The Beau & The Belle

“And what am I, exactly?”

  “I don’t know how to put it…someone genuine, someone who tries—a hero.”

  “I’m not a hero, Lauren.”

  No, Beau Fortier, you’re not.

  I’VE NEVER DONE this before. It feels touristy and cliché. Also, at the risk of sounding cynical and cold, I don’t really believe in it. Rose does though. She’s always been interested in the voodoo and mysticism that pervades New Orleans. She’s gone on every late-night ghost tour and has been to the cemeteries around town so many times that the girl is due for a good ol’ fashioned possession, and something tells me she would jump at the opportunity to tote around a demon or two.

  “Your energy is telling me you don’t wish to be here.”

  Damn, she’s spot on. I draw my attention back to the woman sitting in front of me: Phoebe, the psychic. She looks like a cross between Captain Jack Sparrow and Miss Cleo—big hair, gold jewelry up to her elbows, smudged black eyeliner. She’s one of the clairvoyants set up in Jackson Square Park, the ones I’ve avoided my entire life. We walked by her table and Rose insisted that we stop to get our palms read. I laughed her off because no native is stupid enough to get bamboozled into spending $30 on 5 minutes of bullshit, yet here I sit, palm exposed, energy apparently closed off.

  Rose punches my shoulder. “C’mon, Lauren! Focus! If you block Phoebs out, how is she going to fix your life?”

  Right, of course—how silly of me. I open my chakras. I expose my inner eye. I scratch my ankle under the table.

  “Relax your hand,” Phoebe insists, shooting me an annoyed glare.

  I sigh and lean forward on the cheap, collapsible chair. The purple tablecloth she used to cover her card table gets caught in my bracelet. The incense she’s burning is making my eyes water. Mysticism clearly isn’t for me.

  Phoebe flattens my hand, dragging her finger pad across the center of my palm. It tickles, which I take as a good sign.

  She leans down and furrows her brows. Then, for what feels like an unnecessary amount of time—I’m talking several minutes—she hums in concern, shaking her head, frowning. Then—I kid you not—she mumbles, “No. No. It can’t be.”

  “I knew I should’ve used moisturizer today,” I quip. “There are probably more cracks coming off my life line than usual.”

  Her brown eyes flare.

  Right.

  I try again. “Umm, okay, what do you see?”

  Her finger traces along my skin. “You’re about to be hit with something big.”

  “Wow. Like a bus?”

  “Bigger.”

  “Two buses?”

  Rose delivers another blow to my shoulder. “She’s not talking about freaking public transportation! Now open your mind!”

  I close my eyes and tilt my head back.

  “Okay. So something big is about to hit me—but we’re confident it’s not related to buses,” I summarize, annoyed with myself for engaging in this at all. “Is it possible that this big thing is figurative? Like, I’m about to be hit by a big heavy-flow month?”

  I peek my eyes back open.

  Phoebe shakes her head. “I can’t be sure. Just prepare yourself.”

  “Prepare myself? How?”

  She shakes her head. “I can’t tell you that.”

  Oh, all right. Thanks for the help there, Phoebs. Jesus. I look up into the sky just to be sure a plane isn’t careening toward me at this very moment.

  “Okay, screw this,” Rose says, leaning down and pointing at my hand. “When is she going to get married?”

  Phoebe frowns again. “No. No marriage in her future.” She tilts my palm toward me. “See? Cracks or no cracks, your life line stops here. You die alone.”

  Oh, whew. I was worried she was going to tell me something terrible, but this is nothing. I just need to prepare to be hit by a mysterious bigness while also adjusting to my new life as a crusty old maid. Best 30 bucks I’ve ever spent.

  “However, the cards may tell another tale,” Phoebe says, dramatically producing a handful of Tarot cards with a clumsy flourish. “For 20 more dollars, you may reveal—”

  “BOOOOO,” Rose interrupts. She was planning to get her palm read after mine, but instead she grabs my hand and pulls me away into the square.

  “She didn’t know what she was talking about!” she insists. We’re heading toward Canal Street to catch the streetcar and I have to race to keep up with her. The crowds are out in full force.

  When I catch up, I link our elbows so I don’t lose her again. “I don’t know, Rose. She had gold hoop earrings and everything—and did you see that crystal ball on her table? You can’t just buy those things from Spencer’s.”

  She aims another sneer in my direction. “Listen, the night before I met Jeremy, I had a psychic tell me I was about to meet the love of my life.”

  “Okay, but didn’t Jeremy leave you for a guy?”

  “That’s not the point!”

  I’m confused.

  “So the love of your life is a gay guy?”

  “No, he sucks, but what matters is I met him the very next day.”

  Well I’m convinced.

  We continue walking arm in arm as she tries to explain it to me, but I only half-listen, lost in the noise around us. It hasn’t quite sunk in that I’m back living in New Orleans. It’s been so long since I’ve called the Crescent City my home—ten years. God, I was different back then, so wide-eyed and unsure of myself, a baby. After boarding school, Rose and I both went to Wellesley for college, just like my parents wanted. They thought I should study art history and business in the hopes that I would come home and immerse myself in the New Orleans art scene. For a while I put up a good fight, dabbling in literature, but in the end, I couldn’t read another fucking sonnet. At what point can we all stop sucking Shakespeare’s dick? (Strike me down, thespians.) And worse, I loved art as much as my parents wanted me to love art, which was very annoying for the rebel inside of me.

  After college, I worked at Sotheby’s in New York for four years in their contemporary art department. I started out as a lowly intern, schlepping coffee around the office for all of the top directors, brokers, and sales staff. Eventually, I was asked to start assisting with the acquisitions team and by the time I left, I was a senior specialist focused on contemporary North American paintings from the 1900s to the early 2000s. Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko—when one of their works came into Sotheby’s, I helped facilitate the appraisal and sale. It was exciting and fast-paced, just like the city. New York isn’t for the faint of anything, with its long days, long nights, smoke and grit, a subway system that somehow runs most of the time. I went days without seeing the sun during the winter months, and dating? You can forget about it. There was never time. My boss was a lonely jerk, and I swear she had IT hack into my Google calendar just so she could sabotage any hope I had at a social life.

  I don’t regret it though. New York gave me a thick skin. Part of me feels like if I can survive there, I can do anything, which is why I’m back in New Orleans. I’m going to open up my own gallery in the French Quarter. I know, not exactly groundbreaking, considering there are about a million of them between Bourbon Street and the Mississippi, but I’m creating something different—a destination not just for art lovers, but for every tourist trying to snap an Instagrammable moment in the city. I worked with a team of designers to create a space that is part coffee shop, part art gallery. Our lattes will come in delicate pink cups. Our food will be delicious and adorable—avocado toast and pastries and artisanal cheese. There will be exposed brick, original hardwood floors, and enough natural light to make a teenage girl drool. Better yet, I’ve commissioned a pink neon sign that will hang outside on the white brick facade. It’s the name of the gallery: NOLA. Simple. Meta. My marketing team nearly had a collective brain aneurism trying to explain to me how difficult the name will make SEO, but social media finds a way. It’s too good to pass up. I’m going to make a killing, and I’m going to use the ven
ue to gain exposure for local artists like my mother. Her abstract paintings are perfect for the space—large swaths of bright blues and pinks and yellows that people fawn over. She’s always made good money from her art, but there’s room to grow and I’m going to use what I learned at Sotheby’s to help her do so.

  Rose and I are on the St. Charles line heading toward my parents’ house in the Garden District. It’s so packed on the streetcar that we weren’t able to find seats, so we stand in the center aisle, shifting our weight from one foot to the other to keep from falling over. It reminds me of the subways back in New York, except the streetcars are louder. They chug along above ground, the low rumble punctuated by metallic clangs loud enough to make you go deaf. They dot the New Orleans landscape with their cute, old-world charm, but they are slow as shit. Most locals don’t take them, opting instead for a car or taxi, but I couldn’t resist today.

  Rose begins to speak behind me, but the loud metallic CLANG blocks out most of her words.

  I smile. “What was that?”

  “I SAID,” she shouts, “are you sure you want to use the money from your trust to start a business?”

  I laugh. “Oh, you mean the business that’s like two months away from opening? That business?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Yes. It’s not too late to back out now.”

  “It’s a little late for the doubt bomb. I’ve already hired two baristas.”

  “Fire them.”

  “I’ve already spent a fortune renovating the building. It’s perfect.”

  “I’m just not sure you’re fully prepared for this.”

  I narrow my eyes, focusing on her concern. “Where is this coming from? We were just at the space and you said you loved it.”

  Her face breaks out in a grin and she holds up her hand for me to high-five. “Congratulations, you’ve passed the test.”

  I leave her hanging. “What test?”

  She waves her hand, but I continue to ignore it. “I just wanted to make sure you’re really committed.”

  “I should have you committed for almost giving me a heart attack.”

  She is unperturbed. “That’s what good friends are for. Oh! Here’s our stop.”

  She tugs the line to stop the streetcar and we follow a mob of tourists out onto St. Charles Avenue. It’s early January, days away from the start of Carnival, and there’s an excitement hanging in the air—or maybe that’s just the smell of king cakes baking throughout the city. Either way, I like it.

  “Oh, look at the beads hanging in the trees!” one tourist shouts beside us. “How cute!”

  Rose rolls her eyes and tugs me forward, anxious to break away from the crowd.

  “That’s the last time I let you talk me into taking the streetcar.”

  I pinch her side. “C’mon! It’s fun! You’ll sit for a psychic but you won’t tolerate a few tourists? Where is your southern hospitality?”

  She strikes a dramatic pose and assumes the voice of a dainty southern belle. “Just because they’re in N’awlins doesn’t mean they can depend on the kindness of strangers.”

  After another two blocks of near sprinting, we’re finally on our own, walking along the broken sidewalks and mansions I missed over the years I was away. I smile as we pass a house clinging to the past as much as possible. Out front there are black iron hitching posts with horse heads sculpted out of iron. A hundred years ago, they were used to tie up horses. Today, they’re status symbols.

  I find it all charming and adorable. Rose finds the large, worn stepping stones and broken sidewalks “barely tolerable”. She’s only in town for a few weeks and then she’s headed back to Boston. After college, we’d commute back and forth to visit every few weeks, suffering through the dreary winters together. I think she’s still a little annoyed with me for moving back here, but I have zero regrets. It’s the dead of winter and I’m wearing a jean jacket and thin scarf. There’s no snow on the ground, no sludge to wade through on my way to and from the office, no email from my boss explaining that I’ll need to cancel my date and work late again. Life is glorious.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket and I pull it out to see a text from Dad asking me when I’ll be home. I reply that we’re only a few minutes away and then I see another text from Preston that I missed while we were on the streetcar.

  PRESTON: I’m bummed that I’ll be out of town this weekend. I don’t want to miss your party.

  LAUREN: It’s not MY party!

  PRESTON: Are we still on for next week? I’ll make it up to you.

  LAUREN: Sure :)

  “Who are you texting?”

  “Guess.”

  She laughs and rolls her eyes. “Didn’t take him long, did it? You’ve been back for what, two weeks?”

  “He’s just excited that I’m back in town.”

  “Uh huh, and he definitely hasn’t been pining for you the last 10 years.”

  “He hasn’t.” She’s delusional. “According to his Facebook profile pictures, he’s had like four different serious girlfriends.”

  It’s the truth. Preston and I have stayed in contact over the years thanks to our fathers’ friendship. He graduated with a degree in architecture and works as an associate at my dad’s firm. He isn’t the same snot-nosed punk he was when we were younger. He’s grown up, matured, simmered down to a level of privilege I can tolerate…well, in small doses. He convinced me to go out on a date with him next week—something I think Psychic Phoebe would be excited to hear about. The echoes of my high school self couldn’t resist accepting his offer. I would have DIED to have Preston ask me out on a date back then. Now, it seems like a fun way to spend an evening, and chances are, he’s going to take me to a place that has a good wine list. All in all, there’s really nothing to lose.

  We round the corner toward my house and I’m hit with a wave of nostalgia. Rose and I used to walk home together every day after school, but when I glance over, I don’t see the teenage version of my friend standing beside me. She’s taller now. Her dark hair is chopped short in one of those stylish blunt bobs like Victoria Beckham. It’s bullshit—people shouldn’t get to be pretty as adolescents and as adults. We should all be subjected to those awkward, burn-every-photograph-in-existence middle school years. Rose doesn’t have those photographs—she has Glamour Shots.

  “Why are you looking at me?” she asks, casting an annoyed glance in my direction.

  I reach out for her hand and squeeze it. “I was just thinking about how weird it is that we’re walking home together, just like old times.”

  She tries to break free of my hold. She loathes all forms of outward affection, which is the exact reason I grabbed her hand in the first place. “Unhand me, wench.”

  “No. I’m forcing you to feel my love. Smell those chakras you forced me to open earlier.”

  Her face contorts into a mask of pure misery. “I’m going to break out in hives. I hate this. Have you washed your hands lately?”

  “Deal with it.” I swing our hands back and forth like we’re kindergarteners on a playground. “This is punishment.”

  “For what?”

  “Forcing cosmic confirmation that I’m going to die alone.”

  She groans. “If you don’t let go, you’re going to die right now. At least you’ll have me by your side—slowly squeezing the life out of you.”

  “Do you think it’s true? What Phoebe said?”

  “I don’t know, maybe. I mean, you’re 27 and you’ve never had a serious boyfriend.”

  I glare at her because that’s not true. “Clark was serious.”

  “You never once let Clark spend the night at your apartment.”

  “Why is that so weird? I like my space.”

  “What a coincidence,” she says, executing a complicated escape maneuver she probably learned in a self-defense class. “So do I!”

  I laugh as she shakes her hand out like she’s actively trying to dispel my cooties. It’s cute. She needs therapy.

  My mom is in
the kitchen when we arrive home, sitting at the table in a paint-speckled smock. There’s a half-eaten salad pushed to the side, some tea, and her ever-present sketchpad. It looks like she abandoned her lunch in favor of work, and I feel bad interrupting her. She’s working on a new collection of paintings for NOLA; I’ve commissioned a few that will hang in the space permanently, Kathleen LeBlanc originals.

  She’s so absorbed in her own world that she doesn’t notice we’re home and in the kitchen until we’re feet away from her.

  “Mom.”

  She jumps out of her skin. Honestly, what if I’d been a burglar?

  “Girls!” she says with a bright smile. “Jesus, you scared me half to death.”

  “I don’t know how that’s possible—the old floors in this house are so creaky. Remember when Rose and I tried to sneak out and we didn’t even make it halfway down the stairs?”

  She waves away my teasing. “Yes, well, I’m old and hard of hearing now. Anyway, have you two had lunch? There’s some chicken salad in the fridge that I made yesterday.”

  Rose, having been my friend for close to three decades now, knows to turn down my mom’s cooking with a polite but firm no.

  I do the same.

  “When do you head back to Boston, Rose?”

  “Sunday.”

  “Oh good! I was worried you wouldn’t be able to make it to the party on Saturday.”

  She resumes her southern debutante persona, fanning her face and drawling. “And miss Lauren’s reintroduction to New Orleans society? Why I never.”

  “That’s not what it is!” I insist, slightly embarrassed by the old-world concept.

  My parents are throwing a 12th night party that happens to coincide with my being back in New Orleans, and the invitation might have said something about welcoming me back…and my picture might have been on the front of it. Whatever. I’m not going to make it a thing—I refuse to be “the toast of the town”, as my mom likes to say. I don’t want to be the toast of anything.

  “I bet all those southern gentlemen are chomping at the bit to get a good look at her all grown up,” Rose continues on like she’s auditioning to play Scarlett O’Hara.