Paula Morris (13 page)

"I don't belong here any more or less than you do," he
agreed.

"But not really--right?" They stopped while a car cut
across the tracks, making a turn onto the other side of St. Charles. "You
guys have all known each other forever."

"Like you and
your
friends, probably."

"Except I met my friends at school. Their parents didn't know
my parents. They didn't all go to the same colleges and work in the same
businesses and marry each other."

"See this?" Anton pulled the silver cigarette lighter
out of his pocket and handed it to her. Rebecca pretended to be surprised: She
didn't want him to know she'd seen it before, when she was spying on him in
Lafayette Cemetery. "It was a wedding gift from my great-aunt to Helena's
great-grandfather. They got married in I925-"

"And you carry it around with you ... because you're a
smoker?" Rebecca made a face.

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Nope.

"Because you plan to give it to Helena
on jour
wedding
day?" she teased, feeling herself blush. Now it was Anton's turn to make a
face: Helena might be part of his group, but obviously she wasn't the girl of
his dreams. "If that's even legal," she added hastily.

"Anything's legal in Louisiana," he told her. "If
you know the right people. Actually, I don't really know why I carry it around
with me. I just do."

"It's a beautiful thing," Rebecca told him, stroking the
lighter: It was warm to the touch, etched with a delicate fleur-de-lis pattern.

"But not something I'll ever need or ever use." Anton
grabbed onto a ridged iron lamppost, spinning himself around it. "It's
just a relic of another time."

Rebecca waited until he'd finished jumping around, smiling because
the wind was blowing his curly hair into clownlike clumps. Then she handed the
lighter back.

"I wish I had something of my family's to carry around,"
she said, thinking of the photo that had disappeared from her wallet. "We
don't have any heirlooms." This was true, though she hadn't really thought
much about it before. Maybe some things in the New York apartment had belonged
to long-dead grandparents, or great-uncles and aunts, but her father had never
pointed them out. "We don't have much family history. We don't have much
family, actually. Not like you, anyway."

"Really?" He looked at her quizzically. "You're
lucky," They stood for a moment in the dirt of the neutral ground, looking
at each other, Rebecca thought, as though

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they were aliens from different planets meeting for the first
time. Anton was the one to break the silence, nervously clearing his throat.

"I wanted to ask you -- would you mind going to this
Christmas party with me? If you can't, it's OK ... it's just ..."

"A Christmas party?" Rebecca wondered if they had some
sort of school dance at St. Simeon's, though surely Amy and Jessica would have
alerted her to such a pivotal social event.

"The Bowmans have it every year. It's in December, but I
wasn't sure if you were going to head back to New York as soon as school
finishes, or ... or ..."

"No, I think I'll be here." Rebecca was hoping to go
home for Christmas, but her father was being annoyingly vague about when and if
he was returning from China. And was Anton actually inviting her to Helena's
party? Did he have no clue about the contempt Helena felt -- and made no effort
to hide -- for outsiders like Rebecca? Helena wouldn't dream of inviting
Rebecca to her party. She'd rather her house was overrun by an angry mob of
Plebs, Rebecca suspected, than admit an outcast from Planet Elsewhere.

"So you'll come?" Anton's face brightened. Rebecca
hesitated, wondering if she really wanted to put herself through the ordeal.
She'd like to get dressed up and go out somewhere with Anton, but the thought
of Helena and Marianne's reaction when she walked through the Bowmans' front
door made her instantly start dreading it.

On the other hand, it would serve both of them right. Their
pretentious party wouldn't seem quite so exclusive if
she
managed to
infiltrate it.

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"Sure," she told Anton. She gazed over at a three-story
house where a Hispanic man in paint-splattered overalls was attaching an
elaborate Christmas wreath -- gray eucalyptus leaves, bloodred berries, and
twisted tails of ivy -- to the blue front door, while other workers busied
themselves removing carved pumpkins from the steps and the Halloween spider's
web from the manicured hedge. Holiday decorations had to go up early here,
Anton had explained, because the day after Christmas everybody couldn't wait to
toss their trees onto the sidewalk and put up all their Mardi Grass banners and
lights. And the holidays meant all the serious parties, the events that went on
all winter and culminated in the great balls of Carnival, were beginning. The
Bowmans' party was one of the first of the season. Wonder of wonders: Rebecca
Brown would be there.

"Sure, I'll go," she said again, and he flashed her a
broad smile, throwing his silver cigarette lighter high in the air and catching
it with his left hand.

"I guess we should probably start walking back," he
said, and Rebecca nodded her agreement. She didn't want to make Aunt Claudia
suspicious by arriving late for dinner. Because telling Aunt Claudia about this
walk with Anton -- or about the invitation to the Bowmans' party -- was out of
the question. She would just get upset and might say that Rebecca couldn't go.
It was better if Rebecca kept this particular secret to herself.

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***

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

***

Rebecca should have said something to Anton: She should have told
him to keep his date for the Bowmans' Christmas party a secret. At lunch on
Monday, Jessica -- her nose still red from the flu -- materialized by Rebecca's
side in the food line.

"Feeling any better?" Rebecca asked. Jessica seemed
marginally more friendly than Amy, though that wouldn't be hard: On Friday,
approaching the lunch table with her tray, Rebecca had seen Amy making a
god-it's-
her
-again
face.

"Not really." Jessica sniffed, irritably fiddling with
her glasses. "But I can't afford to miss any more school."

"I can fill you in about what you missed in history, if you
like."

"Yeah, yeah." Jessica sniffed again. "And I heard
... I mean, is it true that you're going to Helena Bowman's party?"
"Yes."

"With Anton Grey?" "Yes."

"He asked you?"

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"Yes."

"To the party?" "Yes."

"To Helena Bowman's party?" "Yes!"

"Why did he ask you?"

"I don't know," said Rebecca, feeling kind of sorry for
the other girl. Jessica looked so forlorn, as though she'd missed out on
winning the lottery or something. Maybe she'd been dreaming for years about
going to the Bowmans' party on the arm of some dashing St. Simeon's boy, and
now here was this outsider, not particularly pretty or popular, waltzing in and
getting it all handed to her.

"How do you even
know
him?" Jessica
absentmindedly loaded three packets of salad dressing onto her tray.

"I met him at the café." Rebecca wasn't about to confide
in Jessica about her late-night cemetery lock-in, or her walk with Anton along
St. Charles, or their excursion on Friday after school. He'd taken her to a
cool, ramshackle place in the Irish Channel called Parasol's to eat roast beef
po'boys, and there -- sitting across from each other, grease dripping from
their fingers, condensation on their water glasses dripping onto the vinyl
cloth -- they'd talked more about that night in the cemetery. Rebecca had asked
Anton not to tell people about her getting shut in, and he'd agreed at once.
He'd said nothing to anyone, he reassured her; his parents could be funny about
who went into the cemetery after hours, and anyway, it was nobody's business
but his and Rebecca's.

But clearly he'd told
someone
that he was taking her to the
Bowmans' party.

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"Amy said she saw you at the café together," sighed
Jessica. She leaned close to Rebecca; her eyes were bloodshot and teary.
"Some people are kind of annoyed about it, you know."

"Annoyed about what?" Rebecca didn't get it. "About
us sitting together?"

"About you going to the party," Jessica whispered.

"Jessica!" Amy was standing up at a crowded table,
waving frantically. "I've saved a seat for you!"

She glowered at Rebecca, as if to say, There's no seat saved for y
ou.

"I'm
not annoyed about it," Jessica said
quickly. She shot Rebecca a rueful smile and giggled nervously. "I'm just
kind of jealous, you know?"

"Is it that big a deal?" Rebecca picked up a container
of yogurt and resisted the urge to smack it onto her tray.

"It's that big a deal," Jessica whispered. The smile
faded from her face. "Watch your back, OK?"

Rebecca ate her lunch alone, at the end of a table packed with
shrieking freshmen. She could barely taste her food. Her forehead was pounding,
as though tom-toms were playing in her brain, echoing through her body. These
girls were so petty: Just because she got a party invitation they wanted, she
was getting warnings to watch her back? What she did in her own time was none of
their business.

She didn't want to dawdle here a minute longer than necessary.
There was still half an hour until her next class began: She'd spend the time
in the library.

With its robin's-egg blue walls, tall shuttered windows, and long
table of new MacBooks, the library was one of

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Rebecca's favorite places in the school -- now that she'd finally
worked out how to get there.

She settled on the floor between the stacks and started flicking
through books in the Louisiana history section. In an architectural book on the
Garden District, she found pictures of Anton's house. And there was Helena's,
and Marianne's: Just as Anton said, the houses had been owned by the same
families since the 1850s. There was no mention of the curse anywhere, of
course. Maybe Amy was right, and it was just a fake story made up to entertain
tourists.

"Hard at work?" The thin form of Helena Bowman loomed
over Rebecca. Helena crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against one of
the stacks. Her face was pinched and mean, Rebecca decided -- not pretty at
all. Helena seemed to live in a constant state of petulance these days, as
though she had nothing to be happy about. What was the point of being so rich
and admired if it brought you no pleasure?

Rebecca said nothing, staring up at Helena and -- of course,
appearing behind her like a faithful shadow -- Marianne. The way Helena looked
at her was so insolent, so contemptuous. Perhaps it was because Rebecca was
from somewhere else, and didn't care about their hierarchy and status. More
likely, it was because Anton was paying her attention.

The librarian -- in her usual tailored blue cardigan suit, a
silver fleur-de-lis brooch primly pinned to her lapel -- walked past the end of
the row and paused, as though she was about to tell Helena off for talking.
Then there was a glimmer of recognition, and she walked on without speaking.

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Typical,
Rebecca thought. One rule for most of the
girls, and another for Them.

"People are saying you're coming to Helena's party,"
Marianne hissed, making an effort to lower her voice.

"It can't be true." Helena sniffed, as though something
in the library smelled bad.

"Then I guess it isn't." Rebecca pretended to go back to
reading her book, but the words were swimming. All she wanted was to be left
alone.

"So you're
not
coming?" Marianne stage-whispered.
She pushed a cloud of fair hair off her face, squinting at the dust motes
dancing in a slim shaft of sunlight.

"Well, Helena just said it's impossible." Rebecca wasn't
about to give them a straight answer. Helena sighed impatiently, shaking her
head at Marianne.

"Anton says he's bringing you," Helena snapped. "So
you can stop playing coy."

"I'm reading, not playing." Rebecca gestured with her
book. "Would you mind?"

"Well, I guess I can't
stop
you from coming to my
house," sighed Helena. She looked even more pained than usual. "If
Anton insists on inviting you ... well." She glanced at Marianne: It was a
smug, spiteful smile.

"It's just, you might not enjoy yourself very much,"
Marianne told Rebecca earnestly. "You won't know anyone there."

"I'll know Anton," said Rebecca defiantly, gripping the
closed book, wishing she could use it to smack their plaid-covered knees. She
scrambled to her feet, aware that getting up in such a narrow space made her
look about as elegant as

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a newly born calf. But at least standing up she'd be as tall as
them, not gazing up like some groveling servant. Helena gave her a pitying
look.