Seven Days in June(46)

“She was a professional mistress, too?”

“No, a murderess.”

“A…what?”

“Grandma Clotilde had ‘fits.’ Fainting spells, the blues, and…” She stopped abruptly.

“And what?”

“Violent headaches.”

Shane stared at her, unblinking.

“The town thought she was possessed. Especially since she’d get excruciating headaches after she drank the ‘blood of Christ’ every Sunday at mass. Of course, the blood of Christ was just cheap red wine, a classic migraine trigger. But no one knew this in the ’50s.” Eva laughed a little. “Everyone thought she was a—”

“A witch,” interrupted Shane, looking incredulous. “A witch with migraines.”

Eva’s dimple popped.

“One day my grandfather was singing in the shed, in this loud baritone. Legend has it, she was having a month-long spell and couldn’t bear the noise, so she went crazy and shot him. The sheriff was too scared of her to prosecute, but she was run out of town. She left Lizette with an aunt and started over in Shreveport. Oh! And she became an entrepreneur. Apparently, she made a mean jambalaya. She cashed in on the witch thing, selling her recipe at county fairs. CLO’S WITCH’S BREW: SPICES KISSED BY SATAN HISSELF. Her handcrafted labels show up on southern-aesthetic Pinterest boards. My mom told me all of this. She was one hell of a storyteller. It’s the only thing we have in common.”

Shane slumped back against the bench.

“This is your lineage? That’s some remarkably dark, fantastic shit!”

“It gets darker.” Eva had been holding on to these stories her entire life and was ecstatic to let them go. “When Clo was an infant, her mom, Delphine, took off in the dead of night. No warning, just fled to New Orleans and passed as a Sicilian. Changed Mercier to Micelli, became a showgirl, married the attorney general, had a “white” son, conquered 1930s society—and when her husband died a few years later, she inherited his house. A secretly Black woman owned the finest mansion in the very, very racist Garden District.”

“Imagine living with the fear of being found out,” said Shane.

“I guess she couldn’t. At forty, she drowned herself in the tub during her annual Christmas party, with a house full of New Orleans aristocrats. She wrote ‘Passant blanc’ on the tiles, in lipstick. Outed herself.” Eva shrugged vaguely. “The story was buried, apparently. I have white cousins who don’t know who they are. I found them on Facebook. They’re extremely white, too. Republican white.”

“You have Fauxtalian family members?”

Shane wanted more. As Eva talked, she transformed—her hands floating in the air, as if grabbing pieces of the story, her voice fluid, shape-shifting. Like she’d lived the stories herself.

Eva was all of these women.

“This is a book,” said Shane. “Please write it.”

“Right, and what would the title be? Unstable Mothers and Unattended Daughters?” Eva sounded like she’d thought about this. A lot. “Plus, I have to write book fifteen before I start anything else.”

“This is the book you brought up at the diner,” said Shane, remembering. “The one you said no one would read? You’re wrong! This is Black American history told through some fascinating matriarchal badasses.”

“Look, Audre doesn’t know about any of this. She thinks Lizette’s a hero. I’ve…tweaked history a bit, ’cause I want her to be proud of who she is,” insisted Eva. “I’ve never even been to Belle Fleur.”

“Go.” Abuzz with energy, Shane turned his whole body to face her. “Go.”

“Can’t.” Eva shook her head. “It’d require breaking myself open.”

“Why don’t you want to?”

“It’s a mess in there,” she said hollowly.

He wondered when the last time she’d fallen apart in front of someone was.

“But that’s the good stuff,” he insisted. “It’s you.”

“I can’t afford to fall apart,” she said.

Eva met his eyes then. And Shane saw that she looked starved. Something potent and protective hit him. He wanted to grab her and run. Which, historically speaking, probably wouldn’t end well.

“Shane,” she said quietly. “Why haven’t you said my name?”

Shane flinched, caught off guard. It was disorienting, being caught between what he felt then versus his feelings now. If Shane spoke her new name, then she stopped being a memory. She became tangible. And he’d have to confront what was real. Which was that Eva Mercy was unspooling him, as slowly and surely as if she’d tugged a thread.

Shane was here to come clean and go. Falling for her wasn’t the plan.

“I can’t say your new name.”

“Why?”

Hesitantly, he said, “I can’t afford to fall apart, either.”

Shane heard Eva’s tiny huff of breath and saw her lips part, but he never got to hear her answer—because there was the pink-ponytailed chick standing in front of them. Blocking the sun. Waving maniacally, as if she were a great distance away.

Jolted out of a big moment, they peered up at her with confused (Eva) and annoyed (Shane) expressions.