Contents
Now
Before: August 2005
The Storm
Refugees
A Kiss to Build a Dream On
The Long Pause
Holding Pattern
The Road Home
Two Years Later
Acknowledgments
WHEN I WAS LITTLE, my grandmother, Mamere, used to read to me from a storybook about a mermaid who lived at the bottom of an alpine lake. She fell in love with a farmer who often sat by the shore, and convinced him to come live with her under the water. They were happy. They were in love. But every few months he would get lonely and homesick for something he missed from the land above the water. His cow, his farm, the meadows. He couldn’t stop thinking about life back home going on without him. The mermaid really wanted to keep him there, keep him happy. So bit by bit, she would bring each part of his world down to the bottom of the lake, too, until finally she had magically transported his whole village to the deepest depths of the water. Then he had everything he ever wanted, everything he needed, everything he loved — his home, his cow, the woman of his dreams. And they stayed there together, happily ever after.
The people who live near this lake still say that if the water is clear, you can look down into it and see the tips of the church spires, the streets laid out neatly, and the perfect little cottages with red-and-white-checkered curtains fluttering in the waves that move past their windows.
I think about that story sometimes now and picture Bayou Perdu like that, the way it was before the storm. What if the waves that tore it apart had really swallowed it whole and it was still out there, perfectly preserved under the water? And we were all still out there, the way we used to be? If you looked down, you could see the diner, and Mama would be coming out with her hair pulled up and her apron on, and Mandy would be picking her up in the truck after cheerleading practice, her hair swinging in that tight ponytail. Our house would be there on Robichaux, and Mrs. Menil would be sitting out on that big front porch of the house next door, watching everyone and muttering crabbily. Mr. Ray would say, “How’s yo’ mama?” every time I walked past the gas station. I would be there on the dock, with my legs dangling over the side, scanning the edge of the sight line.
Then the black dots would appear on the horizon, getting bigger and bigger until you could see they were trawlers, make out the nets raised up on their sides, and finally hear the hum of the engines. We’d bring in the catch like always, and life in Bayou Perdu would continue, the way it was meant to be. We’d never have to feel lonely or homesick for the way things were. Because everything we needed would still be there, underneath the waves. We wouldn’t be able to see all the way up to the surface, see the dark clouds rolling in or feel the wind so strong it could pull up a whole town by its roots and smash it to pieces. We’d still be all together. We’d still be whole. We wouldn’t have to search around for those missing pieces of ourselves that can never be put back the same way again.
I AM ABOUT TO MAKE HISTORY, and not in a good way if my mother and sister are to be believed. Today, I will become the first queen in Bayou Perdu to ever put on her sash and tiara without an ounce of hair spray or a drop of makeup. Not to mention that I’m wearing jeans and white rubber boots.
“Have some respect for the position,” my sister, Mandy, hisses at me as we’re leaving the house for the Blessing. “I’m not saying you need to wear a dress. A nice pair of shorts and heels like last year’s Fleet Queen wore. Just make an effort.”
“I’m doing this because I’m representing the marina. And this is what we wear there,” I shoot back. Mandy always wants drama. I’m not going to give it to her. “You wouldn’t know because you never come to the marina to work.”
“But there are going to be photographers. Maybe even from the Times-Picayune,” Mama chimes in. “This isn’t just about you, Evangeline. This is about the diner, too. How do you think it reflects on the diner when you don’t even try?”
“Let’s not forget that the Blessing of the Fleet is a religious event,” Mamere counters. “It’s not about what anybody is wearing.”
“Evangeline looks great. Everybody get in the truck,” Daddy says with finality, ending the discussion.
If you had to rank the women in the Riley household in order of likelihood to be queen of anything, the answer would be this: 1. Mama, otherwise known as Vangie Beauchamp Riley. She was on the Orange Queen Court in 1979, and although she didn’t win, she is the reigning queen of the local restaurant scene, such as it is. She’s the owner of Vangie’s Diner, home of the best shrimp po’boys in southern Plaquemines Parish, and the place where you find out where the fish are biting. 2. Mandy, my older sister, Bayou Perdu High cheerleading cocaptain, star softball player, shoo-in for this year’s Orange Queen competition. 3. Mamere, my grandmother, Evangeline Beauchamp, retired Bayou Perdu Elementary kindergarten teacher, town grandmother, beloved by all. 4. Me, Evangeline Riley, tomboy, best known for back-to-back championships in the under-sixteen fishing rodeo, French Club vice presidency, and avoidance of anything that remotely involves seeking the attention of large groups of people.
As a teenage girl in Bayou Perdu, it was probably inevitable that I would end up on a royal court sometime. I guess I should explain since that statement makes it sound like I live in a Disney movie. My home is a little like a fairy-tale land to me — a tiny, secret place that almost no one knows about; the place where Louisiana takes its last breath before plunging into the Gulf of Mexico. Barges from all over the world glide up the Mississippi every day on their way to New Orleans, passing by without even seeing us on the other side of the levee. The most beautiful birds you’ve ever seen — roseate spoonbills, blue herons, and snowy egrets — build their nests in our marshes in the winter and teach their babies to fly here. And sometimes when you’re in the back bayou, you’ll come upon something that just knocks the breath out of you, like a half-submerged old French tomb or a plantation wall from hundreds of years ago, when there were millions of acres of solid ground here before the sea swallowed it up. That’s what I see. What outsiders see when they look at Bayou Perdu is this: a tiny village of two thousand; a collection of run-down houses and trailers; shrimpers, fishermen, oystermen, and orange growers struggling to make a living. Maybe we’re out of touch with the modern world. Maybe we hold on to our traditions longer than we should. But we celebrate the change of every season with a festival, and for us, it’s not really a party until there’s a parade and a teenage girl with a crown on her head.
The Orange Queen is the ultimate royal title here. Mandy will be Orange Queen or die trying. But there’s also Mardi Gras Queen, Homecoming Queen, Catfish Queen, and Shrimp and Petroleum Queen, not to be confused with the queen of just shrimp. Fleet Queen, which I’m about to become, is just about the least prestigious title, only slightly better than Sulfur Queen. If somebody nominates you, like the owner of the marina nominated me, you end up as a court member. You don’t have to do much — just walk behind the queen and wave. Unless you’re me and you happen to be the second-highest vote getter when the queen’s arrested for underage drinking and is disqualified. So here I am, the most reluctant royal in the history of Bayou Perdu. The only person more shocked than me was Mandy, who never dreamed that her nonblond, considerably less attractive little sister would beat her to royal title status, even if it is about the sorriest excuse for a royal crown in town.
When we get to Our Lady of the Sea, our church and the starting point of the procession, the paparazzi Mama worried about have not arrived, but some of the other court members are there, including my best friend, Danielle. They’re dressed in everything from jean shorts and sandals to sundresses. “Oh, this is just great!” Mandy shrieks.
“Don’t they have someone to coordinate outfits? You are the only one in long jeans and those stupid boots!”
“Well, then she gets an A for originality,” Daddy says, winking at me.
Mandy grabs her pom-poms from the back and huffs out of the truck.
Danielle watches with me as Mandy flounces away. “She brought her pom-poms?” she asks under her breath.
I can always count on Danielle to understand my Mandy problems. “You know, in case a cheerleading emergency breaks out,” I say.
“Hello, Danielle,” Mama says in a cool, clipped tone. Mamere has told me not to take it too personally the way Mama treats Danielle. She says Mama’s just trying to protect me. It’s true Mama let Danielle live with us last year after another of her mother’s “questionable decisions about men” went wrong and they ended up homeless for a few months. But if anything, Danielle’s a good influence. She’s more mature than me — the kid who has always had to be the grown-up in her house. I want to say that Mama’s in no position to judge since we may very well have been homeless four years ago after yet another miserable shrimping season if Mamere hadn’t invited us to come live with her when Grandpere died. But I don’t.
Mamere comes up and gives Danielle one of her grandmotherly hugs. “T’es parés, mes filles?” she asks. Are you ready? We’re both in French Club, so she likes to help us out by speaking French, even though her French is Cajun and not exactly right.
The Blessing of the Fleet is held at the tail end of the Shrimp Festival, right as brown-shrimp season ends and white-shrimp season begins. Truthfully, I love the Blessing. It’s the last big festival of summer before school starts back, and it always comes right around my birthday, which happens to be this Friday. But I never thought I’d attend it in a big custom-made rhinestone crown with a pink bejeweled shrimp at its center.
Our parish priest starts the procession with altar boys and girls and the Knights of Columbus with their big feathered hats, red capes, sashes, and swords. When you say it, it sounds like another description from a fairy tale, too, but they’re just some of the old men from the church, usually the more distinguished members of the community — Grandpere was one. Next comes my fellow monarch for this event, the King Crustacean, who is in this case Mr. Gonsales, the JV football coach. He is wearing a crown, too, but he’s also got on these long red gloves that have shrimp claws instead of fingers. And then there’s the queen, selected by ballot by the fishermen at the marina. Yes, that would be me, smiling behind gritted teeth.
There aren’t actually too many people here at the start of the procession. It’s the Catholics at this point, which in Bayou Perdu includes anyone with a French-, Italian-, Irish-, Croatian-, Spanish-, or Vietnamese-sounding last name. This is the solemn part of the day’s events. We’re not so much into solemn in Bayou Perdu. We’re more laissez les bons temps rouler, and the rouler-ing starts around noon.
As we walk from the church down to the harbor, more and more people join the procession and everyone is singing “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.” Danielle catches my eye every once in a while and tries to make me laugh. She’s good at that. I almost crack. People greet me with puzzled looks, trying to figure out which one is the queen. Could it really be the girl in white rubber boots? Why on earth would any girl not put on a multitiered, bugle-bead-encrusted, ruched-bodice taffeta gown when given the opportunity? I sense I am a disappointment, even for a Fleet Queen.
The photos at the dock are about as painful as I thought they would be. I overhear comments about me like “Natural look this year” and “Good to have one of the white-boot brigade this time.” My favorite is “I thought it was going to be the other Riley girl.” As the shutters snap, Mr. Gonsales leans in uncomfortably close for our queen and king shots.
The crowd has swelled now. Out-of-towners are here. Lots of them. There’s a TV crew. Someone says they’re from France, here to document this quaint European custom that still holds on in this remote part of the U.S. The boats come parading into the docks, all decorated with flags flapping in the wind. We ride around the marina in the Vulniches’ boat as the priest sprinkles holy water on each vessel he passes. When we come back, he delivers his homily, asking God to fill our fishermen’s nets. This shrimping season has not been the best, he acknowledges, with Hurricanes Dennis and Arlene keeping us off the water for days. But this fall will be different, better. Of course we all know that hurricane season has barely even begun and there are a couple more brewing off the coast of Florida even as we gather here. But this homily is supposed to be uplifting. And shrimpers are nothing if not eternally optimistic. So along with King Crusty, I climb the rigging and hang a rosary from the top. My sister wanted me to do this in heels. The crowd erupts in cheers. They’re impatient to do what we do best around here: eat, dance, drink beer, and eat some more.
Danielle and I have only a few minutes to hang out. Because today, queen or not, I have to work at the diner’s booth. “Meet you at the boatshed at five?” she asks.
“I’m living for it,” I say as I head toward the white tents and booths on the other side of the marina. This is where all the action is happening right now because this is where the food is.
America may be a melting pot, but Louisiana is a gumbo pot. The French came here for the sugar and rice plantations, and the enslaved Haitians and Africans were brought to do their labor. The Italians came to fish, and the Irish came to dig channels. The Croatians, like Daddy’s mother, came to oyster back in the 1920s. The Vietnamese came here in the ’70s to escape the war and work as shrimpers. Daddy says we’re all mutts down here, a little of this and that race and culture all mixed together. You can have half a dozen shades of skin and textures of hair all in the same family, like we do. And each culture brought their flavors with them and poured them into the mix. So no matter what the festival is, you’re going to find boudin and andouille — spicy Cajun sausage — beignets, those little fried doughnuts; étouffée; charbroiled oysters; salt-and-pepper crab; and of course, gumbo by the gallon.
Mama dashed up to Bellvoir yesterday afternoon to have a sign printed to hang over the Vangie’s Diner gumbo booth: VANGIE’S DINER — MEET THE 2005 FLEET QUEEN, EVANGELINE RILEY! The plan is for me to stand under the sign, attracting customers because gumbo apparently tastes better when it’s served by a queen. Mama needs to “work the crowd,” and Mandy says that the cheerleaders have a mandatory meeting, but I know she’s really not working because she thinks her outfit is too good to be covered up with an apron. When Byron Delacroix sees her in it, he’s going to realize what an idiot he was to dump her for Jasmine Tannen. My sister is a brilliant romantic strategist. She flutters off toward the fun, a vision of blondness. That’s me and my sister in a nutshell. She’s light and I’m dark. She floats away, I’m anchored to the gumbo pot.
So here I am, in an apron with a sash reading FLEET QUEEN over it, latex gloves, and a head scarf with the crown on top of it. Such a good look. It’s a shame those photographers are nowhere in sight.
It doesn’t take long before people start to loosen up. The sun is blazing and zydeco music is drifting over from the boatshed. From my spot behind the gumbo pot, I can see a few older couples dancing. Kids sail in and out of view as they bounce in one of those inflatable castles. Traffic is picking up in my line. I ladle the gumbo and Mamere takes the money and chats people up.
“Hey, dawlin’. How’s your mama?” “You bein’ good?” “You hungry today?” “Comment ça va?” “Ça va bien?”
I can see Mama walking through the crowd. Coming up alongside me, she whispers in my ear. “You’re filling the bowls too high. Two-thirds up. Tear the bread a little smaller. You can make the pieces half that size.”
Mama is a good businesswoman. She’s always got the bottom line in mind. I know it’s hard to make any money in the restaurant business. Still, it strikes me as stingy. I wait till she walks away before starting to fill the bowls higher again.
Around four thirty, the food
booth traffic is flat and Mamere goes off to the boatshed to “set for a spell.” Mandy was supposed to be here to help, but of course she’s not. So I’m standing by myself when this guy comes up. I can smell the mixture of sweat and beer on him before he even gets close to the table. His eyes are bloodshot and he’s got this creepy smile on his face. I’ve never seen him before. He’s not from around here. Probably a roughneck from the rigs, in town on his day off.
“You look lonely over here,” he slurs.
We don’t sell alcohol at the diner, so we don’t usually get drunks. But I’ve had to deal with some unpleasant customers, so I know a few tricks. “Nope,” I say casually. “I’ve got my gumbo to keep me company.”
“I’m much better company than a pot of gumbo.”
I doubt that, I want to say.
“Well, Fleet Queen, how old are you?”
My stomach tightens as I scan the area. No one close by. “Old enough to know better than to tell you how old I am,” I say. My cheeks flush.
This wasn’t the answer he wanted. He sneers and grunts. “Huh. Good one. What do you like to do for fun, Fleet Queen?” He leans in way too close.
Where is everyone? “Make gumbo.” My voice doesn’t sound as strong as I want it to.
He shakes his head. “That dudn’t sound very fun to me. I have some better ideas about how to have fun.” He leans in closer; the smell is nauseating.
Breathe deep. “Actually, you know what else I like to do for fun? Mixed martial arts. Black belt.” This is an out-and-out lie. “And I’d be happy to show you some of my moves if you don’t clear out.”
The guy rolls his eyes and turns, waving me off like a fly and stumbling away.
Still a little rattled, I take off the tiara and sash and shove them in a box under the table, stand on a chair, and take down the sign. I take the money bag and shove it in my purse. There. My Cinderella moment is over. Still no Mandy. Well, I’m not doing the cleanup for her. I’m off to find Danielle and actually enjoy myself.
Between Two Skies Page 1