Masquerade

by Janet Dailey

  "You look marvelous, Remy," declared one of Marc's daughters, a raven-haired Southern beauty with dark, flashing eyes and a beauty queen's empty smile. "When they told me you had amnesia, I thought you'd look, well, haunted, your eyes all shadowed and your face pale and wan. But here you are—the same old Remy."

  "We heard they put a dozen stitches in your head," the other chimed in, craning her neck to see where they'd been taken.

  "Not a dozen," Remy corrected automatically.

  "Well, however many it was, they don't show. Your hair covers it beautifully. Aren't you lucky you don't wear it short? Think how funny you would have looked with a bald spot in the middle of your head."

  "She would simply have had to wear a hat to cover it, Diana," the first inserted, which meant she had to be Kathy, the older of the two.

  "It's almost a pity you don't," sighed Diana, who was a less striking version of her sister. "According to W, hats are in this season."

  "Is it true, Remy, that you don't remember anything?" Her aunt Christina, a plump, matronly woman who had obviously given up the battle of competing with her daughters' looks, finally squeezed in a question.

  "Yes, is it true?" Kathy immediately took up the thread. "You don't remember anything? Not even about the—"

  "This isn't the time to besiege Remy with questions," Marc smoothly cut across his eldest daughter's words. "She just stepped off the plane from a long and very exhausting flight. She can tell us her story later—after she has had time to rest."

  "And we are all dying to hear it," Kathy put in, then added with a hint of resentment and envy, "Amnesia. Leave it to you, Remy, to come up with something so spectacularly unusual."

  "Not by choice, I assure you." Remy smiled, their prattle sounding vaguely familiar to her. No doubt she had been irritated by it in the past, but not tonight—not when she was standing here literally surrounded by family, embraced by a sense of belonging.

  As she idly swept her glance over them, she noticed that Cole wasn't there. A slight turn of her head and she found him, standing well apart from them—alone. She was suddenly struck by the feeling that he was an outsider, he didn't belong. Unbidden came a wash of voices through her mind: "not one of us" . . . "methods less than orthodox" . . . "native shrewdness" . . . "not suitable at all" . . . "ruthless, cunning."

  Staring at the hard and so very cynical look on his face, Remy realized that much of that was true. Cole Buchanan hadn't been born into that uptight, Uptown New Orleans world of hers, where lineage was everything, where certain standards of conduct were quietly expected, where you were judged by the high school and college you attended and the number of Mardi Gras courts you were invited to participate in. She told herself that none of that mattered, yet. . . she felt trapped by this lack of memory that kept her from knowing whether or not she should believe in him. Part of her wanted to go to him, to include him in this moment, but she was afraid to trust her instincts—perhaps for the first time in her life.

  "How much does she remember about—"

  Remy recognized Lance's voice, its tone dropped to a conspiratorial level, an instant before Gabe broke in with a quick, quiet "Nothing."

  She pivoted toward them. "I remember nothing about what?"

  "Gabe," her uncle inserted smoothly as he clamped a hand on her brother's shoulder. "I don't believe any of us have thanked you for flying all the way there and bringing her back."

  Remy started to point out that Gabe hadn't been alone, as her uncle Marc had implied, that in fact Cole had been the one to make the initial contact, but when she glanced at Cole, his back was turned to them, and he had a briefcase in one hand and a heavy garment bag slung over his other arm. Something tore at her throat when she saw him walk to the exit without so much as a backward look.

  "Hey, Sweet Cheeks." Lance snapped his fingers in front of her face. "Have you lost your hearing as well as your memory?"

  "I'm sorry—I wasn't listening." Still confused and troubled by Cole's abrupt departure, Remy forced her attention back to the family, looking from one to the other in a vaguely distracted way. "What did you say?"

  "It doesn't matter," her father replied, his look gentle with concern. "Marc was right. That long flight has taken its toll on you. We need to get you home so you can rest." He reached in his pocket and took out a set of keys. "Bring the car around, Gabe, so we can get the luggage loaded."

  Remy discovered that she was tired, more tired than she had realized. It had been a long day, a confusing day, with too much happening, too many new faces and new names—including her own. And with the fatigue, the dull pounding in her head had returned. There would be time enough to sort through everything tomorrow— after she'd slept.

  10

  A slowly rising sun burned through the remnants of the dawn fog and gave the air in the Quarter an unusual crystalline quality. But the damp chill remained, and Remy shoved her hands a little deeper into the pockets of her shaped double-breasted blazer of black wool, glad of the sun-gold sweater she wore beneath it and the wool slacks in a black-and-white houndstooth check covering her legs.

  She'd awakened at dawn, too restless and edgy to stay in her room until the rest of the house stirred. Her first thought was to wander the house and see if familiar surroundings might arouse some memories, as Dr. Gervais had suggested. She'd roamed the lavender and plum parlor, then gone to the solarium with its cushioned rattan furniture and profusion of potted plants, but an inner tension had made her too impatient to absorb the things around her. And the emptiness of the house and the hollow echo of her footsteps had haunted her.

  Finally she'd been driven outside, into the mist-shrouded courtyard, a mist thickened by the steam rising from the heated swimming pool. All the while, the urge to leave—to go—had become stronger and stronger. The compulsion seemed somehow linked to that feeling she had that she was needed somewhere.

  At last she'd given in to it and left a note in her room, telling her parents she'd gone for a walk. She'd left the silent, sleeping house and set out, letting the compulsion guide her, hoping it would lead to the recovery of more memories. When the streetcar had come by on St. Charles, she'd climbed aboard and ridden it all the way to Canal, then found herself crossing the street into the French Quarter.

  As she wandered down the narrow streets of the Vieux Carre, Remy was conscious of the stillness and quiet of its sleepy abandon. It was too early for the syncopated clop of the carriage horses, too early for the street musicians, the mimes, and the dancers, too early for the artists to hang their canvases on the iron fence around Jackson Square, and too early for last night's Mardi Gras revelers to be up and about. It was as if she had the city all to herself. But no, not quite all to herself, she realized as a man in a T-shirt and shorts lifted aside the curtain of a second-floor window and groggily peered out at the early morning. Then Remy saw a woman's hands slide around his middle and spread across his chest. His mouth curved in a lazy smile as he turned and let the curtain fall. Remy smiled too—a little wistfully, though, made restless again by her own longings, longings intensified by the languor of the street.

  Moving on, she let her gaze absorb the old buildings that lined the streets of the Quarter, absently admiring the mellow beauty of their stucco exteriors and the rails of iron lace along their balconies. Yet there was nothing in their facades that hinted at the hidden courtyards within. Was anything ever what it seemed? This was the French Quarter, but the architecture was Spanish.

  The soft, melodic notes of a clarinet drifted across the stillness. Remy paused to locate the sound. There on a balcony sat a black man, still wearing his white shirt and black suit from the night before. He had his feet propped up on the cast-iron railing and his chair tipped back on two legs while he played his song to the early-morning sun. There was no wail to it, no lively jazz melody. It was soft and sad and yearning.

  And that was New Orleans too, Remy realized. For all the face it showed to the world of wild fun, steaminess, and good times, t
here was a subtle melancholy behind it. This was the home of jazz, but it was also where the blues had grown up. What was the French phrase? Les tristes tropiques.

  Remy started walking again, picking up her ambling pace, needing to escape that sweetly pensive clarinet. She no longer wanted the quiet and solitude of the Quarter. There was one place that was never still, no matter the hour, day or night, and Remy headed for it, slipping down the alley between the Cabildo and the St. Louis Cathedral, with its soaring triple spires, and emerging on the cobblestoned street facing Jackson Square, its gates still locked. As she skirted the square and started past the historic Pontalba Apartments, a silver cloud of pigeons erupted in flight, their wings thrashing through the aromas of beignets and freshly brewed Louisiana coffee.

  With a cup of the chicory-flavored coffee from the Café du Monde, Remy climbed to the top of the levee and faced the turgid, earth-smelling Mississippi River. The cathedral bells rang the hour and a delivery truck grumbled by on Decatur. Before her curved the crescent-shaped bend of the Mississippi that had long ago given New Orleans the nickname Crescent City.

  There was always activity on the river, always something happening, always something moving. Towboats and barges, merchant ships and tankers, pilot boats and paddle wheelers. Traffic on the Mississippi was always two-way, oceangoing vessels gliding slowly along the east bank and offloading barges hugging the west.

  Remy took a sip of her coffee and wrapped both hands around the cup, absorbing the heat through its Styrofoam sides. The smells, the sights, the sounds appealed to her. She saw a tanker riding low in the water, heading downriver, the throb of its engines trailing across the morning to her. From somewhere upriver came the deep-throated blast of a whistle.

  As she watched the tanker, suddenly, unexpectedly, something else flashed through her mind, passing so quickly that it took her a full second to realize that the image had been of another tanker wrapped in darkness and fog. It was so fleeting that nothing more than that registered. She stared intently at the tanker moving downriver, willing the image to return, but it didn't.

  Impatient, she turned away and began to wander up the levee, drawn by the restlessness of the big river. When she reached the wharf area, Remy kept walking. Then she saw the company insignia, the same one Cole had had on his business card —the letter C joined by an L at its lower curve —painted on the side of a building. She stopped, faintly stunned. Had her subconscious been directing her to the company wharf all along? Why?

  She stared intently at the building, a little weathered-looking, a little dirty, like most of the wharves along the riverfront. She tried, but she couldn't make it seem familiar to her. Was it purely an accident that she'd stumbled onto it? Refusing to accept that possibility, she walked around the long building to the dockside.

  A sleek merchant vessel was tied alongside, the tall crane on its deck busy off-loading the cargo from its hold. For a moment Remy stood and absorbed the scene before her—the loud whir of the crane, the rumble of forklifts, the shouts of the deckhands and longshoremen, the lingering odor of diesel fumes, the smell of the river, and a thousand other scents she couldn't identify.

  A long, low wolf whistle pierced the air, followed by a coarsely flirtatious "Hey, baby, whatcha doin' tonight?"

  Out of the corner of her eye Remy saw the brawny, big-smiling dockworker looking her over. As he turned to make some remark to his buddy, another shorter, slighter man walked up, dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt, with a clipboard in one hand and a shirt pocket full of pens and pencils. He said something to the man who had whistled at her. He spoke too low for Remy to hear, but his tone was definitely angry.

  Some memory suddenly flickered, distracting her. She frowned, realizing she'd almost remembered something. But what? She focused her attention again on the ship tied up to the dock, something telling her that the memory was connected to it.

  She wasn't aware of the man scurrying over to her until he spoke at her side. "I'm sorry about that, Miss Jardin. That crazy Bosco, he got the head of a duck. He didn't mean no harm. He jus' didn't know who you were."

  "It's all right, really."

  "You be up early this mornin'. Was there something you be wanting, Miss Jardin?"

  This time her ear caught the Cajun accent of his voice, but it helped her not at all. "No. I was just walking." She noticed the company insignia emblazoned on the vessel's smokestack. "This ship, what's it called?"

  "She's the Crescent Lady, jus' come in."

  Something flashed in her mind, but once again it came too quickly and passed too quickly for Remy to grasp it. She strained to recall it, oblivious of the man hovering anxiously beside her. It was something important. She was certain of it.

  "Excuse me, Miss Jardin, but I got to be gettin' back to work," he said finally. "If you be needin' anything, you jus' tell one of the boys to fetch Henry for you."

  "Thanks." Again she responded automatically, without really hearing what he'd said. There were more flashes, coming in rapid succession now. She stood motionless, trying not to think, letting them happen. She didn't see the man walk away. She didn't notice the looks she received or the subdued voices around her, the talk restricted to the job at hand, the rough camaraderie suppressed by her presence.

  One minute, two minutes, five—Remy had no idea how long she stood there staring at the ship. Then a hand gripped her arm and roughly pulled her around.

  "What the hell are you doing here?" Cole was furious. When Henry had told him she was out on the dock, he hadn't believed him. "Don't you know better than to walk along the waterfront at this hour?"

  Whatever else it might be, New Orleans was a major port city. And like any port area, it attracted its share of unsavory elements. Cole knew that; he'd grown up with it. But she hadn't.

  "I've been here before." She stared at him, her eyes moving over his face with a strange, faraway look—as if they were seeing him, yet not seeing him. "You brought me"—she paused, her glance drawn to the vessel lying at dockside—"to see the newest ship in the line, the Crescent Lady"

  Cole stood perfectly still, saying nothing, recalling that afternoon clearly, vividly—everything from the warmth of the sun on his back to the way a vagrant breeze had played hide-and-seek with the jersey material of her skirt.

  "What—no champagne?" Her side glance playfully chided him. "I thought you were bringing me here to christen the newest ship in the fleet. I'm disappointed."

  "That ceremony is only observed when a vessel is launched for the first time. The Lady's a year old." He walked her to the gangway, his hand riding on the small of her back, conscious as always of the faint sway of her hips and the natural heat that flowed from her body.

  "And I suppose there's some silly superstition against christening her a second time," she said, then released a sigh of mock regret. "I've always wanted to break a bottle of champagne over the bow of a ship."

  "You'll have to wait until the company can afford to commission a new ship to fulfill that fantasy."

  "How can we even afford this one, considering the dire financial shape you claim we're in?"

  Cole ignored her taunt. "The loss of the Dragon was a blessing in disguise. When the insurance company paid off on the claim, I used some of that money and raised the rest through conventional sources to buy this ship."

  She shot him a quick look. "Then this is what you spent the insurance money on."

  "Not all of it."

  "I remember my father was upset," she said, unconcerned. "He thought there should be some distribution of dividends."

  "That money belongs to the company—not to your family."

  She laughed. "You love having power over my family's purse strings, don't you?"

  The ship's captain was waiting to welcome them aboard, which checked any response Cole might have made to her assertion—not that he would have denied it. A part of him thoroughly enjoyed the power he exercised. And another part would have gladly traded it for some control over this—
thing—that had erupted between him and Remy almost three months ago. They'd been seeing each other regularly ever since, meeting two, sometimes three times a week, usually at his apartment, occasionally going out to dinner or some local festival or public concert, or taking in a new exhibit at the museum or a gallery. He never went to any social function with her, flatly rejecting any suggestion of hers that he meet her friends.

  Lately, though, they'd kept more and more to his apartment. He'd thought it would help. He'd thought he could handle this . . . affair they were having. He'd thought he could use her, the same way she was using him. But how many times during the day did he have to make himself stop thinking about her? How many times had he sat at his desk, staring at reports and visualizing her slender white body lying beside him, the gold flecks—like rays of sunshine trapped in her hazel eyes—glittering with desire just for him?

  Yet none of it would last. He knew that—and that knowledge was his shield.

  Cole introduced Remy to the ship's captain, Peder Van der Horn, a ruddy-cheeked Scandinavian with yellow-gray hair. After a brief tour of the vessel—limited mainly to the galley, the officers' quarters, and the bridge, due to the constant activity on deck as the ship was loaded with its first cargo for the company—the captain left them on the deck of the bridge for a few minutes, giving Remy an opportunity to observe the highspeed lifting cranes as they transferred the specially designed containers onto the ship to be stowed in the cellular grid of the below-decks compartments.

  Alone with her, he became aware of the silence—if it could be called silence, with the noise of the cranes and the shouts of the longshoremen. He moved to stand beside her at the rail, deliberately focusing his gaze on the activity on the weather deck.

  "The Lady's operating costs are going to be substantially lower than those of the Dragon, the ship she's replacing. Not only does she require a proportionately smaller crew, which cuts our labor costs, but those containers reduce the risk of pilferage, which decreases the insurance rates. And using containers means she can be unloaded and reloaded in a matter of hours, so less time is spent in port, again lowering the cost of the crew—and she can also make more trips, which adds up to more profit for the company," he said, talking to fill the void between them. "As the captain explained when we were on the bridge, the higher-than-average service speeds she's capable—"