“Will do,” I say, my throat closing up.
I spend New Year’s Eve at Chase’s house, with his parents and their rich friends, Sophie, Claire, and Derek, who once again steals the show with his trombone. All the talk swirling around me: New Year’s resolutions, people starting the year strong, starting over. The only things I want are to get back home and to get back to Tru. People say you’ve got to really go for what you want. So the only thing I can think is that I have to call Kaye.
I wait until the day after New Year’s Day because I imagine her sitting around watching football with her family on New Year’s and, really, I would rather do anything in the world than make this call. But the next day, around lunch, I do it, desperate for her to not pick up, but desperate for her to tell me, yes, she has seen Tru and she will give him my number.
She picks up on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Kaye?”
“Yes?”
My heart is pounding. “Hi, Kaye. This is Evangeline Riley. From Bayou Perdu?”
“Oh, hey!” She sounds confused but not unhappy to hear from me.
“Hey! I got your number from Hip Tran. He said that you were in Baton Rouge now.”
“Yeah, since Katrina.”
“Is all your family OK?”
We have a few exchanges about what happened to us and about people we know and where they are now. “So are you living in Houston? Near Hip?” she asks.
“Atlanta, actually. Hip is a friend of my sister’s boyfriend. He thought you might be able to help me.” In a split second, I decide to lie. “I was the manager for this band here in Atlanta. And one of our members had to leave suddenly and we think he went to Baton Rouge and we need to get in touch with him. His name is Tru Nguyen — do you know him?”
Silence. Too long a pause. Then stammering. “Uh, yeah, I know him. But I haven’t seen him since before Katrina. He’s . . . he’s in Baton Rouge?” She sounds really surprised.
“That’s what we think. For a few weeks.” This is awkward beyond belief. “Hip thought, I guess, that you might know where he is.”
“Uh. No, I didn’t know he was here. I haven’t seen him.”
“Oh. OK. Well, listen. If you do see him, could I get you to ask him if he could call?”
“Uh, sure,” says Kaye. “Hold on. Let me get a pen.”
“Thanks, Kaye. We really need to get in touch with him.” Somehow I just can’t say I.
“Sure, no problem. If I see him.”
When I hang up, I feel relief wash over me. Surely this will work. Surely I will reach him.
WHEN AN UNFAMILIAR NUMBER shows up on the phone a few days later, I hesitate for a moment. There are two people it might be, two people who I really want to talk to. Or maybe it’s just a wrong number. I let it ring three times, bracing myself for disappointment. But when I say hello, it’s a familiar voice I hear. It’s Danielle.
“Evangeline?”
“Danielle? Oh, my God, is it really you?”
In one split second, that shadowy figure, that ghost of my best friend that’s been haunting me for months, becomes solid: a voice coming through the speaker. I feel this rush of pure joy.
“It’s me,” she says. “That stupid producer lady gave me your number. I can’t believe that’s the thing that would get us back in touch. I guess you saw the show. So embarrassing. They made me look like such a dork.”
“No, you looked good. You looked great.”
“No, really, I didn’t.” There’s a nervousness in her voice. The kind I used to notice when she talked to strangers, not to me.
“So . . .” I pause. Where do we begin? I know part of her story — what I saw on the show at least — but she doesn’t know any of mine. “Where . . . ?” I start to ask where she is right now because I think maybe we can go backward from there, but she talks over me, asking, “Are you at your aunt’s house? Oh, wait, were you going to say something?” We talk over each other again.
“You go first,” she says.
I try to tell her in our own familiar way — fast and full of sarcasm and a little bit of drama. But it feels like it’s falling flat. There’s a silence when there should be an “Oh, my God!” Or her laughter is off just a beat. But when we get to the part about me having to call Kaye Pham, that’s when we have a breakthrough.
“Oh, God, noooooo!” she squeals. “That’s the worst!”
“I knew you’d understand.”
We start talking about people from home. She hasn’t heard anything about anyone, so I tell her what I know and I can tell she is eager to hear it.
“So Bayou Perdu High is just not going to reopen? Everyone’s going to Bellvoir now? What are you going to do?”
“We’re going back when we get our trailer. Well, at least that’s what I want. Mama said she’s never going back, but I don’t believe her.”
“That doesn’t sound like her. I mean your mom is, like, the queen of Bayou Perdu.”
“There’s not really anything to be the queen of now.”
We talk about the people who we know are going back — April Dubcheck and Kendra. “So,” says Danielle, her tone changing, “I guess you heard on the show that we’re not coming back. Especially now. Desiree is pregnant. She and Alan are getting married on Valentine’s Day.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Alan’s great. Really. But don’t be fooled by the happy ending they gave us in the documentary. She’s still putting the man in her life above me, even if he is a good one. And now the new baby. I’m lonely a lot. I miss you.”
Her words drop into me, a lead sinker on the end of a long line. “I miss you, too.”
We promise we will keep in touch, now that we can. I ask her for her mailing address so I can send her the scarf I made with the yarn she gave me for my birthday.
Later, I ride to the grocery store with Daddy and I tell him about my call with Danielle. “We were talking about who has gone back. She was asking when we were.”
He stares straight ahead, never taking his eyes off the road. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“But when the trailer . . .”
“There’s no point in talking about that now. You just concentrate on doing well in school. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
And the conversation is over.
Danielle and I call back and forth a few times with some “I forgot to tell you” bits. But the weird thing is, now that we can talk, there isn’t that itch. It’s not the day-to-day need to tell each other everything like when we were actually together each day. It feels like the closeness we had will really never be the same again.
School starts back and I can’t help but compare how different it is to our first day in September. Or maybe it’s us that’s different. Mandy hasn’t been hanging out with Lacy lately. She’s mostly been home, alone, watching TV or, shockingly, reading books. And me. I’m a different person, too. I was a girl whose life had been destroyed by Katrina. Now I’m just another ordinary teenage girl with family problems and a broken heart.
I see that woman I met on my first day again, that counselor whose name I don’t remember.
“Hi, Evangeline!” she says. “I’m Ms. Bell,” she adds.
“Oh. Hi,” I say.
“You’re still here, I see,” she says. “How are you settling in to life in Atlanta?”
“Fine,” I say.
“Well, remember, if you ever want to talk, my office is just next door to the main office.”
“OK,” I say, starting to step away.
My new schedule rearranges my life. My lunch isn’t at the same time as Chase and Derek’s music class, so when I get to the cafeteria the first day back, I look around for a familiar face. When I find one, it’s Tate’s. He smiles and waves. I wave back. When I get to the end of the lunch line, I see that he’s still looking at me. He beckons me to come over. Since I don’t have an alternative, I do.
“Hi,” he says in his nice and neutral wa
y. “Want to sit with us?”
I look quickly around the table. It’s mostly those friends we sat with at homecoming, including that girl who was nice to me, Mary Katherine. I sink into a chair.
“How were your holidays?” Tate asks.
“OK. Fine. Yours?”
“Pretty good. I got a new DS.”
I don’t even know what a DS is, so I just nod.
“Long time no see,” says Mary Katherine. “I’ve been wondering about you lately. You said you came here from New Orleans, right?”
“Well, close to it . . .”
“My cousin gets to use this condo off Bourbon Street for Mardi Gras, and he invited me and said I could bring friends. You’re coming, right, Tate?”
“If my parents let me.”
“It’ll be interesting to see how Mardi Gras is this year,” I say. “If people come back.”
“You’ve been?” asks Mary Katherine.
“Every year.”
“You should come with us,” she says. “It’s a teacher workday on that Friday, so we have it off and we’re road-tripping down there.”
My mind starts racing. If I could get to New Orleans, surely I could get myself to Baton Rouge from there. Just for a day even. “My parents probably wouldn’t let me,” I say. “But thanks.”
“OK.” She shrugs. “But let me know if you change your mind. See you tomorrow!”
It’s harder to reestablish the afternoon routine with Chase without Tru. Derek, who now seems to be wildly popular, isn’t hanging out with us much. And Chase seems to have developed an interest in Ariel, that girl who was in my political science class. I spend a lot of my time alone, thinking about Tru, imagining when he will call, what our conversation will be like. I keep telling myself I will give Kaye a few weeks before I try her again, but every day seems endless.
Daddy has gone down to Fort Walton, Florida, to do renovations on one of Uncle Jim’s rental houses. He’s going to be away from the family for a while, but it’s good money. Enough to get us through for at least another month. So while he’s gone, I babysit a lot so that I’m at least making money. And I spend a lot of time at Aunt Cel’s house with Mamere.
“You’re hurting, cherie,” she says. “A little light has gone out in you.”
I nod.
“That young man?”
I nod again. “His family left. I don’t know where they went.”
She puts her arm around me. “You’ve been through a lot this year,” she says. “More than anyone twice your age should have to go through. But those are the things that make us strong.”
I don’t want to be strong. I just want to go back to the way it used to be.
The first night Daddy is back from Fort Walton, I sneak into the hall to listen to him and Mama fighting.
“If I can start over here, why can’t you?” Mama hisses.
“I’ve always taken care of this family the best way I can. The best way I can is on the water.”
“But it’s not enough. It never has been. With my salary, we can get by if you just keep taking jobs like this. Think about the girls. They’re better off here. And so am I.”
“Fine,” says Daddy. “You and the girls stay here. I’m going back down to finish the job in Fort Walton. And when the trailer comes through, I’m going back alone.”
A sick feeling comes over me and I duck back into my room. This can’t be happening. He can’t mean it. I toss and turn all night, trying to work out how I will talk to him about it, but in the morning when I come down for breakfast, he’s already gone.
The next day after babysitting, I go back to Aunt Cel’s house. I tell Mamere what I heard the night before.
She sighs. “Darlin’, they’re both trying to do what’s right. None of these decisions are easy.”
“But how can not going home be right? It’s our home. Don’t you want to go back?” I’m so upset, my voice is trembling.
“With everything the way it is now, it’s not my time to go back. I’ve got something I need to do here and that’s be with my Celia. That’s the silver lining in this dark storm cloud. And if you look at it, you’ve got a silver lining, too. It’s a good school you’re going to. You can learn a lot here. Don’t be so set on getting back what you’ve lost. Think about what you can gain from being here.”
Now it feels like even Mamere is against me.
I used to love the feeling I got when I first set out on the water with the horizon line in front of me, knowing that I could just keep going and going. That feeling of endless possibility. Now when I look into the future, I can only see blankness. There’s nothing solid beneath my feet and nothing in front of me. I drift through my days surrounded by a fuzzy sensation, as if all my sharp edges have been worn down.
Mama has drifted off into her new life. She starts talking about going on a “gals’ weekend” to the beach with her friends from work, but realizes that it’s the week that Aunt Cel is taking Mamere on a cruise, so she seems to put the idea to rest. With Daddy still in Fort Walton, we’d be alone. For some reason, Mandy pushes back.
“Evangeline and I can stay by ourselves, Mama. I’m eighteen!”
This gives Mama pause. I can tell she wants to go on the beach trip. “Well, I guess that’s true,” she says. “But no one would be allowed in this house.”
Mandy rolls her eyes. “Like we know anyone.”
“You could call Uncle Jim if something goes wrong. I’ll stock the fridge. And I’ll be calling to check up on you.”
“We’ll be fine,” says Mandy.
“Why were you so big on getting Mama to leave?” I ask her later when we’re in our room.
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“Come on, Mandy. I can tell there’s something more to this. You’re hiding something.”
“Can I trust you?” she asks.
“What do you think?”
She sighs. “OK, Byron and I are trying to get back together. Don’t give me that look. Just listen. We’ve been waiting for a chance to try again. He said he’d come down. If we can just have some time alone together, I think we can work it out. But you have to promise not to breathe a word of this to anyone.”
This plan has disaster written all over it. But I agree not to say anything. And then about an hour later, it hits me and I spring up in bed. The weekend she’s talking about is the weekend of the Friday teacher workday. The weekend that Mary Katherine and Tate are going to New Orleans. “Mandy. I just thought of a way that you and Byron can have some really, really alone time.”
“I was thinking,” I say to Mary Katherine at school on Monday, “if the offer is still open to come to Mardi Gras, I would love to go with you. See, the thing is . . . I have this friend in Baton Rouge I need to see, and if I could just get as far as New Orleans with you, I can take it from there. I’ll pay you for gas.”
“Awesome!” says Mary Katherine. “But you’re welcome to stay with us as long as you want.”
“Maybe the first night?” I’m trying to think this through. If we get there late Friday and I take a bus up to Baton Rouge the next morning, it could work. But even though I run through every option, I always end up in the same place. I need to know more about where Tru is, and I can’t do that without calling Kaye again. I just have to. But it takes me a few days before I can work up my courage to do it.
“Hey, Kaye, it’s Evangeline Riley again!” I try to sound perky but rushed, so she knows I won’t keep her on the phone long.
“Hi,” she says, sounding less than thrilled to hear from me.
“Listen, just one quick thing. I’m getting a ride down to New Orleans the weekend before Mardi Gras with some friends. And I was thinking of coming up to Baton Rouge . . .” Now I start grasping around wildly for a reason she needs to help me find Tru. “Remember I told you I was looking for Tru Nguyen, who was in that band I managed? Well, I wondered if you’d seen him yet. Because I have this check I need to drop off for him. From this show they played. And I kn
ow he could really use the money.” I’m pleased with myself for coming up with such a convincing lie.
Silence. “Well, I think I saw his sister at the Vietnamese Community Center. If you went there, someone could probably give him the check,” she says finally.
“Oh, gosh, that’s great, Kaye, thank you so much!” I’m feeling incredibly grateful to her. “I’d love to see you when I come up,” I add.
“Um, OK,” she says.
“Well, I’m going to be getting there sometime in the late morning on the Saturday before Mardi Gras.” I’m completely making this up. “So could I call you when I arrive at the bus station in Baton Rouge? I mean, I hate to ask, but I don’t know where the community center is or if there’s a city bus to get there. Do you have a car? Maybe you could meet me at the bus?” I’m pushing it.
“Um, sure,” she says. “I guess just call me the day before and let me know when you’re getting there.” She sounds like she is agreeing to go have her teeth pulled. But she said yes. So I’m going with that.
“Oh, Kaye. You are the best. Thank you so much!”
So that’s it. A car is leaving from my school for New Orleans on Friday morning. I am going to be in it.
Mama takes off for her girls’ getaway Friday morning. I meet Tate, Mary Katherine, and their friends — Bailey, Brent, and Lee — in the parking lot at school, and we pile into Mary Katherine’s mom’s minivan.
During one of our rest stops on the way down, I walk away from the group and call Kaye. I get her voice mail. “Hi, Kaye, this is Evangeline. I’m on my way down to New Orleans. Just call me so we can arrange a ride tomorrow to the Vietnamese Community Center. I so appreciate your help. Thanks!”
After what seems like the longest trip back down to Louisiana ever, we’re finally crossing over the causeway. I get some kind of invisible infusion — I feel strength, the strength of home flooding into me.
“Wow.”
“Oh, my God, look at that.”
Everyone else in the car is pointing out horrors of the destroyed buildings as we drive through New Orleans East.
Between Two Skies Page 14