of a surgeon—as if to drain her blood slowly over time. The little girl was in such a state of shock that she was unable to tell her tale, but she kept repeating the words ‘help them’ over and over again. When the policemen raided the brothers’ third-story apartment, they found—”
“Ahem,” a female voice interrupted. “Is anyone here actually working?” The voice belonged to Désirée Borges.
When had she walked in? I’d never seen her in the café before, but, as far as I knew, we were the only coffee shop in the neighborhood open for business (if you could call it that).
“I’d like a nonfat, vanilla granita. Extra whip.”
I stared at her, puzzled by how she thought we could accommodate her request.
“Please?” she added, trying to get me to hustle.
“Um… We can’t make granitas right now. We’re barely operational.”
“Fine, I’ll just have a sugar-free vanilla iced coffee, lots of room for soy milk.”
“We don’t have iced coffee or—”
“It’s still summer! Why are you open if you don’t have iced coffee?”
I considered mentioning my new Sacred Heart status in hopes that knowing someone as lowly as me would be attending her school might cause her head to explode, but Sébastien intervened.
“We just reopened today. Like most places in the city, our iced coffee takes twenty-four hours to cold drip. We should have some tomorrow.” He was far more diplomatic than I would have been.
“Oh, then I’ll just take whatever you’ve got, as long as it’s got caffeine in it.” She obnoxiously batted her eyelashes. I had to keep myself from making gagging noises. Of course, Sébastien was completely oblivious to her flirtation.