One Midnight (Novel)

Chapter One- Laissez les bon temps rouler

New Orleans, Louisiana

1984

Every week around midnight, I always come to this one spot. It calls out to me every time, like a siren song, beckoning me to go in the roaring current of the Mississippi River. I imagine myself enveloping myself in the water, feeling myself getting pulled into the tide. I really don't know why I've always felt this way about it, ever since my first memory it's been this way.

Today it's Mardi Gras and I'm standing by the Riverwalk. The lights from the Crescent City Connection bridge cast an orange haze upon the water, mesmerizing me like always. The sight of the bridge reminds me of the frequent trips Jeff and I would take to Algiers, back when his mom was at the hospice center. I close my eyes, fighting back tears. Jeff's mom wanted her ashes spread along the river, near where the ferry docks at the Audubon Zoo, her favorite place.

After the day we spread her ashes, conversation between Jeff and me became more and more sparse until it was reduced down to nothing more than what TV dinner we were going to eat. Jeff's mother Anne was the glue that held us together, and I tried with all my might to hold on to that glue. But it all came undone when I discovered the evidence of his infidelity in the glove box of his Brand new Buick LeSabre.

He said her name was Elizabeth, or Bess for short. It was no hard feelings, but Bess made him happy. That stung more than the news of the infidelity. Could I not make Jeff happy? We were engaged. I thought we would be together forever. I cursed the day that I let Jeff Guidry walk into my life from the day I met him at college. If I could go back in time, I would have. Because of him, I lost my chance as a pianist.

And I try to forget him, I really do. But every time I sit at the piano, or try to compose something new, he's always there, never leaving. Almost taunting me.

Like the dreams I have of him every night. I must be going to the river too much because him and I are always in the river in my dream. I've been having the same dream since the day I found out he was cheating on me with Bess. The dream always starts with me being in the midst of a hurricane, and there's a man behind me screaming at me in a language I can't understand.

I am pulled into the flood waters with Jeff in my arms. His clothes look different. Old fashioned. I can't quite explain, but he looks different too. His hair is longier and shaggier and I'm struggling to free myself from his tight embrace to try to get to land, but an undercurrent takes the both of us and I drown with him in my arms. I wake up every time drenched in my own sweat.

Even though I keep having these river dreams, I cannot stay away from this place. It's my constant. It's where Jeff kissed me for the first time. It's where he asked me to marry him. The river is also Anne's gravestone, and where I want to be when I feel the most lonely, which happens more than I can count.

It's got to be close to midnight now. The noise from the Mardi Gras festivities are starting to die down a little, even though I can still hear drunken revelry in the distance. This day should be full of whimsy and magic for most people, but for some of us, it's not so fun. The stench of urine and vomit can be pervasive on the regular, but on this day, it's at peak stench.

Jeff's friends are most likely at some seedy bar on Bourbon Street, riding off the waves of the last of the parade by taking shots of whiskey sours and getting sloshed over those cheap, disgusting hand grenades everyone is always drinking. Jeff for sure has that pretty Bess with her dark blonde hair, D-cup the way he likes it, voluptuous body, and sultry eyes. That must have been what enchanted him to her in the first place. Then I look at myself. A-cup. Mousy brown hair. Dated sense of fashion. I'm still stuck in the seventies, at least that's what my mom says. It's comfortable to wear my mom's old clothes.