Under the Cajun Moon

by Mindy Starns Clark

  En masse, the family headed down the street and away from Jacques. Trying to process in his mind the conversation he had just heard, he stood frozen in place, heart pounding in his throat.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  Jacques glanced numbly at the store clerk, who stood waiting at the counter inside.

  “Sir? May I help you?”

  “Uh…excuse me. I’ll be back,” Jacques said. Then he wove his way through the crowded street as quickly as possible, catching up with the noisy family at the corner.

  “Pardon!” he said, repeating the word until the family realized he was talking to them and stopped.

  “Yes, what it is?” the man asked. Standing there beside him, concern came over the woman’s face as she seemed to recognize Jacques from the courier’s office moments before. She glanced back up the street and then down around her, as if she feared she had forgotten one of her children.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, and this is terribly rude, but I couldn’t help but overhear your children’s conversation. May I ask what you are all talking about regarding solid gold fleur-de-lis statuettes?”

  At this point, the children had stopped fighting to cluster around their parents and look up at Jacques curiously.

  “Where have you been, monsier? On the moon?” the oldest boy asked, earning a quick reprimand from his father for his rudeness.

  Jacques explained that he had, indeed, been out of town for nearly a month and had just returned.

  “Everyone’s talking about it,” the man answered. “It’s a special giveaway, a tremendous sort of contest. No one knows yet what it’s all about, but rumors have been flying for two weeks that the palace goldsmiths in Paris have been casting little statuettes from pure gold, each one of them to be given away for free. It was just rumors, understand you, but then yesterday posters went up all over town.” He gestured toward a sign that had been affixed to a stake and set in place across the street. “The signs confirm it, that two hundred solid gold fleur-de-lis statues will be given away today at two bells at Les Halles to any and all citizens of France who meet one very specific qualification. I daresay the whole city will be there just to see what that qualification is and if they happen to be one of the ones who meets it.”

  “Two o’clock?” Jacques asked, his heart racing even faster.

  “Yes,” the man replied, squinting up at the clock on the church bell tower. “Half an hour from now.”

  Jacques thanked them for their help, and as they turned to go he darted across the street to read the sign for himself, crossing directly in front of a fast-moving team of horses.

  “Be careful, monsieur!” the driver scolded from his perch atop the sedan as he brushed past without incident.

  Giving the man an apologetic wave, Jacques focused his attention on the sign. It said:

  LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,

  M. JOHN LAW AND THE NEWLY FORMED

  COMPAGNIE DES INDES

  ARE PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE GIFTING OF

  TWO HUNDRED SOLID GOLD FLEUR-DE-LIS STATUETTES

  TO ANY AND ALL GOOD CITIZENS OF EUROPE

  WHO MEET ONE VERY SPECIFIC QUALIFICATION.

  COULD THIS MEAN YOU?

  PRESENTATION TO TAKE PLACE

  TWO P.M., AUGUST 18, 1719,

  AT LES HALLES IN PARIS.

  ALL ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND AND ELIGIBLE TO WIN.

  Sick to his very core, Jacques didn’t understand much of what was going on, but he knew one thing for sure: He had to get to M. Freneau and tell him about the mix-up before the event started. As he could not trust so urgent and necessary a task to a paid courier, Jacques would have to deliver the news straight to Les Halles himself, regardless of the personal consequences. A private violation of confidence was nothing compared to the public disaster this would surely become if M. Freneau delivered the wrong statuettes to M. Law, regardless of what their intentions were to do with them after that.

  FOURTEEN

  As Travis drove toward Canal Street, I pulled out my cell phone to call Wade Henkins. He didn’t answer, so I left a brief message asking him to call me back.

  Traffic was heavy on Canal, and after sitting through two revolutions of a light and barely advancing, I suggested that Travis take some side roads. He wasn’t familiar with the city, so I directed him in a series of turns that zigzagged us to St. Philip, which would lead us down to Royal.

  As we neared Louis Armstrong Park, I noticed a rowdy group of teenagers who seemed to be harassing a homeless man. They had surrounded him and his shopping cart in a circle, and they were taking things out of the cart and tossing them to each other over his head as he desperately tried to grab them back. We were waiting for a light to change, and for a moment I thought about jumping out of the car and racing to the poor old man’s aid. The way my luck was going, though, someone would whip out a weapon, someone else would call the police, and before I knew it I would be back behind bars.

  “Would you look at that.” Travis said under his breath, suddenly veering onto the sidewalk with his truck and slamming on his brakes right where the incident was taking place. In one smooth motion, he put the car in park and reached behind me to pull the shotgun from its rack.

  Before I could say a word, he was out of the car and facing the gang, the powerful-looking shotgun held casually at his side. I held my breath. Though I understood the motivation for Travis’ gesture, I questioned the wisdom of going one against seven, even if that one was armed.

  “Comment ca vas? Having a little fun at somebody else’s expense?”

  “Why don’t you mind your own business?” one of the boys replied, looking warily at the gun.

  “Well, see, I was minding my own business, but my Boss twelve-gauge here, he just couldn’t stay out of it. Me and him, together we kill our first alligator when I was just nine. A nine-year-old boy who can shoot a gator right between the eyes at point-blank range, you think he’d hesitate to fire on a group of punks trying to bully a defenseless old man?”

  The boys stared at him for a long moment as they seemed to consider the weight of what he said. Then they slowly raised their hands and backed away. Travis remained right where he was, the gun still held loosely at his side.

  As I watched and waited, all I could pray was that a police car wouldn’t come driving by right about now, see a lunatic with a shotgun, and slap us both in jail. Considering that I was already wanted for murder, a second offense would likely lock me up for good.

  Still, I had to admire Travis’ bravery. He never wavered, holding his position until every one of the boys had gone down the street and out of sight.

  “Here, let me help you with that,” Travis said to the old man, who was gathering his things from the ground where the boys had dropped them. I was about to jump out and help as well when the old man snarled at him.

  “Like the kid said, mind your own business,” he snapped, clutching a broken umbrella to his chest.

  I was offended for Travis’ sake, but he merely laughed and wished the man a good day. He got back in the truck, returned the gun to its rack, and pulled back onto the road. We were both quiet for a long moment.

  “Did you really kill an alligator when you were nine?” I asked.

  “Actually, I was seven, but I didn’t think they’d believe that, not to mention I didn’t want to sound like I was bragging.”

  With that, we crossed into the French Quarter.

  As the sun set somewhere off in the distance, lights were starting to turn on and the narrow streets were coming alive. Traffic was snarled here too, but suddenly I didn’t mind. I simply rolled down my window and inhaled the familiar scent of my hometown. There was something about the French Quarter at this hour, something so mysterious and magical, that for a brief while it pushed away the misery of my day and all that had been going on.

  As we inched past old pastel-colored buildings, their simple lines embellished with wrought iron railings, tall windows, and heavy, elegant doors, I simply let my sense
s take it all in—the smells of gumbo and hot pralines, the sounds of laughter and music, the sight of lazy balconies overhanging the sidewalks, their flower boxes bursting with vivid blossoms and trailing vines. It was warm for April, and the air was so sticky it clung to my arms and face like a veil. Tourists and locals alike made their way down sidewalks lined with hawkers, street performers, and an occasional Lucky Dog vendor.

  At one corner, an old man sat on a crate, eyes closed, playing “Amazing Grace” on a saxophone. The sound was haunting and lovely, its melody bouncing from the stucco walls lining the street on both sides.

  New Orleans.

  Part of me loved it so very much, loved all that was beautiful and unique about it. I loved the Spanish architecture, the laissez-faire attitude, the way days stretched into evenings that stretched into nights, and nobody seemed to worry about getting anywhere or doing anything more important than enjoying the here and the now.

  But another part of me, a significant part, didn’t love this city at all, couldn’t forget what it had come to symbolize to me as a child. When I was very small, we lived in the Garden District in an elegant old house on Prytaria. A nanny lived with us because my parents were never home. My father was busy being the chef and owner of one of the best restaurants in town, and my mother served as the hostess there. Once a week, though, the nanny would drop me off at the restaurant so she could take her day off. To make sure my parents would let me stick around, I learned to be invisible, neither seen nor heard. I didn’t mind. I had the fish and the turtles to talk to, and there was always Sam’s wife, Eugenie, in their apartment out back. When I would get bored with folding napkins in the kitchen or hanging out in the courtyard, I would make my way up the back stairs, and Eugenie and I would bake cookies or clean house or, if I was lucky, curl up on the couch and just read picture books together.

  When I turned six and was ready to start first grade, my parents put an end to my life as I knew it, sending me off to an exclusive girls’ school near Vicksburg, Mississippi. There, though the place itself wasn’t bad and I had a few kind teachers, I mostly learned to bottle up my feelings of loss and fear and loneliness and simply exist. For a long time, I survived only for trips home. Of course, my parents never altered their schedules for my sake, but at least when I was home I could count on spending more time at Ledet’s since we no longer had a nanny. Hovering out of the way in a corner of the kitchen, I would watch my father for hours, barking out orders that were obeyed without question, working his magic over rows of sizzling pots and pans. Sitting in a chair behind a potted plant in the lobby, reading, I would look up at every new click-clack of heels against the rose marble floor to see the beautiful dresses of the women coming in to dine.

  Most beautiful of all was my mother, who looked like an angel as she floated about the restaurant, greeting people at the door, leading them to their tables, pausing to say hello or correct a waiter or adjust a tablecloth. She was tall and elegant, her posture perfect, her impeccably tailored clothes not quite able to hide the curvy figure underneath. She wore her ash-blond hair swept into a chic French twist which accentuated her long, delicate neck and the signature diamond teardrop earrings that always graced her pretty earlobes. And then there were her hands, those graceful, dainty hands that were always moving, always busy, always attending to the most minute of details. Sometimes, over the top of my book, I would study those hands and wonder how it would feel to have them stroke my cheek or braid my hair—or even simply write me a letter when I was away at school.

  Sometimes, I felt like a stranger in my own family.

  Things took a turn for the worse when I was twelve. When I came home from school that Christmas, it was to find that my parents had sold our house on Prytaria and moved us into an even bigger, more elegant place all the way across town on Lakeside Drive. Though it was beautiful there—and my fancy new bedroom even looked out over the sweeping, green lawn and Lake Pontchartrain beyond—I couldn’t have felt more abandoned. Because they were farther away, my parents now had to leave for work earlier and got back later. Worse, even when I was home on break, I was rarely given the option of going into the city with them anymore. Instead of quietly hanging out at Ledet’s with everyone else, taking in the sights and smells all around me, I was left home with nothing to do in a four-thousand-square-foot house all by myself. My parents said a kid didn’t belong sneaking around a stuffy French Quarter restaurant when she could be free to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine of the lake area. In truth, I think my mother was just embarrassed of me at that point, as I was all gangly arms and legs, frizzy blond hair, and sporting a double row of braces on my teeth. At least if I stayed at home, people wouldn’t have to give me those sympathetic little glances, as if to say how sad it was that I hadn’t taken after my beautiful mother after all.

  The few times I did get to tag along to the restaurant, there would be new faces on staff, new changes to the decor, things that made me feel that I didn’t even know the place anymore. As I got older, I grew into my long arms and legs, finished with the braces, and discovered the value of makeup and hair straighteners. Once the duckling was a swan, I found that I was welcomed back, but by then I had almost lost interest.

  I still went in with them, but instead of skulking around Ledet’s all day, I began to venture outside the restaurant and into the Quarter. I would stroll the busy blocks, watching the people and listening to the laughter and feeling above all else that the whole place was one giant club, a club to which I had been denied membership. At seventeen I studiously avoided Bourbon Street and its rows of smelly bars and creepy strip clubs, but otherwise the whole Quarter was mine to explore. I would often end up at Café Du Monde, where I would sit at a table by myself, eat beignets and drink coffee and watch the crowds weave in and among the artists and psychics and performers who lined Jackson Square. At those times, my heart would yearn to be a part of something, something inclusive, something bigger and better and more important than my own little world of one.

  Then I would finish my last sip of café au lait, brush the confectioners’ sugar from my lap, and head back to Ledet’s, back to the restaurant that bore my family’s name and had nothing to do with me at all. If not for the welcoming arms of Sam and Eugenie Underwood, year after lonely year, I might have one day simply curled up and floated away, never to be seen again. Instead, though my own parents barely acknowledged my existence, I was grounded by the fact that there were two people who did love me, who cared what happened to me, and who actually listened when I spoke and laughed when I made jokes and held me when I cried.

  Over the years Eugenie battled the triple burdens of her race, diabetes, and high blood pressure, growing heavier and more sedentary with each passing day. The last time I had seen her, she must have weighed three hundred pounds, but Sam proudly gazed at her as though she were still the saucy young waitress he had met at Mother’s restaurant years before when he’d gone to apply for a job and come away with the job and the waitress’ phone number.

  Eugenie died during my senior year at college, and I had skipped class and caught a flight to New Orleans as soon as I heard. Sam had given his beloved wife a full-out jazz funeral, complete with a horse-drawn hearse, a six-piece band, and plenty of spare umbrellas for the parade of mourners. To lead us en masse from the church to the cemetery, the band started out with a mournful, heart-wrenching version of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” During the service, I had sat with my parents. But as we walked toward the cemetery and the music played, I discreetly separated myself from them and inched closer to the front of the procession, just to be near Sam. He must have sensed me there, because at one point he turned and looked around until he spotted me and then waved me up, insisting that I walk beside him. Between quiet sobs into his handkerchief, Sam told me I was the closest thing to a daughter he and Eugenie had ever had.

  Together, Sam and I walked in time with the music, in turns holding each other up and audibly sobbing as we went. For me, it had been
a very uncommon and public display of emotion, one that would later earn a reprimand from my mother despite the fact that I was twenty-one at the time and far too old to be scolded by her. It didn’t occur to me until later that perhaps what my mother had called embarrassment had actually been jealousy. Maybe she thought I wouldn’t cry that hard when it came her turn to be laid to rest.

  It was true that I was nearly inconsolable with grief that day, mourning the woman who had touched my life with such love. By the time we reached the cemetery, the band had worked through the sad songs and was picking up the tempo. I had never understood why people were always dancing and laughing at jazz funerals. But then Sam explained that we had mourned the goodbye for ourselves, but now it was time to rejoice the passing into heaven for Eugenie. As the band burst into a rousing version of “Panama,” Eugenie’s favorite song, I finally got it. We sang and danced the second line toward her grave for what felt like hours, brown skin and white all glistening with sweat in the hot afternoon sun. After the dancing, I had prayed, prayed that when she got to heaven God would welcome her as lovingly as she had always welcomed me.

  Truly, had it not been for Sam and Eugenie, I might have broken my ties with this city altogether, years ago.

  “Are you okay, Chloe?”

  Startled from my thoughts, I turned to see Travis staring at me curiously. I realized that we were on Royal, crossing Orleans, and that a single tear had somehow made its way down my cheek. I wiped it away impatiently.

  “I’m sorry. I was just thinking about Eugenie’s funeral.”

  “Sam’s wife?”

  “Yeah. She was a very special lady.”

  “Mais oui. I remember.”

  “Speaking of ladies, I need to call my mother.” I dug my cell phone from my purse, dialed my mother’s number, and was relieved to hear her answer. This would be the first time I had spoken to her since I’d been arrested.