a new
original short story by Jean Brashear
Eight A.M. in the Quarter
Eight a.m. in the Quarter,
and I might just as well be the only person on the planet.
The party gods had no doubt
whipped the night into a frenzy, every street corner a spectacle
of lights and gaiety, ordinary mortals transformed from bankers
and carpenters and teachers into creatures of the endless
celebration that is the Big Easy.
But I am not a partygoer,
better with a cup of tea and a good book than with rounds of
"What's your sign" and "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"
And lifting my shirt for
guys on balconies...don't even go there. I spent the night
tucked in my hotel room with a novel.
Now I have the French
Quarter all to myself.
I wander down two blocks,
over one more. Shops give way to mysterious residences tucked
behind high walls, guarded by sturdy gates. It is a long
tradition, this way of living secreted away from the street,
turned inward. Suburbia's rolling lawns are replaced by
courtyards accessible only to inhabitants and those they allow
entry.
I spot a stone wall, a gate
painted a sun-streaked and chipped blue. At once, my
imagination races into a rich past peopled with pirates and
dandies, with ladies in hoop skirts plying ornate fans.
There is a small hole to the
left of the gate. I approach, wondering if I might venture a
peek into one of the famed courtyards—
The iris of an eye, an
unearthly blue green, pops into the peephole—
I recoil with a gasp. An
embarrassing squeak.
"Mornin'." A molasses-slow
baritone, rich with amusement.
"I'm—" Hastily, I back
away. "I'm sorry. I'll just be—" I brace myself. Prepare to
flee.
The gate opens with a slow,
rusty creak. "Where you goin', sugar?" asks the disembodied
voice.
"Um, my—my husband is
waiting. Just around the cor—" Every drop of moisture in my
mouth dries up as a figure begins to appear. My heart is
jittering a funny little chicken-dance as I try to decide which
way to run. He is rounding the edge of the gate, and he is—
Short. Barely to my
shoulder.
His face is, to put it
kindly, a troll's. He is garbed in the billowing white shirt,
blousy pants and knee-high boots of a pirate. His long hair is
tousled and black. In one ear glints a fat gold ring.
His eyes, that amazing
blue-green, are nine parts mischief—
And one part kindness.
"À vôtre service,
mam'selle." He sweeps a dramatic bow, worthy of any
chevalier.
My high school French isn't
great, but I get his drift.
Then, with the grace of a
courtier, he takes my fingers and brushes his mouth over them.
"Jean Lafitte, chère. And you are?"
I scent no whiff of liquor.
He appears to be acting solely on whimsy.
I remind myself that this
is, after all, New Orleans. The City That Care Forgot.
Anything can—and does—happen here. It is a place to let go of
reality and laissez les bon temps roulez. Isn't that
exactly why I've come? To escape my rut for a few precious
days? To stop being so blasted careful?
Actually, no. It is my
friend Angela who dragged me here, saying I am turning pasty
white, being indoors so much, and am on the bullet train to
spinsterhood for sure if I don't get off at the next stop.
Knowing Angela, the phrase
"getting off" is a double entendre. Angela is a real good-time
girl. I have no idea how we became friends. What she ever saw
in me, I mean. She's lively and fun and vibrant. I'm the
original stick in the mud.
But I like our contrast.
Mostly.
So Good-Time Angela is back
in the hotel room, snoring. She went out last night with
friends and only made it in a couple of hours ago. I was
invited, of course.
But I wasn't ready. I'm a
novice hedonist.
Okay, I'm pathetic.
"Chère?"
I smile. I can't actually
believe I'm standing in the French Quarter talking to a midget
who believes he's Jean Lafitte the pirate. Or intends me to, at
least.
But all the research I've
done on identity theft and protecting yourself as a cautious
single woman says I should not give this stranger my name.
He isn't really Jean
Lafitte. Perhaps I also shouldn't really be, um...
"Cerise," I tell him. I
have always like cherries.
He lifts my fingers again.
"Cerise. Bon." His lips are very warm on my fingers.
I stiffen. Pull back.
His eyes twinkle as if he
sees right through me. "So, Cerise, ma belle, what
brings you to be spying on my courtyard this fine morning?"
I bite my lip. "I wasn't—"
He grins. "Surely, chère,
you are not going to tell me it was not your lovely brown eyes I
spotted through the gate."
"I wasn't spying," I say
primly. "I'm merely doing research." Well, I am. Sort of.
One dark eyebrow arches.
"What sort of research?"
"I'm...a writer," I answer
hastily.
"Ah, excellent. Might I
have heard of your work?"
Not unless you're a
devotee of user manuals for computer terminals.
"I'm unpublished." My chagrin is not feigned.
"But were not all famous
authors unpublished at one time? What do you write, chère?"
Oh, boy. In a moment of
panic, I pull out my fondest dream. "Romance novels."
"Ahhh." In that elongated
ah is a wealth of insinuation.
"They're not all sex." I
sniff in outrage. "People think that who don't actually read
them."
He smiles slowly. "Ma
belle Cerise, what would be wrong if they were all about
sex? Love and sex are life's greatest pleasures, are they not?"
How would I know?
That would be Dana Hargrove's response.
But I am not Dana Hargrove
just now. And Cerise would answer him with a wink. "They are
indeed," I answer.
So there, Angela. I can,
too, be uninhibited.
Even if I can feel my skin glowing ruby red up to my neck and
rising.
"You would write about the
French Quarter, ma belle?"
"Er, yes." Well, I would if
I were an actual novelist.
"In the past or the
present?"
The present doesn't have all
that much to recommend it, from my point of view. "The past, of
course."
"What period?"
I riffle through remembered
guide book pages. "The eighteenth century."
"Ah." He twirls a mustache
that appears real. "Then you must, naturellement, enter
my humble abode. It was built in 1762." He steps back, sweeps
his arm in a gesture of welcome.
A crossroads. Curiosity
meets caution.
You're taller than he is,
says Good-Time Angela on my left shoulder. You can take him.
But he's got a lot of
muscles. And he could be an ax murderer,
says Dana the Librarian from my right shoulder. Or
Bluebeard, with a basement full of dead maidens.
"On my soul, chère,
you will be safe inside. We will be chaperoned, if you fear
unwanted advances."
"Who?"
"My Tante Melisande
and perhaps my cousin Blake, if the scoundrel ever returns from
his night of revelry."
I frown. Scoundrel and
revelry. Not good.
"He is the best of men,
chère, I promise. It is not his fault that women cannot
resist him." He smiled. "It is a family trait." Another
mustache twirl, this one accompanied by a wink.
I laugh. "All right. I
would be delighted to have the opportunity to see inside a
French Quarter house."
"House—" He grabs his
chest. "You wound me. Chez Marigny is so much more.
Come—" He offers me his arm. "It must be seen to be believed."
And so it is that I enter a
world usually barred to strangers.
The courtyard is a dream of
bougainvillea and ancient flagstone, of paths winding around
bushes with trunks bigger than my waist, sheltered beneath a
magnolia older than this country. A bubbling fountain, a pond
stocked with goldfish as large as my cat...and wrapped in an L,
a two-story residence lined with iron-lace galleries.
Motion above us catches my
eye, but the figure recedes as quickly as I look.
Jean, or whoever he is, is
talking, however, explaining the history of this place, and I do
not want to interrupt.
Twice more, I am aware of
scrutiny from above, but I never manage to catch the watcher.
Then we encounter perhaps
the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Her hair is silver,
parted in the center and swept up on each side into a chignon so
intricate it must have taken hours to achieve. Her eyes are the
same blue-green as my erstwhile pirate's, and her other features
are at once bold and clearly feminine.
She, too, is clothed in the
manner of a bygone era.
Must be a weekend thing.
But both of them seem
so...comfortable. It's extremely difficult to imagine either of
them in shorts and sandals.
"Delighted you could join
us, my dear. Would you care for tea?" Her every movement is
fluid and graceful as she proffers a delicate porcelain cup
redolent of peppermint.
The temperature on the
street was stifling, but here, a breeze stirs in the deep
shade. Hot tea out there would have been unthinkable, but
now... "I would, thank you."
We converse, and it is as if
I have indeed stepped into the eighteenth century. My pirate
watches and paces but never sits, as if he must be on guard,
though I have no idea what from. His aunt Melisande, however,
acts as if we have all the time in the world, and I find myself
behaving the same.
I settle in, curl my legs
beneath the folds of my long skirt. A delicious kick of wind
wafts over the bare curve of my breasts above the tight bodice.
Cicadas drone, and I find myself sliding back into my chair and
resting my head on one hand, fanning gently with the other.
Lulled by the soft, syrupy tone of her voice, the sense of time
sliding by...and me with it.
I am lifted into strong arms
and carried into a blessedly cool, dark room, laid on a soft,
welcoming mattress. When I try to open my eyes, a baritone
voice soothes me back into slumber.
Warm, firm lips brush gently
over mine. I hum with the pleasure of it.
I sleep, and it is sweet
beyond measure.
* * *
"Get up, lazybones." My
shoulder is shaken roughly.
I roll away from the
irritation.
"Hey, Dana, you going to
sleep the last bit of weekend away?"
Angela.
I bolt upward. Nearly fall
out of bed. Reach to sweep my long skirt—
I'm wearing a ratty old
T-shirt I've owned for years.
"Aargh. Time is it?" I
mumble.
"Almost noon, goose. You'd
better get packed or we'll miss the plane."
I am shocked to realize that
Angela is fully dressed, suitcase by the door. Somehow I have
slept through all of it.
A dream, odd and amazing
and...not real.
But for an instant, I can
see blue-green eyes and a mustache. Smell peppermint tea. Hear
Aunt Melisande's soft murmurs.
"Dana! What's wrong with
you?"
"Don't want to go." I
collapse, mumble into the pillow.
"You'd think I was the one
who stayed in bed with a book and you'd done the partying." She
loops my arm around her neck and forces me to standing. "I'm
putting you in the shower and turning the water to cold." In
her voice I hear affection and just a little worry.
A dream, only a dream.
"Midget."
"What?"
I laugh and pull away, but I
feel like a traitor. Whatever his true name, Jean Lafitte was a
gentleman and larger than life, to boot. Midget is too
constricting a word for his charisma. "Nothing. I just had a
funny dream."
But it wasn't funny. It
felt so real, so...romantic.
I wonder if the blue gate
even exists?
Somehow I go through the
motions, wash my hair, dry my skin...and all the while, the
sensations of long gathered skirts and low-cut, corseted bodice
persist. I shrug it all off and attempt to reconstruct my real
life by making a mental list of all I must do when I return
home. Usually, home is where I most want to be. I love my
little house and all the furnishings I have painstakingly
assembled.
But my mind won't quite let
go of a verdant courtyard, drowsy with blossoms, and for the
first time in memory—
I don't want to go.
Angela is chattering about
all the stories she'll tell of her wild weekend in the Big
Easy. Her bag is bulging with all the loot she's taking home.
Before I know it, we're in
the sidewalk, waiting for our cab to the airport. My eyes keep
being drawn across Canal Street toward the Quarter. To a path I
have trod only in my dream.
The cab arrives, and our
bags are loaded. Angela slides in ahead of me—
And I, Dana Hargrove, dull
as dishwater and absolutely dependable—
Commit the first truly
impulsive act of my life.
"Ange, I'll meet you at the
airport." My heart is beating so fast I can hear it. "There's
something I have to do."
"What? Are you kidding me?
Dana, get in here. There's no time." She's looking at me as if
a stranger has taken my place. She's crawling across the seat,
intent on grabbing me.
I understand she means well,
but—
I have to know. I slam the
door before she gets to me. "See you at the plane," I yell.
And dart across the street,
horns blaring, tires screeching.
I am running, and I am
laughing like a loon. I have surely lost my mind, Angela will
be thinking.
And she's probably right.
But I still have to do this.
Down two blocks, over one
more. Everything looks a little different in afternoon light,
and for a second, I fear I am lost.
Good grief, Dana,
I chide. What on earth are you doing?
I am about to turn around,
to find the next cab and speed away. It is insanity to risk
missing my plane; I exist on a librarian's salary.
And then I see it,
sun-streaked and chipped, the gate. High and forbidding, the
stone wall.
I close my eyes. Squeeze
them hard. Open them again.
Still there. Still...blue.
Like a sleepwalker, I cross
the street toward it, holding my breath. I reach the sidewalk,
take one step, then two, all the while so lightheaded I am sure
I will faint.
I begin to bend toward the
peephole.
At the last instant, I lose
my nerve and avert my head.
"Mornin'," says a beautiful
baritone voice.
I gasp. I look.
One blue-green pupil,
staring at me.
The gate eases open,
slowly...ever so slowly.
I swallow hard and fix my
gaze at the level of my shoulders, where the top of his head
will be. In the widening gap, I see—
Not black hair...but flowing
white fabric.
Draped over a
beautifully-muscled chest.
Mouth dry as the desert, I
lift my gaze up...and up...
And up.
Blue green eyes. Black
mustache. Long, tousled dark hair.
A slow smile. An outrageous
wink.
"I've been waiting for you,"
says the beautiful baritone voice. "Cerise."
* * *
I didn't make the plane. I
never went home.
I'm not Dana the Librarian anymore.
He plays Jean Lafitte at a
theater near the Riverfront.
His real name is Blake.
I hear he has a cousin who's
a little...vertically challenged. I have yet to meet him.
And sometimes, when Jean—er,
Blake and I are alone, I wear long skirts...and decadent
bodices.
I can't explain it, either,
but I can tell you this: You can waste a lot of time hoping for
magic, when all you have to do is...believe.
Oh—and the name on the cover
of my first novel, The Lady and the Pirate—
Is...Cerise.
Copyright
©2006 Jean Brashear
