Cate Tiernan - A Chalice of Wind

I swallowed hard and moved on to all the other horrible things: Axelle, the rest of New Orleans, my entire life, Axelles creepy friends, being an orphan, my life, the heat, the bugs, the ridiculous humidity that felt like a damp fist punching your head when you stepped out-side, my life, missing my dad, missing Welsford, missing Mrs. Thompkins, Axelle, not having a car, being seven-teen and starting a new school for senior year, oh yeah, my lift, the noise, the crowds, the clogging throngs of tourists everywhere, drunk and sun-baked by two in the afternoon because New Orleans is the devil's playground, Axelle, oh, and did I mention going crazy missing my dad?

But the beignets and coffee were unbelievable. Nothing like light, airy, puffs of dough deep-fried in lard and coated with powdered sugar to pick a girl up. And the coffee-oh God. I'd always hated coffee- didn't even like the smell when Dad made it. But the coffee here was boiled with milk and it was fabulous. I came to Cafe du Monde every day for my caffeine-'n'-cholesterol fix. Another couple of weeks and I would be permanently hyped up and weigh two hundred pounds. The sad thing was, that wouldn't even make my life any worse. I was already at rock bottom. And now I was crying again, dripping tears onto the powdered sugar, as I did almost every time I came here. I pulled more napkins out of the dispenser and wiped my eyes.

I had no idea how this had happened to me. A month ago I was totally normal in every way, living a totally normal life with my totally normal dad. Now, barely four weeks later, I was living with a strange woman (I mean literally strange, as in bizarre, not just unknown) who had zero idea of what guardianship was all about. She'd told me that she and my dad had had a deep and meaningful friendship but had sometimes lost touch with each other through the years. I was way, way thankful that apparently they'd never actually dated.

Still, Dad must have been out of his gourd to think for even one second that my living with Axelle would be anything close to a good idea. I'd lost track of how many times a day I prayed for this to be a nightmare so I could wake up.

I got up and walked across the street, through Jackson Square. Axelle lived in the French Quarter, the oldest part of New Orleans. I had to admit, it was pretty. The buildings looked European, not southern or colonial, and there was an old-fashioned grace and time-lessness to the place that even I in my misery could appreciate. On the other hand, it was incredibly dirty almost everywhere, and some streets were touristy in a horrible, seedy kind of way. Like all the strip joints on Bourbon Street. Yep, just blocks of strip joints and bars, all being peered into by anyone passing by, even if the person passing by was a child.

But there were other streets, not touristy, quiet and serene in a timeless way. Even Welsford was founded only in about 1860. New Orleans had had some sort of settlement here for about 150 years before that. Through hours and hours of walking aimlessly, I had realized that there was a whole separate Quarter that most people never see: the private gardens, hidden courtyards, pockets of lush green almost pulsing with life.

Yet even in the midst of ageless beauty, there was an undercurrent of what? Danger? Not as strong as danger. Not as strong as dread. But like, when I walked under a balcony, I expected a safe to fall on my head. If the same person walked behind me for more than a block, I got nervous. There was a lot of crime here, but my nervousness wasn't even that based in reality. It was more like,… I expected the sun to never shine again in my life. Or like I had driven into a train tunnel, and there was no end in sight, and a train was coming at me. It was weird, but maybe it was natural to feel that way after everything I had been through.

I turned left and cut down a narrow, one-block-long little street, I waded through a busload of tourists on a walking tour and turned another corner. Two blocks down this street was where I was sentenced to live, at least for the next few months,

Axelles apartment had once been part of an incredible private home; There was a side gate made of wrought iron, which I unlocked. It led to a narrow, covered driveway, wide enough for carriages, not cars. My feet made faint echoing noises on the cool flagstones, worn from hundreds of years of use. The front door was in the back of the house. Four buildings bordered a private courtyard, which had a weensy swimming pool and lushly overgrown plant beds around the walls.

Sighing, feeling like an anvil was on my chest, I turned my key in the lock. With any luck Axelle wouldn't be here-she'd already be out for the evening, and I wouldn't have to go, Last night she'd brought me to three different bars, despite my reminding her that not only was I not twenty-one, but I wasn't even eighteen yet. At all three places, the bouncer or doorman had looked at me, opened his mouth as if to card me, which I was hoping for, because then I could go home and go to bed-but then they'd just shut their mouths and let me pass. I guessed Axelle knew them, and they'd let her do whatever.

I pushed open the door, to be met by a blessed whoosh of air-conditioning, and found I was out of luck. Axelle lounged on her black leather sofa, her clothes making slight sibilant noises when she shifted. She was smoking and talking on the phone and barely looked up at me when I came in.

To add to my fun, her creepy friends Jules and Daedalus were there too. I'd met them practically the moment we got off the plane in New Orleans. Neither of them was her boyfriend, but they were around a lot. Jules was good-looking in a Denzel Washington kind of way, poised and put together, and seemed about Axelles age, early thirties. Daedalus was old enough to be her father, like in his mid-fifties. He reminded me of a used car salesman, always smiling but the smile never reaching his eyes.

"Ah! Thais," said Daedalus, looking up from a thick book. Jules also looked up and smiled, then continued examining a map on the small round dining table at one end of the huge main room. At the other end were a fireplace and sitting area. The tiny kitchen was open to the big room, separated by a black granite counter. Axelles bedroom and huge, pathologically crowded and messy closet were down a short hallway. My tiny bedroom, which was essentially a former lean-to tacked onto the main house as an outdoor kitchen, opened off the back of the kitchen.

"Hi" I said, heading for privacy.

"Wait, Thais," Jules said. He had a beautiful deep voice. “I’d like you to meet our friend Richard Landry.” He gestured toward the main room, and someone I hadn't noticed stepped through the haze of Axelles cigarette smoke.

"Hey," he said.

I blinked. At first glance he appeared to be my age, but in the next second I realized he was actually younger-maybe fourteen? He was a bit taller than me and had warm brown hair, streaked from the sun, and brown eyes. I couldn't help standing still for a moment to take him in: he was the only fourteen-year-old I'd ever seen with a silver stud through his eyebrow, a silver ring through one nostril, and tattoos. He was wearing a black T-shirt with the sleeves torn off and long black jeans despite the heat.

I realised I was staring and tried to recover. "Hi, Richard," I said, pronouncing it the way Jules had: Ree-shard. He just nodded, looking at me in a weirdly adult way, like: appraising. 'Yes, he won the weirdest-kid-l’ll-ever-met award. And why on earth was he hanging out with these people? Maybe his parents were friends of theirs?

Axelle hung up the phone and got to her feet. Today, in deference to the ninety-eight-degree weather, she was wearing a black, satiny cat suit. "Oh, good, you met Richard," she said. "Well, you all ready?"