: “All right, let’s go over this again.”
Bitsie DuPlessis finishes the last of her morning mimosa in the sunken living room of the DuPlessis mansion in Audubon Place. Looking at Stavros’ tortured face, she rises from her plush leather perch she calls her ‘big chair’ and walks over to the sofa to sit with him and Amanda. She reaches up and pushes a strand of hair out of his face. Her lips purse as she coos,
“Poor thing. Your eyes look like two holes burned into a blanket. I’m so sorry, sugar.” What she calls her “Kentuckiana accent” makes everything sound like either a heartfelt truth or a dirty joke. She settles in and takes his large hand in hers. “Now. If I remember correctly, the last time this happened was about four years ago, right?”
“Yes,” Amanda says, absently worrying some tissues into a crude rosary. “Same as last time. Sweating, writhing around, cursing in Greek. And not for the good reasons.”
Bitsie rolls her eyes at the gag, and turns back to Stavros who’s managed to crack a smirk. She smiles, and pats his hand.
“Honey, couldn’t this just be a nightmare?” she asks a little condescendingly. “Maybe something triggered you earlier in the day, and your brain couldn’t process it until you slept. Tell me, do you remember seeing anything that might have triggered you? Like, a large ball bearing, or a short, fat--shiny, evil round little man?” She grimaces at the thought.
Stavros grumbles and slowly stands to his full six feet, four inches. Walking aimlessly around the room he stretches out his considerable arms and massive back. The sound of vertebrae popping into place is strangely alluring.
“It wasn’t a nightmare,” he rumbles in his sonorous baritone. “Nightmares don’t…look like that. No, this was clear, realistic. He’s back. I heard the sound. I saw him in a room with the orb. And…” He trails off, worrying his hands through his long jet-black hair.
Bitsie looks towards Amanda, who avoids her eyes by concentrating on her hands. The unfinished statement hangs in the air. Bitsie hates that. Already she’s feeling a little ill. She stands up and blocks Stavros, her five foot five frame a surprising match for his.
“And what, Stav?” she demands, fearing the answer.
“Aunt Phil called right after I woke up.”
The color drains from her face as her mouth slowly opens to a gaping maw that screams,
“Schr-AMM!”
No sooner does the name form in her mouth than he appears, bearing a silver tray adorned with a double shot glass of ridiculously expensive single malt scotch and matching decanter, two clove cigarettes in a crystal ashtray, and a silver lighter. Effortlessly, he swoops behind Bitsie and supports her weight as her knees buckle from the news, guiding matriarch and tray evenly to her big chair, and depositing both with balletic grace. Amanda, always mesmerized at Schramm’s preternatural timing, watches as Bitsie reaches for the scotch and knocks it back like water. Schramm presents her cigarette, somehow already lit, sets the ashtray and lighter on the coffee table and takes his place just behind her chair. Bitsie takes a long drag and exhales an impressive cloud of smoke that quickly disappears through the mansion’s air filters.
Amanda looks towards the coffee table. Where is the mimosa she had just a moment ago?
Bitsie turns on Stavros and manages to say,
“Stav, honey. You know I love you, right? I think you’re wonderful, I’d do anything for you. If Amanda hadn’t snatched you up, I’d have grabbed a rope and climbed you myself.” She takes another shot. Stavros and Amanda exchange a glance. Who refilled her gl--
“Tell me she isn’t coming here” Bitsie demands, putting the shot down a little harder than she’s planned on the lead glass coffee table. Stavros and Amanda look at one another, eyes wide.
“Christ on the cross, give me strength!” Bitsie wails, falling back into the plush leather of her big chair. Schramm appears on her right, deftly opening a folding fan and gently airing his boss. “No…no, I can’t. I can’t do it” she moans, struggling to sit upright and stub out her first cigarette. “That woman and I cannot be in the same city at the same time. I can’t take the stress of it. Knowing she’s out there waiting. Like COVID.”
Stavros bristles a bit, and says,
“She’s my aunt, my only living relative. She’s not a virus.”
“Oh no,” says Bitsie, sitting upright to face him. “You can get vaccinated for a virus. Philomena Phistemopheles is a blinding migraine in Mahnolo Blahnik stilettos and the skins of a small pack of wildebeests!”
Stavros’ eyes flare as he stands up to his full height, Bitsie stands up to him as well, her lower lip pouting out defiantly. For a moment, to Amanda it looks like an old mother rabbit standing up to a timberwolf. She fears for the timberwolf.
“Oh, big deal ya cypress!” she barks, smacking her little hand into Stavros’ stomach at just the right place to make him wince. “I’ve taken on bigger than you. And don’t you forget--” An arm bearing a grasping claw darts out into Stavros’ crotch, locking on like a vise. He flinches but doesn’t move away. “Don’t forget how sick I was the last time she was here. My headaches were so bad, I had to stop drinking!” Here, she…pulls Stavros down to her level.
“And I love drinking!”
She releases Stavros, who stumbles back to the opposite end of the sofa as Amanda rushes to his side. Bitsie watches the retreat and sinks back into her chair. She picks up a freshly lit cigarette and a fresh shot of scotch. The ashtray is clean and empty, and the decanter looks untouched. Even in their shock, neither of them can help but notice.
Schramm walks around to Bitsie’s other side and regards her with a stern look. Bitsie takes it in, the silence between them almost visible. Her eyes widen, as she turns her glare…on Amanda.
“Oh, shit”, she mutters, rising along with Bitsie on the opposite side of the cut crystal coffee table…This Is My New Orleans.
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