Unbroken (13 page)

“It kind of does,” Rebecca told her. “Hey, I just spoke to Anton. I said we’d go with him and Phil to the Spring Dance on Thursday. If you still want to go, of course.”

Ling’s face brightened.

“Why not?” she said, smiling up at Rebecca. She looked relieved, probably thinking that Rebecca’s bad mood was all about the spat with Anton, and that everything was fine now.

“You don’t mind, do you, Dad?” Rebecca turned to her father. “It’s the St. Simeon’s thing at the country club. It’s not a big deal.”

Her father, checking e-mail on his iPad, peered at her over his glasses.

“If that’s how you want to spend your Thursday night,” he said, looking at her as though she was crazy. “I never pictured you two as country club types, but there’s a first time for everything. Are you sure?”

“I guess,” said Rebecca, even though she wasn’t sure at all. “It’ll be … fun.”

“Oh!” Ling gasped and smacked her hand down on the table.

“What’s wrong?”

“We don’t have anything to wear. All I brought with me were jeans and shorts and T-shirts. I have one sundress, but it’s not really Spring Dance at the country club, if you know what I’m saying.”

“I don’t have anything, either,” Rebecca admitted. All the Temple Mead girls would be dressed up like Halloween candy, she was sure, shining and rustling and sickening. She looked over at her father, still studying his phone. “I guess we won’t be able to go then.”

“All right, all right,” he said without even looking up. “Tomorrow morning. Shopping for dresses. One hour only. Price limit to be agreed in advance.”

“Thanks so much, Mr. Brown!” Ling was all smiles.

“Thanks, Dad. Um — we might need shoes as well. But we can totally do our own hair and makeup!”

“We might need some makeup,” Ling whispered to Rebecca.

Rebecca’s father rolled his eyes.

“I’m glad it’s not a big deal,” he said. “Actually, if this
isn’t
a big deal, I’d hate to see what a big deal looks like.”

Ling and Rebecca bustled into Miss Viola’s small, overstuffed vintage store as soon as it opened at ten. Within five minutes Miss Viola had sent Rebecca’s dad out to buy himself a coffee at CC’s, because, in her opinion, men “cluttered up the shop.” She pulled a series of ’80s party dresses from the rack for the girls to try on.

“Now
this
one is very Madonna,” she announced, flapping something short and black at Ling. “But
this
one is more
Falcon’s Crest
,” she said, holding up a poufy purple dress with big sleeves. “Not that you girls will remember that.”

In one of the changing rooms, pulling off her jeans, Rebecca’s phone kept buzzing. Aurelia was sending her text after text. After much wheedling and negotiating, Aunt Claudia had said Aurelia could join the volunteers at Basin Street High for one afternoon only. Both St. Simeon’s and Temple Mead were ending classes early that day, and Aurelia was catching the streetcar into the Quarter.

“You’d think they’d let them out early on Thursday,” Ling shouted through the curtained divide after Rebecca told her the news. “So they could spend the time getting reading for the Spring Dance.”

“They probably booked the entire Belladonna Spa this afternoon for mani-pedis,” Rebecca said. “You won’t be able to drive down Magazine Street for all the illegally parked SUVs.”

“Tell me what you think,” said Ling. Rebecca peeked out
behind her brocade curtain to see Ling step out in the Madonna number, which was short and black, with a peplum. Ling looked lovely in it, walking around on her tiptoes.

“Just the right length for a petite young lady,” said Miss Viola approvingly, twirling her finger in the air to get Ling to turn around. “A little big around the waist, but I don’t have a smaller size. That’s no problem. We can take that in for you.”

“Is there time?” Ling asked.

“Baby, my family are Indians. We’re the fastest sewers in New Orleans.”

Ling was looking puzzled — Miss Viola was
Indian
? — so Rebecca thought she should explain.

“She means Mardi Gras Indians,” she said, zipping up her dress. “It’s a big African-American tradition here. Some people mask as Indians, and wear amazing costumes and big headdresses made of feathers and beads. I read a book about it.”

“You never seen Mardi Gras Indians in person?” Miss Viola asked. Rebecca shook her head. “You had to read a
book
?”

“Last year during Carnival all I saw were the big parades. The ones down St. Charles.”

Miss Viola looked appalled. “Tell that nephew of mine to take you inside his daddy’s house. Now, how about
your
dress?”

Rebecca stepped out fully from her fitting room. Her dress was jade green, with narrow shoulder straps and a flouncy skirt. Rebecca twirled, admiring her reflection in the mirror. The
green looked good with her dark hair, she decided. She wondered what Anton would think.

“That color looks beautiful on you,” Ling said. “Maybe silver shoes?”

Rebecca’s dad returned to admire their purchases, and to pay Miss Viola. Rebecca expected him to head straight downtown for one of his endless meetings, but outside in the street he surprised her.

“How would you girls like to take a walk around a cemetery with me?”

“When?” Ling said, with no enthusiasm in her voice.

“Which cemetery?” Rebecca asked, hoping that it wasn’t Lafayette. She really didn’t feel like going back there.

“Whoa — no need to thank me!” Rebecca’s dad teased. “I thought you guys were history buffs? I’ve got an hour free, and I thought we could go to St. Louis Number One. It’s the oldest cemetery in New Orleans.”

“Oh — now? Great!” Ling’s face relaxed. “That’s the place the Voodoo Queen is buried, right? Marie Laveau?”

Rebecca’s dad nodded.

“So let’s go,” Rebecca said. She didn’t know what else to do now, anyway, except avoid scary Gideon Mason, and obsess about how impossible it would be to get into that boarded-up derelict house. And Aurelia wouldn’t be descending until after two.

“I just thought if you meant later on,” Ling was burbling, “it would be a problem, because I’m meeting someone for a coffee….”

“Who are you meeting?” Rebecca asked. Ling didn’t know anyone in New Orleans.

“Just … ah, Phil,” she said, suddenly engrossed by the poster display in a shop window. “At the Croissant d’or. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course not,” Rebecca said.

Well, well, well. Those two weren’t wasting any time. Then she remembered her lie to Anton, about Ling being desperate to go to the Spring Dance. He’d probably told Phil. Did boys talk to each other like that? Who knew?

“I thought you could spend some quality time with Aurelia and then we’d walk over to the school together,” said Ling, still looking in the shop window. Her cheeks were pink. “If that’s OK.”

“So — cemetery, yes?” Rebecca’s dad asked, looking faintly amused. “Let’s drop your bags off and go. You never know — maybe there’s a surprise waiting for you there. And I’m not talking about the tomb of Marie Laveau.”

“What kind of surprise?” Rebecca asked. Probably a carriage ride, or some other hokey tourist thing.

“You’ll have to wait and see,” said her father, all mysterious and self-important. “But I’ll give you one clue. I was wrong
about the spelling of the name you asked me about the other day. It’s M-U-S-S-O-N.”

“What is your dad talking about?” Ling murmured. Rebecca froze, but her father smiled.

“Rebecca was asking me the other day if I knew of a local artist by the name of Musson here in New Orleans. Well … let’s just go to the cemetery. All will be revealed!”

The St. Louis Number One Cemetery had the same high white walls as Lafayette Cemetery. But it was much older, smaller and mazelike, with less room for avenues of trees or vast, fancy tombs like the Bowmans’. The paths underfoot were damp and sandy, and the view over the walls was of redbrick projects and high-rise hotels. It was crammed in every direction with graves — some so neglected they were just crumbling piles of brick, others freshly whitewashed and etched on both ends with family names. The unmarked tomb said to be Marie Laveau’s was scarred with graffiti kisses, tributes of flowers, candles, and trinkets heaped at its base.

“Man, we’re never going to find this tomb,” Ling muttered to Rebecca. They crunched up and down rows, trying to be methodical, but it wasn’t easy. This wasn’t an orderly place: It was a jumble of over three hundred years of burials. “How do you spell the name again?”

“I think it’s over this way,” Rebecca’s father said, checking the time. “It better be. This place is closing in ten minutes.”

Tour groups were filing out, and the caretaker wandered around jingling his keys.

“I think we missed some over here,” Rebecca said in desperation, though she was certain they’d already circled this exact spot. How could they miss a tomb in such a small cemetery? She stopped to shake a pebble out of one shoe, feeling guilty about leaning against someone’s tomb in order to prop herself up.

“Rebecca!” Ling called. “Here it is!”

Rebecca tugged on her shoe and raced over to where the others were standing. A railing and elaborate gate enclosed the tomb, and Rebecca pressed against it, scanning the names engraved on the marble slab.

Musson, Musson, Musson
— one after another. The very second name was a Desirée — the name Frank had said! — but she’d died in 1819, so it couldn’t be the same one. Toward the bottom of the slab, however, another Desirée Musson was listed. Born December 1838, died April 1902. Rebecca did a quick calculation. This Desirée would have been thirty-four years old the day Frank was entrusted with the locket. Could she have been the cousin living on Esplanade Avenue?

“You know, there’s something much more interesting about this tomb than the railings,” Rebecca’s father said. “Have either
of you noticed the famous names here? See up at the top, Desirée Musson née Rillieux? This was a famous Creole family in this city. One of the Rillieux had children with a free woman of color here, and their son, Norbert Rillieux, became a famous engineer and inventor.”

“That’s super-interesting,” said Ling, leaning in to take another photo. Rebecca was still focused on Desirée’s name.

“And the other name you can see further down,” Rebecca’s dad went on. “The line that reads Henri, Jeanne, Pierre De Gas. They all died young, and probably close together, because their names are all on that one line. Yellow fever maybe. Anyway, they were the children, I believe, of this lady here, Estelle Musson. See? Her husband isn’t buried here, because he left her at some point and moved back to France. His name was René De Gas. And he was the brother of — who?”

“Cemetery closing!” shouted the caretaker. “Closing in two minutes! Anyone not out in two minutes, you gonna be sleeping here tonight!”

Rebecca’s dad smiled at her. “I’ll give you a clue. His brother spelled it as one word, not two. D-E-G-A-S.”

Rebecca couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“You mean,” she said, “
the painter
Degas?”

Something was clicking together in her head.

Her dad nodded proudly. “The only one of the French Impressionists ever to visit the U.S.,” he said. “And he came
here to New Orleans, to visit his brother, and his uncle’s family. They lived somewhere up on Esplanade. There might be a plaque outside the house….”

Rebecca’s heart was beating so fast she thought she might fall over. The painter who gave Frank the locket was
Edgar Degas
. Desirée Musson was Degas’ cousin! That little picture inside that Frank had mentioned: That could actually have been painted by one of the great French Impressionists. It could be worth millions of dollars!

“Come on — we better go before we get locked in,” Rebecca’s dad said. “More interesting than Marie Laveau, right? I told you I had a surprise.”

“Right,” Rebecca agreed. Her arms and legs felt weak; her head was stuffed with cotton wool. She followed her father and Ling out of the cemetery in a daze. Degas. Degas. Degas. One of her favorite painters. One of the most famous painters
ever.

She had to rescue that locket.

W
hen Ling finally skipped off to meet Phil at the Croissant d’or — a café in the premises of a nineteenth-century ice cream parlor — Rebecca raced straight to the corner of Rampart Street. Aurelia would be arriving soon, so there wasn’t much time. But she had to talk to Frank.

For the first time Frank was actually waiting there for her. As she ran up Orleans, she could see him, and he started talking when she was still a few strides away.

“I went to Carondelet Street,” he said, his blue eyes gleaming. “And I talked to this ghost who used to work as a porter there. He remembers the names of all the cotton offices where he worked. He said the one I was talking about never paid him for his last day’s work. He said other things, too, that I can’t repeat in front of ladies …”

“Frank!” Rebecca said. She was desperate to interrupt him with her news, but she’d never seen him so animated.