Volume One: In Moonlight and Memories, #1

by Julie Ann Walker

  Luc nudges her. “Keep going. What else is in there?”

  She gingerly refolds the notebook paper and places it next to the movie tickets. When she pulls out a Twinkie, she wrinkles her nose. “What on God’s green earth?”

  Luc throws back his head and laughs. “Hell, man. I completely forgot you did that.”

  “I didn’t.” I take the Twinkie from Maggie and inspect the wrapper. Still intact. And besides being a bit smashed, the cake inside appears to be in tip-top shape.

  “He wanted to test the theory that Twinkies stay fresh forever. According to urban legend, they’re supposed to since they don’t contain any actual food products, just chemicals.” Luc hitches his chin toward my Twinkie. “Go on, then. Finish your experiment.”

  I rip open the wrapper, and the smell of sugar and cake perfumes the air. Yard glances up from his tennis ball, one ear standing at attention like a good soldier. The other doesn’t quite have what it takes and flops down at the tip.

  “Don’t you dare.” Maggie eyes me in horror.

  I wink before stuffing half the Twinkie into my mouth.

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” She throws her hands in the air.

  “It’s a bit stale,” I garble around the cake and filling. “But it tastes the same.”

  I start to hand the remaining half to Yard, but Maggie swats my hand. “No! When you’re dead and gone from some horrible, never-before-discovered foodborne illness, I’ll need Yard around to console me.”

  I shrug and pop the remainder of the Twinkie into my mouth, loving the look of revulsion and grudging respect on her face.

  For the next hour, we sift through the memorabilia and reminisce about the good old days. There are the tickets from the Katy Perry concert she made us go to when we lost a bet with her, the bag of Carnival coins we caught from the floats in the lead-up to Fat Tuesday, and the little plastic baby Luc found in the king cake we shared after watching the Krewe of Zulu parade down St. Charles Avenue.

  Something I learned after moving to New Orleans? The whole town is packed with traditions.

  One of my favorites is the king cake. Not because I particularly like the taste of the cinnamon-roll-style cake or the flamboyant green, yellow, and purple icing. But because people bring the cake to parties held during Carnival season, and whoever ends up with the slice bearing the little plastic baby baked inside is the one responsible for throwing the party or bringing the cake the next year.

  It’s so…hopeful. As if everyone assumes there will be another year, there will be another Mardi Gras and, of course, there will be another party.

  Maggie laughs her head off at the list of Popular Songs of Our Time that Luc compiled, especially his “Pocketful of Sunshine” entry.

  “You hated that song.” She points at the sheet of paper.

  “Not at first,” he tells her. “But after you played it ten million times and sang it at the top of your lungs nine million of those? Yeah. I started to hate it.”

  She slaps his arm. “You always said I had a good voice.”

  “At normal decibels, you do. But, for whatever reason, you couldn’t sing that one at normal decibels.”

  “Still can’t,” she admits with a rueful grin. “If it comes on the radio, I have to belt it. The music’s in me, baby. Don’t try to hold me back.”

  “Lord help us,” Luc laments, which makes her laugh.

  She goes back to the box. When she pulls out the paperback copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, I cringe.

  She stares at me in accusation. “You put this in here? Which means you never read it, you dirty rotten scoundrel!”

  She opens the book, and I see the inscription she wrote on the inside cover.

  Dear Cash,

  Now you can be a Potterhead too.

  Happy 18th birthday!

  Love,

  Maggie and Luc

  “In my defense,” I tell her. “I did read it.”

  “And?”

  “Meh.” I shrug.

  She rakes in an outraged breath. “Blasphemy!” Turning to Luc, she crooks a thumb my way. “Can you believe this guy?”

  He shrugs as if he’s resigned himself to my boorish ways. “He doesn’t like Harry Potter. He doesn’t like The Big Bang Theory. He dresses like shit. The man has proved time and again he has no taste.”

  “We’ll have that carved into his tombstone,” Maggie agrees. “Here lies Cassius Armstrong. A good soldier. A good friend. A lover of beignets, and a defender of a teenage girl’s honor. Alas, he had no taste.”

  “No headstone for me.” I shake my head. “I want a Viking funeral.”

  “A what?” Her nose wrinkles in the most adorable way.

  “A Viking funeral. I want you guys to take my body and put it in Luc’s pirogue. Then set me on fire and push me out into the bayou. Whatever the flames don’t eat, the alligators will.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Course I am. Never liked the idea of people coming to visit the place where my corpse is rotting away beneath the ground or inside some tomb. When I’m gone, I want to be gone. Nothing left of me but good times and good memories.”

  She shakes her head. “But you’re not a Viking.”

  “Not true.” I lift a finger. “Just last year I sent off a sample of my saliva to one of those DNA ancestry places, and the results confirmed I’m 36 percent Scandinavian.”

  “Guess that accounts for your height and blond hair,” she muses before shoving her hands back into the box.

  The last items she pulls out are two dozen photographs. Luc thought it would be fun to use the disposable camera his mother put in his Christmas stocking to document “a day in our lives.” He chose a day in late spring. We picked Maggie up early that morning, packed a picnic lunch, and drove Smurf to the swamp house.

  On top of the stack is a photo of Luc, a lot skinnier and pimplier than he is now, lying on the boards of the front porch and dangling a raw chicken breast over the side while an openmouthed alligator waits in the bayou below to catch it. There’s another of Maggie, swatting flies and fanning herself. She’s wearing big, dime-store sunglasses and a pink tank top that emphasizes the sun-kissed lengths of her arms. And then there’s one of me. I look tan and fit, except for the dark circle under my left eye and the row of six stitches cutting through my right eyebrow.

  “Were we ever that young?” Maggie muses.

  I blow out a breath. “Doesn’t seem possible, does it?”

  The photo Luc took of Maggie and me kissing has a lump forming in my throat. She shifts uncomfortably and flips through the remainder of the stack. When she’s done, she places the photos back into the cigar box, closes the lid, and sighs. “This was wonderful. Thank you both.”

  “It’s yours, Maggie May.” Luc hitches his chin toward the box.

  “You mean I get to keep it?”

  “Everything but the Twinkie,” I tell her, knowing it’ll make her laugh.

  We sit in companionable silence and watch the rays of the setting sun paint the sky in hot pink and periwinkle. A gust of wind pushes at the surface of the lake and sets the wind chimes singing.

  “Why didn’t we ever come here when we were in high school?” Maggie says. “We always hung out at Audubon Park or Louis Armstrong Park. But this place is pretty as a picture.”

  “It’s pretty as a picture now. But for years after Katrina, it was a mess.” I leave out the part about this being the spot where Luc and I would meet when I couldn’t take spending another minute at home.

  “But the Singing Oak was here back then, right?” she asks.

  “The tree was here. The artist didn’t install the wind chimes until later.” And I can still remember the odd feeling that came over me when Luc’s mom emailed him the article about the art installation and we realized it was our tree.

  It was almost like fate. Not X marks the spot, but big-ass black wind chimes mark the spot.

  When Yard has satisfied himself that his tennis b
all has been sufficiently mauled, he flops onto his side. Maggie scratches his belly with the toe of her shoe. “The music it makes is pretty,” she says. “But melancholy.”

  “The artist chose chimes tuned to the pentatonic scale,” Luc says. “That’s why it sounds the way it does. And see that biggest one there?” He points to a huge black tube hanging from a branch. “It’s fourteen feet long.”

  “I’m ashamed I’ve never been to see it before today,” Maggie admits. “Seems like something everybody who lives in New Orleans should make the effort to do.”

  Luc shrugs. “When you live in a place your whole life, you tend to see less than the average tourist. I mean, ever been to the Tomb of the Unknown Slave or the Voodoo Museum?”

  “No.” She shakes her head.

  “Me neither,” he says.

  “We should go,” I decide, realizing this could perfectly fit in with The Plan.

  “Now?” Maggie laughs.

  “No, not now. But soon. We should go see these things.” I catch Luc’s eye over her head. “Make a list, Luc. You’re good at those. And then, I don’t know, not every week, we’re too busy for that, but maybe, like, every two weeks, or once a month, we could hit up a new spot. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” Maggie says hesitantly.

  “Come on,” I cajole. “It’ll be fun. Like old times.”

  She doesn’t have to say, That’s what I’m afraid of, because it’s written all over her face. But when she turns to Luc and sees he’s excited by the idea, she admits, “Well, for the last couple of years, I have been thinking about making a trip out to the abandoned Jazzland. A guy came into the bar who went there. He said it’s something to see.”

  “Isn’t it illegal to jump the fence?” Luc asks.

  She grins mischievously. “We could be lawbreakers together.”

  He laughs. “How about the first Sunday of every month? We could meet at Café Du Monde for brunch and then head out on an adventure afterward.”

  Maggie frowns. “Except some of these places might not be open on Sunday.”

  “We should have a standing Café Du Monde brunch on the first Sunday of every month where we’ll plan an excursion for the following week,” I propose.

  “Deal.” Maggie bobs her head.

  “Shake on it,” I say, and she crosses her arms to offer each of us a hand.

  Thankfully, I’m distracted from the soft feel of her hand in mine when a boy runs over to us. He can’t be more than five years old. His cheeks are cherub-round, and his hair is platinum blond. If not for the grubby knees of his jeans and the slightly ornery tilt to his eyes, he’d be damned near angelic.

  “Can I pet your dog?” he asks.

  “Of course you can, sweetheart,” Maggie tells him.

  With a grin of delight, he falls to his knees. Yard, sensing a playmate, sits up and welcomes this newest addition to the group with a tongue-lolling grin.

  “Where’s his other leg?” The scoundrel pets Yard on the head hard enough to make the dog blink. The silly canine seems to love it.

  “He was a stray,” Maggie tells him. “Do you know what a stray is?” The boy shakes his head. “A stray is a dog that doesn’t have a home.” The boy’s bottom lip protrudes. “Since no one was taking care of him or watching out for him, he got hit by a car. To save his life, the doctors had to take off his leg.”

  “Poor puppy,” the boy croons, throwing his arms around Yard’s neck.

  “But you know what the good thing is?” Maggie asks, and the boy looks up at her expectantly. “I found him and gave him a home. And now every day he gets lots of treats and belly rubs. Besides, he doesn’t need that ol’ leg anyway.” She wrinkles her nose and shakes her head. “He gets along just fine without it. You want to see?”

  The rascal nods emphatically, making his hair swing around his forehead.

  “Throw that tennis ball as far as you can,” she says.

  When the boy does as instructed, Yard takes off after the ball. The scamp squeals with delight, and the game of fetch is officially underway.

  I turn to see a woman carrying a baby and holding tight to the hand of a toddler as she picks her way across the grass toward us. The boy’s mother, undoubtedly. She looks harried and a bit disheveled. But when she sees her son playing with the dog, her face glows with love.

  It makes me picture Maggie as a mother. She’ll make a good one. She’s got more love in her heart than anyone I’ve ever known.

  As soon as I have the thought, a shaky feeling spreads through my chest. To distract myself, I say, “Hey, little man. You got a girlfriend?”

  “No way.” The boy’s face curls into a look of disgust.

  “Good. At your age, it’s better to play the field.”

  Maggie chuckles and elbows me just as the harried mother makes it to our bench.

  “I’m so sorry,” she says breathlessly. “That boy is quick out of the chute. And seeing as how I’m hogtied with these two”—she tilts her head toward the drooling baby and the toddler hiding shyly behind her leg—“it’s a wonder I haven’t lost him to the wilderness before now.”

  “Momma,” the boy says, “look it! He don’t got all his legs.”

  “He doesn’t have all his legs,” his mother corrects.

  “Momma, can we get a dog?”

  The woman closes her eyes. “I don’t have enough hands to keep up with the three of you. How do you expect I’ll keep up with a dog too? Come on, Samuel, and tell the doggy goodbye.”

  I’m prepared for young Samuel to throw a fit. But even though his chin sets at an obstinate angle, and his bottom lip quivers, he hugs Yard, kisses the dog right on the nose, and hands the tennis ball back to Maggie.

  “Thanks for letting him play with your dog,” the woman says.

  “My pleasure,” Maggie tells her and the three of us—four, if you include Yard—watch the trio head off across the grass.

  After a bit, Luc glances at his watch. “We’d best be off if we wanna get you back home in time to drop this guy off before your shift.” He ruffles Yard’s ears.

  “Mmm.” Maggie nods, pulling the leash from her back pocket. “All good things must come to an end, huh?”

  In my experience, no truer words have ever been spoken.

  “But it’s been a good day, boys,” she adds. “A very good day. Thank you both for everything. For coming to Aunt Bea’s tea and for this.” She tucks the big cigar box under her arm. “I’ll cherish it always.”

  Luc and I hang back as she heads toward the parking lot and Smurf.

  “And that’s a job well done.” Luc nods in her direction. “Put ’er there, man.”

  I shake the hand he offers me. He’s so damned pleased with himself, with our eighteen-year-old selves. Then his eyes narrow and he gives my fingers a hard squeeze. “Now you wanna tell me why you offered to be a bachelor in Miss Bea’s auction? I understand if you’re aiming to get in good with her family. But the bachelors at that thing go for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars. Maggie May can’t afford to bid on you. So what you’ve done is agree to go out with another woman.”

  “Don’t worry.” I clap him on the shoulder. “It’s all part of my grand plan.”

  “When you gonna fill me in on the scope of that thing? ’Cause I gotta admit, I’m not sure I’m on board.”

  “Oh,” I assure him, “you will be.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  ______________________________________

  Maggie

  Chris Rose, a beloved writer for The Times-Picayune, once said, “You can live in any city in America, but New Orleans is the only city that lives in you.”

  Amen, brother.

  It’s a typical Friday night in the Vieux Carré.

  The bar is hopping with locals and tourists alike. Louis Armstrong—known here by the nickname Satchmo, although I’ve never thought to find out why—is playing on the jukebox. And like I said it would, the weather finally broke. We have the windows a
nd doors thrown open to catch the cool evening breeze, and the smell of beer, whiskey, and good times hangs in the air.

  This is my kind of night. My kind of crowd. And I’d be pleased as punch, except for one small thing…

  It’s been five days since I’ve seen Luc or Cash.

  What the actual heck? I mean, after that whole thing with the time capsule—and how amazing was that, by the way?—I thought for sure I’d be hearing from them. But once again…out of sight, out of mind.

  Not that it’s been radio silence like last week. Luc’s texted me three times to tell me how they’re coming along with Cash’s house and once about an awesome new song he heard on the radio—a love of music has always been something we share. Although, as “Pocketful of Sunshine” attests, our tastes don’t always align. But Cash? Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

  Why hasn’t he stopped by Bon Temps Rouler? Why hasn’t he called or texted? How am I supposed to figure out what happened and what he wants from me now if I never see him?

  My cell buzzes as I pop the top on an Abita. After sliding the beer to Earl, I pull my phone from my pocket and smile at the name on the screen. Well, speak of the devil. Or…one of the devils, at least.

  Luc: Working tonight?

  Me: Here until closing.

  Luc: There room at the bar for 2 more?

  My heart starts pounding.

  Me: I’ll make room.

  Luc: Be there in 10 mins.

  When I click off the phone, Earl leans over to Jean-Pierre, who’s doing me a huge favor by filling in for the band that was supposed to play tonight. They ended up canceling at the last minute. Something about bad shrimp and not enough toilets in all of Louisiana to contain what they’re producing.

  “See that there smile?” Earl points the neck of his beer at me. “She’s taken to wearing it when one of these ghosts from her past comes up in conversation.”

  I try to wipe the grin from my face but can’t quite manage it.