The Casquette Girls (Book 1)

13. The Unexpected Muse

October 19th

Seven days went by with nearly the exact same routine. I woke up to a silent house, showered, listened to the radio while getting ready, and then went to Café Orléans.

The thrill of going back to work quickly wore thin—there was barely anything to serve and hardly anyone to serve it to. I never saw more than a handful of customers a day, most of whom were cops or government recovery workers. Sébastien had returned to his lab rats. I hadn't seen Jeanne; she was practically sleeping in her lab. Pépé spent most of his time at the roasters, and Mémé spent most of her time upstairs on the phone with insurance agents, lawyers, and vendors. There wasn't really a point in opening the coffee shop, but it gave us hope that one day things would return to normal.

After I finished the post-Storm cleaning, there was nothing to do but watch the clock tick away the remaining days of my plaid skirt–free life. My prep school anxiety grew so intense I began feeling sick. I attempted every persuasive argument I could think of to get out of going to school, but my father, whom I'd barely seen all week, wasn't budging.

Every day, he disappeared, driving out of the city to find groceries or gasoline for the generator or construction supplies. Between the broken infrastructure and the scarcity of goods, this endeavor sometimes took the entire afternoon. Then he went straight to the bar "to get things in order," not to return until after I was asleep. Always after curfew.

We hadn't been able to find anyone to fix the wall, but my father had managed to get a government-issued blue tarp. The blue plastic patches were becoming a frequent sight all around the city—a marker of someone who'd returned home. My father said at least his studio was finally well ventilated. He joked, but I knew he was desperate to get the wall fixed, especially since the crime in the city was out of control (three more dead bodies had been found). Every day, I worried more and more that he would send me back to my mother.

But the physical destruction didn't hold a candle to the mental damage the Storm was doing to the city's inhabitants. For me, the worst part of the aftermath was the guilt. I felt guilty I'd survived when so many others hadn't. I felt guilty that we still had our home. I felt guilty that our most frustrating problem was finding gasoline for the generator. Bouncing between the guilt and trying not to feel sorry for myself was maddening.

The lack of interaction with people forced me into an even deeper state of introversion than usual. At times, I felt like an empty shell of myself, staring blankly at things I was supposed to recognize. Everyone else appeared zombielike as well, but the solidarity only brought temporary comfort. It was as if we had all gone to war together.

I had two distractions from the dystopia that was real life. The first was Arcadian, the used bookshop next door to the café. Even though they hadn't reopened yet, Mr. Mauer let me borrow books like he always had. I helped him clean, and together we mourned several trash cans' worth of pages that had drenched 'n' dried, but seventeen feet of water had poured into the neighborhood where he lived, so the ruined books were the least of his problems.

Maybe the solitude was a good thing, since I was becoming a walking hazard, leading me to my second great distraction—tinkering with my new, er, talent.

I attempted to use it only when no one was around and only after I'd reached the peak of absolute boredom with everything else. I don't know whether this was because it scared the hell out of me or I was hoarding it, like saving the last bite of my favorite food on the plate until everything else was gone. A cherished treasure that gave me something to do when I felt like I was on the brink of solitude-induced insanity. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't, but the random, freak occurrences were making me a frazzled wreck.

Yesterday, at the café, I'd been in such a deep Émile daydream that I hadn't realized I was stirring my Americano with a floating spoon—at least, not until Ren walked in and it clanked down onto the rim of the cup.

Note to self: be more discreet.

Regardless, Ren was the highlight of my days. He came into the café every morning and patiently waited, just in case people showed up for a tour. No one ever came, although he mentioned that two or three customers were trickling in for his nightly ghost tour.

The only other people I consistently saw were the uniform-clad mayor's daughter and the naysaying vampire hater, whose name I'd learned was Isaac. I still wasn't sure why Désirée came downtown every morning just to turn around and go back uptown for school, but we had gained her patronage. Isaac always came in around ten and stayed for at least two hours, always with headphones on and sketchbook in hand. Besides his name, the only other piece of information I had garnered was that he was from New York City, which was apparently superior to New Orleans in every way and which possibly explained his too-cool-for-school attitude. I had grown immensely curious as to why he was in town—the city being far from tourist friendly. Other than ordering his coffee (plain black, not that we had much else to offer), the only time he ever spoke was to complain about something.

His condescending air was the reason I had initially disliked him. The reason I continued to dislike him was that whenever I broke from my book, I caught him looking at me. He'd lower his gaze when our eyes met, but I had a sneaking suspicion he was sketching me, which made me extremely self-conscious. And extremely annoyed. And even more trapped in this bizarre reality. It wasn't like I could ask him to stop without seeming totally presumptuous. I didn't have any real evidence that he was actually doing it, but each day I caught him glancing at me more and more frequently, and each day playing the role of unexpected muse made me loathe his presence. I desperately wanted to catch a glimpse of his sketchbook and vindicate my suspicion. Luckily, I had a lot of time on my hands to plot.

The only good news was that the heat had finally broken, and the dreadfully long, un-air-conditioned summer was over. But the electricity in the fall air, which I usually loved, now only amplified the feeling that each day was a ticking time bomb.