: Turning off of St. Charles Avenue, Bitsie maneuvers the limo onto Audubon Place, giving a cheerless wave to the disinterested guard on duty. As always, the street is devoid of people, every window drawn against the outside world. Beside her, Philomena Phistemopheles’ lip curls at the new money mansions. So common, she thinks. An exercise in mediocrity made real by more money than sense. Where is the whimsey, the character, the wit of the Spanish architecture of the French Quarter? The comforting closeness of the rest of Uptown? Here in this enclave of the locally wealthy, it is all beige and gray and brown. So American.
Approaching the end of the street, Bitsie presses a button on the sun visor. What appears to be a solid wall of wisteria and ligustrum shifts and rolls back, revealing a tiled driveway leading up to the side of the DuPlessis mansion. Philomena gazes at the compound, genuinely pleased to finally see it in person. She nearly made it inside on her last visit. But, that was another time.
Bitsie pulls the limo up to the garage door, and shuts off the engine. The women sit together for a moment, a breeze filtering in through the open windows. Bitsie speaks.
“So. Am I to know why you had to stay in my house? Or, is that little secret part of the fun?”
Philomena turns and faces Bitsie. The face is much as Bitsie remembered it, except for her eyes. They were different now. Something…foreign? No. Unaccustomed. That’s the word.
“You never answered my question yesterday, Darling. Why do you think the house is built this way, on this unusual lot?”
Bitsie blinks. “Ordinarily, I’d have said because Ivan and his family were a bunch of Southern fried power freaks. But I know now that’s not the only reason.”
Philomena twitches an eyebrow in acknowledgment. Bitsie sighs, and continues.
“Fine. No, I haven’t wondered before. I am now. What do you have to tell me?”
“Inside, Darling” Philomena says, satisfied with the answer.
The women get out of the limo and climb the grand staircase to the entranceway. Bitsie opens the front door, and walks inside. At the threshold, Philomena turns and looks directly east through the passage in the trees where the sunlight comes in. Running her hand along the door frame, she feels a gentle but steady thrumm in the wood, the ironwork, the lead crystal windows, everything. Taking a final knowing glance to the east, she finally walks inside the DuPlessis mansion. As a guest…This is My New Orleans.
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