Chapter 2
A note appeared on Gambit's desk in the middle of English class. At the top of a sheet of notebook paper, Rogue had scribbled What's wrong? You're in a funk.
Gambit clicked some of the lead out of his pencil and scribbled back. Today's Mardi Gras. With all the grace of a lifetime of practice, he passed the note back to her without attracting anyone's notice.
So? Happy Mardi Gras. :-)
I forgot, though. How could I forget Mardi Gras? All the schools are closed down in N.O. today for the parades. It's a bigger deal than Christmas.
I remember. It was kinda the same way in Mississippi. And last Mardi Gras was fun. At least, until stuff started exploding.
That's the best part, chère.
:-P
;-)
So it's a homesick kinda day, huh? I'm sorry.
I'll get through it.
"Rogue."
Rogue sat bolt upright, crushing the note into a ball in her fist, and met the eyes of her rather annoyed English teacher.
"I wondered if you'd care to share your insights on the ending of the novel," said Ms. Welker, leaning back against her desk with a raised eyebrow. "What did you learn from it?"
Gambit could almost see Rogue's head twitch as her brain switched gears. "Was Ah supposed t'learn somethin' from it?"
Snickers around the room.
"That is why we read it," offered Ms. Welker.
"But what kinda useful information are we supposed t'get out of this?" demanded Rogue, gesturing contemptuously with the paperback volume that had been sitting on her desk. "I wouldn't cross the street to meet this Janie person. Ah mean, she spends the whole book runnin'
away with one man after another, and none of 'em are any good, and then what? She just goes home? She never does a thing for herself this whole book. And Tea Cake's s'posed t'be this great romantic guy, but he beats her! He beats her! And she's okay with that! So why are we wastin' our time talkin' about some stupid woman who didn't finish this book any smarter than she was when she started it? She didn't learn anything, so why should Ah?"
Silence reigned in the classroom for a long second. Gambit bit the insides of his cheeks to keep himself from smiling. He loved Rogue's tirades on literature. He'd thought that there couldn't be anything funnier than hearing her rant on the entire cast of Crime and Punishment, but that had been before she'd been dragged through Heart of Darkness and Their Eyes Were Watching God. He couldn't wait for The Grapes of Wrath.
When Ms. Welker spoke again, Gambit could see that she was fighting a smile, too. "Rogue, I think you've just found your topic for your final paper. Janie as an antifeminist figure. By the way, I hope you're all thinking about that paper. The end of term is a lot closer than you think it is, and I need a topic statement from every person in this class two weeks from today. Any questions?"
There were a few, which took up the time until the bell rang. As Gambit was shrugging back into his coat, he heard the teacher send Rogue one last parting jab. "Next time you pass notes, Rogue, you'd better be just as quick on your feet with an answer or you're winding up in detention. Got it?"
"Got it, ma'am."
"Looking forward to reading your paper."
"Not as much as I'm lookin' forward t'watchin her write it," Gambit quipped. Rogue smacked him across the shoulder.
"So you feelin' better now that you got tuh watch Ms. Welker bite my head off?" Rogue asked as they plunged into the seething mass of humanity fighting through the hallway.
"Little bit, yeah."
"Well, so glad Ah could brighten your day."
"Much appreciated."
"J'ai passé devant ta porte, j'ai crié bye-bye, ma belle, y'a personne qui m'a repondu, oh yé yaille, mon coeur fait mal . . ."
Gambit and Rogue had dish duty. Actually, it was just Gambit, but Rogue always helped him and he did the same for her. It was an excuse for him to pack yet more Cajun songs into her head. After almost six months of French class, Rogue still had a very limited vocabulary and could only conjugate three tenses, but she could now fill a decent-sized book with all the songs she knew.
"So the girl's dead, right?"
"Yeah."
"So it's a depressing song."
"Ouais."
"Y'all got any songs that ain't depressing?"
Gambit paused and thought about it. "I'm sure I'll think'a one. Pass dat fryin' pan. I t'ink I can fit it in along de side here."
Rogue passed the frying pan. Gambit made it fit in the lower rack of the dishwasher, added soap, and closed the door. "Finis."
"Done," Rogue translated.
"Bien," said Gambit, grinning. He grabbed the dish towel that hung on the handle of the oven door and wiped the water off his hands. "Comin' atcha," he called, flipping the towel behind his back so it went arcing over Rogue's head. She leapt into the air and grabbed for it, but it slipped through her fingers and landed in a heap on the floor.
Rogue flipped herself over and dove to the floor, as though she were reaching for a diving ring in a swimming pool, and picked up the towel. She was waiting for some crack about her clumsiness, but none came. She flipped back onto her feet, drying her hands as she spun.
Gambit was staring at the towel with a strange, faraway look on his face.
"What?" Rogue asked. "Gambit, you okay?"
He gave himself a little shake and came back to earth. "Yeah. Jus' . . . old bayou superstition is all."
"What's that?"
"Drop a dish towel, y'got company comin'."
Rogue looked at the towel, then back up at Gambit. "Y'all got superstitions about dish towels?"
"Yeah. Old silliness."
"Does it matter what kinda dish towel? Like a white one with blue stripes means it's gonna be a guy with a mohawk?"
"Not dat I ever heard. But de woman who taught me dat couldn'be surprised. Didn'matter what hour of de day or night y'showed up, she knew it."
"'Cause of dish towels."
"Who knows?" He shrugged, took the towel from her, and hung it back on the oven door. "Life's a strange ol'mess sometimes." He checked his wristwatch, then grabbed the phone from its cradle. "Still early. Bon. Go hurry up an' get changed."
"Changed into what?"
But Gambit was already out of the kitchen, striding across the hall to the living room where the rest of the household was dealing with homework.
"Kurt, call Amanda," he ordered, tossing Kurt the phone.
Kurt stared perplexedly at the phone, then at Gambit. "How come?"
"'Cause we goin' out t'night."
"Hey, man, you vant to go out with Amanda, you call her yourself."
"All of us. You, me, Kitty, Amanda, an' Rogue. I ain't stayin' inside doin' homework on Mardi Gras. Scott, borrow y'car?"
Scott didn't look up from his calculus book. "Pay for the gas you use, mind the paint, and if the police get involved, I'll tell them you stole it."
"Fair 'nough."
"Keys are hanging up by the door."
"Can we come?" asked Bobby.
"Y'eighteen?"
"No . . ."
"Non."
"Gambit," Kitty protested, scrambling to her feet to follow him out the door. "I'm not eighteen yet, either."
"Really?" asked Gambit, without interest. "Hurry an' get changed. We leavin' in ten."
"What is this place?" Rogue demanded as Gambit brought Scott's car to a stop in a parking place of questionable legality in downtown Manhattan.
"Next best t'ing t'N'Awlins dis side a'de Mason-Dixon," Gambit announced. He climbed out of the car and shoved his seat forward to let Kitty, Kurt, and Amanda out of the back.
They were parked across from a night club whose lights blazed like gaudy jewels in the February darkness. From inside, Rogue could hear a jumble of voices and laughter threatening to overwhelm the sound of a fiddle and an accordion. The name "Cajun" was emblazoned above the sunken door in cursive swirls of red neon.
The place was packed, and Rogue was immeasurably glad she'd decided to wear a cream long-sleeve under the less covering dark green top she'd picked out. In the dim light, the undershirt was almost indistinguishable from her pale skin, but she could maneuver through the crowd without worrying about hurting anyone.
"Wow," observed Kurt, taking in the long, dim room, the crowd of laughing people, the omnipresent strings of brightly-colored beads, the fantastic costumes, and the heady, jubilant energy of the unfamiliar music the band was playing. "You really know how to find a party. This is whack!"
"Yeah, Gambit," Amanda agreed. "This is amazing! Look at this place!"
Kitty came hurrying after them—she'd had to slip through the wall to avoid having her id checked at the door. "So cool," she agreed. "If anybody needs me, I'll be dancing."
"Come on, Kurt," Amanda ordered, pulling on his arm. "Come dance with me. And switch off that silly image inducer."
"Are you nuts?" Kurt demanded, wrapping his right hand protectively around the projector.
"Nobody's gonna notice! It's like Halloween in here! There's even a guy with three heads over by the bar." She grabbed his wrist and hit the 'off' button on his watch. The image of a skinny teenager in baggy pants fizzled away, leaving Kurt, blue, fuzzy, demonic, and very shy, standing exposed in the middle of the room. No one paid much attention.
"Go on; have fun," Gambit ordered him. "Just don'get too fancy. Stay off de ceilin'." He slipped an arm around Rogue's waist and pulled her gently against his side, content to let Kurt, Amanda, and Kitty wander off as long as she stayed to keep him company. Fearless Amanda dragged Kurt off to the dance floor, leaving the two southerners to themselves.
Remy looked down at Rogue and smiled. "Lemme buy you a drink?"
Rogue grinned. "Well, if y'insist."
They maneuvered over to the bar, where Rogue ordered a sweet tea (a southern indulgence she hadn't enjoyed since leaving Mississippi) and Gambit, after a glare and a reminder that he was driving, had Coke. They sipped their drinks in companionable silence for a while, Rogue swilling the ice in her glass to hear it chime.
"Three years ago, I stole a motorcycle," Gambit announced at length, his bright red eyes wandering back and forth across the room.
"Ah'm shocked. Ah might even faint."
"I got on de freeway an' just drove. I had a pack a' cards, a case a lockpicks, an' twelve dollars seventeen cents. But I had t'get outta New Orleans. I was sick'a de feuds, sick'a de humidity, an' most of all sick'a my father jerkin' me around 'cause I was savin' him a fortune in explosives. So I just drove away. Didn'care where, s'long as I never had t'come back. Funny how we stupid when we young."
"We're still pretty young."
"Don'much feel like it sometimes. Y'wake up some mornin's, and evert'ing y'used t'know is far, far away." He tossed down another swig of the Coke. "But not tonight. Tonight we young again. It's Mardi Gras. Everybody's welcome. Everybody's home. You kin smell it . . . all spices an' tobaccuh an heat an' bourbon. Just for t'night, I never left." He finished the Coke and set the glass on the bar with determined finality. "So c'mon. Finish dat an' come dance wid me."
Rogue tried to chug the last of the tea and choked on it, which was so funny that she laughed before her airway was clear and ended up choking more. Gambit hit her on the back, laughing. She set the glass down and permitted herself to be dragged toward the band. "Ah can't dance!" she protested, still laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Gambit ignored her, setting one of her hands on his shoulder and taking hold of the other. "You trust me?" he asked, settling his free hand on the curve of her waist. His blazing, dangerous eyes gazed down into hers, full of secrets and laughter.
Rogue smiled, feeling her heart pick up speed inside her chest. "You remember the first time we met?" she asked. "When you was workin' for Magneto?"
"Hard t'forget." He cocked his head sideways, a smile teasing across his face.
"You looked just exactly like that." She freed her hand and pointed to his face. "Same look."
His smile grew wider as he caught her hand again and settled it back into his. "I was t'inkin' den dat it was a cryin' shame Xavier was recruitin' all de pretty girls." He brought their joined hands up to her face and brushed the back of hers across her cheek, temple to jaw, never moving his gaze from hers.
Rogue wondered if she was still breathing. When he looked at her like that, it became very hard to think.
"You trust me?" he asked again.
Rogue nodded. There was nothing else she could have done.
"Den don't look away. Hang on tight t'me."
She felt her fingers grip more firmly on the shoulder of his coat. She couldn't have looked away from him if she'd tried.
And before she quite knew what had happened, she was dancing.
It was like flying, in a way: the same sudden thrill of freedom, banishing the sense of entrapment that haunted her every day. But it was different, too, shared in a way that flying could never quite be. Telepathy, she thought, had to be like this: knowing things about someone without knowing how you knew them. Remy was telling her how to move with subtle pressures of his hands and movements of his body, and without thinking about it she obeyed, never a step out of place.
He's right. Mardi Gras is magic.
They spun to a stop only as the music ended, and even then the room did a couple more turns around Rogue's head before it settled back down. There was a cheerful, chattering sound all around her, and after a few seconds of effort she identified it as applause. Remembering her manners, she let go of Remy and applauded, too, showing her appreciation for the band.
They'd ended up at the foot of the stage. Gambit was laughing at her. "Can y'dance now?"
"Ah don't think Ah can even stand up," Rogue answered, breathless. Remy caught her by the elbow to help her keep her balance.
"You always did have dat affect on women, Remy LeBeau."
Rogue and Gambit both looked up. The violinist, a broad-shouldered man with the scruffy beginnings of a beard all over his jaw, was smirking down at the pair of them.
Gambit's face lit up with delight. "Dieudonné Allain! Mais qu'est ce que c'est?"
"Eh bien, Remy, mon gar! On ne t'a pas vu depuis longtemps! Que fais-tu a New York? Bien, laisse tomber, je peut la voir. Pas mal, pas mal du tout." The violinist jumped down from the stage, grinning.
Gambit laughed. "Rogue, dis is Don Allain, from Lafayette. Friend of a friend of a friend depuis longtemps . . . since fo'ever. Donné, dis here's Rogue. Elle est à moi."
"Mam'selle." Don took Rogue's hand and bowed over it, almost but not quite touching his lips to her knuckles.
"Nice t'meet yeh," said Rogue, who had never had her hand bowed over before and had no idea of what else she aught to say.
Don's smile, if possible, got wider. "She's southern! If dat don'beat all. Only Remy LeBeau could find himself a pretty southern girl in New York City."
Her blush, which had been bad before, got worse. Remy laughed and wrapped his arm around her waist, supporting, comforting, and claiming her.
"So what're you doin' all de way up here?" he asked, unable to stop smiling any more than Rogue was able to stop blushing. "Last I heard, you were pretty swamped playin' weddin's all over de island."
"Eh, de group's been goin' big dese days. Two CDs already."
"C'est pas vrai."
" Mais si. And playin' de Cajun on Mardi Gras ain't somethin' y'turn down. We been tourin' up here de last couple months, but we flyin' home t'morrow. How 'bout you, dough? Time was y'couldn't round a corner in la ville wit'out one of de LeBeau boys gittin' after y'wallet just for kicks."
"'Time was' was a long time ago, mon ami. I'm goin' straight dese days."
"Mais non. You? Remy LeBeau a'de N'Awlins LeBeaus?"
Gambit nodded. "School an' everyt'ing."
"You're kiddin'."
"I ain't. Rogue's family done took me in an' settled me down. Well, mostly. Still smugglin' seventeen-year-olds int'clubs t'hear some good Cajun music."
"She's seventeen? F'shame, Remy."
"Not dis'un. De brunette in de ponytail. Tu vois? De one up t'her ears in beads?"
Rogue twisted around to look. Kitty, taking advantage of the pause in the music to chatter animatedly to the good-looking boy she'd been dancing with, had at least ten strings of Mardi Gras beads around her neck. Rogue groaned. Don and Gambit laughed.
"Well, chaque pied trouve son numero de souleir, like Memere said. Never thought I'd see de likes a'you turnin' respectable, but if it suits yeh, I'm glad."
"Merci, Don. An'y'have a good flight back t'morrow. Say hello t'la ville fo'me, will yeh?"
"I sure will do dat. An'I'll tell y'family I saw yeh, if I happen across 'em."
Gambit's grin finally faded. "If y'happen across Bobby, I'd thank y'for it, but bringin' up my name wid Jean-Luc ain't gonna get y'invited t'stay for dinner. Dey's some bad blood dere."
"Well, I'm sure sorry t'hear dat. Here's hopin' it blows over real soon."
"Much appreciated."
Don glanced up at the stage behind him. "Gotta get back. Anyt'in' y'wouldn't mind hearin'? Joli Blon, mebbe?"
Gambit grimaced. "Non, not dat one. How 'bout Devant ta Porte?"
"Done." Don swung back up onto the stage, conferred for a moment with the other members of his band, then struck up the same song Gambit had been singing over the dishes earlier in the evening.
"Wow," Rogue observed. "You were right about that dish towel."
Gambit shook his head. "Was you who dropped it." He glanced over her head at Kitty. "Somebody should 'splain t'her about dem beads."
Rogue winced at the thought. "She's just gonna die."
"Y'right. Mebbe we better wait 'till we kin find a camera. Don'wanna miss de look on her face."
"You're so mean."
"Ouais. I'll be sorry in de mornin'."
"You bet you will."
Author's Notes:
Rogue and Gambit's English curriculum is made up of every book I had to read in high school that I truly and passionately hated. Her feelings on Their Eyes Were Watching God are my own.
Bien: Well done.
The first verse of Devant ta Porte translates to: 'I passed by your door, I cried 'Good-bye, my love,' but no one answered, oh how my heart hurts.' It sounds better in French. It's also a lot of fun to dance to.
Bon: Good.
The Cajun was a Manhattan night club and restaurant that was known for its live musical performances by some of the best jazz and Cajun musicians in the country. It has been closed for many years now. Sad day. :-(
Mais qu'est ce que c'est? What the heck ?
"Eh bien, Remy, mon gar! On ne t'a pas vu depuis longtemps! Que fais-tu a New York? Bien, laisse tomber, je peut la voir. Pas mal, pas mal du tout." Becomes as follows: "Hey, Remy, man! Haven't seen you in forever ! What are you doing in New York ? Well, never mind, I can see her. Not bad, not bad at all."
Elle est à moi: She is mine; she is of me; she belongs to me.
C'est pas vrai: It's not true; no way.
Mais si: But yes, it is true.
La ville: literally 'the city.' In southern Louisiana it refers specifically to New Orleans.
Mon ami: my friend.
Mais non: see 'C'est pas vrai.'
Tu vois?: You see?
Chaque pied trouve son numero de souleir : Every foot finds its shoe size. A Cajun aphorism meaning 'everyone finds his place in the world.'
Merci: Thank you.
Joli Blon: We'll be coming back to this one. Just tuck it in the back of your brain for right now.
Oh, and Mardi Gras beads are traditionally showered upon women who flash the crowd during the madness that is Mardi Gras in the French Quarter.
