I thought Mommy was upset enough to excuse herself and run out, but just at that moment the mayor of New Orleans made his entrance. There was applause and great excitement as he made his way through the party to greet Mommy and offer his congratulations. I went back to the twins and waited, knowing the turmoil Mommy was experiencing.
Finally, nearly an hour later, Mammy told Daddy she felt she had to go. Some people were already leaving. She asked Daddy to take the twins home. The twins and I were standing beside them while they discussed it.
'Pearl is going with me. We'll take a cab,' Mommy told him.
Daddy looked troubled. 'I don't like the idea of the two of you going places alone at night,' he said.
'We'll be fine, Beau. We're just going from the cab into the house and back into the cab. I'll have the driver wait,' she explained.
'I don't know what good it's going to do, your going,' he muttered.
'She was very dear to me once and we remained friends for a long time after she left the House of Dumas, Beau. There was a time when Nina Jackson was practically the only one looking after me.'
Daddy nodded and looked away. I imagined Mommy was referring to the time when he left her and went to Europe. 'What am I to tell the rest of these people?' he asked under his breath.
'Tell them the truth, Beau. A dear friend is on her deathbed, and I went to her,' she said.
'All right, all right. Be careful, will you?' He kissed her on the cheek.
'Take care of your mother, and make sure she doesn't do anything foolish,' Daddy warned me.
'I will, Daddy,' I promised.
'Let's go, honey,' Mommy said.
'We want to go too,' Jean whined.
'You two are going home with me,' Daddy snapped. 'You'll both need castor oil after hogging down all those pralines tonight and eating all that creme brulee, I'm sure. Don't wander out of my sight,' he advised. The two of them looking longingly at me.
'Be good boys,' I said and nodded at Pierre, who I knew could make Jean behave. He grimaced with unhappiness, but led Jean to chairs where they would sit obediently and wait for Daddy.
Meanwhile Mommy had the restaurant hostess hail us a cab. 'Quickly, honey,' she told me. We rushed out.
'Where to?' the driver asked.
Mommy gave him the address.
'You sure you want to go there? That's not the safest part of town this time of the night,' he said.
'We know where we want to go. Just get us there quickly,' Mommy said. Her anxiety made her unusually firm and caustic. No one I knew spoke to servants and service people as kindly as Mommy usually did.
As we drove out of the Vieux Carre and toward a poorer section of the city, Mommy told me of the time Nina Jackson took her to see a voodoo mama so she could get a charm or learn a ritual to keep her sister Gisselle from being cruel to her. She described how she had cast a ribbon belonging to Gisselle into a box containing a snake.
'Not long after that, Gisselle was in the car accident,' she said mournfully. 'I always felt guilty.'
'But, Mommy, you surely don't believe the ritual was the reason for the accident. You said her boyfriend had been smoking pot and driving recklessly.'
'Still . . . the voodoo ceremony might have put her in the grip of danger. Afterward, I returned with Nina, and the mama made me reach into the box with the snake in it and take out the ribbon, but she wouldn't guarantee I could rescind the curse. She said once my anger was cast into the wind, the wind had control and I probably couldn't pull it back.'
'But, Mommy . . .'
'I told Gisselle, you know.'
'What did she say?'
'She just used the information to blackmail me into becoming her slave, but I deserved it. I should never have let my anger get the better of me. No one else knew about it but Nina. She was always burning candles to keep evil away from me and giving me good luck charms, like the dime you now wear,' Mommy said, smiling.
We turned the corner and started down a long, dark street. The buildings looked no better than shacks. Despite the hour, I saw young children still playing on the stoops and on the scarred and bald front yards. Broken-down cars were parked along the sidewalks, and the streets were very dirty, the gutters full of cans, bottles, and paper.
We stopped at a shack that looked somewhat better than its neighbors. The yard and the sidewalk were clean, but I saw bones and feathers hanging above the front door.
'Wait here for us,' Mommy ordered the driver. 'I won't wait long,' he warned.
'I have your name and your license number,' she told him. 'You had better be here when I step out of that house with my daughter,' Mommy countered. He grunted his reluctance, but sat back. Mommy took a deep breath and then found my hand. We walked to the stoop, and Mommy knocked on the door. A moment later a short black woman peered out at us. Her long gray hair hung down to the middle of her back, and she wore what looked like a potato sack and old sneakers without laces. Dangling from her earlobes were two small live lizards. They both held on for dear life.
'We're here to see Nina,' Mommy said.
'Nina is not here,' the small woman said.
