This Would Make a Good Story Someday

by Dana Alison Levy

  (smiling at me) That’s wonderful.

  SARA:

  (keeps choking on the sugar, tears streaming down her cheeks as she coughs and coughs)

  MOM:

  Sara! Rae! Are you okay?

  MIMI:

  (whacks me on the back)

  MR. HANDSOME:

  (rushes to grab water) Here! Drink this!

  WATER:

  (spills all over the table and Sara, ice cubes bouncing off her lap)

  SARA:

  (Kicks legs out as icy water hits, tipping the table. The untouched café au lait goes flying.)

  “AIIIEEE! Sorry! I’m so sorry!” The poor waiter looked distraught, almost ready to cry, reaching across the table to the napkin dispenser and handing me napkins like he was putting out a fire.

  At least getting doused seemed to help with the choking. I put up my hands. “I’m fine! It’s fine! Seriously. It’s…um, refreshing. I’ll be much cooler now. Really.”

  He paused. “Really? You are not angry? I am so sorry. I will pay for your breakfast, if you—”

  Mom spoke up in her everything-is-under-control voice. It’s surprisingly effective. Maybe it’s a judge thing. “Don’t worry in the slightest. She won’t melt,” she said, and everyone kind of calmed down a bit.

  “Yes, Sa—Rae is an intrepid traveler. She’ll file this away under ‘something to write about,’ ” Mimi added. “Now, you save your money—writers usually don’t have enough of it! And if you’re able to take a break, come join us for a beignet. You can tell us all about your experiences in the city!”

  And that is how I wound up eating breakfast with a gorgeous Ukrainian writer while looking like I peed my pants.

  We talked about his favorite places to walk in the city, and what bookstores had the best collection of signed books, and what he thought of the United States. By the time we left, my shorts were mostly dry and Mimi and he had exchanged emails so he could ask her for letters of introduction to some of her publishing friends.

  As we left, he bowed low and kissed my hand, which probably still had sugar on it.

  “I look forward to following your writing career,” he said, “and I wish you luck.”

  SWOOOOON.

  Of course, moments later, Mimi ruined it.

  We were walking toward some building where William Faulkner wrote, and she got all Mimi-ish, stopping and hugging me in the middle of the sidewalk.

  “I’m so excited to be able to share this with you!” she gushed. “This is exactly the kind of experience I hoped we’d stumble upon…handsome waiters and silly mishaps and inspiration and history, all mixed together! And you know what would be amazing? If you would write up this vignette”—she actually used the word “vignette”!—“and I included it in the manuscript! Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

  Well. That pretty much killed my good mood. I…I’m not proud of it, but I snapped.

  “My life isn’t your property!” I shouted. “And I don’t really want my ‘vignettes’ to be in your book, whether I write them up or not!”

  She looked like I’d slapped her or something, which of course made me even more frustrated. How did she get to be the one who was mad? So I kept talking. “It’s not like I’m stealing from you! I’m allowed to have my own life, right? Or was I supposed to give that up, along with my summer plans and my friends and everything else?”

  Then Mimi got all dithery and defensive and blathered that “a trip like this is a privilege, not a burden” and “of course everyone deserves privacy” and “everything that happens is everyone’s story” and “the keystone of this project is the details of the family” and “my perspective is not your perspective” until Mom finally cut her off.

  “There’s plenty to write about without sharing specifics of Sara’s life, if that really bothers her,” she said, once again using the all-in-control voice. “Right?”

  Mimi didn’t say anything at first, and pulled her sunglasses over her face so I couldn’t really see her expression.

  “Miranda?” Mom said, touching her arm. “Are you all right, love?”

  “Of course,” Mimi said, and her voice was super-tight. “Sure. That’s fine. Though, if you want to know the truth, I can’t really say what I’ll write about, with or without Sara’s insights. I’ve barely written a decent page since the trip began. It would be great to have it feel like a team effort. But that’s not Sara’s—sorry, I mean Rae’s problem. It’s mine. So never mind. Let’s just go see the literary sights. Okay?” She tried to smile, but it wasn’t a very good one.

  I didn’t say anything, because I couldn’t think of anything to say. It’s not my problem her writing was going badly, is it? And as for a team effort…give me a break! Still, she looked so stressed. I felt really bad, then felt even more annoyed that now I had to feel guilty on top of everything else.

  Needless to say the rest of our “special date” was pretty silent.

  The others are back from their adventures. Ladybug’s sulking and refusing to talk to anyone. So now we’re all in a bad mood.

  Ah. Apparently Ladybug tried to climb one of the trees in the Amazon jungle exhibit to take a photo of Bruce with a macaw. A very stern guard made it clear that Ladybug—and Bruce—are no longer welcome at the zoo. Awesome.

  Mom was not impressed. She pretty much exploded on the spot. “Laurel, are you serious? You let her take off and climb into an exhibit? Do you realize these are wild animals, and that she could have been badly hurt? I expect more from you, honestly.”

  “She was fine!” Laurel said, looking annoyed. “You know her—she ran off before I could even grab her. But it was no big deal, just an over-empowered security guard who was way too happy to intimidate a little kid. Do you know those guys carry guns? I mean, what’s that about?”

  “It doesn’t matter that she’s fine! This is typical of the kind of risky behavior we keep seeing from you! She was running loose with wild animals! Just because there weren’t consequences this time—” Mom was pacing around at this point, but Root stood in front of her, his hands up as though directing traffic.

  “Actually, Carol, there were only macaws and parrots. Oh! And one very sleepy anaconda, but Ladybug was nowhere near it.”

  At this, Mom stormed out of the room. Even more awesome.

  LIFE IN THE GREEN LANE

  So I’m sitting in this pretty awesome café in the French Quarter in New Orleans, and I asked my server, “Do people still talk a lot about Hurricane Katrina and all the damage, or have they mostly moved on?”

  I was curious, see, because my environmental science professors are interested in how natural disasters like hurricanes and tidal waves and wildfires are getting worse with the changing climate. And because people usually get freaked out and donate money when something terrible happens, but then they forget about it and go back to driving their giant SUVs and drinking bottled water and cranking their air-conditioning up when they’re hot.

  But my server hesitated, and I could tell, in that second, she was deciding if it was worth it to educate me, or if she was going to give me a quick answer and move on to the next customer. Trust me, I know that look….I probably have it half the time I’m slinging coffee at the student union and someone asks me about my Ban Fracking button.

  “Lay it on me,” I say. “What’s it like all these years after the hurricane?”

  She shook her head, really slow, and said, “See, that’s just it. It WASN’T the hurricane. Katrina wasn’t the problem. Or at least, not the only problem. We’re not talking about a natural disaster, no, ma’am.”

  I squinted at her. She looked pretty chill, with some New Orleans Community Garden T-shirt and a cool tattoo, but this place is full of…well, free spirits. For all I knew, she thought aliens had come down and caused the flooding.

  But her story didn’t have aliens. Instead it had…engineers.

  “What you’re asking about was the flooding from when the levees—the big walls that are supposed to ke
ep the sea back—when they broke,” she explained, putting down her coffee pot and leaning on my table. “And they broke because they weren’t built right. And weren’t fixed up right as they got old and worn. Or maybe they broke because someone wanted them to break. Or maybe because someone made a mistake. But the point is…and here’s where you need to listen…the damage to our city wasn’t from a natural disaster. Not really. Sure, the hurricane started it. But those levees…those were human problems.”

  She crossed her arms and kept going.

  “And I’ll tell you one more thing that’s not natural. The way the government responded? The number of people who were left without help? Well, make no mistake there either. Natural disasters don’t ‘naturally’ choose the poorest and brownest people to hurt, do they? Nope, Katrina just put a spotlight right on all the injustice that was already here.”

  Wow.

  So there you have it. New Orleans, the Crescent City, where so many people lost their homes and everything they owned in the world. Maybe not a natural disaster. Maybe people, once again, are just messing things up.

  This is the thing of it. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by how much is outside of our control, or to decide that our personal safety is way more important than the greater good of our world. Even some very good people who I love and admire (not that I’m naming any names) can tell us to play it safe, not to take risks, not to stand up for what’s right.

  But we have to stand up.

  I don’t know, man. But if this were my city, I’d work pretty hard to protect it. It’s a cool place, that’s for sure.

  Peace, Laurel

  Ladybug in New Orleans…how best to explain this? Basically, picture this scene:

  LADYBUG:

  (on a busy sidewalk) Look at that cool guy! He’s playing music! Let’s go listen!

  MOM:

  Love, we’ve only gone half a block. How about we—

  LADYBUG:

  (runs over to musician and starts dancing)

  MUSICIAN:

  (playing jazz trumpet or rock guitar or classical violin or African drums or whatever, starts playing louder) Hey, girl! Get your dance on!

  LADYBUG:

  Whooohooo!

  MIMI:

  Whooohooo!

  MOM:

  (glances at her watch, then at the guidebook she’s holding)

  ROOT:

  (bobbing his head slightly out of time to the music) This is beautiful, man. Music is our common language.

  Now repeat this scene four hundred times all over the city. We never got uptown, we never got to the big park, we never got to the children’s museum. We walked a half block, listened to music, walked another block, listened to music, stopped to get ice cream or Popsicles because we were so hot, stopped again to hear more music, and so on. And of course every place we went, Bruce came along.

  By the time we got back toward the hotel, word had spread and a group of street performers actually asked if she was the girl with the little Roman dude, and would she take a photo with them! Of course she did, and they did a special juggling routine just for her, ending with Bruce being sent through a flaming hoop.

  New Orleans is seriously amazing…way too much fun for everyone to stay mad. Laurel and Mom bonded over some triple chocolate mocha dessert, and even Mimi and I were having such a good time listening to music, we forgot to be annoyed with each other. A lot of the sightseeing was with the NTFs, but I am doing my best to continue ignoring them. Not in a rude way, of course, just in a “I think I’ll talk to Laurel” or “I think I’ll walk with Mom” or “I think I’ll put my earbuds in and pretend I’m listening to music even when I’m listening to everyone else talk” kind of way.

  That’s not rude, right? Anyway, even if it were rude, I don’t think Travis notices. I’ve never met anyone who can chatter on the way he does. He doesn’t seem to need answers, either. He blathers on and on, sometimes saying “Isn’t that right, Daddy?” or “Do you remember that, Auntie G?” and they’ll chime in. Then he’ll chatter some more. It’s oddly fascinating how much that boy can talk. And honestly, while I was sure he was judging my family when he and his dad first got on the train, the more I see his aunties, the more I think he’s probably not judging anyone. Those women are all-around wild, and oddly, Travis doesn’t seem to be even a little embarrassed by them. Even when they’re crashing into postcard displays or taking selfies with street musicians. Maybe that giant smile of his is 100 percent legit. Weird.

  Of course even as we’re all hanging out having fun, Mimi has been keeping her super-polite I’m-hurt-but-trying-to-rise-above-it voice going with me ever since I blew up at her. I feel bad about that, but not bad enough to say I’ve changed my mind. My stories are MINE. Is that horribly selfish? Gah! This trip feels like it’s going to last forever, and we’ve only been gone a week.

  I decided to check in on my Reinvention List, to see how it’s going:

  ★ Learn Latin (Started strong, but wow, there are a lot of verbs. Must recommit.)

  ★ Learn to surf, at least the basics (Obviously this is going nowhere.)

  ★ Practice yoga every morning to develop Inner Peace and Mindfulness (Hmmm. Not bad, considering. I hit my nose and got a nosebleed when I tried turtle pose, but otherwise I’m getting there.)

  ★ Change hair (Note: this is Vi’s idea. I’ve been growing mine for four years, and I’m definitely not cutting it, but dying the ends…that I can do.) (Nothing yet.)

  ★ Start wearing dark gray or navy-blue nail polish (and try not to pick it off in ten minutes) (Note: this is Vi’s idea too. We’ll see.) (I colored my nails in with mom’s Sharpie. Does that count?)

  ★ Read at least five nonfiction books (Two down…Loving I Am Malala!)

  ★ Pick a signature social cause to care about (Note: This one’s Em’s idea. I have lots of causes I care about, but apparently we each need a “signature cause.”) (Maybe the environment? Laurel’s got me pretty worried.)

  ★ Eschew with a firm hand all old camp, soccer team, and dumb club shirts and sweatshirts, even if they are soft and cozy (Since I didn’t pack any, I am totally nailing my new style! Still, I miss my old Hidden Valley Camp T-shirt.)

  ★ Consider jeggings (Not sure this one’s going to stick.)

  ★ Drink coffee (Nope.)

  ★ Rebrand myself as Rae, not Sara (Hmmm…So far Travis is the only one who remembers every time, and how useless is that?)

  ★ Work on a novel, or at least figure out a good story (Nothing. Haven’t written a word. Phooey.)

  I might have to rethink the whole college in New York thing. The food, the music, the funky people from all over (not to mention the gorgeous Ukrainian waiters)…this would be a great place to go to school. There’s this amazing feeling here, even walking around the streets. That sounds kind of dumb, I guess…but it’s hard to describe. Everyone is an artist or a musician or a dancer or a tattoo designer or something, and they’re all singing along with the street performers or dancing around while they’re waiting tables or telling us the plot of their novels while driving us around. I don’t know….Obviously people here must do their laundry and drive to supermarkets and watch dumb TV shows, but it seems so much…cooler than all that. Like, who would stay in watching Cupcake Wars when they could wander down the street and get amazing pastries in a tiny shop with a basket of kittens by the door and a sign that says “Free Purrs. Take What You Need!” (Of course Ladybug lost her mind and planted herself on the floor right by them, letting the kittens climb all over her and posing Bruce on their backs. Then Laurel grabbed Bruce and pretended that this one tiny orange kitty was a lion and Bruce had to fight it off in the Colosseum, which got a lot of attention. By the end everyone in the café was laughing and cheering for Bruce.)

  Anyway, New Orleans feels like another country, where you don’t need a passport and can understand the language. I love it. It would be so easy to do the Reinvention Project here—if I lived here, no one would even notice if I dyed my ha
ir, and maybe I’d learn how to read tarot cards and get henna tattoos on my hands! It’s really easy to be someone new here, I think.

  I sent Saanvi and Em an insanely long email last night with photos from our day, including the kittens and one of Ladybug, Erik (Handsome Waiter Guy), and Bruce posing with a bunch of Café Du Monde beignets. (We went back with the whole family.) Vi wrote back within seconds, saying, “I know what I want as a souvenir! Don’t bother to wrap it!” She makes me laugh. Imagine if we all went to college here! I might even get a tattoo.

  However, as much as I love New Orleans, all good things come with their burdens, and today we’re heading out of the city and into a swamp. I have some real misgivings about this spend-a-day-in-a-swamp idea. Mom has even more misgivings. She actually said she thought it would be better if we avoided places with killer alligators and endless mosquitoes, given Ladybug’s habit of dashing off. But Mimi looked stricken, and mumbled something about “a new environment” and “beating writer’s block.” Then Mom looked worried and sympathetic, and said it sounded “very exciting and would be just the thing to energize the creative process,” and that was the end of it.

  Mimi looked more cheerful again, and I admit I felt bad that she’s having such a hard time, so I didn’t even complain. Much. In an hour we’ll head out in a van for the bayou, which I believe is the Cajun word for “swamp.” We’re supposed to meet the NTFs, who apparently have been researching still more likely murder sites for Gavin’s next book. I don’t even know what to say about that.

  Where to begin talking about the swamp? And the bayou? And the Cajuns?

  I guess we’ll start with what I didn’t know, which was pretty much anything. When our tour guide, Jock Cormier, picked us up at the hotel, he asked us what we knew about the Cajun culture. Mom started talking about the French settlers kicked out of Nova Scotia in Canada and settling in Louisiana in the 1700s, and then Mimi started in on how Cajun culture is a blend of French Canadian, Native American, other immigrant groups like Germans and Irish, and African and Caribbean slaves, all living and intermingling and intermarrying over hundreds of years. Poor Root kept trying to interrupt her to say something about how Cajun French is closer to original seventeenth-century French than anything currently spoken in France, but Mimi steamrolled over him.