Big Easy Bonanza

fallen in love or something—or maybe I lost my nerve because she was black. I don’t remember what happened. Anyway, I never called her.”
    “You had her phone number?”
    Marcelle nodded. “I remember getting it out of Daddy’s Rolodex.” She shrugged. “I probably still have it.”
    “No kidding! Could you give it to me?”
    “Sure.” She searched in her own file. “Oh, look here—two numbers. One in New Orleans and one in Harvey. The one in Harvey’s marked, ‘after Nov. 1.’ I copied it down.”
    Skip hugged her. “I don’t believe it. You’re a wonder.”
    “It may be outdated.”
    “It’s the best I’ve gotten so far.” Writing down the number must have reminded her of something. She grinned and said, apropos of nothing, “Did you know Bobby Alexander moved out on Jo Ann?”
    “Oh, sure. Moved in with that cop—there was a rumor it was you for a while. But I told Alison Gaillard no way would you look at that wimp. Which reminds me—how about the filmmaker guy you brought to the funeral?”
    Her heroine, the female new centurion, blushed like a seventh grader. “He’s nice.” She shrugged, looking entirely uncomfortable. “I like him.”
    “Seeing him every day?”
    Skip didn’t answer. “Listen, I hate to say it, but the hard part isn’t over yet. I want you to think very carefully about this. I’ve had a tip about LaBelle, the black woman. It might not be true, but I have to check it out.”
    Frightened again and once more unable to speak, Marcelle only nodded.
    “Have you ever heard of a woman named Jaree Campeau? Or, wait—her maiden name was probably Jaree Doucette.”
    “No.”
    “Your father never spoke of her?”
    “Who is she?” Marcelle croaked.
    “LaBelle’s mother. I think there’s a chance Chauncey was her father.”
    “He couldn’t have been.” Her throat was opening, her voice getting strong again. “My father wasn’t like that.”
    Skip was silent, looking into her cup.
    “I mean, maybe he fucked around a little. Do you know about alcoholics? I do, there’s no way I couldn’t know, is there? I’ve read quite a bit of stuff on it. What happens is that the ‘chemical-free partner,’ as they call it, stops respecting the alcoholic and loses interest in sex. Can you blame him?”
    “It’s an awful situation.”
    Damn! Why did she have to be so coolly diplomatic and noncommittal?
    “How would you like to go to bed with someone who smelled like booze was coming out of his pores like sweat? Well, my mother smells that way. Of course Daddy had to have sex with someone else. I can’t blame him for that, can you?”
    “I guess nobody could,” Skip said carefully.
    “Okay, so maybe he screwed around, but he would never, never in a million years have abandoned a child. He just didn’t have it in him.”
    “What would he have done? Brought her home to live with you and Henry and Bitty?”
    Marcelle was taken aback. What would he have done? “He would have taken care of her—”
    “I think he tried to. I think he gave Jaree some money.”
    “He wouldn’t have treated any daughter of his like he treated that woman. I saw it! No way in hell he would have ordered her away and slammed the door on her—he just wouldn’t have.”
    Again, Skip didn’t speak.
    “You think I’m idealizing him, don’t you? Okay, look, I guess that’s only normal under the circumstances. But listen to this—Chauncey heard Henry say ‘bastard’ once, when he was about twelve, I think—I must have been seven or eight. He forbade him ever to say it again. He said the word was not acceptable in our house, that no one should ever by judged by the accident of birth but by their achievements, that we were all created equal and what was important about a person was not who their parents were but what they did with their lives.”
    “I see why you loved him.”
    Marcelle felt the all too familiar tears starting up again. “Of course neither Henry nor I did a damn thing with our lives.”
    “How can you say that? You have a darling son and Henry’s an actor.”
    “Daddy didn’t really consider anything an achievement unless it paid off. He didn’t look at Henry’s acting in aesthetic terms.”
    “Which is odd, since he was such a supporter of the arts.”
    “I guess it’s different when it’s your own family. You want them to be like you.” She shrugged. “Anyway, he did consider André a magnificent achievement. I guess you could safely say he