Color Blind

by Sobel, Sheila;

  There were loads of ads for waitresses. Since I was under the age of eighteen, I couldn’t serve alcohol and what’s a meal in New Orleans without alcohol? Breakfast?

  Moving on. Oh, boy! They’re looking for baggers at the grocery store. I’ll pass on that opportunity. Okay, here’s an ad for a food presenter in a gourmet market; this could be a candidate. I wasn’t exactly sure what a food presenter did, but doubted it was a highly skilled profession. In my current condition, gourmet food presentation might not be all that appetizing to customers, but I circled it in red anyway and continued to read.

  Okay, here’s a position that’s sort of mind-boggling: a research company is looking for smokers, ten years to sixteen years old, who want to stop. Even if I did smoke, I’m too old for this gig! How crazy is that?

  Finding any job, much less something I wanted or could do, was going to be much harder than I thought. What a pain in the neck, or lower. My thoughts twisted in a truly bizarre direction. After all I’d been through lately, I could probably get a job at the Voodoo shop with Marguerite. I certainly had practical experience now, right? I immediately squashed the thought and dragged it to my mental recycle bin.

  Kate rapped on my door and said, “Goodbye. Enjoy your day.”

  I called out, “Back at ya! See you later!”

  I heard the front door open, then close. I was finally alone. I set the newspaper aside and decided to do the goat research, get it ready for Kate and check it off my “to do” list. I sat on the bed, propped up the laptop, and booted up. Not knowing how to research the law, I typed in my question: Is it legal to keep a goat within the New Orleans city limits and clicked on the Search button. I didn’t find much to start with. However, I did learn there is a distinction between “companion animals” and “livestock.” I began to search deeper.

  I was on the verge of giving up when I located a document that looked like it might hold an answer for Kate: Louisiana Revised Statutes. Title 9. Civil Code Ancillaries. It addressed the Limitation of Liability of Farm Animal Activity. I scanned through a section called Statute Text. After reading through the legal language, I determined BG didn’t fit the category of Farm Animal, or that making goat cheese would be considered Farm Animal Activity. BG was just one little goat, more pet than productive.

  I sent the document to the printer and started my search for information on milking goats. I poked around on the Internet some more and learned quite a bit about milk goats. However, without knowing what breed of goat BG was, it was kind of a waste of my time. We would need to consult with a goat professional, either the landscaper or a vet. I printed out the information for the goat landscaper and a list of local vets.

  I organized the morning’s work product and left everything on Kate’s desk. Her desk clock chimed the hour. I’d been totally engrossed at the computer for hours. I was pleased with my progress. At last, I’d found something I was good at: research. I loved it! I especially liked reading the legal documents. Even though I didn’t understand all of it, I understood enough. My grandfather and great-grandfather on my mother’s side had been lawyers. Is the law in my DNA? It would be so much more socially acceptable than my genetic connection to Voodoo, right?

  I was stiff, headachy, and hungry. It was time for my afternoon break. Lunch outside appealed to me. I decided to make a salad for BG. I padded down to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and removed the salad ingredients. I shredded lettuce and carrots for her and prepared a plate of grilled vegetables, cheese, and a home-made pretzel roll for myself. I filled a glass with tea, got a cold bottle of water for BG, loaded everything onto a tray and carried it outside. I released BG from her tether, set down her bowl of salad and refilled her water dish from the chilled bottle.

  “Bleat!” A goat thank-you to me before she began grazing, I assumed.

  BG wasn’t a fast eater, but it didn’t take long before the dish was empty and she began to wander, nibbling here and there around the courtyard. What a sweetie! How cool would it be if we kept her?

  I sat at the wrought iron table, savoring every morsel of marinated vegetables and thinking about how to go about my research of Marie Laveau this afternoon. Where’s the best place to start? Just type in Marie Laveau and little by little, narrow my search? Ancestry.com might have something useful. Maybe there’s already a Laveau family tree set up and whoever created the tree was missing our family information? I didn’t know much about Ancestry.com except what I learned from their TV commercials and the little bit of work I did setting up my own tree last night.

  I definitely needed more information about Kate, Mom, and my grandmother. Does Kate have copies of their birth certificates in the files in her office? I wondered if Angel’s mother’s last name was her maiden name or her married name. For that matter, I didn’t know if she was ever married. I made a mental note to do an Internet search to check if there was anything out in cyberspace about Simone. It was doubtful she had a social media presence, but you could never tell what you might find that other people had posted without your knowledge or consent. That was a frightening thought. Note to self: do a search of my own name, see what pops up.

  I sopped up the last of the vinaigrette with the last bit of pretzel roll and washed it down with the last of the tea. I’d enjoyed yet another meal filled with incredibly delicious food from Kate’s kitchen. This was getting to be a habit, and not a bad one either. I considered bringing BG inside to keep me company, but didn’t want to push my already tenuous luck if Kate came back home early. I tethered BG, cleared the table, and went back inside. After putting the dishes in the dishwasher and putting the tray away, I poured myself a refill of tea and filled a clean plate from the cabinet with cookies from the glass jar on the sideboard. Growing up, I hardly ever ate desserts. Now I couldn’t get enough of Kate’s daily homemade sweets. Stress will do that to a person. This morning she’d baked some sort of crunchy cinnamon cookies with pecans, reminiscent of Simone’s Angel Crunch Cookies. It made me sad to think back on that morning at Angel’s house, just a few days earlier.

  Fortified now, my headache gone, I was ready to get back at it. Upstairs, I once again got comfortable on the bed, logged back in, and started digging with my cyber shovel.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Uncertain where to begin, I started with the two most basic questions: what is Voodoo and who was Marie Laveau? I typed in definition of Voodoo, hit Search, and found that there were over three million available results that defined Voodoo, in addition to the over three hundred thousand Marie Laveau websites. I needed to understand what Voodoo was before I could understand who Marie Laveau was, so I started with a dictionary. The Oxford Dictionary website defined Voodoo as:

  A black religious cult practiced in the Caribbean and the southern US, combining elements of Roman Catholic ritual with traditional African magical and religious rites, and characterized by sorcery and spirit possession.

  The Simple English Wikipedia website expounded on the subject:

  In Voodoo many gods and spirits are prayed to or called on. Both spirits of nature and of dead people are important. The spirits of family member who have died are especially important. Voodoo often has rituals with music and dancing. Drums are used to make most of this music. In Voodoo people often believe that a spirit is in their body and controlling the body. Having a spirit come into is wanted, and important. This spirit can speak for the gods or dead people you love, and can also help to heal or do magic.

  I flashed back to my time with Marguerite in the swamp and recoiled at the memory. I shook the feeling off and moved on. I started my search of Marie Laveau. I began to read what looked to be the more substantive, less sensational websites dedicated to her. I spent hours scanning through information. Anything I thought might be relevant was printed out. Whether or not it would be useful to me, or even accurate, was yet to be determined.

  I learned Marie Catherine Laveau was born a free woman of color in New Orleans on or about September 10, 1801; the actual date
was unconfirmed. A child of biracial parents, she was baptized in St. Louis Cathedral by Père Antoine, who later became her close friend and confidant. At the age of seventeen, Marie married a Haitian refugee, a carpenter named Jacques Paris. They had a daughter (some sources said two daughters), who apparently died not long after Jacques Paris disappeared in the early 1820s. After he’d been missing for one full year, Jacques Paris was declared dead and Marie began calling herself the “Widow Paris.” It was rumored, but never proved, that she was involved in “disappearing” her husband to escape an unhappy marriage.

  There were also claims that Marie had an illegitimate daughter, Delphine, with an unnamed white man, and that Marie later gave her up to be raised by a “white” family. It was also reported that Delphine gave birth to a very dark skinned daughter, Liga, who she gave to her mother, Marie Laveau, to raise as her own child. Delphine told her husband their baby had been stillborn, which was a fairly common occurrence in those days. I hadn’t found any documentation that validated this information; so far, it was all supposition. It didn’t mean the information wasn’t out there floating somewhere in cyberspace; I just hadn’t found it yet. I needed to dig deeper.

  Reported to be stunningly beautiful, Marie Laveau attracted the eye of Jean Louis Christophe Duminy de Glapion, the eldest son of a wealthy Louisiana sugar plantation owner. As interracial marriages were illegal in Louisiana, Marie couldn’t marry her white lover. They coexisted in a common-law relationship for nearly thirty years. Some websites indicated they produced as many as fifteen children, some said only seven; again, I had found no verifiable documentation. One source confirmed five children, three of whom were daughters, all of whom were named Marie, as was the custom at the time. Of the five apparently documented children, only two daughters survived to adulthood; one of them became her mother’s successor in the practice of Voodoo.

  Well, darn, this was going to be considerably more difficult than I’d originally thought. How could I find out anything about children that were never documented? Where would I go for that kind of information if I couldn’t find it on the Internet? A library? Church records? City archives? There’s gotta be New Orleans research centers listed on the Internet. I’ll start there. I might actually have to go old-school and pull hard-copy records myself.

  I kept digging, but found little that made sense to me regarding her children. I switched gears. I wanted to understand how Marie Laveau could be a practicing Catholic, could attend Mass on Sunday mornings and hold Voodoo ceremonies in the evenings. Maybe like the dictionary said, it was because the two religions had certain elements in common. What I was most curious about was how she became involved in Voodoo in the first place. The more I learned about her, the more questions I had.

  I reached for another cookie, but the plate was empty, the iced tea glass drained. I looked out the window and realized it was already dusk. It wouldn’t be much longer before Kate would be home. I got up from the bed and worked out the kinks—stretching my arms to the ceiling, bending down and touching my toes, shaking out my arms. I’d been sitting way too long. Down to the kitchen to put my dishes in the dishwasher, grab some water, and go outside. I released BG from her tether and watched as she wandered around the courtyard, a nibble here, a nibble there.

  I sat at the wrought iron table and reviewed what I had learned so far. Marie Laveau had a white grandfather and an African grandmother. Her parents were mixed-race. She was the widow of a Haitian carpenter and the common-law wife of a white sugar plantation heir. She had an unconfirmed number of children. Marie Laveau could neither read nor write, but apparently was able to accomplish much within New Orleans society without a formal education. She was a respected businesswoman. She was a talented hairdresser. She was a skilled nurse. She owned property. She also had the ear of local politicians and priests. As described in everything I’d read so far this afternoon, she had a captivating personality. I found her more than intriguing.

  My thoughts shifted elsewhere. I reflected on one piece of history that I found especially personal and deeply disturbing. It was a common practice in the 1800s for mothers who gave birth to mixed-race children, with either predominately white or black skin tones, to give up their children to be raised by a family consistent with the color of their skin. Would mothers give up their babies because it was in the best interest of the child, or were they simply motivated by self-interest? There was absolutely no way to tell what would motivate any mother to abandon her child. I could sort of understand the need for such family “adjustments” in the 1800s, when racism ruled. Why did my mother abandon me? What was her excuse? Why didn’t she fight for me?

  Returning from my dark reverie, I shifted my focus again. I considered everything I had learned so far about Marie Laveau’s mixed-race heritage and her relationships with both black and white men and the reports of up to fifteen mixed-race children. It was a lot of information to process. When I included the photographs in Angel’s house and Kate’s office in my analysis, everything seemed to support my theory that Simone, Angel, Kate, and I were related. My next step would be to authenticate everything to the best of my ability and then share it with my new family.

  It was getting late; time to get back to work. I got up and corralled BG, kissing her little head and giving her a few ear snuggles before hooking her back up for the evening. I checked her water bowl and went back inside. I opened the refrigerator and was staring at the contents, trying to decide about dinner, when I heard the front door open, then close. Kate was home. I shut the refrigerator door and leaned against the counter, waiting for her to come into the kitchen. Hopefully, she would make the dinner decision for us.

  “Hey, welcome home! I was just thinking about you, wondering what you might like for dinner.”

  “Glad to be home. I’m beyond pooped,” said Kate, as she set down her tote bag and kicked off her clogs. “How about we order a pizza? I don’t feel like cooking tonight. I doubt you’re ready to go out in public yet with your face looking like that, even though it looks like you’re healing pretty quickly. You’ll be ready for public appearances fairly soon.”

  “Pizza’s great! Can we do veggie? We could do half and half, if you’d like sausage or pepperoni.”

  “I pretty much eat everything. Veggie is fine with me. Thick or thin crust? I’ll place the order and go shower. You can tell me about your day over dinner.”

  “Thin crust. Can we get salad too, Italian dressing on the side? I’ll set the table while you freshen up. What would you like to drink?”

  “This’ll do for me,” said Kate, removing a bottle of red wine from the rack on the counter. She opened it, sniffed the cork and poured a glass.

  “I should probably let this breathe, but, oh, well, not tonight.” Kate raised her glass to me. “Cheers!” She placed the order, topped off her glass of wine, and headed to the shower.

  “Well, okay, then! A soda will do for me,” I said to Kate’s back.

  I got out plates, salad bowls, and napkins and began to set the table. After adding jars of crushed red pepper, oregano, grated Parmesan, and the bottle of wine to the table, I slid the napkins into their rings, centered them on the plates and straightened the forks and knives. Something was missing. I took an ornate silver candlestick with an ivory-colored beeswax taper from the butler’s pantry and placed it with matches from the “catch-all drawer” in the center of the table between our plates.

  Surveying the table, I was pleased. I’m getting pretty good at this table setting thing. Besides, it won’t hurt my case any if I do something nice for Kate. It’s worth a shot anyway. I hope when she comes downstairs, she’ll be nice and relaxed, maybe even a little buzzed from the wine, and hopefully, too tired to get involved in heavy conversation. I could help move her in that direction. I poured a fresh glass of wine and set it down next to Kate’s plate. That should do it.

  It wasn’t long before Kate was back in the kitchen, her skin a bright pink, as if she had tried to scrub the day off. />
  “Bad day?” I asked.

  “Not bad, just hectic. We had a full house, were short-staffed and turned every table two or three times. After lunch, we began the prep for a private event this evening, which, mercifully, I’m not working.” Kate nodded her head towards the table. “Nice job on the table. Thanks for the fresh glass of wine, it was very insightful of you,” she said, draining the last of the first glass and putting it in the sink.

  The doorbell chimed and Kate left to pay the delivery person. I chose a wine glass for myself, filled it with ice, popped the soda can and set them at my place. I was lighting the candle when Kate came back with the food.

  “Nice touch. Let’s eat!”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Good pizza,” I said, sliding another piece onto my plate.

  “It is, isn’t it? It’s from my favorite pizza place. When the business first started, the owners only sold pizza by the slice out of a hole-in-the-wall place in the French Quarter. Slice by slice, they grew a loyal following, especially with the filmmakers who came down here to make their movies. Today, it’s a full-service restaurant.” said Kate.

  “Nice! Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Where do chefs go to eat? Do you go check out the competition, the latest and greatest new chefs?”

  “Indeed I do! We all do it. We all know each other, if not personally, at least by reputation. It’s a relatively small trendy restaurant community and the trendier the restaurant is, the harder it is to stay in business. It’s good to see what’s working and what isn’t. There aren’t that many new, too-chic-for-words establishments, but there are quite a few well-established, historic restaurants like Galatoire’s and Antoine’s or any one of the numerous Brennan family restaurants.”