by Paisley Ray
I’m risk averse. Not the kind of lunatic that craves the adrenaline rush that goes with carrying a pipe and drug vials through airport security. I needed to set everyone straight. It was a setup, but how could I prove it? “This is a misunderstanding.”
The detective opened the door and motioned to Macy, Katie Lee and Bridget. “Step outside for a moment. I need a word with Ms. O’Brien.”
From outside the door, Katie Lee raged, “Y’all, they can’t do this to her. We need to find a payphone. My daddy can call in a favor from Judge Driskill.”
“There’s no way we’ll make our flight,” Bridget said.
When the door closed, I told Detective Grady, “I didn’t pack those. I’ve never seen them before.”
“Who put them there?” he asked.
I couldn’t focus on the logistics of the pipe and containers ending up in my cosmetic case. All I could think about was my dad, and that he was going to murder me after he posted bail. Teary eyed, I sniffled. “I don’t know. Maybe someone in my dorm thought, this would be funny.”
The detective filled in some paperwork that rested on a clipboard. He didn’t look at me when he spoke. “Since you are not in possession of any drug substances, I’m going to confiscate the pipe and drug vials. This time I’m sending you on your way with a warning.” I swallowed hard to suppress a hiccup, but my mouth wasn’t producing saliva. He set his pen aside and met my eyes. “I want to make it clear. These items are illegal and will not be tolerated.”
My body had slumped like a balloon with a leak. Detective Grady handed me my carry-on. “Ms. O’Brien, make sure you pack your own bags.” Before he changed his mind, I stood and waited for him to open the door. I acknowledged his advice with a nod.
Outside the door, I saw the agitated faces of my girlfriends and willed Katie Lee not to make any additional commentary. Not bothering to check the time, the four of us turned on our heels and bolted for the B gates.
“Rachael,” Katie Lee said. “Why did you pack those?”
“I didn’t.”
“We’re going to miss our flight,” Bridget said.
“I can see the gate,” I said. “The door’s still open.”
The sign above Gate B24 flashed, New Orleans, delayed twenty minutes. The woman behind the counter picked up the handset and announced, “Flight 1326 to New Orleans is now boarding first class.”
Sitting down in a chair in the boarding area, I dropped my bag, and let my head sink between my legs. Sweat dripped my neck.
Out of breath, Macy’s eyes welled with tears, and she wiped them with her polished fingers. “The pipe and containers are mine.”
I popped my head up and spewed words like dragon flames. ”Jesus, Macy, why the hell did you put them in my luggage?”
“I’m lost,” Bridget said.
“I keep them in a wooden box, in my underwear drawer. But I didn’t pack them.”
Tongue tied, I had trouble constructing sentences, but managed to ask, “How did they get into my cosmetic case?”
“I’ve been racking my brain. I don’t fuckin’ know,” Macy said.
“What were those tiny containers?” I asked.
Macy darted her eyes. “Old coke vials.”
“You do coke?” Katie Lee asked.
“No. I mean once. Over New Year’s eve. In Little Jamaica.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You sent me a holiday postcard. You were in Times Square, not the Caribbean.”
Macy rubbed her forehead. “It’s a neighborhood in New York City. You drive through and pick up what you want.”
Bridget put a new roll of film in her camera and wound it into place. She secured the lens cap, and looked up to scold Macy. “So Rachael just wangled out of a drug bust with your pipe?”
“Rach, I hope you believe me. I get buzzed, but not enough to forget putting my pipe and vials in your bag.”
Katie Lee moved toward the line of people waiting to board. “Y’all, let’s just try and get to Louisiana without involving the police.”
NOTE TO SELF
Someone in the airport almost got me arrested. I think she’s blonde and slept with my roommates boyfriend. Evil Bitch.
33
Hurricane Cocktails And Crawfish Kisses
The taxi drove past the muddy Mississippi where container ships and riverboats churned the water in a swift chop. Darkening clouds threatened rain on the Delta swamp and the moisture hanging in the air would’ve taken wrinkles out of linen.
During the eight-hundred mile airplane ride, at baggage claim, and inside the taxi, I kept physically and verbally distant from Bridget. Despite vacationing with her, I planned to converse in no more than Tarzan grunts.
The cabby piled luggage for four onto the sidewalk outside The Chateau hotel which was situated on Decatur Street near Jackson Square. A killer location. Katie Lee said it was a boutique hotel, which was a fancy way of saying small and cheap.
The hotel brochure boasting a cozy forty-five rooms. Cupping my hands around my eyes, I peeked inside the front door. The intimate lobby walls screamed zim-zam-va-va-voom. Floor to ceiling petal-pink and gold damask wallpaper and oversized tassel-tiebacks, the size of a mini Nerf footballs, held eight-foot-tall silk draperies. A tufted sofa with dainty legs, two eighteenth century replica armchairs, and large vases with silk arrangements dotted a sitting area by the front desk. No straight college guy, would book a reservation in this boudoir. I still held hope for meeting cute guys, just not inside here.
“What are we going to do first?” I asked.
The girls shouted, “Bourbon Street.”
Katie Lee disappeared to check in, and Macy hunted for a luggage cart. Bridget sat on a suitcase and tilted her eyes on her wristwatch. “I’m so glad to be on break.”
“Is there a line inside?” she asked.
I ignored her.
Bridget held her head in her palm and anchored her elbow on a knee. “Why are your feathers ruffled? We’re on vacation.”
The ringy-rhyme purr of her voice snapped something inside of me. She prayed on vulnerabilities, and I’d had enough. I had to end her twisted game, before someone, most likely me, got hurt. My voice rasped low and steady. “I’m not stupid. I know you planted the drugs in my suitcase to get me arrested.
She stood up. “You’re delusional.” She moved toward the hotel doors.
I pinched Bridget’s wrist and held tight. “You’re not very careful, are you? I know a lot more about you than you think. I’m wondering if the detective at the Greensboro police would be interested in you latest ploy?”
Bridget shook from my fingers. She neither confessed nor apologized.
“Forget about pulling any more crap. You and I are done.”
“Hey y’all.” Katie Lee said. “Our rooms aren’t ready. We can leave our bags in a closet behind the desk. She unfolded a tourist map of the surrounding area. “The hotel manager says Bourbon Street is a short stroll.”
Macy came out of the double doors with a cart and a bellhop who began to load our luggage. He handed Macy a numbered ticket, and she gave him a five.
Bridget followed him, “I have a headache,” she said. “I’m going to stay in the lobby until our room is ready.”
“Come with us,” Katie Lee said. “A walk might do you some good.”
Looking at her watch, she shook her head and moved inside the hotel.
“Were you two arguing?” Katie Lee asked.
“I wouldn’t call it arguing. More of a statement.”
“What’s going on?” Macy asked.
“I told Bridget, I know she planted the drugs in my suitcase.”
“Why’d you say that?” Katie Lee asked.
“Because she did. It’s the only explanation, and I’m not amused by her sense of humor.”
“How’d she manage that?” Macy asked.
“In the airport, when we went to the bathroom. She stayed outside.”
Macy processed what I said. “God, I was still asleep and didn’t pay
any attention to her.”
Katie Lee had a hand on the hotel’s door handle. Her thumb stroked the fleur-de-lis etched in brass. “Y’all, I know Bridget, and she just wouldn’t do that. Let me go get her.”
“Why would Bridget steal paraphernalia from me to put in your suitcase?” Macy whispered.
“She’s mental.”
“No, seriously?” Macy asked again.
I huffed. “I don’t know.”
Ten minutes later, Katie Lee came out, alone. The three of us barely spoke as we crossed uneven cobbles, past a bustle of musicians and tourists who congregated in the French Quarter. We stopped in T-shirt souvenir shops, watched street performers and Macy posed for a pencil character drawing of herself while holding her middle finger up in front of her face.
The Louisiana air drugged us with a perfume of fried kitchen oil, and olive tree blossoms while the heat basted us like chickens in a rotisserie. I looked up and down Bourban Street. “Let’s get a drink.”
Katie Lee clutched a hand full of New Orleans tourist attraction brochures and pointed at a terracotta building with green shutters. “How about Pat O’Briens Bar?”
I approvingly nodded.
THE OUTSIDE OF PAT O’BRIENS possessed a colonial charm. It was always happy hour in New Orleans and inside, out of town revelers stood shoulder to shoulder. Katie Lee moved along the narrow bar and looked for seating. Wall mirrors reflected steins hanging from the ceiling and a lit up vintage shamrock cast a dim green on the bartenders.
I scanned the crowd for cute college guys and told myself not to let Bridget ruin my vacation. The one way conversation I had with her had been long overdue. I felt stronger for having confronted her, and I was sorry I’d avoided it so long. Ahead of me, Katie Lee abruptly stopped, her head craned to her left and she pointed. “Is that Bridget?”
“Where?” Macy asked.
I mumbled, “They say everyone has a double.”
“Y’all, look. The table in the corner, her back is facing us. Sitting across from an older guy in a tropical shirt.”
Before Macy or I confirmed Bridget’s identity, Katie Lee wove toward the table. She shouted, “Bridget?” and waved at us to follow.
A half empty punch drink and a beer sat on O’Brien paper napkin’s. Bridget stood up, her cheeks reddened she glanced at us.
Katie Lee propped her hands on her hips. “What are you doing here?”
“I got bored and decided to explore. I thought a drink would relieve my headache.”
A man I’d never seen brushed his hand across Bridget’s back as he stood. He reached out toward me, L-Jack.”
“Rachael,” I said, with Katie Lee and Macy following on introductions.
“How do you two know each other?” Katie Lee asked
“Funny thing,” Bridget stammered. “Small world. L-Jack is a family friend.”
“Really.” I said.
Prematurely grayed, L-Jack had creases of an outdoorsman branded around his eyes. He motioned the empty chairs. “Y’all are welcome to join us.”
Bridget took a long swallow of her drink. “What is that?” Macy asked.
She slid it across the table. “A hurricane.”
“What’s a hurricane?” I asked.
L-jack stretched his shoulder back and arched his brows. “It’s a rum drink that’s this town’s signature cocktail. Guaranteed to send you spinning.”
”Like Dorothy in Kansas?”
A server dressed in a green-logo Polo stood by our table and clicked a ball-point pen. “That was a tornado.”
Bridget plastered a smile on her face. She didn’t offer explanations, apologies or show any signs of remorse or the headache she’d claimed to have. “Three hurricane cocktails. My treat.”
“And another Lager,” L–Jack said.
“Can I see y’all’s I.D.’s?”
Bridget’s offer to buy the first round bubbled uneasiness inside my veins. Was this her way of making nice? Her behavior was like a light switch that she flicked from naughty to nice. I wished we’d left her in North Carolina. I wondered if she’d use a stolen Visa to pick up the tab, and made a mental note to watch the name she signed on the carbon copy.
Four twelve-inch, blown glass vessels filled with twenty-six ounces of liquid arrived at our table. A fruit salad of cherries, and orange slices bobbed on top of the ruby red cocktail. Maybe being drunk for five days would get me through the break with her.
L-Jack carried the conversation. He’d fallen in love with the city on a family vacation and kept coming back. He told us about some of the local must-see attractions. A swamp tour, carriage rides through the garden district and after dark ghost walks. When I neared the bottom of the rum concoction any lingering post-travel airport anxieties had dissolved. Embracing the local cuisine, I ordered a crawfish appetizer.
Initially, I’d been unsure of this destination, but Zydeco and lively bar chatter melded in my ears, encouraging me to seize the addictive rhythm of this town.
Like a slice of white cake with coconut icing, each fruity sip I took left me feeling thirsty for more.
Macy asked, “What does the L stand for?”
“Lucky.”
“Your mother named you Lucky Jack?” I asked.
“Not quite. I own a gallery in town, Lucky’s Art Consortium. Most people call me Lucky Jack, LJ or L-Jack for short.”
Southerners play a game called, “Do you know?” They delight in finding somebody’s great aunt’s cousin who knows the electrician two streets down. It didn’t surprise me when Katie Lee nudged my shoulder and said, “Maybe you’ve heard of Rachael’s dad, John O’Brien. He restores fine art back in Ohio.”
L-Jack took a sip of his drink. “Now does he? What kind of art does your daddy restore?”
Pride swelled inside me, and I told him, “His last commission was two Clementine’s.”
The girls laughed at the mention of the small orange fruit, but Jack tipped his chin and asked, “Hunter?”
I nodded at L-Jack and noticed my body had slumped off my chair.
“Raz,” Katie Lee giggled, “are you drunk?”
Our server landed a plate of crawfish and palm-size packets of wet wipes in front of me. “Drunk on New Orleans.”
“They have eyeballs,” Macy said. “I don’t eat eyeballs.”
Bridget crinkled her nose. “Those are disgusting.”
Normally I like seafood, shrimp, lobster, crab, flounder--but these red-shelled crustaceans stared at me from under antennas, and I swear one blinked. I reached out my hand then pulled back. “I don’t know how to eat crawfish,” I said.“Ladies,” L-Jack said, mostly to Bridget, “let me teach you the Louisiana pinch and suck. May I?” he asked and lifted one of the fellows from the platter. “Watch closely.”
L-Jack’s hair looked like it was slicked back with Dippity-Do. His shirt opened three-buttons down drew my eye to a chunky gold chain that held a weighty anchor charm. His laugh boomed and compliments tumbled off his tongue. I guessed his agenda was hooking-up. I didn’t believe this smooth talker was an art dealer, he looked more like a carnival caller at the nickel bottle drop. As far as I was concerned, he could forget it. I wasn’t that desperate and didn’t plan to carry the memory of his sleaze appeal with me to the grave.
Like breaking a graham cracker down a perforated center, he snapped a crawfish in two, splattering juice on Bridget. She squirmed to her feet and he offered his napkin, dabbing the front of her leg. What kind of ‘family friend’ does that? Bridget didn’t seem to mind his attention.
“Now the fun part,” he said, and with the power of a Hoover, he sucked meat out the antenna portion of the crawfish.
Macy posted her hand like a stop sign and looked away. “That’s fuckin’ barbaric.”
He smiled as though she’d paid him a compliment. His tanned fingers peeled the body of the other half. Dangling the dismembered crustacean above his head, he applied pressure to the tail and launched a morsel of meat into his open mouth.
Keeping a watchful eye on Bridget, he licked the leftovers from between his fingers.
Katie Lee clapped and said, “Rach, your turn.”
Picking up a crawfish, I gave it a kiss and dropped it on my lap. I covered my mouth with a hand. “My God, they’re spicy.” With my lips ablaze I rushed to the server station and plunged my face into a water pitcher. It didn’t help. My lips were still an inferno.
From behind, someone pushed wet hair out of my face and handed me a towel. “Your mascara’s running,” Bridget said, before cradling my elbow to escort me back to the table. I didn’t trust her and lashed out from her grip.
Voices in the bar grew louder. Back at the table, L-Jack patted his tearing eyes with a napkin and slid a basket of breadsticks toward me. “It’ll dull the heat.”
I pressed two on my lips and began to hiccup.
L-Jack swept a hand over the appetizer. “Crawfish are as southern as cotton.”
My relationship with crustaceans began and ended with one kiss. “Forget it,” I garbled. “I can’t feel my lips.”
Hanging around with Lucky Jack wasn’t attracting any cute guys to our table and we needed to loose him. Ready to move on I told the girls, “I need to walk this off.”
Giving a heartbroken look, Lucky Jack handed the waiter his credit card. “Y’all can’t leave. We were just getting started.”
I clutched my hurricane glass and said, “Goodbye,” to Lucky Jack. He hugged me and slipped a business card into the back pocket of my Daisy Dukes. His boozy-breath tickled my ear, and he whispered, “Stop by my gallery.”
Had my crawfish kiss turned him on? Outside the bar, I inhaled deeply and banished him from my mind. Experimentation with anything Jack was a terrible idea.
NOTE TO SELF
Kissing crustaceans, don’t go there.
34
Beware Of Men Wearing Green Tights
Sunshine streamed from around the sides of the faded vinyl window blinds onto two double beds. The window air-conditioner strained a grinding hum as it battled the muggy air that threatened to overtake our room. Staring at the bottom of red-polished toenails on size-six feet reminded me that I hadn’t hooked up, but instead shared a bed, for a second time, with Macy. There wasn’t a speedy remedy to recovering from hurricane cocktails and crawfish. I lay still for the rest of the day in an effort to quiet the construction noises inside of my head.
