Slathered in Lavender
Thirsty Work — Chapter 20: party girl
Two young women from California travel to New Orleans in search of redemption after the death of their mother. Carolee thinks she will show her little sister the world, but what they find in the barrooms of the French Quarter at Mardi Gras is more than she knows how to handle, or could have imagined back home. This is the twentieth chapter of the novel Thirsty Work.
When the morning of Mardi Gras arrived the whole flat was eager and excited about the day’s festivities. For the first time that vacation, everyone got out of bed early and was out the door before 10 a.m. “Don’t forget the party at Viv’s tonight!” I told each group as they left the flat.
First Stan and Peter left. Then Sharon with Tessa and Doug. Then Cathy and Carl. “Have fun today, Carolee,” she said, giving me a kiss on the cheek. That felt like a good sign.
When the door closed behind them, I turned with anticipation to Howard. This was the first time we’d had the whole flat to ourselves. I walked to him slowly, savoring the sight. Howard stood over his backpack and rummaged for clothes. He’d just come from the shower and had a towel wrapped around his hips. His skin glistened with water and sweat. I pressed my lips into his back and tasted salt there.
“Mmmm,” Howard murmured, and I could tell that he liked it. “But we can’t get distracted now, Carolee. We might miss Mardi Gras!” Howard’s eyes sparkled as he drew me in for a long kiss. “We’ll have plenty of time for that later on.”
“Okay,” I beamed. Did that mean he wanted to continue our relationship after Mardi Gras? “Speaking of later…” I ventured, tracing a finger lightly over his back. “You know vacation’s almost over, and…well…what are we going to do after Mardi Gras?”
“Shhhh...” Howard put a finger over my lips. “We can’t talk about that now. It’s Mardi Gras! Let’s not get all serious. Let’s party!” His was so excited, I had to laugh.
Outside the streets looked the same as they had for the past two weeks — times 1,000. There were people in costume holding paper cups sloshing with booze. But where there might have been five people strolling any one block in the Quarter on the other days of our visit, now there were 100. Everyone was on the streets! I saw grandmas and babies, men in suits and in ripped tee shirts, families laughing together and single people cruising for love. I saw prostitutes, bankers, musicians, nuns — and I ogled them all.
Howard and I walked hand in hand down Rampart Street toward Canal, where one parade after another made a steady stream of floats throughout the day. When we got to the edge of the parade route, we pushed into the crowd to get a location up front. We caught glittering beads from the men in masks on the floats until our necks were heavy with plastic beads and our pockets taut with phony coins.
“Come on, let’s check out Bourbon Street!” Howard pulled me after him, cutting a path through the crowd. But Bourbon was so crowded we couldn’t even step onto the pavement. I gripped Howard’s hand tightly as we were jostled, shoved and squished to the center of the cobbled street, then swept northward, like cows in a herd. Up high, above the crowd, people drank on their balconies, waving over the wrought iron railing to the milling masses, tossing down the occasional trinket and starting a minor stampede. “Too bad we aren’t up there,” I shouted to Howard. “I can’t take this crowd!” Just then a man in a chicken suit slammed into me hard and I spilled beer all down the front of my shirt.
After fighting our way across Bourbon we drifted over to Molly’s down by the river. But every high-class pub and backwater dive had a record turnout on Mardi Gras. My feet had started aching, and we could barely push our way to the bar to put in a drink order. At the back of my mind I kept repeating Howard’s words from the morning. We don’t want to get serious… We’ll talk about it tomorrow. “What did he mean?” I wondered. “Was this going to be our last day together?”
When Howard walked us out to the relative calm by the river, I pulled him in close. “If this is our last day, at least I’ll make him regret it,” I thought as I pushed my breasts into his chest and breathed my hot, whiskey breath into his neck. When I felt something shift beneath his cool demeanor, I knew I’d accomplished my purpose.
I felt better after that.
The day was glorious, extravagant, what we’d been waiting for all this time. Voluptuous women and gorgeous men cruised the streets in outrageous outfits, seducing the eye with all manner of bicep and breast, thigh and buttock, hairless forearm and hairy chest. Everywhere I looked were eyelashes. Armpits. Noses. Butts. I couldn’t get enough shoulder blades. Adam’s apples. Tongues.
Music massaged the ears, spilling from every doorway. Inviting us in to dance. Inviting us to stop yapping and listen. Inviting us to sway back and forth like a small wave on a big river, lapping up against each other and falling back. Lapping up. Falling back. Repeating like a base beat in the rhythm section, like time.
We didn’t eat much food, but beer and whiskey satisfied, tasting yeasty and fiery like hot bread. Our mouths were never empty. Our senses overflowed. Mardi Gras smelt like sweat and saliva and beer. It felt like Howard’s hand on the small of my back. Howard’s arm pulling me to him. Howard’s tongue in my mouth. It looked like love.
There was so much to see and hear and taste and touch that finally, in the evening, when Howard asked if I wanted to head out for Aunt Viv’s house, I was relieved to leave the hubbub of the Quarter. Perhaps for a moment, I’d be able to rest my eyes.
There was no use trying to drive my car through the crowd, and there weren’t any taxis, so we walked. We walked past Canal street — a river of color awash in floats and flowers and tiny trinkets and scary masked men — and on into the Garden District. When we started, my feet ached and my stomach churned, but the receding crowd and the approaching mansions lulled me into a kind of dream state. It seemed we arrived in no time.
But when we turned the corner onto Aunt Viv’s street, I was surprised to see what she had meant by a “little party.” The house was wide open and a huge crowd of people stood together on the porch and lawn, making a raucous island in the quiet neighborhood. Most of them had paper cups, and I could just make out a line of kegs under the big, cypress tree in one corner. There was loud music coming from the house and people dancing inside.
“Omigod,” I breathed softly outside the gate, hesitating with my hand on the latch.
“Let’s go, Carolee,” Howard pushed me through, laughing. “This is fantastic!”
We got cups from a card table and filled them with cold beer from the silver kegs out front. “My feet hurt. I’m going to go in and see if I can find a place to sit down,” I told Howard.
“Okay,” he kissed me. “I’m going to see if I can find any of our buddies out here.”
Inside, it wasn’t as crowded as out in the yard, and I could feel myself begin to relax as I moved freely through the rooms, looking for Aunt Viv. There were big platters of sandwiches and gargantuan bowls of potato chips and trays of crackers and cheese and a cut glass punch bowl. I marveled at Viv and Norman’s generosity as I grabbed a handful of nuts. I wondered if I’d even recognize Norman if I saw him — or if he would recognize me. I pictured the photograph in our album at home: a tall, dark and handsome man in a pinstriped suit and hat. But that was 20 years ago! I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t know him now.
Still, I looked around the parlor, searching. There were no older men there. I moved on to the next room. I found someone I knew in the kitchen — but it wasn’t Uncle Norm. Sharon and Tessa leaned against the counter near the sink, drinking. Sharon’s arm made a crook for Tessa to lean into. Her eyes were closed and her lips lax against Sharon’s neck; but she revived when she heard Sharon greet me.
“Some party!” Tessa slurred, nodding approval. Then she winked at me. It looked like it took all her concentration to close just one lid.
Over the next few hours, I sobered up. I ate several small sandwiches, a big soft pretzel, and dozens of handfuls of potato chips. I staked out a spot on a couch near the front window where I could watch Howard hobnobbing in the yard. When the bowl of chips was empty, an older woman came and refilled it. I decided not to move for the rest of the night.
From my lookout on the couch by the window, I saw Peter and Stan arrive and connect up with Howard. “That’s good,” I thought. “They’ll keep an eye on him.” I worried a bit about Cathy and Carl, wondered where Doug was, and considered whether I should make another tour of the house in search of Norman or Viv. I leaned back my head, closed my eyes, and listened as the conversations around me blended into one long continuous murmur, swelling and receding like a heartbeat, or the sea.
“Carolee, wake up!” Cathy’s voice shocked me back to consciousness. “It’s almost midnight!” She was shaking my shoulder. “Mardi Gras is almost over! This is it!” I was glad to see Cathy, but not glad to be awakened, until I realized that I needed to pee.
“I’m glad you’re here!” I shouted a little too loudly. “Sit down here for me. Save my seat! I gotta go to the bathroom!”
Long before I reached the first-floor bathroom in the hallway, I saw a line of women waiting outside it and changed my course for the stairs. I ran up them two at a time, anxious to find another bathroom before I peed in my pants. But once I reached the second story, I stopped.
It was quieter up here. Emptier. Almost lonely. If it weren’t for the couple making out on the landing, their butts parked precariously next to their open beers, you might not even realize there was a party going on. I paused for a second to watch their hands working, not sure where to look first. At one end of the hall was a bedroom. I could see the edge of a double bed covered with a knubby white bedspread through the open door. The room looked immaculate. The dark, hardwood floor was covered with a deep red Oriental rug; a chest of drawers in the background was carved of heavy wood. I took a few steps toward it, drawn without thinking. I wanted to lay down on the white bedspread and close the door.
“Could that be Aunt Viv’s room?” I wondered, but decided not. There was a man’s heavy brush on the chest, beneath a big oval mirror; the room seemed too formal, too cold.
For Viv, I envisioned a canopy bed covered with a tiny pillows, a lavender bedspread, lacy curtains at the window, a dressing table scattered with perfumes and oils. There was another door at the other end of the hallway which might contain such a bedroom. I decided to peek in just as soon as I used the john. In the middle of the hallway was a smaller doorway, which surely must lead to a bathroom. I tried the handle. But it was locked. I knocked lightly and leaned my ear to the door.
“Nobody’s in here!” came a woman’s voice, stifling giggles.
“Aunt Viv? Is that you? It’s Carolee. I need to use the bathroom.”
There was a pause, as if someone was considering. Then, “I SAID, nobody’s in here,” the woman’s voice repeated, then laughed.
I heard liquor in the voice, and malice, and I didn’t have time to argue. So I turned to search for another toilet. I heard the door open behind me.
“Carolee? Come on in. Do you need to use the head?” It wasn’t Aunt Viv talking. I swung around quickly to see Doug standing in the bathroom door.
“What?…What are you doing in there?”
“Not much,” he put his hand on my arm and guided me through the doorway. “Viv and I are just talking.”
Behind him stretched a blue, tiled bathroom with a white porcelain toilet, a white claw-foot tub, a sparkling white floor and Viv sitting on the countertop between two sinks, long legs dangling. No shoes. Her back was visible in the mirror behind her. Two buttons were undone.
“That’s right, Honey,” she nodded. “We’re just talking.” Aunt Viv gave me a broad wink.
I hovered near the doorway. Aunt Viv’s long legs swung back and forth, like a child’s. Her face assaulted me, big and white, like a mask at a fun house, like a porcelain head made too large for a flimsy doll’s body, like any moment it might just fall off.
“I don’t…”
“You don’t what, Honey?” Aunt Viv interrupted. “You don’t want to pee in front of us? Come on in and take your pants down, darlin’. We don’t mind. Do we Doug? We’ve seen bare butts before.” Aunt Viv drew one shoulder up and laughed gaily, flashing her big, white teeth at Doug.
“No, it’s not that. It’s just….” I saw Doug’s hands hanging beside his pockets. Limp hands with finely formed fingers. Course black hairs.
“What is it, baby?” Aunt Viv crooned. “You want some privacy?
“Come on, Honey,” now she was talking to Doug. “Let’s let Carolee pee in private.” Aunt Viv shifted her weight to her hands in preparation for hopping down from the counter.
“No…Wait,” I stammered. “I don’t understand what’s happening. Where’s Uncle Norman?”
“Where’s Uncle Norman?” Viv echoed, nodding slowly, as if that was the question she’d been waiting to hear. “Where’s Uncle Norman? Now that’s a very good question. Just where IS good old, Uncle Norman? Do you know, Doug?”
Doug shook his head and looked down at the floor, like he didn’t want to be drawn into the conversation. Still, he muttered “Viv says she and Norman got divorced 10 years ago.”
Doug’s thighs pressed against the fabric of his faded jeans. The color got deeper, bluer, in between his legs. I heard what he was saying, but I didn’t understand.
“Divorced? But Aunt Viv, you said Norman was buying us lunch the other day. You said he was throwing this party.”
“Well, he IS in a manner of speaking, Carolee. He paid for that lunch, and this party. He’s paying for this house. And these clothes,” She pulled her blouse out away from her chest and looked down it. “And these boobs. He paid for them, too.” She looked up and grinned. “But he sure as hell ain’t paying enough.”
I felt the beer I’d been drinking all day begin churning in my stomach, start to push its way up to my throat and down to my pelvis at the same time. “But why did you lie about it? Why did you lie to me and Cathy about Uncle Norman?”
“I don’t KNOW!” Aunt Viv scolded as if I’d been impertinent, as if she was a queen sitting half-dressed in her upstairs bathroom, playing footsie with a man young enough to be her son, a man who had flirted shamelessly with me back in Stockton, who had lured me to New Orleans to see Mardi Gras, who was going to be MY boyfriend.
“Just an old habit I guess,” she continued lightly, putting her hand to her hair, leaning her head back. “One I learned from your mother.” She turned to look.
“Oh, right!” now the scorn I’d been hiding bubbled quickly to the top. I felt my face flush; I saw Viv see that and grin. “What are you talking about? My mother wasn’t a liar. My mother never told a lie in her life. And she sure as HELL never kissed some young kid in a bathroom!”
Aunt Viv flew off the counter and slapped my face — hard — then grabbed my arm and dug her fingernails into my flesh. “Who are you to talk to me like that? You think you know so much? You think you know my sister better than me?”
I tried to pull away, but she held tight. My cheek burned and I felt a sticky dampness on my leg. “Never lied? Never lied in her life? I bet she never told you how our DADDY came into our bedroom, did she Carolee? Did your god-damned sainted mother ever tell you about that?”
“No, I... I don’t know…”
“You don’t know how he crawled into my bed when I was seven years old?” Aunt Viv gripped my arm tighter and pulled my face close to hers. Her eyes were fiery black agates. “You didn’t hear how he pulled up my little white nightie?
“‘Hush now. It’s only Daddy,’ he whispered. Did you hear about that, Carolee? Did you?!?” She shook my arm. I shook my head.
“No. No. No.”
“Did you hear about how he rubbed his big PENIS against my little tummy and then pushed it in!”
I wrenched out of her grip and stumbled backwards. “What are you saying? Are you saying Grandpa raped you? I don’t believe you! You’re crazy! Grandma said you were a liar!”
“Yeah, I’m crazy all right. I’m crazy to think my big sister would protect me.” A tear leapt off Aunt Viv’s face and struck me on the neck.
“What’s Mom got to do with this?”
“She’s got EVERYTHING to do with this. She was THERE, Carolee. She SAW it. She saw Daddy get into my bed.” She had my arm in her grip again.
“How do you know she saw it?”
“Because I looked over at her. I looked over at Rosie to HELP me, Carolee. I didn’t know what he was doing. I was just a baby! I looked to my big sister to protect me. But she just pulled the covers over her head.”
“I don’t believe you!” I shoved her off me and into the counter. Viv hit her back and sank down to the floor. She made small sounds, murmurous choking. I saw the curve of her back, the thin black bra strap through the undone buttons, the rise and fall of the small bones in her spine.
I saw Doug’s hand move to her shoulder. His fingernails clean and square.
I saw red scratches and blots of blood on my arm.
I saw the scene from a distance, as if we were in a movie. I watched as a yellow puddle of pee formed next to my shoe on the white tiled floor.
I didn’t stay for the rest of the party. I didn’t wait for Howard to escort me home. I didn’t explain to Cathy why I was leaving.
When Viv noticed the pee pooling next to my shoe, next to her nyloned knee, on the clean white tile — the yellow pee with tiny bubbles frothing around the edge — she yelped and scrambled backwards. Away from me. Doug helped her up off the floor. He helped her out the door. He helped her down the hall to the room at the end which may or may not have contained a canopy bed slathered in lavender. Tiny pillows. A ruffled dressing table strewn with jars of unguents and oils.
Once they were gone, I locked the door behind them and leaned my head against it. I expected to cry for all my losses. My loss of Aunt Viv, of Uncle Norman, of Grandpa, of Mom. My loss of dignity. My loss of clean underwear and unsoiled shoes. But I found there was no crying in me. There was only me, without crying, and a long wall of mirrors. And after I stared at my mottled face for a few minutes, there was only the mirrored wall.
The acrid smell and the dampness on the inside of my leg reminded me I had to do something. I pulled a towel off the rack and threw it down on the puddle. I put another towel under the tap. I ran the water warm. Then I pulled down my pants and wiped my legs as best I could. I wiped my crotch. I used the other end and wiped my face. I straightened my hair in the mirror. I threw up in the toilet. That felt better. I rinsed my mouth out with water and left the room.
I passed down the hall, down the stairs, through the house, yard, party. I passed as if shielded by an impenetrable wall. Someone may have called out to me. I didn’t know. I didn’t care.
Outside Aunt Viv’s gate the night air was cold, but I didn’t feel it. The sky was black, but I didn’t mind. Cars slowed as they passed. Men called invitations out the window. “Hey sugar, want a ride?” I didn’t look at them. They tried to rouse me with insults. “Hey baby, you got a sweet pussy?” I barely heard. I kept walking, brisk and steady. The blocks dropped behind me. As I approached Canal Street, other people started dotting the sidewalk. Groups of men oozed around me as I passed. Murmuring. Calling. Making kissing noises.
“Date? Wanna date?”
“Wanna make some money?”
“Wanna suck my cock?”
One touched my ass. I didn’t feel threatened. They might as well have been air.
It was a long distance. It must have taken me an hour. But it seemed no time had passed when I found myself approaching the flat. A few blocks before I got there, I stopped and bought a pint of Wild Turkey. But I didn’t drink it. After I opened the door to the deserted flat, I didn’t turn on the lights. I locked the door, punched my pillow, pulled off my boots in the dark. I rubbed my feet and felt the start of a blister. Took off my clothes and crawled into my bag. I’d never felt so tired. Sleep came on like a bludgeon.
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Copyright © 2020 by Patsy Fergusson. All rights reserved.
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