by Ciji Ware
He grabbed a spoon off the table and dipped into the swiftly vanishing ice cream. After a few bites, he glanced at his watch.
“You have to go, right?” Sylvia said, looking disappointed their lunch was coming to an end.
“I’ve got to get back and make a bunch of phone calls on my story.” He smiled reassuringly at her. “But let’s do this again, shall we? You pick the restaurant and I’ll meet you, say... week after next, okay?”
“That’d be awesome!” Sylvia said.
“And remember, not a word about Lauren to anyone until I tell you.”
“Gotcha!” she replied happily. “But let me know when I can tell Marielle and Mama, okay? They’re gonna be doing the Happy Dance, for sure!”
“Really? Y’all could have told me you felt that way a few years ago, you know.”
Sylvia’s eyes narrowed and she took a last bite of the banana tart.
“You wouldn’t have listened.”
Jack paused, reflected on how much things had changed for him since the January day he flew to Venice, and shook his head.
“You’re probably right.” He smiled again. “But I’ll listen now.”
“Awesome!” she repeated, and Jack chuckled, signaling for the check. “When you give me the go-ahead to break the news about Lauren, Marielle and Mama won’t believe that I know something about you before they do!”
Jack signed the credit card receipt for lunch, gave his sister a big hug, and headed back to his office.
That afternoon and into the evening, both uncles refused to answer their nephew’s repeated follow-up phone calls. Jack figured Captain Vince Durand was a lost cause, but his instincts told him his namesake uncle was worth one more try in a week or two.
John Reynolds buzzed Jack at his desk in the newsroom “bullpen” and asked him to come into his office.
“When you tackle a story, you sure don’t do anything the easy way,” his editor remarked, pointing to Jack’s fact-sheet that he’d turned in earlier in the day. “Are you really ready to write all this stuff?” he asked. “Including all this information about your uncles’ involvement with the levees and canals?”
“That’s why I wanted to give you an early heads-up about where my digging had taken me. I have a lot still to confirm, but I need some guidance, here.”
“No shit,” Reynolds retorted.
Jack inhaled deeply and then explained, “I wanted you to know what I now know about the role I believe they and the organizations they worked for played in this very big picture I’m trying to paint for our readers. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’d preferred not to name my flesh-and-blood relatives as sources. I was hoping that when it comes to it, we could just say that we have on-the-record interviews and documentation from reliable sources that shows blah, blah, blah.”
“Blah, blah, blah can cover a lot of ground,” Reynolds groused. “The lawyers upstairs will want specifics. Can you get either or both of your uncles on-the-record?”
“I don’t know, yet. I’m doing my best.” Jack gestured toward the outline for his three-part anniversary series. “I’ve provided you what I’ve found out thus far because I wanted your views—early on—as to how you think we should handle some of the more explosive material I’ve outlined there. Especially the latest stuff I found out about specific players on the Levee Board and in the Corps.”
“Well, first, you will have to write the three parts and we’ll have each and every sentence fact-checked and lawyered up the ying-yang,” Reynolds noted with a sigh, absently tapping Jack’s file with a drumroll of his fingers.
“I’ve put what I’ve learned about the 1982 work that was done on the canal walls into my outline, but I still have to nail an interview with my uncle who worked in that period at the Army Corps of Engineers—and so far, he’s been ducking me.”
“Well, until you do talk to him, we won’t know if the lawyers will say we have to quote certain sources by name—and whose names those have to be. Let me know what happens.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
His editor looked at Jack across the papers on his desk with a glance that almost seemed sympathetic. “You are one of the last honest and fearless reporters in our business, Jack Durand. Digging into all this stuff takes guts. Let’s see if we can avoid blowing your family to smithereens—but I can’t promise, now that you’ve told me about their involvement. If you find out more bad stuff, try to remember that they sure as hell weren’t the only ones to turn a blind eye. Get as many of those involved to speak on-the-record as you can, y’hear? It’ll give us more choice as to who we have to quote by name.”
“Right. And speaking of blowing up my life,” Jack replied, “I have to tell you something else that I didn’t write in that rundown, there.”
“Oh, brother,” Reynolds groaned. “Shoot.”
Jack briefly disclosed to his editor his romantic relationship with Serena Antonelli whose brother and sister-in-law died as a result of the 17th Street Canal collapse—the same canal that, then, junior engineer Jacques Durand had worked on so many years before.
“Holy shit!” Reynolds exclaimed, using his favorite epithet again.
“Neither Serena nor I realized the possible connection between our families when we first met and... well... before anything serious developed. Now, it’s different.”
“You are an honest guy to tell me about this,” his editor said, rubbing his chin and tapping his index finger on the material Jack had given him. “For one thing... all this stuff is going into my vault, right now. All we can do—you can do—is to do your best to tell the story as the facts dictate. On my side, I’ll try as much as I’m able to persuade our lawyers to protect the most sensitive sources.”
“Thanks,” Jack said shortly. “I hope we can work it that way. And if we can’t...” He paused. “You can always assign someone else to work with me and give him or her the byline.”
“Hey, Durand,” his editor ribbed him. “If a Pulitzer Prize-winning workaholic like you is willing to give up credit on a major piece of journalism like this, you must be in l-o-v-e, love!!”
Jack affected a shrug, but was embarrassed and prepared to depart the inner office as quickly as possible.
Sensing this, Reynolds held up his hand.
“Look, Jack... I can only say, as your long-suffering boss—having lived through your dark moods and a few harrowing moments due to the stuff you write—I’d honestly like to see it all work out for you, buddy.”
“Amen,” Jack agreed and then glanced at the clock. “Gotta go. Serena left Venice today and arrives at the airport in forty minutes.”
“Go! Get outta here! It’s a total gas to see you brought down to the level of mere mortals,” John Reynolds chuckled, a wicked gleam in his eye. “But, don’t worry, Jackie boy, all these secrets you’ve revealed today are safe with me.” Reynolds stood up and scooped Jack’s documents into a manila envelope marked ‘Katrina Anniversary Series/Durand.’ “In fact, I’m headed for the vault right now.”
“We’ve got everything electronically,” Jack reminded him.
“Maybe, but I like to have actual paper in my control. I guess I’m a dinosaur like everyone else who’s been around here prior to Google search engines.”
Jack hurried back to his desk, grabbed a jacket and his reporter’s bag and laptop, and bolted for the exit. For the first time in weeks, he felt some of the burden that had been weighing him down so heavily since he began the Katrina project lessen a bit.
Perhaps there was a way to tell the unsettling history of mistakes and oversights and the usual greed and corruption surrounding the costliest disaster in American history without blowing his own life to bits.
Just now, John Reynolds had offered him the first shred of hope that he could tell the story honestly, but not name all the names. He clung fiercely to this possibility. He had to. Serena was coming home, and all he wanted right now, was to bring her to his home and keep her safe from the heartache and misery tha
t she and her family had endured the last ten years.
That he had endured, as well, he admitted to himself with some surprise.
The best he had to hope for was that he could tell his story, certain that his “anonymous sources” knew the truth of what really happened a decade ago, but perhaps not having to identify all of them as individuals. It was done all the time, he reflected, thinking back to the lore surrounding “Deep Throat” and the Watergate scandal he’d heard older reporters talk about when he first entered the news business.
Of course, he, Jack, would always be aware of the role his own family members played—actions they’d taken either from fear or avarice—but he might not have to tell Serena of the dark link between their two families, and that was what mattered to him the most. He could just sketch the outlines in general terms and spare her the specific details.
Perhaps this, finally, was the way out... the way he and Serena could be together? The way a healing could begin for all concerned. If only he could be certain that he’d discovered the path to putting the storm behind him, and behind the people he cared about, once and for all.
The truth was the truth, but why make everyone suffer from it forever?
Of course, he’d know the secret—and he’d have to live with it in order to have La Contessa a central part of his life... for the rest of his life.
A voice in Jack’s head reminded him that even if his relationship with Serena survived the publication of his journalism, he was condemned, regardless, to live with the knowledge of the part his uncles probably played in the destruction of his beloved New Orleans.
CHAPTER 18
Even before Serena stepped out of the plane’s gangway, she felt actual butterflies fluttering against her diaphragm. She headed toward the baggage claim area with her fellow passengers, glad she’d sent all her suitcases into the plane’s hold, despite the outrageous charges she faced for the extra weight. It felt strange to walk down the lengthy Delta terminal with only her handbag and heavy winter coat over her arm.
She glanced out the large windows at the line of planes waiting for the next wave of travelers. Her warm slacks and sweater, given the sultry sunshine glaring on the tarmac, made her skin prickle and she couldn’t wait to shed them. Spring had obviously arrived in Louisiana, and the environment surrounding her was about as different from La Serenissima as could be imagined.
She fished in her pocket for her cellphone and turned it on, amazed, as always, that the device quickly adjusted to a new time zone. A text message popped up.
I’m here! Waiting for you is driving me crazy!
Look for me, Louie, and his trumpet...
Her heart took a little skip. Jack had been texting her every five minutes, it seemed, from the moment she’d landed in New York and gone through Customs prior to the final leg of her journey to New Orleans. This last message mirrored the same excitement she felt at the prospect of seeing him again after more than two weeks. There were some hurdles they still have to get over, she reminded herself sternly, questions that continued to linger about certain things not said, as well as the loving things he had.
Serena managed to locate a luggage cart and waited impatiently for her bags to tumble down the chute. She suddenly remembered the moment when she’d stuck her tongue out at Jack at JFK in New York, en route to Venice, when he’d easily recovered his suitcase as her two had become wedged and impossible to grab. What a lifetime ago that seemed.
When she emerged through the arrivals door, she headed straight for the looming statue of Louis Armstrong blowing his horn, but had only taken a few steps before Jack sprinted to her side.
“Hey, baby... La Contessa has landed!”
Before she could reply, he pulled her close, scooped his hands to encase the sides of her head, and kissed her with an intensity that took her breath away. She was dimly aware of the laughter and scattered applause from bystanders.
When finally they came up for air, she whispered, “Well, buona sera to you too, handsome.”
Jack hugged her tightly against his chest, her winter coat squeezed between them. Serena felt him take a deep breath and then exhale against her neck as if something worrisome had passed them by. Then he stepped back and surveyed the mound of luggage she’d piled onto the cart.
“Wow... did you bring back a few bulky costumes from the ball?” he teased.
“You’re close. Actually, I brought back a fair amount of fabric. Who could resist Fortuny? More is being sent by slow boat from my friends at the factory.”
“I’ve got a downstairs storage closet at Julia Street—that is, if you would like to...”
“Come home with you? Yes, please.”
Jack leaned forward and kissed her again.
“My aged condo awaits. But what about your family?”
“I didn’t tell them precisely what flight I was on because I wanted just the two of us to have some time together to... well... to see where the hell we are with everything and—”
“We’re in the same city again, that’s where we are, thank God,” he interrupted, “and without that Casanova Fabrini, sniffing around!”
Serena burst out laughing.
“Do you think there’s anything to reincarnation?” she asked.
“Yes,” Jack said with a grimace. “Definitely.” He took possession of her luggage cart and nodded toward the exit. “Hungry?”
“Famished. The food on board was really bad.”
“And let me guess what’s the first thing you want to eat: gumbo?”
“Definitely. But later. What about we go to Liuzza’s on Bienville for a fried oyster po’boy with a side of Rockefeller bisque?” she suggested, salivating at the thought of New Orleans’ own version of a submarine sandwich. The best ones were made by an old time Italian restaurant in Mid-City that sat smack between the airport and the French Quarter. The eatery had been swamped with six feet of water, thanks to the storm, but the owners had rebuilt and the place was as popular as ever.
“How ‘bout this?” Jack countered. “Let’s order po’boys and the bisque on my cellphone, pick-up it all up on the way, and eat at Julia Street. We’ll get gumbo, too, and have it for breakfast!”
“Hey, baby... you awake?”
Jack looked across at Serena, snuggled beneath the covers of his four-poster plantation bed that Corlis had sold him when he’d bought her Julia Street condo. Containers from Liuzza’s littered both bedside tables, along with their wine glasses, now empty. A box of condoms, with several packets missing, was also there amidst the clutter.
What a night...
“Hmmm... what time is it?” she asked.
“You’ll be embarrassed,” Jack replied. “It’s just before noon. Good time for gumbo, though.”
Serena opened her eyes, rolled onto her side, and with a smile that told him all he needed to know, reached out to splay her hand against his bare chest.
“Hmmm... gumbo. Sounds almost as delicious as you were.”
“Now, is that anything a proper contessa would say?”
“Who said anything about being proper? Come here, you!”
But it was Jack who pulled her hard against the length of his naked frame. His immediate response below the waist answered any questions she might have about how much the previous night had meant to him.
“Ah... Serena,” he breathed into her hair that smelled of the same fragrant shampoo she had allowed him to use when they took a long, hot shower together sometime after three a.m. “If only we could stay right here all day. Thank God you came home on a Saturday, though. How about I heat up the gumbo and we have it right here?”
“Eat here again?” she said with a sly smile. “That could be dangerous.”
“Well, that’s right. You never know what could happen.”
“We were so bad, weren’t we?” she said, her voice husky and inviting. “I only remember us charging up your stairs, and the next thing I knew, you’d stashed the gumbo in the ‘fridge and the po’boys beside t
he bed, here, and—”
“And the rest is history,” he mumbled, leaning down to nuzzle the hollow in her throat that was guaranteed to get the colored lights spinning.
“Oh... boy,” she whispered, her arms sliding around his shoulders.
This time their lovemaking was slow and languid, as if they wished to show each other how much pleasure and pure happiness they could contribute to the conflagration of heat and light that they always generated together. In a swift move that surprised and delighted him, Serena boldly straddled his thighs, the covers draped over her shoulders like a cape, her breasts a feast for both his eyes and lips.
“May I... ?” she murmured, her sweet request squeezing his heart. “May I hold you... here?”
“Oh... yes indeed... you may.”
He allowed her full rein to explore any part of his body she wished, until the moment came when he could stand it no longer. He swiftly rolled them both over on the mattress and gently held each of her wrists flat against the pillow where her lustrous hair fanned out against the white linen. Her dark eyes, the eyes that had so bewitched him from the very first moment, were luminous with... tears?
“Serena... what’s the matter? Are you—?”
“Happy, happy, happy...” she whispered.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he said, smiling down at her. He raised himself on his elbows and bent to kiss her on each eyelid, tasting the saltiness from her tears. Then balancing on one arm, he reached for one of the little square packets in the box on the bedside table and held it between them.
“How about a little more happiness?”
“Yes, yes, please...” she whispered with an urgency that nearly undid him.
When he lifted her by her waist and guided their bodies to slowly, exquisitely meld together, his heart overflowed with sensations unlike anything he’d ever know. He felt as if he, too, would weep for the joy that had come into their lives so unexpectedly when they boarded the same plane that hurtled them through the night sky on their way to Venice.