Page 1
Chapter 1
Andi
Cardboard boxes lit with a bluish-white glow greet my bleary eyes as the trilling alarm on my phone goes off. For a moment, I’m disoriented, confused by the oppressive darkness and strange surroundings. Then, as the last remnants of my nap disappear, it all snaps into focus. I’m in a new apartment. Again.
Rising from my threadbare futon, I stretch, wincing at the stiffness in my back and the crick in my neck, and tap my phone to dismiss the repetitive sound. The screen darkens, leaving me in complete pitch black. I sigh and pull the chain on my cheap bedside lamp, illuminating my new accommodations.
Calling it an apartment might be a tad generous, as it really is just one room in a basement. A kitchen-slash-living room, with a toilet and shower in the corner, hidden only by a curtain. A strange scent always permeates the air, most likely from the incense of the psychic shop above. I don’t mind it. It’s a familiar musk in a city like New Orleans, where the occult is practiced in flashy shows for the tourists on every corner and in solemn seriousness in dark buildings by the true believers and practitioners.
The superstition of the true believers is probably why I could find affordable single housing in a city that is always becoming more unaffordable. Madame Pearl is a well-known fixture in the occult community. Her gift is said to be potent, but it's whispered that she’s reckless and trucks with dark and dangerous spirits, leading only but the most desperate and the out-of-towners to do business with her. Her building is supposed to be well and truly haunted. Living in a basement beneath her shop isn’t very attractive to locals who might usually want to live so close to the French Quarter.
That’s not what Madame Pearl told me, of course. The matter-of-fact older lady told me that her basement had no windows, which is why it was hard to find renters. The last one who tried only lasted a week, she said, before emphatically declaring the dark was like being buried alive, and they couldn’t take it anymore.
If the supposedly dangerous ghosts weren’t going to frighten me off, then the lack of windows wouldn’t do it. No windows meant fewer points of entry. Fewer points of entry meant being safe. I needed to feel safe. Plus, Madame Pearl had agreed to a month-to-month lease, which was the cherry on top. I never knew when I was going to need to move again. My small futon and ever-dwindling pile of boxes were a testament to the fact that I was learning to live lightly.
Shuffling across the cold cement floor, I come to the sink and splash some water on my face. I have to get to work soon. My dream job as a singer at a jazz burlesque club. I’d already done morning rehearsal with the band, learning a few new songs and reordering the program. Then I came home via a long circuitous route before taking my pre-work nap. Dinner clubs are a late-night kind of animal, and bags under my eyes don't exactly sell the glamorous fantasy people come to La Couronne Bleu to experience.
I grab my purse as I slip into my sneakers. I’m wearing running shorts and a loose t-shirt, still rumpled from my nap. Once upon a time, I would have worn some strappy heels and a sundress to promenade through the Quarter on my way to work. I would have greeted old friends and maybe stopped to admire some buskers on the street. I once enjoyed feeling cute and breezy when the world was an exciting and lovely place. Not anymore. Now, I need speed more than anything. I need to be able to take off at a moment's notice. A casual stroll is a thing of the past, and after moving for the third time in three months, I don’t know anyone in the neighborhood and don’t intend on introducing myself to the locals.
I head to the door, unbolting the five deadbolts I asked Madame Pearl to install before I moved in, before undoing the chain. Then I stop. I breathe. I brace myself. I look out my little peephole. No one’s standing in my stairwell. I should feel relief, but I know things aren’t over yet. But I have to get going, or I’ll be late to curtain and Bruno, the theater owner, will have my ass. So, I open the door and step out. It takes a bit to lock all my deadbolts, but I’m not taking any chances that I’ll have any unwelcome surprises waiting for me when I get back. I would get a security system if I could afford one, but after breaking two leases in the last three months, I’m absolutely flat broke.
I climb up the concrete steps into the back alley behind Madame Pearl’s store and swiftly move to the front. I'm taking a long way today, a crazy, curving route I figured out on Google, so I don’t have any time to stand around.
I rush through the city. At one time, New Orleans enchanted me, and I would have been looking at everything as I went, but now I just walk with my head down, occasionally glancing behind me, making sure that I’m not being followed. I must look like a nervous, paranoid wreck to other passersby, but I don’t care. Anyway, that’s what I am now.
About halfway through my route, I start to relax. I haven’t noticed any familiar faces, no one waiting to cross the road with me, and none of the telltale signs of a PI. I have gotten unhappily acquainted with those signs. But everything looks fine, normal even. No one even gives me a second glance. I stop to lace up my shoe, which has gotten loose, when the voice of my nightmares breaks into the silence.
“Andi, my darling. What a surprise.”
I rear back, my shoe forgotten, to see Colton, standing in the middle of the sidewalk. He looks like he always does, suave and handsome, perfectly and expertly coiffed in the way only the extremely wealthy can be. He smiles at me, perfect, white teeth almost glowing in the late evening sun. He holds two coffee to-go cups and reaches out to offer one to me. My heart jumps into my throat. Without saying anything, I turn and run, darting down the pavement, weaving in and out of pedestrians. He shouts after me, but my brain isn’t working well enough to register what he says.
He’s here. Oh, god, he’s here. On this side of town. Only a week after I moved from the last place. He found me. Even though I was careful and cautious and watchful and went to and from work using new routes every goddamn time, he found me.
The animal part of my brain takes over, running along random roads, taking random turns, dodging this way and that. I almost crash into a few people who swear at me as I careen past them, but I don’t care. He’s found me, and I have to get away.
When I finally calm down, I look behind me, practically expecting him to have kept up with me, to be right behind me, but he’s not. There’s no sign of him. I check the other side of the street and in front of me as well, expecting him to just appear, but he’s gone. This time, he didn’t decide to pursue me. This time.
With trembling hands, I reach into my purse and get my old phone. It has a hairline crack in the screen, and it has a hard time connecting to data, but it’s what I have. I pull up my map and wait for it to tell me where I am. It takes maybe a full minute to compute, and when it does, I groan. I ran in the opposite direction of the theater, and even if I sprint, I’m going to be late. Very late. And there’s a saying in show-business: “Early is on time, on time is late, late is fired.” I try not to let the frisson of fear at the thought of showing up late, again, go down my spine. It’ll be fine. I’ll run, and it’ll be fine.
Without thinking too hard about what’s waiting for me at work, I check my route and break into a sprint.
I won’t be late. I won’t. I won’t.
Chapter 2
Andi
I’m late. But not too badly. I check the time, and I still have a few minutes before my act is supposed to be on stage. I’m dripping with sweat, but I can still make it. Still running, my lungs screaming, I enter through the backstage door. I pass a blur of people before getting to the costume room. The stern costume mistress, Judy, looks up at me from her seat where she’s repairing a beaded dress.
“You’re late, sweetheart,” she chides.
“I know, I know,” I gasp. “Where’s my dress?”
Wordlessly, Judy points at a garment bag, judgment in her eyes, but I ignore her and immediately strip down. I’m wearing beige-colored shapewear under my jogging clothes, so it’s not like I’m naked in front of her. Not that it would be the first time that I’d needed to strip down in front of people for a costume change. The shapewear is for modesty’s sake alone, as it’s a little baggy on me. I’ve gone down a size, the stress from my current situation eating at me and taking my appetite. I yank my beautiful red costume dress on and zip it up. It, too, is a little loose now. I’d ask Judy to tighten it, but she’d just tell me to eat a burger and bitch about it until I drop the issue. Not that I’d really blame her. She’s one costume mistress for an entire cabaret’s worth of glitzy costumes. Her hands are full enough without me adding to her workload.
Zipped into my red evening gown, I nod my thanks at Judy, grab my street clothes, and rush out, heading to the dressing room to put my makeup on.
The dressing room is one long hallway lined with mirrors and tiny tables, only big enough to spread out some makeup. It’s connected to the wings backstage, with only a door and a short corridor separating us from being onstage. We each have assigned mirrors, and I’ve decorated mine with pictures of famous jazz performers and makeup inspirations.
