Deep Fried and Pickled (Book One - The Rachael O'Brien Chronicles) (35 page)

Katie Lee clutched a hand full of New Orleans tourist attraction brochures and  pointed at a terracotta building with green shutters. “How about Pat O’Briens Bar?”

I approvingly nodded.

THE OUTSIDE OF PAT O’BRIENS possessed a colonial charm. It was always happy hour in New Orleans and inside, 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 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 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.

I mumbled, “They say everyone has a double.”

“Y’all, look. The table in the corner, her back is facing us. Sitting across from an older guy in a tropical shirt.”

Before Macy or I confirmed Bridget’s identity, Katie Lee wove toward the table. She shouted, “Bridget?” and waved at us to follow.

A half empty punch drink and a beer sat on O’Brien paper napkin’s. Bridget stood up, her cheeks reddened she glanced at us.

Katie Lee propped her hands on her hips. “What are you doing here?”

“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 creases of an outdoorsman branded around his eyes. He motioned the empty chairs. “Y’all are welcome to 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 stretched his shoulder back and arched his brows. “It’s a rum drink that’s this town’s signature cocktail. Guaranteed to send you spinning.”

”Like Dorothy in Kansas?”

 A server dressed in a green-logo Polo stood by our table and clicked a ball-point pen. “That was a tornado.”

Bridget plastered a smile on her face. She didn’t offer explanations, apologies or show any signs of remorse or the headache she’d claimed to have. “Three hurricane cocktails. My treat.”

“And another Lager,” L–Jack said.

“Can I see y’all’s I.D.’s?”

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. Maybe being drunk for five days would get me through the break with her.

L-Jack carried the conversation. 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. When I neared the bottom of the rum concoction any lingering post-travel airport anxieties had dissolved. Embracing the local cuisine, I ordered a crawfish appetizer.

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.

Macy asked, “What does the L stand for?”

“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 and said, “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 Clementine’s.”

The girls laughed at the mention of the small orange fruit, but Jack tipped his chin and asked, “Hunter?”

I nodded at L-Jack and noticed my body had slumped off my chair.

“Raz,” Katie Lee giggled, “are you drunk?”

Our server landed a plate of crawfish and palm-size packets of wet wipes in front of me. “Drunk on New Orleans.”

“They have eyeballs,” Macy said. “I don’t eat eyeballs.”

Bridget crinkled 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,” I said.“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 fellows from the platter. “Watch closely.”

L-Jack’s hair looked like it was slicked back with Dippity-Do. His shirt opened three-buttons down 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. As far as I was concerned, he could forget it. I wasn’t that desperate and 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, splattering juice on Bridget. She squirmed to her feet and he offered his napkin, dabbing the front of her leg.
What kind of ‘family friend’ does that?
Bridget didn’t seem to mind his attention.

“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 of meat into his open mouth. Keeping a watchful eye on Bridget, he licked the leftovers from between his fingers.

Katie Lee clapped and said, “Rach, your turn.”

Picking up a crawfish, I gave it a kiss and dropped it on my lap. I covered my mouth with a hand. “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 lips were 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 lashed 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.

L-Jack swept a hand over the appetizer. “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 loose 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, “Goodbye,” to Lucky Jack. He hugged me and slipped a business card into the back pocket of my Daisy Dukes. His boozy-breath tickled my ear, and 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.

34

B
eware
O
f
M
en
W
earing
G
reen
T
ights

Sunshine
streamed from around the sides of the faded vinyl window blinds onto two double beds. The window air-conditioner strained a grinding hum as it battled the muggy air that threatened to overtake our room. Staring at the bottom of red-polished toenails on size-six feet reminded me that I hadn’t hooked up, but instead shared a bed, for a second time, with Macy. There wasn’t a speedy remedy to recovering from hurricane cocktails and crawfish. I lay still for the rest of the day in an effort to quiet the construction noises inside of my head.

The following day, I’d snapped back. It was March 17
^th
and to pay homage to my Irish heritage, I planned to eat the breakfast of champions at the pub across the street. My morning menu selection would be green onion bagels spread thick with mint cream cheese, which I’d wash down with a frothy green beer.

“If you eat that,” Macy said, “you’ll pee green for at least two days.”

“I’ll risk it.”

Louisiana humidity brought out waves of uncontrollable crazy in my hair, and I’d decided a ponytail would have to be my signature vacation hair style. Midmorning, the cobble streets were still mobbed with partiers from the previous night, and others like us who were getting an early start on St. Patrick’s Day. We waited over an hour in a line that snaked outside the pub giving the muggy air ample opportunity to coat my skin in a film of moisture. The girls and I took our time eating a late breakfast, eventually moseying back to the hotel.

A handful of guests, all retirement age, surged out of the lobby. The consensus was to work on our tans until we came up with a better idea. The kidney-shaped swimming pool was tucked behind the hotel. It rested in a lush garden, surrounded by a high wall that dripped with moss baskets. Flipping over every half hour put me in official vacation mode. I’d embraced spending my break in a swamp.

“Do y’all wanna do somethin’ later today?” Katie Lee asked.

“How about shopping?” I said.

Bridget slid her sunglasses onto the top of her head. “We can do that anywhere. Let’s do something unordinary.”

Macy sat up in her lounge chair. “I’ve been wondering about those transsexual bars.”

“We can do that too,” Bridget said. “But I was thinking of a tombstone crawl.”

“What kind of drink is that?” I asked.

“It’s not a drink. I thought we could visit the local cemeteries. They’re filled with civil war soldiers, courtesans and vampires. Since New Orleans is below sea level, the tombs around here are above ground.”

“That’s creepy. Why do they do that?” I asked.

“So the bodies don’t float away when it rains.”

“Eugh,” Katie Lee said.

Bridget fluttered her fingers in the air. “We may even witness a gravesite voodoo ceremony.”

“I’m already cursed,” I said. “I don’t need someone dancing around me, chanting magic words and sprinkling herbs to reinforce my losing streak with men.”

Katie Lee tipped her straw hat up. “Y’all, I prefer to party with the living, not the dead.”

“Agreed,” I said.

Sliding sunglasses back over her eyes, Bridget huffed, “Fine. But we’ll be missing out. There aren’t any other cemeteries in the country like the ones here.”

“You’ve got your holidays mixed up,” Macy said. “It’s St. Patrick’s Day, not Halloween. My vote is for the transsexual bar. We’ll see more oddities than you could ever hope for at a voodoo ceremony.”

From outside the walls that enclosed the hotel pool we heard a drumbeat resonate. “Come on,” I said, “I bet that’s a St. Paddy’s parade.”

Leaving our towels and Panama Jack suntan oil behind, we threw on Ts, shorts, and flip-flops to investigate. Two blocks away, floats with green fringe glided toward us. Horns began to trumpet
When the Saints Go Marching In
.

Green beads and plastic trinkets flew over my head as tourists and locals danced to an infectious rhythm. Weaving through the crowds, we followed the parade until we found an opening for viewing. A person the size of a leprechaun was painted from head-to-toe with body glitter, and marched under a rainbow balloon-arch. He sported a thong unitard and kicked his pointy boots with square green buckles like nobody’s business. He wasn’t bashful about spinning to show off his shamrocks, and I wondered if his mother knew he performed this trick.

Macy shouted, “Nice ass,” and he galloped toward us.

I thought leprechauns were antisocial, busy hiding pots of gold. The New Orleans variety didn’t fit that cake mold. The one in front of me found his tornado and wasn’t shy about gyrating his treasure. Snatching my hand, he spun me around and led me onto his emerald isle float.

Lost in the moment, I climbed aboard and danced between giant-sized origami tissue paper shamrocks that had been speared into plastic turf. Being wooed by the cheering crowds that lined the streets made me feel famous, and I waved to strangers from the self-propelled party on wheels.

The
Y.M.C.A.
song blasted from speakers. I rode with a pack of green men who idolized the Village People. I was cool with that. Familiar with the hand motions, I joined in until someone in high heels with torpedo boobs, an orange wig, and beer stubble squeezed onto my four-leaf clover. This androgynous person, I’d describe as a Vengeful-Pat, shoved me off my shamrock. In a deep voice, Vengeful-Pat snarled, “Find another ride.”