Chapter 3 Mardi Gras #2
Baker steals a swig of Hannah’s Abita Strawberry, cocks her head to the side as she tastes it, and says, “Yeah, I’ll be sharing this with you.”
Hannah pretend-narrows her eyes. “There are a million more of them.”
“I think this one tastes best,” Baker says with a straight face.
“Y’all,” Clay interrupts. He’s standing over the punch bowl, dragging a ladle through its contents. “Come here. Behold my creation.”
“What is it?” Wally asks when they approach.
“Elixir de Landry,” Clay says with a proud grin.
“Oh my god, you made that again?” Joanie says.
“I did.”
“I thought we told you to stop calling it that,” Hannah says.
“Why would I do that?”
“Not sure why we’re having this discussion,” Luke says, forgoing the ladle and ducking his entire cup into the punch. “I love this shit.”
“It’s going to get us all obliterated,” Wally says, “but I love it, too.”
“Yep, that is some good fucking shit,” Clay says, tapping his cup against Wally’s and Luke’s.
Hannah pours herself a cup of the orange beverage and takes a long sip of it, resenting how good it tastes.
“Damn him,” she says.
“I know.” Joanie scowls.
“And now for the finishing touch,” Clay announces, ripping a wing off a cardboard liquor box. He finds a Sharpie and scrawls across the cardboard:
Elixir de Landry. Bringing you unprecedented pleasure since 2011!
“You’re an idiot,” Hannah tells him.
“I love you, too,” he says while taping the sign to the table. Then he steps back, and they all look at it, and Baker is the first to speak.
“You have serial killer handwriting,” she declares.
Clay barks out a laugh. “Thank you?”
“I don’t think it was a compliment,” Hannah says, but Clay ignores her.
With the party about to start, their final preparation is to light the outdoor tiki torches.
The six of them traipse across the sprawling backyard and walk along the perimeter of the property, where a rickety old fence separates the Landrys’ yard from the steep decline into the woods below.
They stop at each torch and watch Clay create fire out of his hands, and for a few minutes none of them speaks.
Joanie is the one to break the silence. “Not to be an ass,” she says, her face scrunched up in the orange-gold glow of the torches, “but what’s the point of this? Aren’t we going to be inside? It’s cold tonight.”
“Because it looks awesome,” Clay says. “Plus, the party might get really crowded, and then people will wanna come outside. We don’t know who all’s gonna show up.”
“It’s a neat effect,” Wally says, sliding his palm across the air, following the curving line of torches as if he could make each one light up with magic. “I always love when your dad lights these in the summer.”
“It’s really pretty,” Baker says, her expression pensive. “Almost mystical.”
They continue along toward the center of the torches, trailing Clay like a group of preschoolers playing follow-the-leader, until they stop at a particularly pathetic-looking section of the fence.
“That’s where Ethan and I crashed Dad’s lawn mower,” Clay says, pointing at the thin planks of wood. Hannah peers closer and sees that these planks have a fresher color than the rest. “We wanted to see what would happen if something fell down that hill.”
“It’s a steep drop,” Wally says, craning his neck forward.
“Ethan used to say he was gonna kick me over it. Probably would’ve killed me.”
“What happened to the mower?” Baker asks.
“It crashed and burned. The body of it was all contorted, and there was smoke coming out and everything.”
Luke shakes his head. “You and Ethan did some dumb shit when you were kids.”
“We weren’t even kids,” Clay says. “We were, like, seventeen and twelve.”
“Your mom must’ve wanted to kill you,” Joanie says.
“Yeah, she freaked out over the whole thing. She never even wanted to buy this house just ’cause of that stupid hill. I think Dad grounded us as much for making him look bad as he did for the actual lawn mower.”
Hannah crouches down to examine the fence. In the dancing glow of the torch fire, the wood seems pained and helpless, a break in the chain that never fully mended.
“Careful,” Clay says. “It’s not real sturdy.
Dad made Ethan and me repair it and we had no idea what we were doing.
A butterfly could land on that thing and it would crack.
Anyway, let’s get back inside. I want to test the Elixir one more time before everyone gets here. Got to make sure it’s Landry standard.”
“The same Landry standard as this fence repair,” Hannah quips, and Clay shoves her.
By nine o’clock, the house has swelled with people. The music is ear-achingly loud, and the air is humid with breath and sweat, and Hannah feels like she might be drunk just by standing in the middle of it all.
“Let’s get drinks,” she says, touching Baker’s arm, and Baker nods and follows her toward the punch table. They wind their way through a dozen people, all of whom want to hug them and ask how their break has been. Only Michele Duquesne looks unhappy to see them, but they pointedly ignore her.
“It’s crazy in here,” Baker says when they’re standing by themselves.
“Yeah, I didn’t expect it to be at this level already. Do you want some of Clay’s punch?”
“Sure. Not too much.”
“I won’t,” Hannah promises, and she makes sure to measure out a moderate amount.
Everything starts to look softer and warmer—all yellow and gold and orange hues—and the music gets even louder, standing as it is on the shoulders of teens. Hannah’s muscles slacken and her vision dims, but the magic of the night, the rawness of it, starts to grow in contrast.
“You okay?” Baker asks, setting her dark eyes on her.
“Yeah,” Hannah answers, “just a little tipsy.”
Baker touches her wrist. “I’ll watch out for you.”
Clay finds them after a while. His face is ruddy and bright, the way it always gets when he’s in his element like this.
“Let’s get drunk, y’all!” he says, and when Baker gives him a hesitant smile, he places an arm on her waist and says, “What are you holding back for? It’s our last high school Mardi Gras. ”
“I’m not holding back,” she says. “Just pacing myself.”
“Let me make you a drink. I promise it won’t be too strong.”
“Says Mr. Elixir de Landry,” Hannah says pointedly.
Clay shoots her a look. “We’re talking about Baker here. I’m not going to get her wasted or something.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“All right,” Baker says, offering her cup. “Mix me something. But nothing too strong!”
“You got it.” Clay grins as he turns away.
“And watch out for Michele,” Hannah says, unable to help herself. “She’s had her eyes on you all night.”
Clay’s expression darkens. “I know. She’s already cornered me twice.”
Luke and Wally find them, their smiles eager and their temples glistening with sweat.
Wally sports an orange stain on his white shirt—“Luke knocked my cup over,” he says, self-consciously following Hannah’s eyes—and Luke wears Joanie’s scarf around his waist, tied low and carelessly like a pirate’s sash.
“This orange shit is getting to me,” Luke says as he hangs his arms over Hannah’s and Baker’s shoulders. “The hell did Clay put in that mix?”
“Insecticides,” Hannah says.
“And maybe some bleach,” Baker says with a glance to Hannah.
“And just a dash of Kool-Aid to make it taste good.”
“He’s a master,” Luke says reverently.
Hannah drinks another cup of Elixir de Landry, and now her muscles feel even slacker and her chest feels heavier. “You all right?” Wally says, placing an arm on the small of her back, and she swats at him and says, “I’m fine, Wall,” until he drops his hand.
The room continues to darken and the shouts of Hannah’s classmates get louder and looser.
Hannah sips from her drink without thinking about it, until it’s empty once again and she has to mix a fourth drink.
“I’ll do it,” Clay says, holding out his hand for her cup. “Baker, you want another one, too?”
The music changes to a song they all love.
They throw themselves into the crowd, hugging and shouting and singing, Luke hopping from one foot to the other in a bizarre dance, Wally nodding his head over and over in a kind of trance, and Clay returns with fresh drinks and a roar of delight, and Joanie jumps on Luke’s back from behind, and they all belt the lyrics together, clapping for each other’s melodramatic gestures, drinking from their cups when they’re not sure how to match their dancing to the beat, but most of all falling into the music, into the crowd, into each other.
Hannah feels exuberant—freer in a way than she has ever been before.
She clutches her drink and bobs where she stands, watching the people dance around her, and for just this moment, for just this second of her life, she feels whole, she feels at ease, she feels like she could exist in this cocoon of time forever and ever.
She looks at Baker and tenderness pours forth from her chest like light from a broken vessel.
Outside? Baker mouths, catching Hannah’s eye.
They step onto the back porch and close the door on the party behind them. Hannah knows the air is cold, but she doesn’t feel it. Her body is buzzy and her muscles feel like jelly. She steps forward, closer to the yard, and watches the mesmerizing torches in the distance.
“Baker,” she says.
“Yeah?”
“I might be drunk.”
Baker laughs. “I can tell.”
“What? No you can’t.”
“You keep combing your hair over your face. You only do that when you’re drunk.”
Hannah smiles. She extends her hand toward Baker. “Come sit with me.”
Baker takes her hand, and Hannah pulls her toward the porch steps. But when Hannah spins back around to sit down, she loses her balance and knows a split second’s terror as she falls forward off the steps.
But then Baker is there, quick and steady in her movements. She wrenches Hannah back, gripping her wrist and the side of her waist. “Whoa, drunky,” she says, guiding Hannah to sit down. “Let’s not ruin the night with a bad fall.”