"We're looking for this lady." Jason displayed the computer printout of Julienne's university photo.
The statue examined each of the photos carefully while I fretted lest he leave silver paint on the only pictures I had. Finally, he passed back the three computer printouts but held onto my precious snapshot. "That's you," he said, smirking as he looked from me to my image on the picture. I said nothing. "And her I seen, too." He pointed to Julienne. "Same woman as in the other picture but even more of a babe. Younger, right?"
My heart speeded up. "When?" I asked eagerly. "When did you see her?"
"Shit if I know. It was like ... on the weekend." He still held the old photograph, and I had to restrain the desire to wrest it from him.
"And him. She was with him," said silver skin.
Who? I looked eagerly to see whether he had identified Nils or Torelli. "Saturday? Sunday?" asked Jason.
"I dunno. Saturday?"
I tried to keep the disappointment off my face. The person he was pointing to, as having been with Julienne, was Philippe Delacroix, her brother, who was in the Midwest, not New Orleans. And if the puppeteer had seen Julienne on Saturday, it would have been late at night with Linus Torelli.
"What time?" I asked.
"Afternoon? Early evening?"
"Impossible," I snapped, turning away. Julienne had been arguing with Nils at the hotel or at Etienne's Saturday afternoon and early evening.
"So maybe it was Sunday." The fellow shrugged. "What I know is, I was in my pose—an' by the way you're supposed to show your appreciation with a tip—an' I jumped out at them just like I done with you, an' this guy ..." He stabbed his finger at Philippe. "... he called me an asshole an' pushed me off the curb. If you know the bastard, just tell me where he is, an' I'll—"
"I'm afraid you're mistaken," said Jason calmly and tucked a dollar bill into the silver man's hand.
The statue held it up and muttered, "Damn cheap tourists," but we were already on our way down the street toward Pere Antoine's and a dinner that was much more satisfying than the interviews we'd had thus far.
We both agreed that the silver statue had not seen Philippe and, therefore, had probably not seen Julienne either, especially since he couldn't even tell us on what day the alleged encounter had occurred. "He was just looking for a big tip, so he told us what he thought we wanted to hear," Jason guessed. I felt very discouraged. It was more disheartening to be lied to than to get no information at all.
After our disappointment, Pere Antoine's was a pleasant • surprise, featuring, as it did, a charming decor with flowers in front, large mirrors in back, and modest prices. I had crawfish e'touff^e, a thick stew made with roux, lard or some other artery-clogging fat, crawfish tails, and spices. Jason had the seafood platter, which included everything: scallops, catfish, shrimp, crab, and an item called Cajun popcorn (seasoned shrimp, deep-fried). It was a feast to which I helped myself—in the interests of my research, of course. We split an order of red beans and rice to round out our Cajun experience. One wonders if all Cajuns are fat. I certainly felt fat when we staggered out of Pere Antoine. If I'd been wearing a belt, I'd have loosened it.
15
Mint Juleps
After our Cajun feast, we wandered up and down Bourbon Street. Even in this unwelcoming weather and on a Tuesday night, it was mobbed. I knew that people lived in the French Quarter, but I couldn't imagine how they endured the noise. Then I saw pictures that rang a bell. Julienne had said I had to see the tassel twirlers, and there they were, or their pictures at least. Presumably, the real performers were inside. I tugged at Jason's arm, pointed to the establishment, and shouted above the crowd noise that I wanted to go in.
"No, you don't," Jason assured me, looking embarrassed.
"Julienne mentioned it."
"But Carolyn ..."
I ignored his reluctance and urged him inside. The place—whose name I hadn't even noticed, but surely there couldn't be two dens of tassel twirlers in the city— was mobbed, mostly with men. A seedy looking person tried to lead us to a table, but Jason was immediately hailed by a large group of men who had that scientific look about them: rumpled clothes, suede-patched elbows, beards, ACS badges. Voices accustomed to lecturing in large halls to hordes of students roared over the cacophony, inviting my husband to join them in male camaraderie.
Then they saw me behind Jason and looked dismayed, like small boys caught looking at dirty photographs. Julienne and I had once caught our fifth-grade male schoolmates perusing such items. Julienne grabbed a few, and we dashed off, giggling hilariously. Once we had looked at our booty, we were rather puzzled and threw the pictures away, but those boys viewed us with fear and trembling for months, afraid we'd tattle, I suppose.
Having invited Jason, the table of scientists couldn't very well change their minds when they learned that I was part of the package, so I was duly introduced to a number of mighty intellects out on the town. The man by whom I was seated, a professor from Purdue, assured me that their presence here was in the nature of a research project. While Jason ordered a beer and I chose a mint julep, another of the New Orleans favorite cocktails on my must-try list, our table mates proved their scientific acumen with a learned discussion of the physics of tassel twirling. I sipped the mint julep and asked the waiter how it was made, taking notes for my book as he described the process.
Mint Julep
Make simple syrup by combining 1 cup sugar with 2 cups water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring. Reduce heat and simmer 5 to 10 minutes. Cool and store in the refrigerator in a covered jar.
For one cocktail, combine 3 tablespoons of simple syrup and 6 fresh mint leaves in an old-fashioned glass. Crush leaves with a wooden pestle.
Add crushed or cubed ice.
Add 1.1/2ounces of bourbon, stir, and serve.
Then I turned my attention to the performer, a curvaceous young woman wearing only tassels, which were attached to strategic portions of her anatomy. While noisy men shouted their approval of her talents and the professors discussed, for my benefit I imagine, the rotational forces involved in tassel twirling, I marveled that the young woman seemed to have developed muscles in parts of the breast that I would have assumed to be without muscles, had I ever given the matter any thought.
She could twirl her tassels clockwise, counterclockwise, and both at once: left breast counterclockwise, right breast clockwise. Amazing! She could also execute similar tricks with her buttock tassels. It certainly wasn't as entertaining as the American Ballet Theatre doing Giselle, but the performance was unusual. Also, she was a very pretty girl and evidently quite athletic. I, for one, clapped enthusiastically at the end of her number while my husband's colleagues joined me, casting surreptitious glances in my direction all the while.
Then an intermission was announced and the bill presented. My drink cost $20! "Did you see this, Jason?" I asked, horrified.
"Yer payin' fer the entertainment, lady," said the waiter. "Ya thinkin' about not payin', I'll have to call the manager."
"She wasn't that good!" I muttered as Jason paid the bill. Fortunately, I didn't say it loudly, for the young lady herself appeared just then at our table and posed seductively as she asked if any of the gentlemen would care to buy her a drink.
The august members of the American Chemical Society looked flummoxed, but Jason, always considerate of the feelings of others, said that we would be delighted to. I must admit that I looked at him askance. The young woman sidled over, pulled up a chair from another table, and pushed in between us, giving me a challenging look. She had the most amazing eyelashes when you saw her up close: so thick and long that one had to anticipate them tearing loose from their anchors at any moment and taking her natural eyelashes with them. I winced to think of how painful that would be.
Poor girl. She was obviously in a profession with dangers beyond the obvious: breast sprains, lascivious men, and the health hazards of dancing practically n
aked in the cold and damp of a New Orleans winter. Would they let her work if she had the sniffles? A woman, no matter how pretty, is not very seductive with a runny nose. Julienne's mother had always advised us to break a date rather than appear in public with a red nose and a handkerchief at the ready.
The tassel twirler was batting those eye fans at Jason as he asked what she would like to drink. She opted for champagne. I said, "I doubt that the champagne is very good here, but this drink is nice—a mint julep." I gestured to my glass. "I even have the recipe, if you're interested."
The young woman looked flabbergasted. "Well... OK," she responded.
"She'll have champagne," said the waiter.
"Nonsense," I retorted. "Since my husband and I are paying for her drink, she can have whatever she wants." I turned to her. "Maybe you'd rather try a hot buttered rum. It is a nasty night."
"Tell me about it. I slipped and fell on my butt walkin' over for the first show."
I nodded sympathetically. "That's very painful. I did that once at Disneyland. We were taking our children to see that silly It's a Small World After All thing."
"I seen that," said the young woman. "I liked it."
"I did, too," Jason agreed. "It was the only time our children stopped whining to go on the roller coaster, but poor Carolyn was in agony sitting through that ride. This is my wife, Carolyn, by the way, and I'm Jason, Jason Blue."
"Desiree," said the young woman, who then turned pugnaciously to the waiter and announced that maybe she would have that hot buttered ram. "I ain't never had one," she said to me.
"Oh, they're delicious," I assured her. "And you must be chilly." Although the room was warm with the presence of so many people, the door to the street opened repeatedly to admit new customers and damp, cold drafts. Desiree had goose bumps surrounding her tassels.
"You're very talented," I added, trying to make her feel at ease socially since she seemed to be rather out of her element. Perhaps she wasn't used to being bought a drink by couples. The other professors certainly seemed to be visibly astounded at the situation.
"Say, you two ain't into any kinky threesome stuff, are you?" Desiree asked suspiciously. I presume that was her stage name; what mother would actually name her daughter Desiree? "I'm an exotic dancer. I'm not no whore."
"Of course not," I agreed.
"We wanted you to look at some pictures," said Jason hastily.
"Dirty pictures?" She scowled.
"Hot buttered rum." The waiter slapped it down on the table and presented Jason with the bill.
"Why am I paying for entertainment?" he asked. "Miss Desiree is the entertainment, not the entertainee."
"Oh, pay the man, Jason," I said and took the pictures from my purse. "We're looking for my friend." I pointed to Julienne. "And anyone she might have been seen with." I pointed to Nils, then to Linus.
"Well, I got a memory for faces. Men, they only look at tits. Women look at faces." She was gulping the hot buttered rum with obvious relish. "Now this is more like it," she said and bent over the pictures. "Him!" she said quickly. "Saw him here last night." She pointed at Nils.
"With Julienne?" I asked eagerly. That damn Nils. He knew where she was; he'd actually seen her and wouldn't even tell me. No wonder he refused to report her missing.
"Nah. He was with a bunch of guys," said Desiree. "They all had two drinks each, watched my set, didn't want to buy me a drink, but this guy—" She pointed to Nils again. "He said he liked my hair an' give me ten bucks."
Nils had liked Desiree's hair? That was sad. It was black and curly like Julienne's, only much longer, possibly a wig.
"Big blond guy," Desiree continued. "Over the hill, but I'll bet he was cute ten years ago. He coulda put his shoes under my bed. Ya know what I mean? Least he din' sound like none a these mush-mouthed Southerners. Now me, I'm from New Jersey. Workin' the exotic dance circuit an' ended up here 'cause I had a boyfriend wanted to . .."
I'm afraid I stopped listening to Desiree, who was pouring her heart out to me. Probably she didn't get much attention from mother figures, although it was hard to think of myself as the mother of an exotic dancer. Still, the disappointment in finding out that she had not seen Julienne, just Nils, was overwhelming. As was my anger that Nils would be out ogling twirling tassels on young breasts when his wife was missing and in God knows what sort of trouble.
Desiree wound down and announced that she had to get back and change for her next set. Change? Did she have different tassels for each appearance? Different colors? Longer or shorter? Maybe they operated on batteries, and the batteries had to be changed. I could understand that. Tassels that suddenly refused to twirl would not be conducive to the sexual titillation inherent in her performance. I was dying to ask but didn't want to embarrass her, so I stood up and offered my hand. "It's been so nice to meet you, my dear," I said. "I do wish you continued success in your career." I was ready to go home and give up for tonight. Jason, angry that he'd been levied a cover charge on Desiree's drink, paid the bill, and left the waiter a two-cent tip.
"I've always wanted to do that to a rude waiter," Jason murmured with satisfaction as we threaded our way through the crowd of tassel-twirling aficionados and out into the street.
16
A Salad from Hell
I woke up Wednesday with the sinking realization that Julienne had now been missing since Saturday night. Others might have seen her Sunday, but I hadn't, and I had no idea why she hadn't called and no reassurance that she was safe. Therefore, I had to entertain the suspicion that she wasn't, although that suspicion did not mean I would stop looking.
When my mother died during my eleventh year after an eighteen-month fight against cancer, I had run from the house, grief-stricken and terrified of what the future might hold. Who would look after me now that she was gone? I knew that my father loved me, but his interests were academic, not nurturing. And so I had, in essence, run away from my fears, hidden from them, secreting my afflicted self in a little half cave on the banks of a nearby creek where I sometimes went to be alone. I fled to the place where I had occasionally found comfort in solitude.
And Julienne had found me there. She had not said, "Oh well, Caro's run away. We'll just have to wait until she shows up again." Julienne had come looking for me because she was my friend. And she had found me and taken me home to her own house and her own mother, who was warm and comforting and quite willing to adopt a half orphan into the family. From then on, although I lived in the same house with my father, my comfort lay in Julienne's house with my surrogate mother. Fannie Delacroix was a Southern belle who was as affectionate as my own mother had been but in all other ways so different that her love was not a reminder of what I had lost.
So Julienne had rescued me from grief, and I intended to do the same for her: rescue her from grief, or anger, or humiliation, or whatever emotion had driven her from the dinner party. Since she hadn't flown home, she must still be here in New Orleans. And I intended to find her.
As my first step on this new day of the search, I spent yet another hour waiting at Cafe du Monde and considering where, if she did not reappear, I should look next. It seemed to me that the swamp was my best choice. We had planned to take one of the boats. She had picked up her camera after leaving the dinner party—a shoulder bag, possibly containing a change of clothes, and the camera—and she had expressed a desire to Torelli to photograph the swamp. Remembering that, I paid my bill, dusted the sugar from my jacket, tucked my damaged umbrella under my arm and, map in hand, set out to purchase a ticket on a Louisiana Swamp Tour van. Jean Lafitte Swamp Tours, Captain Terry's, Magnificent Alligator Adventures, Cajun Cap'n— there were many to choose from.
Once on the docks, which were out at the end of a rural road, I went from booth to booth, waiting through lines so that I could show Julienne's picture to the ticket sellers. I alternated ticket sellers with boat captains, a weathered lot, many with barely decipherable Cajun acc
ents. No one remembered Julienne. One captain, who had a stuffed alligator head mounted behind the wheel of his boat, asked me why I thought he ever looked at the tourists when he had "snakes, an' snags, an' gators" to keep his eye peeled for. The last ticket taker, a woman less patient than the rest, glared at me through the wooden frame of her booth. She had dark, rough skin and a crooked nose and wore a raveling cardigan sweater buttoned over a flowered dress. "You come to my window, you buy a ticket," she said, a look of ferocious determination on her face. Obviously, anyone taking up space in her line was expected to come up with swamp fare. I bought a ticket and went back to tour with the alligator captain.
I was here; Julienne wasn't, so I might as well see this swamp about which she had talked so much. I stationed myself at the rail adjacent to the wheel as we pulled slowly away from the dock. The captain had already begun his spiel over the loudspeaker system as he piloted his boat, the Gator Belle, out upon the brown waters.
You may think of a swamp as suffocatingly green. Not in winter, not near New Orleans. The vegetation was abundant on the shores but ranged in color from bone white to a brown green that reminded me of desert bushes. Some of the trees appeared full and healthy; some bare of leaves with thin branches haloing the trunks like ghost thickets. Some thrust up black and dead from the water's edge, raising twisted limbs to a white sky, and many hung heavy with the mysterious, killing moss that blanketed and stifled life. Occasionally, there was a white, bony skeleton of a tree, leaning precariously toward extinction, still weighted down with its burden of moss, and the moss was white, too, having sucked the life out of its host before dying itself. No wonder Julienne had wanted to photograph this. I took pictures myself as we cut through the water, leaving a wide, white wake behind us that washed into the bushes where the banks narrowed toward one another.
Our captain pointed out a cemetery on the shore, its pure white box graves and crosses overhung by great moss-laden trees. A rough barricade of rocks separated the graveyard from the bayou. The greenest sight in the swamp was the grass in this cemetery, but that grass was not fertilized by the bodies of the dead, for corpses had to be buried above-ground here because the water level was just below the surface. While the captain explained this, I screwed up my courage for a question, afraid that my inquiry would meet with the same brusque retort as the last I had made to him.
Fairbanks, Nancy Page 12