The sky poured itself over the levee like a melting carnival pinwheel, shifting from a pale blue to slate blue to finally this shocking and unexpected orange. Angela thought about that for just a brief unconscious second—about the unexpected part, how unexpected the orange was, but not unknown. Every sunset from August till October, she had counted on seeing that orange sky from her home office window. Counted on it as one counts on the sun rising each morning; on oysters being safe to eat in the months with “r” in them; on hurricane season ending November 30.
The orange sky was framed by the window in her friend’s office where she sat, telling her story, and wondering if the leafy oak trees outside the window would be enough to cool down the office that had been slowly steaming up since she arrived. She sat in a comfortable worn brown leather chair, that was cool on her skin, trimmed with brass nail heads that needed a polish, across from Wiley G. Lastrape, Jr., private detective She realized this orange sky, her orange sky, also belonged to Wiley and his window. It felt so unexpected, to see that sky in his window.
Wiley sat fully present. Wiley always appeared fully present. That’s what she liked about him, even with her unspoken distrust of all PI's and ex-lawyers. Especially Louisiana ex-lawyers. If she’d seen Wiley on the streets, she’d have pegged him as a crooked lawyer and even more jaded PI, someone who represented the mafia bosses she saw every Friday night holding court at the bar at Mandina’s or who did the dirty work of unfaithful husbands wanting to catch their own wives in the act. Every day during the hot weather months, Wiley dressed in a light blue sear sucker suit, starched white shirt and pale blue tie with buttery yellow stripes. On colder days, he’d wear a dark blue wool pin stripe suit with a number of different ties to punctuate a season or (she speculated) a mood. There were the required green-and-red Christmas ties; the pumpkin-orange Thanksgiving ties; and the purple-green-and-gold Mardi ties for carnival season. Sometimes he’d give in and wear a black-and-gold tie for the equally loved-and-hated pro-football team. His dark curly French hair was always a little bit disheveled, as if a favorite spinster aunt had just tousled it as she sent him off to school in the morning.
Wiley was always present when she spoke to him. Fully listening as if she were the only person alive on earth, as if she held the secret to life’s meaning. And so she had come to trust him.
She hadn’t known whom to trust with her story. For years she had known the first chapter of the story and had freely shared this with many friends who enjoyed the tale. But it was only in the last few years that the second chapter had begun to reveal itself. It began to reveal itself shortly after Katrina, which had pushed both her grandparents into their graves when their house and all its contents were destroyed, that is, all but the cheap vinyl suitcase and the medium-sized cardboard box in the attic.
Like Amt, Wiley felt the heat from the window. But unlike Amy, he was beginning to sweat. He could see the unforgiving orange sky reflected in the glass doors of his large antique mahogany book case that had been in his family for generations. That color was a daily reminder to him that he should ask his wife Anne to help him find some sort of window shade to block the heat that defeated even the most powerful air conditioner he had installed after the storm took out his older unit. And every day he’d go home to his wife who mixed the best old fashions in all New Orleans. With one sip, his work day would slip with the orange sky behind the levee and the cool breezes would sweep every detail of his day into the river, until finally all he could remember was why he married Anne.
Wiley sat back in his chair trying to pretend the heat wasn’t stealing away his breathe, and focused on Amy. He had always liked her stories, and her. He had liked her from the moment he met her. She was bright and well-educated and interesting. She was very pretty, but she seemed to have no notion of that. She was interesting in a way most New Orleans women are not—she was actually interested in ideas more than people; both content and form mattered to her; and she didn’t seem decadent enough to be a native of the place. It was as if she were dropped from another planet into her family, at least the maternal part of it that had been in Louisiana for generations. Maybe it was because her grandfather was an immigrant that she didn’t quite seem like a typical native daughter.
But like her grandmother, she told stories true-to-form of a Southerner, with more side bars to the story than the story itself. Each side bar on its own contained the germ of a Gothic southern novel and usually carved a trail like a genealogical chart. The truth is, in New Orleans, at some point in any conversation, in any conversation about family, everyone is eventually, in time and in some side bar, related.
Wiley had come to meet Amy because his doctor, Dr. De Bois Blanc, told him he needed to start exercising or die. Die before his son finished college, which would be in two years. He’d said this to Wiley with a stone face of a friend who loved him and cared enough to scare the shit out of him. So Wiley began his search for something he had always disdained—a health club, something that to him seemed to be an oxymoron in New Orleans, an affront to the culture, as out of place as an honest politician.
His partner Joe Mole told him about a gym in a large hotel one block from their offices where they took only a few locals. Joe whispered the location to Wiley as he were confessing some shameful sin to a priest in confession. Joining the conspiracy of closet health club members, Wiley told no one, not even Ann, that he planned to visit the health club.
When he entered the health club, had it not been for Amy he wouldn’t have stayed for more than a few seconds. Luckily she was there. She greeted him as it he had entered her own home and that his comfort was her sole purpose in life. And yet he instantly knew she didn’t belong there. That something wasn’t right with this picture.
Amy was pretty and young, a little bit older than his son. He always enjoyed talking to her; it made his otherwise dreary workout tolerable. He joined the gym because of her and its limited the number of outside memberships. This he liked. The limited memberships, that is. He liked that he didn’t have to work out with large numbers of people. And he liked that the fitness club manager was intelligent. They’d talk about movies and politics while he trod on the treadmill. She knew a lot about modern poetry and modern European art. He enjoyed the jarring contrast between the tedium of the work out and the unexpected tour de forces of their conversations. One didn’t find that combination often.
Wiley sat back in his own worn brown leather chair. The young woman across from him seemed to be intelligent. But her story was fantastic, even by southern standards.
When she finished her story, Wiley sat still for a moment. The afternoon sun continued to pour into his office window and onto his chair. He kept meaning to rearrange his office, to put his chair where the sun would never shine on it. Instead, he rolled up his sleeves, making a mental note to ask his wife for some advice on a new floor plan.
His stillness was an involuntary response to the heat and her amazing tale.
“So, Angela, this is an amazing story. How do you know it’s true? And what do you want me to do about it?”
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