Infatuate (3 page)

Lance shrugged. “Yeah, I took mine apart and put it back together again and still can’t get it to operate. But I have a feeling they’ll start working soon enough.” Dante and I looked at him. “The story is, we’re getting an upgrade.”

He said he’d gotten home from school and found three phones on his bed along with a typed note that read:

No more postcards, no more books . . .

For each of you. Further instruction to follow.

That was it. But it was enough. We could only imagine that we would be receiving some sort of guidance from these phones, just as I had once had a book that automatically wrote new pages for me, advising me how to stay alive through our first angel test at the Lexington. Lance received postcards that did the same thing. They never gave us all the answers—they seemed to want us to think for ourselves. But they gave us hints and, more important, convinced us that something, somewhere, was looking out for us.

In the middle of the flight I tried the on/off button a few times, but still got nothing.

“I’m afraid you’ll need to put that away, miss.” A honey blond flight attendant leaned in with the bright smile of a pageant finalist. Not a single strand of hair had escaped her precise bun. I couldn’t quite fathom how this level of perfection was achieved. But hadn’t I learned by now that you never really know what’s going on beneath all that? Tucking the phone away in my backpack, I then dug out my new copy of
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
one of the books from AP English Lit that I had brought along to reread.

The plane shifted direction, my ears popping as it careened through the sky, just as Dante snarfled a snore and repositioned his head on my shoulder. I glanced over to see if Lance had heard him, hoping we could share a comforting laugh, but saw his eyelids were struggling to stay open. His glasses slid just enough to make that scar beneath his eye more visible. On his wrist he wore a leather cuff bearing an angel wing that matched the one on my necklace. My fingers felt for it now around my neck, as though it had the power to transport me back to prom night. We had shared a core-shaking episode that night, almost getting killed in the process. I couldn’t imagine many relationships started that way. And it had changed us too.

We were scarred—and not just on our shoulder blades with their matching marks that seemed to be waiting for wings to be fastened on. Nor merely by the three slashes above my heart or the swipe below Lance’s eye or the sweep on Dante’s arm. We were equally marred on the inside. We couldn’t have gone through what we had and not been.

We had been inseparable ever since. We just needed to be near one another, in our own odd little angel support group. We were in a sort of purgatory, a limbo of being on constant guard for the next challenge. All summer we were skittish, edgy. At first we felt rundown from this endless waiting to be attacked. Then we started looking for ways to get strong again: we ran around the track at school for hours at a time after summer classes. Lance and Dante would sometimes join me at the hospital unloading and lifting boxes of heavy supplies.

When school started, we manically raced through our course work. We were not typical sixteen-year-olds. I still felt unsure of how exactly to navigate a remotely normal romantic relationship with Lance. I thought perhaps I was some kind of adrenaline junkie, operating at my best only under the threat of imminent death. And it was with that in my mind that I let my head rest on Lance’s shoulder and I drifted off. I didn’t wake until the pilot’s voice crept into my subconscious and I took a drowsy peek out the window to see that we were beginning our descent.

The cab weaved through streets studded with revelers sipping mixed drinks outside on a sunny weekday afternoon, loops of purple, green, and gold beads shining from their necks. Jaunty trumpet-heavy jazz poured out of the open doors of every bar we whizzed past. It was exactly as I had imagined New Orleans would be. But I hadn’t anticipated the heat. Sticky and sweet-smelling, the thick humid air smothered us as soon as we set foot outside the airport. By the time we found the car that had been sent for us, I had already stripped down to the T-shirt under my sweater. I hoped I’d packed enough of my summer clothes.

“This is hot, even for us, so don’t y’all worry. It’s not just you northerners,” said the driver, clearly a native judging by his tanned and glistening skin. His lilting twang sounded so wel-coming that it convinced me I would be one of those people who went on vacation and inadvertently picked up the accent of the locals and came home sounding ridiculous.

“Where’s good shopping around here, sir?” Dante was already thinking ahead. Lance busied himself cleaning his glasses, which had steamed up instantly, on his shirttail.

“Canal Street, Magazine Street, all over the Quarter. Y’all are gonna love it.”

The city unspooling outside my window could not have looked less like Chicago. Shops and eateries lined every street. Wrought-iron balconies were wrapped around precious row houses, some painted in candy colors. A horse-drawn carriage pulled out in front of us, clomping along at a pace far slower than I walked even when I was relaxed. But no one seemed to mind. Time moved differently here, I could already tell. I breathed deep, taking it all in.

“Your house is a short walk from Jackson Square, real pretty —”

“And just a block or so from Bourbon Street, right?” I piped up. From my guidebook, it looked like our new home was within striking distance of the famous strip, which pretty much sounded like a nonstop party.

“Please, what are
you
going to be doing on Bourbon Street?” Dante laughed.

“Unleashing my wild side maybe, you never know.”

“Because you really let your hair down at the Vault,” he volleyed back, a reference to our evenings as underage fish out of water at the Lexington’s posh nightspot.

Lance turned around in the front seat and smiled at me. “You can take the girl out of the club but you can’t take the club out of the girl,” he said. “But, culturally speaking, Bourbon Street is definitely worth a look.”

The driver pulled to a stop outside a quaint red brick building on Royal Street. The two-story home seemed perfectly charming and plenty exotic to me, even sandwiched between what looked to be two sprawling mansions. Our residence had one of those delicate balconies I’d already admired so much and featured two sets of tall double doors flanking a metal gateway designed to look like leafy vines. An old-fashioned lantern—like something out of Sherlock Holmes—dangled above the doors, waiting to be lit as soon as the blazing sun set.

Our driver lined our bags up on the curb.
“Bienvenue!”
he said. “This is a great location, heart of the French Quarter.” I liked how he said
Quarter,
drawing it out—
Caaaaahrter
—and I had been lulled into such a state of calm by the city’s relaxed pace that I had to ask him to repeat what he said next because I thought I’d heard him wrong. “Just said, y’all are right next door to that haunted house.” He pointed toward the gray house next to ours, spanning the corner of Governor Nicholls Street. “LaLaurie mansion. Watch out. Oooo.” He waved his fingers, a show of mock spookiness.

“Why am I not surprised?” I whispered to Lance.

Lance smirked, looking at me from the corner of his eye. I studied the imposing mansion. Rising a full story above our hostel, it had black-lacquered shutters framing the windows and a grand balcony wrapping all the way around the corner. The dove-gray paint of its façade was chipped and there were a few boarded-up windows on the upper level. A honking horn pierced my thoughts, and I looked back to see the cab disappearing down the street, a hand waving goodbye out the window.

“Haunted house? Please. That’s nothin’.” Dante brushed it off and gathered his tiger-striped bags. “After where we’ve been?”

Luggage in hand, we turned our attention back to our own residence and clustered around the center gateway. We peeked inside and could see through an arched walkway back to what appeared to be a patio. There was no one anywhere in sight. I nudged the gate, and it creaked open.

“Well, shall we?” I asked.

“Let’s do it!” Dante said.

Lance shrugged, but proclaimed,
“Laissez les bon temps rouler.”

I led the way through the passage until we came out into what would be our own secret garden. I had never seen anything like it: the courtyard was hemmed in by the sides of the building, but above was sun-soaked sky. An ornately carved stone fountain gurgled in the center, with a ledge around its circular pool that seemed the perfect place to sit and read a book. A wrought-iron table and matching chairs stood to one side with a cush- ioned chaise longue beside it. All around the garden, patches of tropical plants flourished, their giant leaves fanning in the hot breeze. Technicolor flowers in luscious candy-apple reds, hot pinks, and citrus shades blossomed up trellises that lined all four interior walls. I tried to call up anything I could remember from my last trip to the Chicago Botanic Garden, where Joan would take me each summer. I let my fingers sweep a wall of magenta blooms. “Bougainvillea,” I said, almost to myself.

“Gesundheit,” said Dante, who’d already sat on the chaise and put his feet up.

“You’re good.” Lance came to my side and leaned in for a closer look. “I think you’re right.”

“There are banana trees too. Anyone interested?” Dante asked. He was on his feet now, trying to reach a cluster.

“Um, maybe we should have a look around before we start eating the landscape,” I said, scanning to see if there was anyone to notice that we were about to tear the place apart.

“Suit yourself,” he said, wiping his dirtied hands on his jeans. “But I’m totally coming back for a snack later.”

Two staircases beckoned from either side of the entranceway, each leading up to the balcony level. We climbed the stairs on the right side to a green-shellacked door, and knocked. Strands of my shoulder-length caramel hair were matted to my hot neck and slick temples, and I prayed I wouldn’t be forced to meet a whole house full of people looking this way. Lance leaned to peek into a window just a few feet away and shook his head to confirm there were no signs of life. I tried the door and it was open, so in we went.

We instantly entered a hall of mirrors—a short walkway lined floor to ceiling with square mirrored panels the size of pizza boxes. “Kind of fun-house chic,” Dante muttered, as we walked through into a sprawling living room. It looked like a carnival come to life. The walls were painted slate gray, but that was the only subtle thing about the décor. One wall was dominated by a giant mask, crafted of some sort of shiny lacquer, in a riot of eggplant, gold, and emerald shades. It wore a smirking expression and had almond-shaped slits where enormous eyes would have gone. A tufted purple velvet sectional sat curved around one corner of the room near windows that looked out onto Royal Street. Elsewhere, distressed gold leaf side tables and a matching coffee table caught my eye. Expertly mismatched low-slung chairs and a love seat in the hue of the walls and speckled with cushy, oversize pillows echoing the mask’s colors gave the whole place the feel of some very modern—bordering on psychedelic—lounge. Two golden scepters the length of golf clubs hung in an X above a mammoth mounted flat-screen TV.

“This sort of feels too cool for us, don’tcha think?” I had to ask softly. But it wasn’t just us. Now I noticed the murmur of voices in the distance, the thump of music, and the clomp of shoes, jogging . . . toward us. A pair of guys talking to each other walked down the hallway off the living room, one of them spinning a basketball on his fingers. From the other direction, a scarlet-haired girl carried a box that looked too heavy for her.

“Thought I heard the door!” came a deep, cheery, panting voice attached to the running feet. “Sorry for the delayed welcome but . . . welcome!” Connor approached us with his hand extended. He wore an olive green Tulane T-shirt and jeans and had a bright, toothy smile. He had a clipboard and pen and his eye seemed perfectly healed and entirely scar-free. “Hey, I’m Connor. How’s it going?” he said to Lance and Dante, shaking their hands. “And, Haven, good to see ya again. And I mean, really see ya this time.” He pointed to his eye.

“Hey. Looking good. I’m glad it’s all better.”

“Thanks to my good friends at Evanston General.”

“So you’re the poker guy with the busted eye,” Lance said, and pushed his glasses up. He looked at me as if I had failed to impart some vital bit of information.

“Yep, guilty as charged. So, hello, Chicago. Let’s getcha settled in.” Connor waved us to follow him as he led us down a narrow hallway adorned with framed frayed-edged maps of old New Orleans, black-and-white pictures of men dressed as kings, shots of the city streets at night, and abstract interpretations of the fleur-de-lis.

“He’s just, you know, heartier than I expected for a guy who gets knocked out playing basketball,” Lance whispered as he wheeled my suitcase.

“Oh?” I said, not sure what to make of it. Then: “Ohhh.” I tried to stifle a grin at the thought of him being protective.

“You didn’t mention he was so cute, Hav,” Dante, being no help, said under his breath, before speeding ahead to catch up with Connor.

“He didn’t need stitches but he was pretty beat-up,” I offered to Lance, matter-of-factly.

“Good,” he said. “Or, I mean . . . you know.” I felt his free hand on the small of my back as we walked on.

I peeked into the open doorways we passed—a kitchen here, a dining room there—but we were going too fast to take much in. Connor had that slight bounce to his quick step that implied friendliness; there was something comforting about him. “So, I’m gonna be sort of the resident advisor here. I’ll keep everything running smoothly, answer all your questions, make sure everyone plays nice, that kinda thing,” he explained as he walked. “I go to Tulane. You guys should totally tour the place while you’re here—great school. Still time to apply. You’re seniors, right?”