Chương 40

The museum program passed without incident and with very little life in it. The director gave a polished welcome, the selected young delegates kept to their prepared remarks, and the presentation proceeded from preservation to music to continuity like a formal briefing. Louis and Angelique sat where they had been placed, answered when required, and allowed themselves to be photographed in exactly the combinations the schedule demanded.

Gladice did her part too, making crude jokes that drew a few startled laughs from the museum staff. By the time they were led out through a side corridor toward the private luncheon, Louis felt not relieved but dulled. The whole event had survived by becoming smaller than itself. They were taken to a side chamber off the museum's administrative wing. It had been decorated for the luncheon, but the effort could not hide its usual purpose.

A long table had been set beneath framed black-and-white photographs of horn players and second lines. Someone had tried to bring New Orleans into the room with crystal bowls of citrus, pitchers of iced tea, and a cold platter of shrimp and crab salad beside the rolls. The guest list had been reduced as well. Two museum trustees. A youth education coordinator. A woman from the city's arts foundation.

A saxophonist who had evidently been meant to represent the living line between old music and the young, though now he looked like a man whose name was needed to complete the seating chart. Louis sat where he was placed, beside Angelique and opposite Gladice. The lunch began. The coordinator spoke first about outreach programs in the wards. The arts foundation representative added something about preservation partnerships.

When prompted, the saxophonist said a few words about children needing to hear the city before they were old enough to understand it. Louis could taste the shrimp, vinaigrette, lemon, and pepper, but the meal itself left no impression. Angelique ate very little, but she handled the meal with enough care to remain polite. To his irritation, Gladice appeared genuinely hungry despite the tedious formality around them. She tried everything and listened without interrupting.

The longer the officials spoke, the less she needed to ask. The museum trustee on Louis's right was discussing educational continuity when she made the mistake of sounding sincere.

"It's been a difficult twelve hours for everyone," she said, avoiding his eyes.

"But I do hope the city still has a chance to show you something of itself while you're here." Angelique answered before Louis had to.

"It already has," she said.

"Quite a lot, in fact." The woman smiled without answering. Across the table, Gladice lowered her glass.

"New Orleans is always most itself when it's least trying." She smiled at Angelique.

"Don't you find that to be true, Angel?" Angelique met her eyes.

"I think the city prefers to make its own impressions." Gladice inclined her head.

"It does. Especially when officials stop trying to control it." The saxophonist gave a short, uncomfortable laugh and glanced at Gladice before looking away. The coordinator responded by repeating the importance of the museum as a venue. Gladice nodded and reached for her glass again. The museum trustee turned to Angelique next.

"I hope the city has not disappointed you." Angelique looked up from her plate.

"No," she said.

"Only some of the people in it." The woman looked at Angelique, opened her mouth, then closed it again. Louis stopped trying to look agreeable. The trustee gave a polite smile and took a sip of tea. Servers brought the second course in silence: slices of roast chicken over chilled vegetables, beans dressed in oil and herbs, and a small bowl of pickled okra near the center of the table. Gladice turned to Louis.

"So tell me, Louis," she said, lifting her fork, "have you had the chance to learn anything useful about New Orleans yet?" He met her eyes. Around the table, the other conversations had stopped. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

"Apparently," he said, keeping his voice even, "the city has strong opinions about how I conduct my private life." Gladice gave a short laugh.

"That sounds familiar. You see, Angel," she said, "he is learning something after all." Angelique did not look at either of them. She nudged a piece of chicken with her fork.

"I hope it's a useful lesson." Gladice leaned toward her.

"Oh, I think it is. After all, New Orleans is nothing if not educational about the price of public attention." No one answered. The coordinator cleared her throat and returned to the subject of after-school music programs. Louis listened without joining in. Angelique answered the next questions politely. She smiled when courtesy required it and gave no one an opening for another personal question. Then she glanced at Louis's plate. Without looking at him, she lowered her voice.

"You should finish your plate. It will be noticed." He looked down and realized he had been moving the same piece of chicken around his plate. He cut into it and began to eat. It was not bad after all. His family's chef would have added more black pepper. Maybe the chicken's breed in New Orleans was different from those in California? He was not sure. Maybe it was imported from France. Poulet de Bresse, that would be the name.

His thoughts wandered until the youth education coordinator resumed his remarks on city-school partnerships. The museum trustee beside Louis asked him a question about memory curricula in the Dominion. He gave the answer he had been trained to give: formal, general, and free of anything personal. Angelique answered a question about language and continuity in equally formal terms, speaking of exile as discipline rather than sorrow. The guests accepted both answers without further questions.

By dessert, several guests had relaxed in their chairs, but the conversation remained formal. Servers brought pralines, lemon tarts, and thin biscuits. The service had become quieter and less ceremonial. It was no longer a meal so much as a pause before the next public appearance. Gladice watched Louis and Angelique from across the table. When the coffee came, she added cream to hers and said, "I must say, this has been an illuminating lunch.

I had no idea the museum could be so efficiently reduced to a windowless conference room." She smiled.

"It almost makes me nostalgic for the mess hall at the Oklahoma border post. At least there we could see the sky." The saxophonist laughed. The coordinator did not. The trustee smiled briefly and said, "We're fortunate the museum can be flexible."

"Of course," Gladice agreed.

"Flexibility is what we all admire most in our public spaces." Louis set down his fork. Food remained on his plate, but eating had begun to feel like compliance. He drank water instead and looked around the table. A museum aide entered and bent toward one of the New Orleans Defense officers by the door. The officer listened, nodded, and crossed the room to speak quietly to another man outside the doorway. Gladice turned to watch him cross the room.

"Have they changed it again?" she asked. The local liaison stepped in with a folder under one arm and spoke without opening it.

"We'll be departing in six minutes. The protest outside is escalating. We'll use the internal route and load in smaller sequence." Gladice glanced at her plate.

"So much for a moment of peace." The liaison looked from Angelique to Louis.

"The vehicles will be staged on the service side. Please be ready to move directly." Gladice set down her cup.

"You mean we're sneaking out through the kitchens."

"If you prefer to think of it that way, Sergeant Simington."

"Of course I prefer to think of it that way," she replied, standing.

"It's the only honest part of the day." Around the table, people pushed back their chairs and set their napkins beside half-finished plates. No one tried to prolong the luncheon. Everyone had eaten, listened, and remained polite. Louis was less certain what any of it had accomplished. Louis stood when Angelique did. He started after her, and she slowed enough for him to come alongside without looking back. Gladice came around the table, smoothed her skirt, and took her place on Angelique's other side.

"Well," she said, glancing toward the doorway as the security officers gathered there, "I hope they left the garbage bins uncovered. I'd hate to miss the full experience."

"Focus on not getting grease on your dress." Angelique rolled her eyes. Gladice laughed under her breath.

"Angel, darling, I'm never the one who stains things in this city. That's the boys' job."

"Shut up," Louis said under his breath. She turned her head.

"Oh, he speaks. I was beginning to wonder if you'd been replaced by a very quiet wax figure." One of Constantine's security men was waiting at the door. He spoke briefly with the local officers, who moved aside without comment. The officers led them into a narrower corridor lined with office doors and framed posters from past exhibitions.

"I need to pee," Gladice said when they reached a wider junction with a restroom sign.

"You go on ahead. I'll catch up." The officer from the Dominion team said, "We'll wait." Gladice looked at him.

"I know the way back, thank you. I'm not a child." The officer did not argue. Gladice headed toward the restroom, and the others continued without her. Louis and Angelique walked in silence, their escort spread ahead and behind. Farther from the public galleries, there was little to distinguish the corridors from those of any office building. They turned left past a supply closet, then right into a short passage. A fire exit at the end of the corridor had already been propped open.

Beyond it was a cooler service passage that smelled faintly of metal and concrete. It led toward the loading area and staff exits. The city, like the day itself, had been reduced again to what it used when no one was supposed to be looking.