That Winter in Venice

by Ciji Ware

  “Lauren!” chided Corlis, cool as a mint julep, “now what would your mama say if she heard you talking trash like this?”

  As for Serena, her friend’s sarcasm was lost on her, for all she wanted to do was to crawl under the skirted, raised runway to her right and escape through the hotel’s dumb waiter.

  By this time, Lauren was dividing her glares equally between the two women. She appeared about to leave but, instead, turned around to deliver an exit line she must have been thinking about for some time.

  “Trust me, sugar,” she addressed Serena, “You won’t see my krewe giving you any orders for costumes—nor will anyone else I know, if I have anything to say about it! But, on behalf of the board of directors, thank yew for donating your services tonight, y’hear?”

  “Oh for Christmas sake, Lauren!” Corlis exclaimed ignoring the curious stares of the models nearby. Serena saw her friend’s eyes narrow, as if she was going in for a killer question aimed at a hapless interviewee. “Why don’t you just face the fact you and Jack were never going to make it and act like the lady your mama tried to teach you to be!”

  Lauren ignored the barb.

  “You know, don’t you, Serena,” she jeered, “that Jack will never marry you or make any sort of commitment like—God forbid—letting you actually move into his condo on Julia Street. He told me less than four months ago that he never planned to marry anyone!”

  Corlis glanced at Serena, who couldn’t help but be dumbstruck by Lauren’s verbal assault. The seasoned reporter edged in front of her friend and said sweetly to the interloper in the neon yellow suit, “Well, from what I remember from the miserable times I’ve spent with you, Lauren Hilbert, who could forget what a train wreck you and Jack were together? I’ve heard that you’ve been complaining for months to anyone who’d listen that you didn’t find a little ring box under your Christmas tree last year. Given that all of New Orleans seems to know this, I suggest you don’t try to imply that Serena, here, is some kind of home-wrecker.”

  “I think after ten years sleeping with Jack Durand, I know the man a lot better than you do, Corlis McCullough—unless you were cheating on King behind his back.”

  Serena couldn’t suppress a small gasp, but Corlis kept her cool and turned to address her friend.

  “Didn’t you just tell me, Serena, that Jack wanted you to move in with him on Julia Street, but you decided to wait awhile since you only met each other in February?” Corlis turned back to Lauren and added with an even bigger smile, “Look at it this way, Lauren. You’ve already been Queen of that old krewe you’re in, so you won’t be needing any gorgeous costumes, like we’re wearing, any time soon. I’d say we don’t really have a problem here. C’mon, Reenie... it’s show time!”

  Shaken by the venom aimed in their direction, Serena allowed Corlis to take her by the hand and haul her to the spot where the last group of models was scheduled to enter the runway.

  “I think we just experienced the classic ‘woman scorned’ kamikaze attack,” Corlis said cheerfully, giving Serena’s trembling shoulders a squeeze.

  “No kidding,” Serena replied, taking several deep breaths to try to calm her racing heart.

  “Understand, now, why Jack didn’t want to marry the lady?” Corlis asked, pursing her lips in a droll smile.

  “There’s plenty I don’t understand about the two of them,” Serena said on a shaky breath, “like why he was with her at all... or whose fault it was their relationship fell apart.”

  Corlis’s expression became serious as she realized how deeply upset Serena was by what had just happened.

  “C’mon, Serena, forget her! Jack was far more tolerant of her out-and-out bitchiness after the storm than I ever was,” the broadcaster assured her in a hoarse whisper. “Just be glad that’s over. I sure am. I hope I never lay eyes ever again on that Wicked Witch of the South.”

  “Sheesh... she was really pissed off.”

  “Of course she was! She’s a spoiled little Dixie chick who’s gotten her own way every day of her charmed life—until now. You gotta trust me on this one: Lauren Hilbert has always been a big pain in the ass, and you can quote King and me on that.”

  “If you say so,” Serena murmured distractedly.

  She attempted to focus on the task ahead, that of showing off the clothes to their best advantage during the fashion show, but her mind was whirling with questions.

  Was Jack’s former girlfriend steaming mad because she’d discovered, to her sorrow, that the man she’d loved had had an affair in Venice when they hadn’t officially broken off their own long term relationship? Had she been crushed when she believed that he was just one of those guys who claimed he couldn’t commit, and then discovered Jack had immediately replaced her with another woman? Even worse, maybe Lauren spoke truth: at the end of the day, Jack was the kind of guy who constitutionally wouldn’t commit to a long-standing relationship, despite his hints of a future together once his Katrina pieces were published?

  The young doctor had looked positively stricken when Corlis said Jack had asked Serena to move in with him—which wasn’t quite true, of course. He’d only said he wanted her to, and that wasn’t the same thing. Clearly, Lauren was still devastated that Jack had broken up with her, or was she merely being spiteful that she’d lost out to another female?

  Serena hated that Lauren’s vile words had so quickly eroded the wonderful feelings she’d nurtured toward Jack since they’d returned from Venice. She felt as if she were one of the trapeze artists she used to dress in Marco’s Vegas show. One night, the woman stood on the platform, high above the audience, suddenly lost her nerve, and refused to leap toward her partner’s outstretched hands. Could she, Serena Antonelli, still summon the courage to believe that what seemed to exist between Jack and her in Venice had been real—and would last—now that they were both back in New Orleans? Had she been lulled into thinking they’d sorted through a lot of the issues between them when, in fact, there was plenty she didn’t understand about the man with whom she’d fallen so deeply in love—and had made love in the past to the woman she’d just met?

  Just then, the fashion coordinator that had originally invited Serena to participate in the charity event was gesturing wildly for the costumed models to move closer to the entrance to the runway.

  “C’mon! C’mon!” she urged in a hoarse whisper. “Y’all are next up! Serena, you’re first, remember. Take your time and smile real big as the M.C. tells the audience all about you and Antonelli’s and these gorgeous gowns you’ve created!”

  A sound track of pounding music faded and just as quickly, the ‘live’ Storyville Stompers Brass Band, dressed in dark suits and ties and white captain’s caps, struck up their first tune. Trembling with anxiety, Serena drew ever closer to the parted curtains she was expected to walk through. The musical group marched onto the runway first, but Serena stood, frozen where she was.

  “Oh, Corlis,” she choked. “I so don’t want to do this!”

  “Oh, yes you do! If I could, I’d hug you and tell you that Jack is absolutely crazy about you and everything’s gonna be fine, but we don’t have time and this mermaid costume will split a gusset.” She leaned close to Serena’s ear and whispered fiercely, “Look here, kiddo... Lauren Hilbert’s trying to put the voodoo on you, so don’t let her! You just go out there and knock ’em dead, girl!”

  After the fashion show, Jack was the first to stride to Serena’s side with congratulations for the spectacular showing she and the other models had made as the finale to the glamor-filled event. By this time, she had donned a white pair of slacks and linen blouse, stripped her face of the theatrical make-up all the models had been required to wear, and stood like a zombie, feeling as if a truck had run over her.

  “I think the performance these gals gave deserves a bottle of champagne,” King proposed. “Let’s take ’em to the Palm Court for a little Veuve Clicquot, what do you say?”

  Corlis looked ready to party, but Serena shook her he
ad.

  “Y’all go ahead. Gus and Nick are waiting for me backstage. I’ve got to help them get all those costumes back to the shop and onto the mannequins before morning.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Jack offered.

  “That’s sweet of you,” she replied quickly, “but we have a system. It’ll go faster if I just go back and take care of it with them.”

  “You look dead on your feet, Serena,” Jack said, his brow furrowed. “Let me help.”

  “No, really. I-I’ve got to get back there. Thanks for coming. I’ll talk to y’all soon,” and before the three of them could stop her, Serena disappeared behind the curtain where the runway ended.

  Jack looked at Corlis.

  “Something’s wrong. The show from out here looked as if it went flawlessly. What happened back there?”

  “Take a wild guess,” Corlis said with a sour look. “Did you read the program? You must have seen Lauren sashaying around the tables out here, just like she did backstage. Just our luck, she’s on the board of this thing.” She pointed at the group’s banner hung across the ballroom. “I bet that poor woman who organized the fashion show is going to get an earful.”

  “Because of Serena? The costumes made the entire night!” King declared loyally. “Lauren Hilbert should kiss Serena’s feet!”

  “You men can be so dense sometimes,” Corlis said, shaking her head. “When Lauren saw the program after she arrived and put two-and-two together, what with Jack sitting out front and the costumes being from a designer who recently returned from Venice... she basically went ape-shit.”

  “Didn’t she know before tonight that Antonelli’s was part of the fashion show? You say she’s a part of this group,” King protested.

  “I talked with a few of the other board members right afterwards,” Corlis said, ever the inquiring reporter. “Lauren just has her name on the letterhead, they told me. Too busy to get her hands dirty helping put together this fundraiser, apparently. Turns out, though, that her family gave a big chunk of change to the charity to get her a seat on the board. It was game over, though, once she caught sight of that gorgeous girlfriend of yours, Jack. And Lauren got pretty nasty. For a second, there, I thought Serena wasn’t going to make it down the runway.”

  “God, that woman fries my oysters!” Jack exploded.

  “I assume you mean Lauren,” King said.

  “You bet I do. What did she say to Serena?” he asked Corlis.

  “Vicious crap. Serena was totally blindsided, so I did most the talking. Trust me, I was just as much of a harridan as that witch doctor.”

  King said, “Tell Jack how you really feel about Lauren, Corlis.”

  His wife shot him a look. “I’ve been nice as pie for years around that woman as long as Jack was dating her, but now that he’s not, I can speak my mind.”

  “As if that’s unusual,” King teased.

  “King!” she said, and gave him a gentle punch to the jaw.

  “Look, you guys,” Jack interrupted, “I’m going to go find Serena.”

  Corlis put a restraining hand on his arm. “I wouldn’t, if I were you. She’s utterly exhausted and feeling pretty raw. Let her get her costumes put away and have a good night’s sleep. Then, you’ll have a much better chance mending your fences.”

  “But I didn’t do anything!”

  “Silly man! The fence you have to mend is to refute all the things Lauren insinuated you said... and didn’t say. Like Lauren’s predicting that you would never ask Serena to live with you, and, of course, telling Lauren when you broke up with her that you’d probably never get married to anyone.”

  “She said all that to Serena?”

  “Yup,” Corlis replied nodding up and down. “It was quite a little drama Ms. Magnolia pulled backstage. If you want to hear Lauren’s exact words, I have to act out all the parts. C’mon with us to the Palm Court, Jack, and let’s have us that champagne. Then I’ll tell you everything.”

  Corlis hooked arms with her husband and their friend and steered them both out of the Hotel Monteleone’s now deserted ballroom.

  CHAPTER 21

  All the next day between fact-checking calls and phone interviews on Part 2 of his up-coming series, Jack kept dialing Serena’s cellphone—but she never picked up or called back. He tried texting her, but got no response.

  At five o’clock he left the newsroom and headed for one of his favorite restaurants that also did take-out. Packages in hand, he strode across Canal Street and into the CBD. It was nearly six when he rounded the corner and confirmed that the costume mannequins were back in their windows. He pushed the bell and held up his takeout booty in front of the glass when Serena arrived at the front door.

  “Gumbo from the Gumbo Shop,” he announced and then studied Serena’s expression. It seemed to reflect neither welcome nor rancor, but a version of neutrality that sent cold chills down his spine despite the humid weather soaking the shirt on his back as he stood on the street facing Antonelli’s. Given the details Corlis had filled in for him at the Palm Court, he was glad Serena was even willing to open the door.

  “I was just about to close up and go home,” she said. Much to his relief, she turned toward the shop’s interior and led the way. “I guess we can eat what you’ve brought in the cutting room at the big table in there.”

  “Great,” he replied, closing the door and following her through the phalanx of costumed mannequins that immediately brought back memories of Il Ballo di Carnevale. For some reason, what he remembered most about that night was the time he’d spent looking for Serena among the masked and costumed revelers in the festooned palazzo, keeping a wary eye out for the predatory Stefano Fabrini.

  Antonelli’s front office was deserted and Serena explained over her shoulder that the rest of the staff had already departed. “Nick and Gus just went upstairs to their apartment on the third floor to make their dinner. They invited me, but I said no.”

  A CD with familiar Dixieland tunes was playing softly over speakers dotted throughout the warehouse. Even in the cutting room, the venue for their impromptu dinner party, he could hear the strains of “Got My Regulator Shakin’”—a tune he loved. Serena disappeared into a back room, shut off the music, and soon emerged with ceramic bowls and cutlery.

  “Sit,” he commanded when she placed everything on the table, “and I’ll serve.”

  Serena perched on a stool and waited in silence for him to dish out the gumbo, its rich, chocolaty-brown roux and chicken chunks sending out an irresistible aroma. They each flanked a corner of the cutting table, now cleared of the day’s work. Before Serena could reach for her soup spoon, however, Jack took her hand.

  “Corlis told me everything that happened backstage last night,” he began. “I’m really so sorry Lauren attacked you like that. She should have said all that stuff to me, not you.”

  “Like you never inviting a woman to live with you?” Serena shot back. “No wonder you were silent when the subject came up at the Duvallons that night.”

  “But, I want us to live together,” Jack protested. “And I’ve told you that. Just that we can’t do it... right now.”

  But Jack could see Serena was not to be mollified.

  “Did Corlis repeat the other things that whack job said to me right before I was supposed to go on the runway?” demanded Serena. “That she’s going tell as many krewes as she knows not to patronize Antonelli’s Costume Company because she heard we were going bankrupt?”

  “Holy crap!” Jack exploded.

  Serena’s gaze bored into him from across the table.

  “Jack! How could you ever have been with a person who says things like that?”

  “She wasn’t always that bad,” Jack said, deeply disturbed that Lauren would so viciously attack someone she hadn’t even met before. “And I haven’t been with her for a long time, actually,” he defended himself, “not like I was, right after Katrina. The scene at Charity Hospital during the storm... changed her... scarred her in a way I didn
’t realize how bad until a couple of years later.”

  “I’m sick of everybody using Katrina as an excuse for bad behavior!”

  Jack nodded slowly.

  “You know, you’ve just asked a fair question, though. Why did I allow things between Lauren and me to go on for way too long?” He placed his spoon beside his bowl, giving himself time to think. Then he said, “This may sound like I’m using the Katrina Excuse again, but I suppose my reasons were that I was too busy at work doing all those follow-up stories about the storm, and too preoccupied with my sister Sylvia’s problems.” He paused again, and then gave a short laugh. “A big part of the answer is—I see now—that I was distracting myself from how depressed I felt about the way New Orleans was literally hung out to dry after the storm. And I used all the various diversions at my command as a reason not to call it off with Lauren when things really started to go seriously sideways. Then, four years ago, she headed off to Houston to Med school, and that provided even more of an excuse just to let things slide. Believe me, I’m not proud of any of that.”

  “You shouldn’t be,” Serena said quietly and took her first bite of gumbo.

  They both ate in silence for a while.

  Then Serena said, “Look, Jack, my first obligation is to my family, and especially to Nick and Gus not to damage the business we’ve all worked so hard to build up again after the storm.”

  “You haven’t done anything to damage the business!” he protested. “In fact, you’ve only enhanced it!”

  But Serena stubbornly shook her head.

  “It’s bad enough that our father has so little faith in the three of us, without your girlfriend doing her best to torpedo our company by poisoning the well with all the krewe members she knows all over town.”

  “Ex-girlfriend,” Jack reminded her, tight-lipped.

  “I figure I’ll just have to work twice as hard, now, to overcome her disparaging us everywhere she can. God knows whatever else she plans to do to sabotage us here, but there are only so many hours in the day, so I don’t think you and I can—”