The Casquette Girls (12 page)

He
’d obviously been thinking about this a lot. His pitch was starting to sound pretty convincing.

“We could do chainmaille, or something really avant-garde or conceptual.”

My mind raced with possibilities as he rattled off more and more ideas.

“Dad, stop!” I couldn’t keep the giant grin from spreading across my face. “You had me at chainmaille.”

His shoulders relaxed, and I saw a little excitement in his eyes. “Really? You’d choose Sacred Heart and me over Brooke and a real
atelier
? I never thought I’d see this day.”

I really, really wanted to be with my best friend, but how could I leave this plac
e
?
There was so much to do, to rebuild. It was utterly overwhelming. My father put his arm around me and pulled me close. I concentrated on my feet so I didn’t stumble in the awkward runner’s embrace.

“Gross, you’re sweaty, Dad.”

“So are you!” He squirted water in my face. Sometimes he really was a child.

“All right, let’s go home,” I said, letting the water run down my neck. It actually felt pretty good; the noon sun was in full blaze.

“Home? We are just getting warmed up.”

“Warmed up! Maybe you are, but not all of us vacationed in Miami for the last two months,” I teased. “My legs are like jelly. I am going home.” I veered onto Esplanade Avenue as he continued down the river.

“Going to let your old man show you up?” he yelled over his shoulder.

“
Oui
!
”

“And don’t think I forgot about you lying to my face yesterday.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah….” There was now too much distance between us to yell back and forth.
What was he going to do, ground m
e
?
The whole city was already on lock-down. None of my friends were back. There was no Internet and barely any cellphone reception.

I slowed down to pace myself for the remaining ten blocks home
. Had I really just agreed to go to the Academy of the Sacred Heart? “The Academy,” as they called i
t
.
Images of Catholic schoolgirl uniforms, sweet sixteens and hundreds of cookie-cutter copies of Désirée Borges popped in my head. I cut across the neutral ground onto Chartres Street and began to count down the blocks when an unfamiliar sight caught my attention.

People.

Three of them standing in the middle of the road on the next block. A little old lady leaning on a cane was looking up with her hand shielding her eyes from the sun. Behind her were two goth guys, who appeared to be either elated or scowling; between the makeup and facial piercings it was hard to tell. As I slowly approached them, I realized they were standing outside the cement wall behind the Ursuline Convent, in almost the exact spot where yesterday’s crying fit had begun. I suddenly had a sinking feeling that I knew what they were all looking at.

The taller goth with the twelve-inch bleached spikes was Theis, the boyfriend of one of my favorite coffee-shop regulars. He was contorting himself into various positions to snap photos with his cell phone. Before I even reached them, his aperture led my gaze straight to the attic window.

It looked exactly as I had left it yesterday: glass blown out and one shutter missing. The remaining shutter now swayed, although today there was actually a decent breeze to push it back and forth – so there was nothing peculiar about the motion. Anxiety pricked my stomach, warning me not to incriminate myself. For what, exactly, I had no clue.

“They definitely escaped,” Theis said dryly to his shorter
,
Manic-Panic
-
red-haired companion.

I ducked my head as I jogged past them, but the old lady turned to me anyway. “Even all those nails from the Vatican couldn’t hold a candle to the power of the Storm.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I craned my neck back to her, nodded, and mumbled, “Mother Nature.”

“You got it, baby. Lord, help us.”

I picked up my pace.

The crazies are sure out in full force this mornin
g
,
I thought, shaking my head.
What did Theis mean, escaped?

By the time I dragged my luggage upstairs, I felt like I’d had a total body workout, but whenever I rested for more than a minute, my mind bounced back and forth between the convent and Sacred Heart, until I felt like I was going to explode.

Focus on something, Adele. Anythin
g
.

I stood with my hands on my hips, trying to figure out where to start.

The afternoon sun illuminated the dust, making everything in my new bedroom sparkle in a strange, dirty way; the sheeted furniture cast oddly-shaped shadows, reminding me of a modern art exhibit.

Cool.
I snapped a photo of the nearest mystery sculpture’s oblong silhouette on the wall, and then tucked the phone into my back pocket, held my breath and pulled the first sheet off, sending dust sparkles everywhere.

Whoa, an upright piano. Maybe everything isn’t just old junk.

I started tearing off the sheets like a kid on Christmas morning. A rocking chair. A beautifully carved vanity with a tri-folding mirror. A rose-colored chaise lounge. And a large oak wardrobe. The perfect little setup from the past. In the middle of the room was a large bed with four ornate brass posts that would have once held a delicate canopy, but from which now hung a couple of limp drop cloths. Without thinking, I yanked them off and plopped down onto the mattress.

“Ow!” I yelped, getting a whack to my hipbone. The ancient mattress would have to go.

Lying on the bed, my gaze settled on the last drop-cloth sculpture. It was an incredibly odd shape
.
Tuba
?
I jumped up and ripped off the cover, revealing a Victrola.

“Cool.”

The case over the turntable had been sealed tight, so it wasn’t even that dusty
.
“Do you still work?”

I raced down to my father’s studio and then, breathing heavily, ran back up the stairs with an armful of records I’d randomly grabbed: the soundtrack to
Jesus Christ Superstar
, a classic Louis Armstrong, a Led Zeppelin, and a David Bowie. I carefully looked over the cardboard case protecting
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
.
I didn’t know much about David Bowie, but something about the bright gas lamp on the cover attracted me. I gently pulled the record from the sleeve, placed the old vinyl on the turntable, and moved the needle.

My fingers searched for a power switch – until I remembered how old the machine was.
Idio
t
,
I thought
,
reaching for the manual power source. But I couldn’t get the hand-crank to budge.
Mental note: get the WD-40 from Dad’s studi
o
.

I gave the Victrola a little pep talk and exerted some force.

It gradually started to turn.

The record spun, and the music started playing, all without the power of electricity
.
“Just like magic,” I whispered.

The glam-rock beats sounded raw and scratchy coming from the large flower-shaped cone, and the slow start of the opening song crept over me with the grip of a soon-to-be obsession. I spritzed dusting cleanser with the downbeats of the tune, and wiped the rag over the piano as if I was performing on stage. By the time the next track began, I had moved on to the vanity mirror and decided that I loved Bowie.

When the third track began to crescendo, my fingers picked an air-guitar, but just as I started to shred, the music suddenly cut off, and the room became completely still. I caught sight of my frozen pose in the mirror and quickly dropped the imaginary instrument.

I glanced at the Victrola, hoping I hadn’t broken it. Blaming the spiders from Mars, I forced myself to keep cleaning, but it wasn’t the same. Even though we had only just been introduced, I was already having
Ziggy Stardust
withdrawal.

“Ugh, the crank!” I yelped, having a second mini-revelation over the machine’s need for manual power.

Finish the mirror firs
t
…

Without even the slightest ambient street noise coming in through the open windows, the swooshes from my rag seemed loud. I worked fast, eager to get back into David Bowie’s spaceship, but then a wave of tingles jettisoning down my spine made me freeze mid-scrub.

A faint rattle was coming from behind me.

I strained to listen
. It’s just the old pipe
s
,
I told myself. But the rattling sounded way too close to be coming from behind a wall.

Scrubbing again, my nerves began to fry, but I refused to look back, feeling safety in not knowing the truth. The noise grew louder and louder, chipping at my curiosity like an ice pick. Chip. Chip.

Breath
e
.

Without moving my head, I slowly raised my eyes to the mirror and blinked a couple of times at the reflection. Across the room, the metal hand-crank was aggressively jerking, causing the entire music box to shake. I spun around, dropping the rag.

As I gaped at the machine, the handle slowly began to turn itself, and the music started up again.

“What the…?”

Am I losing my min
d
?
I wondered as I went back to cleaning.
Experiencing some kind of Storm-induced post-traumatic stress disorder?

The next time the volume died, the sounds of my own heartbeat pounding were interrupted only by the sound of creaking metal. I knew what was making the noises, but my brain could not adjust to the idea.

Breath
e
.

Creak.

Breath
e
.

Creak.

Bowie’s voice warbled back to full volume, and the room was back to feeling like a 1970s rock opera.

I bent and swooshed the rag around the bucket of soapy water, racking my brain for logical explanations, never landing on anything scientific.
Maybe it’s a ghos
t
?
A lost spirit who really, really wanted to listen to “Ziggy Stardust.” I couldn’t blame it.
Wait, do I even believe in ghosts?

The volume died again.

Getting annoyed by the start and stop, I whipped around to the machine. The metal handle flew around so quickly that the album hardly skipped a beat. David Bowie’s voice parachuted in to keep me from going into panic mode.

I had no idea if I was dreaming, awake, crazy, or sane, but as the B-side repeated, I began to relax, and my thoughts moved from a recently grayed-out New Orleans to Mr. Bowie’s fantastical world.

I hadn’t realized that I was full-on rocking out with the mop until my father appeared and spun me around, but I was loving it too much to be embarrassed.

“There is absolutely no denying that you are my daughter,” he yelled over the music, twirling me around.

He grabbed the shadeless floor lamp and belted out the “Lady Stardust
”
lyrics, doing his best David Bowie impression. I burst out laughing.

“Oh my God, Dad, stop. You’re ridiculous.”

He sang even louder.

The more I laughed, the more dramatic he became. I hadn’t seen him act this silly since I was a kid
.
Maybe we were both going loop
y
?
He slid across the piano bench and banged out the chords on the long-dormant instrument.

His ridiculousness escalated until I was doubled over with tears pouring down my cheeks. I couldn’t remember the last time I had laughed so hard. My ribs hurt, my cheeks hurt, and I was gasping for air.

A really good laugh could change everything.

He jumped up from the piano bench just in time for the last verse, twirled me around a few times, and then slowly rocked me back and forth. As the song finished, so did the crank, and the music stopped.

“Everything’s going to be all right, Adele.” He kissed the top of my head. “I promise.”

I willed myself to believe him, but when I opened my eyes, I saw the metal crank vibrating, as if it was trying to figure out what I wanted it to do. And then, even stranger – I felt myself commanding it to stay still.

Dancing turned into a dinner date. My father cooked a bland feast of plain red beans ’n rice (all the while playing
Hunky Dory
loudly to further my Bowie indoctrination), while I took on the gag-inducing task of cleaning out the fridge. It was funny experiencing such a domestic scene in our home. Usually we just sort of coexisted, sharing the occasional cup of coffee and discussion about art when our schedules overlapped.