“Of course I’m right. You look sort of wrecked, just saying. And your brothers insisted on it. They’re worried your workaholic tendencies are getting out of hand. Sleep, walk around, listen to some street music, whatever. Anything but poring over numbers for at least twenty-four hours. Actually, make it thirty.”
For once, that sounds ridiculously good. I sigh heavily without meaning to. “Okay, boss. Have a good night. See you Sunday.”
The paparazzi cameras flash as I climb into the hideously obvious white stretch limo.
As we pull away from the curb and through the New Orleans streets, I roll the window down to feel the warm, humid air.
New Orleans has a flavor all its own. All the colors of gritty neon and the smells of decadence and decay feel like they’retuning into something deeper. For the first time in a while—alongwhile—something stirs in me that isn’t laser focus, complete boredom or total exhaustion.
I don’t know where it’s coming from, but it almost feels like an unfamiliarly starry and hopeful sense of anticipation.
3
“Have a drink with me, Amelie.”
As if.
Jimmy Beausoleil comes into the bar at least three times a week. He always sits on the same bar stool and orders a beer, which he drinks fast, and a Southern Comfort on ice, which he drinks slow. Then he orders a second one. He always asks me out and I always give him the same answer. “You know I can’t, Jimmy. I’m working.”
It’s a good excuse and I use it every time.
“After work, then,” he says. “I’m going to see a band up Frenchman Street. My buddy plays saxophone with them every now and then and they’re good.”
“I don’t finish until late.”
“Didn’t you ever hear that all work and no play makes people dull, Amelie?”
This makes me smile as I polish a clean glass and slide itback into the overhead rack. I’m a lot of things but I’m pretty sure dull isn’t one of them. “I have heard that somewhere, come to think of it.”
“Everyone needs time off now and then.”
I’m sure it’s true and one day I hope that very thing will apply to me. For now, it’s not really an option.
I have no idea what Jimmy does for a living. I never asked. I make sure I don’t get too personal with the regulars. I always keep our conversations breezy and light. Jimmy doesn’t know I work two other jobs besides this one. Or that the last thing I would spend my money on—if I had some—would be drinking at some bar with Jimmy Beausoleil, or any of the other barflies who ask me out every day of the week.
We have a lot of regulars that come in and a lot of tourists. A pretty good percentage of them ask me out. And I always give them the same answer. Behind the bar, which acts as my forcefield, I can keep busy. It’s my job to talk to everyone, which makes it easier to brush off their interest and get on with my evening.
“Jimmy, stop bothering Amelie,” says a familiar voice. “I’dgo with you, but I’m also working tonight. My last shift, if you can believe it.”
Sadie. My best friend and if there’s such a thing as a platonic soulmate I think she might be mine.
“Don’t remind me, Sade,” I tell her. “I can’t believe you’re leaving me.”
Sadie and I met on our first day of high school. We both went to NOCCA, which is a school of the arts here in New Orleans.
I got in with my art portfolio and Sadie got in with a dance audition they still talk about. Her mother died young and her father had a fondness for women and whiskey, so we had a lot in common. We used art as our escapism from the not-so-great details going on in the backgrounds of our lives. We had big dreams, me and Sadie. But, like me, Sadie’s life hasn’t always gone according to the sort of plan you hope for.
She’s made a living for the past few years as an “exotic” dancer instead of the other kind of professional dancer. Because we all need to eat.
And I’ve made my living tending bar, waitressing and housekeeping.
As big as our dreams might have been in high school, mine got swept away by the loss of my hotel. Sadie, for all her talent, kept getting derailed by her own wild side. Sadie’s got too much New Orleans in her, she says. She can’tdoeating disorders. She’s not a perfect size two. Which is apparently what the big dance companies require. Either way, the metaphorical starving artist trope is real, for both of us.
Sadie grabs an olive from the condiments tray on the bar and pops it into her mouth. “You’re coming to New York with me, girl. I’m not taking no for an answer. I already told you, my sister has a couch that pulls out into a double bed.”
“With what? All thirty of the dollars I have in my bank account?”
“Sell some of those paintings you’ve got hidden in your broom closet.”
