Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Two martinis later, and with my emotions properly secured deep inside me where they belonged, we had emerged from the bar and were back in the fray of Bourbon Street. It looked different in the dark. Bright with street lights instead of sunshine, and the energy had risen when the sun had set.
“Watch your flank, Doris! Eyes up, Sylvie! This crowd is a pickpocket’s buffet and we are the prime rib!
” Marge’s voice barked over a blast of trombone, her hand clamped firmly over the neon-orange tactical pouch strapped to her chest. “This thing is made of slash-proof Kevlar. You want to stow your valuables in here?”
Sylvie didn’t even look over. “The last time we entrusted our valuables to your ‘theft-proof’ bag, Marge, it ended up at the bottom of a river in Mexico. We had to sleep overnight in a jungle, then sneak across the border to get back into the States after you lost our passports. I’ll take my chances with the pickpockets. ”
“Fine.” Marge huffed, dodging a woman in a tutu made of cocktail umbrellas. “But when a little orphan named Oliver slips past you and absconds with your life savings, don’t come crying to me. I’ll be sitting here with my slash-proof fortress, laughing.”
The energy of the French Quarter on a Friday night was intoxicating. It was a kaleidoscope of glitter, sweat, and the heavy, sweet scent of fried dough. We were swept into the current of Bourbon Street, a river of people who seemed to vibrate at a higher frequency than the rest of the world.
“But that… She’s… He’s…” Doris pointed, then thought better of pointing, then covered her eyes, then spread her fingers and looked through them. “This is obscene! And there are so many of them. Where did they all come from? Don’t they have parents? Mothers?”
“They have mothers,” Marge confirmed. “Their mothers are home right now with absolutely no idea.”
“How can a mother have no idea? I always knew. I always knew everything my children were up to.”
Marge, Sylvie, and I exchanged a look over Doris’s head.
“Doris,” I said gently, “you did not always know.”
“I absolutely did. I was very tuned in. Very present. My children did not run around half-naked, showing their”—she gestured broadly at the street—“their everything to strangers.”
“How can you be certain?” Marge asked.
“Because I raised them right!”
“So did all these people’s mothers, presumably,” Sylvie said, gesturing expansively at the nearest balcony where several girls were showing off their breasts. “And look.”
Doris looked. Then looked away. Then looked back, unable to help herself. Her face went through four distinct shades of pink.
“I… My… They… they wouldn’t do this. No. Not my babies,” she said firmly, but I knew she was mentally cataloging how much time those children of hers were out in the world without her during the most rambunctious ages of eighteen and twenty-five.
“Doris.” Sylvie put an arm around her. “When I was in college, I did things that would have made my mother pass out cold on the kitchen floor. And she never knew.”
Doris stared at her. “You? No. Sylvie, you wouldn’t! You’re so responsible! What things could you have possibly done?”
“Things almost as wild as this.” Sylvie winked, then steered a stunned Doris forward into the crowd.
A young man in his early twenties danced toward us, beads around his neck, holding a plastic cup. When he saw us, a big smile stretched across his face.
“Nice! I hope I’m still rockin’ Mardi Gras at your age!” He slammed his plastic cup against Doris’s, and some of her drink sloshed out.
“Hey! You spilled my drink!” Doris frowned.
“My bad, lady! Hey! You want some beads?” He held them up.
“Oh, those are a pretty purple.” Her eyes sparkled as she looked at them. “Sure! I’ll take the beads.”
“Hell yeah! This is awesome. Go on. Let’s see ’em!” He made a gesture of lifting his shirt.
He stared at her, waiting.
“What?” Her brow furrowed.
“You know. You gotta show the goods to earn the beads.”
Doris stared at him.
Her mouth opened.
Doris’s shocked face contorted into anger as she stepped forward, poking a finger into his chest. “Young man.” Her voice was sharper than I’d ever heard it, and I instantly had flashbacks to my mother scolding me for drifting off at church.
“You should be ashamed of yourself! God is watching you right now. Right here. On this street. What do you think He’d say if He came down and spoke to you? ”
The man faltered, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.
Doris pressed on. “He would be horrified. Ashamed. Just like I bet your mother would be. Could you imagine how she would feel knowing she raised a man who would behave like this? Who would ask a poor old woman to show her bosom in the streets? You should give me your phone so I can call her up and tell her she needs to bring you back home and try again. Raise you right this time.”
She opened her hand like she actually expected him to hand it over.
“I… uh… Please don’t.” He stepped back.
“Well, then you’d better think long and hard about what you’re doing and pretend God and your mother are standing right next to you the rest of your night… and life!”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said quietly, and moved on.
“Wow. You may have permanently ruined him.” I swallowed a snort while watching him slink away. “That poor boy will never look at another woman’s breasts again without imagining his mother staring at him.”
“Good.” Doris stomped her foot like a prize bull. “He should. And this right here is why I know my children would never come down here and misbehave this way.”
Sylvie’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah. Maybe they didn’t, because if I had to think about my mom with me every time I was, uh, we’ll call it misbehaving, I probably would have been a little less wild back then. That is not an image you can unburn from your mind easily.”
Doris lifted her chin with pride, as if she’d been vindicated from raising a litter of feral delinquents like the ones running wild and free around us. “Exactly.”
“Okay, so now that Doris has burned an image into our minds that we can’t unsee, let’s go have some drinks and try to forget it. Onward, soldiers!”
Marge spun and led us deeper into the street party, dancing her way through as we followed.
It was intoxicating. Like a siren’s call luring you to ignore your better instincts and give in to every temptation.
If I had been young and single, no doubt I would have already kissed half a dozen men just milling about the street and been topless, screaming the lyrics of the music at the top of my lungs while perched on some strong man’s shoulders.
But I wasn’t single, and I didn’t want to be.
And I wasn’t young, and I… had breast cancer.
There it was again, like Doris’s vision of a mother there to ruin all the fun, I had a different kind of cold water tossed on me on repeat. Just when I’d forget about it for a moment, lose myself in the world around me, it was right back again, whispering in my ear, reminding me of what was coming.
And along with the I have breast cancer stuck on repeat in my mind, now I had a fortune teller’s words echoing along with them.
Do not take long to decide your path, for it will then choose for you.
I pushed the invasive thoughts away, shaking my head as I refocused on the wild fun surrounding me.
We found a gap near a low stage where a band had set up. The crowd pressed around them, moving with the music, the trumpet guiding everyone with its catchy melodies.
In the center of the dancers was a little old man, thin and wiry, wearing a worn-out purple suit and dancing in front of that stage like the band was put there just for him.
He moved and twirled, somehow not losing his battered top hat with a dozen colorful flowers sprouting from the top like a perfectly potted plant.
He was dancing—full-bodied, absolutely committed, every part of him, from the tips of his white-gloved fingers to the heels of his perfectly shined shoes, engaged.
His eyes were half-closed, and he seemed to be somewhere else entirely, somewhere the music had taken him that the rest of us hadn’t been invited to.
Marge saw him at the same moment I did.
“Now that is a man who knows how to have fun!” She pointed. “Look at him go!”
“He looks like he’s been coming here for years. Decades, even.” Sylvie smiled as she watched him.
“And by the look of his suit, he’s been wearing the same one all those years. It could really use a few patches,” Doris added.
Even though he lacked skill, I knew exactly how he was feeling. Music did the same thing to me when I danced. It transported me to a different time and place, just me and the music as one.
“Come on. We’re dancing.” Marge didn’t wait for us to answer. She pushed forward through the crowd and tapped the old man on the shoulder. He opened his eyes and looked at her without missing a step.
She held out her hand, folding into a half-bow.
He looked at it. Then he grinned, a wide, gold-toothed grin that rearranged his whole face, and he took it.
Marge let out a rebel yell. “Yeehaa!”
Wild and unhinged, whooping and spinning, we cheered for Marge and her companion as they danced like no one was watching, even though dozens of people were.
“Come on! Join us! Dance like we’re back in Africa, ladies!” Marge called before breaking into the tribal dance we’d all done that night we’d spent with the tribe during our safari.
I couldn’t stop my feet from moving, my body vibrating with excitement as I danced my way toward her. Sylvie and Doris danced behind me, and then, the four of us and our purple-suited man tore up the pavement on that street in New Orleans.
I wasn’t thinking about the fortune teller.
I wasn’t thinking about the surgery.
I wasn’t thinking about Alejandro or what I’d look like in the mirror next year or the decision that sat in my chest like a stone I couldn’t put down.