Chapter One
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Maggie
They say home is where the heart is.
What a load of hogwash.
My heart was stolen by a boy who ran off to join the army and left me waiting on the front steps of my aunt’s house in a red sequined prom dress. No one’s seen or heard from him since. And considering he didn’t give my heart back to me before scooting a boot that fateful night, it’s safe to saymyhome is definitelynotwhere my heart is.
My home is the Big Easy. New Orleans.
I’m out on my balcony watering the two oversize ferns that come part and parcel with a place in the Vieux Carré. It’s one of those long, lazy evenings where the day stubbornly clings to the last vestiges of light. Out on the Mississippi, a tugboat pulling a barge blasts its mournful horn. And across the way, Mr. and Mrs. Monroe are on their terrace—a couple of slow-talking retirees who love to sit in their slow-rocking chairs at the end of each day and gossip about the goings-on in the French Quarter.
Soft, somber blues drifts down the street. The buskers on Royal are warming up for the night. Their music makes me nostalgic for a time I’m not sure I ever even knew, long for something I’m not sure I ever even had.
But that’s New Orleans for you.
In turns gritty and gracious, this city has a way of casting a spell. Itenchants. And not only the tourists who come to get wasted on Hurricanes and Sazeracs while tossing beads at each other’s heads. The full-time residents are bewitched too.
We strive every day for joie de vivre. The joy of living.
Maybe it’s because we’re below sea level and are one bad storm away from the levees collapsing again and covering us all in the muck and the mire, breaking our backs, ruining our livelihoods, and washing away our loved ones. Maybe that famous Voodoo queen Marie Laveau used her magic to enthrall us for all eternity. Or maybe we just have something special here, a mix of people and culture unlike anyplace else.
Whatever the reason, there’s no denying we New Orleanians are a particular breed and—
“Cher, you comin’ to see me play over in da Marigny tonight?”
That’s my upstairs neighbor, Jean-Pierre Marchand. He saws a fiddle like nobody’s business, is gorgeous in that muddy-water way of a true Cajun, and doesn’t know how to knock.
If not for him walking my dog on the days I pull a double, I’d rue the morning I handed him a key.
Okay, not really. Jean-Pierre is… Well, he’s simply the best.
Taking in his getup as he ducks through one of the two large windows leading from my living room to my balcony, I see he’s carrying his fiddle case and is wearing his signature fedora cocked rakishly over one eye. A white T-shirt under a maroon vest makes him look carelessly artsy, and his black wingtips are scuffed to exude a perfectly lived-in look.
In a word: yummy. In two words: h-h-holy hotness.
If it weren’t for that whole gay thing, I’d marry him tomorrow.
Then again…maybe not. There’sthat pesky issue of my heart and its permanent status in the hands of the boy…er…manwho’s MIA and persona non grata.
Sigh.
I should be over him. I know I should.
I keep telling myself to move on. How can I still want someone who so obviously doesn’t want me?
Then again, it’s not like I haven’t tried, dang it! I’ve dated. In fact, my aunt—the locally renowned Mrs. Beatrix Chatelain—would say I’ve dated too much.
It’s not seemly for a proper young lady to go around town with so many different gentleman callers, she says every time someone new enters my life. Never mind that I don’t consider seven to beso many. Especially considering that’s seven men spread over ten years.
Yes. You read that correctly.Ten years.I’m twenty-six, and I’m still hung up on the boy I met when I was fourteen. The boy who left me when I was sixteen.
A while back, I read a quote that pretty much sums up my situation.True love is not the number of kisses, or how often you get them. True love is the feeling that lingers long after the kiss is over.
My feelings linger. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.
