All's Forgiven

By Donan Berg

All’s Forgiven
A novel by Donan Berg

All’s Forgiven is anchored in Star City, Iowa, a university town, where thirty-two-year-old, unmarried Jenny Olsen lives with her unyielding mother, works for her miserly uncle, and is beset with troubles far beyond her wildest dream.

Jenny escapes Star City to Mardi Gras, New Orleans, after a car driven by her married younger sister, Ruth, with Jenny and niece Eileen as passengers, is involved in a hit-and-run accident that injures Jenny’s right leg and sends Eileen to the hospital intensive care unit. A witness reports the hit-and-run vehicle had a black and gold university vanity plate.

At the New Orleans Lakeview Hotel, Jenny’s suitcase is ransacked. Missing is her spare garage key. Events spiral. Long-distance sparks fly when Jenny’s mother calls with the plea to return home. Mother threatens she’ll divulge a secret from Jenny’s past. She rebuffs mother. Beyond finding a Pelican Bar cocktail napkin amid her scattered hotel clothes, she is further confounded by a strange call from an unknown male who tries to solicit information from her on an upcoming gem exhibit being hosted by Riddle’s Jewelry. They employ sister Ruth.

On a blackjack outing to a Mississippi River paddle-wheeler, a gentleman who sits next to her intrigues Jenny. As Jenny returns to Star City to attend niece Eileen’s funeral, he remains nameless. She learns of sister Ruth’s stolen car and meets the gaming boat gentleman while at work in her uncle’s bookstore. He, William Holmes, is a visiting professor from New York. His car has black and gold license plates.

Robert, a handsome local police officer of romantic interest to Jenny, tracks the Holmes car and its bumper dent to a body shop. Before the accident is resolved, Ruth and Jenny discover their mother is kidnapped. They found a bloody cloth in the mother’s basement. Of critical importance is the missing Queen Elizabeth brooch mother owned.

Unexplained events occur. A man at mother’s front door claims Jenny owes $11,000 in riverboat casino losses. She claims fraud. The gem exhibit arrives in Star City. Uncle John rents out space in his bookstore basement. There’s a common wall between the bookstore and Riddle’s Jewelry.

Jenny and Ruth receive a ransom call for their mother’s release. While told ‘no police’, they involve police officers Robert and Virginia. A “doctored” ransom drop at a farmhouse goes awry when Jenny finds a tape recorder with mother’s voice, but no mother. A planted video camera only catches the blue color of a kidnapper\’s arm. Ruth wears a blue coat. Virginia, while not known to be in the farmhouse, is seen in the nearby woods wearing her blue police uniform. This siting blends together with Jenny’s neighbor lady seeing Virginia, key in hand, near mother’s garage that houses Jenny’s car.

A second ransom drop proceeds with Jenny finding mother, a Queen Elizabeth brooch clutched in her hands, in the farm’s barn. The brooch is determined to be a fake. Mother acknowledges it always was.

Mother’s abduction is also a smokescreen to steal the exhibited gems. Mother’s kidnappers and the casino debt scammer were all tied to the gem heist. Professor Holmes proves he wasn’t the driver when his car hit Ruth’s car to injure Jenny and kill her niece.

Robert proves Virginia is part of the kidnap plot.

Underlying the kidnap, heist, and other events, Jenny forges a closer loving relationship with her sister and mother. Although her fantasy romance with Robert and William don’t end at the altar, Jenny promises herself all is forgiven.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Donan Berg
• Release date: Sep 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9781941244289

Donan Berg

Award-winning United States author Donan Berg tempts the reading world with First Place Gold Award romance, adventurous teen fantasy plus entertaining mystery, thrillers, police procedurals, and. from his first novel, A Body To Bones, entertaining mystery. "A winning plot ..." said Kirkus. "...Not only well written ... characters rich in depth and background.," wrote a reviewer.To quote another reviewer, Lucia's Fantasy World "is a captivating story ... and the author perfectly captures the innocence and imagination of the characters in the book." It joins Find the Girl, A Fantasy Story, for fascinating adventure filled with child-like imagination, friendship, magic, and sorcery. For 435 days, Find the Girl topped the AuthorsDen most popular book list, all genres. This chart-topping glory eclipsed both A Body To Bones and Alexa's Gold. The mystery and romance thriller, at separate times, both exceeded 100 days as Number One.A native of Ireland, Author Berg honed his writing skills as a United States journalist, corporate executive, and lawyer.The stimulating, page-turning bedrock, underpinning his twelve novels, explores the human drama of individual flaws and challenges before victory over a wide range of antagonists, outed to be societal monsters and/or deftly hidden. A dastardly scheme can be diabolical as in Aria's Bayou Child.His prior mystery, Into the Dark, brings intrigue front and center where unaccountable cash, threats, and societal ills bring twists and turns sprung with gusto. A thoroughly engaging Sheriff Jonas McHugh, first encountered in Baby Bones, Second Skeleton Mystery Series, adds a heightened imagination to grow stronger. Alexa's Gold, a five-star, new adult romance, combines a unique contemporary heroine and a thrilling mystery.Gold and five-star writing awards and reviewer accolades were on the horizon after he landed in the winner's circle four times at the Ninth Annual Dixie Kane Memorial Writing Contest. This bested his three awards in the prior year's eighth annual contest.The bedrock of his mystery writing is his three-part skeleton series mysteries: A Body To Bones, The Bones Dance Foxtrot, and Baby Bones. The series followed by Abbey Burning Love, Adolph's Gold, and One Paper Heart, his Gold Award romance.A reviewer of his short story, Amanda, notes that Author Berg offers a keen insight into couple relationships and a very clever ending.

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Dedicated to:

Each and every person who daily battles medical challenges and family misunderstandings to live heroic lives with love and forgiveness.

And in this era of a worldwide pandemic, climate disasters, and political unrest, please support and give thanks to those who step forth with compassion to aid, assist and/or to care for people in need of food, shelter, medicine or kind words, be they family, friends, and/or strangers.

All’s

Forgiven

A Novel

Donan Berg

DOTDON Books

Davenport, IA

DOTDON Books are published by

DOTDON Personalized Services

Questions: [e-mail]

Author email: [e-mail]

Printed in United States of America

First U.S. Trade Paper Edition 2023

15 14 13 12 11 1 2 3 4 5

LCCN: 2023918346

ISBN 13: 978-1-941244-28-9 (E-book)

ISBN 10: 1-941244-28-9 (E-book)

ISBN 13: 978-1-941244-29-6 (Paper)

ISBN 10: 1-941244 29-7 (Paper)

Copyright © 2023 Donan B. McAuley

All rights reserved. This is an official Smashwords publication. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and DOTDON Personalized Services, dba DOTDON Books, except for the inclusion of a brief quotation in a review.

This is a work of fiction. The places, characters, establishments, and events portrayed in this novel exist only in the author’s mind or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any entity or person, living or deceased, is unintentional and purely coincidental.

All’s

Forgiven

A Novel

By

Donan Berg

One

Pent-up rage clamped down on the pain vise behind Jenny Olsen’s eyeballs. With her left hand, she muzzled her mouth.

Two muffled words escaped. Why me?

An impulsive slap to her lips captured her brain’s attack words before their utterance landed her in detention, hauled in by the stern-faced female Louisiana hotel security guard, who lowered her left hand to the mace container attached to her belt.

Standing outside the ajar hotel room door, her leg muscles rigid, Jenny clamped her right-hand fingers blood-stopping tight around her crutch’s foam-covered hand grip. Downward shoulder pressure rooted the crutch’s rubber tip into the interior hallway carpet.

Halfway across the hotel room threshold, the female New Orleans Lakeview Hotel security guard gazed at Jenny with a smirk.

Have often seen rooms tossed. Happens when lovers argue.

I’m . . . I’m on a Mardi Gras tour . . . single supplement.

Jenny assumed the guard remembered the hotel’s website guest courtesy pledge when the guard’s left hand rubbed the smirk off her face. She then dropped the hand to the left rear pocket of her navy blue trousers and pulled out a notepad.

From a dozen yards away, past three closed doors to a lighted recess marked with a ceiling exit sign, an audible ice cracking echoed. No sound of dispensed cubes dropping into a bucket followed.

Jenny’s throat muscles loosened. You going to check that out?

Maintenance will. The guard clipped a key ring to her belt.

What’s going to happen? I can’t stay here like this. Jenny repressed a decade old memory. A New York boyfriend had pranked her and two girlfriends. He hid their clothes in a tree after a midnight skinny dip while on an upstate Finger Lakes exploration.

Hold on. The guard finished a scribbled note.

My room was ransacked. The jerk had to use the hallway and walk underneath your security cameras. You could ID him or her.

The guard raised her gaze from her uniform’s gold buttons. I said, ‘Hold on.’ She finished a note. We don’t even know yet whether the person, or the jerk, to use your word, used the corridor door. There’s a sliding door to the patio that needs to be considered. Tell me what’s missing.

Jenny’s upper right arm pinched the crutch to her side. She punched a right fist into her left palm. How the hell should I know? Haven’t been inside. Tour guide sat us in the garden and said our bags would be taken from the bus to our rooms while he explained the history of New Orleans and its historic Bourbon Street.

After leaning her body weight onto her crutch, Jenny chaffed at having to explain the obvious. Odds say my bus hasn’t been the first tour bus to visit this hotel. Doubt my room being trashed is unique.

Yeah, you’re right. Upset lovers often do that.

Jenny swallowed her rekindled rage. Every woman she’d ever met could recount at least one arduous love affair. Jenny refused to share hers, even with a stranger. She’d hustled as best she could to the front desk to report the smashed in room door.

How often do I have to state this? I’m here alone. On a tour from Iowa. I paid extra to enjoy a room by myself. There’s no lover.

Ma’am, can only express what I’ve seen countless times. No disrespect, but single room occupancy doesn’t mean no visitors.

Jenny inhaled deep. Have you called the police?

The quick headshake mimicked the answer Jenny expected.

While she tolerated the aches in her right leg, Jenny asked the guard who’d sloughed off her police request, Why not?

The guard muttered words Jenny deciphered as blah, blah hell.

As an outlet to her impatience, Jenny tapped her crutch. Should she even try to locate the tour guide? Inaction settled it. The answer was a no.

The guard stopped her note-scribbling and gazed at Jenny. Because we’ve a strong reputation for dealing with no-gooders. No haphazard, opportunist, spur-of-the-moment thief roams our corridors. We always handle this first. And the police know it.

So what do I do now?

Step inside. Look around, but keep your fingers from touching stuff. Tell me if you reckon an important item to be a missing.

With steps slow and deliberate, Jenny used her crutch tip to push away the door. Behind her, the guard switched on two table lamps. Jenny spotted total chaos. Empty dresser drawers overturned. A mattress stripped and flipped. Her suitcase contents dumped onto the floor near the curtained sliding-glass doors. A free-sample makeup kit had been strewn hither and yon. The spare garage key she’d tucked into a folded white envelope without addressor identification was nowhere to be seen.

The guard asked, Notice anything missing?

A spare garage key.

Anything that’ll identify it?

’fraid not, unless you think the word duplicate is important?

The smirk returned. Hardly.

Sensing her question seeking empathy or tension deflating humor missed the mark, Jenny ignored the guard’s rudeness to lessen her stressful conflict with authority. Fortunately, she’d packed her bus tour travel documents, driver’s license, and cellphone in the carry-on she’d toted to the outdoor welcome lecture. A squeeze of the bag confirmed her wallet with cash and credit cards still inside.

Still downhearted, Jenny whispered, Can’t see anything missing.

The guard stepped past Jenny to open and stare beyond the room’s bathroom door. She twisted her head and shoulders toward Jenny. Anyone live in or near New Orleans that you’d consider to be an enemy, or that has threatened to do you harm?

Jenny shook her head.

You been in New Orleans or Louisiana before?

First time. Jenny waited two minutes, an interval she considered acceptable. Will the hotel give me another room?

Can’t say for sure, sometimes. You need to ask.

Maybe you could ask for me?

The guard removed a walkie-talkie from her belt and pushed a button before she marched into the corridor.

Jenny took advantage to scan the floor around her suitcase. Her packed clothes laid there rumpled, crumpled, and/or pitched. The white cocktail napkin she spied evoked no memory. She doubted she’d picked it up in Iowa or at any bus meal stop between home and Louisiana. Her conclusion was fortified by the printed black letters on the napkin that advertised the Pelican Bar, New Orleans?

With her crutch tip, Jenny lifted two tops and a pair of slacks. No rips or stains were visible. A glass shampoo bottle still capped and intact. The circular rings of her loose-leaf binder had been snapped open. A dozen 8x11 paper sheets, two-thirds blank, had fluttered loose into a ragged pile. She maneuvered her crutch tip to expose her suitcase interior. No sharp tool or knife had slashed the inner lining.

Jenny exited the room. She zig-zagged past the hotel guard, whose shoulders leaned against a corridor wall, the walkie-talkie pressed to her left ear. Jenny reasoned that if she’d been expected to stop, the guard would’ve motioned or said something. As Jenny hobbled along the corridor on her way to the hotel’s front desk, she heard no order to halt.

She pressed her left hand to her chest as she calmed her breathing. My name is Jenny Olsen. I’d like a new room.

The black-haired receptionist stared at her. Why?

Remember me from a few minutes ago? My room door smashed, my suitcase rummaged through after you supposedly locked it in my room. The raised eyebrows and parted lips encouraged Jenny to rephrase her accusation. Well, not you personally, but by your hotel’s porter or the bell captain.

I’ll need to call a supervisor and security.

While Jenny stewed, she did a quick scan of the lobby. She didn’t recognize anyone from her bus.

The clerk tapped two direct dial buttons before he punched in an extended number. If not his boss, Jenny assumed the longer number meant to reach the tour director.

Jenny held her tongue. In her uncle’s bookstore, she’d faced an irate customer or two. She always appreciated the repeat customers who treated her with courtesy and respect. What her uncle had explained to be Iowa nice.

The receptionist handed Jenny the telephone receiver.

Jenny listened to the tour director’s offer. If she’d agree to having a police dog sniff her suitcase and the first assigned room for contraband drugs, Jenny could relocate, with her belongings, to an upgraded suite on the fourth floor.

Will I miss any tour activity?

Absolutely not. I’ll see to that.

Then, I agree.

Two

Sunlight streaming through a monster plate-glass window warmed Jenny’s nape. Craving an ice cube, Jenny planted her crutch tip against the floor. With practiced efficiency, she stood. Her chair wobbled behind her as she hobbled to a softer lobby loveseat where she traded Venetian blind shade for an ice cube.

For the fourth time, Jenny waved at the lobby receptionist. The young man, with a repeated headshake, signaled no word yet.

Jenny leafed through a discarded woman’s magazine. A quote claimed every wrinkle seen in the mirror transports a woman into the past. Jenny hoped not. When a columnist preached that today’s woman thrives on inner fortitude and intuition, Jenny sighed and promised herself to banish her feelings of insecurity.

Jenny daydreamed to blunt her misfortune. If she’d been home in Iowa, this very millisecond, she’d be stepping off her mother’s wooden porch, where she’d lived for the last six years. Several blocks later, she’d walk into her uncle’s bookstore. There, for the last year, she’d shelved classical Greek romance novels without the slightest interest in lifting any novel’s gold-gilded cover.

Soft shoe thuds on the carpet caused her to shift her gaze from the receptionist. She counted one uniformed police officer, a muzzled German shepherd dog, and a second man in a light blue seersucker suit. The officer and his dog angled towards the first floor room corridor.

The receptionist’s raised hand pointed two fingers toward Jenny. She crossed her right hand’s second finger atop the index finger.

The eagle-eyed man in the blue suit approached her. Jenny stretched her shoulders rearward without rising from the loveseat cushion. He flashed a gold detective shield and pocketed it with a quickness that gave her no chance to catch a name or a number.

Ma’am, know it’s hard, but I need you to be specific.

Jenny nodded. She empathized with his stress on the word hard. Yet, with her limited observation, she failed to understand how she’d meet his demand for specifics. She surmised his eye hollowness to be but day-to-day boredom meeting suspects.

Can’t I just tell you what I saw?

His voice inflections flattened. Start there, then.

Jenny explained how the tour director arranged for her suitcase to be carried to the room. Her arrival hours later, the damaged room door, and the mess inside.

Extra inhales buried her frequent feelings of vulnerability.

The detective peeked left and right as if trying to nab lurking eavesdroppers in the act. Are you visiting family or friends?

After a swallow, Jenny explained her hotel arrival came after an Elite Friends tour company twenty-four-hour bus ride.

He scribbled a note. Looked up and asked, What’s missing?

Jenny skipped the mention of her crutch-assisted search. Nothing of exceptional value. I don’t own a lot. For the life of me, can’t fathom why I should be targeted. Don’t know of another tour member experiencing what I have gone through. Only item that is concerning to me, although replaceable, is my spare garage key.

The detective nodded twice.

Since he asked no question, Jenny quizzed him. Have I answered your questions? Hotel security allowed me very limited time. The woman told me I couldn’t touch anything.

What about stolen cash or a credit card?

Tote them around in my carry-on so they weren’t in the room.

He smiled. Good move. He tucked his notebook into his suit coat’s front pocket. After an inside pocket reach, he handed her a business card stamped with the City of New Orleans logo. Please call if you find missing any item worth selling to a pawnshop.

Yes, sir.

After a glance toward the receptionist, he gazed at her bandaged leg. Did that happen here in the hotel?

No. Car accident before the trip.

If it were me, I’d have stayed home.

Jenny paused. What’s he getting at? She couldn’t say she was running away from home, though there existed a thread of truth. It was a hard decision. In the end didn’t wish to lose my deposit, Jenny lied. She gazed at her lower leg’s white elastic bandage.

Hurt my leg years ago. Heard that nowadays there are sleeves and wrap around bandages with Velcro.

My doctor did this. Have to assume it’s best for me.

Right. He stared at the potted plant. His switch to her caught her off-guard. Know it’s probably stupid, but once ran across a man in his eighties who concealed thin cocaine packets underneath the wrapped gauze.

Jenny tried not to smile. Instead, she attempted to freeze her facial muscles, be nonchalant. Interesting. Is that a hint you wish to haul me in as a drug mule? After she uttered the challenge, Jenny said, Guess I watch too much TV.

His lips cracked a brief smile. You appear to be not the type.

Should I be happy I’m again a crime victim, not a suspect? Jenny let her question go unanswered.

Thank you. If you have questions, you have my card.

Her gaze followed his strides as they fluffed out his suit coat’s double-vented flap. Her shoulders slumped. She entertained herself by studying the veins of enlarged potted plant leaves the detective had stared at until positive he’d not rethought his departure to return to ask additional questions.

Certain she was free to leave, Jenny rose with the help of her crutch and hobbled to the new on-duty receptionist.

The woman looked up. Sorry. No word yet on your room.

That’s okay. Would you call me a taxi?

Sure can. The receptionist reached for a handset. Where to? Dispatchers always ask.

Downtown, I guess. Jenny leaned on her crutch as she waited.

Five minutes, outside, under the canopy.

Many thanks.

Rather than block the lobby door, Jenny stood hatless under the canopy shade. The brimmed hat she’d packed to protect her fair skin now an evidence item in her trashed hotel room. Already warned, she wasn’t brazen enough to crash a K-9 police unit to gain access.

After the taxi driver hopped out of his vehicle, he accepted her word he need not load a bag. He opened a rear door for her.

Jenny sat on the rear passenger seat, half in, half out. She twisted her torso and used her right arm to lift her injured leg into the cab.

Seated behind the steering wheel, the driver peered into the rearview mirror and asked, Where’s we be a going, miss?

Like to search for pelicans.

Ca c’est bon.

For thirty minutes, she gazed aimlessly out the cab’s side window at a rejuvenated New Orleans urban city landscape.

If a hurricane ravaged populace could spring to life after being pummeled with a flood and disease, her mobility worries paled in comparison. She repeatedly steadied herself on her mother’s oft-repeated words to mirror the positive outlook of her neighbor lady across the alley. She again tried to absorb the positive.

When she spotted a sign that said the Chef Menteur Bridge was a half mile ahead, spinal shivers tingled her vertebra. Repeated left-hand rubs flattened the raised hair on her right forearm.

Jenny shouted into the circular Plexiglas hole. Don’t cross the bridge. Please, please stop. Any place will do.

The thin-haired cabbie jerked his head rearward. Yes, miss.

Last month Jenny had leafed through her uncle’s bookstore architectural guidebooks to find no listing for the drawbridge she approached. She feared it was like many bridges where forlorn lovers surrendered to their pain and ended their lives with a jump. That, and if she crossed to Mississippi, she feared there’d be no time to return to her Lakeview Hotel room before dark.

Driving across the bridge into Mississippi held no allure, even if visiting where an auto accident killed Jayne Mansfield.

Movie-star history didn’t thrill her; neither did the bobbing buoys and a shrimp boat to her right. Yet, the revitalization of a devastated flood plain kindled within her a hope that her endurance of trampled love needn’t last a lifetime.

Her cellphone chimed. She neither recognized the number nor the name Gem Exhibits displayed by caller ID.

She slid her finger across the phone’s screen to answer.

A gravelly voice asked, Are you Ruth Olsen’s sister?

Why do you ask?

We’re planning an exhibit at the jewelry store where she works and we need to background check all the employees.

The rationale sounded legit, and Jenny had a jewelry store employed sister named Ruth, but she dared not risk alerting a stranger to her being in Louisiana. This slip-up could expose that Jenny wasn’t at home to protect her vulnerable, home-alone mother.

Sorry, you’re breaking up. I’ll have to hang up. Sorry.

Jenny’s cellphone rang within seconds. Identical caller ID. She stashed the phone in her carry bag. Contented and happy to have acted decisively, Jenny basked in the power to control her own life and not obsess about what others needed her to do.

If the hotel room break-in wasn’t enough, her mind was stuffed to the brim with prayerful hope for her niece’s accident recovery after Eileen’s ICU hospital admittance.

Mother’s constant nagging and tear-filled pleas to abandon this trip and stay home still grated on Jenny’s nerves.

Uncle John’s stoic silence as Jenny departed offered her no cheer.

This tragic family worry, agitated by the hotel break-in, bubbled within her brain. In front of her, the cabbie’s yield to follow a towed camper kissing the centerline she dismissed as needless anxiety.

Jenny shouted at the Plexiglas. Could you stop, please? No bridge. Please, no bridge. And wait while I snap a picture.

No tourist guidebook she’d read mentioned the unmowed Louisiana grass and weeds that sprung up where the graded, dusty gravel shoulders ended. A dozen yards ahead, marina slips, coupled with two roadside corrugated steel buildings unworthy of tourist guidebook mention, offered Jenny dubious enticement.

The fake wharf posts with life preservers bolted on below the mounted Pelican Bar letters sparked her interest, as those words had been on the cocktail napkin she’d found in her vandalized hotel room. Google said this named-bar was the closest within fifty miles.

I’ll be a waiting, the cabbie shouted.

Jenny cautiously navigated her crutch tip between gravel pebbles as she weaved willy-nilly toward the marina boardwalk. Her twilight desire to see and experience a part of New Orleans missed by Bourbon Street revelers proved to be less inspiring than she’d hoped.

Nevertheless, she’d pinched pennies for three years to be able to enjoy the multiple evening dinners and day tours still ahead. With no humans within sight to interpret her facial features, Jenny’s dawdling subconscious tried to tally the number of fake smiles her facial contortions had beamed at others in her thirty-two years.

As she lifted her palm-sized camera, her conscious self refused to complete the count. For Christ-sakes, she chastised herself. I’m supposed to be basking in the joy of a wondrous vacation.

No pelican filled her viewfinder. While she waited, memories emerged and clung to her psyche. None radiated romantic joy. Tears shed in private tears accompanied the inner hurt always hidden, be it from mother, sister Ruth, Uncle John, or the cherished neighbor lady who bolstered Jenny’s life with unsolicited encouragement and biblical references born out of a deeply expressed faith.

Yet, when the darkest fear of eternal loneliness had surrounded and imprisoned her heart, usually at the stroke of midnight or two dark hours later, an awakened Jenny refused to succumb.

She promised herself that a rejection by her next romantic love would never be fatal to her core being.

Jenny clicked two pictures. She chuckled. A skinny, horizon-gazing seagull perched on a rock posed as an unworthy substitute for her sought after pelican. She lifted her lens to a hole in the clouds to focus on a heavenly sunshine ray sparkling calm waters.

A loop of unanswered questions taunted her mind. Where or when did everlasting love begin? Could love find her? Would she find it? Did it require a summer lightning bolt or emerge like a snowdrop from the winter’s snow?

Did he live close or travel from afar, an enchanting stranger?

Jenny swooned. No ecstatic Prince Charming rescued a maiden who couldn’t dance. Why did such nonsense plague her now?

She plucked no answer from her memory cell archive. Neither did she wish to calculate the wave timing of when the Gulf of Mexico current would whimsically lap the rebuilt New Orleans floodwalls.

The crunch of tires against gravel diverted her gaze across the highway from the stationary seagull to the Pelican Bar’s frosted-glass doors. A man with tousled brown hair, wearing khaki trousers and a multi-colored short-sleeve shirt, exited a car parked outside the bar. She didn’t recall seeing it stop. He opened the bar’s door. The crown of the man’s head fit easily beneath the door’s upper metal casing.

He glanced in her direction.

Since his gaze in her direction lasted less than five seconds, she doubted he’d memorized her appearance. However, she wasn’t certain if he stopped within the bar’s interior shadows to surveil her.

A motorboat engine roar swiveled her gaze westward, away from the bar’s entrance. To find safety, the seagull flapped its wings to soar high above the water’s surface. A Jet Ski crashed through the motorboat’s wake. The Jet Ski spray missed the circling seagull.

Jenny recognized the similar Iowa sight of a circling loon. She lowered her camera. The seagull’s hovering unworthy of being shown to mother, even if snow is absent from the New Orleans landscape.

Hurricane Katrina’s destruction, a decade earlier, didn’t blur the bridge and water vista before her. If tentacles of genetically altered creatures spread a new underwater malaise or contaminated local groundwater, the developing horror escaped Jenny’s gaze.

A freshening breeze hugged Jenny. She shivered. The circling Jet Ski’s drifting spray wetted her skin. No vibrating waves against the shore’s rocks upset her picture-taking stance. No lightning bolt ignited within Jenny a misty romantic historical fantasy that gathered together an enthralled Cupid and the gods of antiquity.

Jenny’s wave to the cab driver grounded her mind in reality. She watched the departing seagull with an unwitting longing. I will cherish your picture. You can’t escape. If only she’d inherited a power to entrap her lovers into a world she ruled where they couldn’t escape.

Jenny gazed upward. She grasped the notion of an uncontrollable world around and above her. She glimpsed the coagulating clouds defeat the sun’s ray in a way her daydream fantasy could not. Regardless, the encroachment of a darkening twilight sped up her reunion with the waiting cab.

Where to now?

Jenny spoke with a strength previously foreign. Pelican Bar.

The cabbie shook his head. Cherie, you wish I go in with ya? Let me tell you. Ain’t no place for a nice young miss likens you.

I just desire a peek. Please wait outside.

With an unannounced steering wheel jerk left, the cabbie’s impromptu U-turn swirled gravel dust into a trailing plume. He parked next to the dust-caked sedan she’d seen arrive minutes earlier.

The cabbie assisted her exit and vouched in a whisper, I’ll come a running if y’all scream.

Thanks, but not necessary. With no steps to negotiate, Jenny easily pulled open the Pelican Bar’s glass entrance door.

Water droplets on the door’s interior side wiggled. Aided by gravity, multiple droplets slid sideways, angled toward the door’s threshold. Jenny’s gaze landed on a halo of light that flooded the cash register behind the polished wood bar.

When her eye pupils adjusted to the dim perimeter she stood in, she failed to pick out the man who’d she’d seen enter. At the bar, two men sat on backless metal stools, separated by three empty stools. The closest one, adorned by a black Aegean wool fisherman’s cap, glanced in Jenny’s direction without an uplift in his sour expression. The second younger one, in frayed black shorts and a dark-blue plaid shirt, stared into his foamless glass, the dark beer half drunk.

When the blond-hair barkeep, still behind the bar, sauntered in her direction, Jenny hesitated to speak or advance.

Hello, ma’am. Y’all in need of directions?

Jenny dared not ask about the man who she’d seen exit the dusty sedan parked next to her taxi. Friend said she’d been here.

The angler-capped bar patron laughed.

Jenny didn’t understand if the laugh directed at her or not.

She hobbled forward to rest her left hand on the bar. A square coaster sported the words: Pelican Bar.

The barkeep swiped a rag across the bar. We get a lot of people. Could you be a bit more definite? Is this friend a man or a woman?

That’s all right. Would you have a cocktail napkin?

The barkeep glanced under the bar. His movement interrupted by the uncapped bar patron tapped the bar with his empty glass. Well now, lookie here, barkeep. This classy lady wants to sit a fancy umbrella drink on napkin, like she’s visiting Bourbon Street.

The barkeep glared at the patron. I can do martinis, not that one of you shrimpers would ever order one. His gaze returned to Jenny.

Not looking for a drink. However, if you’d be so kind, I’d like to see the cocktail napkin, if this bar uses one.

He reached under the bar and handed Jenny two.

Thanks. She pivoted on her crutch and closed her ears to the whispers behind her.

After she pushed the door to the outside, the cabbie hustled to her. As he maneuvered out of her way, his right hand held the door wide. Glad you didn’t stay. He lowered his voice. Come dark, a rowdy place.

Seated in the cab, she peered at the cocktail napkins. She required no detailed examination to determine them to be identical to the napkin left in her tossed hotel room among her clothes.

Where to now?

Her shoulders slumped. With a sigh, she said, Lakeview Hotel.

She rated her private touring less than overwhelming, although her spirit lifted a time or two. For tomorrow, she’d booked a bayou group tour. She couldn’t recall if it included a plantation visit.

As she physically left the Pelican Bar behind her, she couldn’t help but ponder long and hard about where her observed stranger hid or what attracted him to its dark interior. She theorized his visit was far from saintly. She placed the two folded cocktail napkins into her purse. From her mind, she scrubbed the possible ramifications faced if she challenged the unidentified stranger. Jenny told herself to be grateful for the unfulfilled adventure that awaited her tomorrow.

The cabbie stared into the rearview. At a stoplight, he said, Saw y’all eyeing that rental car.

How do you know it’s a rental?

Rear window sticker. Got a buddy who runs a car rental place and sells cars to northerners who come to buy used cars without all that salt y’all throw on them northern roads. Could hook you up.

She had no answer to: If for sale, why so dusty?

Not today.

Jenny tried to take a photograph through the cab side window, but gave up. The above-ground tombs required by the high water table lengthened the twilight’s shadows. A tomb’s carved decorative detail blurred or hidden when shrouded by the darkness. She laid her camera on her lap. The passing billboard advertising an evening ghost tour didn’t enthrall her.

Cemeteries chilled her nerves without seeing deceased or living ghosts. When a sign for her hotel appeared, Jenny appreciated the cabbie skipping the Bourbon Street hubbub and driving straight to her hotel.

Thank you, ma’am, the cabbie said as he pocketed his fare plus tip. Have a nice evening. Tomorrow I could drive ya to Fort Pike. Or the best antebellum plantation these parts offer.

Tomorrow I’ll be busy, but I’ll call if I’m in need of a ride.

The cabbie bowed before he said, Enjoy New Orleans.

Jenny stopped at the reception desk.

An older man in a black vest handed her a new key card. Note here says your luggage switched to Room 412. Enjoy your stay.

On the elevator up to her new room, Jenny dreamed of beignets. No, said her conscience. While the powdered sugar delicacy tempted her, many heralded Louisiana Cajun favorites, like okra or crayfish etoufee, did not.

She welcomed her reassigned room’s air conditioning. Her suitcase lay on the bed. Upon examination, Jenny promised to write housekeeping a thank you note for the care taken to repack her belongings. All items appeared undisturbed, including the bar’s cocktail napkin. She’d search