Hidden Jewel

  A group of men all dressed in jeans and Tshirts, some with their forearms streaked with grease and oil, rose from a table to our right and started out, laughing as they walked. They all wore high boots. Every one of them glanced at us, but the youngestlooking man flashed a warm, soft smile and fixed his dark eyes on me for a moment longer. He tipped his hat as he went by, hesitating as if he wanted to say something.

  "Come along, Jack. That's too rich for your blood," one of the older men said. Embarrassed, he hurried out the door and into their laughter.

  We took our seats and a young girl in a red apron with her hair tied in thick knots came to take our order. Daddy had a chicken and seafood gumbo and I ordered jambalaya.

  I saw a poster advertising a fais dodo on Saturday night with music by the Cajun Swamp Trio.

  "What is that?" I asked. "Fais dodo?"

  "That's a dance and big feed," she said with her hand on her hip and her shoulder up. "You ain't ever been to one?"

  "No."

  "Where you from?"

  "We're from New Orleans," Daddy said, smiling.

  "Oh. Well, you should come," she said. "You can do the two-step." She leaned toward me and added, her eyes shifting toward the door, "I know some boys who'd like to see you there."

  "We're not staying," I said quickly.

  Daddy laughed. He ordered a mug of beer for himself and E had iced tea.

  "So," he said "What do you think of your mother's world so far? You don't remember much, obviously."

  "It's interesting," I said in a loud whisper. "But so different."

  Daddy nodded and smiled at a memory."When I first set eyes on your mother, I thought she was Gisselle. It was during Mardi Gras, and we were all getting into our costumes. I met her in front of the house, thinking Gisselle had dressed up like a poor girl. I should have realized Gisselle would never do anything like that, even for a costume party. I kept insisting she was Gisselle because I didn't even know Gisselle had a twin. After your mother's continued protests, I realized she was someone else, and I looked at her more closely. She was so fresh and natural, timid, but not afraid to say what she thought. Sometimes," he said after a long pause, "I wonder if she wouldn't have been better off if she'd remained here in this world."

  "But what about her grandfather, and the terrible thing he was doing, selling her to a man for his wife?" I reminded him.

  "Yes, that's true. Every place has its problems, I guess."

  "Daddy, don't you think we should call or go see Aunt Jeanne?"

  "Maybe after we check Cypress Woods," he said. "I'm not anxious to run into Gladys Tate."

  "Why does Aunt Jeanne's mother hate us so, Daddy? Is it just because of their losing the trial?"

  "No. Gladys blamed your mother for what happened to her son Paul. After his death she started the custody battle even though she knew you weren't Paul's real daughter. She did it for revenge. She never wanted Paul to be with your mother, of course, and from what Ruby has told me, I understand she was never very pleasant to either of you after you moved to Cypress Woods."

  "Aunt Jeanne told me her mother was crippled up with arthritis these days. She doesn't get around much."

  "Yeah, well, hate twists and turns your insides until you become something even you despise," Daddy said. "It's best we avoid her."

  So much of Mommy's past was dark and unhappy. I understood why she had resorted to voodoo rituals and good-luck charms and why she believed that old curses followed in her shadow. Poor Mommy, I thought. She was in such torment.

  Our food was delicious, but neither Daddy nor I had the appetite we expected. We were both thinking only about Mommy now. I hoped we would find her soon.

  The roof of the mansion my uncle Paul had named Cypress Woods rose over the sycamore and cypress trees, looming higher and higher as we approached from the long driveway. The once beautiful grounds were overgrown, the flower beds choked with weeds, the fountains dry and littered with discarded junk here and there, and the gazebos had grass growing through the floorboards, weeds invading everywhere.

  Off to the right were the canals and the swamps. A pirogue, tied to the dock, dipped and fell with the water. A large egret stood on the bow, its chest out as if it claimed the canoe. To the west we saw the oil wells and the rigs, and immediately visions from my recurring nightmare flashed in my mind. To me it was a bad omen. I leaned down and touched the good-luck dime Mommy had given me.

  "Are you all right?" Daddy asked. He knew the oil rigs were always in my nightmare.

  "Yes," I said after taking a deep breath. I turned to the house. It resembled a Greek temple. Across the upstairs gallery ran a diamond-design iron railing. On both sides of the house, wings had been constructed to echo the predominant elements of the main building.

  Daddy stopped at the front and we sat in the car staring up slate steps to the portico and lower gallery. The windows were boarded. The vines that ran along the scrolled gates had gone wild and crisscrossed themselves, choking out the weaker sections so that they draped brown and dead over the iron works.

  "Doesn't look like anyone's been here for ages," Daddy said, discouraged.

  We got out of the car and started up the steps. We walked between the great columns, and Daddy tried the front door. It wasn't locked, but it was warped, so he had to push hard to open it. We paused in the Spanish-tiled entryway. The foyer was designed to take away the breath of visitors the moment they set foot in this mansion, for it was not only vast and long but so high-ceilinged that our footsteps and our voices echoed.

  Above us hung the once dazzling chandeliers, the teardrop bulbs now as dull as unpolished rock. The furniture had been covered but no one had cleaned or dusted for years. Great cobwebs sailed over us from every corner. Mirrors were caked with dust, and there were rodent droppings everywhere. The interior had a stale, musty odor, especially with the afternoon sun cooking the stagnant air.

  Before us was the circular stairway, twice as wide and as elaborate at the one in the House of Dumas. We walked slowly down the corridor, looking through each doorway. All of the rooms in the mansion were vast, only now the drapes looked weighted with age and dirt.

  "I had forgotten how big this house was," Daddy said in a whisper. "Anyone in here?" he called. His voice reverberated and died somewhere deep in the house, probably as far as the kitchen. We waited a moment, and then Daddy suggested we go upstairs.

  There were birds in what had been Paul's bedroom. They had come through an open window and built nests over the headboard. When we entered, they fluttered about madly, worried about their eggs. We looked into the adjoining bedroom, the one that had been Mommy's, but there was no sign of her or of anyone being in there recently. Daddy and I checked the other rooms, pausing at the nursery. But again we saw no sign of Mommy.

  "Do you recall this room?" Daddy asked.

  "Not very well. But I remember there was a music box on the dresser with a ballerina twirling. Mommy or Uncle Paul always turned it on after I crawled into bed."

  "I don't remember that. Must have been left here." He gazed around and then said, "There's only one other place to look."

  I knew where he wanted to go. We went up the rear stairway to the enormous attic, with its hand-cut cypress structural beams, which had served as Mommy's studio. There were large windows looking out over the fields and canals, but none on the side that faced the oil rigs. Even now the great skylights provided illumination and made the studio bright and airy.

  I knew that Daddy had put all of his hopes in this room. Surely we would find Mommy hiding here; but again we found nothing, no sign of her or of anyone else. Some of her tripods were up, but they looked as if they had been left that way for years.

  "Where can she be, Daddy?" I moaned.

  He shook his head. As he gazed around the studio, his eyes narrowed. Suddenly he had a faint smile on his lips.

  "What is it, Daddy? Why are you smiling?"

  "It seems like yesterday," he said.

  "Wh
at does?"

  "When Gisselle and I came to visit your mother, Ruby brought me up here. We realized how much we still loved each other, and we made plans to meet in New Orleans."

  "Maybe she went back to New Orleans, Daddy. Maybe all she wanted to do was go to the shack and leave Jean's picture there," I suggested.

  He nodded hopefully. "Maybe. I'll find a phone, and we'll call Jeanne. That's all I know to do around here."

  I followed him out and down the stairs. Waiting for us at the bottom were two men. I recognized one of them as the young man who had looked at me so intensely back at the restaurant. The other was a much older, stouter man with large dark eyes and puffy red cheeks. The tip of his chin was red, too. He wore dark overalls and suspenders. Both men wore white helmets, only the younger man had his tilted back and to the side like a cowboy hat.

  "Who the hell are you people?" the older man demanded.

  "I'm Beau Andreas, and this is my daughter, Pearl," Daddy said quickly.

  "Pearl!" the younger man exclaimed. "That's number twenty-two."

  "What?"

  "He means oil well number twenty-two. Are you the owner?" he asked me. "Pearl Andreas?"

  "Yes," I said.

  The younger man whistled, smiled, and stared at me. He was a few inches taller than his companion. He wore his hair long enough to cover his ears and the nape of his neck. Right now there was an impish twinkle in his dark eyes and a small, tight smile on his lips. Although he looked strong, with his broad shoulders and muscular arms, there was a gentle quality in his face, a softness in his features that put me at ease.

  "Well, this house here belongs to the Tate family," the older man said. "No one told me anyone would be coming around today. I didn't mean to scare you, but we kinda keep our eye on it for them."

  "I understand," Daddy said. "We thought my wife might have come here."

  "Your wife?" The older man looked at the younger one, who shrugged. "We ain't seen nobody but you two," he replied. "Right, Jack?"

  "Nobody," the younger man said.

  Daddy nodded. "I've got to get to a telephone," he said. "Where's the closest one?"

  "You can come over to the trailer and use ours. My name's Bart. I'm the foreman." He extended his hand, and Daddy shook it. "This here is Jack Clovis. He's the one looks over number twenty-two." Daddy shook his hand too, but he turned back to me.

  "It's nice to finally meet the owner," Jack said, nodding at me. "Hello." He held out his hand, and I took it quickly.

  "Hi," I said. We shook. My hand felt so tiny in his strong fingers and thick palm.

  "Well's still doin' real good," Jack said.

  "I don't even know which one it is," I said.

  "Really?" He looked amazed and turned to Bart.

  "What she have to know which one it is for?" Bart said. "She just has to know where the money's kept." When Jack looked at me again, I thought I saw disappointment in his eyes.

  "I'd like to know," I said quickly.

  Jack beamed a smile. "Glad to show you," he said. I looked at Daddy, who seemed surprised at my sudden interest. Then he looked at Jack Clovis and smiled. "You can go look at it if you like, honey, while I go to the trailer to call Aunt Jeanne and home."

  "I don't want to trouble anyone," I said.

  "Oh, heck, it won't be any trouble," Jack said quickly.

  Bart laughed. "Jack's been waiting for someone to talk to about his well for months now."

  "It's Miss Andreas's well," Jack reminded him. "Not the way you brag about it," Bart retorted.

  Jack's deep brown complexion took on a crimson tint. "I'd love to see it," I said.

  Jack straightened his shoulders. "Right this way, ma'am," he declared.

  "I'll come and get you," Daddy said. He left the house with Bart, and I walked out with Jack, who pointed toward the rigs.

  "Yours is fourth from the left there," he said. "You know anything about oil?"

  "Just that it comes in a can," I said, and he laughed so hard I thought he would crack a rib.

  "It doesn't come in a can, ma'am."

  "Please, call me Ruby."

  "Ruby. Oil starts as crude oil deep in the ground. It takes several million years to be formed," he said in a tone of almost religious respect. "You know what it comes from, right?"

  I shook my head. It seemed as long as I was willing to listen about oil, Jack Clovis was willing to talk.

  "Dead plants and animal material that lie buried in sedimentary rock. So," he said, smiling at me. "You can see why it takes a while to get into that can." "Do all those rigs have oil?" I asked.

  "All the ones you see here are called

  development wells because this is a known oil field," he continued. "Even so, some of them were dry. We call them dusters. There's one," he said pointing at one that stood still. "Once the oil is pumped up," he continued, "we put it in a metal tank called a separator, to separate the oil from the natural gas and water. Then it's stored in those stock tanks. It gets shipped off to the refinery where it's turned into the product you buy."

  "How long have you been doing this?" I asked.

  "Since I was twelve. You live in New Orleans, right?"

  "Yes."

  "We heard talk about you and your family, but no one knew anything for sure," he said, shifting his eyes away quickly.

  "What sort of talk?" I asked.

  "That you once lived here with a woman who wasn't your mother and Mr. Tate, who wasn't your father, and that now you lived in a rich old mansion somewhere and sat back and counted your money," he replied.

  "First," I began, "that woman was my mother." "Oh. Well, everyone gets stuff wrong here."

  "And second, we don't just sit around counting money. That's hardly us," I said sharply.

  "No offense meant. You asked, so I told you," he said casually.

  "My father works hard; my mother is an artist, and I'm about to go to college to become a doctor."

  "A doctor? Wow!" He whistled. "Well, there she is. Your well," he said. I just stared. "You really didn't know which one it was?"

  "I was very little when I lived in that house," I said, nodding toward the mansion, "and I was afraid of the oil machinery. They looked too much like mechanical monsters. If anyone took me close to them, I would scream."

  Jack nodded, his face serious, thoughtful. "I can imagine how a little girl might look out at these babies and think they are some sort of creature. They're alive to me," he said.

  "Like bees, sucking up the oil?"

  "Not exactly," he said, laughing. "Was that your idea?"

  "One of them, in nightmares."

  "Oh. I'm sorry. It's really very interesting work, and I'm always fascinated by the idea that we're drilling deep into the earth and bringing up something that was formed so long ago, even before humans existed."

  I saw he was sincere about his fascination.

  "Of course," he said, lowering his voice, "I don't talk about the work like this with the other guys."

  I smiled. "Is it ever dangerous?" I asked him.

  "You don't want to be near the rig if there's a blowout."

  "Blowout?"

  "A pocket of high-pressure gas gets into the well and boom!" he said, throwing up his arms.

  "Oh," I said stepping back.

  "It's all right. Your well is tried and true and as sweet as . . as you look," he said. Now it was my turn to blush. "So," he said, "why were you looking for your mother in the old house? No one uses it anymore, far as I know."

  "We thought she might have come back here," I said. My chin quivered.

  "Something's wrong?" he asked. "I don't mean to pry, but if there's anything I can do to help . . . I know it sounds crazy, but after looking after your well all this time, I sorta feel I know you."

  I wiped the fugitive tears from my eyes with the back of my hand and sucked in my breath. "One of my twin brothers was bitten by a poisonous snake and died. My mother is still quite upset," I said. "She ran off."

  "I
'm sorry. That's terrible. But why would she come here?"

  "She grew up in the bayou, and as I said, we once lived in the mansion. I don't know what she's looking for or what she hopes to do, but we know she's around here someplace. She's very confused; she could have gone anywhere. We're very worried about her."

  "We haven't seen her, but I'll keep a watchful eye."

  I opened my purse, took a picture of my mother and me out of my wallet, and handed it to him. "That's her," I said.

  "Beautiful woman. You look just like her."

  "If you do see her, will you call me?"

  "Of course. Give me your number." He took a pencil out of his top pocket and wrote my telephone number on the inside of his hand. "I'll copy it onto a piece of paper later," he said smiling. "Or I might just never wash and leave it there forever." He smiled softly.

  "Hey, Jack," one of the workers called out, "what are you doing, conducting private tours now?" He followed his question with a laugh. Jack glared at him furiously.

  "I shouldn't be taking you away from your work," I said, backing away and turning toward the house.

  "Oh, no. It's all right. I'm on a break. Don't mind him. These guys are great kidders, but there's no better group to be part of. Riggers stand by each other. We're tight."

  We started walking back.

  "Is your father still working, too?" I asked him.

  "No. He retired, but he still lives in the bayou. He spends all his time in his pirogue, fishing. I've only been to New Orleans twice," he said. "Once when I was just twelve and then again on my twenty-first birthday five years ago. My whole family went--me, my parents, and my two sisters. City life is sure different. All that racket and straining your neck to see the sun and stars."

  I laughed. "It's not that bad where we live."

  "You live in a house as big as that?" he said nodding toward the mansion.

  "No, but it's big," I admitted.

  "My father says people who live in the city probably want big houses because they want to be inside most of the time rather than in the dirty streets."