Page 24 of One Last Regret

Amelia turns to me and says triumphantly, “Come on, Mary. Let’s go.”

“Absolutely not. Your grandmother needs time to rest, and Mardi Gras is not appropriate for—”

“It’s fine, Mary,” Josephine interrupts. “Just… it’s fine. Please, no more fighting.”

My brow furrows. “Perhaps it would be better to keep the children home, ma’am.”

“No!” Amelia shouts. “I want to go! I’m twelve years old! I’m not a baby!”

“When you’re older, you’ll—”

“For God’ssake, Mary!” Josephine interrupts. “Just take them! Enough!”

I press my lips together, and very much against my better judgment, I nod.

Amelia pumps her fist and kisses Gabriel on the cheek. “You’ll see, Gabriel. This will be fun.”

Gabriel offers a wan smile. I look hard at Amelia, and she tosses her hair saucily. “We’ll be dressed in twenty minutes, Mary.”

She leads Gabriel from the room. I look at Josephine, but she’s back to staring at the picture of her husband. It’s not worth my energy to argue with her now.

I leave the room and steel myself for what I imagine will be the most nerve-wracking night of my life.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I have no idea how right I am about that.

I understand the importance of Mardi Gras to New Orleans culture, and I also understand how important tourism is to the city, but I take no joy in the holiday. It’s an excuse for humans to behave like animals, and while I’m sure that natives of New Orleans value the spiritual and traditional components of the holiday, the streets are not filled with Catholics considering which sins to confess and which burdens to lay at God’s feet.

They are filled with men and women—most of them in their early twenties—drinking, eating, littering, fighting, and behaving lewdly and, in some cases, even wantonly sexual. Drug use is primarily confined to marijuana, but in the dark shadows of the alleys, I see people swallowing pills and, in a few cases, using needles.

I was a fool to bring the children here. I should have refused regardless of what Josephine said.

Amelia, of course, is having the time of her life. Her eyes take in the sights around her with all the wonder of a child too young to understand that just because someone is smiling and laughing doesn’t mean they’re truly enjoying themselves. Or maybe theyareenjoying themselves, and I just can’t understand why.

Gabriel clings to me. I feel another rush of guilt at subjecting him to this. I’ll have to make this up to him. Perhaps this weekend, I’ll take him alone to a nice, quiet walk in a nice quiet park. I’m sure Amelia means well by trying to get him outside, but she’s trying to cheer him up the way she would like to be cheered up.

And I’ll admit it. I’m angry with her. She took advantage of her grandmother’s weakened emotional state and the fact that Josephine is my employer. She manipulated both of us so shecould go to a party that all three of her guardians had made clear was not appropriate for her.

She's a child, a young child, whether she likes to admit it or not. This sort of manipulation is common and to be expected. But still, it makes me angry. I am not enjoying myself, Gabriel is not enjoying himself, Ameliashouldn’tbe enjoying herself… this is all just so wrong and deplorable and frankly embarrassing. I wonder how many of these people truly reach maturity and look back fondly on the night they exposed themselves to strangers then vomited into a storm drain.

“Look at the street performers!” Amelia cries.

She points toward a street corner where men and women in colorful costumes wearing ornate masks dance and twirl sticks of fire, batons with streamers, and staves with feathers, ribbons, and other decorations attached. A growing crowd gathers around the performers, awed by the display.

I'd much rather the children observed this than people spilling beer all over themselves, so I allow Amelia to lead us closer. Gabriel shows excitement, too, and I decide that perhaps tonight will be salvageable. If I can make this portion of the night more memorable than the less palatable sights, then maybe not all is lost.

And I must admit, the dancers are mesmerizing. Annie and I learned cotillion when we were young, but ballroom dancing is a slow and orderly process, and for children, it's simplified into extremely basic movements. Even then, I was well known for having the proverbial two left feet. Annie did well, but she had little interest in dancing, let alone stilted, slow-moving, and frankly boring ballroom dancing.

Needless to say, the dancers here are far more coordinated than I was. Their bodies gyrate wildly, their limbs moving frenetically. There seems to be no pattern, but at the same time,there is clearly a very precise intricacy to their actions. It is, in its own way, just as impressive as Gabriel's piano playing.

I am lost in the performance before I realize it. The crowd fades away, and the dancers seem to loom closer. They seem to grow taller too, somehow, until they are no longer human but strange, godlike beasts that channel primordial energies and release them in displays of ecstasy and excitement.

But much like theVie Apres a la Mort, the tone of the performance changes. The ecstasy changes from joyful to taunting, the excitement from gleeful to frantic. The masks leer at me, their smiles communicating both laughter and anguish. My heartbeat quickens, and I try to leave, but my feet are rooted to the spot, and I can only watch as the dancers surround me, laughing, jeering, spinning and roaring. The anguish turns to anger, the smiles to snarls. My lips begin to tremble, and I try desperately to beg for mercy, but there is no quarter to be given. There is no sympathy in these fantastic visages, only derision, only judgment, only hate.

The music fades in an instant. All sound fades, in fact. The dancers continue to dance, but they pull away from me, leaving me alone with only one dancer.

Except she’s not dancing. She’s standing still in front of me, the two of us forming an eye in the middle of this storm.

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