A Summons to New Orleans (3 page)

Of course, she wasn’t naïve. She had always known but had not wanted to know, would have done anything to avoid facing what was heading toward her at the pace and height of a tidal wave.

But a waitress? A
waitress?
Okay, a graduate student at UVA, but that didn’t make it any better. When she had learned the truth, the cliché of it had bothered her more than anything.

“You’re more creative than that, aren’t you?” she had asked Cliff. “Fucking a student? Jesus, aren’t you even embarrassed? Don’t you have a shred of dignity left?”

Apparently not.

I must not let this whole thing bring me down to his level,
Nora thought as she continued to meander along Bourbon Street. She should see this outing as an awakening, a new part of her journey. Trouble was, she hated her journey. She had always hated journeys and until four months ago had figured
she was through with hers. She disliked emotional growth. She didn’t want to do this anymore, didn’t want to discover anything else about herself. Her new therapist said she should see this change as an opportunity.

“You don’t understand,” Nora had told her. “I saw my later years as a freedom from opportunity. I thought I was through with all that. I was looking forward to the resolution. I hated my youth. I hated all that soul-searching. I wanted to find the good parking space in life. I wanted to be settled.”

“Life isn’t like that,” her therapist had assured her. “You are constantly evolving, or should be.”

“Then, when the hell do you rest?”

“When you’re dead, I suppose,” her terminally cheerful therapist had replied.

“But you can’t enjoy it then.”

“Well, Nora, you’ve never really seemed to enjoy your life. Isn’t that true?”

It was true. Nora didn’t think life was something to be enjoyed. It was something to be endured. But she didn’t think this really set her apart much from the rest of the human race.

But now, as she made her way down Bourbon Street, deflecting the glances of strange men, men of all ages and sizes and degrees of inebriation, she wondered if she could even contemplate dating. What would that look like? A guy would call her up and ask her to dinner, and she’d hire a baby-sitter and explain the situation to her kids, and then she’d go with him to some cheap Italian restaurant and they’d pretend to love the linguine with clam sauce and talk about their upbringings and what they majored in in college. They’d talk about their failed marriages and their kids, and maybe they’d take a walk down the street and have ice cream, and they’d pretend to feel all young and carefree because they were eating
mint chocolate chip, which they claimed never to indulge in, and they’d talk about how much better music was in their day and maybe, later, at her front door, they would kiss. Oh, God, what would it feel like to kiss? She hadn’t kissed a man in years. She and Cliff did not kiss anymore. Occasionally, their lips would collide, their faces sliding away from each other as they struggled to make love. And they did struggle toward the end, pursuing it like some tiresome but necessary exercise. It was like the Lifecycle at the gym. You dreaded it, then liked it a little, then finally it was over. And when it was over, she appreciated the sweat and the effort and she felt noble, as if she had gone to church, done a good deed.

Finally settling on a bar, she ordered a hurricane, the city’s must-have drink, and sipped it, standing on the street, watching people go past. The atmosphere reminded her of college, or Easters in particular. Sometimes when she thought of the Charlottesville of her college days, it seemed like a completely different place than where she lived now. She felt disconnected from the UVA students now. They all seemed so young and serious. Was she like that? Did she ever take college seriously? She did her work, she made her plans, she was responsible. But serious? She was serious about everything now, it seemed. Particularly her children. She didn’t miss them, she realized, as she stood there watching the revelers. She needed a break from them, needed to escape the feeling that they were her sole purpose in life. There was a whole entire phase of her life when children didn’t enter her consciousness, didn’t influence her at all. She had had one abortion in college (not thanks to Cliff, nor anyone in particular, just some guy), and she never thought about that child, never mourned its loss, didn’t even think of it as a child, in fact. Thought of it as a bad weekend.

Was she evil? Was she bad not to think of her dead child?

The drink went right to her head, and she decided to walk back to her hotel. She wanted to get in the bathtub and feel sorry for herself. She walked until she reached St. Ann, and she turned down it and started toward her hotel on Chartres. There was one stretch of street, beyond the hotels, that was quiet and empty. And just as she approached it, she saw two men walking in her direction. Her heart sped up and she thought she might die. She thought about crossing the street but it was too late. They were upon her.

“Excuse me,” one said, “do you know what time it is?”

She looked around and could see no one near her.
How stupid is this,
she thought,
turning a corner and walking into this kind of danger. I have children at home.

The men looked harmless, barely twenty, black, clean-cut, and she thought,
All criminals probably look harmless.
She recalled a self-defense class she had taken that had instructed her never to respond to a stranger’s question, particularly if it was about the time. That was an old trap. She crossed the street, but they crossed it with her.

“Did you hear me?” one of the men said. “We wanted to know if you had the time?”

“No,” Nora said.

“No? That looks like a watch right there on your arm.”

“Well, actually, yes, but it’s on Virginia time, which is an hour later, so it wouldn’t be correct.”

They stared at her as if she might be too stupid to rob.

Suddenly a sound came through, the blaring of a car horn. They all looked up. A car swerved in their direction, pulling up almost on the sidewalk. It was a cab, and the driver jumped out and said, “You need a ride?”

“Yes,” Nora said.

He opened the back door for her and she got in.

“Jesus, lady,” he said. “You were about to be mugged. Don’t you know that?”

Nora didn’t know what to say. She thought perhaps she could have talked them out of it, and she was strangely disappointed that she didn’t get the opportunity.

The cab driver looked like Orson Welles in
Citizen Kane.
He had a wide forehead and black hair (retreating), and that wide, round baby face with intense dark eyes. Handsome in a babyish kind of way, and on the verge of becoming too heavy.

Could she date this man? Could she kiss him? she wondered irrationally.

“I’m only going two blocks,” she told him.

“That’s okay,” he said. He put the car in gear and pulled away. “Did someone tell you it was safe to walk in the Quarter at this hour?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” Nora said. She had neglected to ask anyone.

“Well, it’s not safe. Jesus, you tourists. This town is a nightmare. It’s a Balkan state, for God’s sake.”

She didn’t say anything. She was impressed by his knowledge of politics. As that thought was settling in her mind, she noticed a book on the front seat:
The Collected Works of Jung.

“Are you a student?” she asked.

“No. I’m a teacher.”

“You’re a teacher and a cab driver?”

“I’m a public school teacher. Now do you understand?”

“You’re pretty cranky, aren’t you?”

“I told you, I’m a public school teacher. In New Orleans. Moonlighting as a hack. Would you be cranky?”

“Why don’t you move if you hate it here?”

“Kid,” he said, lighting a cigarette.

“Boy?”

“Girl. Six. Lives with her mother. Mother wouldn’t leave here if there was a goddamned tsunami coming.”

“Well, that’s admirable,” she said. “I mean, that you won’t move away from your child. I have a six-year-old daughter, too.”

“Why the hell does your husband let you walk around New Orleans alone?”

“Because he’s fucking a waitress in Miami.”

That shut him up.

He dropped her off in front of the Collier House and gave her his card.
LEO GIRARDI,
it said.

“Thanks, Leo.”

“You ought to care enough about yourself to be careful,” he said.

She smiled. “I’ll think about that. It’s deep, but I’ve got a lot of time on my hands.”

3

T
he courtyard of the Collier House was beautiful, with the trickling slate fountain, the wrought-iron tables and chairs, flames flickering inside tiny votives, and wild, seemingly primitive greens growing up the sienna stone walls. Maybe it was her recent brush with violence, but the atmosphere had a deathlike quality to it. Not death the ugly way, though. Not death at the hands of pubescent muggers on a sidestreet. Death the way it was in literature, according to Thomas Mann or Faulkner or Byron. The place had the feeling of romantic decay, of poetic stagnation and virtuous descent. She found it exciting and invigorating. She thought that if she sat out here long enough, and perhaps smoked a cigarette, or a joint, she could write a poem. She had not done that in years.

Strangely, she was not particularly upset by her mishap on the street. She did not believe it, for one thing. Despite Leo Girardi’s harsh warnings, she simply couldn’t believe those men had been about to rob her. It was the small-town Virginian in her, but she still thought of muggers as being a lot more menacing than these boys. They didn’t have a weapon. One of the kids had on a Chicago Bulls sweatshirt, like the one her son had. Even if they had asked for her belongings, she had the sense that they would have done it as politely as possible. It was stupid to think that, of course, and she knew perfectly well that people who had never experienced violence had a hard time picturing it happening to them. A nimbus of disbelief surrounded her, and she was certain that that made her the perfect victim. She would have to try harder to feel afraid.

She did not want to go to her room yet. It was pleasant out in the courtyard, and the honor bar looked inviting, all those different-colored bottles glistening under a pale yellow light. She contemplated the selection and finally poured herself a gin and tonic, which seemed fitting. She dropped a slice of lemon in it and licked her fingers, and stared up at the stars, which were out in force, sharp pinpoints of light across a violet-black sky. She felt young, suddenly, and it occurred to her that something good could happen to her.

She walked to the back of the courtyard to be nearer to the fountain, and as she turned a corner she noticed someone sitting at one of the tables. It was a woman, hunched over a book, reading in the dim light and sipping a glass of wine. A calico cat rubbed against the woman’s leg, and every now and then she reached down to pet it, never taking her eyes from the book.

Her hair was dark, turned under, kept away from her face by a hair band. She wore a dark suit with a short skirt, and her
legs were crossed, one of them swinging back and forth to an inaudible rhythm. She was slight yet imposing, and Nora knew right away that no one else could project that image. No one else could dominate a space that way, with so little effort, with so little stature.

“Poppy?” she said in a near-whisper.

The woman looked up, but slowly, as if she fully expected to hear her name spoken. For a long time she stared at Nora, without a sense of recognition.

“Oh, God,” she said. “Poppy, it’s me, Nora Braxton. Nora McCabe, I mean. From UVA?”

Poppy’s face came to life now, and she stood and said, “Nora? Why are you here? And why are you blond?”

Nora laughed, and they hugged, and swayed back and forth, patting each other between the shoulder blades. Poppy was still so slight, it was like hugging a child. Her perfume was instantly familiar. Her laugh sounded like the trickling water.

“I can’t believe it,” Poppy said, over and over.

“Me either,” Nora said. “Are you here because of Simone?”

“Sort of,” she said. “That’s why I’m at the hotel—because Simone asked me to come. She’s picking up the tab. It’s a ridiculous luxury because I live here now.”

“You
live
here?”

“I live in Metairie, just outside of town.”

“Since when?”

“Six months ago.”

“I thought you said you’d never come back here.”

“I said a lot of things,” Poppy admitted. “I was in college, Nora. You said you’d never dye your hair or have plastic surgery.”

“I didn’t have plastic surgery.”

“It looks good, though,” Poppy said, touching Nora’s hair lightly with her fingertips, as if afraid the color might come off on her hands. “How does Cliff like it?”

“Cliff and I are getting divorced.”

“Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

“Hence the hair,” she admitted. “I’m having a breakdown.”

“Well, if that’s the worst you do . . .”

“It’s the worst I’ve done yet. I make no promises.”

“Sit down,” Poppy said, gesturing, putting her book away.

They sat and stared at each other across the table, the candlelight making them both look younger than they were. And healthier, probably, Nora thought. She was certain she had dark circles under her eyes and broken blood vessels in her face, but she was hoping that she looked just as unblemished as Poppy did in this light. Poppy was still pretty in a way that scared her, for reasons she couldn’t name. Simone wasn’t like that. Simone was wispy and flighty and model-pretty, not a threat to anyone, just a pleasure to be around. But there was weight to Poppy, a significance to her that was subcutaneous and hard to define. Whereas Simone always made Nora feel free and adventurous, Poppy kept her anchored, reminded her of the importance of serving, eventually, a purpose of her own definition.

Had she done that yet? Other than procreating, had she put forth any theory in her life and set out to prove it? She doubted it, and for this reason it was a little bit difficult to meet Poppy’s clear, knowing gaze.

“Tell me everything,” Poppy said. “What the hell got into Cliff?”

“I don’t know. He made a lot of money? Started feeling old? Never should have married me in the first place? Take
your pick. Is it ever really that fascinating why men leave their wives?”

“Young meat is involved?”

“Twenty-eight, I think.”

“The bastard.”

“What are you gonna do?”

Nora shrugged, feigning a stoicism that was far from convincing.

“How long ago did this happen?”

“A few months. It still feels new. It isn’t the affair that I mind so much. It’s that he had to run away in shame, like a criminal. He left town owing money to the state of Virginia. Sixty thousand plus in back taxes. If he steps over the state line again, he’ll be arrested and do time.”

“You should turn him in.”

“I can’t afford to have my children humiliated that way.”

“But Nora, he betrayed the state of Virginia. What would Mr. Jefferson say about that?”

“Jefferson was a slave owner.”

“Don’t start with that.”

They laughed, and Nora was amazed to find she had a sense of humor about this living somewhere inside her, like a crack of light under the door.

“Do you hate him?” Poppy asked.

“Yes, I hate him,” Nora said. “Not just him, either. The gender at large. I even hate gay men. I hate women who
look
like men. I hate the Pope.”

“The Pope’s too easy.”

“Anyway, I’m trying not to stay there. It’s not a good place to be, hating men, because, of course, they are attached to penises. And I have always been a fan of those.”

“It’s the best place to go for a penis,” Poppy agreed.

“What about you?” Nora asked.

“I’m married,” Poppy said quickly, as if to get it over with. Nora tried not to look surprised, because she knew Poppy wanted her to take it in stride. But it was hard to do. Among other things Nora remembered from their days in college, Poppy had vowed never to get married.

“Really?” Nora said evenly. “Tell me about him.”

“He’s in New York,” Poppy answered. “We’re separated.”

“I’m sorry. How long . . .”

“Five years,” she said. “That we’ve been married. Only six months apart. I’m not sure we’ll get divorced, but probably. He doesn’t want to, but . . .”

Her voice trailed off and she sipped her wine, staring into it, then dipping her tongue into it like a child. Nora watched and waited. She didn’t know what to ask, or where to look.

“No children,” Poppy said. That was obviously the next thing to ask. “You and Cliff had some, didn’t you?”

“I have a girl, six, and a boy, thirteen.”

“That’s good.”

Nora shrugged. “Well, I’m not a great mother. But they’re pretty good kids, so . . . I guess I’m not the worst, either.”

“You always downplay your abilities, Nora. Why did you do that? You know how capable you are. Everyone knows it.”

Nora looked at her, a little stung by what sounded like a criticism. It was odd, the way it came out, flat and undeniable, as if it were something they had often discussed, though she couldn’t remember ever doing so. In fact, she did not think of herself as someone who downplayed her abilities. She thought of herself as someone who had no particular abilities to play down. And even as she had that thought, she realized they were the same affliction.

“I don’t know,” Nora said. “Do you think that’s my tragic flaw?”

Poppy smiled. “I’m not sure. Let me think about it.”

She looked away and drummed her fingers on the table. The fountain trickled, keeping time like a clock ticking. When Poppy looked back at Nora, she was not smiling. She said, “I think your tragic flaw is your sense of equation.”

“My what?” Nora said, stifling a laugh, uncertain if she was supposed to find this funny.

“Things need to equate in your world. You’ve always been that way. That’s what you’ve always pursued. And you’re not going to find it because it’s not there. The world is in a state of imbalance.”

“I don’t understand what you mean. I need things to be fair, I guess. Everyone wants that.”

“But not everyone expects it.”

“You’re the one who turned someone in for violating the honor code.”

“That was a matter of
honor,”
Poppy said. “That’s different from fairness.”

“How?”

“Oh, I can’t explain it right now. Maybe ever. It’s something I understand because of having grown up here.”

“New Orleans? The most corrupt place on the planet?”

“Honor and corruption are vital to each other.”

Nora downed the last of her gin and tonic and began chewing the ice. It was a nervous habit. Poppy was making her nervous, but in a good way, causing her to feel agitated and alive and ready to debate.

But now that she was engaged, ready to pursue these issues, these criticisms, Poppy yawned and stretched.

“I have to go to bed now,” she said. “I need my energy for facing Simone tomorrow. We both do. You know she’ll have us on plantation tours or at the Rock ‘n’ Bowl or hang gliding or something. There’s no escaping that girl’s energy.”

“I’m really glad to see you, Poppy. Simone didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“She likes surprises, doesn’t she?”

They hugged and kissed, and walked in opposite directions across the courtyard to their rooms, agreeing to meet for breakfast at the same place in the morning.

When Nora walked into her room it was freezing cold, the air conditioner blasting. She turned it off and put on a sweater and sat on the edge of her four-poster bed, wondering why she felt uneasy. It was something Poppy had said. Not about her tragic flaw. She didn’t really care if wanting things to be just and equitable was her tragic flaw. She’d cop to that any day. She saw the same instinct in her own daughter and felt glad that she might have passed that on to her. The only thing she was really afraid of was being devoid of virtue.

But maybe that was it. Poppy had informed her that honor was different from fairness, in a way that made it clear that honor held dominion over the other. In that context, the need for fairness sounded like a superficial concern, a childish pursuit. Someone playing in the sandbox of virtue, while the true defenders were elsewhere, defending the beachhead, surrounded and undaunted by the struggle.

She picked up the phone and dialed her mother’s number. Boo sounded frightened when she answered.

“Hello, Mother? It’s me. What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” came Boo’s gravelly voice, already angry and accusatory. “It’s way past eleven. Have you lost your mind?”

Nora glanced at her watch, surprised that it was so late, albeit an hour earlier than back in Virginia. Where had the evening gone?

“I’m sorry, Mom. I just went walking around, and then I ran into my old friend Poppy Marchand . . .”

“Walking around? In New Orleans? What kind of fool did I raise?”

“I’m in the Quarter, Mother. It’s safe here.” Shame flooded her as she thought about her encounter with the two men on the street, hating the notion that her mother could be right about something.

“All right, sister. You just keep waltzing around, acting like the world owes you a favor, and see what happens.”

“How are the kids?”

“Well, I don’t know. They’re asleep. They waited all night for you to call, and eventually I just had to say you probably got busy and you’d call in the morning. Annette was pouting when I put her to bed. And Michael? That boy is out of control, Nora Kay. He might need professional help.”

Nora felt nauseous and dizzy, thinking of her children sitting by the phone waiting to hear from her. How could she have neglected them? Further evidence, she thought, that she was starting to lose control of herself. There was a time when she could not even bear to be away from them. Years when she and Cliff would go out to dinner or a party, and she’d run to the nearest phone to check on them. It irritated Cliff; he thought she was overly connected to them.

“Do you really think they can’t cope without you?” he would ask. “My God, Nora, how will they ever evolve into fully-functioning adults? You act like they’re disabled in your absence. That’s a form of ego, you know. Megalomania.”

This topic had come up in couples counseling many times. Nora was too connected to the kids, he claimed, and she countered that he was too disconnected. The therapist said both of them were right, to a degree. Nora used to sit there thinking,
If we are this much at odds and both right, then we shouldn’t he together.
She wished she had said that, at least once, so that Cliff’s departure wouldn’t hang in the air like the last word.