A Masquerade of Saints (Saints Mystery Series Book 3) Page 6

  Hattie and her shadow stood behind me waiting to talk. Hattie said, “My goodness Fanchon, from ugly baby to Mozart.”

  “Ugly baby grows into a swan,” said her shadow.

  “Hattie,” I said. “Don’t you remember? I was not that ugly baby that you keep mistaking me for. That was Fanchon Deveroux. I’m Helene Baxter. You keep talking about my small ears. That wasn't me. I told you that last time I saw you.”

  Hattie blinked a couple of times and tilted her head, “I remember Helene Baxter. She died a long time ago, sugar.”

  “Saddest thing,” the other nurse shook her head.

  “I am Helene Baxter. She did not die. Fanchon did. Don’t you remember talking to the police about it?”

  “I remember that cute police officer,” Hattie said. “Sweet ass.”

  I shook my head at them, remembering how impossible it was to for them to keep up with a conversation.

  “Now maybe you are thinking of her relation Marlene Baxter. She’s still alive and well. Hmm, she is not well per se, but she is certainly alive, least she was an hour ago.”

  “Marlene, oh yes,” said the older nurse. “Sweet lady, easy labors, pretty babies.”

  “Oh, the prettiest,” said Hattie.

  “Wait, did you see Marlene Baxter here?” I asked.

  Hattie said, “Yes, dear she gets her treatment here down at the dial…”

  She was cut off, “Those new laws dear. We aren’t supposed to talk about treatments, nor blood types and especially not sexually transmitted diseases.”

  “That’s right,” Hattie said and pushed her hand up against her forehead.

  “You were going to say dialysis weren’t you?” I asked. The look on their faces gave me my answer.

  I grabbed my sheet music and my purse and started for the information kiosk in the back of the room. I was almost there when I turned to Hattie and yelled, “What does Marlene look like?”

  The two older women looked at each other then Hattie wrinkled her forehead and said, “She looks somewhat like you dear.”

  I ran to the board and referenced the “you are here” sticker to see that the dialysis unit was down the west hallway just four doors away. I took off quickly and counted, door one…. door two…. door three and slowed as I approached door four.

  There was a blue sign with white letters that said, “Dialysis Center.”

  I crept up to the door and peeked in the window. I could see three beds against the back wall. Two of them were occupied. Machines surrounded the women in the beds. I opened the door without thinking, and they both looked at me. The lady on my right had light hair and was reading a tattered Harlequin Romance novel. The other woman, well built, with dark hair and large brown eyes, was watching a portable DVD player set up on a tray. She looked back to her T.V. screen after she saw me. She appeared lost in thought for a moment, and then looked up again.

  “You look familiar,” she said.

  I opened my mouth to talk but nothing came out.

  She looked me over again. “I think it must be that your image reminds me of the one that used to stare back at me from the looking glass.”

  I wondered if she was putting it together. I wanted to say, “Of course I look like you. I’m your daughter,” but I couldn’t form the words.

  I was happy I didn’t say it when she said, “Enjoy it my darling. It all fades away soon enough.”

  She looked back at her movie and said, “Oh, would you be a dear? My movie has ended and I left my bag on the chair over there.”

  She pointed past me to a large canvas bag, sitting on a wooden chair. I picked it up and carried it to her. I sat it next to her, by her free arm, which was not hooked to the machine. She flipped through the DVDs as if it took all of her strength.

  “What’s your name, sweet pea?” she said to me.

  Finally, my mouth found words and I said, “Fanchon.”

  She sat up, "I knew a Fanchon once a long time ago. I can’t place her exactly but I feel a sense of warmth hearing that name so it must be a pleasant association.”

  I smiled at her.

  “Fanchon, would you be a dear and pick a movie for me - nothing too serious if you please. I keep watching “Beaches.” I think I must be a glutton for punishment.”

  I sat my music down on the side of her bed, opened the bag and found “Tootsie.” I had seen it once before and knew it was a comedy about a cross dressing Dustin Hoffman.

  I put it in the player without telling her what it was and when the image of confetti and high heels came across her screen she knew what it was and laughed.

  “You have a strong name and good taste, Fanchon,” she said leaning her head back against the bed. “Be a dear and start the movie.”

  I pushed the play button and Marlene closed her eyes and her breathing slowed. I felt like an intruder then and started getting up. My purse jangled and my sheet music crinkled as I stood. Marlene reached her hand out to me and opened her eyes a crack.

  “Thank you, Fanchon.”

  I nodded my head at her and started to turn away.

  “What is that you have?” she said sitting up a little. “Is that music?”

  “Yes.”

  “I used to play. May I see it please?”

  I passed it to her and a smile spread across her face as she hummed the tune. I saw her foot taking on an involuntary bob to what would be the rhythm of the music. I knew exactly what she was doing. I had the same habit - I always tapped my foot to keep time.

  “Are you any good?” she asked.

  From behind me I heard a high-pitched voice squeal, “She is the best.”

  I turned to see Hattie had followed me, but she left her shadow behind.

  “She just played in the atrium, and it was magical. Donna said she was the best piano player she had ever played with.”

  I started to thank Hattie for the compliment but she cut me off.

  “Fanchon used to play in New York you know. From Broadway to the Bayou.”

  Marlene raised her eyebrows, “You played on Broadway?”

  Hattie tried to talk again, but this time I cut her off. “I didn’t play on Broadway. The closest I ever got was an audition, but I didn’t get the job.”

  “Well, even that is something, dear. To play in New York,” She took a deep breath and smiled. “What a thrill that must have been.”

  She closed her eyes and started humming a tune. She got lost in the moment and I felt like a voyeur sitting there watching her, without her knowing it. I got up to walk away making as little noise as possible. I held my finger to my lips to shush Hattie who looked like she was dying to say more. We started for the door together.

  Hattie said in the world’s loudest whisper, “Well, I thought you would stay longer, Fanchon. You got so excited about coming down here and now you are just heading out. I don’t understand.”

  “Shh,” I said.

  “Well, it’s just odd is all. You get all excited when I tell you Marlene Baxter is here and then run off. I never understood you Deverouxs, such an odd lot.”

  “Wait!” the shout rang off the walls of the room. Marlene had shot upright and what little color she had was completely gone from her face. In a frantic voice she shouted, “Did you say Fanchon Deveroux? As in the daughter of Paulina Deveroux? As in Rivet Deveroux?”

  I answered only with tears.

  Her breathing became erratic, and she studied my face before taking several deep breaths. Once she was composed she said, “You are not Fanchon Deveroux. I know the Deverouxs. You are not a Deveroux. Why would you lie to…”

  She held her hand to her face and took in a sharp gasp of air.

  “Oh, my sweet Lord,” she said. “Come here.”

  I did and knelt by her bed so my face was closer to her. She reached her hand and touched my ears. One of the ways people distinguished between me and the real Fanchon was her ears. She had tiny, low set ears.

  “You’re Helene, aren’t you?”

  I s
tayed silent, but nodded my head. She pulled me with such force I was off the ground and in her arms.

  “I knew it,” she shouted. “I knew it. I knew it. That son of a bitch!”

  A new side

  “Are you going to meet the rest of your family?” Beau asked, walking down the aisle of the grocery store.

  “She wants me to come by tomorrow night,” I replied. “She said she would tell the rest of the family about me tonight and let them sleep on it. Then she wants me to come over for dinner. Her whole family is in town for Mardi Gras.”

  “So who was the son of a bitch?” he asked.

  The mom next to us in the cereal aisle covered her daughter’s ears and shushed Beau.

  “She didn’t say.” I reached past Beau for a new box of Puffin Puffs, the only food item I knew my roommates liked enough to purchase.

  “That’s a mighty strange reaction to meeting your daughter who you thought was dead and gone. I’ll tell you now there’s more to that story.”

  “I’ll let you know tomorrow. I'm not sure meeting them is a good idea. Everybody, Abolina included, has been warning me about it.”

  “Shit, everybody’s got an opinion. You want mine?”

  I nodded.

  “Your life already sucks.”

  I waited for him to explain.

  “That’s all I got to say. Who cares if you meet more shitty people? Your life’s been full of shitty people for years.”

  “You’re a true philosopher.”

  Beau reached past me for granola bars and continued down the aisle, then turned and looked back at me. “Did she ask ‘bout what happened to you all dem years ago?”

  “I told her a little and gave her Lt. Poortvliet’s number. She’s the detective who was working on Lisette’s case. I told her the lieutenant could fill her in on all the details.”

  He stopped at the end cap display of King Cakes. Each frosted cake ring was sprinkled with purple, green and gold sugar. Beau picked up two and put them in my cart.

  “I buy my king cake at Randazzo’s,” I told him.

  “So do I. These are snackin’ cakes. Let’s go to Randazzo’s though and get a few cakes before the Yankees visiting for Mardi Gras buy them all up.”

  After we finished shopping we made our way back to my house. We stocked the cupboards, and left the King Cakes out on the table.

  Beau spent the night playing video games in the living room with my roommates, and I spent the night in my room looking at my phone. There were two people I really wanted to call. One was Josephine. She would have known how to talk me through all of these new revelations. I knew she was gone but every once in a while I found myself forgetting. The second call I was waiting for, and it was more realistic, was from Banyan. I couldn’t wait to tell him I was going to meet my real family and hear his take on it, but he told me not to call. Then I let myself wonder what he was really doing. I thought he was probably out with somebody. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I was more anxious about - meeting my family or not knowing what Banyan was up to.

  I looked at my phone willing it to ring. Then the realization hit me that I did have somebody to call. I hit my speed dial number two and held the phone to my ear. “Hi, Abolina. This is Fanchon. I’ve got news.”

  The other half

  The next night I dressed in my best and only black cocktail dress. It was neither cut too low up top, nor too short down low. It was my go-to dress for parties and funerals and lately it had been to a lot of funerals.

  Beau offered to drive me to the party, under the guise that I might need some emotional support after meeting my family, though I suspected his real motivation was that he wanted to use my car. He followed the path of the trolley cars to the Garden District. We looked out our windows at the opulent manors set away from the road. Most of the homes had the arched windows and doorways mimicking the popular French architecture at the time they were built. All of the houses were built to impress from the street with grand proportions and opulent designs such as pineapples in the woodwork or copper accented trim. They were clearly only meant to be admired from a distance, as tall fences surrounded most of the homes.

  I was as nervous as I had ever been in my life and let Beau jabber on as I rode in silence. I had a laugh when I looked up to the trees. Just like the rest of the city the trees on the rich side of town were peppered with beads. No matter the season, and in each district of the city, beads could be found dripping from the trees as if they were native fauna.

  Beau slowed when he turned onto Washington and asked me for the house numbers again. I gave them to him and he pulled over and stopped.

  “There she is,” Beau said pointing to the house on my side of the road.

  The home was a three story white villa. The second floor had a large balcony, the first floor had a large veranda, and each were lined with thick white columns. The third floor had four dormered windows facing the road. There was a tall fence around the home, just like all the others, and a gate was opened and waiting, presumably for us.

  Beau turned into the drive and said, “You sure bout this mô shou?”

  I looked Beau over, wearing his holey jeans and decked out in paint stains and drywall from his years of manual labor. I looked up from his pants to his hands. The palms were dark and callused from years of hard work, and I wondered what the Baxters would think of him.

  Where I grew up working hands were a badge of honor. Rivet used to tell me, “Petite bé you find yourself a man with strong hands to keep you safe one day.”

  He would always tell me that and then point to his own hands, callused and dark just like Beau’s.

  “What you thinking ‘bout?’” Beau asked.

  “Rivet.”

  “Do you feel like you’re betraying him because you thought of him as your daddy?” he asked.

  “No, I was just thinking about something he used to tell me, but it’s not important.” I looked back at Beau. “What I have been taught about the world. What Rivet told me to value. It’s all going to be wrong to them. They are going to see right through me. I’ve never been anything but white trash as far as I can remember, Beau.”

  He leaned over and touched the back of his hand to my cheek. The back of his hand was soft. “You never been white trash, Helene Baxter. Even when you was.”

  It was the first time I had been called Helene, and it forced a tear out of me. Beau caught it then he slid his hand to my chin.

  “Cut that out. I know you is wearing eyeliner and you gonna gunk it up,” he said smiling. “What’s wrong with bein’ trash anyway? Never bothered me one bit.”

  I laughed and smiled at him.

  “Now walk in there like Josephine would have. Hold your head high and don’t let any of them give you any shit.”

  I leaned over to Beau and gave him a long hug. I was pleased that he didn’t engage in his usual practice of trying to graze my breasts when I pulled away.

  “I’ll call you after dinner,” I said, closing the car door.

  A family affair

  I walked to the back of the house and paused for a moment at the door, steadying myself. I reached for the knob and it pulled away from me. I looked up to see Marlene standing before me holding her arms out. She was wearing a floor length white ball gown, glittering from the hem to the hip. From the waist up it was silky and cut to show off her shoulders. After a long embrace in her kitchen and with all of the staff watching us she pulled away from me and held my hands. Most of her staff wore cocktail dresses and tuxedos, and the woman over the stove was wearing khaki shorts and a polo shirt. I tucked it away in my mind that I liked that she did not make her staff prance around in turn of the century maid uniforms.

  “Should I call you Fanchon or Helene?” she asked.

  “Whatever makes you most comfortable,” I said.

  “We’ll start with Fanchon and see from there,” she replied.

  She walked next to me down the hallway and told me we were going to meet her husband
Edward first and then her other children Elaine and George.

  Halfway down the hall she opened double oak doors to reveal a library. It was lined with shelves, two stories high, filled with books. It was separated into two seating areas, one with wingback chairs by a fireplace and the other with two chairs facing an oversized desk. Marlene directed me to one of the chairs by the fireplace.

  “Edward is coming down in a moment. He is dying to meet you."

  I bet, I thought remembering that Remy overheard him saying he was happy I was dead.

  "Now, you will meet Elaine and George tonight,” she said nervously. “Naturally, they are a little anxious.”

  I nodded.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened to you? The police officer told me a bit, but I still can’t believe all that happened to you.”

  “Well I have been wondering why you all disappeared after you thought I died. I couldn’t find records of you and the police said they did not have a current address for any of you in their I.D. system."

  “It all boiled down to one thing. You were haunting us. Not your ghost, but your memory. It was so painful and it was all anybody was talking about. The memories at Belle Blue got to be too much so we cut our ties and started over. And as far as identification goes none of us drives ourselves. I doubt they would be able to find a deed on this house. It was owned by my father Lene Bowman, and I think it is probably still in his name.” She took a deep breath and held her hand to her heart. “I just hate talkin’ about all this.”

  “But I have so many questions. Like, what happened to the man who used to work for you? The man who wore tweed suits”

  “The police did mention that he was found dead and they thought your parents… well, that Rivet and Paulina did it.”

  “That’s what Rivet told me,” I said. “What I want to know is why he was looking for me and who hired him. Was it you?”

  She shook her head and said, “I hadn’t had contact with that man in a long time. Shortly after we thought you died we let him go along with the rest of the staff.”