Crescent City Connection (22 page)

“Welcome to Marino’s. Go in the back and get an apron and meet me in the kitchen. What can you do, by the way?”

Lovelace shrugged. “Anything, really.”

It was filthy in the back. She was pretty sure she smelled rat shit, and, worse, something dead. The dead smell was a ripe, meaty odor that reminded her at first of a butcher shop. It was stronger in the kitchen.

She came back, still tying her apron. “What’s that smell?”

Barb shrugged. “Damned rat stuck in the walls—it’s happened twice this month. You know how to make gumbo?”

“Sure.” With a recipe. For eight people, not thirty or forty.

“My… how you say?…
saucier
didn’t come in yesterday or today. I was telling Larry at breakfast—I guess that’s why he thought of you.”

Breakfast. That explained his faraway look back at the coffeehouse. He was trying to figure out if he could get away with this.

I could walk out
, she thought. But she didn’t quite know how.

“We usually go through about fifteen gallons a day. You’ll find vegetables over there and everything else…. Carlton’ll show you. Carlton? Help Miss Priss, will you?”

Carlton was an amiable-seeming guy who didn’t seem to give too much of a damn about his job—or about anything else, for that matter. He was smoking a cigarette that had an inch-long ash on it.

Lovelace said, “I’m going to need a recipe.”

“Luis doesn’t use a recipe.”

“He must use a recipe.”

“Hell, honey, just cut up all the onions you can find. Then cut up all the peppers. Then we’ll talk, okay?”

The smell of dead meat was getting stronger. It had a sweetness to it that she hadn’t noticed at first.

“Where are the food processors?”

He looked at her empty hands. “You don’t have no tools?”

“No.”

“What’s wrong with Miss Barb, anyhow?” Carlton looked around to see if Barb had heard, but she was nowhere to be seen. She was probably outside, laying into Larry.

“You don’t have food processors?”

“Sure, we have food processors. But you gon’ need knives, too, aren’t you?”

Grumbling, Carlton found Lovelace some knives, while she became increasingly aware of a visceral reaction to the stench. She hoped the onions would drown it out, but it never came to that. By the time she had a nice pile of onions and peppers ready to put through the processors, she was so nauseated she didn’t know if she could make it to the back door, which looked like the best bet for an exit.

She ran for it, and stood there retching with the dry heaves.

Carlton said, “You sick, girl? What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

The back door gave onto a courtyard where they kept the garbage. The smell was almost worse here than inside, and there was no way out. She had to go back through the kitchen, and then the restaurant proper to escape.

As she streaked through, she was dimly aware of Barb and Larry sitting at a table holding hands.

She heard Barb say, “What the hell?” and then she heard footsteps behind her.

“Jackie. Jackie, stop a minute.”

She was running as if The White Monk were chasing her again, crook in hand; as if her dad were behind her. Only this time it felt good because there was nothing to worry about, and she was putting yards between herself and the dead thing.

Larry got to her first. “What’s wrong, Jackie? What happened?”

“I got sick. The thing in the wall.”

He looked bewildered, but by that time Barb had caught up. “Oh, shit. The rat. I know how she feels.”

“What?”

Between ragged breaths, starting to sob a little, Lovelace explained.

“Barb, that’s disgusting.”

“You brought her over. I didn’t ask.”

“You said you were desperate without Luis.”

“Oh, shit.”

Lovelace started walking.

“Hey, Jackie. Wait.” Larry grabbed her arm. “Hey, Barb. She just got to town. I was trying to help.”

“Yeah? Well, you’re a hero. You and Miss Sorority House have a nice afternoon in bed.”

Lovelace had to laugh. “You’re like Tom Jones or somebody.”

“Picaresque hero, that’s me. Listen, I’m sorry. I wanted to help you.”

“I think you wanted to fuck me.”

“No, really. How can I make it up to you?”

“You can’t. ’Bye now.”

“Listen, I was trying to help you. Don’t you get that?”

“Nobody can help me.”

“What do you need? Just tell me what you need.”

He had fallen into step beside her, which meant she couldn’t even go back to Isaac’s without leading him there. She wasn’t sure how to get rid of him, and besides, he was seriously cute. So she told him. “I need a reference. You think Barb’s going to give me one?”

“A reference?”

“So I can get a good job.”

“A reference? That’s all you want?” He started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” They had now reached the Cafe Marigny, where they’d met, and she sat down again.

“I’ll give you a reference.”

She stared at him.

“Tell them to call Remoulade and ask for me. They won’t know I wasn’t your supervisor.”

It could work. She was pretty sure it could work.

“You’d do that for me?”

“Of course. I like you a lot.”

She wasn’t sure the feeling was mutual, but she really did need a reference. She ended up giving him her phone number.

She went home, sat in The White Monk’s pristine white living room, and worked up the nerve to call the number in the ad, the one for a family of four that needed a low-fat cook.

“Jacqueline? What a lovely name.” The voice that answered, a woman’s voice, was husky and warm, almost intimate; one of those voices that might have been trained but probably wasn’t; that probably made men propose on hearing it. “When can you come over?”

“I—well… now if you like; tomorrow. Whatever’s good for you.”

“Could you really come now? My husband’ll be home and you need to meet him. Oh—I guess I should ask … what’s your experience?”

“Well, I…”

“No, don’t tell me. Let’s meet first.” She spoke slowly and sounded impossibly sophisticated. Her name was Brenna Royce and her husband was “with” a shipping company, though for all Lovelace knew he was a deckhand.

She lived in the Garden District which, according to Brenna, could be reached by streetcar. “You know it?” Brenna asked.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Good God, you’re even newer here than we are. Well, get your passport and hurry on down.”

As the streetcar began to pass absolutely improbable mansions, mansions as large as a normal city block, it seemed, Lovelace got an idea what Brenna meant. It was a foreign country and not only on an economic level—it just didn’t look like America, certainly not like your average burb in, say, south Florida, where her mom lived.

Lovelace found the Royce home behind an intricate iron lace fence, a gracious, curving, columned structure painted a sort of muted peach color, so that it managed to look both exuberant and stately at once. She was almost afraid to ring the bell.

She expected a liveried maid to answer, someone out of the nineteenth century, but the woman who did was clearly the lady of the house. She was anything but what Lovelace expected, much younger for one thing. She was blond and oddly voluptuous—that is, she had one of those bodies that women of the late twentieth century normally do not allow themselves, fleshy in a sexy way.

She wasn’t thin, but she certainly wasn’t fat. It’s the kind of body, Lovelace thought, that you’d kill for if you weren’t already too busy pumping iron. Brenna Royce looked like she’d never pumped iron a day in her life. She was blond and her hair looked as if it simply grew that way, but Lovelace wasn’t that naive.

All that might be expected. It was what she was wearing that was surprising—cotton elastic-waist pants, smeared T-shirt, and some kind of dust; lots of it. Something gooey in the blond hair. Brownish stuff on her nose.

She must be a potter, Lovelace thought.

“Jackie? Sorry, I was in my studio. Come in and I’ll wash my face.”

Lovelace stepped into the living room. She’d never seen anything like it. Nothing could disguise its stately proportions, but it was painted white now, and full of wonderful, dazzling contemporary things—art glass and paintings and metalwork and giant ceramics fired in some iridescent, incredibly elegant way. These were Brenna’s work, Lovelace knew it.

She sat on a sofa that seemed to let her sink about a foot and a half. Brenna returned, hair loose, face clean, a cigarette in her hand—which partially explained the voice, Lovelace thought.

“The boys are at soccer. They’re just under junior high age—not vegetarians, I’m afraid. But Charles and I are. Would you mind making two separate menus?”

“No. Of course not.” Brenna was acting as if she already had the job.

“There’s Charles now.” The door opened on a man who looked as if he drank too much, ate far too much, and smoked. He was losing his hair as well.

Not as beautiful as his mate. Not at all beautiful. But revoltingly rich, probably. He greeted Lovelace in a heavy, syrupy accent, and without further ado headed straight for the sideboard. He poured himself a drink without offering one to Lovelace and Brenna. He sat heavily on the couch, next to Lovelace and a little too close for comfort.

“What’s your experience?” he said.

“I’ve always cooked.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“I used to cook at home for my mom, and then I worked in a pizza restaurant, and then a sort of… soup and salad place—” this was a bald-faced lie “—and then Arnaud’s.”

“Arnaud’s?” Both Royces spoke together.

“Sorry. Remoulade. Do you know it? It’s a kind of spin-off of Arnaud’s—a cafe, sort of.”

Charles raised an eyebrow. “Why’d you leave?”

“Well, frankly, I haven’t yet. I just thought I’d like this better. My boss knows I’m looking—would you like to call him?”

Charles Royce stared at his wife. “I’m intrigued. This one intrigues me.”

She nodded. “I thought she might.”

Lovelace had an odd moment of sensing something under wraps, as if they were talking about something other than her ability to cook. She thought she knew what it was and she didn’t like it. But he turned back to her and said, “You’re the first one yet with restaurant experience—could you handle a dinner party for thirty?”

“Thirty? I don’t know. How about twenty-five?”

“Oh, hell, twenty’s enough.” He laughed, and for the first time, Lovelace realized he was young, that they were both young, about thirty-five probably. “We have two goals. We want to lose weight, and we want to feed our friends really well. You look as if you might be able to help us out.”

“I’ll bet I could. Why don’t you give me a week’s tryout?”

“We’ll call you. We’ve got a couple of other people to see.”

She was shocked. She was so sure she had it. They were acting like she was already hired.

It was only as she walked out the door and stumbled back to the street that she realized how much she had invested in this. She’d love going to that house, working in those sophisticated rooms, talking to Brenna Royce.

Brenna was somebody she desperately wanted to know, and she even liked Charles a little bit, kind of admired his lord-of-the-manor act. She was pretty sure there was a sense of humor lurking under it.

She absolutely couldn’t believe she had to leave without the job. But, of course, they had to check her reference.

* * *

The Monk woke with an odd sense of foreboding. Foreboding and depression and maybe a little regret—that he’d let this lovely, strange, desperate young person into his life.

He had been so self-contained, so… dare he say it? Happy.

You know what?
he thought.
I was happy. Now I know what happy is. What I used to be.

He meditated on it.

Life had been so serene. So lean.

And then Lovelace.

Why hadn’t he stayed out of her life? It was he who’d encouraged her to answer the damned ad. Why had he done such a stupid-ass thing?

If he hadn’t, she wouldn’t have gotten involved with that asshole, Larry.

She had been glowing when she got home last night, bubbly almost, a condition that normally put him off. But her happiness made him happy—that was the problem. He felt what she felt. It was like he absorbed what was going on around him.

He had forgotten to lay down rules, and so she had given the asshole her phone number, and before he could say “don’t,” she invited him over and he came.

The Monk had done the only thing he could do—withdrawn to his bedroom. But he heard their voices, quiet, normal, and then louder and louder.

“What are you doing?”

“Come on, baby. You know you need me.”

The Monk instantly grasped the implied blackmail.

“Are you crazy?” Lovelace said. “I hardly know you.”

“Oh, thank you so much, Larry. I think I’ll just use you and toss you aside.” His voice was like a twelve-year-old’s.

The Monk thought it had a dangerous edge, too, but that would have been his own perception. He didn’t know if Lovelace could take care of herself, but he certainly didn’t want to behave like some interfering older brother.

In the end, he just walked to the door of his bedroom, opened it, and stood there with his crook in his hand.

Larry left, and Lovelace burst into tears.

The Monk didn’t know whether she was crying because of what he’d done or not—maybe she was perfectly willing to barter her body—but she came to him and hugged him, and he knew it wasn’t that. He recoiled—he couldn’t bear to think of the germs she carried—and she was horrified at what she’d done, because she understood, he thought, and that shamed him.

She stepped back, crying, looking bewildered, and he had no idea what to do. He was perfectly clear, however, on what he wanted to do, and he did it—stepped back into his room and shut the door. He heard her crying for a long time afterward.

This morning his brain was a tangle of half-baked thoughts, all of them unhappy. He had encouraged her to apply for the job, and therefore she’d allied herself with Larry. But then he’d driven Larry away, and now she wouldn’t get the job. On top of that, he’d hurt her feelings.