L. Marie Adeline- S.E.C.R.E.T

F
or the weeks leading up to Mardi Gras, the whole city of New Orleans takes on the
spirit of a bride making last-minute preparations for her big day. No matter that the
festivities take place this year, and next year, and every year, each Mardi Gras feels like
the last, best one.
When I rst moved here, I was fascinated by the krewes, the groups, some ancient,
some modern, that put on the balls and built the oats for Mardi Gras parades. Mostly, I
wondered why you’d spend so much of your spare time sewing costumes and gluing
sequins. But after living here for a few years I began to understand the fatalistic nature
of the average New Orleanian. People in this city tend to live and love vividly for today.
Even if I had wanted to join a krewe, many of the older ones—with names like
Proteus, Rex and Bacchus—were downright impossible to get into, unless your bloodline
was that of Bayou royalty. But nearing the end of my time with S.E.C.R.E.T., I began to
feel that strong tug to belong to someone or something—which is, after all, the only
antidote to loneliness. I was starting to see that melancholy isn’t romantic. It’s just a
prettier word for depression.
In the month before Mardi Gras, I couldn’t walk down a street in Marigny or Tremé,
let alone the French Quarter, without envying those sewing circles gathered on a porch,
hand-stitching sparkly costumes and securing sequins to elaborate masks or sky-high
feathered headdresses. Other nights, I’d take a run through the Warehouse District and
spot, through a crack in a door, spray-painters in masks putting the nishing touches on
a vivid float. My heart would skip a beat and I was able to let in a little joy.
But there was one event that struck my heart with sheer, unadulterated terror: the
annual Les Filles de Frenchmen Revue, a Mardi Gras burlesque show featuring the
women who worked at the bars and restaurants in Marigny. It was considered a sexy
way for our neighborhood to celebrate, and every year Tracina, one of the lead
organizers, perfunctorily asked if I wanted to participate. Every year I said no.
Unequivocally no. Will allowed Les Filles to use the second oor of the Café to rehearse
their dances, never failing to mention that if twenty girls can stomp around upstairs
without falling through the ancient oorboards, surely twenty customers quietly sitting
and eating wouldn’t pose any danger either.
This year, not only did Tracina fail to ask me to participate, she also bowed out of the
revue herself, citing family obligations. Will told me her brother’s condition was getting
more complicated to deal with as he hit adolescence, something I tried then to keep in
mind whenever I was on the cusp of criticizing her.
I was surprised when Will put the gears to me about joining Les Filles.
“Come on, Cassie. Who’s going to represent Café Rose at the Revue?”
“Dell. She has really nice legs,” I said, avoiding eye contact with him while wiping
down the coffee station.
“But—”