When Emma had suggested the vacation, she hasn't expected George to answer with the enthusiasm with which he did, but he answered with one that pleased her. Within four days, he'd managed to sort out his businesses enough to arrange a trip to New Orleans. Their New Orleans Music and Heritage festival was just a day away, because of which all the hotels were full.
To prevent them from sleeping in a hotel on the outskirts of the town, George had contacted a friend from his high school days. The man had just recently bought a house and moved out of his apartment with his wife, and he agreed to offer it to them so they could stay there for two days, after which they would take a flight to Florida to spend the rest of the vacation.
As their flight took off, Em couldn't blame her daughter for her giddiness. Not when she couldn't contain her own frisson of excitement... and fear. She'd heard that vacations could do wonders. Hopefully, it would help her to finally gather the courage she needed to unearth her secrets to George, reveal her lies, come clean.
After the vacation of course.
She didn't rule out the possibility of George leaving her when she finally told him the truth. In case that would be, she was planning on taking advantage of this vacation to create several beautiful memories which when combined with the old ones, would see her through George's absence.
The three or so hours flight ambled by pleasantly, and as they went through the security checks and grabbed their luggage, they were met at the waiting area by George's friend, Gustavo, and his wife, Amanda. Gustavo stood at about 1.8 metres, well built, and his language and accent gave away his Spanish heritage easily.
"Mi amigo." He called as he stretched his arms wide. "Look at you."
He embraced George who chuckled softly. "Todavía sentimental, somos nosotros?" He pulled back and slapped the other man's cheeks tenderly. "Anyways, I've missed you."
George's past hadn't allowed him the courage to make much friends, and he'd explained that Gustavo was his closest friend among the few he'd made.
Stepping away from his friend, George stepped towards the woman who stood beside him. She was blonde and very fair skinned with soft blue eyes. Giving her a once over, George opened his arms and took her into a hug. "Look at you, Amanda. You've changed so much. Marriage must be treating you so well."
Shaking her head, Amanda jabbed a playful finger in George's chest. "Now look who's talking. I should be thanking your wife for looking after you so well."
Pulling away from George, Amanda stepped towards her, and Emma returned her smile. "Emma, I'm so happy to see you again." She announced, pulling Emma into a hug.
Pulling back, she glanced at George and Gustavo and sniggered playfully. "These husbands of ours are always content with talking once in a while over the phone. They won't give us an opportunity to meet frequently."
"You know men. They are not as sentimental as we are." Emma said. "I'm glad we are meeting again after so long.."
"Hey there cutie." Amanda crooned as she knelt in front of Amy. "Look how big you've grown. You were so small the last time I saw you. How are you, sweetheart?"
"Good." Amy replied with a childish smile.
"Guess mummy and daddy have told you what you gonna do here. Are you excited?"
"Yes." Amy replied rather enthusiastically, which brought a smile to everyone's lips. Stroking her cheek, Amanda took Amy into her arms and stroked her hair gently.
"¿Alguna vez has estado en un festival como el festival de Jazz?" Gustavo suddenly asked, then frowned as Emma crinkled her brows in confusion. Gustavo turned to George, throwing him a chastising glare. "You've not taught her?"
George was pretty fluent in Spanish and French, and was good at Italian as well. While she had limited knowledge about all the three languages, even though she could pick up facets and keywords of the little Spanish she understood in a conversation to know what was being talked about.
George shrugged, rolling his eyes. "It's not like she needs it." He smiled, snaking a hand around her waist. "Anyways, Sugar, he's just asking whether you've been to a festival like the Jazz fest before. Well, the answer, I think, is no Gustavo."
Emma nodded at Gustavo when he looked at her enquiringly as if he doubted George. She couldn't help but chuckle. "True. This is my first time."
"Then I bet you gonna love this. It's gonna wet your appetite so much you gonna want to return every year. You know it's... "
"Come on, mi amor. There's plenty of time to tell them all about it in the car, and when we get home, esta bien?" Amanda still holding Amy, chastised softly. Her American accent sounded a bit funny on the Spanish words.
"Of course, baby. Mi corazon." Gustavo agreed in a sexy, capricious voice before kissing her softly on the lips. Amy quirked a brow and glanced at Em.
"Who would've thought?" George began to tease as they made their way towards the parking lot. "It'd taken so many friends in the university to convince the two of you to confess your feelings. You should be compensating all of as."
A spasm of fear shot through Emma as her mind for some inexplicable reason, recalled Zain. She hadn't seen or heard from him after the episode on the night of the fashion show. That'd given her enough time to recover and return things to normal with George, and she should be grateful. But knowing Zain, she couldn't help but feel that he was just prancing around somewhere. Waiting to strike.
**~**
The New Orleans Fair grounds was bustling with excitement as people sashayed in. Visitors and natives mingled, chatting animatedly about their expectations and experiences of the first part of the festival. As she, her husband and child, Gustavo and Amanda, jostled through the sea of bodies, Emma wondered whether there would be any space to breath when everyone finally arrived.
Leading the way, Gustavo made sure to introduce his 'brother', 'niece' and 'sister-in-law' to everyone he knew. It was hard not to laugh at some of the funny expressions of the people as they seemingly glanced at their white faces and skin, and then at Gustavo's much darker one.
The day and experience went by brightly. There were several tents/stages set up on the Fair grounds which they explored. Among which were the jazz and heritage stage, acura stage, WWOZ stage, gospel stage, kids stage, food stage, and more.
Each stage had a variety of performances of it's own to offer, but they all added up to the eclectic blend of French, Mexican, African and several other cultures that characterized New Orleans and its inhabitants.
For Amy's sake, Gustavo and his 'amor' offered to take shifts with them at the kids tent so they could go in turns to other grounds where they could truly experience without Amy as a hindrance.
"Hey, are you guys hungry yet. You wanna eat something?" Gustavo asked after George and Emma had returned, their shift having ended.
They'd been going about with so much fun and excitement they barely noticed it'd been quite a while since the festival had begun. Even though they'd ate in the morning and it wasn't quite time for lunch, some little snacks wouldn't hurt. "Why not?"
There were an assortment of hand-cooked food displayed by several vendors: crawfish beignets, cochon de lait sandwiches, alligator sausage po' boy (sandwich), boiled crawfish, softshell crab po'boy, cajun jambalaya, jalapeño bread, oyster patties, muffulettas, red beans and rice, and crawfish Monica.
The blended aromas were sizzling, and Emma decided to try out crawfish beignets from the vendor who was closest to her. It'd been a while since she'd eaten anything prepared with crawfish, and she couldn't hold back a moan as she bit into the beignets dipped into the Cajun sauce. She opened her eyes to George capturing her action on his camera.
"See, it's very nice." The vendor, a stout woman who appeared to be in her early forties, said, a big smile playing on her lips.
George grabbed her food just as she was about to eat the last bit, and shoved it into his mouth. Emma gasped, then glared at him. "Hey, why did you do that?"
George waved his hand nonchalantly. He was already done with the oyster patties he'd bought. "You were wasting too much time on... Arg.." He winced as she crashed her hands to his ribs.
Amy in Amanda's arms burst into laughter, causing some of the Cochin de lait sandwich Amanda was feeding her to fly out of her mouth. The other woman waved her hand at Emma to ward her off when she attempted to step forward and help with any mess, indicating everything was fine.
Throwing Amy a mock chastising glance that only made the child smile, Em said. "You know you aren't supposed to open your mouth when eating, right?"
Giggling, the little girl replied, "You... Daddy... So funny."
That drew laughter from everyone. From the corner of her eye, Emma saw that George had bought a plate of the crawfish beignets, trying to eat it as discreetly as possible. Walking behind him, she carefully snatched the plastic plate from his hand and hoisted her price.
"Hey, give it back." George protested. "That's not fair. Yours was just a last bite." He pouted, and her stomach did the fluttering thing it always did whenever he did that. The vendors who was watching them laughed. "Could we at least share?"
"Really now?" She took a bite and licked her lips teasingly. "If you want it, come get it."
Shrieking as George lunged for her, the plate tumbled to the floor.
**~**
"You didn't even accept the gift I got you on your wedding day." Gustavo pointed out as they made their way to the Congo marketplace. He'd refused George's offer to pay him back after paying for their foods while she and George had been playing.
A play that'd made her cheeks burn at the applause it'd earned. George certainly got a little carried away, Em thought with a reminiscent smile.
"I can't believe you still hold a grudge over this, man." George mused, shaking his head. "You knew you shouldn't have bothered."
"Well I bothered anyways, but that didn't call for a rejection." Gustavo reasoned, a frown creasing his brows.
Turning, Emma met Amanda's gaze, and the smiles occurred naturally at their husband's banter. The couple were free spirited and easy going people, and you couldn't help but like them. They'd grown on her when she'd met them together for the first time after Amy's birth, and some time later during their wedding.
There were several stalls and tables on which several items were being sold. Ranging from ready-to-eat, ready-to-use, decorations. They made their way to the area where the decorative artefacts were being sold.
A bevy of ladies who appeared to be visitors as well were already gushing over the wrist artefacts at a particular woman's stall. The woman had a chocolate skin that glistened under the sun. Emma made her way past them to another stall, who's owner gazed at her neighbour's stall with a smile instead of the envy that the others had on their faces.
"So all these were made by hand?" Em asked, surprised as she picked up one design in particular that'd caught her eye.
"Each and everyone." The woman replied with an accent Emma couldn't trace.
"How do you do it?" She felt marvelled by the intricacies of the design made of rope and a variety of beads.
"Oh, it's easy." Her smile broadening even more, the woman brought out the paraphernalia from the bag that hung around her waist. Within a few minutes she'd already completed another design of the same nature.
Emma looked at George who's hand rested at the small of her back and mouthed "wow." He smiled and kissed her.
"Could you teach me?"
The woman was all too eager to agree. With a few playful reprimands and inculcation, Em was confident she'd mastered enough to make 3 different designs on her own. She bought two of the designs for herself and Amy, and made to pay for the design-making items she'd bought, but the woman refused to take the money. "Consider it a gift."
George cleared his throat beside her. "Uh, I think I'll buy one, no two. How much will that and that cost." He asked, pointing at the designs.
"2 dollars please." The woman handed them over to George, and he put it in his pockets. Bringing out his wallet, he pulled out 10 dollars and handed it over to the woman.
"Do keep the change." He winked, as he turned to leave to avoid hearing the woman's protests.
Shaking her head, a smile playing on her lips, Emma followed. Trust George to not take advantage of even a willing victim - one of the things she'd always admired about him.
As they headed back to the grounds, Emma couldn't remember ever being thrilled at a festival like this-not that she'd been to even a handful-but the assortment of slow and sensual, dramatic, fast and danceable songs and performances was enough to evoke that feeling. And a few times along with her family, she wowed and clapped and mimicked lyrics of the repetitive songs and laughed.
But the most poignant realization of the day was that she had her happiest laughs when she shared it with her family.