The Marigny Keepers

Chapter 3

Wednesday faded into Thursday, and by the time Alene arrived at her shift at 8PM on Thursday night, she had given up hope of seeing Perrin again. Jackson had hired a new bar back, Andy, who had started on Wednesday, and having a strong guy around to bus tables and wash glasses made life considerably easier for Alene and the other female bartenders.

“I could use me a slice of that,” Heather purred, watching Andy load dirty beer glasses into his carrying tray. Heather was older than Alene by a few years and had just graduated from college that spring. Alene was impressed by Heather, and intimidated by her. This was Heather’s third consecutive summer working at The Big Easy; she had a foul mouth and was a shameless flirt. She wore her shorts cropped so short they barely covered her behind, and cut the necks out of her t-shirts so that they barely covered her lacey bras. She dyed her hair flame red and barely cared at all about her jet black roots.

Alene smiled at the thought of mild-mannered Andy hooking up with sex-bomb Heather. She might have found Andy cute, herself, if he were just a little taller, had a little less of a backwater twang to his speech, and if his hair was a little less bright carrot-top orange in color. And of course, if Perrin Boudreaux and his fine, soft mouth weren’t on her mind every second of the two days that had passed since she had last seen him.

“Uh, hey, Alene, where y’all goin’?” Andy asked Alene when he saw her take her handbag out from beneath the bar at 2AM.

“My shift’s over,” Alene told him.

“Just wait a while and have a drink, I’ll walk you home in an hour.”

Alene looked longingly at an empty bar stool. It was tempting to have company on the long walk home, and the atmosphere at the bar was tolerable at the late hour. Jackson had retired his seventies jams for a while to allow the jukebox to have its turn at filling the bar with music.  But Alene’s eyelids were growing heavy, and she already suspected even though Andy had barely said a word to her after their awkward introduction on Wednesday that a walk home with him might lead him to believe she liked him as more than just a coworker.

“Nah, I’m not legal drinking age yet,” she told him. It was true, she was eighteen, not yet twenty-one. Old enough to serve in a bar, but not old enough to drink, and Alene played by the rules.

“A Diet Coke,” Andy suggested.

“The caffeine will keep me up all night,” Alene laughed, swinging her bag over her shoulder and taking a few steps toward the door across the sawdust-covered floor.

“Come on, Alene, this city’s no place for a pretty girl like you to be walking around so late,” Andy insisted, grinning and blocking the door to prevent her from leaving. He seemed to be genuinely concerned for her well-being and not just vying for her attention.

Alene could see Jackson watching their interaction from his perch behind the bar, where he was regaling tourists with stories of debauchery. Jackson openly encouraged romances among his staff; he was an incorrigible gossip. But Alene didn’t want her boss to get the wrong impression, her job was too valuable. Plus, and she hated to acknowledge her own snobbery, but she had big plans for herself to become an art appraiser in Paris. There was something about Andy’s friendly nature that reminded her of Eric. The last kind of boyfriend she wanted was one that reminded her of Eric.

“I walk home alone every night, Andy,” she informed him. “New Orleans watches out for its own.”

Andy looked a little crestfallen but kissed Alene goodnight on the cheek and wished her a safe journey.

Outside, Bourbon St. was heavy with humidity and members of a roving jazz trio were playing their hearts out on the corner for the amusement of drunken tourists. Across the street, a couple wearing t-shirts that looked like they had been stained by spilled alcohol were telling uniformed police officers all about how their wallets had just been stolen.