Chapter Twenty-seven
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Maggie
If you don’t know where you’re going, at least know where you come from.
That’s what my mother used to say.
Good advice. Especially if you’re from a place where friends are willing to drop everything and come over to help you through an existential crisis while toting sweet apple wine and delicious muffulettas.
Savoring the last bite of the salami-and-olive-salad sandwich, I crumple the paper wrapper and pull a blanket across Yard, who is curled between my legs, happily dreaming of chasing squirrels. Jean-Pierre has finished eating and is lounging on the chaise to my right, wineglass in hand. And Eva is on my left in a thick, ribbed sweater, licking Crystal hot sauce off her fingers.
Everywhere else in Louisiana, Tabasco is the pepper sauce of choice. But here in the Big Easy, we’re loyal to Crystal. For decades, it was bottled on Tulane Avenue. Then Katrina destroyed the plant and forced them to a new location upriver. Like so much in town after the storm, the iconic green sign that used to sit atop the bottling shop is sorely missed.
The slow-drifting moon makes an arc across the sky. The cool breath of November sneaks onto my balcony. And a whippoorwill lets loose with its lonesome call from somewhere near the river, drawing my attention to that big, fast-moving water even though I can’t see the rippling current from here. It’s obscured by a high embankment covered in grass that’s going dormant as winter approaches and another year comes to an end.
It’s sad. This yearly ending.Anyending, really. But I remind myself that, come spring, the space will be filled with Queen Anne’s lace. And the fuzzy white flowers will attract the buzz of hundreds of bumblebees.
Endings make room for beginnings, I tell myself, wondering if I’m flitting around some universal truth that I should try to apply to Cash.
What is this thing we’ve got going? Is it the end of what we had? Is it the beginning of something new? Or is it neither? Could our beginning have ended a long time ago and I’m just the last one to realize it? The last to let go?
Seeing the direction of my gaze, Jean-Pierre says quietly, “My daddy says if ya listen closely, ya can hear da ghosts of da Mississippi cryin’ at night. He says da souls lost to dat mighty river stay trapped der forever,maisyeah?”
A chill sneaks up my spine. I welcome the distraction. I welcome anything that stops my head from spinning.
I tried to ease my worried mind by spending the afternoon at the animal shelter walking the dogs. That usually does the trick when I’m out of sorts. But not today. Today I had to call in the big guns. Namely, Eva and Jean-Pierre.
“I believe it,” I whisper.
Eva snorts. “That’s because you believe everything.”
“Not everything,” I argue. When she gives me a look, I capitulate. “Okay, fine. So I’m fanciful. I don’t know how you can grow up in this city andnotbe.”
“Easy.” She shrugs. “If you can’t see or feel it, it doesn’t exist.”
“But youcansee it and feel it.” When she lifts an eyebrow, I explain, “Look down any street or alleyway in The Quarter and there’s history in the bricks and mortar. Hundreds of lives come and gone. Thousands of secrets kept and told. Pioneers, pirates, noblemen, and slaves have walked these crumbling streets. It isn’t just the humidity that makes the air thick. It’s heavy with spirits. With memories. And speaking of memories…”
Reaching beneath my chair, I pull out two neatly wrapped gifts. The green one goes to Jean-Pierre, the pink one to Eva.
“What’s dis now?” Jean-Pierre eyes me askance. “Has Christmas come early?”
“You think I’d risk my neck sneaking into Jazzland and not bring back souvenirs?”
Jean-Pierre tears into the wrapping paper and lifts the Jazzland coffee mug I found stuck in the mud near the bumper cars. Once I cleaned it off, I was happy to find the ceramic was intact and the logo still as neat and tidy as the day it was stamped.
“Would ya look at dat.” He marvels. “Me, I would’ve thought the scavengers picked dat place clean.”
“They did for the most part,” I tell him. “But you know me. I have a nose for buried treasure.”
“Oh, Maggie.” Eva’s tone is hushed, almost reverent.
She’s carefully unwrapped the old-fashioned Coke bottle printed with a message proclaiming the grand opening of Jazzland.ThatI found in a moldy old box way in the back of the dilapidated souvenir shop.
The look of wonder on her face makes me smile. “I remember you had one of those on your bedside table when we were kids. You used to put the plastic—”
“King cake babies in there,” she finishes for me. “Granny Mabel took me to the park the first week it was open and bought that bottle for me as a keepsake. Then Katrina came and washed it away, along with everything else.”
