Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
“Woowee! Would you look at this!” Marge charged forward toward the growing commotion as we followed behind her. “We found the party!”
Each step we took, the music grew louder and the bodies grew thicker as we made our way through the streets of New Orleans.
We turned a corner, and it was like someone had pulled the headphones off, the music slamming into us like a wall.
The deep, brassy growl of a street band vibrated the air.
It was Friday, the fever pitch of Mardi Gras was rising, and the streets were a river of purple, green, and gold.
My eyes widened as I took in the sights spread out in front of me.
Beads caught the afternoon light from the balconies above us. Costumes everywhere—elaborate, spectacular, outrageous—worn by people who danced and laughed and sang, carefree and wild.
Doris stood frozen beside me, head swiveling left and right, eyes bulging, trying to make sense of the madness.
“This,” Marge announced, arms spreading wide, “is exactly what I’m talking about.”
“It’s incredible,” Sylvie breathed. “I wanted to see it. I knew it was supposed to be something, but this—” She gave up on the sentence and just gestured broadly at Bourbon Street, which seemed accurate.
There were no words to appropriately describe it.
A group in full costume pushed past us—feathers and gold masks and colors so bright my eyes struggled to make sense of it all.
Marge pointed at them, grinning triumphantly like she’d just won an argument. “See? I told you you could wear the captain’s helmet and fit right in. Nobody would have blinked.”
“I’m not wearing a Viking helmet in public.” I smoothed my hair. “It’s ridiculous.”
She scowled. “Pansy. That helmet is a privilege. An honor.”
“It’s a monstrosity and I’d rather be arrested than walk around in it.”
“The only crime is you refusing to wear it. I should call the cops on you myself and have them toss you in the clink until you wear your captain’s hat. They’ll agree with me. Guarantee it.”
“I’m not wearing the Viking helmet. I’m wearing… a crown. An invisible one. The helmet won’t fit.”
I smirked and she scowled. “Liar.”
Doris watched a man throwing knives as the crowd around him cheered. “Wow. I don’t even know what to say,” she whispered. “This is…”
“Awesome.” Marge propped her hands on her hips and took it all in.
“It’s... it’s a lot,” Doris whispered, clutching her purse to her chest as a man in leather chaps and a glittery mask sauntered past. Her mouth dropped open as he walked by and we realized he was in nothing but a thong, his bare cheeks greeting our eyes.
Doris spun away. “Oh dear. He’s… he wasn’t wearing—” Her eyes flew wide when they clapped onto a group coming toward us holding balloons shaped like penises.
“Don’t look, Doris! Save your soul!” Marge slung an arm around her, her laughter echoing around us like the brass instruments playing in all directions. Each different songs but somehow they blended together like one big orchestra.
Marge gave Doris a squeeze. “This is nothing. I’ve seen the documentaries. By midnight, there will be things happening on these balconies that would make a sailor blush. We’re in the belly of the beast now, ladies!”
“Oh dear.” Doris shrank.
Marge spun to me. “Well? Where do you want to do it? Just take off your top and join those women?” She pointed to a group of girls lifting their shirts to the cheers of the people surrounding them, beads flying through the air that they caught with big grins.
“Or maybe the assless chaps guy knows a good spot?”
I reached up and touched my breasts, something I noticed I’d been doing often since I’d sat in that specialist’s office in New York and heard those words.
You have breast cancer.
My whole world had spun, and I’d been alone when it had happened.
I hadn’t told Alejandro about the lump. Hadn’t told the widows.
For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to utter the words out loud, even the suspicion of the words.
So, I’d slipped off to a “spa” and instead went to the best doctors in the world to get my tests run.
And still, I’d hoped they’d come back and tell me it was a cyst. It was nothing. I could go on with my life as if nothing had changed. Return to Wilder Lane with no one the wiser about my scare.
But… everything had changed. With those four words, the world as I knew it ended and a new one began.
You have breast cancer.
They rang inside my skull on repeat like a terrible song you couldn’t get out of your head. At the most inopportune times. Random times. During joyful times. They just… slipped into my mind.
You have breast cancer.
And each time they did, I realized I’d slowly reach up and touch them, as if to ground myself in my new reality.
Or maybe it was to appreciate them as they were for as long as I could.
I didn’t understand why, but once again, my fingers slipped ever so quickly over my breasts, confirming they were indeed still there.
For now.
With my hands on my breasts, I looked to Marge, giving her a withering look.
“I’m not just going to rip off my shirt and start flashing people.
I need…” I paused, unsure exactly what it was I needed since that had, in fact, been the plan.
But it seemed too pedestrian… too base. The last performance of my breasts deserved a little more fanfare than the drunk sorority girls shaking their tits next to the streetlamp across the street.
For over seventy years, this body had been my most loyal ally. It had opened doors, won arguments, and held everyone’s gazes across crowded rooms. Now, it felt like a house I was being evicted from.
Lumpectomy or mastectomy? The numbers hummed in my head like a broken radio station.
Twenty-five percent chance of it coming back. One percent if I let them take it all.
It should have been a simple math problem. But how do you calculate the loss of the silhouette you’ve seen in the mirror every morning since you were nineteen? How do I stand nude in front of Alejandro and not worry he’s hiding his disgust? Mourning the old me the way I would mourn her too?
“You’ll know when it’s time to give them their moment in the spotlight.” Sylvie pressed a hand to my shoulder, and as always, she seemed to know what I needed to hear. “For now, let’s just enjoy the madness. Alice will let us know when she’s ready for the next step.”
“Thank you, Sylvie.” I reached up and touched her hand, and she gave me a smile and a squeeze.
“Is it all going to be like this?” Doris just kept spinning her head left and right, the insanity around us almost too much to process.
Marge grinned and turned back to the street, her face lit up with completely unguarded delight. “Yes. And I am here for it.”
Sylvie rubbed her stomach. “Well, I don’t know about you all, but it smells so good right now my stomach is grumbling. I can’t tell what I’m smelling. But it’s sugary and fried and sweet. And maybe bourbon? Just… someone feed me whatever smells so good.”
I wasn’t normally one to indulge in sweets, but Sylvie wasn’t wrong.
Something on Bourbon Street smelled like heaven, and we hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch yet.
Finding a proper place to park Bertha had been quite a debacle, with every camping spot booked up months earlier for the celebration.
Marge had driven Bertha around the nearest campsite, trying to get people to give up their spot with my cancer card, but it seemed in this one instance, it wasn’t strong enough.
It took money.
Five thousand dollars’ worth of it to get a group to move on and give us their parking spot.
We followed Marge into the fray, and I didn’t argue when she handed me drinks and food and sweets she’d procured from I didn’t even know where.
Either people selling them on the streets or she was accepting them from strangers, but I didn’t care.
The smells were intoxicating, and every single bite was as good as I’d imagined.
“Wow! I need this recipe! Who did you get this from?” Doris said, her mouth full of some powdered sugar–covered fried delight.
But instead of answering, Marge slammed to a stop, the rest of us bumping into her.
“What’s wrong?” Sylvie asked.
“There,” she said.
“There what?” My gaze followed her finger to where it pointed.
Sandwiched between a praline shop and a bar with a hand-lettered sign was a door draped in purple-and-gold beaded curtains. Above it, a painted wooden sign: MADAME CECILE—READER OF FORTUNES—ALL FUTURES REVEALED.
Marge spun back to us, eyes as wide as her grin. “Fortunes! Let’s go get them read!”
“Absolutely not,” Doris whispered, her eyes widening to match Marge’s but with horror instead of wonder.
“Absolutely yes,” Marge said.
“That is the devil’s business, Marge, and I will not set foot—”
Marge closed her eyes, huffing before saying, “Doris. It’s a carnival fortune teller. It’s for fun. It’s not the devil at work.”
“All divination is an abomination to the—”
“I think it sounds fun!” Sylvie interrupted. “And Marge is right. She’s not actually reading our fortunes, Doris. The only sin she’s guilty of is lying, but who cares? This is part of the culture here. I’m in.”
Marge clapped her hands once and pointed to Sylvie. “Yes! I knew you’d have my back on this. Alice? You in?”
I looked at the purple door.
I knew exactly what was behind it. My time on the Vegas stage taught me everything there was to know about illusion—how you built it, what it required, and why people surrendered to it even when they knew better.
A good fortune teller was simply a person with sharp eyes and a practiced read on human nature, and I had no particular objection to that as a profession.
I also wasn’t in a position to dismiss anything that might say something useful.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“Alice—” Doris started.
“You can wait outside,” I told her. “Or you can come in and pray very hard for our souls. Your choice.”