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Court of Two Sisters
Thirsty Work — Chapter 17: that’s not orange juice
Two young women from California travel to New Orleans in search of redemption after the death of their mother. Carolee thinks she will show her little sister the world, but what they find in the barrooms of the French Quarter at Mardi Gras is more than she knows how to handle, or could have imagined back home. This is the seventeenth chapter of the novel Thirsty Work.
I wasn’t sure I would let myself fall in love with Howard until he woke up the next morning with the same tender smile he’d taken to bed with us the night before. “Well look what I found under my pillow,” he said as he nuzzled into my neck. “This must be my lucky day.”
Then I stopped considering whether it was wise to fall in love. I forgot that I was supposed to be setting an example for my 16-year-old sister, that we were going back to California in just two weeks. I welcomed it. I courted it, drank it down like medicine. I didn’t merely love the words he used to entertain me, I loved the particular timbre of his voice, the pink vocal chords that shaped it, the red, smooth lips it flowed between. I loved the slightly yellow teeth.
“I have something for you,” he told me that morning, reaching into his bag and pulling out a clumsy necklace of brown, spotted beans. “These are ju ju…
