Big Easy Bonanza

to set new restrictions or demand some new perfection. The perfections were easy. They all had to do with being quiet and unobtrusive—fading into the woodwork until called upon to step out of the corner and curtsy—to pass the hors d’oeuvres at a party, say, perfectly dressed, perfectly mannered, quiet as a kitten.
    The restrictions were something else again. Once, about 3:00 in the afternoon when she knew Bitty hadn’t eaten lunch, she’d made her a sandwich—cream cheese and pineapple, cut it into ladylike, bite-size fourths. She could hear her mother now: “Marcelle, baby, you didn’t cut this yourself, did you?”
    “Tonetta’s gone home…”
    “You know you’re not supposed to play with knives! Now take this and throw it out! Go on. And I mean throw it out, Marcelle—don’t eat it. You’re already Little Miss Chubs and you’ve got your daddy’s fat genes.”
    In those early years—God, it hurt to remember!—Marcelle understood perfectly well that she’d been placed on earth for the sole purpose of pleasing her mother. That was okay. That was fine. She would have been thrilled to please her mother, if only she could ever really have achieved it. But no matter how much she worked at it, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make it pay off. She couldn’t get Bitty to notice her, couldn’t get close to her.
    She didn’t know how old she was—maybe six or seven—when the pain stopped, when she stopped beating her head against the wall. But she knew that at some point she had made a decision—had quit trying to get Bitty’s attention, had become resigned to not having it, and had replaced the struggle with nothing at all.
    She no longer did anything, felt anything, or thought anything—that is, no longer held opinions. She made no more decisions, she stopped wanting what she couldn’t have.
    The funny thing was, it was perfectly obvious what she didn’t want. She hadn’t for a moment wanted her husband, Lionel Gaudet.
    I didn’t even want André! I just couldn’t make up my mind whether to have a baby or an abortion.
    She married Lionel for a very distinct and specific reason—so she could go on doing nothing, feeling nothing, holding no opinions, making no decisions.
    Lionel experienced her as a juggernaut in his path—an analogy she rather liked but found utterly laughable. “Don’t you understand,” he had raged, “that you have all the power in this marriage? All of it.”
    She had simply stared at him in disbelief. How was it possible to be so completely off the mark? She had about as much power as a junior clerk at Lionel’s company.
    “As long as you aren’t participating, you aren’t giving me any slack at all. How can we change anything if you won’t negotiate?”
    “What is there to negotiate?”
    “We’re not living, Marcelle. We’re only existing. We’re not having a marriage. Don’t you want one?”
    No!
She didn’t.
    So Lionel hadn’t worked out. And all those years of strategic withdrawal hadn’t either. Because she could no longer not feel anymore. She didn’t know why, but she’d come to the end of her resources on that. Now she felt far, far too much—and all of it bad.
    Oh, Chauncey, why did you have to die? And why couldn’t you have left me something better than a trust fund and your fat genes? You could always do things—why didn’t I inherit that?
    The phone beside the bed rang. “Marcelle? Jo Jo. I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”
    “Okay, I guess. Daddy’s funeral’s today.”
    “Listen, baby, I’m sorry I fell asleep on you the other day. God, I was so hot for you I could have come in my pants; I woke up thinking about you, wanting you so bad just like the old days, but I reached for you and you weren’t there. I don’t blame you, I don’t blame you a bit—”
    She hung up, she had to, she was getting sicker with every word. Was she going to throw up? She swallowed. Maybe not. She lay back on the pillows, feeling glad to have escaped. He’d been about to ask to see her again, and for once she wasn’t even slightly tempted. Tempted! It didn’t even enter the picture. Temptation rarely went hand in hand with nausea.
    “Mommy?” called André. “Are you awake yet?”
    “Good morning, baby. Come on in and give Mommy a kiss.”
    As the small feet failed to patter on the bare floor, instead clomped like a pachyderm, delivering something like a small cyclone, she wondered what Jo Jo meant about falling