A Summons to New Orleans (5 page)

The phone rang. She picked it up quickly, on the first ring, even though in Cliff’s absence she had trained herself to wait until the second or third. She had done this in the early days after his departure, always thinking it would be him and not wanting to seem too eager. It was never him, of course. And it wasn’t him this time, either. It was Simone.

“Nora Kay? Is that you? I’m here, at last.”

“Simone? Where have you been?”

“I had a last-minute assignment in L.A., and I couldn’t get away. I’m so sorry, honey.”

“I ran into Poppy Marchand.”

“I meant to tell you she was coming.”

“Did you know that she’s completely crazy?”

“Oh, yeah, the religion thing.”

“You knew about that?”

“Yes. I’ll explain later. Can I come over?”

“Sure, of course.”

Nora went to the bathroom and put on makeup, as carefully as if she were about to go on a date. It was a well-known fact that women always dressed and primped for other women, not men. Men had no taste. Men wouldn’t know a Jill Sander suit or Stephan Kelian shoes from Gap wear. They certainly couldn’t appreciate the natural makeup approach. (They actually believed women weren’t wearing makeup, and as a result believed that they preferred “natural beauty”—as if there were such a thing.) Simone was particularly difficult to dress for. She was the arbiter of taste, one of those people who could look good in anything. She didn’t wear style; she gave style to what she wore. She had been a model ever since she was sixteen, but had never actually become a “super model.” That was a leap she couldn’t quite make because, as she often complained, she wasn’t willing to “take that many drugs and sleep with other women.” She let her modeling career
fizzle out, and somehow replaced it with a calling in the haute cuisine industry. It had all started when she wrote a whimsical piece in the
Los Angeles Times
called “What Models Really Eat.” The piece was well received, and no one was more surprised than Simone to discover that she could actually write. No one except Nora, who tried very hard not to let any bitterness fester.
She
had been the writer in college. Well, she hadn’t actually done much writing, but she intended to, and she appreciated and chased after fine prose. Simone hadn’t cared at all about that kind of thing.

Still, Nora told herself, she would never have wanted to be a food critic. It seemed a fatuous occupation, a genuinely silly use of language. And though Simone was often witty and insightful, the fact was, she was just talking about food. How much could be said on that subject?

There was a knock on the door and Nora opened it, prepared to have her own appearance judged, but instead she was taken aback by Simone’s. She was so thin that it actually made Nora’s heart skip a beat, in a kind of empathetic arrhythmia. Her hair, which had once been long and black, was now short, curly and red. Her face was still strikingly beautiful, her eyes a pale gray, deep-set and kind. Her lips were full of collagen, but they wouldn’t have looked so bad if her cheeks weren’t so sunken in. As it was, she almost looked freakish. Nora stood there with her mouth open, not knowing what to say.

Simone said it for her.

“I know, I look like something from
Star Trek.”

“What happened?” Nora asked as Simone breezed past her into the room.

“It’s a long story.”

Simone pulled off the red hair, which mercifully turned out to be a wig. Her own shiny black hair tumbled down to her
shoulders, giving color and definition to her otherwise hollow countenance. Nora felt she could breathe a little easier, but she was still worried.

“I am a bona fide mess, Nora Kay,” Simone declared. She sat on the bed and fished in her purse for a cigarette. Nora didn’t bother to object. She thought Simone should ingest something, anything, even tobacco.

“Are you sick?” Nora asked.

“No, not the way you’re talking. I have been . . . not well. I’m in the throes of a trauma or two.”

“Why are you in disguise?”

“Because of the job,” she said, twirling the wig around on her index finger like a Frisbee. “I’m not supposed to go anywhere looking like myself. If I get recognized, then my food-reviewing days are over. For obvious reasons, if they see you coming, they treat you different.”

“Oh, right.”

“It used to be just restaurants where I couldn’t look like myself. Now I’m getting so well known, I can’t look like myself anywhere. It’s out of control, Nora. How did I end up in this profession? I don’t even care about food.”

“Obviously,” Nora said, gesturing toward her thin frame.

“Please. I am trying to gain weight.”

“Are you anorexic?”

Simone took a drag of her cigarette and said, “I am someone who can’t eat. If that’s the term you want to give it, okay. I mean, I want to eat. I think about eating. Hell, I eat for a living. But something just happens, and I can’t do it.”

“Are you in counseling?”

“No, Nora, I figured I’d just pray a lot. Of course I’m in fucking counseling. But it’s so complicated. You, on the other hand, look fantastic. Divorce suits you.”

“I am also having a breakdown. Although not as bad as yours, I think.”

“And Poppy’s a goddamn Catholic now. Can you believe it?”

Nora sat by Simone on the bed, waving the smoke away.

“What are we all doing here?” Nora asked. “Are we here because of your condition?” A short wave of her hand indicated Simone’s thinness.

Simone chewed on a fingernail and took a long time answering. Finally she said, “In a way, yes, but not the way you’re thinking. I’ll explain it all at dinner tonight. This is the weirdest time of my life, and as I don’t have a husband or anything, I figured I should just get my oldest friends together. You know, to help me out, moral support, that kind of thing.”

“Absolutely. You should have called sooner.”

“It’s all very recent.”

“How did you find Poppy?” Nora asked.

“I’ve been talking to her and emailing her for a couple of years.”

“You
have?
”

Simone nodded. “She married a great guy. Adam. He’s worked on a lot of girls I know. Pretty famous plastic surgeon.”

“She’s leaving him.”

“Yeah. She’s crazy now. I watched it happen, her whole demise.”

“Why was she talking to you, not me?”

Simone ground out her cigarette and said, “She’s afraid of you, Nora.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“You’re an intimidating person.”

“I am?”

“You always seemed to have your shit together. You knew what you wanted and you went and got it. That’s intimidating.”

“It was an illusion.”

“Well, now we know.”

They sat in silence for a moment, and Nora felt suddenly disoriented and uncomfortable. It actually hurt her feelings that people thought that she was solid and together, that she knew what she wanted. She was fairly impressed that she had hidden her weaknesses all this time, but it actually made a knot grow in her stomach when she thought of how much her friends had missed the point of her, how badly they had understood her. All this time, all this bonding, and they weren’t even connected to the person she really was. They had no idea.

She was also feeling selfishly threatened, jealous that Simone’s breakdown was now going to take precedence over hers. She had wanted to indulge in a weekend of analyzing her own plight, and here sat Simone with a greater and more urgent set of afflictions. It didn’t seem fair; on the other hand, Nora thought, it might do her good to think about someone else’s problems.

“We should do some sightseeing,” Simone said. “Let’s go get Poppy and get on one of those horse-and-buggies.”

“Oh, really. Do we have to?”

“Yes, we have to. We have to do whatever I want this week. It’ll be fun. It’ll be familiar, me getting my way.”

“Yes,” Nora said and smiled. “It will.”

And as she followed her friend out the door, she felt that familiar sense of childhood comfort, the freedom of not being in charge.

5

T
he buggy ride was exactly what it was supposed to be—tacky, touristy, benignly annoying. Nora found herself enjoying it. It reminded her of childhood vacations, the only times her parents were ever remotely content, when they had gone to Williamsburg and Jamestown and Monticello and Appomattox, and in later years to Myrtle Beach and Nags Head and sometimes Carrowinds, a big amusement park in North Carolina. Her parents always took the cheapest, easiest route to anything. They stood in line for hours for free tours, and they saved coupons, and they went to dinner at five o’clock at steak-and-seafood chains to take advantage of the early-bird discount. They stayed at a Days Inn or a Motel Six, and Nora grew so accustomed to them that she felt certain the sealed toilets, paper-covered glasses and small soaps were signs of
sophistication. In a very real way, growing up with her parents was like being taken on the buggy ride of life. So this morning’s trip felt familiar and soothing, sweating in the humid air, feeling the sun pressing down on her face, sipping a beer and being rocked from side to side. Even the faint smell of manure comforted her.

The driver drew their attention to this and that historic site, and Simone, who had taken this ride before, filled in the blanks.

“This here,” said the driver, “is the haunted house. Now, N’awlins has plenty of haunted houses, but this is the most famous one.”

Simone said, “The infamous Madame Delphine Lalaurie. She tortured her slaves, beat them, chained them in the attic. You’re supposed to be able to hear them screaming at night.”

“Now, the house was destroyed by a fire in 1834, and that’s when Madame’s ugly secret was discovered.”

Simone said, “She barely escaped with her life. The neighbors tried to kill her on the spot.”

The driver said, “Who’s givin’ this tour, babe?”

“You are, handsome. Go ahead.”

Poppy, who had been staring resolutely at her lap the whole time, finally looked up as if she had been awakened from a trance. “Why don’t you take us past the projects?” she said. “Why not clop on over to the cemetery, where about fifty tourists a year are robbed and murdered? And maybe, while you’re at it, take us past the criminal courts building, where all the judges are taking kickbacks, and then the gambling casinos, which are bankrupting the city, and then the KKK headquarters . . .”

The driver said, “Lady, this is my tour, my bu’iness. You want the bad-news tour, go take it yourself.”

“It’s dishonest,” Poppy said, “the way they peddle this city.”

Simone lit a cigarette and said, “Poppy, when did you grow these opinions?”

“She’s always had opinions,” Nora piped up, a little too eagerly, always ready to take on the role of peacemaker. “Remember in college? She was a communist.”

Poppy laughed. “It was the eighties. Anyone left of Franco was considered a communist.”

“Still, you were always protesting, and writing op-ed pieces in the school paper. I forget. What was your big complaint?”

“South Africa,” Poppy said. “Enslavement has always bugged me.”

“They’re better now, aren’t they?” Simone asked.

“Oh, yes. Black people get to ride the bus out of the ghetto.”

“You know me, Poppy. I’ve just, never been political.”

“What does that mean?” Poppy demanded. “That’s like saying you’re not an organism. Everything is political, and if you choose to isolate yourself from the issues of your time, you are, in effect, being political. That is a political stance. A stance of apathy. It adds to the problem, and that is your contribution.”

Simone thought about this for a moment, blowing tobacco smoke into the air. “I see your point. But I happen to think I’ve made more of a contribution than that.”

“Like what? Writing about food? Modeling? Making people feel bad about the way they look?”

“First of all, food is important. Good food is more important. It’s an art.”

“Please.”

“It is important to eat well, Poppy. Why deny yourself pleasure? Is that a healthy way to live? Is that self-love?”

Poppy ignored this question and asked instead, “What about modeling?”

“Beauty,” Simone replied. “Also important.”

“Whose standard of beauty, though? Starving women? That’s beautiful?”

“The public responds,” she said.

“They are bombarded. They are told what to think.”

“Oh, mercy. So the masses can’t think for themselves? Listen to yourself. And besides, people do understand the difference between looking and being. They can look at a fine painting without wanting to go home and make one. You can look at a model and admire her without wanting to be her.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Look, remember when Princess Diana died?”

The driver said, “If y’all are interested, that’s the Old Ursuline Convent, oldest building in the Mississippi Valley.”

“Of course I remember when she died,” Poppy said.

“And Mother Teresa died the same week? And who got the most press?”

“Diana, which is thoroughly disgusting.”

“No, it’s not. People loved her because she was beautiful. People want and need and crave beauty. All those dresses were a service to the world. Mother Teresa in that potato sack—she didn’t value beauty. And the people know that is wrong. That is not self-love, to walk around in a sheet with your face all shriveled.”

“She healed people! She fed them when they were starving!”

“So did Diana! And she did it in a Chanel suit! Are you telling me Mother T’s got a higher spot in heaven because her face looked like a baseball mitt?”

Nora listened and squirmed, trying to think of something neutral to say, when Poppy began to laugh. She snorted into her fist and then got the giggles, and Simone followed suit, her loud laugh echoing off the walls of the buildings and down the street. It scared the horse and he jerked forward.

“Y’all calm down now,” said the driver.

Nora smiled, suddenly remembering that Simone and Poppy had always gone at each other this way. For hours it seemed, back in that house on Vinegar Hill, sitting at the kitchen table, dunking bags of tea into hot water, or sometimes sipping scotch. Their voices would resonate, waking up the floaters or the people next door, who yelled for silence. But they wouldn’t stop, and Nora would sit watching them as if it were a spectator sport, wishing she had enough nerve or opinions to join in.

Why had she forgotten those evenings? Over the years she had smoothed out the edges, and in her memory everyone had been made polite, reserved, respectful. But they had been boisterous in college; of course they had. Maybe she had, too. Maybe she had taken away her own edge in reconstructing the past.

When Poppy finally had stopped laughing, she said, “Simone, what is all this self-love business?”

“I’m in therapy,” Simone said.

“Ah. Well, it seems to me that this country is a little too afflicted with self-love.”

“You’re wrong. You’re talking about narcissism. That is a totally different thing. Narcissism is rooted in self-loathing.”

“I don’t believe that. I think that people are inherently flawed, and we should acknowledge that and stop all this self-aggrandizing.”

“Holy moly! Inherently flawed? That’s the best part, Poppy. That’s where the challenge is. You’re an artist, think
about it. Is a perfect painting beautiful? Is it even possible? And when people try to re-create human beings in art, they know it is important to capture that imperfection.”

Poppy said, “Have you ever seen Michelangelo’s David?”

“Yes, I have, and the man is standing like a faggot. With that slingshot over his shoulder? Right. He’s going to kill a giant? He’s a fucking hairdresser. He’s going to mousse Goliath to death.”

“He is a bit precious,” Poppy conceded.

“What about Degas?” Nora said suddenly. She wanted to be in this debate.

They looked at her, waiting.

“Those ballerinas are kind of perfect,” she said.

“Pedophile,” Poppy said.

“Cross-dresser,” Simone suggested.

“Clearly the man is obsessed with prepubescent girls.”

“I think he was traumatized by a tutu as a child.”

“The Napoleon House,” the driver said. “They have real good muffulettas. Y’all hungry?”

“I think he wants us to get out,” Nora said.

“That’s fine. I’m hungry.”

They got out at the corner of Chartres and St. Louis, at what appeared to be a dilapidated bar. Nora had not yet adjusted to the old charm of the city. Everything seemed dirty to her, and dangerous. In Charlottesville, you knew what a restaurant was before you went in. Mostly big chains or family-run diners. She would never go into a place like this in Virginia. It just wouldn’t make sense. Once inside, she saw the plaster was crumbling off the walls, revealing aged brick underneath. The floor was concrete, and the air was blue with smoke. There were tables pushed right against each other, and there was a long bar, full of drinkers even though it was barely noon. These were not beer drinkers either. Martinis,
scotch, margaritas. A ceiling fan stirred the smoke around and made a shadow like a starfish on the floor.

They sat away from the bar, trying to escape the pollution and the boisterous chat of the locals.

Simone explained the Napoleon House to Nora.

“The mayor and Jean Lafitte the pirate and a whole bunch of other people built it for Napoleon after he was exiled to Elba.”

“St. Helena, actually,” Poppy said.

“He had a bunch of supporters here, and they wanted to bring him over and give him a nice place to live. It was originally the mayor’s own house. He was going to give it up! That’s how much they loved the little guy. But Napoleon died in 1821, without ever setting foot inside.”

A waiter in a white shirt and black bow tie approached them with menus, but Simone waved them away. “Three muffulettas and three Pimms.”

Nora said, “I don’t recognize any of that.”

“You’ll like it,” Simone assured her.

“It’s pleasant,” Poppy said, “to eat greasy meat and drink potent liquor in the home of a despot.”

“You said it,” Simone said.

“Who was Jean Lafitte?” Nora asked.

“A pirate,” Poppy said, “who is given credit for doing almost anything of merit or notoriety in this city. It’s mostly apocryphal. He was a pirate, for God’s sake. He didn’t hang around the city. He hid in the swamp like a good outlaw.”

“There are plenty of outlaws in this city who don’t hide out,” Simone said.

“That’s true,” Poppy admitted. “My father was one.”

They looked at her. Nora felt a little breathless, as if she were about to hear something sacred. Poppy never talked about her father, except to say that he was a bad man, and
that she had nothing but unpleasant memories of her upbringing. She was raised by him and a black maid named Esther. Her mother had died under mysterious circumstances when she was a child. An unexplained fall down the stairs. Drunk, perhaps, or maybe a “My Last Duchess” scenario, she thought, remembering the Browning poem. Or was the duchess strangled? She used to know that poem by heart. Now she knew nothing substantial.

“Did you ever make peace with him?” Simone asked.

Poppy stared at her. “In my way.”

They didn’t talk for a while. The Pimms came, a sweet golden liquid with cucumbers floating in it. Then the muffulettas arrived and Nora ate hers quickly, ravenously. She thought she had never tasted anything so good. It made her forget about the restaurant’s crumbling walls and the smoke and the water bugs scuttling across the concrete.

When they had finished eating, Simone lit a cigarette and said, “Now. We have to talk.”

“What about?” Poppy asked. She had eaten only half of her sandwich and had made no mess at all. Nora felt like a slob, olive confetti splattered around her plate. She put her napkin over it.

“About why we’re here,” Simone said.

“In New Orleans,” Poppy asked, “or on the planet?”

“Can I go to the bathroom first?” Nora asked, standing.

“No, Nora Kay. Stay put.”

She sat back down. Simone’s expression was gravely serious. Nora wasn’t sure she’d ever seen her look this way. She glanced at Poppy, who was starting to recognize the same thing.

“It was nearly a year ago,” Simone said, as if she were about to tell a fable. “I was in New Orleans on assignment.
Seduction in the South, or some damn thing, was my topic. I was supposed to write about a romantic evening in New Orleans. Restaurant, hotel, dance spot, buggy ride, so on. It was my last night here, and I went to this place on Bourbon Street, a dance club called Oz. It’s a gay bar, but a lot of straight couples go there. I thought it might be interesting to include the place in my article. Anyway, I danced a little, had a beer, and started walking home. It was around eleven o’clock. The streets were pretty crowded still. I decided to walk down Pirates Alley, over by St. Louis Cathedral. It’s listed as the most romantic walk in the city.”

She paused here to take a drag from her cigarette. Nora could see that Simone’s hand was shaking.

“So I was walking along there, and I realized that someone was walking behind me. I didn’t pay much attention at first. Then the next thing I knew, he had his hand around my throat and I was up against the wall.”

Nora sat paralyzed. She did not want to hear the rest. She did not want to know that this thing had happened, this terrible big thing. It was starting to happen now, that her life was collecting tragedies like bugs in a net. But maybe it wouldn’t end badly; maybe there was a way out of this tale. She waited and hoped.

Simone said, “I couldn’t breathe, so I couldn’t scream. He explained what he wanted me to do, and I did it. I was afraid I was going to die.”

“He raped you,” Poppy said.

Simone nodded. “In a number of ways. It was horrific. I won’t go into the details, but that wasn’t even the worst part. And thinking I might die right there and be a body in the alley, next to the homeless guy—who did not one thing to help me, by the way—that was not the worst part either. When it
was over, he gave me a lecture. He told me I shouldn’t be walking around New Orleans by myself. It was a dangerous city. He told me not to be stupid. I stood there nodding, agreeing with him, saying I was stupid. I just kept yessing him like crazy, hoping he would let me live. And finally he walked away. Just walked. He felt no urgency.”