“Pfft,” she said and motioned for him to move on. “Take your blue balls somewhere else.”
George’s mouth dropped slightly. “Well played!” he yelled into her ear.
“Thank you!” she said, dusting off her shoulder with her right hand.
A trio of toga-clad women sporting curly cotton-candy-pink wigs and purple masks walked past, followed by a marching band pounding on drums and blowing their horns. Then came a plump gray-haired woman who was Mardi Gras’ answer to Big Bird. Gold feathers covered every inch of her dress and fluttered from her lamé headband. In her hand were heavy strands of metallic beads.
Her glitter-covered eyes caught Madison’s. “You,” she mouthed, pointing her perfectly manicured finger directly at Madison.
She pointed at herself. “Me?”
The woman stopped right in front of her. “You’re too pretty not to have any beads, darlin’!” She draped a couple of purple and green strings around Madison’s neck.
Madison flashed a smile, and then the lady was on her way.
George whooped. “Guess I’m gonna need to start catchin’ up.” He unbuttoned his navy Patagonia vest and started to lift his gray T-shirt, as if to flash the crowd.
“What the hell are you doing?” She laughed, gently hitting him on the shoulder before he could lift the shirt any higher. He was so dorky. “Here, take this.” She put one of the strands around his neck. “There. Now you’re one of the cool kids.”
“That’s one hundred percent not a true statement, but thank you anyway.” He zipped his vest back up and leaned against the black column of the building behind them.
“Let’s keep walking,” Madison said. “We only have twenty-four hours in New Orleans, and I’ve got things to do.” She’d been counting down the days to this trip since George invited her, making list after list of the places she wanted to see. She even had to tamp down her excitement in front of friends, given their misgivings about her relationship with George, but now that she was here—and none of her friends were around—she allowed herself to embrace it.
“What’s on your list?” he asked as a person from the balcony above dropped a strand of beads on their heads.
“Getting assaulted by drunks. Check!” she said, looking up at the rowdy group of guys leaning over the ornate wrought iron railing and yelling “Flash! Flash!” at her.
“And welcome to Mardi Gras,” George said wryly. “Let’s get out of here.”
They walked along Chartres Street, passing a restaurant called Napoleon House. “You hungry?” he asked. “The food here’s great.”
“Can we get it to go and sit in Jackson Square?” she asked. “It’s on the list. . . .”
George nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
They stopped in and grabbed their food—a muffaletta for him, a po’boy for her—and began walking toward the park. On the way they passed a streetlamp with a black and white sign that read RUE TOULOUSE. She pulled out her cell phone and snapped a picture of it to send to the girls.
“I can see why you come here so much,” she said as they sat on the bench in the park. The Parisian-style square had manicured hedges and towering oak trees. St. Louis Cathedral loomed in the background, its dark spires stretching to the blue sky. It was the most beautiful place she’d ever been.
“Usually it’s not so crowded, but it’s one hell of a city.” George shielded his eyes and looked out over the park. It was hot for February, almost seventy degrees, and the sun picked up reddish highlights in his dark hair.
She took a bite of her sandwich. “Oh my god, this is so good.”
The fried shrimp was perfectly cooked and the bread was fresh from the oven. She smiled, remembering the time last year when Laura was craving a po’boy, so they attempted to make one for dinner. Laura burned the shrimp—along with a piece of her hair—then read the recipe wrong, putting half a cup of salt in the seasoning instead of half a teaspoon. Needless to say, it was inedible.
After they threw their sandwich wrappers away, George checked his phone. “So, we’ve got a couple of hours until we have to go back to the hotel to get ready for tonight. What’s next on the list?”
Madison grabbed a handful of photographs from her bag and handed them to him. She felt suddenly shy.
“What are these?” he said, holding up a picture of a young Johnny Depp look-alike circa 1990 wearing a leather jacket and pair of torn jeans. A cigarette hung from his mouth as he posed in front of a red streetcar.
“Don’t make fun of me,” she said. “But I found these pictures of my dad’s trip to New Orleans when he was my age, and . . .” She paused. “No, never mind. It’s stupid.”
George’s eyes widened. “What? Really . . . tell me.”
“Well, I had an idea to re-create some of these for his birthday present.” She turned toward him. “It’s dumb, right?”
“Not at all,” he said, grabbing her hand. “Come on! I know where all these places are.”
They first ventured to William Faulkner’s house, across from the park. In the bookstore in the bottom floor of the house, she touched a copy of The Sound and the Fury, posing like her father had with his signature stoic look. She kept breaking into laughter, though, so George had to take a number of pictures before they got it right.
Next, they stopped in front of Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo on Bourbon and St. Ann. She mimicked Allen’s playful scaredy-cat pose outside of the building. After the picture was snapped, she begged George to go inside and try out the voodoo dolls. “I’ve got some enemies I need to take care of,” she said.
But he adamantly turned the invitation down. “Heck, no,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t mess with voodoo—that’s some serious stuff.”
She laughed and held up another picture of Allen. “But you’ll do cemeteries, right?”
He reluctantly nodded his head and walked her to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 on Basin Street.
“Man, these have been around for a while,” she said, turning through the maze of crumbling above-ground tombs.
“There it is,” he said, pointing to a spot on the path that looked the same as the one in the picture.
She leaned on the black wrought iron fence, a deteriorating brick tomb standing behind her. Her expression was solemn and pensive, like her father’s. It wasn’t until after George took the picture that Madison thought about the morbidity of the whole situation. Her dad was sick with cancer, about to die, and she was making a photo album for him that included a picture of her in a graveyard.
Her throat tightened. “Let’s go,” she said gruffly, grabbing the picture out of George’s hand.
“Are you okay?” he asked as they walked through the bustling streets back to the hotel.