Unbroken

by Paula Morris

  “This is your little cousin?” Ling asked, laughing.

  Rebecca could understand Ling’s reaction. Aurelia was thirteen now, and she’d grown an implausible amount in the past year. She wasn’t the little cousin with a swinging ponytail anymore. Her dark curls were shorter, and she looked taller and skinnier. She was still just as affectionate and exuberant, though, hugging Ling as a greeting, and then hugging Rebecca again even tighter.

  “I wanted Mama to bring Marilyn over to your house yesterday, but she said no,” Aurelia told them.

  “Is Marilyn your friend?” Ling asked.

  “She’s the cat,” said Rebecca. “Fluffy and silly, just like Aurelia!”

  Aurelia beamed. She did look like a fluffy chick today, in her yellow TEMPLE MEAD JUNIORS T-shirt. She was also wearing the pair of denim shorts that Rebecca had left behind last May. Aurelia had sewn a purple patchwork square over the torn pocket. It looked suspiciously like the fabric of Marilyn’s cat blanket.

  “Are you on spring break, too, this week?” Ling asked, and Aurelia shook her head, rolling out her bottom lip in mock despair.

  “We had it already. But maybe I can come down to the Quarter after school one day to see you?”

  “Any day you like,” said Rebecca, squeezing Aurelia’s bony shoulders.

  “And Uncle Michael said I could come with you all to Jazz Fest on Friday.”

  “We’re going to Jazz Fest on Friday?” Ling screeched. Aurelia clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.

  “It was supposed to be a surprise,” she whispered. “Don’t say that I told!”

  “We won’t,” Rebecca promised her. So that was why her father had changed the subject so quickly in the cab. He’d been planning it all along.

  “I better go back,” Aurelia said, frowning again. “Claire’s covering for me.”

  “As usual.” Aurelia and her friend Claire were longtime coconspirators.

  “Whatever! Hey, have you seen Anton Grey yet?”

  “Um — no,” Rebecca said, trying to sound casual. “I’ll probably see him later.”

  “You wish you could see him later.” Aurelia giggled. “’Cause you have mud all over your face! And he’s walking over here right now.”

  “She’s right,” Ling agreed. “In your hair, too. And on the seat of your pants.”

  Rebecca cringed. Earlier that morning she had been trying to free the pieces of an upside-down plastic chair from its muddy grave, and had ended up sprawled in the dirt, a broken chair leg in hand. Z-Cap, wandering by, had shouted “Looking good, baby! You show that chair who’s boss!”

  There wasn’t any time — or place — to get cleaned up now. No sooner had Aurelia scampered away, disappearing into a sun-blurred crowd of workers, then Anton materialized, walking toward her like someone emerging from a mirage.

  Rebecca rubbed sweat out of her eyes with the back of a grubby hand — how could hands get so dirty when they were inside gloves? — and tried to ignore her flip-flopping heart. Seeing Anton for the first time in all these months was always going to be weird, but it was even harder with thousands of people around, and Ling standing right next to her. Anton also had a friend with him — a blond, stocky guy.

  Rebecca felt intensely self-conscious, and not just because she was half covered in mud.

  Anton’s dark hair was more closely cropped than before, maybe, and he looked almost dorky in his Big Sweep gear: purple soccer shorts, and a black T-shirt that read ST. SIMEON’S SERPENTS. But not so dorky, Rebecca thought, her stomach clenching with nerves, that she could just look at him calmly, like a normal person.

  “Hey,” they both said at the same time. Anton took another tentative step forward, as though he was going to kiss her, but all he ended up doing was sort of clasping her shoulder and leaning vaguely in her direction.

  Not that I’m any smoother, Rebecca realized. She just stood there, her arms like lead weights, her feet glued to the ground. It was hardly a romantic reunion.

  “I’m kind of muddy,” she said, by way of an apology. Anton flashed her the briefest smile, and she thought that maybe he was as nervous as she was.

  “This is Phil,” he said, gesturing at the blond guy next to him. Phil had a wide, completely non-nervous smile. He stepped forward to shake Rebecca’s hand, and then Ling’s. Rebecca was so tongue-tied, Ling had to introduce herself. Anton wasn’t doing a much better job with conversation, but luckily, Phil and Ling seemed ready to fill the void.

  “It’s so cool that you’re doing something like this on your spring break,” Phil said to Ling. “You just down here for the week? I’m only here for the semester. We’re going back to Portland as soon as school’s out.”

  “Portland, Oregon? Hey, my sister went to Reed!”

  “No way!”

  Phil’s father was some kind of medical specialist, and he had a gig, as Phil called it, at Truro Hospital. Phil was attending St. Simeon’s this semester, and it seemed as though Anton was his only friend.

  “He’s good with waifs and strays,” Phil joked. “People from foreign lands. Other states, anyway.”

  Rebecca and Anton grinned at each other. Phil was right: Anton had been really good to her when she was a waif and a stray.

  “Hey,” said Ling, nudging Phil’s arm. “Want to see what we just pulled out of the lake?’

  Rebecca felt a wave of gratitude toward her: Ling clearly realized that Anton and Rebecca were going to keep standing around awkwardly, saying as little as possible, until they were alone. Before Ling and Phil were halfway down the bank, Anton stepped closer to Rebecca.

  She caught her breath, and wondered for the second time in the space of a few minutes if he was going to kiss her.

  “I wanted to tell you,” Anton said in a low voice. “I saw Toby Sutton.”

  “He’s here?” Rebecca looked over her shoulder, in case Toby was creeping up at this very moment.

  “I’m ninety percent sure I saw him in the parking lot when we got out of the van this morning. Maybe he’s sleeping in his uncle’s boat in the marina. You know, he’s kind of unhinged right now. He’s really angry about having to move away and go to another school.”

  “As opposed to the school he once tried to burn down?”

  “Better the devil you know, I guess,” said Anton with a wry smile. Rebecca had seen that smile hundreds of times in photos — on Facebook, on her phone — but in person it had a very different effect. No wonder all the Temple Mead girls were so outraged when she’d “nabbed” him last year. They were not going to be happy when she turned up by his side at the Spring Dance this Thursday.

  “Sometimes it’s hard to break with the past,” he was saying. “Old habits. Old friends. I guess we’re all loyal to people and places even if …”

  “Even if they suck?” Rebecca fanned herself with her gloves. Either she’d had too much sun today or she was blushing. Whatever had kindled between them last year was still smoldering; she’d known that all along. But really, she had to get a grip.

  “Just don’t wander around anywhere alone, OK?” Anton looked her straight in the eyes, and Rebecca felt herself melt a little. So much for getting a grip. For a moment, she considered telling Anton about Frank, but she held her tongue. Not here, not now. Even she wasn’t sure how to make sense of her conversation with the ghost.

  “Be careful,” Anton added. “Maybe don’t go to the cemetery this time, just in case.”

  “But I would like to go,” Rebecca told him. She couldn’t come back to New Orleans without seeing Lisette’s tomb. “I don’t want to spend all this week in hiding. It’s just crazy.”

  “If you want to see the grave, I’ll take you, OK? Let’s go tomorrow after school. No wandering around by yourself.”

  “You sound like my dad.”

  “Well.” Anton laughed. “As long as I don’t look like him. Because that would be weird.”

  “You know what’s weird?” said a guy’s voice, and Rebecca nearly jumped
out of her skin. But it was only Phil. He and Ling had walked up without Rebecca noticing. She wondered how much they’d heard.

  “People throwing shopping carts into the lake?” Anton didn’t seem at all fazed, and Rebecca admired his cool. He’d always seemed more grown-up than other boys his age. That was one thing she really liked about him. It wasn’t just that he was tall, dark, and handsome. Really.

  “I mean, why don’t we do this kind of cleanup thing everywhere?” Phil was exploding with enthusiasm. “There has to be something like this going on in Portland. As soon as I get back, I’m going to find out and, like, mobilize every single person I know.”

  “I know, right?” Ling nodded. She was standing with her hands on her hips, and Phil was beaming at her. Rebecca wondered if he’d met many girls since he arrived in New Orleans, or if the Temple Mead seniors were giving him the cold shoulder because he wasn’t from the right kind of local family.

  Anton caught Rebecca’s eye, and smiled. Everything was OK. Rebecca felt herself relax. They hadn’t kissed, or hugged, or had a dramatic emotional reunion, but everything was going to be fine.

  “So we should get back to our …” Anton nodded in what must have been the general direction of the St. Simeon’s group. “But tomorrow, yeah?”

  “Tomorrow?” asked Phil, and Ling shot Rebecca a searching look.

  “Rebecca and I are giving you out-of-towners a tour of Lafayette Cemetery,” Anton explained. “After school.”

  “Great!” Ling looked thrilled. She must like Phil, Rebecca decided. It was just as well, given that he’d be her date for the Spring Dance on Thursday. Something Rebecca had completely forgotten to mention to Ling….

  “But doesn’t the cemetery close at, like, lunchtime?” asked Phil. He turned to Ling. “Whenever I think about going in there, it’s all locked up.”

  “That’s no problem,” said Rebecca quickly. “Anton has a key. You still have it, don’t you?”

  Anton nodded. “So it’s a date then,” he said, smiling right at Rebecca, and she felt herself melt a little bit more.

  Rebecca thought she could hear thunder, which didn’t make sense on a blue-sky afternoon like this one. Then she realized what she could hear were drums, pounding out a beat. Drums and snatches of music — the swoop of a trombone, the peal of a trumpet. It sounded as though someone was having a party in the street.

  They were in Tremé, driving back from the Big Sweep with one of the volunteers: a woman named Miss Viola, who owned a vintage boutique on Chartres Street. They’d taken what Miss Viola called “a divergence” to drop off a bartender named Sandy, and Rebecca was eagerly peering out the window, wondering which of these houses might be Frank’s “locket” house. This was a neighborhood of small old houses, mostly shabbier versions of the places Rebecca saw in the Quarter, but she hadn’t spotted anything yet that looked abandoned or boarded up.

  The drums distracted her: They were more insistent now, and the music louder, and soon she could hear crowd noise, too, whooping and shouting.

  “Where’s the music coming from?” Ling, riding shotgun, wanted to know.

  “It’s coming right at you, baby,” Miss Viola told her, laughing. She slowed down the car by the intersection. “It’s a second line. The Lady High-Kickers, I think. Look!”

  A huge mass of people were making their way toward them, led by a group of black ladies all wearing vivid purple pantsuits and broad-brimmed hats. They were waving giant fans made from purple and white feathers. Behind them trailed a brass band — mainly young guys in baggy T-shirts, blasting away on horns while the ladies twirled and danced down the street. Along the route, people were out on their porches or followed the parade along the sidewalk, dancing and clapping and calling out.

  “Can we get out to watch?” Rebecca asked, intrigued by the sight. This was sort of like a Mardi Gras parade, but without the floats. The ladies were too old to be marching girls, and anyway, they weren’t really marching. They were half walking, half dancing, flapping the fans in the air.

  “You can join in if you want,” Miss Viola said. She stopped the car there in the middle of the road and turned off the engine. “Anyone can second-line. Just follow the band.”

  Ling was already out of the car, fumbling with her phone so she could take pictures. Rebecca climbed out as well. She shaded her eyes with one hand, in awe of the approaching parade.

  “What are they celebrating?” Ling asked, shouting over the raucous noise of the band.

  “Just bein’ alive,” Miss Viola told her.

  A sweating teenaged boy carried a banner with the words THE LADY HIGH-KICKERS S & P CLUB, ESTABLISHED 1992 in silver letters. Rebecca had only the haziest recollection of social aid clubs. They were just another of New Orleans’s secret worlds, with their own schedules and rules and members.

  “One club or another is second-lining every weekend,” explained Miss Viola. “You never heard of a second line?” she said to Rebecca. “I thought you used to live here.”

  “In the Garden District,” Rebecca told her. The only parades that Amy and Jessica, her sort-of friends at school, had ever talked about were carnival parades. The weeks leading up to Mardi Gras were just when people took part in parades — or so she’d thought.

  “People from Uptown like a second line, too,” Miss Viola insisted. “Doesn’t matter if you’re black or white, from Uptown, downtown, back o’ town. My cousin who lives Uptown, he’s in the Young Men Olympians — they even have their own tomb in Lafayette Cemetery. When you die, you can be buried in there and it won’t cost your family a penny. You never saw them when you lived on Sixth Street? They parade right by the cemetery, end of September.”

  “I didn’t get here until November,” Rebecca told her. She wished she’d seen these other parades last time, and was glad to get a glimpse of this one.

  “I love the band,” said Ling, retying her hair with a red bandana. “What’s a second line?”

  Miss Viola nodded toward the parade. “See the club members and the band? They’re the first line, making all the noise. Everyone who follows along behind is the second line.”

  Rebecca had never seen so many people dancing in the street before — not following any choreographed routine, but just dancing. After the front-line ladies whirled by, swooning and dipping, dancing with each other or just by themselves, the band trudged past, blasting out a song Rebecca didn’t know.

  And then there were dozens and dozens of people, maybe more than a hundred, of all ages. Most of the people were black — Tremé was mainly a black neighborhood, Rebecca knew — but not all. Some banged tambourines or blew on whistles, some carried umbrellas to fend off the afternoon sun. Some people had their dogs with them, or were pushing baby buggies along the street. Some had just dashed down from their front steps or porches to join in the dancing. Two little boys, no more than seven years old, were putting on an expert show on the sidewalk, practically leaping in time to the music, cheered on by everyone around them.

  Even though she was tired and dirty after her day’s exertions, and even though she was still thinking about Frank’s dilemma — not to mention the threat of Toby Sutton — Rebecca felt her spirits lift. There was something about the stomp of the band and the energy of the dancing that was exhilarating; it was impossible to keep still. Ling was feeling it, too, Rebecca could tell; she stood swaying in time to the music.

  The whole time she lived here, Rebecca thought, she felt like an outsider. Maybe she’d approached it the wrong way — waiting to be invited in. Sometimes you just had to make the leap.

  But now Miss Viola was hustling them back into the car, shaking her head when Rebecca suggested they could walk home.

  “Isn’t it safe here?” Ling asked, fastening her seat belt.

  “Well …” Miss Viola exhaled. “It’s safe and it’s not safe, like everywhere in this town. Don’t go strolling around at night, looking like you don’t know where you at. Don’t speak to the boys hollering at you over on Bay
ou Road. And don’t go wandering over to Lafitte looking for an ice cup. That’s my advice to you.”

  “So Tremé is OK?” asked a baffled Ling.

  “Well, there are some elements we don’t need hanging around the neighborhood,” said Miss Viola cryptically. “We don’t need those elements anywhere in the city, making everybody afraid. But you know, this is one of the most historic neighborhoods in this city, and very few tourists bother to cross Rampart Street. The only second line they ever get to see is in Harrah’s Casino.”

  “I worked on a rebuilding project on St. Philip Street last May,” Rebecca told her.

  “Why, I grew up right there on St. Philip!” Miss Viola swung the car in a violent U-turn onto the other side of Rampart. “Most of my family still lives there — like my nephew here. Look at him, just sashaying on by without even saying hello! Raphael! Raphael!”

  Miss Viola honked her horn, swerving to a very abrupt stop. Two teenage African-American boys looked startled, then annoyed, and then — after they peered into the car — they started laughing. Miss Viola lowered her window.

  “We thought you were trying to run us over,” one of the boys said, leaning in. He was lean and long-limbed, his hair cut short, a tiny scar like a frown line above one eyebrow. “You driving without your glasses on again?”

  “This is my nephew, Raphael,” said Miss Viola, ignoring the question. “These young ladies are from New York. They’ve been helping with the Big Sweep today, just like you and Junior could have been doing if you weren’t so money-hungry.”

  “We been busking,” Raphael told Rebecca and Ling. He was carrying a trumpet, Rebecca realized. His friend, Junior, jingled whatever it was he was carrying — a hat, maybe — to demonstrate how much money they’d earned. “Sundays we can make a lot, unless it’s raining. Usually four or five of us come down, but the others had a parade.”

  “I don’t know how you made a penny today with just one trumpet,” Miss Viola sniffed. “What are you playing, Junior? Aside from the fool.”