Unbroken (20 page)

“They fixing everything up for Jazz Fest tomorrow,” Raf told Rebecca. “Some of the suits got torn and messed up on St. Joseph’s, and then my aunt’s grandbabies decided they want to mask with the rest of the tribe at Jazz Fest, so everyone’s sewing.”

“I can’t sew but I can use a glue gun,” said Rebecca, and soon she was seated at the table, decorating staffs for the children to carry. This wouldn’t bring her any closer to rescuing the locket, but at least she could sit down for a while.

She didn’t want to ask a million questions, but Ling, sitting on the floor, wasn’t quite so shy. They spent all year working on new “suits,” Raf’s father said, in time for Mardi Gras, and then they wore them again on St. Joseph’s Day, otherwise known as Super Sunday.

“For some Indians, that’s all,” he told them. “A year of paying and sewing for two days of wearing. But you’ll see us tomorrow at Jazz Fest. Everyone looking real pretty.”

“So during Mardi Gras you have a big parade?” Ling asked. Raf’s father shook his head and grinned, looking just like Raf.

“We’re out on the backstreets,” he said. “You gotta come find us. You gotta come to our neighborhood.”

“I never go to parades.” Aunt Cissy bit on a pin.

“Sometimes I catch a bit of Zulu up on Broad,” said Aunt Angela. “But otherwise I’d never walk out to watch a Mardi Gras parade.”

“Why?” asked Ling, threading another needle and pinning it, yellow thread dangling, onto the cushioned back of an armchair.

“My daddy got himself beaten right out there on Canal Street,” Raf’s grandfather said, “for daring to stand and watch a parade. And people want to know why we make our own carnival?”

Rebecca couldn’t believe how quickly the time passed. She was concentrating so hard, it was impossible to think about anything but the task at hand — even if Aunt Cissy’s grandbaby looked profoundly unimpressed with Rebecca’s decoration of her staff. Before long her phone was buzzing; her father had pulled up outside in a cab, and it was time to say good-bye.

Raf’s father walked out with them, and Rebecca’s dad climbed out of the cab, which was stopped on the other side of the street. The two men stood in the road, talking. Raf had followed them out of the house as well, and he grabbed Rebecca’s arm at the bottom of the stairs.

“I really want to help you,” he said in a low voice. “But it just sounds too …” He shook his head.

“I understand,” Rebecca told him, though she wished he would change his mind.

“Can’t your dad help you? Doesn’t he know people who could stop the demolition?”

“Maybe,” Rebecca agreed.

“Because on the one hand you got an old white guy — no offense — who can talk to people at City Hall. And on the other you got a black kid from the Sixth Ward trying to smash his way into a house. Which you think is better?”

“Ready?” Rebecca’s father called to them, shaking Raf’s father’s hand. Ling was trotting along the sidewalk, chasing a drifting yellow feather.

“Well — see you,” Rebecca wished Raf would change his mind, but there wasn’t any time left to persuade him. She stepped into the road, waiting for Ling to catch up.

“Look for us at Jazz Fest tomorrow afternoon!” Raf called. “And wear some rain boots!”

Rebecca had turned back to smile at him when she heard the screech of a car. The sound came out of nowhere. One minute the street was quiet; the next she was deafened by the roar of someone accelerating toward them at top speed. Someone grabbed her arm and tugged, sending her staggering back onto the curb. She was conscious of a flash of silver metal, of Raf’s father shouting.

“Lunatic!” Ling was shrieking. “Becca, are you OK? That
guy was parked just down there and then all of a sudden he swerves out and …”

“I think your dad got hit,” Raf said, and he took off across the road. A nauseous panic swirled through Rebecca: Her Dad? Hit? She couldn’t even see him.

“Dad!” she cried. Where was he? How could this all have happened so quickly?

“I’m OK!” called out a creaky voice, and she ran toward it blindly. Raf and his father were leaning over her own father’s prone form. He was sprawled on the ground, clutching his ankle, and looked white as a sheet.

“That crazy fool nearly killed you,” Raf’s father was saying.

“I got out of the way in time,” said Rebecca’s dad, wincing with pain. “Think I just twisted my ankle. Don’t cry, honey. Everything’s fine.”

He smiled up at Rebecca, but it looked more like a grimace. She rubbed away her hot tears and tried to breathe. He was OK. They were all OK. Still, Rebecca couldn’t stop shaking. Something very bad could just have happened to her father, to any of them.

Ling was by her side, a supportive arm around Rebecca’s waist. Rebecca was conscious of people out of their houses now, up and down the street, people standing on their porches, more men coming forward to help.

“This child needs to sit down,” Miss Angela was saying, and Rebecca allowed herself to be led back to the stoop. Her nerves
felt torn to shreds. Someone was handing her a dewy glass of iced tea, and Ling slid onto the step beside her.

“Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?” Ling asked, and Miss Angela looked at her as though she were speaking in Mandarin.

“I tried to see the license plate,” Ling told Rebecca in a low voice, “but it all happened way too fast. I did see
something
, though.”

“Something?” Rebecca sipped at her tea. It was insanely sweet, but it was making her feel better. Across the street two men were hoisting up her father, carrying him to a plastic chair on the sidewalk.

“Some
one
,” Ling muttered. “Didn’t you say that kid Toby Sutton has red hair?”

Rebecca nodded, and took another gulp of tea. She looked at Ling, knowing exactly what she was going to say.

“That was all I saw,” Ling told her. “The driver was a young guy with red hair. You know, if he wants to drive around trying to kill people, he should at least have the sense to wear a hat or something.”

Toby Sutton didn’t have any sense, Rebecca thought. That’s what Anton kept telling her. He was deranged right now. Doing things that only a deranged person would do.

Raf’s father, who’d sent the cab away, insisted on driving them back to the Quarter in his van. When they got there, he helped Rebecca’s dad hobble into the house on Orleans Street. The foot wasn’t broken, Raf’s dad said; the assembled medical
opinion on Marais Street had reached that verdict, and Rebecca’s father agreed. Miss Angela had sent them home with some pain tablets and a few bags of frozen vegetables to use as ice packs.

After Raf’s father left, Rebecca bustled around getting her father comfortable.

“I’ll call Anton and tell him we can’t go to the dance,” she said, but her father shook his head.

“I’ll be fine.” He lay on the sofa with his foot up on two pillows, a glass of water and some painkillers next to him on the coffee table. “I just need some rest this evening. You need to go out and have a good time. Forget all this. What are you going to do — sit around the house, moping? And what about the boys?”

Ling gave Rebecca a hard look. Rebecca knew what her friend was thinking:
What about the locket
?

Rebecca bristled at the thought of seeing Toby; all of the stress of the last few hours had hardened into an indignant rage. She wanted to smack him in the face.

“You go start getting ready, Ling,” Rebecca’s dad said. “You, too, Rebecca. Go on! Those boys’ll be here soon.”

“I’m going to get you the ice pack,” Rebecca told her father. “And I’m calling Aunt Claudia!”

“You don’t need to do that,” her father argued. “Just leave me a bag of chips and the remote. I’ll be fine.”

Ling went back to their little building to shower, and Rebecca pulled a bag of frozen corn out of the freezer.

“Honey?” her father called.

“Are you OK, Dad?” Rebecca walked back in brandishing the bag of frozen corn, wrapped in a dishtowel. “Really, please let me call Aunt Claudia.”

“I’m fine — really. I was just going to say that I think you girls may have to go to Jazz Fest without me tomorrow. We’ll see how I feel in the morning, but if it’s a sprain I should keep off it. Now go put on those expensive dresses, OK?”

Up in her room, Rebecca shook out the green dress and then trudged to the bathroom for the briefest of showers. She thought about her conversation with Raf, just before Toby had pulled his stunt. There was no point now telling her father about the actual locket, the one in the house in Tremé, or asking for his help. They were only in New Orleans for another day and a half, and it looked as though he’d be spending all that time lying half asleep on the sofa.

Rebecca slipped on the green dress, noting again how flattering the color was. But this time she didn’t feel excited or glamorous. She brushed out her tangled hair, hoping it didn’t look too frizzy. She was slipping on Anton’s locket when Ling peeked into the room, looking fabulous in her short black dress.

“Yikes,” Ling said, walking in with her makeup bag. “I wonder why Anton’s mom thought that would look so good with your dress?”

“Very funny,” said Rebecca. The locket chain was too long and way too heavy.

“You could hang a pocket watch from that chain,” Ling observed. “And the locket is huge. Maybe you could keep your lipstick in it?”

“The main thing is that it’s old,” said Rebecca, “so Toby believes it could have belonged to Lisette.”

Ling peered into Rebecca’s mirror and dabbed some glittery eye shadow on her lids. “Is Anton sure he’ll turn up tonight? What if he just tries to run you down again?”

“I hope he’s waiting for us when we arrive,” Rebecca said, reaching over to pull a container of blush out of Ling’s bag.

“And then we can beat him up, right?”

“I wish.”

“Hurry up then!” Ling commanded, passing Rebecca a tube of lip gloss. “The boys’ll be here soon. And you want to look stunning in front of all the Temple Mead dumb — what does Aurelia call them?”

“Dumb Debs. Give me some of that glitter.”

They checked on Rebecca’s father, who was contently watching The History Channel while icing his ankle. When the doorbell buzzed, Rebecca went to open the gate for Anton and Phil.

But only Phil was standing there, looking slightly more grown-up than she remembered him. He was wearing a blazer and khakis, and reeked of aftershave.

“Anton’s in the car,” he explained. “He’s illegally parked just up there, so if you guys are ready?”

“I’ll go get Ling.” Rebecca leaned out to see where Anton was waiting. A black BMW, its brake lights bright, was stopped a little way up the street.

As they approached, Anton got out of the car, racing around to open the front passenger door open for Rebecca. At the sight of him, Rebecca felt her composure crack.

“Your friend Toby tried to kill us today!” she told him. “My father is injured! He can’t even walk!”

Anton paled. “What … what happened?”

She slid into the car and sat seething while Anton got back in.

“We were in Tremé, about to get into a cab, and he drove up at top speed. He was trying to knock us down. Ling pulled me out of the way just in time.”

“It was Raf, actually,” Ling volunteered from the backseat.

“Is your father injured really badly?” Anton asked. He looked upset, but not all that surprised.

“Well, he can’t walk. He might need to get X-rays.”

“Do you want me to call my dad?” Phil offered. “He could fast-track him through Truro.”

“I just want to get tonight over and done with,” Rebecca said, folding her arms. If Toby really
did
want this stupid locket, he could have it. After this evening, she never wanted to see him again.

“Rebecca, I promise you.” Anton’s voice was breaking. He hadn’t started the car yet. “If Toby tries anything tonight
beyond taking the locket, I’ll hit him. And after tonight, I will never, ever have anything to do with him again. After tonight, if I ever see him again, even from a distance, I’ll call his parents and I’ll call the police. I swear.”

Rebecca said nothing. This wasn’t Anton’s fault, she knew. But how could he
ever
have been friends with someone as mean as Toby Sutton? Why didn’t he call the police when he knew where Toby was hiding out?

They all sat in silence until a taxi driving up Orleans honked at them to get out of the way.

“Come on then,” Rebecca said. “Let’s get this over with.”

T
he country club was near the lake, at the end of a long driveway lined with oak trees. Anton had parked on the far side of the lot, near the golf course, but nobody tried to run them over as they walked to the building. Rebecca’s nerves were buzzing; she felt completely on edge. But if Toby was planning on making an appearance tonight, he wasn’t here yet.

The ballroom was long, with French windows down one side and a dance floor — presided over by a squat DJ — at one end. The chandeliers and busy carpet made the place feel like a casino, Rebecca thought, though she’d only ever been in one casino in her life, years ago in Atlantic City. A tiny bar was tended by a very short elderly man with slicked-back hair and big glasses, who poured Cokes and Shirley Temples slowly, as though he’d never done this before in his life and was worried about dropping the bottles.