Ciji Ware Read Online Free PDF Page B

secured the park’s cast-iron gates against intruders at night.
    “Mornin’,” he mumbled.
    “Morning,” Corlis mumbled back, her gaze fastened on the park’s magnificent equestrian statue of New Orleans’s savior, Andrew Jackson.
    In the two short months during which Corlis had lived in Louisiana, she’d become inordinately fond of Old Hickory and the story of his ragtag army. On a mist-shrouded morning like this one, in January of 1815, Andrew Jackson had ordered his motley assemblage of cannon and artillery to attack a superior British force menacing the city and pounded them into ignominious submission.
    The fearless soldier was a man after Corlis’s own heart. Like Don Quixote, Aunt Marge, and other Crusader Rabbits she could name, he hadn’t folded his tent just because the odds were against him.
    A pathetic amount of good it does a person these days to try to do the kind of honest journalism I believe in…
    Moodily she walked down the path and drew closer to the enormous two-story statue that anchored the plaza square. Would she never learn, she wondered, gazing up at Andrew Jackson’s prancing bronze horse? The Ebert-Duvallon nuptials were just another story for pity’s sake, like hundreds she’d done before. Nobody in this town but she cared whether or not it told the absolute, unadulterated truth. And besides, the director and her editor had tried to warn her to check with higher-ups before airing the piece, but she had pulled rank.
    And who’s going to worry except Aunt Marge and me that I no longer have a health plan?
    So. Was it worth it? Was the fabulous shot of that twenty-five-foot bridal train and the moment of truth it symbolized worth getting fired over? Or had the story resonated with her … because Jay Kerlin had been such an absolute heel, and she should have blown him off—just like Daphne Duvallon blew off Jack Ebert last night—long before she found out that Jay was two-timing her with Miss Sunny, the weather woman!
    Jeez Louise… was the story she did last night journalism, or had it merely been a case of bizarre revenge?
    Putting such a disturbing thought from her mind, she drank deeply from her paper cup of coffee and wondered how in the world she was going to keep up her mortgage payments on the row house she’d impulsively bought five days after arriving in New Orleans. At the time, the small down payment seemed much more sensible than paying rent, but now…
    Corlis wandered farther down the cement path in the direction of her favorite park bench, clutching her bag of beignets so tightly her knuckles turned white. In the distance the cathedral’s pale facade provided a dazzling backdrop for a community filled with breathtaking side streets and cunning courtyards that made the place terminally charming and one of the least “American” cities in the country.
    Lord, how she’d grown to adore this town! How could she leave New Orleans? But what was she going to do to support her addiction to this city, not to mention pay her outstanding bills?
    Utterly dejected, Corlis sat down on the park bench and immediately felt the seat of her pants soak up the dew like a sponge. “ Merde! ” she exclaimed to the pigeons, wondering if after all the years of French colonial influence in New Orleans, the birds actually understood the French word for shit .
    Inside the white paper bag, the beignets had grown cold and unappetizing. The words of her former diet coach suddenly rang in her head.
    “A minute in your mouth. A lifetime on your hips, Corlis!”
    With a sigh she tossed the confections into a trash can nearby and somberly stared at Andrew Jackson’s bronze countenance, wondering what Old Hickory would have done in such dire circumstances.
    More to the point—what was she going to do next?
    ***
    “What do you call those?” Corlis asked, pointing to a tub full of fragrant white flowers mixed with waxy green magnolia leaves. On impulse she had walked inside the small flower