Color Blind (19 page)

Yikes, that was fast, I didn't think I'd have to start looking so soon.

“Kate?”

“Yes?”

“I'm happy to look at today's paper, but would it be all right if I set up interviews for a few days from now, or maybe next week, after my face heals up? I don't want to scare anybody off.”

“Not a problem. Go through the ads, circle the ones you think you might be interested in. Look at the map, find out where they're located, call them up and see what you can do. Once you find a job and get a schedule, we'll sort out your community service and get you set up for counseling.”

“I
don't
need therapy.” I pouted and pushed my chair away from the table, ready to bolt.

“Since you won't talk to me about your parents, grief counseling is on your horizon. You don't have a choice.”

When the timer sounded, she turned away from me to remove the turkey from the oven. Kate, looking very much like the star of a Thanksgiving commercial, turned back around and presented a crispy golden brown turkey breast. She inserted a meat thermometer and, satisfied it was done, covered the fragrant breast with a tin foil tent, leaving it to rest on the counter. She chopped up some flat-leaf parsley and sprinkled the bits over the grilled, marinating vegetables, then stretched plastic wrap over the platter and put it in the refrigerator. Her movements were effortless, practiced. Watching her was like having a private showing from a Food Network celebrity. I was in awe of her expertise, or at least I would have been if I hadn't been so annoyed about the grief counseling thing.

“I never asked, April, but what kind of food do you like? Do you have preferences? Food allergies? Anything you could tell me would be helpful. If you'd like anything in particular from the market, make a list and put it on the refrigerator door. I'll pick it up for you,” said Kate, her cheerfulness sounding a bit forced.

“Thank you.”

“My apologies, but I'll be out of the house most of the day today. I had hoped to spend some quality time with you this morning, but my schedule got jammed up. Later in the week, perhaps?”

“No problem. I have things to do anyway,” I said, waving my newspaper. “Whatever I find out about goats and milk production, I'll print out for you. I'll leave everything on your desk, same for any farm animal regulations. If I feel well enough, I'll get back on your photo-scanning project. Have you thought about Photoshop?”

“It's on my list of things to do today. Do you know how to install it?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I know how to install it. Not a problem.”

“Thank you for taking care of this project for me. I've wanted to scan those photographs for a long time,” she said.

Our conversation had turned excessively formal and claustrophobic. I needed to get out of the kitchen.

“May I be excused?”

“Yes, of course. You can go,” said Kate, who seemed as anxious for me to go as I was ready to leave.

I cleared the table, put my mug in the dishwasher, picked up the newspaper, said “goodbye” and “have a lovely day” to Kate, and left the kitchen.

I collected the map from the hall table and went back to my room, closing the door a little harder than I needed to. I slouched in my comfy chair and kicked off my slippers. My bedroom was rapidly becoming my “go to” place, my safe haven. I wanted to throw the newspaper, but didn't. Instead I set it and the map on top of the stack of books. I had no choice, I needed to find a job soon—but I didn't need to search for one right this minute. Kate would be gone most of the day. I had loads of time and could spend it any way I wanted, as long as it was within the confines of this house.

I had no ankle monitor, but clearly I was under house arrest.

It was only 7:30, way too early for me. I looked around the room.
Where should I begin?
First things first: I got up, retrieved the bag Marguerite had given me, cleared the dresser of all Voodoo swag, and put everything back in the armoire. Final destination TBD.

I looked at the clock, 7:35. A whole five minutes had elapsed. My day was going well so far. I sat in the chair and looked around the room again, but couldn't find my focus. I felt restless, caged. I wanted Kate to leave, to get on with her day, so I could get on with mine. I wanted to start my research on Marie Laveau. I was already alone in my room, but I wanted to be alone in the house. I didn't want to be interrupted once I delved deeper.

I picked up the map, flipped it open then over. It was a colorful laminated double-sided thing with indexes for streets, government buildings, hospitals, and points of interest. I found our block on Royal between Ursulines and Governor Nicholls. I traced my finger from our place to Royal and Marigny, where Miles lived with his dad. It wasn't very far. I traced my finger in the opposite direction on Royal and found the police station where Detective Baptiste worked. Over by the Mississippi River, was Café du Monde, where Miles had taken me for beignets and café au lait. The French Quarter was laid out in a simple grid pattern; I now understood why it was so easy to get around. Everything was within walking distance.

I picked up the newspaper. The headlines were of no interest. The weather was of no interest. Big shock—it was going to be hot and humid today, just like every other day in New Orleans. The classifieds were of no interest, but I had no choice. I needed to get started with my job search and get it out of the way. When Kate got home tonight, she would ask me to report on my efforts. Kate was very old-school, she apparently didn't know anything about searching for jobs online. Since I wasn't overly enthusiastic at the prospect of getting a job in the first place, especially a low-level one, I saw no point in speeding up the process by telling her about how user-friendly the job-hunting search engines are.

There were loads of ads for waitresses. Since I was under the age of eighteen, I couldn't serve alcohol and what's a meal in New Orleans without alcohol? Breakfast?

Moving on.
Oh, boy! They're looking for baggers at the grocery store. I'll pass on that opportunity.
Okay, here's an ad for a food presenter in a gourmet market; this could be a candidate. I wasn't exactly sure what a food presenter did, but doubted it was a highly skilled profession. In my current condition, gourmet food presentation might not be all that appetizing to customers, but I circled it in red anyway and continued to read.

Okay, here's a position that's sort of mind-boggling: a research company is looking for smokers, ten years to sixteen years old, who want to stop.
Even if I did smoke, I'm too old for this gig! How crazy is that?

Finding any job, much less something I wanted or could do, was going to be much harder than I thought. What a pain in the neck, or lower. My thoughts twisted in a truly bizarre direction. After all I'd been through lately, I could probably get a job at the Voodoo shop with Marguerite. I certainly had practical experience now, right? I immediately squashed the thought and dragged it to my mental recycle bin.

Kate rapped on my door and said, “Goodbye. Enjoy your day.”

I called out, “Back at ya! See you later!”

I heard the front door open, then close. I was finally alone. I set the newspaper aside and decided to do the goat research, get it ready for Kate and check it off my “to do” list. I sat on the bed, propped up the laptop, and booted up. Not knowing how to research the law, I typed in my question:
Is it legal to keep a goat within the New Orleans city limits
and clicked on the Search button. I didn't find much to start with. However, I did learn there is a distinction between “companion animals” and “livestock.” I began to search deeper.

I was on the verge of giving up when I located a document that looked like it might hold an answer for Kate:
Louisiana Revised Statutes. Title 9. Civil Code Ancillaries.
It addressed the
Limitation of Liability of Farm Animal Activity
. I scanned through a section called
Statute Text
. After reading through the legal language, I determined BG didn't fit the category of Farm Animal, or that making goat cheese would be considered Farm Animal Activity. BG was just one little goat, more pet than productive.

I sent the document to the printer and started my search for information on milking goats. I poked around on the Internet some more and learned quite a bit about milk goats. However, without knowing what breed of goat BG was, it was kind of a waste of my time. We would need to consult with a goat professional, either the landscaper or a vet. I printed out the information for the goat landscaper and a list of local vets.

I organized the morning's work product and left everything on Kate's desk. Her desk clock chimed the hour. I'd been totally engrossed at the computer for hours. I was pleased with my progress. At last, I'd found something I was good at: research. I loved it! I especially liked reading the legal documents. Even though I didn't understand all of it, I understood enough. My grandfather and great-grandfather on my mother's side had been lawyers.
Is the law in my DNA? It would be so much more socially acceptable than my genetic connection to Voodoo, right?

I was stiff, headachy, and hungry. It was time for my afternoon break. Lunch outside appealed to me. I decided to make a salad for BG. I padded down to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and removed the salad ingredients. I shredded lettuce and carrots for her and prepared a plate of grilled vegetables, cheese, and a home-made pretzel roll for myself. I filled a glass with tea, got a cold bottle of water for BG, loaded everything onto a tray and carried it outside. I released BG from her tether, set down her bowl of salad and refilled her water dish from the chilled bottle.

“
Bleat!
” A goat thank-you to me before she began grazing, I assumed.

BG wasn't a fast eater, but it didn't take long before the dish was empty and she began to wander, nibbling here and there around the courtyard.
What a sweetie! How cool would it be if we kept her?

I sat at the wrought iron table, savoring every morsel of marinated vegetables and thinking about how to go about my research of Marie Laveau this afternoon.
Where's the best place to start? Just type in
Marie Laveau
and little by little, narrow my search? Ancestry.com might have something useful. Maybe there's already a Laveau family tree set up and whoever created the tree was missing our family information?
I didn't know much about Ancestry.com except what I learned from their TV commercials and the little bit of work I did setting up my own tree last night.

I definitely needed more information about Kate, Mom, and my grandmother.
Does Kate have copies of their birth certificates in the files in her office?
I wondered if Angel's mother's last name was her maiden name or her married name. For that matter, I didn't know if she was ever married. I made a mental note to do an Internet search to check if there was anything out in cyberspace about Simone. It was doubtful she had a social media presence, but you could never tell what you might find that other people had posted without your knowledge or consent. That was a frightening thought.
Note to self: do a search of my own name, see what pops up.

I sopped up the last of the vinaigrette with the last bit of pretzel roll and washed it down with the last of the tea. I'd enjoyed yet another meal filled with incredibly delicious food from Kate's kitchen. This was getting to be a habit, and not a bad one either. I considered bringing BG inside to keep me company, but didn't want to push my already tenuous luck if Kate came back home early. I tethered BG, cleared the table, and went back inside. After putting the dishes in the dishwasher and putting the tray away, I poured myself a refill of tea and filled a clean plate from the cabinet with cookies from the glass jar on the sideboard. Growing up, I hardly ever ate desserts. Now I couldn't get enough of Kate's daily homemade sweets. Stress will do that to a person. This morning she'd baked some sort of crunchy cinnamon cookies with pecans, reminiscent of Simone's Angel Crunch Cookies. It made me sad to think back on that morning at Angel's house, just a few days earlier.

Fortified now, my headache gone, I was ready to get back at it. Upstairs, I once again got comfortable on the bed, logged back in, and started digging with my cyber shovel.

Uncertain where to begin, I started with the two most basic questions: what is Voodoo and who was Marie Laveau? I typed in
definition of Voodoo
, hit Search, and found that there were over three million available results that defined Voodoo, in addition to the over three hundred thousand Marie Laveau websites. I needed to understand what Voodoo was before I could understand who Marie Laveau was, so I started with a dictionary. The Oxford Dictionary website defined Voodoo as:

The Simple English Wikipedia website expounded on the subject:

I flashed back to my time with Marguerite in the swamp and recoiled at the memory. I shook the feeling off and moved on. I started my search of Marie Laveau. I began to read what looked to be the more substantive, less sensational websites dedicated to her. I spent hours scanning through information. Anything I thought might be relevant was printed out. Whether or not it would be useful to me, or even accurate, was yet to be determined.