I wink before stuffing half the Twinkie into my mouth.
“Oh, for crying out loud!” She throws her hands in the air.
“It’s a bit stale,” I garble around the cake and filling. “But it tastes the same.”
I start to hand the remaining half to Yard, but Maggie swats my hand. “No! When you’re dead and gone from some horrible, never-before-discovered foodborne illness, I’ll need Yard around to console me.”
I shrug and pop the remainder of the Twinkie into my mouth, loving the look of revulsion and grudging respect on her face.
For the next hour, we sift through the memorabilia and reminisce about the good old days. There are the tickets from the Katy Perry concert she made us go to when we lost a bet with her, the bag of Carnival coins we caught from the floats in the lead-up to Fat Tuesday, and the little plastic baby Luc found in the king cake we shared after watching the Krewe of Zulu parade down St. Charles Avenue.
Something I learned after moving to New Orleans? The whole town is packed with traditions.
One of my favorites is the king cake. Not because I particularly like the taste of the cinnamon-roll-style cake or the flamboyant green, yellow, and purple icing. But because people bring the cake to parties held during Carnival season, and whoever ends up with the slice bearing the little plastic baby baked inside is the one responsible for throwing the party or bringing the cake the next year.
It’s so…hopeful. As if everyone assumes there will be another year, there will be another Mardi Gras and, of course, there will be another party.
Maggie laughs her head off at the list of Popular Songs of Our Time that Luc compiled, especially his “Pocketful of Sunshine”entry.
“Youhatedthat song.” She points at the sheet of paper.
“Not at first,” he tells her. “But after you played it ten million times and sang it at the top of your lungs nine million of those? Yeah. I started to hate it.”
She slaps his arm. “You always said I had a good voice.”
“At normal decibels, you do. But, for whatever reason, you couldn’t sing that one at normal decibels.”
“Still can’t,” she admits with a rueful grin. “If it comes on the radio, I have to belt it. The music’s in me, baby. Don’t try to hold me back.”
“Lord help us,” Luc laments, which makes her laugh.
She goes back to the box. When she pulls out the paperback copy ofHarry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, I cringe.
She stares at me in accusation. “You put this in here? Which means you never read it, you dirty rotten scoundrel!”
She opens the book, and I see the inscription she wrote on the inside cover.
Dear Cash,
Now you can be a Potterhead too.
Happy 18th birthday!
Love,
Maggie and Luc
“In my defense,” I tell her. “Ididread it.”
“And?”
“Meh.” I shrug.
She rakes in an outraged breath. “Blasphemy!” Turning to Luc, she crooks a thumb my way. “Can you believe this guy?”
He shrugs as if he’s resigned himself to my boorish ways. “He doesn’t like Harry Potter. He doesn’t likeThe Big Bang Theory. He dresses like shit. The man has proved time and again he has no taste.”
“We’ll have that carved into his tombstone,” Maggie agrees. “Here lies Cassius Armstrong. A good soldier. A good friend. A lover of beignets, and a defender of a teenage girl’s honor. Alas, he had no taste.”
