Claudia Duran. “The Back House.” Continuation

“Alooooo,” spoke up Ms. Josephine, a sweet Creole seventy-nine-year-old called to Moira and Kamila from the patio of the back house followed by a knock at the screen door. She was Dominque’s dear Southern belle of a mother. Moira had met Dominque on one of her many vacation trips to New Orleans. Dominque was sophisticated, put together, a respected businesswoman of real estate in Louisiana. Perhaps the style of woman Moira always hoped to be but never quite had the time, smarts, or money enough to become one. While Dominque was meeting with clients in Baton Rouge, she was gracious enough to rent out her mother-in-law’s suit to Moira, also known as the back house.

“Better than doing Airbnb,” insisted Moira, “at least this way I’m renting from a friend rather than some gentrified transplant trying to turn a dollar on the suckers willing to pay overpriced homes they practically stole during Katrina.” Moira was passionate about preserving culture, even if it wasn’t her own. Whenever there were extreme forms of injustice in the Crescent City, it was due to Hurricane storms and foreign folks unwanted, but necessary to the restless die-hard who were homegrown. 

“How you girls holding up in the heat?” asked Ms. Josephine. This house turns into a furnace every summer. Dominque’s been saying she’s gonna put in an AC, but well she’s barely had time to be around these last few weeks.”

“The fans help us a lot Ms. Josephine, thank you,” stepped in Kamila. Moira wanted to complain, Kamila could tell by the insistent sweat dripping from Moira’s brow. Even Moira felt guilty imposing any responsibility of their discomfort onto the near eighty-year-old matriarch. Her daughter was doing them a favor by letting them stay there for cheap when she wasn’t even in town.

“Ya’ll feel free to take some of these lemons from the yard and make yourself a spiked lemonade to cool down too, ya here,” insisted Ms. Josephine. “That’s how I get through this inferno summer.”

“Thank you again, Ms. Josephine, we appreciate your hospitality,” assured Kamila.

“Yes, thank you again,” chimed in Moira.

Ms. Josephine wandered back through the maze of lemons to the front house duplex. Ms. Josephine lived on the left side of the shotgun house, while her son-in-law Franklin lived with Dominque and their toddler baby Nanette on the right-hand side. Franklin waved as he bounced baby Nanette on his knee, and she let out her infant coos.

“How ya’ll doin?” asked Franklin to Moira and Kamila.

“Fine thank you, you good?” retorted Moira.

“Neva betta!” lied Franklin.

After two long-term marriages and multiple lovers as a twice widow, Moira was keen on men’s bull shit. Maybe it was Franklin’s toothy smile or his smooth dark skin, or maybe it was the way he held baby Nanette with such ease that made him so handsome, but Moira knew if she had a man as attractive as Dominque’s husband Franklin, she wouldn’t dare leave him alone while she went out of town on a business trip. She would be too afraid some other lady more attractive or with more to offer in his solitude would sweep him up quick from under her if she behaved in such recklessness.

“You ok there ma’am, need help?” asked Franklin from his side of the back stoop.

“On no dear, I need all the little exercise I can get at this age,” replied Ms. Josephine as she maneuvered around the Lemon Trees and their fallen fruit.

Perhaps Dominque had more confidence in herself being a woman of business that her husband was in good company and beyond occupied by Ms. Josephine living on the opposite side of the wall. She had eyes everywhere, especially since she also had out-of-town visitors like Moira and Kamila in her mother-in-law’s suite.

“Ya’ll have a lovely stay,” called out Franklin as he covered baby Nanette in his kisses and fatherly cuddle.

“Oh, we will,” assured Moira.

“You ready for dinner?” Moira asked as she thrust another beer into her companion’s hand.

“Definitely. If I want to remember this trip, I need to eat something before I start another drink,” warned Kamila “Where do you want to eat?”

“How about Coop’s? They have AC inside and those misters on the back patio,” suggested Moira.

In order to arrive at Coop’s, the ladies would have to trek through the busy active streets of the Quarter. Frenchman to be exact. This was nearly an impossible mission during Louis Armstrong’s Birthday weekend in New Orleans. Every club would be hosting a plethora of live music, drink specials, locals, and tourists.

The whole of Frenchman would hear the musings of What a Wonderful World as if on repeat but live in forms of jazz, zydeco, reggae, brass band, hip-hop, and fashion. The whole city was a firework lit up as per usual. However, during this time of year, the brightness of the city could possibly be seen by astronauts and aliens in outer space, similar to the great wall of China. The raucous too it was said could be heard across county lines.

Frenchman was a proverbial hotbed of festive merriment that weekend. The most influential artist in jazz history had been born over a hundred years ago. The leading trumpeter in both the twentieth and twenty-first century. That was enough excitement to last a millennium. The celebration of Moira’s retirement and legend Satchmo’s birthday proved to be too much entertainment to contemplate menial idiosyncrasies and insignificant human details such as eating dinner. Moira and Kamila never did make it to Coop’s for dinner that Saturday night. It was a severe lapse in judgment, an epic failure, that would haunt the ladies for multiple lifetimes.