Big Easy Bonanza

got the flu.” As she rubbed a little concealer under her eyes, she felt some of the gloom lift. Of all people she could think of (except maybe her mother), Skip was the one she most wanted to see right now. Her anger from yesterday morning had faded as the day wore on—that was why she’d phoned her about dinner the night before. To make peace, cement the friendship she felt they could have.
    She’d wanted it but had doubts it was really possible while Skip was still probing her family and friends. But now all that was over. Surely Skip had come here out of friendship.
    From the look on Skip’s face she knew the makeup hadn’t worked, that it was obvious she’d been crying. She said, “André, darlin’, aren’t you glad it was Skippy? What if you’d opened that door and it was somebody who wasn’t invited?”
    He looked at her gravely. “Was Skippy invited, Mommy?”
    “That’s not the point, young man. The point is, you know you’re not supposed to open that door without knowing who it is. Skippy, I hope you didn’t get too close. Did you hear me call? He’s got the stomach flu.”
    Skip held her stomach and bent over. “Waaak!” she squawked and staggered over to the sofa, where she pretended to die, ending with eyes crossed and tongue hanging out. For the first time that day—in days, when Marcelle thought of it—André laughed. Fell down and laughed and rolled, wrapping his blanket around him, rolling and unrolling, like some kind of small contented animal.
    I don’t play with him enough. I mother him too much
.
    To Skip she said, “I think you’ve cured him.”
    She turned off the TV and sent him off to his room to play by himself. Skip said, “It’s amazing he’ll do that.”
    “People tell me I’m very fortunate. They tell me how awful their kids are, and I just thank my stars.”
    “There are no bad kids—only bad parents.”
    Did Skip really believe that or was she just being flattering? “You’d be a good one,” she said. “André loves you.”
    “It’s because I never grew up. Listen, I’m really sorry—”
    Marcelle waved her into a chair. “It’s awful, isn’t it? I’m still trying to assimilate it. My daddy’s best friend killed him because he was in love with my mother. And then on top of that, my favorite almost-uncle killed himself. And they’re the same person. Is that what happened?”
    Skip spread her palms-up hands. “That’s what my lieutenant says.”
    “It doesn’t seem possible.”
    “I didn’t think so. It doesn’t to you either?”
    “My mother and Tolliver—they just didn’t seem … I don’t know, maybe the daughter’s the last to notice something like that.”
    “Didn’t seem what? In love?”
    Marcelle whispered, “No.”
    “She did have a key to his apartment.”
    “The flowers … but of course she’d have to have an excuse. She was always going over to Tolliver’s; I guess it made a perfect cover. It just seems like—”
    Skip waited, not saying anything.
    “I mean, don’t you think you’d notice if your father’s best friend was in love with your mother?”
    “Have you asked Bitty about it?”
    “Are you kidding? She’s been in a coma, just about, for the last week, and today she’s even worse, with those damn pills the doctor gives her… oh!” She remembered who the doctor was.
    “It’s okay. Listen, your mother’s not perfect, neither’s my dad.” Her smile of dismissal looked genuine.
    “Sorry. Well, anyway, that’s Bitty. You know what it’s like living with an alcoholic? Have you read much about it? The whole family participates in a conspiracy not to talk about it—only in our case, we didn’t do that. We could talk about it with each other, just not with Mother.” She stopped to ponder. “I just thought of something.”
    “Um-hmm?”
    “Tolliver. We didn’t talk about it with him. The taboo extended to him too.”
    “Why?”
    “That’s what I’m wondering. If you read about this stuff, you’ll see it follows a pattern. Nobody knows how the taboo gets there. It just is. It’s almost like ESP. You just know— psychically or somehow—what the rules are. I think you know”—she was formulating it for the first time as she went along—“you have an exaggerated sensitivity to other people’s feelings. So you know what will hurt and what won’t. Daddy could talk about Mother”—she spoke wonderingly, putting it together—“but Uncle Tolliver couldn’t. I guess that should