by Greg Herren
“Another round?” asked our waitress, a perky and friendly young woman in her mid-twenties, as she walked up to our table. She’d been obviously flirting with my gorgeous sort-of-nephew ever since we arrived, but he was completely oblivious.
“No thank you, just the check, please,” I replied, fishing out my wallet and my black American Express card.
Smiling at Taylor, she replied without looking at me, “I hope everything was good?”
“Fantastic.” I smothered a grin. She still hadn’t really done more than glance at me—she’d only had eyes for Taylor since we walked in.
Not that I blamed her, Taylor was a good-looking kid—man. It was hard for me to get used to thinking of him as anything other than a kid. Sure, he’d only been nineteen when he first came to live with us, and there’s nothing like having a young person around to make you feel a little old. I realized that in my head I still thought of myself as twenty-nine, which is a hard pretense to maintain when your partner’s nephew is living proof that you’re not. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t mind getting older. I’m not one of those people who cling desperately to their youth. No face-lifts or Botox for me, thank you very much. I’m letting my sandy-blond hair go gray—and it’s also starting to thin a little on the top. No, I earned my gray hair and my wrinkles, and I’ll wear them proudly.
I’ll cross the gray pubic hair bridge when it happens.
I do miss how easy it was to keep weight off…and not aching in the mornings when I get out of bed. But metabolisms slow down the older you get (how many times had I said that to a client back when I was a personal trainer?) and not only do I no longer teach seven aerobics classes a week, I haven’t in years. It’s hard for me to go to a class someone else is teaching, and I hate the stationary bike and the treadmill and the elliptical and all those other instruments of torture I used to make my clients use.
I know, I know. Excuses to fail, not reasons to succeed.
Frank and Colin, damn them, only gain muscle.
“Thanks for bringing me here,” Taylor said, slipping on his jacket while we waited for her to bring the charge slip for me to sign. “The lobby is gorgeous.”
It was an understatement. The lobby was filled with trees, all done in twinkling white lights and white ornaments. The polished marble floor and the dark wood lit up, reflecting the lights so it was almost like walking through the night sky, the heels on our shoes clicking with every step. The lobby was a bit warm and stuffy, and I could feel sweat forming along my scalp underneath my woolen stocking cap. We went down the stairs and out the doors on Roosevelt Way, shivering as the cold wet wind smacked us right in the face.
I slipped the shivering doorman a five for holding the door open for us, and we headed quickly to the corner at Canal Street.
A cold front had swept down from Canada the weekend after Thanksgiving, blanketing the Midwest with an early winter blizzard and freezing temperatures. Even in New Orleans the mercury took an enormous, unnatural dive. We’d had a couple of hard freeze alerts, with everyone being warned to run their taps to prevent pipes from bursting. Even after that front passed, the temperature hadn’t risen much, hovering somewhere from the mid-thirties to the low forties. The sun hadn’t been seen in weeks—and tonight’s forecast was for cold rain ahead of yet another unnatural cold front. There was a chance of snow.
Snow!
It doesn’t snow in New Orleans often—only a few times in my lifetime that I can recall—and the city comes to a screeching halt when it does.
It hadn’t started raining yet, but we both had enormous umbrellas tucked under our arms.
Canal Street was practically a ghost town with tumbleweeds blowing down the neutral ground. One of the red Canal Street streetcars passed by on its way to the river, its windows twinkling with white lights and a gigantic green wreath on the front. The palm trees lining Canal’s neutral ground were banded with white Christmas lights, and each one was festooned with a huge red velvet bow. I looked over at the Ritz Carlton Hotel and smiled a little ruefully. When I was a kid, that building had housed the Maison Blanche Department Store, and every year at Christmas an enormous Mr. Bingle—their Christmas snowman mascot—hung from the side of the building.
I still have my ratty old Mr. Bingle doll. He sits on my bed in my old bedroom at my parents’.
The wind was worse on Canal as we walked hurriedly away from the river to our destination, the Joy Theater.
Our friend Serena Castlemaine had scored us tickets for tonight’s world premiere of the first episode of The Grande Dames of New Orleans. I’d met her through my sister Rain, and she lived in the old Metoyer house in the Garden District, where we’d solved a decades-old murder last year. We all really liked Serena—she had an enormous personality and a great sense of humor. She also knew she was over-the-top, and that self-awareness gave her the ability to also laugh at herself.
She was perfect for a show like The Grande Dames.
As Frank said, “She’s always played to the cameras when they weren’t there. Imagine what she’ll be like actually on camera.”
He had a point.
I had a slight buzz from my martini as we hurried across Rampart Street to get to the theater. The Joy was an old vintage theater that had been falling to pieces before Hurricane Katrina and was severely flood-damaged when the levees failed. I hadn’t been inside since its multi-million-dollar overhaul and renovation was finished, so I was curious to get a look at it after its face-lift. The traffic was terrible. Limousines and town cars, cabs and Ubers and Lyfts swerved and lined up and honked their horns at each other as they tried to get close to the front doors to let their passengers out.
We managed to get across the street without getting killed and joined the group of people milling about outside the theater entrance, smoking and shivering and talking. We got into the line and I fished our invitations out of my trench coat pocket. I didn’t recognize anyone in the line as we slowly shuffled forward toward the entrance. Opinion in the city about this new reality show was pretty divided. Old-line New Orleans rolled its eyes and dismissed it out of hand. Two seasons of MTV’s The Real World had filmed here, and neither had been embraced by the locals. But the newer people, the parvenus, as my grandparents referred to them, were a little more open to the show and more excited about it. After all, it was a great way to showcase how far the city had come since the flood after the levees failed. Tourism is the engine that drives a significant portion of the city’s economy, and a successful Grande Dames franchise could possibly rev that engine even higher.
We finally made it to the front of the line. A blast of hot air washed over us as the front door opened and closed behind the people who’d just been in front of us. I gave our invitations to an unsmiling young woman with cat’s-eye glasses with rhinestones in the corners, skintight leopard print leggings, and a massively baggy black T-shirt with Grande Dames of New Orleans in gold lettering on the front. She checked our names off a list on a clipboard. “Right, then,” she said in a British accent. “Go on in, then. There’re bars and food tables set up both in the lobby and upstairs in the balcony. Enjoy the show.”
As I looked around as we walked inside, I was impressed. I’d only been inside the theater once before—years ago, for a fundraiser—and the decay had been apparent. The building had great bones, though. The renovation had worked wonders. It had been 30s-style art deco before, and they’d kept much of the original style, yet added a modernistic flair. The color scheme was red, black, and white, and it looked very classy and elegant.
“I’m going to get some food,” Taylor said, and vanished into the crowd near the food tables before I could respond.
It never ceases to amaze me how much that kid can eat.
“Scotty!”
I turned and grinned. I bent down so Paige Tourneur, the editor of Crescent City magazine, could give me a hug. Paige was cool. She had reddish hair with blond streaks in it, one blue eye and one green eye. She was barely over five feet t
all, and she was wearing heels. She had a great sense of humor and could always make me laugh. She also tended to dress flamboyantly. A favorite look was something I thought of as fortune teller chic, which was what she’d chosen for tonight. Flowing brightly colored silks and lush dark velvets. I kissed her cheek. “Where’s Ryan?”
Her fiancé, Ryan Tujague, was a lawyer who was a sometimes colleague of my older brother, Storm. Ryan’s younger brother Blaine was a police detective whose path I crossed sometimes when on a case. The Tujague brothers were both handsome, with bluish-black hair and blue eyes and olive skin. I’d actually met Paige during the course of a case, and we hit it off. I was a little surprised to find out she was engaged to the older brother of one of my cop frenemies.
New Orleans is a very small town.
“Getting me some wine, like a good fiancé who wants to keep his hopes of getting some tonight alive.” She grinned at me. “I thought I saw a tangle of arms and legs heading to the food table. Taylor?”
I nodded. “Always hungry.”
“Where’s Frank and Colin?”
“Frank’s doing a show in Montgomery and Colin’s out of the country, so it’s just me and Taylor tonight.”
She rolled her mismatched eyes. “You know, for someone in a throuple you never seem to have a date when you need one.”
You’re telling me, I thought.
“You know,” she waved me to bend down, then whispered, “there’s food and a bar upstairs in the balcony, and I bet no one’s up there. When they get back, let’s head up there.” She shifted the blue-and-orange silk draped around her shoulders. “It’s much too crowded and stuffy down here.”
“Okay,” I replied. “It’s weird, as crowded as it is, I don’t see many faces I recognize.”
“Oh, none of the Old Guard is going to show up here.” Paige laughed. “Even my boss isn’t coming anywhere near here.” Rachel Delesdernier Sheehan, publisher of Crescent City, was from an old political dynasty in Orleans Parish and had married into another one. “They asked her to do the show, you know. She told them she lived in Old Metairie, thank you very much, and hung up on them.”
I laughed along with her, adding, “Well, if worse comes to worst, it can’t be as bad as those seasons of The Real World.”
“Have you watched any of these Grande Dames shows?” She raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes. “Narcissists and sociopaths, all of them.”
“I know. I hate myself for watching.” I saw Ryan heading our way with two glasses of red wine. But he was stopped when a remarkably good-looking man grabbed him by the arm. I caught my breath. Remarkably good-looking was an understatement. “Who’s that guy in the gray jacket?” I asked. He looked familiar to me in that way everyone in New Orleans looks familiar, but I couldn’t place him. “There, with the blue shirt and gray tie.” He was very sexy. His dress pants were tight in the back over a rather shapely bubble butt. His waist was narrow and his shoulders broad. He had a thick head of dark hair he wore long and pulled back into a ponytail. His skin was swarthy, darkly tanned, and he had a dimple in his chin and a strong nose.
“Him? That’s Billy Barron.” Paige shook her head. “He’s been trying to get Ryan to rep him in his lawsuit against his stepmother.”
Oh, yes, the Barron family drama was perfect for reality television. “So, he is going to sue her?”
The struggle over the Barron restaurant empire had tongues wagging all over the city since Billy’s father, Steve Barron, had died suddenly from a heart attack just over a year earlier. Steve was a local boy made good, from a blue-collar Irish Channel family who’d borrowed money and opened his own fast food New Orleans style po-boy restaurant, NOLA Boys, when he was just twenty-two. NOLA Boys had been enormously successful, spreading across the country the way Starbucks would later and making Steve ridiculously wealthy in the process. He’d been a real New Orleans character, vain and arrogant and not ashamed to court controversy. He’d built a colossal home on the North Shore, right on the water, in a gated community and had publicly feuded with the homeowners’ association over almost everything you can imagine—including his garish Christmas decorations that were so bright they could be seen by passing airplanes. When he was in his late forties he sold NOLA Boys for a fortune and started opening what he called “fine dining” restaurants with New Orleans–style food all over the country. The local Barron’s restaurants primarily appealed to tourists. I’d never eaten in one.
He kept himself in top shape and, as he aged, dyed his hair shoe-polish black and had been prone to skintight shimmery shirts open to expose his chest. He’d been married numerous times, and his widow, Rebecca, had been cast on the show. She was about forty years younger than Steve, and there were rumors he’d been planning on divorcing her when he died suddenly. He’d cut all of his children out of his will shortly before he died, hence the ensuing battle between the grieving widow and his children. Billy had been a baseball star at LSU and had played several seasons for the St. Louis Cardinals before an injury ended his career.
As I watched him talking to Ryan, a woman tucked her arm into his and led him away. I didn’t see her face. She was wearing a blue silk dress and had long, thick dark hair. They disappeared in the crowd. She also looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her.
“Hey, Scotty, good to see you.” Ryan smiled at me, giving Paige one of the glasses. “I would have gotten you something—”
“Oh, Taylor’s in there somewhere supposedly getting me a drink.” I frowned, trying to spot him. It’s usually easy to do, given he’s six four, but I couldn’t pick him in the crowd. “I’ll just text him.” I pulled my cell phone out of my coat. Going upstairs to the balcony with Paige and Ryan, meet us up there.
“Let’s go,” I said over the dull roar of the crowd. The lobby was filling up, and more people were outside in line. I slipped off my coat, draping it over my arm.
It was much cooler and less crowded upstairs. There were maybe twenty or so people milling around the concession stand. It had been set up as a full bar with two tuxedoed bartenders, and two enormous tables groaning with food had been set up along the small wall separating the balcony from the concession area. Paige and Ryan headed over to the food tables while I got a glass of Chardonnay from a bartender who looked slightly familiar. I walked over to the food tables and made a sandwich with a roll and some slices of Cajun fried turkey, adding some roast asparagus and bacon-wrapped shrimp to my clear plastic plate before joining Ryan and Paige at a tall table set up off to the side. My phone buzzed.
It was Taylor. Should I get more food before I come up?
I rolled my eyes. There’s food and a bar up here and not nearly as many people.
Less than a minute later I waved at Taylor when he reached the top of the stairs. He had a can of Coke and my wine glass in one hand while balancing enough food to feed a family of four on a plate with the other hand.
Taylor came over and placed his plate on the table, said hello, and headed back to the food again.
“I’m going to get another drink and then we should find seats,” Paige said. “Anyone want anything?”
“I’ll get some food,” Ryan replied, “and meet you at the seats.”
I was finished with my plate by the time Paige came back—I’d been hungry and kind of scarfed it all down embarrassingly fast and chugged down the wine Taylor had brought so I wouldn’t have to carry two glasses.
Classy. That’s me. My grandparents would be so proud.
Taylor followed behind me, a plate buried in food in each hand with his Coke can tucked in his jacket pocket. We walked down the aisle and found seats in the front row of the balcony. I looked down. The seats on the main floor were filling up. There was an area at the foot of the stage where some women I recognized as the actual cast members were standing around sipping wine and idly chatting with well-dressed men I presumed to either be husbands, lovers, or network executives. I spotted Serena, who of course was wearing a shimmering gold satin dress with sp
aghetti straps screaming at the burden of holding up her enormous breasts (“They’re mine, too,” she told me once. “No implants for this girl!”), her platinum blond hair curling around her face in ringlets. A short, animated man in a tuxedo joined them as I watched. I recognized Eric Brewer, the creator and producer of the Grande Dames shows.
Eric Brewer was good looking, if you liked that type. As his creations took off in popularity, he wound up with his own talk show that aired every night after episodes of the shows. At first, his guests were just cast members of the various franchises, discussing what happened on the episode that just aired and giving a behind-the-scenes look at how the shows were made. As the shows continued to grow in popularity, so did his talk show and his own celebrity. Soon, major stars who were big fans of the shows began showing up on his show, and he began appearing in tabloids and on the gossip sites.
Personally, I didn’t see the appeal. I thought he was annoying and never watched his show. He clearly believed he was clever and witty and funny. His short brown hair was going gray, but rather than embracing being a silver fox he acted like he was still a wide-eyed twenty-year-old twink. The gossip sites often ran photos of him with much younger men—he had a definite type: muscular young guys with dark tans, big white teeth, and no body hair that liked to wear skimpy bikinis. He always acted on his show like he really wanted a life partner, but I suspected that was an act. He was rich and famous and good looking and had a powerful job in television…if he couldn’t find a life partner, who could?
Taylor had a huge crush on him, which I didn’t understand.
Then again, I didn’t have to, and it was none of my business.
The lights flickered, and Eric Brewer climbed up the steps to where a microphone had been set up on the stage. He said, “May I have everyone’s attention, please?” The theater fell silent, and he flashed his what-I-am-sure-he-thinks-is-a-dazzling smile. “I want to thank you all for coming tonight to the premiere of Season One of The Grande Dames of New Orleans.” This was of course followed by a few whoops and hollers mixed in with mostly polite applause—golf claps. He started off saying some great things about New Orleans, but it wasn’t long before he moved on to how brilliant he was.