The Beau & the Belle
Page 27
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It’s so smooth, I don’t even have time to protest before we’re out there together, joining the other couples. One of my hands drops to his arm and the other gets wrapped in his warm palm. I’m so used to dragging men around the dance floor tonight that it takes me a second to settle into dancing with Beau. This is what it’s supposed to be like. I feel feminine and soft, pliant. He leads so confidently. For the first time all night, I can relax and focus on the moment, on the feel of Beau’s body humming so close to mine. We’ve been here before, but back then in my parents’ kitchen, we kept a safe distance. Our hips never brushed like they do now. His hand didn’t wrap around my waist with a possessive grip. This is how I wanted to be touched all those years ago, and it’s making me lightheaded to feel it now. Maybe it’s better this way. At 27, I can barely handle this feeling. At 17, I’d have gone comatose.
We spin around the dance floor and my cheeks are starting to ache from smiling. Even in the moment I know to collect the little pieces of mental confetti, to assemble the mosaic I’ll want to remember later. His hand is so strong, warm and slightly calloused. It feels like a man’s hand, and I wonder what it would feel like if he touched me elsewhere—across the nape of my neck, down my back, beneath my dress.
After that thought, I can’t meet his eyes for the remainder of the dance. Instead, I pin my gaze on his bowtie, on the stiff, shiny material that sits perfectly centered on his broad chest…the chest that sometimes brushes mine as we move gracefully. We’re so close, closer than the dance calls for. Our feet should be catching. My skirt should be tangling between us, but we move fluidly across the floor. Beau spins me out and back in, drawing me to his chest. I fall in love instantly.
“You’re good,” Beau says, leaning down to whisper the words against the shell of my ear. “You must have had an excellent teacher.”
I blush and turn away, praying he can’t see my cheeks in the moody light cast over the dance floor. I want to come up with one of my trademark quick, witty replies, but I’m suddenly tongue-tied, paralyzed by the irrational need to impress him, to make a good second-first impression. I’m grown up now. I’m confident, a New Yorker—yet around Beau, I’ve reverted back to a child, small and meek. Can he tell how nervous I am?
I flush thinking back on the day I kissed him in the apartment, all those teenage emotions boiling up inside me. He could have wrung them out of me like a sponge. It’s embarrassing. I practically threw myself at him—not practically, I DID! I’ve never made such a fool of myself, not even when I marched across the room and tried to dance with Preston during cotillion practice.
It went something like this:
Teenage Lauren kisses Beau.
Beau doesn’t kiss Teenage Lauren.
Beau flings Teenage Lauren off like a cockroach and stares down at her, horrified.
Teenage Lauren thinks maybe there’s still hope? Maybe I need to kiss him better and then he’ll love me?
No, Teenage Lauren. No.
That moment is nightmare-inducing. Even now, my stomach twists into a tight knot.
He rejected me back then, and now look: he’s been back for .5 seconds and I’m dreaming about what it would be like if his hand were between my thighs. I want to buy a bottle of his cologne and douse my pillow. I’ve thought of how we’ll pose for our first Christmas card. It’ll be perfect yet candid, as if we routinely dress up in rustic clothing, wear stylish hats, and cling to each other on mossy woodland logs. We’ll be smiling and laughing. People will tear open the envelope and find themselves inexplicably belting out Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All”.
I need to get a grip.
The music starts to slow down and I’m grateful for the chance to step away from him and regain some composure. I should probably find an exterior door and poke my head out, douse my lungs with some of the cold winter air.
“I’d love to hear about what you’re doing now that you’re back in the city,” he says as he leads me off the dance floor with a palm pressed to the small of my back.
He’s all business.
I probably just imagined we were dancing so intimately.
He turns us so we’re tucked back into the crowd. My eyes skate up to his face. Painfully handsome. Those blue eyes rimmed with the darkest charcoal lashes. How could I forget how handsome he is? No—I never did. In 10 years, I never once forgot what his face does to me, what those perfectly sculpted features can do if only I let myself think about them. My blinders might have been up in New York, but Beau Fortier still snuck right on through. My hand was his hand slipping down into my panties more times than I care to admit. There isn’t a fantasy that takes place in or around my parents’ house that I haven’t exhausted:
Beau and I have sex in his apartment.
We get it on in my old room.
We make love against the side of the pool.
I looked it up one time, and apparently having sex in a swimming pool isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, although I couldn’t read too much about it—Rose interrupted my research and I had to whip my laptop closed so fast, the screen cracked.
“Lauren?” Beau’s trying to get my attention, but I can’t help but laugh.
“I gotta go.”
He frowns. “What?”
Yup. I have to leave—inmediatamente.
I’m Cinderella and the clock is about the strike midnight. I thought I could do this, but now I realize time hasn’t tempered my feelings for Beau. I might have grown up, gone off to college, conquered New York City, but when it comes to him…
I’m still the same emotional teenage girl I always was.
MARDI GRAS IS more about traditions than anything else, some of them better known than others. There are, of course, the beads and boobs accompanying the bedlam on Bourbon Street, but Carnival season and Mardi Gras is so much more than that: krewes, parades, masked balls, doubloons. For a few weeks, the city is painted in purple, green, and gold. Every citizen in New Orleans celebrates Mardi Gras in one way or another, and I look forward to this time of year more than anything else.
However, there’s one tradition that reigns over all the others, one I look forward to the most: king cake. The simple, old-school version is made of Danish dough braided with cinnamon and sugar inside, doused in white icing, and coated in colored sugar. It’s my favorite dessert and I refuse to eat it outside of Carnival season. Every bakery in New Orleans puts its own special twist on it. Marguerite’s Cakes does a Boston Cream Bavarian version. Mr. Ronnie’s deep-fries theirs. Cannata’s has over 60 versions, including snickerdoodle, strawberry cream cheese, and pecan praline, to name a few. I think people who veer from the traditional cake need to check themselves before they…well, you know the rest. There is one version in this entire city that matters, and it’s the original king cake they make at Manny Randazzo, A.K.A. Manny’s. Their recipe is time-tested and a fan favorite. Every morning during Carnival season, there’s a line wrapped around the building, and their cakes are more than worth the wait.
I went yesterday with Rose. We stood shivering in the cold. I lost feeling in my toes, but gained that Mardi Gras feeling in my heart. Actually, that could have been the two cakes I came out with prematurely clogging my coronary arteries. Rose bought four to take back with her to Boston; I thought she was overdoing it. I told her she could get more when she came back down for NOLA’s soft opening, and she told me to watch my damn mouth and mind my own business. Yeah, we both take king cake pretty seriously.
This morning, I’m enjoying a slice with my morning coffee at my parents’ house. I’m allowed to eat cake for breakfast during Carnival season—why do you think I look forward to this time of year, people? It ain’t for the beads.
“Found the baby yet?” my mom asks when she steps into the kitchen.
“No.”
Each cake comes with a tiny plastic baby baked inside that’s supposed to symbolize baby Jesus (though why we’re baking him into cakes, I’m not sure—I mean, hasn’t the little guy been through enough?). Whoever finds it in their slice of cake is usually tasked with something. At my dad’s work, the person who finds the baby has to bring cake for the staff the following week. When I was little, if you found the baby at a king cake party (an excuse for parents to get together, drink, and eat cake), you were crowned the king or queen of the party. It was a role coveted above all else. I used to hunt down baby Jesus like a little Roman bounty hunter.
We spin around the dance floor and my cheeks are starting to ache from smiling. Even in the moment I know to collect the little pieces of mental confetti, to assemble the mosaic I’ll want to remember later. His hand is so strong, warm and slightly calloused. It feels like a man’s hand, and I wonder what it would feel like if he touched me elsewhere—across the nape of my neck, down my back, beneath my dress.
After that thought, I can’t meet his eyes for the remainder of the dance. Instead, I pin my gaze on his bowtie, on the stiff, shiny material that sits perfectly centered on his broad chest…the chest that sometimes brushes mine as we move gracefully. We’re so close, closer than the dance calls for. Our feet should be catching. My skirt should be tangling between us, but we move fluidly across the floor. Beau spins me out and back in, drawing me to his chest. I fall in love instantly.
“You’re good,” Beau says, leaning down to whisper the words against the shell of my ear. “You must have had an excellent teacher.”
I blush and turn away, praying he can’t see my cheeks in the moody light cast over the dance floor. I want to come up with one of my trademark quick, witty replies, but I’m suddenly tongue-tied, paralyzed by the irrational need to impress him, to make a good second-first impression. I’m grown up now. I’m confident, a New Yorker—yet around Beau, I’ve reverted back to a child, small and meek. Can he tell how nervous I am?
I flush thinking back on the day I kissed him in the apartment, all those teenage emotions boiling up inside me. He could have wrung them out of me like a sponge. It’s embarrassing. I practically threw myself at him—not practically, I DID! I’ve never made such a fool of myself, not even when I marched across the room and tried to dance with Preston during cotillion practice.
It went something like this:
Teenage Lauren kisses Beau.
Beau doesn’t kiss Teenage Lauren.
Beau flings Teenage Lauren off like a cockroach and stares down at her, horrified.
Teenage Lauren thinks maybe there’s still hope? Maybe I need to kiss him better and then he’ll love me?
No, Teenage Lauren. No.
That moment is nightmare-inducing. Even now, my stomach twists into a tight knot.
He rejected me back then, and now look: he’s been back for .5 seconds and I’m dreaming about what it would be like if his hand were between my thighs. I want to buy a bottle of his cologne and douse my pillow. I’ve thought of how we’ll pose for our first Christmas card. It’ll be perfect yet candid, as if we routinely dress up in rustic clothing, wear stylish hats, and cling to each other on mossy woodland logs. We’ll be smiling and laughing. People will tear open the envelope and find themselves inexplicably belting out Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All”.
I need to get a grip.
The music starts to slow down and I’m grateful for the chance to step away from him and regain some composure. I should probably find an exterior door and poke my head out, douse my lungs with some of the cold winter air.
“I’d love to hear about what you’re doing now that you’re back in the city,” he says as he leads me off the dance floor with a palm pressed to the small of my back.
He’s all business.
I probably just imagined we were dancing so intimately.
He turns us so we’re tucked back into the crowd. My eyes skate up to his face. Painfully handsome. Those blue eyes rimmed with the darkest charcoal lashes. How could I forget how handsome he is? No—I never did. In 10 years, I never once forgot what his face does to me, what those perfectly sculpted features can do if only I let myself think about them. My blinders might have been up in New York, but Beau Fortier still snuck right on through. My hand was his hand slipping down into my panties more times than I care to admit. There isn’t a fantasy that takes place in or around my parents’ house that I haven’t exhausted:
Beau and I have sex in his apartment.
We get it on in my old room.
We make love against the side of the pool.
I looked it up one time, and apparently having sex in a swimming pool isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, although I couldn’t read too much about it—Rose interrupted my research and I had to whip my laptop closed so fast, the screen cracked.
“Lauren?” Beau’s trying to get my attention, but I can’t help but laugh.
“I gotta go.”
He frowns. “What?”
Yup. I have to leave—inmediatamente.
I’m Cinderella and the clock is about the strike midnight. I thought I could do this, but now I realize time hasn’t tempered my feelings for Beau. I might have grown up, gone off to college, conquered New York City, but when it comes to him…
I’m still the same emotional teenage girl I always was.
MARDI GRAS IS more about traditions than anything else, some of them better known than others. There are, of course, the beads and boobs accompanying the bedlam on Bourbon Street, but Carnival season and Mardi Gras is so much more than that: krewes, parades, masked balls, doubloons. For a few weeks, the city is painted in purple, green, and gold. Every citizen in New Orleans celebrates Mardi Gras in one way or another, and I look forward to this time of year more than anything else.
However, there’s one tradition that reigns over all the others, one I look forward to the most: king cake. The simple, old-school version is made of Danish dough braided with cinnamon and sugar inside, doused in white icing, and coated in colored sugar. It’s my favorite dessert and I refuse to eat it outside of Carnival season. Every bakery in New Orleans puts its own special twist on it. Marguerite’s Cakes does a Boston Cream Bavarian version. Mr. Ronnie’s deep-fries theirs. Cannata’s has over 60 versions, including snickerdoodle, strawberry cream cheese, and pecan praline, to name a few. I think people who veer from the traditional cake need to check themselves before they…well, you know the rest. There is one version in this entire city that matters, and it’s the original king cake they make at Manny Randazzo, A.K.A. Manny’s. Their recipe is time-tested and a fan favorite. Every morning during Carnival season, there’s a line wrapped around the building, and their cakes are more than worth the wait.
I went yesterday with Rose. We stood shivering in the cold. I lost feeling in my toes, but gained that Mardi Gras feeling in my heart. Actually, that could have been the two cakes I came out with prematurely clogging my coronary arteries. Rose bought four to take back with her to Boston; I thought she was overdoing it. I told her she could get more when she came back down for NOLA’s soft opening, and she told me to watch my damn mouth and mind my own business. Yeah, we both take king cake pretty seriously.
This morning, I’m enjoying a slice with my morning coffee at my parents’ house. I’m allowed to eat cake for breakfast during Carnival season—why do you think I look forward to this time of year, people? It ain’t for the beads.
“Found the baby yet?” my mom asks when she steps into the kitchen.
“No.”
Each cake comes with a tiny plastic baby baked inside that’s supposed to symbolize baby Jesus (though why we’re baking him into cakes, I’m not sure—I mean, hasn’t the little guy been through enough?). Whoever finds it in their slice of cake is usually tasked with something. At my dad’s work, the person who finds the baby has to bring cake for the staff the following week. When I was little, if you found the baby at a king cake party (an excuse for parents to get together, drink, and eat cake), you were crowned the king or queen of the party. It was a role coveted above all else. I used to hunt down baby Jesus like a little Roman bounty hunter.
