Big Easy Bonanza

steady as if she’d never had a drink in her life. She could hold it together when she wanted to, and she’d get through this day as easily as if she were as young and capable as Henry.
    She’d stumbled on her way to the ladies’ room and that worried her. People might think she was drunk. But so be it. That one little slip was all they were going to get to talk about. She’d been planning this day for six weeks, and she wasn’t about to blow it now. She had even gone and bought herself a new plum-colored suit at Saks, where she couldn’t bear shopping. But Gus Mayer and Godchaux’s were gone now, and she had to have something new. Otherwise people really would have thought she’d gone to seed. She looked damn good in it too, unless she was much mistaken.
    Her hair was as blonde as it had been on her wedding day, and her eyes were as clear—today anyway. Carefully, she washed her hands—very, very carefully. Anne-Marie Delamore, who’d just gone into one of the stalls, had given her an odd look, as if wondering whether to stick around to pick her up when she fell. But no fear of that—absolutely none. She simply felt the need for clean hands, that was all. Hadn’t Anne-Marie ever seen anyone take her time?
    She wondered vaguely where Marcelle and Henry and Tolliver were. But they weren’t far, she was sure. Today was Chauncey’s big day. Today he was Rex, the Monarch of Mirth, the King of Carnival, and the leading citizen of New Orleans. It was the climax of his whole life—the day he’d been working for ever since she’d met him. Just how hard he’d worked she hadn’t learned till much later, and it was rather a bitter lesson, but today was undeniably Chauncey’s day. All his little satellites—the beautiful family he was so proud of, the best friend who’d stuck with Bitty and Chauncey through some of the toughest times any family could possibly experience—they’d all be close.
    She usually felt braver when she was drunk, but right now, stone sober, she felt exhilarated, as if she could do anything. She moved aside so Anne-Marie could wash her hands, then fumbled for her lipstick. She’d apply it slowly, carefully, so that Anne-Marie could see what a good little sober wife she was.
    “Mrs. St. Amant? Is Bitty St. Amant in here?”
    “Yes?”
    It was Skip Langdon, not dressed at all properly for the party at the Boston Club. She looked like a heifer in that getup. Skip must be nearly six feet tall, and she’d been overweight all her life. “Mrs. St. Amant?”
    “Yes? Skip, what is it?” She looked carefully at the younger woman’s face, and she remembered what Skip was doing now—it wasn’t a costume she was wearing. Skip looked so sad, so very sad, as if she could hardly bear to speak.
    “Skippy—tell me. What is it?” Bitty knew her voice was coming out in a wail, but there was nothing she could do about it. She looked at Anne-Marie Delamore, who had turned paper-white. So Anne-Marie felt it too. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
    “Mrs. Delamore,” said Skip, “could you excuse us please?”
    Bitty wouldn’t be alone with her. No. She declined. Absolutely not. She would be with those she loved. Behind a scuttling Anne-Marie, she walked unsteadily out of the bathroom, through the anteroom with its pretty mantel, and back to the party.

The Monarch of Mirth
    THE QUIET WAS deafening. Skip had forgotten that part, though she’d been here before on Mardi Gras—as Tricia Lattimore’s guest, when they were both at McGehee’s and nobody their age had invited them anywhere. She was at the Boston Club today for no other reason than that she knew these people, she was at home here—or so her brother officers imagined. True, her father had elbowed his way into Rex, but certainly not into this bastion of blue blood. And that didn’t begin to tell the story. There was Skip’s own peculiar identity crisis to reckon with. But Sergeant Pitre wouldn’t know about that, and wouldn’t care. She was handy, that was all. She’d been on the scene and no one else who had had been brave enough to beard the Brahmins in their lair.
    Skip had been working parade routes, along with a third of the cops in the city, and she was scheduled for a twelve-hour shift like everyone else. The system really wasn’t too bad. During Carnival a third of the department did their regular jobs from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M. , a third took over from 6 P.M. to 6 A.M. , and that freed everyone else for parade