Now Let's Talk of Graves (6 page)

They would comb her and curry her and document her and then, for the last time this season, fold her into a limo. This time she'd be all by herself, she and The Dress (there would be room for no one else) and whisk her off to view the parade and on to the ball. And finally, except for the Queen's Breakfast, another
meal
,
it would all be over.

Unless she stayed in New Orleans, of course, where no one would ever forget or let her forget she'd been Queen of Comus. Not for the rest of her life. Not for one red-hot moment.

Five

SAM STOOD TRANSFIXED at the edge of the glittering ballroom. And she'd spent no little time at fancy-dress affairs, having grown up in the white-gloved, I'm-so-charmed-to-meet-you Piedmont Driving Club, Sweet-Briar-or-Randolph-Macon-for-school, Smith-or-Vassar-if-you-were-smart set in Atlanta. She'd worn more than a few silver slippers and full-skirted ballgowns, but none of it held a candle to this Maskers Dance of the Mystick Crewe of Comus.

Just for starters, the security at New Orleans's Municipal Auditorium was drum-tight. Compared to this, the White House dinner she'd once attended with her uncle George was loosey-goosey.

The evening before, Kitty and Ma Elise had primed her with more details on the
enormity
of Carnival, the preparations for one beginning as soon as the previous year's was done.

“Every year each krewe—that's a carnival organization—” said Kitty.

“I
know
,”
said Sam.

“—has to pick a theme. The newer, tackier ones choose things like TV shows or cartoon characters, pop stuff. The Old Guard sticks to the classics, mythology. Then, once you have a theme, there are the parade floats to be designed and built. Costumes to be made”—she ticked them off—“invitations, party favors, and doubloons to throw off floats for the crowds. And,
of course,
invitation lists to scrutinize.”

“Courts to be chosen—and queens,” piped up Ma Elise. The still-beautiful old lady was wearing a purple lace dressing gown, tucked into a wing chair, and sipping cognac half as old as she was. “Did Kitty tell you the one about the Queen of Rex whose pushy father insisted she be crowned? So that year's Queen of Comus, to whom she'd have to pay her respects when their balls ended, quietly resigned, and they replaced her with a shopgirl? So Miss Upstart Queen of Rex had to bow to a—well, she was from a decent family—but to this Uptown crowd she was a nobody?”

Sam and Kitty laughed.

“What?” Ma Elise said.

“I think you just told her, Meems,” said Kitty.

“Oh, well, anyway, where was I? Preparations—there are decorations for the balls, of course. Then scripts, sets, and costumes for the tableaux—those are where members of the krewes and their ladies pose like living dioramas, acting out stories. It's silly, really, you'll see. And, my goodness, music, food—lunches, dinners, post-ball breakfasts. All sorts of people to be seen to—float drivers, flambeaux carriers, cooks, waiters.”

“It's like each krewe,” said Kitty, “having at the most a couple hundred members, building the Rose Parade, a ballet, and an opera rolled into one every single year. And these are men with businesses to run, professions, families. Which is why the city's never moved out of the Stone Age.”

“It's true.” Ma Elise nodded. “But don't ever tell anybody we said so.”

“Sure, it's a lot of fun,” Kitty continued, “but it's also why everything's gone to pot. We can hardly compete with the state of Mississippi, for chrissakes, much less the Japanese, because all our energy goes into making parties, riding floats, fluffing up our ballgowns.”

But now as Sam smoothed the skirt of her own deep turquoise gown and looked around this magnificent ballroom, she was glad these people had gone to all the trouble. The women were done up to a fare-thee-well in satins and ermines and bugle-beads, jet, and jasmine, and lace which had blinded more than one Belgian nun—puffed bouquets of ladies dressed by Lacroix, Saint Laurent, Chanel, and de la Renta—joyfully overdressed, overjeweled, and overperfumed. It was quite wonderful, this fantasyland of white and silver, Comus's theme this year being
The Winter's Tale.
Crystal chandeliers showered thousands of points of lights down on the costumed crowd. Masses of snowy lilies and roses, narcissi, and forced magnolias perfumed the waltz-filled air.

It was a spectacular explosion of diamonds and pearls, woodwinds and brass, a swirl of sound and illumination.

For the moment Sam put it out of her mind that Comus and this ball were a throwback to all that was snobbish, discriminatory, racist, and exclusionary.

Kitty and Ma Elise had talked about that last night too, explaining and bemoaning, yet in some ways justifying.

“The old-society, old-money version of Carnival has nothing whatsoever to do with what the public sees,” Ma Elise explained. “Nothing to do with the hoi polloi, the
nouveaux,
and certainly nothing to do with blacks or Jews. I'm not saying that's right. I'm saying that's the way it's always been. Except that, you know, the very first Rex was a Jew named Louis Salomon, and, in fact, the organization of Rex has always had some Jewish members. But a Jew could never
be
Rex. Rex must
call
on Comus, don't you know, at the end of their two balls, and except for a very few spectators at the Comus ball recently, well, it's just not done—”

“That's—” Sam started.

“Ridiculous. I know. But that's how it is. Now, as for blacks, just like the gays, they have their own krewes, their own parades. In fact, Zulu is the first parade to roll Mardi Gras morning, throwing coconuts as favors. And did you see the black Indians?” Sam shook her head. “Oh, my dear, you must. Tribes like the Wild Tchopitoulas with the most fantastic costumes. Beading and feathers—and they dance. It's quite wonderful. And Comus still uses black flambeaux carriers to light the parade route. But that's all street business.”

The
real
Carnival, Kitty explained, the one that counted, the one that the Lees knew, took place behind closed doors. The real Carnival traced its lineage back to the 1850s. It was controlled by private men's clubs like the Pickwick, the Boston, and the Louisiana, who in turn were the power behind the old-line Carnival organizations. Boston Club was mostly Rex. Pickwick numbered many of the Mystick Crewe of Comus. It was these clubmen's debutante daughters, like Zoe, who filled the courts of each year's balls. And those balls—which were conducted with all the formality and secrecy and protocol of the court of Louis XIV—were closed to everyone except that tiny, tight fistful of New Orleans's white elite who passed the torch from father to son. The
real
Carnival couldn't be broached, the keys not bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen.

And only occasionally was an outsider like Sam allowed a peep.

“Quick,” said Kitty, a powder puff in pink and gold, “we'll grab those two seats.” She pushed Sam right past the boutonniered committeeman who was trying to help them to chairs near the stage in the reserved callout section.

“She had first dibs.” Sam nodded toward a titanic dowager upholstered in silver, who fixed them with a glacial glare.

“Tough titty,” Kitty spat out.

So much for grace and gentility.

Kitty pointed toward the stage. “Here we go. Heads up. The processional's beginning.” Trumpets blared. The masked king, a bowlegged old geezer in a short little doublet of white and silver, would have fared better in long pants than the obligatory tights. He took his seat beneath a huge sculptured crown of gold, looking for all the world like a bantam rooster. Then each of the six maids was individually presented with no less pomp than if it were her wedding day.

“Do they have to be blond?” Sam whispered.

“It helps. Blond and blueblooded.”

“And rich.”

“Not always. Some of them are born to the lace—good blood, no bucks. The organization passes the hat, but”—Kitty waggled a hand—“it's a hard way to go. Kissing ass for all those parties and clothes.”

A riotous fanfare cut loose. The audience stood as one and applauded.

“Hip, hip! Hip, hip!”

“Elizabeth the Second, no doubt,” said Sam.

Kitty shook her head. “No, it's Zoe. This is it
—the
moment. They say once you've been Queen of Comus you might as well die and go to heaven, 'cause it don't get no better.”

The cheers swelled to a roar.

“And is that true?” Sam yelled above it.

“Sure was in my case. All the rest of it's been downhill. Forever after.”

Sam turned back to Zoe, and memory transformed her into Kitty at that age. Kitty was a beautiful woman now, but Sam had known her then—unblemished red-gold and pink and cream. How dazzling she must have been in her diamonds and silk train. Like a dewy ripe peach about to be plucked—by Lester Lee. Gorgeous, dashing, aristocratic, crazy, weak Lester, who would blow his brains and Kitty's dreams to hell after 364 days and nights of love.

Sam shook her head, and the queen turned back into Zoe, who was in her own right quite heart-stoppingly splendid. When Sam had last seen her, Kitty's niece was fully made up and coiffed but had left her house in her underwear beneath a dressing gown so as not to wrinkle The Dress.

Here she was in full, glorious regalia. Though
far
too thin and pale, high spots of excitement colored her cheeks. And there was The Dress—that magnificent, low-necked gown of white satin embroidered with bows of silver sequins. Around her shoulders rose a high, plumed ruff of net and diamante. Her diamonds and pearls were perfection, including a crown set atop her own glory of dark curls. Behind her flowed twenty feet of silver satin edged with ermine.

“Isn't she something?” said Sam. “Too bad she has to spend the evening chatting up the king. He looks like a real toad.”

“He is. And older than Church. But his family's so grand, we don't talk about that.”

“Her Majesty. His Majesty. Ladies. Lords.” In a plummy voice the master of ceremonies tried to get everyone to settle down.

“Is that Bert Parks?”

“Nah. But he does have the same tan.”

“And the same toupee.”

Now the stage was aswirl with scores of masked lords and ladies pantomiming a scene from
The Winter's Tale.
Bowing. Scraping. Mincing. Posing.

“Isn't it a riot?” Kitty grinned.

“Sort of like the pageant in Mrs. Roussel's class—third grade.”

“Exactly. And they're so
serious.
They've been practicing for months. It's the high point of their year.”

“And yours?”

Kitty made a rude noise.

Sam laughed. “What's Zoe's take on all this?”

“Pretty sanguine. I get her out of here once in a while. To New York. Out to the Coast. She's got a fix on it, that outside of N.O. this means jack. You tell people you're going to be Queen of Comus and they say, Do whut? But these folks”—Kitty waved a hand—“they'd
die
if they suspected this wasn't the very epicenter of the universe.”

So why do you stay here? Sam wanted to ask. Why do you do this year after year? But that was grist for a long sitdown. Not now. Not here.

The lords and ladies pranced for a while longer, then the tableau ended and the orchestra struck up. The king and queen took the floor.

“Let the dancing begin!”

“Miss Cynthia Butler!”

“Mrs. Archibald Ross! Mrs. Ross!”

“Miss Penelope Addison!”

Black-coated committeemen sporting yellow boutonnieres circled their section, calling out the names of the chosen ladies, who rose to take the arms of masked and costumed gentlemen.

“Did they forget us?” Sam poked Kitty, reminding her she hadn't come all the way from Atlanta to sit.

“Just wait. I told you, wives first, then mistresses and/or widowed mothers. They'll get to us after that.”

Sam hated cooling her heels. A dancing fool since she was big enough to bop, she wanted to be out there.

She closed her eyes for a minute, and Sean waltzed in on another wave of memory. Her sweet, redheaded Sean O'Reilly, San Francisco's hip-popping, slipping, and sliding chief of detectives, her own true love. They'd made lots of good moves together.

“Miss Samantha Adams.”

They'd had a date to go dancing the night he'd flown up into the air above rain-slick Van Ness Avenue, tapping his way up into the sky, falling back dead. Stopped in the middle of his twirl through life by a drunk driver.

“Sam!”

Kitty was hissing in her ear. She snapped to. Easy does it. One ball-and-chain, one buck-and-wing at a time. She stood, ready to put her little foot right there.

“Miss Adams?”

A tall masked man in a golden costume was waiting. Giving her his arm. Leading her onto the dance floor. Now, this was more like it. Dancing with a stranger whose face you couldn't see was a hoot, the stuff of fairy tales.