The Casquette Girls (11 page)

“Don’t worry, Officer Matthews— I mean, Detective Matthews.” I dragged out the last two words.

“Not sure I’ll ever get used to that,” he said with a goofy expression. “Oh, and Mac, I’ll file a report about your kitchen break-in. It’s always better to have everything on record.”

“Thanks, Terry, I appreciate it. Stop by the bar soon.”

We waved as the car pulled away, and then stood in silence for a few seconds. I braced myself for one of my father’s painfully awkward lectures.

“Dammit, Adele.”

Here it come
s
,
I thought.

Instead he went silent again. I didn’t know if he was pausing for emphasis or taking a moment to suppress his temper, but it confused me – and my father rarely confused me
. Maybe being apart for so long was throwing off my game?

“Go put on your running shoes.”

“What?”

“Go get changed. We’re going for a run before it gets too hot. Remember?”

“Um, okay.” I was no longer in any position to argue about the run.

I was both curious and mildly disconcerted that my father was just ignoring the fact that I had lied to him. I mean, it wasn't a major lie or anything, but he was so tense about the crime in the city, I couldn’t imagine him just letting it slide. Each second it took me to lace up my running shoes and loop my hair into a ponytail built my dread of the upcoming interrogation. I traded my silver chain for a house key on a knotted shoestring and hurried through the kitchen to get it over with.

He was already waiting outside, rolling his ankles. I bent over next to him and became momentarily woozy as the blood rushed to my head, and the stretch moved up my hamstrings.

“When’s the last time you ran?” he asked.

“Uh, I think I ran twice in Paris, in the very beginning.”

“I ran every day in Miami.”

Good for yo
u
.
Normally, I would have said it, but something about this trite conversation warned me to proceed with caution, so I held back on the sarcasm. “My dad the fitness buff – who would have known?”

He did his best not to crack a smile. “Well, what else was I supposed to do without you around to bug me all the time?” He tossed me his second bottle of water and took off jogging.

So we’re joking no
w
?
My father could never stay mad at me for long, but this was a record. Something else was up.

“Wait up!”

“Catch up!”

“Oh, this is going to be loads of fun.”

The quick sprint left me panting. I took his right side; my father was adamant about the man’s position always being on the street side. He seriously watched too many Mafia movies.

We jogged in silence through Jackson Square, up the cement stairs of the amphitheater, over the two sets of nonfunctioning tracks (one for the train and the other for the streetcar) and finally arrived at the Moonwalk, as the riverfront is called, downtown.

The Toulouse Street Wharf was annihilated. Pieces of it bobbed on the river along with a mass of other buoyant debris, and heaps of floating trash occupied the large empty space where the S.S
.
Natchez
had been docked since the early 1800s.

Just as my breathing began to even out, he broke the silence. “Up or down?”

“Up,” I answered, and that was the end of our conversation for several more minutes.

The murky Mississippi was calm. I pretended the paddleboat was just out on the river, lazily taking mint-julep-drinking tourists on leisurely rides. If I concentrated hard enough, I could hear the steam shooting out of the whistling calliope – I had heard that pipe organ at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., like clockwork, almost every day of my life. Its whistling tunes were deeply woven into the fabric of the French Quarter.

The absence of the old riverboat was another reason the city now felt so eerily silent. My eyes burned, and I had to tell myself not to cry over a missing riverboat.
Patheti
c
.

“I heard the
Natchez
is docked somewhere in Baton Rouge,” my father informed me, as if he knew it was bothering me.

“Oh, good.” I sucked in a breath of air, and then we were back to silence.

The muscles in my legs eased from a deep hibernation, remembering what physical activity was, and side by side, we fell into a steady rhythm. I spaced out for a while.

We passed the open-air French Market, which was now a ghost town, and crossed the border into the Faubourg Marigny
.
When we approached NOSA, just a few blocks from where I had found the body, my father said, “So, we need to talk about school.”

I picked up the pace. He followed suit.

“Dad, I am not going back to Paris just because I found a dead body and didn’t tell you. I’m sorry I lied about going down to school. I was just scared you were going to freak out and try to send me back to live with Brigitte!”

“Adele— I’m not sending you back to Paris… Not yet, at least. Although, you have one more
encounter with a dead person and I will quickly change my mind.”

My brow momentarily unfurled.

“I got a call from your guidance counselor. NOSA is in line for the city-state-fed-whatever government to allocate funds for rebuilding, so who knows when they will reopen.”

I had guessed that based on the state of the campus, but my chest tightened anyway. I could already see where this was leading:
my father was going to try to send me away agai
n
.

“In the meantime, students have been placed in arts high schools around the country, including the Houston School for Visual Arts, and some place in Florida. A couple even went to New York City.”

I could easily have listed the students who would have gone to NYC. I had many Broadway-bound classmates working night and day to become triple threats.

“She told me about a program you might be interested in, a high school that agreed to auto-admit a few displaced Storm kids. They have a textiles program; you’d get to meet real designers and work with real fashion labels.”

I jogged faster. His longer stride easily kept up.

“And where is this dream school located?” I mumbled.

He took a deep breath. “It’s in California. Los Angeles.”

My eyes welled.

“I already talked to the Joneses, and they would love to have you stay with them.”

My stored tears began to drip.
I shouldn’t be upse
t
.
There were thousands of kids out there who had been crammed into schools in Baton Rouge and Texas, without books, friends, or routines… But I couldn’t help it; I had just gotten home, and I didn’t want to leave.

“Sounds like a cool opportunity, Dad,” I choked out.

He stopped running. As did I, gasping at the ground.

“Then why are you crying?” He sucked in a couple breaths of air.

I did everything I could to hold in the tears, which made the words come out in a near-scream. “Why do you keep trying to get rid of me?”

“Sweetheart, that is
ludicrou
s
.
I am
not
trying to get rid of you. How can you say that? I just don’t want you to miss out on any opportunities because of the Storm. You have to be in school, so I figured you’d like this way better than going back to your mother’s, although I wish you would consider that option.”

I scowled.

“You’ll be with Brooke, and you can come home for Christmas.”

It was a perfectly rational justification, but I still didn’t want to hear it. I stayed hunched over my knees, unable to look up at him. My lack of response made him anxious.

“I don’t care about school, Dad. I am NOT leaving New Orleans again.”

He put his hand on my shoulder. “Well, I thought you might feel that way… and I may have a happy medium. Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

I smeared away the tears with the back of my hand
.
Was my father actually executing a classic bait and switc
h
?
I filed a mental note to use the tactic on him in the future.

He continued with caution. “So, I made some arrangements.”

My back shot straight up. “Some
arrangements
?” The last time my father had made some
arrangements
, I ended up on a plane, flying across the Atlantic, only four hours later.

“If you want to stay in New Orleans… then the Academy of the Sacred Heart has agreed to permit you a seat.”

I covered my mouth as a small cough wheezed from my throat. He must be confused.

“Surely you don’t mean
the
Academy of the Sacred Heart? As in uptow
n?
As in Désirée Borges’s
Academ
y
?
As in Bradgelina’s future kids’
Academy
?”

“The one and only.”

“They agreed to permit me a seat? What does that even mean?”

“It means they are taking in three displaced students per grade, and they agreed to offer you one of the slots.”

“So, I’m a charity case?”

“Well, it’s not exactly charity.”

“Dad, what are you talking about? There is not a chance in hell we can afford something like that.”

“Don’t curse, Adele!”

“Don’t be evasive!”

“Well…” He looked behind me, up at the sky. “Your mother made a call.”

“
Wha
t
?
Since when does
Brigitte
get to take part in making decisions about my life?”

“Well, I’m sure your mother didn’t actually make the call. I’m sure she had her assistant do it,” he said, trying to make me laugh.

But the thought of Émile helping my mother plan my little high-school life only made my jaw clinch.

I started jogging again, back the way we came.
Do not overreact, Adele. Surely he has just mixed up the school’s name.

He quickly caught up. “Adele, if you want to stay in New Orleans, then you are going to Sacred Heart, because I know you’ll be safe there – and that’s final. Take it or leave it. It’s your choice.”

“So my choices are imprisonment in my own personal hell of cotillion balls or banishment to the land of Barbie dolls?”

“Well, there is a third choice,” he said with a curt smile.

I looked at him with a glimmer of hope. After all, he had said there was good news too.

“You can always go back to Paris with your mother.” He laughed and took off running.

“Ugh, I hate you!” I yelled, chasing him back down the river.

“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic,” he called over his shoulder. “Whatever you choose, it’s just temporary.”

I had less than two years of high school left, but at the rate aid was coming to the city, ‘temporary’ might as well have been ‘forever.’

He slowed his pace until we were back together.

“So, what part was supposed to be the good news?”

“Well… in order to keep your status at NOSA, you’ll have to continue your mentorship training, so you only have to attend Sacred Heart for half the day.”

At NOSA, we spent the mornings doing regular classes like biology and literature, and then spent the afternoons doing intensive workshop-style training in our focus area. I had spent my sophomore year apprenticing with the head seamstress at the University of New Orleans’s theatre department, working on the school’s spring production of Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
.
I was dying to show her my Halloween costume. I had spent every weekend in Paris working my fingers to the bone, hand-stitching embellishments. The
haute couture
Master Classes had been the highlight of my trip. Not to mention they were also how I met Émile. Those were the only times my mother parted with her assistant – so he could escort me to and from my dormitory to class every Saturday and Sunday. On week two, we had moved from her car to the back of his Vespa. On week three, he was lying to her about what time my class ended.

“Does that mean I get to work at UNO again?” This situation was starting to appear slightly more tolerable.

“Not exactly. All the current mentors are scrambling to sort out their own affairs. Actually, NOSA is making this exception just for you, sweetheart, since Sacred Heart isn’t an art school.”

“Why? I don’t understand.”

“On account of you knowing an amazing local artist willing to mentor you. One of the best in the city if you ask me.” His lips tightened into a wiry smile, waiting for a reaction. I tried my best to remain poised, but my words became short as I struggled to run, breathe, and speak at the time.

“Let me get this straight… You want me to go to the Academy of the Sacred Heart, and then spend every afternoon apprenticing with you in the metal shop?”

“Jeez, do you have to put me in the same category with your disdain for Sacred Heart?”

“That’s not what I meant, Dad, I’m just trying to process all of this. It’s making my brain hurt.”

“Well, I’m sorry that the idea of working with me makes your brain hurt.”

“Ugh, Dad, stop. That’s not what I meant. I just…” A seagull squawked as it dipped low to investigate a pile of floating wreckage. “I mean, I’m supposed to be apprenticing in fashion. What would we work on together?” I tried my best not to sound as though there was nothing he could teach me.

“What do you mean? There’s tons of cool stuff we could do. You could create a jewelry line. We could focus on your fashion illustrations, which you and I both know need serious work if you are ever going to put together a decent portfolio.”

That stung a little, but he was right.

“You’ve been talking for ages about wanting to learn how to make your own hardware for your pieces.”