no say in the matter. We shall dress to attract the crows.”
“We’re supposed to
Cat grinned. “So you
20
NEVER-EVER
The Trejeans lived on a restored plantation in the wealthy district south of town. Cotton fields flanked the small historic neighborhood. Houses were columned, two-storied, snug in blankets of pink azaleas, and shaded by antebellum oaks. The bayou bent around the Trejeans’ backyard like an elbow, providing a double waterfront view.
The entire senior class and the well-connected underclassmen had been invited to the Maze Daze. It was customary to catch a boat ride and pull up bayou-side to the party. The year before, Eureka and Cat had made the journey in the rickety motorboat with a creaking tiller that Brooks’s older brother, Seth, left behind when he went to LSU. The freezing half-hour ride up the bayou from New Iberia had been almost as fun as the party.
Tonight, since Brooks was not an option, Cat had put out feelers for other rides. As she was getting dressed, Eureka couldn’t help imagining Maya Cayce sitting next to Brooks on the boat, plugging her metal-heavy iPod into the portable speakers, caressing Brooks’s bicep. She imagined Maya’s hair streaming behind her like the tentacles of a black octopus as the boat skimmed across the water.
In the end, Cat scored a ride from Julien Marsh, whose friend Tim had a mint-green 1960s party barge with empty seats. At eight o’clock, when Julien’s truck pulled up outside Eureka’s house, Dad was standing at the window, drinking cold leftover coffee from the maroon mug that used to say
Eureka zipped her raincoat to cover the low sequined neckline of a dress Cat had just spent five minutes on Face-time convincing her was not trampy. She’d borrowed the satin shift from Cat’s closet that afternoon, even though she looked terrible in brown. Cat was debuting a similar dress in orange. They were going as fall leaves. Cat said she liked the vivid, sensual colors; Eureka didn’t voice her perverse enjoyment at dressing as an object with a second life when it was dead.
Dad raised one of the blinds to look at Julien’s Ford. “Who’s the truck?”
“You know Cat, what she likes.”
He sighed, exhausted, just off his shift at the restaurant. He smelled like crawfish. As Eureka slid through the doorway, he said, “You know you want better than those kinds of boys, right?”
“That truck doesn’t have anything to do with me. It’s a ride to a party, that’s all.”
“If someone does have something to do with you,” Dad said, “you’ll bring him inside? I’ll meet him?” His eyes turned down, a look the twins got when they were about to cry, like a swollen cloud rolling in from the Gulf. She’d never realized they inherited that meteorological event from him. “Your mom only ever wanted the best for you.”
“I know, Dad.” The coldness with which Eureka grabbed her purse made her glimpse the depths of the anger and confusion rooted inside her. “I’ve got to go.”
“Back by midnight,” Dad said as she walked out the door.
The party barge was nearly full when Eureka, Cat, and Julien arrived at Tim’s family’s dock. Tim was blond and skinny, with an eyebrow ring, big hands, and a smile as constant as the Eternal Flame. Eureka had never had a class with him, but they were friends from back when Eureka went to parties. His costume was an LSU football jersey. He held out a hand to steady her as she stepped onto the party barge.
“Good to see you out, Boudreaux. Saved y’all three seats.”
They wedged in next to some cheerleaders, some theater kids, and a boy from the cross-country team named Martin. The rest of them had taken the party barge last weekend, Eureka realized from the jokes they cracked. This was the first time all year she’d been out with anyone besides Cat or Brooks.
She found the back corner of a bench where she’d be the least claustrophobic. She remembered what Ander had said under the tree about enjoying being cocooned. She couldn’t relate. The entire world was too tight a space for Eureka.
She reached down to touch the bayou, taking comfort in its fragile timelessness. There was little chance a wave bigger than a boat’s wake would come coursing through. Still, her hand shook against the surface of the water, which felt colder than she knew it was.
Cat sat next to her, on Julien’s lap. As she penciled a few leaves on Eureka’s face with gold eyeliner, she made up a Maze Daze song to the tune of “Love Stinks,” accompanied by shimmying against Julien’s chest.
“Maze Daze, yeah, yeah!”
A six-pack appeared while Tim filled the tank. Tops popped around the boat like fireworks. The air smelled like gasoline and dead water beetles and the mushrooms rising from the soil along the bank. A slick-furred nutria cut a tiny wake as it swam past them on the bayou.
As the party barge slowly left the dock, a bitter breeze slapped Eureka’s face and she hugged her arms to her chest. Kids around her huddled together and laughed, not because anything funny had happened, but because they were together and eager about the night ahead.
By the time they got to the party, they were either buzzed or pretending they were. Eureka accepted Tim’s help off the barge. His hand around hers was dry and big. It gave her a twinge of longing, because it was nothing like Ander’s hand. Nausea spread through her stomach as she remembered sugarcane and skin as white as sea foam and ghastly green light in Ander’s panicked eyes the night before.
“Come along, my brittle little leaf.” Cat swung an arm around Eureka. “Let us tumble through this fete bringing all glad men to grief.”
They entered the party. Laura Trejean had classed up her brother’s tradition. Tiki torches lit the pebbled allee from the dock to the iron gate that led to the backyard. Tin lanterns twinkled in the giant weeping willows. Up on the balcony, overlooking the moonlit pool, everyone’s favorite local band, the Faith Healers, tuned their instruments. Laura’s clique mingled across the lawn, passing tin trays of Cajun hors d’oeuvres.
“Amazing what a lady’s touch will do,” Eureka said to Cat, who snatched a mini fried oyster po’boy from a passing platter.
“That’s what he said,” Cat mumbled through a mouthful of bread and lettuce.
You didn’t have to tell Catholic school kids twice to dress up for a party. Everyone came decked out in costume. Maze Daze was explicitly not a Halloween party; it was a harvest celebration. Among the many LSU jerseys, Eureka spotted some more inventive attempts. There were several scarecrows and a smattering of tipsy jack-o’-lanterns. One junior boy had duct-taped sugarcane stalks to his T-shirt in honor of the harvest later that month.
Cat and Eureka passed a tribe of Pilgrim-costumed freshmen gathered around a fire pit in the center of the lawn, their faces lit orange and yellow by the flames. When they passed the Maze and heard laughter inside, Eureka tried not to think of Brooks.
Cat steered her up the stairs to the back patio, past a big black cauldron of crawfish surrounded by kids snapping off the tails and sucking fat from the heads. Shucking crawfish was one of a bayou child’s earliest rites of passage, so its savagery felt natural everywhere, even in costume, even drunk in front of your crush.
When they got in line for punch, Eureka heard a loud male voice in the distance call out, “Make like a tree and leave.”
“I think we’re the hottest leaves here,” Cat said as the band began to play from the patio above. She pushed Eureka through underclassmen to the front of the drinks line. “Now we can relax and enjoy ourselves.”
The idea of a relaxed Cat made Eureka smirk. She looked out at the party. The Faith Healers were playing “Four Walls” and they sounded good, giving the party a soul. She’d been waiting for this moment, to experience joy without a wave of guilt immediately following. Eureka knew Diana wouldn’t want her moping in her room. Diana would want her to be at the Maze Daze in a short brown dress, drinking punch with her best friend, having fun. Diana would picture Brooks there, too. Losing his friendship would be like mourning another death, but Eureka didn’t want to think about that now.
