Sorry to leave everyone hanging last week. I went on vacation and actually stepped away from the internet. This post is the continuation of a fiction series. I’m reworking a discarded chapter from my existing WIP manuscript and sharing it in pieces here. If you missed the first three installments, read 4 Posts. 1 Story. New Series. before reading this post. Come back next Monday for another installment.
Alone in the quiet house, Jewel stripped off her dress and slip, her stockings and garters, her bra and girdle – because vanity was voodoo more important than smushing the baby – and eased her cumbersome bulk into a scalding bath.
The rat Susan knocked against her insides, growing more frantic as heat penetrated her skin, but Jewel soaked until the water cooled. The loathsome baby was cowed into quiet submission. Toweling off, Jewel padded naked from bathroom to guest bedroom at the front of the house, not even bothering to close the curtains as she flipped on a lamp.
New Orleans people liked to see it all, didn’t they? Wasn’t that why they chose to live with constant iniquity?
She rifled through her scuffed suitcase for her prettiest dress, a sapphire silk confection with sheer sleeves and a full skirt. Once she slid into two girdles and knotted the belt under her breasts, she could barely tell she was seven months pregnant. Satisfied, she pushed her feet into black patent pumps and picked up her makeup case.
Nothing has ever made Jewel happier than painting her face, because it justifies gazing at her beauty without seeming vain.
That night, she took her time.
She moisturized her pale skin until it gleamed under the harsh bulb of the sink. A light coat of foundation. A touch of concealer under her bright blue eyes. A dusting of powder on her nose. The palest pink blush along her perfect cheekbones.
The party happened with her eyes, though. Makeup should highlight one feature, the best one, not compete for precedence. She worked with shadows and liners, false lashes and mascara to make her eyes the Broadway showcase. After smudging a square of toilet tissue over a touch of pink lipstick, she tugged a wig over her damp hair, teasing and spraying its brown curls into a glorious halo crowning her unparalleled head.
She was ready.
Her heels clomped on the heart pine floors of Irene’s house, down the front steps, into the back seat of the waiting cab. Holding her black patent purse in her lap, she pulled on a pair of white leather gloves and ordered the driver, “Take me to the House of Voodoo on Magazine. I have an appointment.”
Irene and Richard, and especially the unborn baby, paid the ultimate price for abandoning her. She made sure of it. As the car shuddered along sketchy French Quarter paving, she snapped open her purse and took out a card.
Curses for a fee it read.
Lawsy-mercy, her girl would die if she knew her upstanding Christian mother haunted a voodoo establishment. Jewel glances in the rearview mirror again, finds her daughter following close behind, pudgy disappointment of a face stained with tears.
“You never had a chance, little girl,” Jewel mutters.
TO BE CONTINUED…..
To see what else I’ve been writing in series fiction, visit The Aftermath of Death, She Was Venus in Fur, Grief Out of Balance, For the Love of a Gun, Death by Toilet, Biscuits, Gardenias and a Funeral and Everything Dies. I’m also on Medium with a new story HERE.
7 Comments
There’s a great music store on Magazine…
There’s also a lovely stationery shop.
I spent a couple hours in the store playing guitars with a kid who was five times the player I was. But we had a ball and the kid studied my right hand. He used a flatpick. I didn’t.
I love New Orleans. Always feel dark upon leaving.
Jess used to live three/four blocks from Magazine. We haven’t been back since she left.
I try to get there to visit family. MTM and I last went for his birthday. Also king cake season, so…..???. I forgot Jess lived there. I hope she’s adjusting to DC.
Yeah, she seems to be in good spirits.
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