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The necklace gets passed around, and everyone is surprisingly gentle. No one tries to rip the thing asunder or rub or tug it too hard—yeah, not that either. All ten of them give it an excellent try, but when it’s apparent that it won’t glow, they pass it back to me with long faces, sighs, and wishes for better luck elsewhere.
Lindy and I move on. She doesn’t look hopeful. “It’s only ten out of a hundred,” I say.
She pulls her phone out of her bag. “I’m going to be the number counter. I’ll keep track of everyone and their approximate ages. Also, I noticed you didn’t just let women try it.”
“This is an experiment about the necklace glowing,” I remind her. “We’re not telling people it’s cursed and has something to do with a soulmate.”
“Right, I forgot. You let your cousins rub it. And your brother too. Didn’t you also say that?”
I want to shrivel up and die right there on the sidewalk, but then Lindy cracks a smile, and somehow, I really don’t mind that she’s poking fun at me. I’m a big boy, and I can take it. After all, she’s not being mean about it, and she appears to be taking this curse thing in stride. Plus, she’s an excellent wasp killer and didn’t even lecture me about my heinous screams. That was rather nice and noble of her.
“There.” Lindy points out another big group, this one made up of just females, and we move on.
I give my spiel again, and we go through the whole process. There’s a lot of touching and laughter. This whole thing is surprisingly fun as people don’t take themselves too seriously. Lindy keeps track of everything the entire time we move through the French Quarter, and as I suspected, people are very willing to help us out.
“Ugh,” Lindy sighs as she types another number into her phone. “That’s a hundred. One hundred people. But not one hundred women. And we didn’t narrow them down to make sure they were single or anything. Maybe this isn’t a good experiment. We’re hardly controlling the variables.”
“Hmph.” That’s all I have to say. Technically, it’s more like a puff of air. I’m about to put the necklace back in my pocket, but then Lindy tucks her phone away and holds out her gloved hand. “Can I see it for a second?”
I pass it over with trembling hands. I’m not sure if she thinks it’s broken or defunct or if she just wants to test her own powers, but this time, even with gloves on, it starts glowing almost immediately. She lets out a gasp of surprise and drops it onto the sidewalk. I wince. I retrieve it, check that it’s unscathed, which it is, and tuck it back into my pocket. I think we’ve both had enough of it for the night.
“Well, so that didn’t exactly work out. But you know the best thing about the French Quarter?” I ask.
Lindy braces herself like I’m going to trick her into taking on the worst of the worst. Maybe something like a shot glass with a severed appendage, an eyeball, or something in it. Or some fried gator toes. I don’t know if that’s actually a thing, though. Or snake doughnuts, maybe? Hopefully, they’re not a thing either.
“Cotton candy!” I chime excitedly.
Lindy can’t keep a straight face. She doesn’t seem to want to smile very often, but she still does it, which is nice. It’s a nice look on her. I like when she smiles.
Before I can process that thought further, feel it any deeper than surface level, and spring a boner in public, I race off to one of the food trucks tucked toward the back. They’re serving mini doughnuts, other fried doughy delights, deep-fried candy bars, and cotton candy. I buy two bags because I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love the absolute delight that is cotton candy, and with a grin, I pass one bag over to Lindy.
She takes it but doesn’t open it. Instead, she stares wryly at me as I start shoving fistfuls into my face. “You know that stuff attracts wasps, right?”
I freeze. I never thought of that because I’ve never attracted a wasp while eating cotton candy. Plus, it’s nighttime right now. Still, you never know with those assholes. So, with a frown, I quickly twist up the bag and resolve to only eat it indoors from now on.
“If you’re not allergic, why are you so scared of them?”
“Because wasps are assholes. Everyone knows that.”
“Bad incident when you were a kid?”
“You could say that.”
She leaves it at that. We start making our way back amidst the wonder that is the French Quarter. People can pretty much see and buy anything and everything out here. Lindy tries to hide her pleasure at seeing the buzz around her—the street performers, a guy busking with a guitar, artists, booths displaying handmade goods, someone reading tarot cards, another person dressed up as a fortune teller, someone walking on stilts, and another guy who has a small dog dressed in an adorable panda outfit. This is all new for her, I realize.
