Today Will Be Different(37)

Now even tourists were straining to hear. Eleanor thought she’d throw in something extra, a lagniappe, they call it in New Orleans.

“With fifteen children,” Eleanor said, “the question isn’t who is a direct descendant of John Tyler. The question is, who isn’t. I mean, half the people here.” She lazily gestured to the tourists in their tank tops.

Bucky’s face reddened. No further eye contact was made.


Out on the steps, Eleanor found Joe leaning on a column in the stifling heat.

“You made the right decision,” she said with a kiss.

Ivy flitted out and squeezed their arms.

“Listen, y’all. J.T. hasn’t been sleeping through the night. I think we’re going to go home, just the three of us.”


Bleary-eyed tourists shuffled down Bourbon Street carrying daiquiris in giant bong-like things. The stench of last night’s vomit lingered despite that morning’s convoy of water-spraying trucks followed by a foot brigade of men with push brooms, scrubbing. Three kids in shorts and porkpie hats meandered; at their sides dangled a slide trombone, trumpet, and white bucket that rattled with a pair of drumsticks. Waiters in tuxedos and cooks in whites leaned against the fronts of restaurants, smoking or just taking in the lazy river of humanity. There were no alleys in the French Quarter, so waiters, cooks, and shopkeepers took their breaks on the sidewalks. On one side of the street a kid had attached tops of soda cans to the soles of his unlaced Air Jordans. He tapped in a loose-limbed burst and then stood there. His friend across the street answered back. Neither seemed particularly committed. A man rode slowly by on a too-small bicycle, knees out like chicken wings, one hand on the handlebars, the other gripping a tangle of fishing rods. Three plastic milk crates were parked in the street, unclaimed. The kids with the instruments shrugged and sat down on them. The heat was getting to everyone.

Joe and Eleanor walked along trying to find Preservation Hall, the venerable home of New Orleans jazz. Joe didn’t care for New Orleans jazz—he found it hokey and good-timey—but was determined to salvage the trip by seeing something of historic value. Eleanor followed, her feet sinking into the hot asphalt with every step.

“You think Bucky would have married her if she weren’t descended from a president? Remember at the wedding when everyone was congratulating me on the Emmy nominations? I was watching Bucky. He couldn’t stand it! He’s never once acknowledged what I do. But of course he’ll boast about his friend Lester from Vanderbilt. And what is Vanderbilt? I’ve barely even heard of it.”

“Before you met the guy, all you heard was that he was an *,” Joe said. “His cousin warned us he was an *. At his wedding, every toast alluded to him being an *. And now you’re surprised he’s an *?”

“I wish I’d never given them those derringers,” she said.

“I can’t talk about the derringers.”

They arrived on the corner of Bourbon and St. Peter under a sign, MAISON BOURBON FOR THE PRESERVATION OF JAZZ. Eleanor started inside.

“This isn’t it,” Joe said.

“It says ‘Preservation’—” Eleanor said.

“It’s not Preservation Hall.”

“But there’s a band—”

“Preservation Hall wouldn’t have neon frozen daiquiris with names like Irish Car Bomb. And its band wouldn’t be playing ‘Sara Smile.’”

“You don’t have to yell at me.”

Joe’s jaw was going.

“I’m going to find Preservation Hall,” he said. “Come with me or don’t. But of all the things that odious buffoon has gotten away with, I won’t let him add to the list causing me to fight with my wife in the middle of Bourbon Street!” He stalked off.


Eleanor might have gone after Joe, but she spotted Lorraine and her two boys crossing Bourbon Street a block away. Eleanor couldn’t tell if Lorraine had made eye contact under her hat.

A moment later, Eleanor saw an older woman in a long Pucci dress headed down the same side street. She remembered the dress from the church.

Strange. Eleanor walked to the corner. Both women were gone. Perhaps they’d slipped into a place called Antoine’s.


Under the restaurant sign, a door led to a cavernous dining room with mirrored walls, tile floors, and tables for ten with white tablecloths. It was empty but for waiters in black bow ties and waistcoats sitting in one corner folding napkins. In the opposite corner, a door with yellow glass. Behind it, the movement of people. Eleanor’s steps echoed as she clacked toward the door. The waiters looked up and continued folding.

Deeper in was an even larger dining room with a carved wooden ceiling, this one pulsing with patrons, the clang of dishes, and good cheer. Celebrity photos in dusty frames covered every inch of the red pillars and walls. Waiters with aprons down to their shins carried trays with one hand and blotted their brows with the other.

Eleanor’s eyes raced from table to table. No Lorraine, no woman in Pucci.

Behind her, a white glass globe, lit from within. On it, the silhouette of a woman with high-piled hair. FEMMES.

Inside the ladies’ lounge, Eleanor slumped into a tired velvet chair and closed her eyes. She wasn’t thinking straight. The fight with Joe. The scrum with Bucky. The goddamned heat.

She opened her eyes.