Thigh High (3 page)

“But Calista, that's not the point,” Hestia explained. “Other than college, she's never lived anywhere else with anyone else. She's twenty-seven years old and I'm very much afraid she's still a virgin.”

Nessa lifted her gaze from her plate to see every eye in the dining room fixed upon her.

Calista looked horrified.

Even Hestia looked surprised.

“Am not,” Nessa muttered. “I did go to college, you know.”

“Oh, dear,” Debbie murmured, and offered Nessa a sympathetic smile.

Ryan's gaze moved from one person to another, obviously fascinated.

Pulling his head out of his plate, Skeeter offered Nessa a wide-lipped simper that made her skin crawl.

Pootie stood. “Fascinating as this discussion is, I have to go.” She trudged toward the door, then backed up and stopped behind Nessa's chair. “Kid, if you ever have the guts to get out of that stupid bank, come to me. You've got the smarts. I could teach you.”

Nessa turned in her chair and stared as Pootie stalked out. The front door slammed shut with the sound of solid wood.

“That was nice.” Hestia's impressive eyebrows knit. “I guess.”

“What does she
do
?” Debbie asked.

“We don't know,” Calista said.

“Then you don't want Nessa doing it, do you?” Daniel asked.

“I suppose not.” But Hestia thoughtfully tapped her finger to her lips.

“Yeah, who'd want to work with her? I mean, it's one thing to be queer, but even her name is weird, and her legs are white and she never shaves them.” Ryan wiped his hands on his chest as if wiping away slime.

“
Mr.
Wright.” Hestia fixed Ryan with a stern gaze. “We don't rent to scalawags and certainly not to men who make ungentlemanly remarks. Please remember that before we change our minds about
you.
You, too, Mr. Graves.”

Skeeter looked at his plate with alarm, then back up at Hestia. Like any child of the South, he said, “Yes, ma'am!”

Ryan's truculent expression gave way to abashed boyishness. “Sorry. I shouldn't spread rumors. It's not like
she's
one of the Beaded Bandits.”

“I should say not.” Hestia was clearly offended. “Pootie is a dear, but neither one of the Beaded Bandits is a damned
Yankee.
”

Nessa couldn't help it—she laughed softly. “Certainly. Only people from New Orleans are mad enough to successfully rob banks every year for such ridiculously small amounts.”

“Not mad, chère.” Calista tapped her forehead. “Clever.”

“Crazy,” Skeeter mumbled.

“Well, my darlings, I've got to go to the club.” With a whoosh of sequins and perfume, Daniel tossed his boa around his neck. “I used my seniority to grab the afternoon show so I could be here for the party. Oh, and—” He slid an envelope out of his décolletage. “Here's a little something to make it extra special.”

Embarrassed, Nessa turned her head away.

“You shouldn't have, Daniel!” But Calista took the envelope and kissed his cheek.

“Can't wait, darlings!” he called.

“We've got to go hit the streets, too. Mardi Gras is one hell of a”—Ryan observed the aunts' reproving stares—“one heck of a lot of work, but the tips could keep me for half a year.” He stood.

So did Debbie. “Wait, Ryan. I'll walk with you.”

“That would be great.” Ryan tugged on Skeeter's arm.

Skeeter stuffed a biscuit into his pocket and bobbed his head at the aunts. “Thank you, Miss Hestia, Miss Calista. It was wonderful!”

The front door slammed repeatedly, a solid sound of two-inch-thick mahogany against a massive door frame, before silence fell over the dining room.

Hestia put her hand over Nessa's. “I'm so sorry.”

“Hestia, what got into you? I almost fainted when you said that…. About Nessa's…” Words failed Calista.

“For a moment”—Hestia squeezed Nessa's fingers—“it seemed as if we were sitting here with our family.”

“They are
not
our family,” Nessa said fiercely.

“I know, dear. It's just that they're familiar now, and I remember so well those days when all our sisters dined here, and little Buddie and Daddy and Mama.” Hestia turned to Nessa. “Little Buddie, that was your grandpa.”

“I know, Aunt Hestia.”

“I remember, too,” Calista said. “We'd sit around this table, little Buddie in his high chair, having the most marvelous breakfasts, teasing each other—”

“About your
virginity
?” Nessa's voice rose.

“Well, no, not that.” Yet Hestia smiled.

Calista smiled, too. “But almost. We could tell our mother anything, so when Daddy got up to go to work, we would laugh about our gentlemen callers and ask advice and—oh! it was wonderful. Lots of times we had company—relatives or friends—and they'd stay for days. We used to complain about going to see the same sights over and over again, but before the war and that wicked hurricane, New Orleans was a grand city, and we were awfully proud of it.”

“I don't understand how we could have been so many and dwindled to so few.” Hestia shook her head in bewilderment.

“We Dahls don't breed well,” Calista said.

“Daddy and Mama did.”

“Yes, but Daddy was always chasing Mama around the kitchen.”

“Lucky Mama!”

The aunts were lost in their memories.

But Nessa could think of only one thing worse than talking about her great-aunts' sexual history, and that was talking about her great-grandparents' kitchen romps. “Whatever! But while you're near to my heart, aunts, I don't even want to talk about it with you!”

“You can! It's not as if
we're
virgins,” Calista said.

“Of course, I was married,” Hestia said.

Nessa wanted to stop her ears with her fingers. “Yes, so I assumed you—”

“And my young man didn't make it back from the war.” Calista's smile crooked with remembered pain.

Hestia put her veined hand over Calista's and gently squeezed.

Nessa took Calista's hand, too. “I'm sorry.”

“It was a long time ago,” Calista said, “but I've always been glad I didn't wait. Ever since I got that phone call from his parents, I've tried to live my life so that I had no regrets. You need to do that, too, Nessa!”

“For once, Calista's right!” Hestia said. “You listen to her, Nessa.”

“What regrets could I have? I have the two best aunts in the entire world.” Nessa stood hastily before Hestia and Calista could point out that a young woman should have more in her life than her family and her career.

Because maybe that was true, but Nessa had a goal.

Her darling aunts had mortgaged the house to pay for Nessa's expensive education. They claimed it was well worth it, that she'd brought them such pleasure they were in debt to her.

But Nessa knew better. Every day her aunts got up and spent the day cleaning, changing sheets, shopping for groceries, and the hundreds of tasks necessary to run their boarding house.

So she would pay them back, get the boarders out, and her aunts would never have to change another bed or make another breakfast.

“Now I'm off to work and a fabulous new promotion.” Nessa kissed her aunts on their papery cheeks. “And tonight we party!”

Easter was late this year, so Mardi Gras was late, too, and Nessa walked outside and into a humidity so dense she could taste it. Or maybe it was New Orleans she could taste. She caught the streetcar to the French Quarter, and hopped off at the Canal and St. Charles streets stop.

Eight o'clock was early enough that she could see only the exhausted shopkeepers sweeping the debris of last night's party into the gutter, the occasional tourist staggering toward his hotel, and Georgia Able, Nessa's best friend from grade school and a police officer for the New Orleans police department.

Georgia's family had been in New Orleans as long as Nessa's, at first as slaves, then as free blacks, and she knew every inch of the city. Her wide, melting brown eyes, slow drawl, and curvaceous figure hid a steel-magnolia personality that she used as skillfully as she used her service revolver.

Now she perched on a police horse, a riding helmet on her head, grimly surveying the streets from behind dark glasses, but at the sight of Nessa she smiled and lifted a hand.

Nessa stopped to pet Goliath. “The parades start today.”

“Don't I know it!” Georgia said fervently.

“Are you still on shift from last night or are you going on now?”

“I'm going on shift now, but they called me in last night because the crowds were out of control. I'm working on four hours' sleep, and I'm about this far”—Georgia showed Nessa an inch between her thumb and forefinger—“from strangling the first tourist who throws their beads at Goliath.” Leaning down, she patted his neck. “Poor boy, he's as tired as I am.”

“Fat Tuesday is only nineteen days away.” Nessa gestured toward a cart. “Want me to get you a café au lait?”

“No, thanks. I've had so much coffee I'm sloshing.” Georgia lowered her warm, gentle voice to a whisper only Nessa could hear. “And I'm on the rag so I have to pee all the time, anyway.”

Nessa grinned. “Want me to make a sign? O
FFICER WITH CRAMPS AND BLOATING
. G
O AHEAD
,
MAKE HER DAY
.”

“Can you tell I'm bloated?” Georgia slid her dark glasses down her nose, aimed a lethal glance at Nessa, and fingered her pistol.

“I didn't say that!” Nessa said in fake alarm. “Your bulletproof vest makes you look dangerous, not bloated.”

“For true?”

“For true. Just keep saying—only nineteen more days. Nineteen more days and the parades will be over, the tourists will be gone, and it'll be Lent once more.”

“Nineteen more days, seven hundred more arrests for public intoxication and lewdness, and, God help us all, Fat Tuesday looming at the end of it all.”

“I'm glad I work in a bank,” Nessa said with heartfelt sincerity.

“As long as you're not the bank that gets hit
this
Mardi Gras.”

“Hit? Oh. You mean the Beaded Bandits. No leads?”

Nessa's fond tone seemed to aggravate Georgia. “Sure, you and everyone else in New Orleans think they're captivating, and the press has come up with
such
a cutesy name for them. But how do you get leads with robberies like that?”

“Don't forget that they steal from a coldhearted corporation based in Philadelphia.”

“There's that.” With an alertness that belied her complaints of exhaustion, Georgia scrutinized a group of tourists who straggled out of a bar, looking as if the night before had been long and difficult, and shook her head. Returning her attention to Nessa, she added, “We're getting pressure from the CEO to stay on top of the situation, but it's Mardi Gras. I can barely stay on my horse.”

“Is ol' MacNaught being a jerk?”

Georgia leaned on the saddle horn. “From the top of his balding head to the tip of his shiny black shoes.”

“I heard a rumor that he looks like Danny DeVito.”

“Could be. I heard he's a hermit who hides from the press.”

“Yankees.” Nessa sighed.

“Bless their hearts.”

The women exchanged understanding grins.

“Where y'at?” Georgia asked.

In the New Orleans patois, she was asking how Nessa was, and Nessa could hardly contain her sarcasm. “Great. Just great. This morning, I've been talking about sex with my aunts.”

Georgia straightened up. “Did you learn anything?”

“Yes. I learned neither of them are virgins.”

Georgia winced. “I thought you were talking about
your
sex life.”

“God, yes, that, too. Nothing is sacred anymore. Are you coming to the party tonight?”

“Are you kidding? I don't care what riot occurs today. I wouldn't miss the party at the Dahl House.” Georgia lowered her voice. “I don't know how many of the cops are going to be able to drop by, but we took up a collection. Not much, just a little to help with the expenses. I'll bring you the envelope tonight.”

“Thank you. Thank the others.” The tradition of giving the Dahl girls a few dollars in an envelope to offset party expenses had started long before Nessa's birth, and she felt no false pride in admitting, “We couldn't do it without your help, and if we couldn't have the party, it would break my aunts' hearts.”

“The party at the Dahl House
is
Mardi Gras,” Georgia said.

“Are you bringing a date?”

“No.” Georgia was brief to the point of curtness.

Which didn't stop Nessa. “Why not? You could stand to see some action.”

“Civilians can't deal with a woman who can knock them down and beat them up, and they really can't deal with the hours I work during Mardi Gras.” Georgia patted her horse and stared down the street. “That leaves only cops, and they're all married or jerks.”

“Except for—”

“
All
of them are married or jerks.” Georgia glared at Nessa.

“Okay. If you say so. But I like Antoine, and I know for a fact he's available.”

“I don't know why you're so hung up on Antoine Valteau.” Everything about Georgia—her expression, her posture, her movements—radiated irritation.

That didn't impress Nessa. “I'm not. You are. And he likes you, Georgia.”

“I'm not interested in a one-nighter.” Georgia held up her hand. “Just drop it, Nessa. Just…drop it. I'll tell the aunts I had a date, but he couldn't get off work….”

Nessa narrowed her eyes in thought. “Maybe that's what I should say. He couldn't get off work….”

“Who couldn't get off work?” Georgia must be tired. She wasn't following.

“I don't know. Some mythical guy.”

“
You're
not bringing a date tonight?”

With an exasperated glance at the officer on the horse, Nessa asked, “Remember three years ago when I brought Brad Oglesby, he looked around, decided he liked the Dahl House, and moved in? A single date became a yearlong ordeal of me locking my door every night to keep him out.”

“I'd forgotten that one.” Georgia relaxed. “That was great.”

“Yeah. Great. Not to mention two years ago when Rafe Cabello got drunk and spent the whole evening throwing up in the bathroom.”

“He's still pining after you, you know.” Georgia visibly perked up at Nessa's recital of the past horrors. “You have to stop rejecting these guys. They take it so badly.”

“And last year was the worst ever. The weatherman from Channel 6.” Nessa shuddered in real horror.

“Rayburn Pluche brought the TV cameras, and proposed.” Georgia burst into laughter. In between gasps, she asked, “Remember the Elvis costume? And the blue suede shoes? My God, Nessa, the look on your face when you realized…”

Nessa watched her friend in disgust. “This is what I live for. To entertain you.”

“No. Really. Sorry.” Georgia wiped at her face and tried to control herself. “I'm just…worn out…and when I remember the sequins on his collar…the sideburns…it was so…” She went off into another gale of laughter.

“If you're entirely done”—Nessa gave Goliath a last pat—“I have to get to work.” She started toward the bank.

“Hey, Nessa?” Georgia called.

Nessa turned back.

“Are you bringing a date?”