Big Easy Bonanza

drinking, and remembering.
    The notion of Rex was invented in 1872, the greatest of all Mardi Gras. That was the year the city devoted its energies to impressing a visiting Romanoff so glamorous that in New York he’d caused near-riots and left the streets strewn with swooning women. The grand duke’s favorite song, “If Ever I Cease to Love,” became the theme song of Mardi Gras; Mardi Gras was declared a legal holiday; and Mardi Gras got a king, all in the same year.
    The first Rex, Louis Salomon, wore purple velvet embroidered with rhinestones and rode not a float but a horse. Though Salomon was a Jew, today no Jew can be Rex. This discrimination occurs because the monarch of mirth must now come from the Boston Club, which does not admit Jews, women, blacks, or anyone of any ethnic origin whose blood is not a vivid shade of azure. Originally just a group of guys who liked a card game called Boston, the club grew in numbers and exclusivity until it became the power hub of the city—solidly and absolutely committed to the preservation of the status quo.
    Not only Rex but every krewe has a king, though in the fancy ones his identity is kept secret. Each king has his court of nubile young maidens as well—the season’s debutantes and almost certainly the daughters of members. Far from being kept secret, the names and faces of the queens and maids are widely publicized, as there would be little point to the honor otherwise.
    Naturally, the most important party of Mardi Gras Day (the Comus and Rex balls being scheduled for evening) is held at the Boston Club. The club being on Canal Street, which is right on the parade route, the Queen of Carnival and various other dignitaries (including the nearly forgotten wife of Rex himself) view the passing of Rex from a balcony draped in the purple, green, and gold of Carnival. From the thronged and frenzied street, the king toasts his queen.
    Anticipating this moment could be an occasion of deepest boredom, but the inventive citizens of the City That Care Forgot are well practiced in the art of diversion.

The Boston Club
1
    BITTY WOULD HAVE to be propped up, and God knew what Henry would do. If Marcelle fell flat on her face that would be three grand screw-ups out of three. The least she could do was stay on her feet. She was the only one who gave a damn about Chauncey anyway. Except for Tolliver, maybe, and he wasn’t even a St. Amant.
    How many drinks were too many? She had had three, maybe four, and it was barely eleven o’clock. It would be almost another hour—nearly noon—before the parade passed and stopped so that her father could toast his youthful queen. She had to slow down—she wasn’t supposed to be the drunk in the family. Then again, it was Carnival. Who’d notice anyway?
    Only everyone. Because all eyes were on the St. Amants today. In another hour and a half the population would be staring up at the balcony, where Rex’s lovely family, to do their patriarch proud, must look like refugees from the ’50s—even down to their hairdos and clothing. All three of them were wearing suits—son Henry, wife Bitty, daughter Marcelle. The wife and daughters of Rex always wore suits, just as Rex’s queen was always a debutante of the season and the daughter of someone important. The queen—Brooke Youngblood this year, a Kappa at LSU—wore a suit as well.
    Marcelle wondered if a woman would even be allowed on the balcony in a dress or pants. But the question wouldn’t come up. You wouldn’t make your debut in a black dress either.
    Marcelle’s suit was rose-and-black houndstooth checks with knee-brushing skirt and short, neat jacket. If she ever wore it again, she would shorten the skirt by at least two inches. Brooke Youngblood’s skirt was box-pleated, and she wore her hair in a pageboy.
    Being well into her twenties, Marcelle didn’t have to go that far, but she’d had to smooth down her short dark hair. Normally she liked to look as if she’d had it styled sometime in the twentieth century; but today she wore no gel, no mousse, no spikes, no magenta rinse. She looked like Daddy’s good little girl even if she wasn’t, and everyone knew it.
    Not, of course, that anyone cared. Certainly her mother didn’t. Bitty cared about nothing that wasn’t amber-colored and wet. As for Henry, he was a bigger slut than Marcelle. And Chauncey wouldn’t even have noticed she’d grown up if she hadn’t had a four-year-old son. He was forever ruffling her