Paula Morris (11 page)

From her seat in the café, she could keep an eye on at least one
of the cemetery's entrances. Maybe, just maybe, she'd see Lisette again. Was
she
really
a ghost? Did the dead really haunt their old familiar places?
And did that mean Rebecca's

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own mother might he wandering somewhere, with nobody to talk to
but other ghosts and random strangers?

Rebecca fingered the postcard, wishing it was the family photo
that had mysteriously disappeared from her wallet. In an e-mail, she'd asked
her father about it: He'd played dumb, saying that it must have fallen out
somewhere. Maybe he was right. But without the picture, Rebecca felt as though
her mother's face was fading somehow. She didn't remember her at all: Millie
Brown had died when Rebecca was a toddler, knocked over by a speeding car while
she crossed a Paris street, Rebecca in her arms. Her mother was killed
instantly. Rebecca had somehow rolled to safety and had no memory of the
accident at all.

And now no photograph of her mother and father.

She set the postcard on the table, next to her plastic bottle of
water, and started rummaging in her bag for her history homework. Someone was
dragging the spare chair away from her table -- she could hear them! -- without
even having the courtesy to ask her if that was OK.

"Hey!" she said irritably, sitting up. These girls
prided themselves on being Young Ladies, but this was kind of rude....

Oh.

The person pulling the chair away wasn't a young lady. It was
Anton Grey.

"Hey-- Rebecca, isn't it?" He smiled at her and held out
his hand. "Anton Grey. We didn't get to shake hands last time."

"No -- I guess we didn't." Rebecca took his hand,
feeling shy all of a sudden, aware that the eyes of all the Temple Mead girls
in the place were boring into her right now. It

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felt extremely weird to be holding Anton Grey's hand across the
table, and he must have felt the same way: He pulled his away sharply, and
Rebecca felt her face flushing.

"Do you mind if I sit down?" he said. So he wasn't
taking the chair away: He was pulling it back from the table so he could sit
down. Rebecca swallowed hard.

"Go ahead," she said, trying to sound casual and
wondering why it was such an effort.

"I hope I'm not interrupting your homework," he said, a
smile flickering: There weren't any books on her table at all. Just the
postcard, which Anton was eyeing with interest. Rebecca swiped it off the table
and dropped it into her bag.

"It can wait." She shrugged, and then she didn't know
what else to say. The café seemed very quiet all of a sudden. Rebecca wished
she had some bubble tea, so she could suck on the straw instead of grasping for
some sensible and interesting conversation. All she could do was stare at the
bottled water sitting on the table -- you had to buy
something
here to
justify taking up a table for ninety minutes -- and try not to fixate on the
polished brass buttons on Anton's school blazer.

"Miss Claudia was pretty mad on Friday," Anton said,
picking at one of the buttons: He must have noticed her staring. "I hope
you didn't get in too much trouble."

"Oh, no," said Rebecca quickly. She glanced up at him.
His cheeks were rosy; maybe it was just stuffy in here. His eyes were intensely
dark, almost black, and his lashes, she thought, were as long as a girl's. But
his face was too lean to be pretty, and across his chin, following the line of
his jaw, were the faint white traces of a scar.

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"I wouldn't have locked the gate if ... you know." He
smiled at her apologetically.

"It's OK," she told him, embarrassed to be talking about
it still. What she didn't want was Anton asking her why she was in the cemetery
that night. "My aunt worries about me because I'm new in town."

"From New York, yeah?" Anton's face brightened, and
Rebecca was relieved to talk about something else for a while. He seemed very
interested in hearing all about the city, a place he'd visited just once, when
he was a child. He had lots of questions for her -- about her school, and
places she hung out, and where her apartment was.

"At this time of year, you can see one of the ice rinks in
Central Park from our living room window," she told him. "I go there
nearly every weekend. Or, at least, I went there. I guess I won't be doing much
ice-skating this winter."

"That sucks," he said, and she told him about her father
working in China for months and months. "That postcard you were looking at
-- that was China, right?"

She nodded.

"That's another place I'd really like to go. Too bad you
couldn't go with your dad."

"I know," she said, glancing at the whispering Plebs
with distaste: Amy's eyes looked ready to pop out of her head. Going to school
in China would be beyond hard, but at least she'd be far, far away from the
Roman class system.

"Well, there are some cool things that go on here over the
winter. You know, once the parades start. Before that, there are lots of
parties and dances and ..."

His voice trailed off, and Rebecca felt uncomfortable

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again. He was probably thinking how Rebecca wouldn't be invited to
any of these parties. What was it Aunt Claudia had said?
They're part of a
different world.

"But it's not exactly New York, I guess." His grin was
rueful. "Hey, do you want a coffee or something?"

"I don't really drink coffee," Rebecca told him.
Personally, she thought spending the better part of five dollars on some
frothy, sweetened coffee drink at Starbucks was a total waste of money, and she
would always tease her self-proclaimed coffee-addict friends in New York for
trying too hard to be adults.

"Neither do I," Anton admitted. "And that bubble
tea stuff-- I just don't get it."

"I get enough tea at home," said Rebecca. She glanced
over to one of the window tables, where all the girls were sucking intently on
straws, staring over at Rebecca and Anton as though they were exhibits at the
zoo. She lowered her voice. "Aunt Claudia is nuts about anything herbal,
and the more it looks like hedge clippings, the more she likes it."

"My mother's the same! She thinks it speeds up her metabolism
or something."

They talked for a while longer, long enough for Rebecca to find
out a few things about Anton: He was an only child; his father ran the family
law firm downtown; before the storm, Anton had a small sailboat at the docks on
Lake Pontchartrain, but it had been smashed to pieces and sunk by the wind and
the waves.

"I haven't been out to the lake at all," Rebecca told
him. "I haven't even been to Audubon Park yet."

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She hadn't done much sightseeing of any kind, partly because Aunt
Claudia was busier than ever on weekends now that convention season was in full
swing, and partly because nobody at school ever invited her anywhere. She'd
been down to the Quarter a few times with her aunt, wandering its pretty, narrow
streets and browsing in the little stores, or exploring the museum and the
cathedral, while her aunt told fortunes on Jackson Square. There was so much to
see down there -- balconies and courtyards, buskers and artists. She didn't
need to hang out at dull parties with stupid girls.

"The streetcar's running along St. Charles again," Anton
said, almost as though he was thinking aloud. "Maybe we could take a ride
to the park sometime?"

"Sure," Rebecca said quickly. Aunt Claudia had told her
to have nothing to do with Anton, but he seemed friendly and straight-up, not
like Helena and Marianne. Apart from Lisette, he was the only person in New
Orleans who'd seemed interested in talking with her. And he probably knew all
sorts of things about the families who owned those grand mansions along St.
Charles Avenue: It would be an insider's tour.

And, she had to admit, he was really cute.

"How about tomorrow, after school?" Anton suggested.
"We could go now, but I've got this tutor who comes to the house. My
parents are obsessed about me getting into Tulane."

He rolled his eyes.

"Sure -- whenever," she said. Aunt Claudia didn't have
to know about this. Nobody had to know, in fact.

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"I'll meet you ... on the corner of St. Charles and Sixth
Street," he told Rebecca. So maybe he didn't want anyone to see them,
either, she thought. "And we'll be back before ..."

Before someone wondered where they were. Rebecca understood. Aunt
Claudia didn't want her to spend time with Anton, and maybe Anton's family
didn't want him hanging around with someone like Rebecca. They probably thought
Aunt Claudia was some kind of gypsy or witch, her small tumbledown house
lowering the tone of the neighborhood. Not every house in the Garden District
was a mansion, but even the smaller houses were perfectly manicured -- and none
of them had a "cottage" garden.

"I'll see you then," she said, so he didn't have to
finish the sentence.

After Anton left the café, Rebecca tried to get on with some
homework, but her mind was bouncing around. A lot of the whispering and
giggling going on at the window tables was directed her way, she knew. The
weird girl from New York had been sitting with
the
Anton Grey; they'd
been talking for half an hour! What was up with that? How could she possibly
know him? Why had he come looking for her in the Café Lafayette? What made
her
so special?

Rebecca drained the last of her water and packed up her books,
trying to suppress a smile. Let them all talk, she thought. She didn't even
care if it got back to Helena and Marianne. It would give them another reason
to dislike her, but that was OK. She didn't need them to like her. Soon it
would be Christmas; before too long after that it would be Easter. The end of
the school year would roll around, and she'd be out of New Orleans. They'd live
and die here.

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***

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

***

By the next day, the weather had turned into something approaching
a New York November, cool and gusty. Wind blew leaves and litter across the
street, the giant oak trees rustling and whispering to each other. Rebecca
rushed home from school, pulling her blazer tight around her, glad that Aurelia
and Claire were staying late for choir practice so she wouldn't have to
explain
anything.

From the hook behind her bedroom door, Rebecca pulled out her pale
blue suede jacket; she tugged on a pair of jeans and the gray cashmere sweater
she bought at the last J.Crew sale. She stuffed her phone, keys, and a tight
bundle of cash into her jacket pockets, just in case: There was no need for a
bag. Maybe she could take some photos on her cell phone and send them to her
father or to her friends; maybe she could even take a picture of Anton. She had
to do
something
to keep in touch with her New York friends: After just a
couple of weeks away, Rebecca was only getting occasional texts and e-mails.
Everyone was busy with school, busy with their lives. She wasn't part of that
world anymore.

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The wind blew the front door shut when she stepped onto the porch:
It was blowing up from the river, bringing with it that strange, dirty New
Orleans smell -- a little of garbage, a little of mold, a little of overripe
fruit or a blossom rotting on the ground, overlaid with the tang of grease and
sea. At this very moment, that wind was probably blowing Aunt Claudia's tarot
cards all over Jackson Square.

Out of habit, on her way past the cemetery's open gates, Rebecca
glanced in, just in case, hoping -- as ever -- to spot Lisette. It was usually
closed on weekday afternoons, but today the gates were wide-open, a City Parks
van parked on the central path.

And there
she
was, walking along the central pathway, her
back to Rebecca.

"Lisette!" It was so long since Rebecca had seen her.
Anton could wait: She
had
to talk to the ghost -- if that's what Lisette
really, truly was.

The torn tail of her skirt dragging along the ground, her long
black braid bobbing, Lisette turned off the path and disappeared behind a row
of towering white vaults. Maybe she was headed for the Bowman tomb, Rebecca
thought, jogging after her along a cracked concrete path. A small tour group
was wandering out through the Washington Avenue gate, pointing at the bold
striped awning of Commander's Palace restaurant. There was nobody else around,
apart from a groundsman wearing soundproof earmuffs and swinging a power
trimmer, oblivious to Lisette's presence, nodding at Rebecca as she passed.

Approaching the Bowman tomb, Rebecca
^-
jumped over a
wizened tree root; she skidded to a halt on the worn grassy

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path and stepped over the low rusted railings, looking for
Lisette. Her friend was huddled at the back of the tomb, just the shards of her
skirt visible from the pathway.

"I've been looking for you!" Rebecca exclaimed,
clambering around the vault. Untouched by the weak, late-afternoon sun, its
sheer sides were cold to the touch.