by K. A. Ware
Realizing that neither my sister or I had spoken since the woman had appeared, I cleared my throat. "Um yes, we were wondering if you had time for a reading?" My voice came out high and uneven, giving evidence to my nerves.
The woman raised one dark eyebrow in question. "Only one?"
"My sister," I started, but Addie interrupted me with an elbow to the ribs. "I mean, both of us would like a reading."
"I see," she said slowly, letting her gaze slide over both of us. "Very well, this way."
She motioned for us to follow her and disappeared just as quickly as she’d appeared through the curtain of beads. I stepped forward to follow, but Addie grabbed my arm, pulling me back.
"Don't you think following a strange woman into a back room is a little suspect?" Her whisper was so soft and hurried, I’d barely heard her over the quiet hum of partygoers filtering in from the street.
"It's fine,” I assured her. “It's all about the ambiance with places like this. They have to be a little spooky. It's part of the appeal."
"I don't know..."
"Don't be such a pussy," I hissed as a voice called out from the direction the woman had gone.
"If your sister would feel more comfortable, I’ll do your reading first."
Addie's body locked up in, what I could only assume, was fear. If I was being honest with myself, I was a little freaked out too, wondering how the woman could've heard our conversation. Nevertheless, we were already there, so I figured we’d might as well get what we came for.
Before Addie could come to her senses, I seized her hand and all but dragged her past the counter and into a small, darkened hallway. The soft glow of candlelight coming from a room to our left was the only indication of our path. Stepping through yet another curtain of beads, we were met with a tiny room. It appeared that the shop's proprietor had something against doors. The room was decorated in a similar style as the main area of the shop, but somehow had a decidedly creepier vibe.
"I’m Madame Laroux, as you may’ve guessed. Please, have a seat."
I practically shoved Addie into one of the offered velvet chairs. Taking a seat beside her, I slowly sank into a plush cushion at the antique-looking wooden table across from Madame Laroux.
I couldn't help but stare at the woman. She had sharp, but somehow kind eyes. Her skin shone flawless and unblemished, with a smooth quality that hid her age. She looked fairly-young, maybe mid-forties, but her voice had a shaky quality that belonged to someone much older.
"Palm or cards?" She asked, interrupting yet another stilted silence.
Jesus Christ, could we be any more awkward?
"Cards, I think," I mumbled, trying hard to keep my tone even.
She nodded, turning slightly in her chair to open a small, wooden box on the shelf to her right. After retrieving the bundle inside, she faced us again with a solemn expression. Carefully, she unwound the silk scarf revealing a beautiful, but worn deck of tarot cards.
She began gently shuffling the cards before speaking. "Do you have a question for the cards?"
I begged my stomach to stay quiet as it flipped. "Not really, so just a general reading?"
"As you wish.” She cut the deck into three small piles in front of me like Vegas dealer. “Choose one.”
My palms immediately started to sweat. I tried in vain to shake the feeling that this decision would determine my entire future. Holding my breath, I selected the middle pile, hoping to God I’d made the right choice.
Addie reached for my hand under the table as Madame Laroux gathered the cards once again and started to lay them out face down in a pattern. Suddenly, I had a strange urge to scream Ya Ya, wishing Babs were there to bring some levity to the situation.
I legitimately almost pissed my pants when the first card she turned over was the death card. Thankfully, for the sake of her furniture, she seemed to sense my panic and held up a hand.
“Death can mean many things. An end of something significant, a relationship or perhaps a job?
“Y-yes, both actually,” I managed to squeak out while barely maintaining control of my bladder.
She hummed to herself quietly while she flipped and studied the cards one by one. There wasn’t anything as ominous as the first card, so I remained quiet. Finally, when I felt as though I’d spontaneously combust from anticipation, she reclined in her chair and steepled her fingers beneath her chin.
“You’re an untamed spirit. You’ve been adrift and wandering for some time. There has been trouble clouding your past—some poor choices, financially and romantically. You’ve come home to family, but you’re still seeking an anchor. You need something or someone who’ll ground you.”
“Is that it?” I asked, unwilling to let myself dwell on her eerie accuracy.
She clicked her tongue at me in annoyance. “There’s love in your future, but whether it’ll last is unclear. You’ve yet to make the decisions that’ll define your path. Something from your past will reveal itself, and you’ll have to overcome it to find your happiness. Now, that’s all the cards are showing me.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding and offered the woman a shy smile. “Thank you.”
She began gathering the cards again and looked to Addie, whose death grip on my hand had tightened to the point that I’d lost feeling in my fingertips.
Addie swallowed thickly. “I think I’ll go with the palm, if that’s all right.”
Madame Laroux nodded and wrapped the cards back up, placing them back in the wooden box. “Both hands palm up on the table,” she ordered, not unkindly.
Addie finally released her Hulk grip on my hand and I discreetly shook it out beneath the table. For someone who’d spent the last ten years planning tea parties, she was unnaturally strong. Madame Laroux gently took first Addie’s left, then right hand into her own. Her fingers trailed the lines from wrist to fingers, humming and murmuring to herself as she went.
“Both sisters unlucky in love?” She asked, not looking up or even waiting for a response before continuing. “The man in your past was not good—toxic. He shadowed your joy, but he didn’t break you. I see your future clearly, there’s light there. Another from your past, from before the darkness, he’ll make himself known again. You’ll find the true happiness you always should’ve had, but only if you open your heart to it.”
“Will I…” Addie’s soft voice trailed off. She took a deep breath and started again. “Will I have a family? Children?”
A smile crept across the woman’s face and she nodded. “Yes, it appears so. Not in the way you’d expected, though. You’ll find fulfillment, but again, only if you allow it. Your palms show your potential and your nature, but if your head gets in the way, and you fight the natural path, it can affect the outcome, just as any decision.”
“Right, okay. How much do we owe you?” Addie asked, standing abruptly. Meeting my curious stare, she shook her head as if to clear it and tried again. “I mean to say; you probably have other clients to get to. We don’t want to take up too much of your time.”
“Of course,” Madame Laroux said, rising from her seat. “Follow me to the counter and I’ll ring you up.”
Once we’d finished paying, Madame Laroux bid us a rather ominous farewell that felt more like a warning. “Remember, the head and the heart rarely have the same intentions,” she called out as Addie powered through the door and onto Bourbon Street with me hot on her heels.
Addie quickened her pace, her heels clicking on the asphalt. “I need a fucking drink—or seven to forget everything she said in there.” She refused to let up her furious pace as she weaved in and out of groups of drunks.
I pulled her to a stop and reached up to feel her forehead, she batted my hand away and glared at me.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m checking to see if you have a fever, Ads. Do you think she put a spell on you or something?”
She looked stricken. “What? Why would she do that? Do you think sh
e can do that?”
I barked out a laugh, even though I was pretty sure Madam Laroux had more than a few tricks up her sleeve. “I’m joking! I’ve just never heard you demand to get drunk before. I dig it though.”
“I’ve done my fair share of drinking, Sav. It’s just been a while. Besides, isn’t that why you brought me here in the first place?”
My cheeks hurt with the size of my smile. Snatching her hand, I continued our journey. “Yes ma’am. Let’s get you that Hurricane.”
Chapter 2
Saved By the Pope
Adelaide
New Orleans, Louisiana
“This one, boys,” I yelled holding up my drink, “is for all you cheaters out there who think I’m not woman enough and have to trade me in for a new…hic…newer model.” Uncrossing my legs in a huff, I miscalculated during the re-cross and almost tumbled off my perch on the bar. “How about you Hank?” I asked landing an unsteady hand on a burly redheaded-bearded man’s shoulder standing next to me. “Would you dump me for a twelve-year old stripper?”
He wasn’t my type, but at the moment, I saw four of him. I took a gamble and reached for the one in the middle, hoping he’d be the one who’d keep me from licking the sawdust floor when I met it face first, if I chose poorly.
Hank grinned, missing the whole row of his bottom teeth. “Name’s Linc, baby, but you keep flashin’ the goods like that and you can call me whatever you want.” A line of drool dribbled from his bottom lip where normally his teeth would have served as a barrier. Common decency would’ve normally kept me from staring, but common decency and decorum were currently doing the backstroke in a glass of rum under a cocktail umbrella.
“Addie, do you know how many liquors are in a Hurricane? And where the hell have you been? I went to the bathroom and came back to find you missing! And where the fuck are your shoes?” Savannah grabbed me by the elbow, effectively disturbing the force and sending me careening off the bar and onto my ass.
My head swam, and either my sister grew a pair of gnarly looking horns or the Hurricanes had hit me all at once. Reaching for anything in the vicinity, I climbed up Savannah’s pants leg, barstools, and apparently, some woman’s knock off Prada purse, who was ready to beat the crap out of me with it until I met her eye to spinning eye.
“You said we came to have fun, Savvy. Questions hurt my head.” Raising my pointer finger, I went to press it to my temple to emphasize my point, and ended up poking myself in the eye. “Ouch! Fuck! See? I told you they hurt.”
Squeezing the bridge of her nose, in a complete role reversal, my sister sighed and maneuvered my back against the bar with a palm firmly against my shoulder. “Let’s start this again. Do you know how potent Hurricanes are, Ads? How many have you had?”
I grinned. Then, I meant to stop grinning, but I couldn’t remember how to, and just stared at her like a stoned monkey with a bag of Fritos. “Two. Rum and Kool-Aid…and I’ve only had one…okay, maybe seven, but that’s beside the point.” I crossed my arms to prove my point. “The Kool-Aid man is for kids, Sav. And anything that’s advertised for kids can’t be bad for you.”
My logic made perfect sense to me.
Savannah…not so much.
“Two kinds of rum, Ads,” she corrected with an accompanied eye roll. “And I’m pretty sure I saw double pours on both. Honestly, you’ve had seven? No wonder you can’t walk.”
“I can walk just fine.”
“You can’t even sit.”
“You’re just jealous.”
She bit her lip to hide laughter. “Oh, this is gonna be good. Of what?”
I flung out my arms wide and gestured to the wall to wall men in the room. “Because I’m free to play the room like the tightly wound fiddle I am while you,” I flung a finger in her face, “you’re pining away for Officer McSexGod, who’s God knows where.”
She raised an eyebrow at me. Her silence answered my question, and even in my drunken state, I knew I’d gotten to her. I’d hit a nerve, and it was about fucking time, because I was damn tired of being the only screwed up sister in this family.
“Ha! I knew it! You have it bad for Officer Throw-Me-Out-of-My-House!”
Savannah narrowed her eyes and pursed tightened lips. “He didn’t throw you out of Sugarbirch, Ads. Roland did. Pope just did his job.”
I threw my finger in her face again. “See? See? Taking the side of a dick over the side of your blood.” I shook my head, which only succeeded in making the room spin. “Dick over blood. Dick over blood. What’s the world coming to when dick trumps blood?”
“Son of a bitch, Ads, we need to go, you’re just way too—”
“Oh, my God!” I interrupted her as the first few beats of the song hit my ears. “Do you hear that?”
Savannah shook her head. “Let’s go, Ads. Where are your shoes?”
Pushy. She was so damn pushy. Everyone in my life had pushed me around. No more. The old Addie played it safe. The old Addie never took risks. This was the new Addie. And the new Addie was about to go so far outside her comfort zone, she just may tumble off the cliffs of insanity.
“I’m going to sing karaoke.”
“You’re what?”
“You heard me.”
“Ads,” Savannah begged, her voice a mix of sympathy and warning. “Don’t you remember the talent show in eighth grade? You got boo’ed off stage when you sang Wind Beneath My Wings. You cried for four weeks straight.”
I licked my lips and started walking toward the front of the stage. “Yeah? Well I had an A-cup back then, braces, and a Beaches fascination.”
As I grabbed the microphone, I knew there was no reason for me to flip through the song listing book. One song stuck out in my head as the only one perfect enough to announce my independence to the world and my declaration of freedom. Outwardly, I knew I looked the part. For as much bitching as I’d done in the bathroom of that damn Waffle House, once I’d glanced in the mirror, I knew I’d started transforming from Adelaide Bordeaux back into Adelaide Dubois.
Shedding the “PTA blazers” and sensible black pants, as Savannah affectionately dubbed them, I’d pulled on a short black leather skirt and an off-the-shoulder pale yellow shirt that accentuated my long wavy auburn hair. I still had a long way to go to lose my uptight image, but each moment with my sister, I felt less like a plastic replica of a country club wannabe and more like the down-home girl I’d been brought up to be.
As the first few bars of Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off played, I flipped my hair back and belted it out in front of God, my sister, and hundreds of strangers who stared at me like I’d just chewed a can of rusty nails and screamed into a microphone for an ambulance. When the part came on about the boy over there with the hella good hair, I pointed to Hank, who picked me up and deposited me onto a table. Before I knew it, a huge crowd had gathered around me while I destroyed the song.
I didn’t even care that I sounded like a cat screaming after having its tail stepped on, the next song played, and I belted out Carrie Underwood’s, Cowboy Casanova. I was having the time of my life. For once, I was the center of attention, not for being Roland Bordeaux’s silent trophy wife, but for being me, Adelaide Dubois, life of the party…unafraid of what people thought of her.
We laughed. We giggled. We sang. Even Savannah got into the action, passing shots back and forth as we traded off the microphone while standing on top of the table, singing a duet of Pink’s So What. When the song ended, we’d laughed so hard, my stomach cramped. Accepting Savannah’s offered hand to help me down from the table, I basked in the cheers and applause until a stronger hand grabbed my calf.
“Party is just starting, baby! I’ve got a handful of beads and you’ve got a shirt full of reasons to earn them. Let’s see those tits!”
What the fuck?
Turning swiftly, I glanced down at Hank, his toothless grin salivating at my chest while his fingers twirled at least ten strands of multicolored beads on his index finger.
“Y
ou want me to do, what?”
“Beads for boobs, baby. Let’s see ‘em. This is Mardi Gras, after all.”
I had no idea what made me consider his offer. Maybe it was the opportunity to be uncharacteristically me. Or maybe it was the hopes of word making it back to Roland and embarrassing the shit out of him. Regardless, my fingers fidgeted with the hem of my shirt to chants of ‘take it off…take it off…take it off…”
Savannah’s voice boomed from below the table. “Addie, no!”
The hem inched higher as Hank’s beads twirled faster in a daze of pinwheel colors. Before I could get the shirt past my belly button, strong, tattooed arms grabbed me from below, one around my waist, and the other around my legs, yanking me off the table and against a hard chest.
“Fuck off, Jethro.”
Twisting wildly at first, once I heard his voice, I stopped struggling and my throat constricted. I inhaled quickly and caught the distinct scent of sea salt. Shifting my chin to the side, I took in the inky black beard, tatted skin, tight jeans, and wild dark hair. Once everything processed, I jerked angrily against him.
“Put me down! Put me the hell down!”
“Enough, Addie!” Shifting his hold to secure me in one arm, Zep shoved the heel of his palm into Hanks chest. “Get the fuck out of here before I choke you with those things.”
“Hey man, I saw her first.”
“And I saw her last. Now get the fuck out!” he screamed with a voice that’d bring down unstable buildings.
As Hank held his palms up in defeat, he rounded the bar to twirl his beads at other unsuspecting females. Wiggling again, I elbowed my nemesis in the ribs. With a muffled grunt, he released me, and I twisted around with fire blazing in my eyes.
“Zep? What the actual fuck was that?”
“That? That was me saving your ass, Snow White.”