Thursday, May 6, 1999

The phone rang at seven tonight, and it was Edwin, and it isn't Sunday. My heart went straight into my shoes. In my experience a phone call on the wrong day is never good news.

This one was. He said, "I looked at the calendar. How about Labor Day weekend?" He'll drive over Friday after work and go back on Monday. He asked if I had room. I said I'd make room. I have two rooms. I'd sleep in the bathtub.

After I hung up I walked down to Decatur Street and told Joyce, who was closing up, and she came around the counter and hugged me in front of a whole family from Japan who were buying pralines. They clapped. I don't think they knew what for, but they had the right idea.

Jazz Fest is over and the town is catching its breath. Dolly is sixteen this spring and the boss has started giving her an extra day off a week. She's earned it. I take Hank that day, and Hank and I have an understanding now about tubas.

Tours: 9 · Tips: $77 · Dolly: day off, eating, by all reports

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Sunday, March 14, 1999

Edwin turned twenty-eight on Tuesday. I called him that night, which was the first time I've been the one to call since all this started. He sounded glad.

I turned fifty-four on the second. Joyce made a doberge cake, which is a New Orleans thing, about eight thin layers of cake with custard in between and frosting all over. She says her mother made one for every birthday in the family for forty years and she wasn't going to let a man turn fifty-four without one. I ate three pieces. It was like eating a pillow made of chocolate.

Tonight on the phone I asked him. I said, "Edwin, I'd like it if you'd come see me. See the Square, meet Dolly, meet Joyce. Whenever you want. No pressure on it."

There was a long quiet on the line. Long enough I could hear his television in the background. Then he said, "Let me think about it, Dad."

That's fair. That's more than fair. He waited on me for three years. He can take a while to think.

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Wednesday, February 17, 1999

Ash Wednesday. My third Mardi Gras, Joyce's balcony again, the costumes again. This year I saw two men dressed as the front half and back half of a mule, and I'm sorry to report they were not as good as the real thing. The back half kept wandering off.

On Sunday night's call I told Edwin all about Mardi Gras, and he said he's never been. He grew up eighty miles from here and he has never once seen a Mardi Gras parade. I always meant to take him. Every year there was a reason. Usually the reason was a shift schedule.

He said, "Maybe next year." I wrote that on a piece of paper and stuck it on my refrigerator. Maybe next year.

Tours: 5 · Tips: $31 · Dolly: tired, like the rest of the city

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Saturday, January 23, 1999

Slow week. January always is. So here's something people have written in and asked for: the tour, the way I give it, around the Square. Everything in it I've checked at the library at least twice. If you find something wrong, write me, and I'll check it a third time.

"Folks, we're sitting on Decatur Street, and in front of you is Jackson Square. In the old days it was the Place d'Armes, the parade ground, where the soldiers drilled. It got its new name after Andrew Jackson beat the British here in 1815. That's him in the middle on the horse, and you'll notice the horse is up on its back legs. There's one just like it in Washington and another in Nashville, all made by the same man, Clark Mills.

"Straight ahead is the St. Louis Cathedral. There's been a church on that spot since the 1720s. Most of the building you're looking at went up around 1850. On your left is the Cabildo. The Spanish built it in the 1790s as their town hall, and in 1803 that's the building where Louisiana was handed over to the United States. It burned in 1988, the top of it anyway, and they fixed it back the way it was. On your right is the Presbytère. It was built to match the Cabildo and meant for the priests, but it ended up a courthouse instead.

"Now, they call this the French Quarter, but most of what you'll see today is Spanish or newer, because the city burned in 1788 and again in 1794, and most of it went up again under the Spanish. So if you ever want to start an argument in this town, call it the Spanish Quarter.

"And those long red brick buildings on both sides of the Square, with the iron galleries, are the Pontalba Buildings. Look up in the railings and you'll find the letters A and P..."

And then I tell about the Baroness, the way I told it in 1996, and I don't add a thing, because it doesn't need it.

Then I say, "And this is Dolly, and she's the only one on this Square who's never told you a lie." That one gets a laugh every time, and it's true.

Tours: 4 · Tips: $27 · Dolly: in her blanket again, philosophical

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