The Many Lies of Zoey

By Tom Yarborough

Told by first-person narrator Sam Mirabeau who is obsessed with the enigma girl, the pet name he has given his sister Zoey, the story is a blend of character-driven literary and historical fiction that explores the power of sibling bonds and the slipperiness of infatuation. Sam is the consummate career State Department diplomat with a dark secret, and Zoey is the free-spirited, no-boundaries, gold-digging femme fatale who constantly tests her brother’s patience, ethics, and morality. Sam doesn’t know if Zoey is wicked or admirable—her unpredictable antics and flamboyant behavior constantly spawn ethical crises for them both.

This family saga also takes readers on a behind-the-scenes journey through actual international events of the 1970s-1990s: Vietnam, the evacuation of the American Embassy in Cambodia, terrorist plots in France and Cameroon, refugee camps in Thailand, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Nazi-hunting in Spain. As Sam's State Department career progresses, the siblings’ paths continue to cross and intertwine. The inseparable ties between Sam and Zoey endure for years, surviving marriages happy and troubled, unrequited loves and unspoken longings, hard-won successes and devastating setbacks.

Will Sam ever learn who his sister really is? Zoey becomes for Sam what Moby Dick was to Captain Ahab: the object of an obsessive, destructive quest. Framed against oddball juxtapositions and quirky events, Sam and Zoey may well form a literary paradigm for co-dependencies, with nearly all the positive and negative consequences such relationships entail.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adelaide Books Publishers
• Release date: Apr 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781952570247

Tom Yarborough

A native of Louisiana, Tom Yarborough is currently a military historian/author. A decorated Air Force combat pilot, he also served tours as the air attaché at the American Embassy in Bangkok, and as liaison officer to the State Department in Washington, DC. After leaving the Air Force he was a professor and department chair at Indiana University and history professor at Northern Virginia Community College. He now lives in West Springfield, Virginia, where he maintains ties to the academic community by lecturing and writing articles for various scholarly journals. His writing background includes the books Da Nang Diary, winner of the Military Writers Society of America Gold Medal for best memoir of 2014, and A Shau Valor, a finalist for the 2016 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award. He has also written numerous featured articles published in WWII History, Journal of American History, Vietnam, Aviation History, and The Supreme Court Historical Society Quarterly.

Book preview

It all seems so ridiculous, Zoey told me over the phone. New Orleans has skated through dozens of hurricanes, and we’ve never evacuated before. Sam, do you really think I need to get out of Dodge?

I told you I do.

Well, nobody else seems to think that, she said dismissively. You’re just preaching gloom and doom because you’re a pissant big brother who enjoys bossing me around. Just remember, Sam Mirabeau, you’re a thousand miles away, and I’m a better judge of the situation here than you are.

Listen Zoey. You need to evacuate while there’s still time. There’s a category 5 storm bearing down on you, and this time it’s serious—deadly serious. From experience I knew she wouldn’t listen.

She didn’t, and it resulted in a world turned upside down. As Hurricane Katrina churned its way through the Gulf of Mexico taking deadly aim at my hometown, I sat in my office in the Aspen Institute on Dupont Circle in Washington, DC, glued to my television watching and agonizing about the fate of New Orleans—the fate of my sister. I called Zoey half a dozen more times to plead with her to evacuate, but all I got was an irritating phone company automated message: All circuits are busy now. Please try your call again later. I hoped and prayed she had the good sense to get out of harm’s way.

Throughout that surreal nightmare over the next week, worrisome thoughts about Zoey cut through my brain like a dull knife, aggravated by the terrible scenes playing out on television each day. What might have happened to her?

Diverting my anxious thoughts away from Katrina and its aftermath only worked up to a point—there was no escaping the devastating TV images. The day after Katrina struck as a Category 3 storm, three major levee breeches occurred, flooding eighty percent of New Orleans, all captured by news helicopters circling overhead. The emergency forced many people who had not been able to evacuate to retreat into their attics as the water rose ten feet high, forcing them to break through their own roofs using nothing but kitchen utensils. These stranded souls waved desperately to the passing helicopters, pleading for rescue, but nobody came. Yet President George Bush praised Michael Brown and FEMA by stating, Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job.

More than 25,000 New Orleanians crowded into the Superdome for shelter where there was no organization, no phones, no electricity, no food or fresh water—only clogged, overflowing toilets. Mostly they experienced a terrible sense of feeling abandoned. With nothing to eat or drink, residents resorted to looting grocery stores. By Wednesday, gangs of armed thugs roamed the city, breaking into hospitals to steal drugs and robbing people on the street. The only early rescue efforts came in the form of a few private citizens cruising the flooded neighborhoods in shallow-bottomed boats, saving hundreds of lives during that appalling week.

From the pictures and news reports, it seemed my hometown had plunged into a state of anarchy. Along with half the world I cringed when New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin in an interview with NBC’s Today Show predicted the death toll could reach 10,000. I also recoiled with disgust when several arrogant, self-righteous televangelist preachers proclaimed that this calamity was God’s way of punishing New Orleans for being a wicked, sinful city. Sitting there watching in shock, I kept thinking, how could this be happening? This is the United States of America, for God’s sake, not some backward third-world country! Where is the plan? Where are the rescue forces? Where is FEMA? Where is my sister?

Trying desperately to block out those horrific thoughts about Katrina, I eventually pulled out my confidential journal, my German Leuchtturn 1954 Diary. Inside, I read and re-read entries about Zoey, including a hand-written note she had given me in Barcelona several years earlier. In it she wrote, "I found this mindboggling story about the infamous angel rebellion from the Book of Revelation. I can’t string words together like you can, so I wrote a few passages down because they describe how I feel about you, about us. Not only are we like soulmates for life, we’re also like a pair of angels who’ve been rescued from the fall."

Rescued from the fall indeed! Leafing through the earlier pages of my diary, I ran across a particularly poignant passage about my relationship with Zoey—a teenage epiphany, no less—dated July 26, 1959:

Unbelievable! Yesterday a watershed event occurred in my own house as I lugged some folding chairs to a back closet. As I walked down the hallway, for a split-second I got a peek through the partially opened bathroom door. There, drying off with a towel was a very naked Zoey!

Now I’m not a lust-monger, but the hormonal surges of any teenage boy demand he know as much about female anatomy as he legally can, and since there is not enough time in one boy’s life to learn all there is to know, he had better study when the opportunity presents itself. So in that brief God-ordained moment I leered at my own sister. That was the first time I could remember ever having seen a live, naked female, and I trembled as I walked into the backyard, reliving that instant when I had caught that life-altering glimpse of Zoey. It was as if I had died and gone to Heaven, although I knew that I probably shouldn’t have felt that way.

Then there was Father Valentini’s catechism class just this morning. I could have sworn that old coot was looking directly at me when he quoted Leviticus 20:17. And if a man shall take his sister, his father’s daughter, or his mother’s daughter, and see her nakedness, it is a wicked thing. I had indeed seen Zoey naked, so would these convoluted feelings about my own sister condemn me to burn in Hell for all eternity? Such deep thoughts caused me to feel I had sold my soul—and like all Faustian bargains, I suspected this one would not end well.

After reading the diary entry, my addled mind screamed the quintessential question: How could that one inciting incident, that accidental glimpse through a bathroom door, possibly trigger my life-long obsession with this intimidating woman?

*

A tsunami of memories crashed through my mind as I agonized about Katrina, about New Orleans, about my sister. While I focused on diary entries about Zoey, I desperately tried to forget that I had once killed a man in a jealous rage over her; the horrible flashback wouldn’t go away. What on earth could have compelled me to arrange a special trip to Hong Kong to confront Zoey’s lover and Svengali, the sinister Mr. Zhang? Arriving at his apartment, I remember being surprised by Zhang’s appearance. Even though it was night, he wore wire rimmed dark glasses. He had black hair plastered against his skull, combed straight back in the 1920s style of Rudolph Valentino. His dark suit, dark shirt, and black tie gave him a certain Sicilian Mafioso air, but I was particularly struck by his lipless mouth that barely moved when he spoke.

He minced no words. Your sister isn’t here, but she warned me you might show up, so let us dispense with tiresome platitudes. The sexual relationship I’ve enjoyed with her—which she also enjoys—is none of your concern. For your information she belongs to me body and soul. I will ravage and defile her as I choose—and there is nothing you can do about it. Do I make myself clear?

Zhang turned away briefly to pour himself a brandy. With unreasoning resolve I impulsively picked up a pewter candlestick holder and smashed his skull in. Where his slicked-back hair had been just five seconds before, there now existed a grotesque gouge of bone, brains, and oozing, red liquid putrescence. I took the candlestick holder with me and discreetly dropped it into Hong Kong Harbour from the rail of the Star Ferry.

*

I sat in my office in stunned silence watching an interview with Dr. Jullette Saussy, the director of New Orleans EMS. Imagine hearing, ‘I’m in an attic with my kids. I can’t swim and the water’s rising,’ and having to say things like, Put your baby in a shoe box and put it up high.

Dr. Saussy’s frustration, even fury, matched the caller’s desperation because she was unable to help on August 29, 2005—a position she had held for less than a year when Hurricane Katrina tore at the heart of her city, flooding its streets, knocking out power, and drowning ambulances where they sat parked. We’re used to saying help is on the way, Saussy lamented. But there was nothing we could do. We couldn’t get anywhere.

It was already clear to me that this storm ranked as an epic cataclysm whose repercussions would be felt for years to come. One of the few smiles I could muster occurred when I read something Zoey had said during the summer of ’59: God gives us happy memories so we can have roses in December. Searching for those roses, I was transported back into my past—Zoey’s past.

ONE

MYSTIC CHORDS OF MEMORY

A seminal difference between humans and animals is that we humans tell stories, often about a pivotal person in our lives. Zoey had always been that person for me. Triggered by ruminations about my sister, I wondered: When does a kid first begin to remember? When do the flickering lights and shadows of dawning consciousness first cast their print upon the mind of a child? It’s funny the things a person recollects, things that might not otherwise seem the least bit significant. For me, certain memories about my childhood stand out, almost all of them involving Zoey. On that first day Eva brought my new baby sister home from the old French Hospital, I gazed into Zoey’s beautiful café au lait brown eyes. I fell hopelessly under her spell that rainy New Orleans afternoon and unintentionally started a journey down the long rollercoaster ride that would turn my life inside out.

Abraham Lincoln called them mystic chords of memory, and he was right. Family ties and traditions—whether significant or trivial—have an uncanny way of wedging themselves in our minds and becoming part of our culture. In particular, close-knit brothers and sisters share many of the same memories, hopes, and dreams. We trust each other with the most important secrets that are guarded from the rest of the world. We know everything about each other, the good and the bad. We know each other’s hearts, and we remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. Our relationship lives outside the touch of time. My sister Zoey was the lens through which I saw my childhood—my entire life.

*

I don’t recall Zoey getting upset often, but until she was about five there was one thing that would always bring her to tears. Anytime we drove into New Orleans, we’d pass the Milne Boys Home on Franklin Avenue, about two miles south of our house. The stately old antebellum-style campus housed a facility for troubled boys, referred to by everyone as the Reform School. Whenever we drove by, our mother, Eva, would torment me by threatening, Sam, the next time you act up I’m going to drop you off here. The guards use bullwhips to punish those bad boys—and you’re asking for it!

At that point Zoey would invariably burst into tears, shouting, I don’t want Sam to go there! If he goes, I’m going with him! Wailing loudly, Zoey’s mouth was drawn down in the age-old expression of a child’s anguish. As usual, Eva paid no attention to Zoey. She just chuckled when our self-righteous older sister, Maryellen, turned around in the front seat and with an evil, mocking scowl, stuck her tongue out at us.

One of my favorite memories involved my baby sister on Sundays at Mammaw and Papaw’s. There, stretched out on her stomach in front of the big Silvertone console radio, elbows on the floor and hands propped under her chin, Zoey remained in a catatonic trance as she listened to our favorite programs: Edger Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Fibber McGee and Molly, Inner Sanctum, and The Shadow. Another special treat for us occurred on Saturday mornings when Maryellen, Zoey, and I would curl up together in Eva’s bed and turn on her little radio. In spite of the tinny sound, we lay there enthralled as we listened faithfully to programs like Big John and Sparky, Let’s Pretend, The Lone Ranger, and Smilin’ Ed’s Buster Brown Gang. Froggie the Gremlin was Zoey’s favorite on that program. For months she drove us crazy by constantly repeating, Plunk your magic twanger, Froggie!

Partly because of obnoxious Maryellen and our aloof mother, Zoey and I became an inseparable team. She went everywhere with me. I first took her to see the Zephyr when she was five years old. We’d cut over to Elysian Fields Avenue and then walk the few blocks north to Pontchartrain Beach Amusement Park, a magic place where visitors could swim, wade, or build sandcastles on the man-made beach, swim in one of the three pools, take a chance at a game of skill in the Penny Arcade, or enjoy a dizzying assortment of rides like the Ferris wheel, carousel, and bumper cars. But the Zephyr was the hands-down favorite, a wooden rollercoaster soaring 68 feet high, among the highest points in New Orleans. As soon as she saw that big, wooden monster, Zoey’s café au lait brown eyes lit up, and she insisted that we ride it. The ticket taker wasn’t that receptive, saying to her, Darlin,’ you’d probably be more comfortable riding the junior Zephyr over in Kiddie Land.

I’ll take my chances, she said with an indignant shake of her auburn hair, and with that she crossed the platform and climbed into the front seat of the lead car. As we started the long, slow climb up the first and steepest grade, I kept wondering how my sister would handle the dramatic plunge down the backside. She loved it! So began a tradition that lasted for years. Almost every week during the season we walked or rode our bikes to Pontchartrain Beach to ride the Zephyr, usually two or three times per visit.

As a kid one of Zoey’s favorite times of the year was Christmas. Zoey loved to go down on Canal Street to visit a New Orleans landmark department store, Maison Blanche. The attraction was a live Christmas show in the store’s main window performed by Mr. Bingle, a holly-winged puppet snowman with an ice cream cone hat. Young and old would jam the sidewalk to watch Mr. Bingle’s show.

One year Eva piled us into her 1950 Hudson Hornet, and on this occasion Sis, our black maid, joined us. On the way Eva and Maryellen gushed about a special Christmas teddy bear tea at the Roosevelt Hotel, complete with finger sandwiches, petit fours, and Santa Claus. I assumed we were all going, and Zoey got all giggly with anticipation. When we arrived at the Roosevelt, Zoey asked innocently, Does Sis get to go too?

Absolutely not, Eva shouted. Coloreds aren’t allowed—and neither are you. This tea is only for well-groomed children with manners, so Maryellen and I will attend while Sis takes you down the street to Woolworth’s and Maison Blanche. And you better behave yourselves.

With each of us holding Sis’s hand, we walked down Canal Street to Maison Blanche. Pouting with her lower lip poked out, Zoey said dejectedly, Who wants to go to a stupid tea party anyway. I’d rather see Mister Bingle any day!

As kids neither Zoey nor I spent much time around adults—white adults, that is. Sis watched over us while she cleaned, did the washing and ironing, and occasional grocery shopping. We loved Sis and regarded her as a member of the family. Truth be told, Zoey and I were much closer to her than to our own mother. Sis always called us my white-bread babies.

Eva and Sis were about the same age and had known each other their entire lives, but while they shared a familiar relationship, it wasn’t as friends; the mores of the Jim Crow South would never condone such a friendship. Our Aunt Kitty, Eva’s younger sister, had once told me an illuminating story about my mother and Sis, a sobering tale that revealed a lot about Eva’s inculcated racism. Kitty was helping 12-year-old Sis wash the dishes after a Sunday Easter dinner at my Mammaw and Papaw’s house. When Eva strolled by and asked Kitty why she was doing Sis’s job, Kitty explained that she was helping because Sis wanted to leave early to attend an evening church service with her mother.

In a surly tone Eva asked, Why do you need to go to church, Sis? Niggers can’t go to heaven, so why bother?

According to Kitty, the devastated young black girl burst into tears, saying only, Miss Eva, you a mean person.

Eva just laughed. Mean or not, I get to go to heaven and you don’t!

Sis cared for us with a mother’s devotion and showered us with love, unlike Eva, a distant white figure who had no time for us yet entrusted the upbringing of her babies to someone with whom she would not share a bathroom. Zoey and I went everywhere with Sis. She often took us shopping, but there was no escaping the pervasive influence of segregation. When we caught the bus on Franklin Avenue to ride into town, I sat in the front while Sis rode with the other black people in the rear of the bus. Zoey upset everyone, black and white, when she insisted on sitting in the back with Sis. On Saturdays Sis sometimes took us to the movies at the lavish Saenger Theatre on Canal Street. She had to enter through the colored entrance, and we sat downstairs while she sat in the segregated balcony. And Sis could never go with us to Pontchartrain Beach Amusement Park—whites only.

That wasn’t the only conundrum in our dysfunctional family. According to Aunt Kitty, Your mother won the title of divorce champ in the clan, a conservative Catholic family where there had never been a divorce until Eva shattered the mold, not once, but twice!

The only good thing about Eva’s first marriage was the birth of a beautiful baby girl, Maryellen Canfield. Eva adored Maryellen; she had no time for or interest in Zoey or me. To Eva, Maryellen, one year older than me, was the reincarnation of Shirley Temple, while Zoey and I were psychological liabilities that felt like a curse—the Ancient Mariner’s albatross.

My father was husband number two, killed in action in Italy in January 1944. To my embarrassment, Eva always referred to me as her legacy burden. Husband number three was a charming but devil-may-care shrimper by trade who went to California toward the end of World War II to build Liberty ships and disappeared. That marriage produced one free-spirited, no-boundaries daughter, Zoey Lane. Eva called Zoey her Crackerjacks consolation prize: Crackerjacks for short.

Our mother and Maryellen were seldom around when we were kids. Eva worked as a secretary at the Army Corps of Engineers office on Urquhard Street, and early each morning she drove Maryellen to the Garden District to attend the posh private girl’s academy, the Louise McGehee School. This was the institution by which the elite in New Orleans shielded their young women from the colored, the Jews, and the poor. Maryellen only got in because Papaw had friends on the board of trustees; he also paid the hefty annual tuition.

While it is generally believed kids accept their circumstances as normal, both Zoey and I realized ours were different. Maryellen wore expensive uniforms to class. Zoey and I wore second-hand clothes Sis constantly mended to keep us looking semi-presentable. Each morning after Eva and Maryellen left, we got ourselves dressed, fixed our own breakfast, caught the school bus, and without having to be told we didn’t rate, Zoey and I trudged off impassively to attend public school at McDonogh 28 on Esplanade Avenue.

I distinctly remember one occasion when Maryellen boasted of having crawfish étouffée for a school lunch. Zoey countered sarcastically, What a load of crap! Sam and I are perfectly okay with eating whatever the New Orleans public school menu serves. And don’t deny it. I’ve seen you gulp down red beans and rice and douse your food with the same Tabasco the rest of us white trash use! Then Zoey walked right up to her big sister and shouted, You and your stuck-up friends may dine on crawfish étouffée and use finger bowls, but every afternoon your rich classmates go home to their mansions in the Garden District, while you return to live in this roach infested double—just like we do!

On weekends or when Maryellen wasn’t in school, Eva spent most of her time chauffeuring her little darling all over the Gulf Coast entering her in one beauty contest after another. Much to our disgust, she actually won a few! Yet despite Eva’s apparent disdain for us, the real treat came on weekends when our preoccupied mother farmed us out and we got to stay with Mammaw and Papaw.

Zoey and Papaw were extremely close. She was about the only family member he ever talked to or got along with, so there was just some special bond between them. As a little girl Zoey would crawl up on Papaw’s lap and twist him around her little finger like he was the red on a Christmas candy cane. Anytime she was at the house when Papaw got home from work, Zoey would meet him at the back door and say, Hey Papaw, where y’at! Let’s have a snort. He would then break out his half gallon glass jug of sherry, pour her a single cap full, and offer a toast: A ta santé. If any other grandkids were around, he’d tell them, crossly, to go outside and play.

The man I’m describing—my grandfather—was Andre Gaudart, born in New Orleans in 1893 to Cajun parents from Lafayette. I wasn’t very close to him. He liked me well enough until Zoey was born, then had nothing to do with me or anyone else in the family. By all accounts he was a remarkable man. Apparently he only finished sixth grade, but he dazzled and impressed everyone with his brilliant mind. He read voraciously, including every volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica. As a young man he worked as a welder, but in his spare time he borrowed books on mechanical engineering from Tulane University. Even though he had never graduated from high school or set foot in a college classroom, he took the state mechanical engineering licensing exam and passed with flying colors! He went to work for Oronite Oil Refinery in Belle Chase, rising quickly to chief of the machine shop and fabrication department.

Many folks also claimed Andre Gaudart was a savant when it came to music. When New Orleans started a symphony orchestra, Andre briefly played first-chair violin. He also became a renowned jazz clarinet virtuoso, but his tendency to hang out with black musicians offended many whites in New Orleans.

During the depression while laid off from his position at the Oronite Oil Refinery, Andre took a job as a deckhand on a fishing trawler owned by Sylvestro Silver Dollar Sam Carolla, the mafia boss in New Orleans. But instead of fishing, the trawler made its way each night down to the mouth of the Mississippi and out beyond the twelve-mile limit to the rum line to rendezvous with ships smuggling booze. Years later when Eva gave birth to my baby sister, Papaw’s infatuation with his new granddaughter became obvious when he gave his daughter 500 dollars to name the baby after his trawler, the Belle Zoey.

Besides Sis, the true staples in Zoey’s and my lives were our grandparents. They lived uptown at 6331Annunciation Street in a nice ‘shotgun’ house with a camelback second story. The location was perfect—at the dead end of Annunciation butting right up against Audubon Park. When we visited, Zoey and I would play in the park or stroll through the Audubon Zoo. One of Zoey’s favorite spots was a small dirt mound known as Monkey Mountain. There you could always find a group of boys roughhousing or playing King of the Mountain. At first Zoey watched, but at age 10 she joined in as the only girl, many times holding her own against the male combatants. She only lost when several of the older boys would grab her by her arms and legs, unceremoniously tossing her down Monkey Mountain like a sack of flour.

It was there that I first noticed her grit and determination. With a fierce look on her face she’d charge back up the hill and wade into her assailants. No matter how many times they tossed her off Monkey Mountain, she returned for more. One time Zoey shocked all the parents watching when she shouted, Throw me off again and I’m gonna kick your ass!

TWO

SUMMER OF ‘59

That was a never to be forgotten summer, one of those summers which come seldom into any life, one of those summers which, in a providential combination of enchanting location, cherished friends, and fantastic memories, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world. That was also the summer I read Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caulfield’s adolescent struggles with the complex issues of innocence, identity, belonging, loss, and sex somehow resonated with me, although at the time I had no idea why. But most of all, that summer was about Zoey! Beguiling, beautiful Zoey!

That summer my young life as a sixteen-year-old boy took a momentous turn when she blossomed from being a skinny girl with pigtails and freckles into something noticeably different. Her presence catapulted all the New Orleans neighborhood teenage boys into throes of love and lust. Zoey was so stunning that I, embarrassingly at times, had feelings too.

According to my friends, the term sex goddess seemed invented just for Zoey. They swore she had to be the auburn-haired reincarnation of Bridgette Bardot! There were Zoey’s café au lait brown eyes, carnal and enigmatic. There was the brooding, sultry pout of her lips that could flash capriciously into a provocative smile. Besides being gorgeous, she struck me as being both audacious and dangerous. Deep down, Zoey’s innate powerfulness and animal magnetism scared the bejesus out of me!

Even as a kid Zoey impressed me as being exceptionally smart, fearless, or both. Growing up with her I always sensed it in a visceral way, but the physical proof didn’t reveal itself until that fabulous summer of ’59 when she became my hero—and my obsession.

It happened at Granddaddy Gaudart’s. Cajuns, those colorful bayou-dwellers from South Louisiana, tend to view themselves as consummate critter experts, capable of handling any situation involving animals: wild, domestic, or the farm variety. But even when Cajuns do everything right, things can still go wrong.

It went terribly wrong on that summer day of ’59 at our great grandfather’s sugar cane plantation near Vacherie, roughly 50 miles west of New Orleans. Granddaddy Gaudart’s plantation was a magical place filled with wonder and adventure. All of us kids loved visiting with him just to watch him comb his long, white Santa Claus beard. Much like my Papaw, however, Granddaddy Gaudart had no patience for any of his many great grandchildren—except Zoey. The two age-defined bookends, old man and teenage girl, would sit together on his front porch for hours talking and laughing as they went page by page through the Sears & Roebuck catalog. We never knew what they said to each other.

The summer air was fragrant with magnolia blossoms and sugar cane and new-mown hay. Following lunch that fateful day—pork chops, green beans with salt pork, biscuits, and red-eye gravy (our great grandfather always called it dinner)—we stood by silently while several hands attempted to load a huge Brahma bull into a trailer. Nicknamed Taylor, the 2,000-pound beast with its floppy ears and big hump on his back had been a fixture on the place for years, and like all good Southerners, Granddaddy Gaudart fondly referred to him as my Bremer, rather than my Brahma.

As the hands led Taylor up the ramp, he suddenly spooked, thrashing wildly, bucking like a rodeo bull. For no apparent reason the big Brahma turned and charged Granddaddy Gaudart, driving one of his horns into the old man’s stomach. While the bull butted and gored the prostrate figure on the ground, everyone ran—except Zoey. Her eyes opened wide until they were light brown discs rimmed with porcelain. She lunged forward, grabbed the leader rope and miraculously jerked Taylor’s head away from his victim. As she held the leader taut, Zoey began talking in a calm voice to the bull.

Settle down, Taylor. Everything is okay. Nobody is gonna hurt you. She then inched up to the bull’s nose and began stroking it, all the while speaking softly to the now stationary animal. With that she tied Taylor to a fence post and rushed to Granddaddy Gaudart’s side.

None of us could believe the strange scene we had just witnessed: this 92-year-old man gored before our eyes, and thirteen-year-old Zoey’s courage and composure while the rest of us scattered like a bunch of frightened geese. The old gentleman died later that afternoon, becoming yet another of Abraham Lincoln’s mystic chords of memory.

Yet in my narcissistic teenage world, life went on. Almost overnight in that summer of ’59 the kids in our Gentilly neighborhood started inviting Zoey to all our parties and outings, especially when dancing was involved. Though the older girls moved their shoulders and hips in an uninhibited New Orleans style, they seemed like drab robots compared to my Lolita-like sister, the free spirit Zoey became when the 45 rpm records were stacked on the automatic changer, the rock music exploded, and we started to dance. Zoey moved with a sultry rhythm and the natural coordination of a trained dancer, always smiling seductively and singing along—she had memorized the lyrics to all the Top 40 hit songs. On the dance floor her entire body seemed to jiggle and pulsate from the top of her adorable head down to her beautiful bare feet. All eyes of the couples focused on Zoey’s sensual moves as she performed what my mother characterized as a leopard-like dance that looks part Zulu ritual and part nervous breakdown.

When did she turn into a little tart? asked my opinionated mother, Eva, indignantly. "She dances like a strip club girl, like a floozy in a stag film. Well, let’s not forget her daddy was a low-life and came