New Haven to New Orleans

"Oh my god."  Sarah had to catch her breath from laughing.  "This place is awesome!  Are they really playing Edge of Seventeen on the tuba?  At 3 in the morning?"  She collapsed into one of the metal chairs.  The server at the edge of the cafe shook his head.  "I fucking love this place!"

"You mean they don't have that in New Haven?  You're so weird."  Felicia responded sarcastically, eying the street band.  "Two coffees and a plate of beignets," she told the server.

"Trust me, there's a lot of things New Haven doesn't have.  Like me!  New Haven doesn't have me anymore!  I'm here, not in that hellhole!  They'll never find me!"  She burst out laughing again.

Felicia wiped away some of her runny eye makeup.  "You're a whole different person with a few drinks in you.  And you have to go back sometime.  Here."  She handed Sarah one of the cafe au laits.  "Drink this.  It might help you sober up."

"Oh, you have no idea!"  Sarah had never been drunk before.  She had been to a few cocktail parties, and she and Chris had gotten a bottle of champagne to celebrate their engagement--not that she wanted to think about being engaged at the moment, or about Chris for that matter--but she had always just had one drink.  She was pretty good at making some of them last the whole night.  This time was different.  Actually, the whole experience was sort of surreal.  One day, she was an responsible and rational engaged woman who worked as a communications assistant at Yale University.  Another day she had thrown her engagement ring into the Mississippi River and gone out dancing and drinking with someone she had just met the day before.  Time to carpe the fucking diem, she figured.  Let someone else be the responsible and respectable one for a change.




Felicia grabbed one of the beignets.  "So what brings you out here anyway?  Just a vacation?  Or business?  Or something else?" she asked as her tall, blonde, and extremely buzzed new friend began singing along to the street band.  "And it's white winged dove, not one winged dove.  If you're not going to drink your coffee, I will."

"Can't a girl just ride from New Haven to New Orleans cause she wants to go?"  Sarah wondered if Chris had come back from that business trip yet.  Hopefully Chris wasn't too mad to find her gone.  Actually, scratch that.  No need to care about what that lying, rotten, no good--

"Well, what made you want to go?  It's a big country.  How'd you decide to come here?"

Damn it!  This woman wouldn't stop asking.  It was probably better to tell the truth.  After all, when was she ever going to see Felicia again?  They didn't run in the same circles.  Felicia lived in Louisiana, not Connecticut.  She didn't even know her new friend's last name or what she did for a living.  It was probably for the better.  "Okay, well, I had enough of Connecticut.  Actually, I had enough of one particular person in Connecticut.  I broke off my engagement and just wanted to get the hell out of there."

"You did what?"  

"You heard me right.  I broke off my engagement.  Found out I was engaged to a lying, stinking, violent sleazebag, so I moved all my stuff into storage that very day.  And then I figured I needed a vacation so voila!  I came here.  Chris was on a business trip.  I escaped undetected."


"Chris...is that your--"

"Well, I guess you'd say Chris is my ex now.  I'm sure it's very hard to misinterpret your fiancee's stuff gone from your apartment and a note left saying why."  The alcohol was starting to wear off, or maybe the coffee was strong enough to cure it.

"So you came here to escape your old life?"  Felicia stared at Sarah.

"Well, not exactly.  I eventually have to go back to stupid Connecticut.  Or wherever I decide to go.  I'm a free woman now!  I'm emanstipated!  But for nooooow...." Sarah stood up unsteadily and gestured grandly, "Sarah L. Hastings does whatever the hell she wants!  For the first time in her entire fucking existence!  I'm gonna laysay le bon temps roooolair!"

It's emancipated, thought Felicia.  Felicia put her hands on Sarah's shoulders and pushed her back down.  "Look, Sarah, I am sure that breaking off an engagement is a very difficult thing.  And I can see you're enjoying you're new sense of freedom. But if you're just here for escapism or to get away from your problems, then you have come to the wrong place."

"But I thought this was the Big Easy!  Not the Big Emotionally Difficult!  Or the Big Pain in the--"

"Sarah!  Listen to me!"  Felicia was adamant.  "I've lived here all my life.  While a new place may be fun to visit or different from where you're from, you can't get away from your problems no matter where you go.  You eventually have to figure out what you're going to do."

She continued.  "You want to know which neighborhood I'm from?  I don't live in the quarter.  I don't live in Marigny, where we just were.  I grew up in the Lower Ninth Ward!  You know, the neighborhood that Katrina hit the hardest?  You probably saw it on TV.  Or what's left of it on TV.  Yeah, that's home for me!"

"Do you still live there?"

"As a matter of fact, yes.  I do.  My girls and I stayed with some family in St. Louis after I got out, but as soon as Katrina and Rita were done and we had the go-ahead to return to our neighborhood, I came running back!"

Sarah quietly listened.  "You must not have been hit that hard then."

"Are you kidding me?"  Felicia continued.  "We lost everything except our lives.  I dropped out of school to work extra jobs and help get us back to where we were.  Hell, I had been taking night classes at UNO, but I never returned to college because of that.  Most of our neighbors never returned.  My oldest compared it to living in a ghost town."

"Oh my god.  I'm so, so sorry."

"No need to be sorry for me.  I'm working my butt off trying to bring my beloved neighborhood back.  When I'm not working, I'm helping Common Ground Relief rebuild.  But that's the thing!  You might be coming here to escape a problem, but some of us don't have the option of escaping unless it's to save our lives.  Some of us see that addressing it head-on is the best option.  Sometimes....sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to come back up.  I know I did.  But that's always been how we've done it, not escaping someplace else."

Sarah nursed her coffee for what seemed like an eternity.  She watched the band on the corner pack up their instruments and leave.  "I....I guess you're...right."

"Of course I'm right.  I lived it."  Felicia cleared the empty plates and coffee cups off the table.  "Say, where's your hotel?  I don't think the buses are running this late, so if you want, I'll walk you back."  She reached out her hand to help her new friend up.  "Look, Sarah, I'm sure that it is tough to cut off an engagement and to explain that to everyone, especially when you find out the truth about someone.  But sooner or later, you have to figure out what you're going to do once you go back.  You can't stay here forever, you know."

The two women cut through Jackson Park and through a nearby side street.  "You mentioned your girls," Sarah said.  "How many kids do you have?"

 "I have three.  They're visiting my sister in St. Louis for the weekend."

"That sounds nice."

"It is.  They get to see their aunt, and I get some time for myself.  I wouldn't be doing this if they were home.  Is that your hotel?"  Felicia pointed at a salmon pink building with a lacy black balcony.

"Yeah, that's mine."  Sarah swiped her key card, and Felicia followed her inside.