Julia and the Art of Practical Travel Read online

  If she asks, we are simply here to tour the city, Aunt Constance said.

  But I thought that Lancasters never lied, I said.

  We’re not lying, she told me. We’re just not telling the whole truth. Or anyway, it’s just a white lie. White lies never hurt anyone. In fact, white lies are meant to preserve other people’s feelings.

  I promised not to say anything and also kept it to myself that I’d learned a little bit about voodoo on my own: while we were staying as boarders in one small Mississippi town, I’d walked over to the public library one afternoon while Aunt Constance was taking a nap. I marched right up to the dictionary section and pulled down a book.

  Here was the official definition of voodoo:

  voo·doo [voo-doo], noun

  1. A polytheistic religion practiced chiefly by West Indians, deriving from African cult worship and containing elements borrowed from the Catholic religion.

  2. A person who practices this religion.

  3. Black magic; sorcery.

  The library had other books on voodoo too, and no one noticed when I sat down in the corner with a big pile of them, even though voodoo seemed kind of scary and not really what Grandmother would call Appropriate Reading for Youths. I think you can get away with more in New Orleans than you can in New York. Anyway, I learned a lot. In voodoo, there apparently aren’t any church priests who make you eat dry crackers and sit still on long, hard wooden benches and talk about the Holy Ghost. Instead there are these wild voodoo queens, who can put hexes on people and tell the future. And you get taught all sorts of things, like how to ward off witches by putting a broomstick across a doorway at night or how to give someone a headache just by turning a picture of them upside down.

  All of this information seemed very useful, so I wrote it down on a postcard and tucked it into my luggage, just in case. I also checked the books to see if there were any voodoo spells that helped you find missing people, or maybe a spell that made other people want to take care of you. But there was nothing there like that. We’d just have to find my mother the old-fashioned way.

  By asking around.

  We were given a big breakfast feast on our first full day at Mrs. Foxworth’s house. Her servants, Moody and Bun, brought in a basket of steaming biscuits smothered in honey butter, oyster-and-cream omelets, a big stack of hickory bacon, and tar-black coffee swirled with thick steamed milk.

  How do you intend to spend the day, dear? Mrs. Foxworth asked as she gulped down approximately a bucket of the coffee.

  Aunt Constance told her that we were going to go to a rose-judging contest at the botanical gardens. But I knew that Aunt Constance was telling a white lie to Mrs. Foxworth and that she really intended to go look for voodoo queens and see if any of them had been teaching voodoo to my mother.

  Well, said Mrs. Foxworth, patting her lips with a lace napkin, I think that sounds like a splendid idea. I think that I’ll come along with you, Constance. There’s nothing more invigorating than spending the day in the company of regal roses.

  Aunt Constance looked stricken, but then there was nothing to do but put on her big straw hat and wait for Mrs. Foxworth to put on a pound of white face powder and at least five pounds of pearls too. So off we all went to a boring rose fair, which was filled with lots of old-guard New Orleans grandes dames who looked just like Mrs. Foxworth, and we had to hang around there until dinnertime.

  The next morning, Aunt Constance tried again. She said to Mrs. Foxworth:

  You’ve gone through so much trouble to entertain us, dear Prunella. I think that I’ll take Julia today to the library so we can spend the day reading quietly and leave you in peace.

  Mrs. Foxworth put down a forkful of omelet Creole and stared at Aunt Constance.

  You know, Constance—that is a wonderful idea, she exclaimed. I have not set foot in our local library for more than ten years. There’s nothing more refreshing than spending the day amidst great works of literature. I think that I shall accompany you.

  So, on went the powder; on went the pearls; on went the hat; and all three of us went out the door. Aunt Constance’s mouth made a shape like an upside-down U. She spent most of the day finding books for Mrs. Foxworth about Confederate soldiers, and I snuck away to another part of the library and read more about voodoo queens and learned how to put a curse on someone by putting a drop of chicken blood into their soup.

  At breakfast the next day, Aunt Constance leaned forward and clapped her hand onto my forehead.

  Why, Julia Lancaster, she said. You’re burning up.

  No, I’m not, I said, and suddenly I felt a poke under the table.

  Prunella, I think I’ll take her to the doctor, said Aunt Constance.

  Mrs. Foxworth put down her beignet and wiped away the powdered sugar from her mouth.

  Oh dear, how terrible to feel unwell so far from home, she said. I shall most certainly accompany you to the doctor, you poor things.

  Oh, please don’t concern yourself with us, pleaded Aunt Constance. And besides, you might get sick yourself: you know how doctors’ offices are.

  Hogwash, scoffed Mrs. Foxworth, and then all three of us trundled off to her doctor, who told Aunt Constance and Mrs. Foxworth that there wasn’t a blessed thing wrong with me and that I was probably crying wolf to get attention.

  Well, as I live and breathe, bristled Mrs. Foxworth as her chauffeur whisked us back home in her long black car. In my day, little girls who told lies went to bed without dinner. That’s how we should deal with you as well. Shame on you for worrying your aunt like that.

  So that night I was sent to bed without dinner. I turned off all the lights in my room and looked out over the city, which was bathed in moonlight.

  And I wondered if my mother could really be someplace nearby. Maybe she was doing the exact same thing.

  It turned out that Mrs. Foxworth’s servants, Moody and Bun, were sisters. I learned this from eavesdropping on them later that night. My room in Mrs. Foxworth’s house was right above the kitchen, and I woke up at three in the morning and heard voices through the floor, and then I started to smell delicious cooking smells, and my stomach started to rumble from not eating any dinner. So I tiptoed down the maids’ staircase and sat behind the swinging back door to the kitchen and waited for Moody and Bun to leave the room so I could run in and snatch up a biscuit and maybe even some of whatever they were cooking.

  But they never left the room. Instead they kept cooking and talking and talking and cooking some more, and then I heard the slap, slap, slap of cards being laid down on a table and bits of conversation that went like this:

  Bun: What a bad sign. You pulled out the tower. That means a disaster is comin’.

  Moody: But it’s upside down. That’s a good sign.

  Bun: Oh, that’s okay, then. The tower upside down means that even if disaster’s comin’, you can handle it.

  The cooking smells started to get so good that I almost started drooling like Belfry’s stinky old mutt, Boris, who always left a trail of spittle wherever he went. Finally it was all too much, and I decided to try to sneak in without Moody and Bun hearing me by opening the swinging door a centimeter at a time and grabbing the closest food from the counter.

  So I started opening the door so slowly that it seemed like it was barely moving, and I congratulated myself on having such a steady hand, and soon it was open just enough for me to squeeze through. But then the moment I started to squeeze through it, there on the other side stood Moody and Bun in their bathrobes and their hair all wound up in turbans, and Bun had a rolling pin in one hand, and neither of them looked at all happy to see me. Moody reached out and grabbed me by the ear and marched me over to the table.

  You sit down, child, she thundered. What were you thinkin’, sneakin’ in here like that? We were liable to think you were a burglar and beat you black-and-blue.

  I’m hungry, I told them.

  And I added that I hadn’t meant to spy on them, which was sort of a lie, because I lik
ed hearing their strange conversation. Moody and Bun stared down at me, and I was afraid that they would go get Mrs. Foxworth, who probably looked pretty scary when she wasn’t wearing all of her daytime powder and lipstick. But instead Bun sashayed over to the stove and scooped something out of a pot into a bowl and set it down in front of me.

  That’s shrimp étouffée, she told me, and it was the best thing I’d ever tasted. I ate two bowls of it.

  What are those? I asked them, pointing to the cards on the table. They didn’t look like regular cards that we used at Windy Ridge to play gin and bridge and hearts. Instead Bun and Moody’s cards had pictures all over them and for some reason they kind of scared me.

  Those are tarot cards, Moody said. They tell the future.

  When I took a picture of them, both Moody and Bun let out such a gasp that I almost dropped my camera.

  That’s probably real bad luck, taking a picture of the tarot, Moody said.

  Oh, I said. I didn’t know, I added, and asked, Is there any way to undo the bad luck now?

  I don’t know, said Moody. Maybe just tear up the picture when you get it back, just to be sure.

  I said that I would, but I looked at the cards again and thought they were too pretty for me to tear up the picture. Anyway, we Lancasters had already had such bad luck that a little more likely wouldn’t do any harm.

  And then Moody asked me if I had any questions about the future that I wanted to ask.

  Well, this seemed very serious. I didn’t want to ask the cards just anything, after all. So I thought about it for a few minutes and wrote my questions down on a piece of paper:

  Am I going to marry Belfry someday?

  Is Aunt Constance going to send me to Miss Horton’s School when we are done with our trip?

  Are we going to find my mother?

  Moody shuffled the cards and told me to touch them, so I did. She laid down five cards.

  You ain’t gonna marry Belfry, she said.

  I slumped down in my chair. I always thought that I’d marry Belfry someday. I was so used to him and liked him so much, and really couldn’t imagine liking someone else nearly as much.

  Then Moody laid down five more cards.

  Yes, you’re goin’ to Miss Horton’s School.

  I slumped down even farther. So, I guess that was the answer to my question about who was going to take care of me. Miss Horton would get that job.

  Five more cards got slapped down on the table. Moody looked at them and was quiet.

  Well, what do they say? I asked. Are we going to find my mother?

  Well, this doesn’t happen a lot, but the cards are saying both yes and no, said Moody.

  Bun looked over at the cards also and both ladies studied them for a while. Then Moody gathered them up suddenly and put them away.

  No one’s got all the answers all the time, she said, and then she gave me a biscuit and sent me back up to bed.

  A miracle happened the next morning: Mrs. Foxworth woke up with a stomachache that she’d gotten from eating a bad crabmeat maison the night before at Galatoire’s Restaurant. Aunt Constance tried not to look overjoyed as she tucked a frilly sheet up under Mrs. Foxworth’s double chin, but the moment Mrs. Foxworth drifted off to sleep, Aunt Constance put on her straw hat and I knew she was going out to look for my mother at the places where voodoo was taught. I followed her out onto the porch, my camera around my neck as usual.

  Please take me too, I begged.

  Absolutely not, she told me.

  But I read that voodoo is just a religion, I said. And it’s good to learn about different religions, isn’t it? And to learn about new places too? I want to see New Orleans.

  Aunt Constance didn’t say anything then, and I knew that my foot was probably through the door.

  I’ll come back here right away if anything bad happens, I promised, and after a few more minutes of this, Aunt Constance reluctantly agreed to let me come, and part of me wondered if she just said yes because secretly she was a little scared to go by herself.

  We got out of a taxi in a part of New Orleans called the French Quarter, which had lots of pretty, small buildings colored like pastel tea cakes and flowers pouring off their balconies.

  Suddenly a police car pulled up next to us. The policeman driving the car was very fat and had a mustache like a broom. He rolled down his window and leaned out.

  Good morning, ladies, he said.

  Good morning, sir, said Aunt Constance.

  Has either of you seen a recess monkey walking around these parts? asked the policeman.

  Aunt Constance paused, and she replied, I beg your pardon?

  A recess monkey, repeated the policeman, and he showed us a picture of a skinny monkey and then added: He’s got a collar with bells around his neck.

  No, said Aunt Constance. No, we haven’t seen a recess monkey with a bell collar.

  Well, be careful if you do, because he bites, said the policeman, rolling up his window. And with that, he drove away.

  Aunt Constance’s hand went to her throat.

  Well, I never, she said.

  We walked up and down the streets of the Quarter until Aunt Constance saw a sign that interested her:

  Aunt Constance closed her eyes and took a deep breath before we walked in through the door.

  The room was filled with red light and cigarette smoke, and I thought that this was how hell might look. Behind a round table in the middle of the room sat a woman with scrawny hands, a high pillar of fabric wound around her head.

  Excuse me, ma’am, but are you Saint Marie Celeste? asked Aunt Constance politely.

  Suddenly the woman tilted her head back and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. Then she pointed at Aunt Constance.

  You, said the woman in a crackly voice. I have been waiting for you to arrive.

  I’m not sure what you mean, said Aunt Constance.

  You are from a very old New Orleans family, said the woman. And your name begins with a T.

  Well, no, actually, said Aunt Constance. You are clearly confusing me with someone else.

  Hush, said the voodoo woman. You came to me in a dream. You are searching for something.

  I whispered to Aunt Constance that this woman was the phoniest phony I’d ever seen, but Aunt Constance sort of swatted in my direction and then fished the pearls-and-lily picture of my mother out of her basket purse.

  Have you seen this lady? Aunt Constance asked the woman.

  She squinted at the photograph.

  Ohhh yes, she said. Many times.

  What’s her name, then? I demanded.

  Her name is … Sally, the woman said.

  No, it isn’t, I told her.

  That’s what she said her name was when she came to see me, said the woman quickly, but I didn’t believe her. Then she added: I can tell you where she is—for a price.

  Aunt Constance asked how much, and the woman said ten dollars, and the money changed hands. Then the woman made a big show of rolling her eyes back into her head and chanting a bunch of nonsense and then she sat up straight as a poker.

  She has joined the circus and left town, said the woman.

  That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, I hollered. Give us back our ten dollars.

  But Saint Marie Celeste wouldn’t give the money back, of course, and we left in a hurry, and the pink climbed up into Aunt Constance’s cheeks. We marched around the Quarter and went to four other places like Saint Marie Celeste’s Voodoo Parlor, and every one of them told us something different about where my mother was. Aunt Constance spent all of the money she had in her basket purse, so we had to walk back to Mrs. Foxworth’s house instead of hailing a taxi, and we were no smarter and a lot poorer than when we’d left.

  That night, I heard Bun and Moody in the kitchen again. I went downstairs to see if they’d give me a taste of whatever they were cooking. This time it was a crawfish gumbo and while I was eating it, they asked me where Aunt Constance and I had been the whole day.
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br />   I’m not allowed to say, I told them. Or at least, I’m not allowed to tell Mrs. Foxworth.

  Oh, we never tell her anything, said Moody.

  We’ll be silent as the grave, added Bun.

  So I told them that my mother was a hippie who’d supposedly come down to New Orleans to study voodoo, and that we’d gone to a bunch of voodoo houses in the Quarter to try to find her, and that they’d all been a bunch of fakes, and that we were at a dead end.

  Suddenly the kitchen door swung open and there stood Mrs. Foxworth, clad in a frilly robe, her face slathered in white cold cream.

  That’s because you’ve been looking in all the wrong places, she declared, and then she swished into the kitchen.

  Moody and Bun shot to their feet.

  Can we get you anything, Mrs. Foxworth? asked Bun.

  Yes, please serve me a bowl of that crawfish gumbo, said Mrs. Foxworth, plumping herself down at the table next to me.

  Why didn’t you tell me the real reason you were here? Mrs. Foxworth asked me. Apparently I wasn’t the only expert behind-the-door eavesdropper in the house. I said that Aunt Constance thought she was an old-guard New Orleans grande dame and therefore might get upset if she knew that we were consorting with voodoo types in the Quarter.

  Child, you Lancasters have been piddling around with amateurs, Mrs. Foxworth informed me in between big bites of gumbo. If only you’d confided in me, she added. Then she finished her gumbo and announced:

  Tomorrow I will personally take you to Madame Flavie Batilde.

  Moody and Bun both gasped at the same time.

  You mean she’s still alive? asked Bun.

  Very much so, said Mrs. Foxworth. Then she told me that Madame Flavie Batilde was the most famous voodoo queen who’d ever lived in New Orleans and maybe even anywhere in the world. Then Moody added that Madame Batilde allowed so few people to see her that lots of folks didn’t even think she was a real person, just a made-up legend.