When I’m putting on my clothes, I feel my legs shaking. It’s like that knowledge, those words, are trying to break into me and I’m mustering all my strength to keep them out. I whip out my phone and try Danielle. She doesn’t answer, but it’s just because she’s gone. At one of those shelters. She must be.
This morning, the feeling in the lobby is different. People look stunned, tired. All that energy that bounced between people yesterday has gone. It’s turned into something heavy and black that looks like it’s weighing people down: their heads are bowed, their shoulders slumped. We go through the line silently and get a table near the window, watching sheets of rain pour down on the parking lot. I eavesdrop on the people around us.
“Have you heard from anyone yet?”
“No cell service down there.”
“I’m sure they got to Houston. I’m sure they left in time.”
“Last time I talked to her, she said they was gonna ride it out. I hope she came to her senses.”
An old man in a plaid shirt at the next table catches Mamere’s eye. “Where you from?”
“Plaquemines.”
“That can’t be good,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s underwater. All underwater. St. Bernard. Even Jefferson Parish.”
The man at the next table reaches out and pats Mamere on the back. “Good luck. God be with you.”
We get up and leave our breakfast half-eaten on the table. On the way back to the room, it’s like everyone’s avoiding eye contact with everyone else. Because we don’t want to see what’s in other people’s eyes right now. Because if you see what’s in their eyes, you know you have to be scared, too.
Back in the room, Daddy’s still perched on the edge of the bed, the curtains closed to the rain. We huddle around the TV. Reports from the hard-hit areas are starting to come in. A few hours later, they announce that the levees in New Orleans have been breached.
The day is a blur. Daddy tries to get through to the sheriff’s department, but there’s no response. I am sick, sick to my stomach wondering where Danielle is. Mandy is on the phone constantly. “I told you to get off that phone,” says Mama. “You’re payin’ if you go over your minutes.”
“Byron texted me. Can you believe that? I wish I could send it to Jasmine so that she would know,” says Mandy.
I want to punch her in the face. My best friend could be dying out there, and I have no way of knowing. I call Kendra and tell her that I’m afraid about Danielle.
“She’s going to be OK,” she says. “They wouldn’t have let anybody stay there.” I didn’t realize how much I needed someone to say that, even though there’s no way to know if it’s true.
By the early afternoon, we hear that St. Bernard Parish is under ten feet of water. But no one ever says anything about Bayou Perdu. Like we’re not important enough to mention.
Tuesday morning the hotel feels like a cage full of angry, hungry animals. That feeling of us all being in it together and helping each other out is gone now. It’s every man for himself.
The next couple of days are spent glued to the TV. The words the announcers use to describe the scene “all across the Gulf Coast” feel intentionally cruel: decimated, destroyed, annihilated, swept from the map, obliterated, pounded, wiped off the face of the earth. Catastrophic. Reporters are standing in piles of rubble. New Orleans is a bowl filling with water. Coffins are floating by. People are wading in waist-deep water down Canal Street, pushing shopping carts full of stuff. People are dying in the Superdome.
I’m hardly listening, but then I hear them mention that the southern part of Plaquemines Parish “has become part of the Gulf of Mexico.” It’s like someone pulled a rope tight around my middle and yanked it. I picture our house like it’s made from sugar, dissolving as the water licks its walls.
Daddy finally gets through to the sheriff’s department. We hear him say they’re going around in airboats rescuing people. Forty people somehow made it to the choir loft in the Church of Christ, and the sheriff’s department went in and got them out. That’s what they’re focusing on now. Rescuing people and animals. He doesn’t have time to say more now. “Please,” I plead with Daddy. “Please ask about Danielle.”
“Listen, Cal,” he says. “Desiree Watts and her daughter. Were they there? Have you seen them? . . . Uh-huh. OK.”
He hangs up and shakes his head, but tries to be reassuring. “They weren’t there, but they could have gotten one of the buses out. They’re going house to house now. I’m sure they’re all right.”
“Nobody is sure they’re all right!” I shout. “They should have come with us. We should have given them the car.”
“Evangeline,” says Mama in a calm tone, “we know you’re worried about them. We’re all worried about them.”
A surge of anger overtakes me. “If you were worried about them, you would have let them take Claudine,” I nearly spit at her.
“That’s not fair to your mother. Claudine doesn’t even turn over most of the time,” says Daddy.
I feel like I’m going to explode. “My best friend could be dead, and we didn’t help her!” I slam out the door and head to the lobby.
There’s a line to use the “free Internet access” computers there, and the people in it are impatient. There’s a guy who has apparently been hogging the computer for a while. A guy in an LSU sweatshirt taps him on the shoulder. “You know, there are a lot of people waiting for the computer.”
The guy looks over his shoulder, then goes back to what he’s doing.
The guy in the LSU sweatshirt groans loudly and turns to everyone else waiting, trying to make eye contact so we’ll join in his outrage. “You’re not the only person here who needs information!” he shouts at the computer hog. “You’re so selfish! I’m going to get a manager.”
While he’s gone, the computer hog leaves and someone else takes the LSU guy’s place in line.
I wait for an hour and twenty minutes before it’s my turn. I log in and go straight to the Times-Picayune website. There’s a whole message board for people looking for news, for family, for friends. I click on the Plaquemines Parish page. Some of the messages have a person’s name and a question mark. There are posts like Looking for Adrienne Baptise or Checking on Orleans Ave. On the second page of the board, I see the heading Bayou Perdu. A guy whose family owns a big orange grove north of town found some pictures taken from a helicopter and posted them in his message.
You can only see the top of the levee, the roof of our school. School buses, like floaters, bob on top of the water. I think I can see the roof of our house. It’s hard to tell, there are only the tips of roofs, the very highest point. The rest is under dirty green water. Danielle’s duplex would be over there, if it were there. It’s not.
There’s a note near the bottom of the page: For those who live in the southern part of Plaquemines Parish: We encourage you to seek employment near your current location. It may be nine months to a year before residents are allowed back into the parish. It is heart-wrenching to see what has happened to the place we call home. You will not recognize your community and at times will find yourself lost and confused.
My face is burning, my stomach clenched. I start a “new discussion” in the Plaquemines Parish forum. Looking for Desiree and Danielle Watts is the subject. If anyone has information on them, please respond. Last heard from on August 28 from their home in Bayou Perdu.
When I get back to the room, the mood is solemn, the way it is after there’s been a big argument. I can’t look anyone in the eye. “Bayou Perdu is completely underwater. They say we can’t go back for nine months,” I say emotionlessly.
“Does that mean they’re not going to do the Orange Queen this year?” Mandy shrieks.
Mama stands up and starts throwing things in a bag. “We’re going to Cel’s house,” she says.
AUNT CEL LIVES IN a two-story brick house in a nice neighborhood in Atlanta. It’s not super-fancy, but it’s way bigger and newer than ours. Walking i
n is a relief after the hotel. It’s a home. There is wall-to-wall carpeting, and everything is really clean and orderly.
“Come on in,” says Aunt Cel, hugging each of us. She’s still in her work clothes: a blue suit and tan pantyhose and low-heeled shoes. Mama would call them pumps. “Here, let me help you with that.” Aunt Cel is tall and no-nonsense. It’s not that she’s not warm — when she hugs you, it’s strong and you feel like she puts her all into it. “Vangie, John — you’re in my room. Don’t argue, that’s how it’s going to be. Hi, Mama.” She hugs Mamere a minute longer. “Mamere and I will take the guest room. Girls, you’ve got Ami’s old room.”
We take our stuff up. There’s not much to take. The carpeting on the stairs is plush, off-white. At staggered levels on the wall beside the stairs, there are pictures of Ami through the years: baby pictures, graduation portraits. There’s a black-and-white picture of Mamere and Grandpere’s wedding, and a sepia-toned one of Mamere and her sisters when they were little in old-fashioned clothes and bare feet on the porch of their bayou shack. There’s Mama and Aunt Cel with their feathered haircuts in the ’70s. And us — the extended-family picture that Aunt Cel hired a photographer to take two Thanksgivings ago. At the time, it felt so silly — we’re all wearing black tops and jeans like we’re members of some team. The Beauchamp team. But now I can’t describe how it feels to see it. That we’re important enough to her to be on her wall. It feels like that little part that Aunt Cel has always occupied in my life — the once-a-year trip for Thanksgiving and for my cousin’s graduations — has tripled, quadrupled. We have another home because we have family. It’s like a piece of the shipwreck that I found bobbing in the water and I can grab onto it to keep me afloat. It’s something Danielle doesn’t have.
Not knowing where she is has gone from shocking pain to a nearly all-consuming thought to a dull ache. There have been times when I thought our friendship was so strong that we had some kind of psychic connection. But no matter how much I will her to call me, she doesn’t call.
The room Mandy and I are going to share has a big double bed with lots of pillows. The closet is spacious, but neither of us has anything to put in it anyway. Mandy heads off immediately to take a shower. I take off my shoes and lie down on the cool cotton comforter. It smells like fabric softener. Like someone else’s house. I try to remember what our house smelled like. It’s there, somewhere in my memory, but I can’t reach it. Did it smell like garlic? Fried seafood? Orange blossoms, sometimes? Mandy comes back from the shower with one towel wrapped around her head and the other around her body. She starts going through the dresser drawers.
“What?” she says when she turns to find me giving her a reproachful stare. “Aunt Cel said we could.” She picks out an old pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt with a Georgia Bulldog on it. “Oh, Lord, it’s a good thing nobody from home can see me in this.”
“You’ll never get into LSU now.”
Dinner is spaghetti and salad and some bread in a basket — nothing that we would ever have at home. Before I even start eating, I feel suddenly exhausted, like I can barely lift my head. I’ve gotten through the past five days on adrenaline. Now that I’ve relaxed a tiny bit, I’m falling apart. I can only manage to make occasional appreciative sounds to show Aunt Cel that I’m enjoying my dinner. Nobody is really talking, just complimenting her on her cooking.
“Oh, please,” she says, brushing it off. “Do you know how intimidating it is to cook for the likes of you? Vangie’s the one who got all the talent in the family. I can barely boil water.”
When dinner’s over and Mandy and I have cleared away the dishes, Aunt Cel asks us all to come back to the table. It’s a big round one, pushed into an alcove surrounded by built-in benches with cushions. There’s a pendant light hanging above it, almost like a spotlight that’s shining on her as she starts to speak.
“I know you’re all in shock and probably don’t want to think about this yet,” she starts out. “But it may be a long time before everything gets sorted out. So I’m proposing the following.” She looks around and catches everyone at the table in the eye. I can see why she’s the boss where she works. She tells us that she’s going to enroll us in high school and help Mama and Daddy fill out the FEMA paperwork at the Red Cross. I imagine her as a general. She’s mapping out our battle plan. No one disagrees.
“I spoke to Jim,” she continues, speaking of her ex-husband, who’s a real-estate investor. “He’s got a condo that’s going to be available next week. You can have it as long as you need it. It’s a two-bedroom, so it will be tight, but Mamere can stay here with me. It’ll be a chance to make up for a lot of lost time. With all your bookkeeping experience, Vangie, we can find you something at my office. Now, John, Jim knows someone at the marina north of town. I know it’s not exactly the same, but you need work and we might be able to help you find some odd jobs.”
I finally look up at Daddy. I can’t tell what the expression on his face means. “Cel, we’re so grateful for everything you’re doing for us,” he says. There’s something in his voice. He’s ashamed that he has to be in the position of getting and not giving.
Aunt Cel’s voice turns even more serious. “Now, I’m going to say this once and once only. I will not hear any discussion about money or paying for things, and if you bring it up, I will be angry. It is my privilege to be able to help my family when they need it. When everyone’s back on their feet again, it’s forgotten.”
The conversation turns to what has happened to whom. Have we heard from so-and-so? Mrs. Menil? Yes, she’s with Delbert. His house uptown was barely scratched. I guess she’s finally moved in with him permanently. She’s got no choice now. Mr. Ray is in Baton Rouge with his brother’s family. On and on. I see my chance to blurt out “Can I use your computer? To check to see if Danielle got my message?”
Aunt Cel looks at me. “Desiree Watts’s daughter? Are they missing?”
That awful, overwhelming tension seizes the table.
“They didn’t have a car. We’re not sure how they got out,” says Mamere. “No one has heard from them.”
Aunt Cel gives Mama a serious look. “The computer’s in the office. Go on ahead,” she says to me.
I go straight to my message on the Plaquemines Parish board. Nothing. The New Orleans boards are full of updates, but no one seems to know or care what has happened to Bayou Perdu.
Later, Mandy and I are in the double bed, both wearing Ami’s old clothes. It’s so dark in here, and there’s a quietness that I’m not used to. It’s not just that you can’t hear what’s going on outside; it’s that each room has its own quietness.
“Insulation,” says Mandy. “And central air conditioning.” Two things we’ve never had.
Despite my earlier exhaustion, I can’t go right to sleep. I can feel Mandy awake next to me.
“I can’t believe she’s making us sign up for school,” she says finally.
“I think it’s, you know, the law,” I say. “We’re dropouts right now. Can’t be homeless and dropouts.”
“You know tomorrow night would have been the ring dance and Sunday, the Orange Queen court selection,” Mandy continues. “I really thought I had a chance this year.”
It’s so unlike her to open up to me, to give me a glimpse into what she’s really feeling, to show a chink in her armor. For a moment at least, it’s like we’re little again, when we used to get along sometimes, play together.
“Who knows what they have up here? Maybe you can be the Peach Queen instead.”
A pillow thumps softly but with force into the side of my head. I go to sleep feeling less tense than I have since we left home.
The next morning, Aunt Cel drives us to the school where Ami went. A SCHOOL OF EXCELLENCE, the sign in front proclaims. It’s a huge place — it looks like a college. The parking lot is full of cars — nice new ones. The least nice one is close to the kind of car you’d see in the parking lot of Bayou Perdu High School. Inside, the lighting is bri
ght and everything looks so clean and new. We follow Aunt Cel into the front office. The secretary, sitting at a tall counter like the one at the library, looks up and smiles. “Welcome back, Mrs. James,” she says. “What can I do for you?”
“These are my nieces from Louisiana,” says Aunt Cel. “They’re going to be staying with us for a while. I’ve got the paperwork here from the district office.”
The secretary gives us a look as if we have some fatal disease. “Oh. I’m so sorry. We’ve had some other Katrina refugees come in from Mobile. Let’s see, then. A junior and a senior. Do you girls know what you were enrolled in at your old school?”
A hot anger wells up in me. Everyone is using that word now. Refugees. Yes, we’re refugees from southern Louisiana, but we’re not stupid. I do happen to remember what classes I was taking. I pull out my fall schedule and hand it to her.
“Let’s see. Evangeline, I’ve got an opening in an English class that I think will work. For PE, we’ve got a yoga that would fit with this schedule. Would that be OK?”
Yoga? I nod. I think about how everyone at home would flip out if they knew I was going to a school that offers yoga. I’m not entirely sure what it is.
The secretary prints out a schedule and gives us our e-mail log-in and password, then says “Hold on a minute” and comes back with someone who looks like a student, except that her clothes are a little worky.
“I’d like you to meet our school counselor, Ms. Bell,” she says.
Ms. Bell shakes hands with us as if we’re grown-ups. She seems nice.
“Ms. Bell is available anytime you need to talk, considering what you’ve been through. I know she’s helped some of our other Katrina refugees.”
Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but Ms. Bell seems to cringe a little at the use of that word, too. “Strictly confidential. Strictly voluntary,” she says. “If you ever find you need to talk to someone, my office is right through that door.” She points to the left.
Between Two Skies Page 5