Hurricane Cocktails and Crawfish Kisses
The taxi drove past the muddy Mississippi where container ships and riverboats churned the water in a swift chop. Darkening clouds threatened rain on the delta swamp, and the moisture hanging in the air would’ve taken wrinkles out of linen.
During the eight-hundred-mile airplane ride, at baggage claim, and inside the taxi, I kept physically and verbally distant from Bridget. Despite vacationing with her, I planned to converse in no more than one-word grunts.
Situated on Decatur Street near Jackson Square, the Chateau Hotel was in a killer location. The cabby piled luggage for four onto the sidewalk that separated the front door from the unevenly paved street. The hotel brochure boasted a cozy forty-five rooms. Katie Lee called it boutique accommodations, which was a fancy way of saying small and cheap.
Cupping my hands around my eyes, I peeked inside the front door. The intimate lobby walls screamed zim-zam-va-va-voom. Floor-to-ceiling petal-pink-and-gold-damask wallpaper and oversized tassel tiebacks, the size of a mini Nerf footballs, held eight-foot-tall silk draperies. A tufted sofa with dainty legs, two eighteenth-century replica armchairs, and large vases with silk arrangements dotted a sitting area by the front desk. No straight college guy would intentionally book a reservation in this boudoir. I still held hope for meeting cute guys, just not much of a chance inside here.
“What are we going to do first?” I asked.
In unison, the girls shouted, “Bourbon Street.”
Katie Lee disappeared to check in, and Macy hunted for a luggage cart. Bridget sat on a suitcase and tilted her eyes on her wristwatch. “I’m so glad to be on break.”
I ignored her.
“Is there a line inside?” she asked.
Bridget held her head in her palm and anchored her elbow on a knee. “Why are your feathers ruffled? We’re on vacation.”
The ringy-rhyme purr of her voice snapped something inside of me. She preyed on vulnerabilities, and I’d had enough. I had to end her twisted game before someone, most likely me, got hurt. My voice rasped low and steady. “I’m not stupid. I know you planted the drugs in my suitcase to get me arrested.”
She stood up and moved toward the hotel doors. “You’re crazy.”
I pinched Bridget’s wrist and held tight. “You’re not very careful, are you? I know a lot more about you than you think. I’m wondering if the detective at the Greensboro police would be interested in your latest ploy?”
Bridget shook from my grip. She neither confessed nor apologized.
“Forget about pulling any more crap. You and I are done.”
Katie Lee exited the doors and joined us on the sidewalk. “Our rooms aren’t ready. We can leave our bags in a closet behind the desk.” She unfolded a tourist map of the surrounding area. “The hotel manager says Bourbon Street is a short stroll.”
Macy came out of the double doors with a cart and a bellhop who began to load our luggage. He handed Macy a numbered ticket, and she gave him a five.
Bridget followed him, “I have a headache,” she said. “I’m going to stay in the lobby until our room is ready.”
“Come with us,” Katie Lee said. “A walk might do you some good.”
Without looking back, she moved inside the hotel.
“Were you two arguing?” Katie Lee asked.
“I wouldn’t call it arguing. More of a position statement.”
“What’s going on?” Macy asked.
“I told Bridget I know she planted the drugs in my suitcase.”
“Why’d you say that?” Katie Lee asked.
“Because she did. It’s the only explanation, and I’m not amused by her sense of humor.”
“How’d she manage that?” Macy asked.
“In the airport, when we went to the bathroom. She stayed outside.”
Macy processed what I said. “God, I was still asleep and didn’t pay any attention to her.”
Katie Lee had a hand on the hotel’s door handle. Her thumb stroked the fleur-de-lis etched in brass. “Y’all, I know Bridget, and she just wouldn’t do that. Let me go get her.”
“Why would Bridget steal paraphernalia from me to put in your suitcase?” Macy whispered.
“My theory. She’s mental.”
“No, seriously?” Macy asked again.
“I don’t know,” I huffed.
Ten minutes later Katie Lee came out, alone. The three of us barely spoke as we crossed uneven cobbles, past a bustle of musicians and tourists who congregated in the French Quarter. We stopped in t-shirt souvenir shops, watched street performers, and Macy posed for a pencil character drawing of herself while extending her middle finger in front of her face.
The Louisiana air drugged us with a perfume of fried kitchen oil and olive tree blossoms, while the heat basted us like chickens in a rotisserie. I looked up and down Bourbon Street. “Let’s get a drink.”
Katie Lee clutched a handful of New Orleans tourist attraction brochures and pointed at a terra-cotta building with green shutters. “How about Pat O’Briens Bar?”
I approvingly nodded.
THE OUTSIDE OF PAT O’BRIENS was a green-shuttered, salmon-painted two story that possessed a colonial charm. It was always happy hour in New Orleans, and inside the building thirsty out-of-town revelers stood shoulder to shoulder. Katie Lee moved along the narrow bar and looked for seating. Wall mirrors reflected steins hanging from the ceiling, and a lit-up vintage shamrock cast a dim green glow on the bartenders.
I scanned the crowd for cute college guys and told myself not to let Bridget ruin my vacation. The one-way conversation I’d had with her had been long overdue. I felt stronger for having confronted her, and I was sorry I’d avoided it so long.
Ahead of me, Katie Lee abruptly stopped, her head craned to her left, and she pointed. “Is that Bridget?”
“Where?” Macy asked.
“They say everyone has a double,” I mumbled.
“The table in the corner. She’s sitting across from an older guy in a tropical shirt. Her back is facing us.”
Before Macy or I confirmed Bridget’s identity, Katie Lee wove toward the table. “Bridget?” she shouted and waved at us to follow.
A half-empty punch drink and a beer sat on O’Brien paper napkins. Bridget stood up, her cheeks reddened as she glanced at us.
“What are you doing here?” Katie Lee asked.
“I got bored and decided to explore. I thought a drink would relieve my headache.”
A man I’d never seen brushed his hand across Bridget’s back as he stood. He reached out toward me. “L-Jack.”
“Rachael,” I said, with Katie Lee and Macy following on introductions.
“How do you two know each other?” Katie Lee asked.
“Funny thing,” Bridget stammered. “Small world. L-Jack is a family friend.”
“Really,” I said.
Prematurely grayed, L-Jack had the creases of an outdoorsman branded around his eyes. He motioned to the empty chairs. “Please sit and join us.”
Bridget took a long swallow of her drink.
“What is that?” Macy asked.
She slid it across the table. “A hurricane.”
“What’s a hurricane?” I asked.
L-Jack arched his brows. “It’s a rum drink that’s this town’s signature cocktail. Guaranteed to send you spinning.”
“Like Dorothy in Kansas?” I asked.
A server dressed in a green-logo polo stood by our table and clicked a ballpoint pen. “That was a tornado.”
Bridget plastered a smile on her face. She didn’t offer explanations or show any signs of the headache she’d claimed to have. “Three hurricane cocktails. My treat.”
“And another lager,” L-Jack said.
“Can I see y’all’s IDs?”
Bridget’s offer to buy the first round bubbled uneasiness inside my veins. Was this her way of making nice? Her behavior was like a light switch that she flicked from naughty to nice. I wished we’d left her in North Carolina. I wondered if she’d use a stolen Visa to pick up the tab and made a mental note to watch the name she signed on the carbon copy.
Four twelve-inch blown glass vessels filled with twenty-six ounces of liquid arrived at our table. A fruit salad of cherries and orange slices bobbed on top of the ruby-red cocktail. Being buzzed for five days was one way of getting me through the break with her.
L-Jack carried the conversation. Said he’d fallen in love with the city on a family vacation and kept coming back. He told us about some of the local must-see attractions. A swamp tour, carriage rides through the garden district, and after-dark ghost walks.
Initially I’d been unsure of this destination, but zydeco and lively bar chatter melded in my ears, encouraging me to seize the addictive rhythm of this town.
Like a slice of white cake with coconut icing, each fruity sip I took left me feeling thirsty for more. When I neared the bottom of the rum concoction, any lingering post-travel airport anxieties had dissolved. Deciding to embrace the local cuisine, I ordered a crawfish appetizer.
“What does the L stand for?” Macy asked.
“Lucky.”
“Your mother named you Lucky Jack?” I asked.
“Not quite. I own a gallery in town, Lucky’s Art Consortium. Most people call me Lucky Jack, LJ, or L-Jack for short.”
Southerners play a game called “Do you know?” They delight in finding somebody’s great-aunt’s cousin who knows the electrician two streets down. It didn’t surprise me when Katie Lee nudged my shoulder. “Maybe you’ve heard of Rachael’s dad, John O’Brien. He restores fine art back in Ohio.”
L-Jack took a sip of his drink. “Now does he? What kind of art does your daddy restore?”
Pride swelled inside me, and I told him, “His last commission was two Clementines.”
The girls laughed at the mention of the small orange fruit, but Jack tipped his chin. “Hunter?”
Nodding at L-Jack, I noticed my body was slumping off my chair.
Our server landed a plate of crawfish and palm-sized packets of wet wipes in front of me. “Drunk on New Orleans.”
“They have eyeballs,” Macy said. “I don’t eat eyeballs.”
Bridget pinched her nose. “Those are disgusting.”
Normally I like seafood: shrimp, lobster, crab, flounder—but these red-shelled crustaceans stared at me from under antennas, and I swear one blinked. I reached out my hand then pulled back. “I don’t know how to eat crawfish.”
“Ladies,” L-Jack said, mostly to Bridget, “let me teach you the Louisiana pinch and suck. May I?” he asked and lifted one of the creatures from the platter. “Watch closely.”
L-Jack’s hair looked like it was slicked back with Dippity-Do. His three-button shirt opening drew my eye to a chunky gold chain that held a weighty anchor charm. His laugh boomed, and compliments tumbled off his tongue. I guessed his agenda was hooking up. I didn’t believe this smooth talker was an art dealer. He looked more like a carnival caller at the nickel bottle drop, and as far as I was concerned, he could get lost. I wasn’t that desperate, and I didn’t plan to carry the memory of his sleaze appeal with me to the grave.
Like breaking a graham cracker down a perforated center, he snapped a crawfish in two. Juice splattered on Bridget, and she squirmed to her feet. Offering his napkin, L-Jack dabbed the front of her leg.
What kind of “family friend” does that?
“Now the fun part,” he said, and with the power of a Hoover, he sucked meat out the antenna portion of the crawfish.
Macy posted her hand like a stop sign and looked away. “That’s fuckin’ barbaric.”
He smiled as though she’d paid him a compliment. His tanned fingers peeled the body of the other half. Dangling the dismembered crustacean above his head, he applied pressure to the tail and launched a morsel into his open mouth. Keeping a watchful eye on Bridget, he licked the leftovers from between his fingers.
Katie Lee clapped. “Rach, your turn.”
Picking up a crawfish, I gave it a kiss and dropped it on my lap. Covering my mouth with my hand, I said, “My God, they’re spicy.” With my lips ablaze, I rushed to the server station and plunged my face into a water pitcher. It didn’t help. My mouth was still an inferno.
From behind, someone pushed wet hair out of my face and handed me a towel. “Your mascara’s running,” Bridget said before cradling my elbow to escort me back to the table.
I didn’t trust her and whipped out from her grip.
Voices in the bar grew louder. Back at the table, L-Jack patted his tearing eyes with a napkin and slid a basket of breadsticks toward me. “It’ll dull the heat.”
I pressed two on my lips and began to hiccup.
Sweeping a hand over the appetizer, he said, “Crawfish are as southern as cotton.”
My relationship with crustaceans began and ended with one kiss. “Forget it,” I garbled. “I can’t feel my lips.”
Hanging around with Lucky Jack wasn’t attracting any cute guys to our table, and we needed to lose him. Ready to move on, I told the girls, “I need to walk this off.”
Giving a heartbroken look, Lucky Jack handed the waiter his credit card. “Y’all can’t leave. We were just getting started.”
I clutched my hurricane glass and said good-bye to Lucky Jack. Hugging me, he slipped a business card into the back pocket of my Daisy Dukes. His boozy breath tickled my ear as he whispered, “Stop by my gallery.”
Had my crawfish kiss turned him on? Outside the bar, I inhaled deeply and banished him from my mind. Experimentation with anything Jack was a terrible idea.
NOTE TO SELF
Kissing crustaceans, don’t go there.
Hurricane = recipe for messed up.