Royal Street Reveillon

by Greg Herren

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re wonderful, your shows are wonderful, blah blah blah, can we get on with it already?” I muttered under my breath.

  Taylor, hanging on his every word, shushed me.

  Finally, Eric said, “Enjoy the show.”

  The lights dimmed all the way and the network logo appeared on the big screen. I settled back in my seat as some unrecognizable music began and the opening credits rolled.

  Chapter Two

  The Empress, Reversed

  A selfish and ruthless woman

  The first episode was…boring, which is death for a reality show.

  We don’t tune in to be bored. We watch for the drama.

  But in fairness, even the first episode of each new season of a well-established Grande Dames franchise wasn’t full of the drama and nastiness we gratefully loaded into our crack pipes every week to enjoy. Those first episodes were what I called “let’s catch up with the girls” shows. Rarely, if ever, were any of what would be that season’s dramatic storylines set up in those season premieres. Sometimes some unresolved drama from the previous season lingered—like the long-running feud between Helen and Wendy on Marin County. (Those two never resolved anything, and the rest of the cast simply spent their time switching allegiances from one to the other, with new girls added as others dropped out. But that was getting old, and the show’s ratings were sagging accordingly.)

  So, this first episode of our local franchise was just a “hey, get to know our cast” episode, with the women themselves barely even interacting with each other. Serena and Megan had a nice boozy lunch at some uptown restaurant I didn’t recognize, but that was about it for interactions between the women. The rest of the episode was devoted to showing us snippets of each woman’s life as they got ready to attend a party at Margery’s castle on St. Charles Avenue. We saw Margery’s enormous closet (shelves and shelves of shoes—more shoes than a Chinese Nike factory), the gigantic room full of books with its little decorative balcony overlooking the pool where Chloe wrote, and went to one of Fidelis’s sessions with her trainer (mainly so we could see her fit, strong body in a leotard, I think, as well as the inside of one of her health clubs). We saw Rebecca talking with the chef at Barron’s, the flagship restaurant of the Barron food empire, on St. Charles Avenue just past the Garden District (he looked bored and like he was trying really hard not to roll his eyes at her; it was obvious she knew little to nothing about cooking and food).

  But to give credit where credit is due, the show’s visuals would have made a great ad for New Orleans tourism. Living here, it’s easy for us to take the city for granted and stop noticing how breathtakingly beautiful it is. The show’s cameras lingered lovingly on the canopy of live oaks over St. Charles Avenue, the streetcar as it clattered its way uptown, the ships going up and down the river, the majesty of Jackson Square, the Caribbean flavor to the architecture of the Quarter, the majestic houses uptown, and the lush green ripeness everywhere—it took my breath away.

  Plus, the episode hinted at the party at Margery’s, which would be shown in episode two. A hallmark of the shows was that every time all the women got together (especially at a party), lots of drama ensued. I’d always wanted to see what her castle looked like on the inside. It was one of my favorite houses on the Avenue, and I’d heard Margery’s parties were always over-the-top events considered excessive—even by New Orleans standards.

  Which was saying a lot.

  As the credits rolled to polite applause from the audience in the theater, I heard champagne corks popping. The lights came up, and as we were getting up a woman came hurrying down the balcony aisle to where we were standing. It was Sloane Gaylord.

  Sloane worked for the show—I was never clear as to whether she was a production assistant or an associate producer, but I did know she worked a lot with Serena. I’d met her when Serena had invited me to lunch back in September and tried picking my brain for gossip about her fellow castmates. I didn’t blame her for trying—she’d only lived here a few years and so her castmates had her at a disadvantage with their shared histories—but I didn’t want anything I said winding up on national television. Despite Serena’s loading me up with watermelon margaritas I didn’t let anything slip…at least I didn’t think so.

  I guess I’d have to watch to see.

  Sloane was petite, probably barely topping five feet on a good day, and always wore her dark auburn hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. Her features were delicate, almost nondescript, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup, which made her pale skin look washed out and her green eyes faded. She was wearing a pair of tight black jeans and one of those black Grande Dames of New Orleans T-shirts. She pushed her enormous glasses up her pert nose and smiled. “Oh, good, you’re all together.”

  “I generally don’t come apart in public,” Paige replied.

  Sloane’s wan face flushed. “No, I, um, meant that you, and um, well, you”—she pointed at me with a long index finger with a chewed ragged nail at its tip—“are who I’m looking for.” She mumbled something, shook her head, and smiled. “Let me start that again. Sorry.” She took a deep breath. “Serena sent me looking for you two. There’s an after-party at the Hotel Aquitaine in Eric’s penthouse, and she wanted to make sure you were both invited.” She reached into her shoulder bag and produced two key cards with the Hotel Aquitaine’s logo on them. “You’ll need these for the elevator, it’s penthouse 1C.”

  Paige palmed hers, gesturing at Ryan. “I’m with my fiancé and Scotty’s got his nephew with him. Can we bring them along?”

  Sloane pushed her glasses up again. “Yes, of course, the more the merrier.” She leaned in closer. “There’s a town car waiting for you—you can ride over with Serena. If you’ll come with me…” She gestured up the aisle.

  “I don’t know,” I said. It was tempting, but Frank would be home tomorrow and we were going to start putting up our Christmas decorations.

  Experience had taught me that hangovers made decorating a miserable experience.

  “Oh, come on, Scotty, can we go? Please?” Taylor was bouncing up and down in excitement.

  “Okay.” I relented. “But we’re not staying long. We can stop by for one drink.”

  Famous last words I’d uttered many times.

  I shrugged on my trench coat, following Sloane up the aisle and through the small crowd in the concessions area. It was even more crowded downstairs, with mobs lined up for the bars while the food tables looked like they’d been ravaged by a plague of locusts. We somehow managed to navigate our way through the crowded, overheated lobby and out the front doors. The heavy rain had started falling while we were indoors, and the temperature had dropped a good twenty degrees or more. A big burly driver opened the back door to a Lincoln town car. Taylor opened his umbrella and I stepped underneath it, handing mine to a very grateful Paige and Ryan. I almost stepped into the full gutter but managed to avert that tragedy, sliding into the back seat with Serena.

  “Darling Scotty!” she said, her Texas accent even more pronounced than usual. She air-kissed me on each cheek. She was wrapped up in a luxuriant mink coat. Diamonds sparkled at her throat, ears, fingers, and in the deep canyon of her cleavage. She smelt of cigarette smoke and expensive perfume. “And Taylor! And Paige! And Ryan!” The door shut behind Taylor as he tried to fold his long legs into the space between the two seats in the back of the car, without much luck.

  “Isn’t Sloane coming with us?” I asked, a little confused as I took a glass of champagne from Serena, who started filling another glass.

  “Production staff are riding together, which always makes me nervous. I shudder to think what they say about the cast when we can’t hear them.” Serena managed to pour a second glass without spilling a drop when the car pulled suddenly away from the curb. “I’m so glad you’re joining us for our private little get-together. What did you think of the show?”

  “It was boring,” Paige said flatly before I could think of something polite t
o say.

  Serena erupted with her enormous laugh. “It was, wasn’t it? But I promise you, it’s going to get better.” She grinned. “A lot better. I just pray I get the bitch edit!”

  “You want the bitch edit?” Taylor stared at her. “Why?”

  The so-called bitch edit had become a cliché amongst fans of the show. Every woman who came out of a season looking bad claimed production and editing had done it to them, giving them an edit to make them look like a bitch. Basically, they claimed things they said on film were shown out of their proper context deliberately to make them look bad. No one could argue that editing didn’t have something to do with how the women were perceived by the audience…but as Dana on the Boston franchise once said, “They can’t edit the words into your mouth.”

  “Darling, the bitches get all the press,” Serena said, pulling out an electric cigarette from her little purse and switching it on. She took a deep tug on it, the little tip glowing bright blue. She still smoked regular cigarettes—as long as I’d known her, she claimed to be trying to quit—but smoked the electronic ones while in what she called “mixed” company—smokers and non-smokers.

  “And become the biggest stars,” Serena went on. “And some viewers—if you do it right—love you. And you can always reverse yourself and have a redemption season!”

  “But you have to do it right,” I said. “Or everyone will hate you.”

  Oline from Palm Beach had been so hated on the first season of that franchise she’d even appeared on the cover of In Touch magazine with the headline, “Most Hated Grande Dame.” The following season had been her redemption season, and her transformation from hated to beloved was the blueprint other Grande Dames tried to follow.

  On Eric’s show, Oline had simply smiled when asked and said, “I just learned to be more tolerant.”

  The “bitches” were also primarily responsible for the storylines on the show—the ones that got people to watch, anyway.

  “Who do you think everyone will be?” Paige asked. “I think Margery will be the one everyone likes, and I think it’s probably a toss-up between you and Chloe for the bitch edit.”

  “Oh, that’s right, you worked with her, didn’t you?” Serena blew smoke out the window again and turned the e-cigarette off, dropping it back into her purse. “What was that like?”

  “She was a prig,” Paige replied with a dramatic eye roll. “And she slept her way into an editor’s job. I don’t know if that’s true,” she added quickly when she saw the gleam in Serena’s eyes, “but it was the rumor around the paper. She certainly didn’t get the job on her merits. That is not for use on the show.”

  “Didn’t she leave the paper when she got married?” Serena asked, leaning forward. The car was stuck trying to cross Bourbon Street. Despite the heavy rain, Bourbon was full of partying tourists. “Someone told me that, I don’t remember who.”

  “She married money.” I came to Paige’s rescue. I could tell she already regretted gossiping about Chloe. “Remy Valence, old Garden District money.”

  Serena turned her glittering blue eyes back to me. “He’s the gay one, right?”

  “Uh—I, I don’t know.” I lied, because I did know.

  I’d slept with Remy Valence a long time ago, when I was in my twenties. I knew all about him and his marriage. Remy had grown up completely under the thumb of a domineering mother, and it wasn’t a secret that Dierdre Valence—a racist, homophobic shrew of a woman—would not hear of her only child, her baby, living as an openly gay man. The story I’d heard was she threatened to cut him out of her will unless he married a woman, and so he had. Whether Chloe knew he sometimes slept with men and married him anyway was anyone’s guess.

  Gossip held that Dierdre had left her estate to Remy in a trust. If he got a divorce, it all went to charity. So, Remy remained chained to Chloe in their big old house on Third Street.

  It made for great gossip, but how much of it was true nobody knew for sure.

  Maybe he was bisexual. Maybe they had an arrangement.

  It wasn’t anyone’s business, really.

  The bottom line was I wasn’t comfortable with talking about my one-nighter with Remy. I certainly didn’t want it winding up on television.

  The night I’d slept with Remy I didn’t know who he was—he was just an attractive man who’d come into the Pub that Saturday night. Sure, he looked familiar, but in a town the size of New Orleans everyone does.

  I was still in my early twenties, having just moved from my parents’ house into my own apartment. I was enjoying my freedom, but freedom, of course, isn’t free—I needed to buy groceries and pay the bills. My personal training business was starting to pick up, but I was still dancing for extra cash whenever I could. I got the call to dance at the Pub at the last minute that lazy summer weekend. I had no food in the house and was dreading having to drop in to eat at Mom and Dad’s until my clients were due to pay me again. The night had been slow—too hot and humid for most people to leave the air-conditioning. I’d only made about a hundred dollars all night, making it one of my worst nights dancing ever.

  There was about an hour or so left in my shift that Friday night when a nice-looking guy parked himself at a barstool on my side of the bar. He looked up at me when he ordered a drink with a big smile on his face and winked. He held up a twenty-dollar bill and waved me over. I smiled and danced down the bar to where he was sitting. I squatted down with him in between my legs and rested my knees on the sticky bar. I gave him my most seductive smile. “Hey there, how ya doing?”

  “Better now, sexy,” he said, touching the bill to the hollow at the base of my throat and lightly stroking it down my torso to the waistband of my sweaty black underwear. He hooked his middle finger inside the elastic and tucked the bill inside, letting the elastic go so it lightly snapped my damp skin.

  I put my hands on his shoulders and tilted my head flirtatiously. “Like what you see?”

  “Very much.” He leaned in closer, putting a big, well-manicured hand on each of my pecs.

  He was uniquely handsome, his individual features not quite right, but somehow it all worked together. His dark hair was cut short, tucked behind smallish ears. His eyes were big and brown and expressive underneath a thick brow. His lips were a little thin and his mouth wide. He was tanned, his forearms thick and smooth. His tight white Polo shirt stretched over a strong chest and broad shoulders, the sleeves rolled up a bit to show off strong arms. His legs were a little thin for his upper body, and his khaki shorts hung loose. But there was something about him, an unexplainable charisma, that drew me to him. I winked back at him and stood up, dancing my way down the bar to someone else waving a bill at me.

  He remained on his barstool, watching. I went back to him a couple of times over the course of the next hour or so. Every time I did, I got another twenty, and he would stroke my calves, my legs, or my chest. I kept an eye on him, watching as he kicked back a few more drinks and a couple of shots, trying to puzzle out where I’d seen him before or if I even did know him. One time as he stroked my shaved-smooth legs I noticed a white band on his otherwise tanned ring finger. Married, I thought, bi or closeted.

  There are a lot more of those in New Orleans than you could possibly imagine.

  Finally, two in the morning rolled around and I was finished for the night. He was responsible for almost half my take for the night, so when I climbed down from the bar I walked over to say thank you.

  “You’re off duty now?” He slid down from the barstool. He was about my height, maybe an inch or so taller. His left hand, the one with the telltale white band on the ring finger, lightly brushed against my crotch. Sweaty and tired as I was, I reacted.

  Hey, I’m only human. I was also an unrepentant slut.

  “You want to come back to my place?” I breathed in his ear, leaning against him so our chests touched.

  “I’d like that. You nearby?”

  “Close enough.”

  “Great.”

&n
bsp; “Let me get my stuff.”

  We held hands as we walked through the silence of the lower Quarter back to my place. When I got my keys out at the gate at my house, he hesitated. “Something wrong?” I asked as I unlocked the gate and pushed it open. A flirtatious smile, a raised eyebrow, a slight tilt of my head to the right.

  He flushed. “It’s just that—no, never mind. Nothing’s wrong.” He smiled back at me. “What are we waiting for?”

  The sex wasn’t particularly good. He wasn’t a good kisser—too aggressive, which was a tip-off about the sex about to happen. But I’ve certainly had worse. At some point over the next few hours he told me his first name was Remy but never told me his last name. I didn’t need to know it, and I didn’t want his phone number. Once the sun was starting to come up, he got dressed and borrowed my phone to call a cab. I walked him down to the gate and waited with him. When the black-and-white United cab pulled over to the curb, I lightly kissed his cheek, said, “See you around,” and went back to upstairs to bed.

  And figured that was the end of that. I’d probably see him around again, but there wouldn’t be an encore. I didn’t give him another thought until I ran into him again, about a year or so later, at a party at my Diderot grandparents’ mansion in the Garden District.

  It was a fundraiser for one of my grandmother’s pet charities, the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival, and I was bored out of my mind. The big house was full of people. Some of them I knew, some were strangers, some I wished I didn’t know. Papa Diderot was holding court in the library while Maman Diderot was rushing around making sure everyone had enough food or drink and making sure coasters were being used and nothing was getting spilled anywhere. I was standing at the buffet table, debating whether I should get some more of the shrimp creole when I felt a hand lightly brush against my ass. I turned around quickly, ready to slap a face and there he was, Remy whose-last-name-I-didn’t-know. He just looked familiar at first, but after a moment it all came back to me—the white Polo shirt, the khakis, the way his breath tasted of tequila. “Hi, how are you?” I smiled and walked outside to the bar on the back veranda. The bartender was handing me a glass of champagne when I heard his voice behind me, the light touch on my ass again.