The Hurricane Girls

CHAPTER TWO

JOYA MIA

JOYA MIA’S LITTLE BROTHER, Manuel, sometimes teased her that she wasn’t from Louisiana because she was born in Houston.

Joya Mia always set him straight. “I’m more Louisiana than you because I’m the reason Mamá and Papá came here.”

It was true. Her parents had told her that every birthday. “We came here when you were a baby because we wanted a better life for you.”

After Hurricane Katrina, her parents moved to New Orleans with family and friends to work in the restaurants and in construction jobs. Most of the employees and workers had evacuated the city during the hurricane and hadn’t returned. Buildings and houses needed to be rebuilt. Restaurants needed to reopen so that the tourists would return. And they did. So in a way the Latino community got New Orleans running again. That’s the way Papá told it, and Joya Mia believed him.

Her parents were second-generation Americans, and being bilingual had allowed them to have supervisor roles along with their regular jobs at the Court of Two Sisters in the French Quarter. And since their home was in Terrytown on the Westbank, they had to cross the Mississippi River five days a week. They took the Algiers Ferry, but they worked different shifts: Mamá in the early morning as a sous chef to chop the vegetables, Papá in the late afternoon to make the sauces. Tuesday through Saturday, Mamá stepped on the ferry as Papá stepped off. It was as if the Mississippi River had been their chaperone, keeping them apart. Back then, the aromas of their jobs clung to their clothes, bringing home the smell of garlic and onion, étouffée and gumbo.

Five years ago they bought a food truck with the money they’d saved. Now Mamá and Papá came home smelling like chili peppers and lime, tacos and salsa. Ana’s Cocina, named in honor of Joya Mia’s abuela, made its way every day from construction site to construction site. They worked so hard. That was why Joya Mia studied late into the night to remain a top student in seventh grade. College was five years away, and she needed to get a scholarship. Maybe more than one. She didn’t want her parents to pay one penny. When they moved to Terrytown, they had an old car that broke down so often that Papá bought a used bicycle so that he could at least get to the grocery store.

Joya Mia’s dream was to get a good job when she graduated from college and buy her parents a new home to replace the rented house that often ran cold water even when they turned on the hot, and had a leaky roof that the no-good landlord wouldn’t fix. Then instead of hearing the plink-plank of rain dripping in buckets, they could hear the gentle sounds of water trickling from a three-tiered fountain.

She helped out as much as possible. She started dinner after school. But Mamá never let her finish. She’d tell her, “Go study, mija. Make me proud.”

Sometimes when Joya Mia tried helping with the laundry, Mamá would say, “Go have fun with your friends.”

Joya Mia loved spending time with Greer and Kiki. Although it seemed since the beginning of the school year, Greer had started drifting away from them, quiet instead of joking around, and spacing out whenever they were talking to her. The change had started to happen after Darby’s accident and Greer stopped running.

CHAPTER THREE

KIKI

KIKI’S REAL NAME WAS Katrina, named after the hurricane that hit the New Orleans area the day she was born. Maybe that’s why everything around her turned into a storm. The worst one had been five months ago when her dad left.

The last thing her dad did before leaving a goodbye note and disappearing was hire some men to build a swimming pool in the backyard. He left the day after the invoice arrived, and they still hadn’t heard from him. They’d never used the pool, not once. Kiki didn’t even know how to swim and wasn’t going to be caught in a bathing suit, especially since the two-story house hovering above their fence had a bird’s-eye view of their yard.

Her mother ignored the pool, never mentioning it. Kiki’s grandmother, Nana, just wished she knew where her stepson was and when he planned to return home. The three of them lived in Nana’s small house in a Marrero neighborhood with a postage stamp–sized backyard now overtaken by the pool. It was the only home Kiki knew, but after her dad left, she asked her mother, “Why can’t we move?”

“Nana can’t live alone,” her mom said. “She’s getting old.”

Her mom loved her mother-in-law and Kiki did too. Nana was always baking, filling the house with sweet aromas of lemon cake and chocolate chip cookies. She’d tell Kiki, “Eat, or you’ll waste away.”

Kiki knew the real truth.

Her mom had been overweight too. But ever since Kiki’s dad left, her mom had been going to the gym and skipping dessert. Even as her mom went down sizes, she never bugged Kiki about losing weight. No one did. Maybe it was because Kiki seemed to ooze confidence with her perfect posture and her constant smile. She was the first to laugh at fat jokes. Although on the inside she ached whenever someone said one. And she was always searching online for crazy diets like how to lose twenty pounds in twenty days on a cabbage soup diet.

Her best friends never made her feel bad. Joya Mia was tall with a graceful neck. Kiki always told her she could be a model. Greer was cute with her short wispy pixie and lean long legs.

One day last summer, they were playing pool in Greer’s garage, drinking plain iced tea, the only right way, they claimed, although Kiki secretly preferred it sweet. Kiki had been trying to ignore the giant bowl of potato chips on a worktable nearby.

“Are you on another crazy diet?” Joya Mia asked.

Kiki shrugged.

Joya Mia rolled her eyes. “Not that broccoli soup diet?”

“Cabbage soup,” Kiki said, “No. I’m eating high protein.”

“Not everyone has to be the same size,” Joya Mia told her. “You should have my aunt’s attitude. Work those curves!” Joya Mia walked across the garage, twisting her butt.

Kiki laughed, but Greer was quiet, and Kiki pulled her knees to her chest, feeling like a giant trying to squeeze into a dollhouse.

Then Greer spoke. “It would be boring if everyone was alike. Why do you want to starve yourself? You’re gorgeous.”

A second later three sets of hands dove into the bowl of potato chips, and they went back to playing pool. That day, Kiki realized, next to her mom and Nana, she loved these two girls more than anyone else in the world. Last summer had been a great one: sleepovers and matinees at Greer’s dad’s movie theater. Lately Greer was quiet and sad, and that had upset the trio’s balance. Now they were like a tricycle with one loose wheel.

CHAPTER FOUR

GREER

GREER SAT ACROSS THE dining room table watching Darby build a cityscape. Last Christmas she’d received a deluxe building blocks set. It had two hundred pieces and included bridges and columns. Now all meals were eaten in the breakfast area, and the dining room table had become Darby’s workstation. It was amazing what her little sister could create out of wooden blocks. She could stay at it for hours. Midsize structures next to high-rises resembled downtown New Orleans. Darby had even constructed a Mardi Gras parade with floats made from tiny boxes that had once held matches or staples. She called it the Krewe of Darby.

Outside the open window, sunbeams danced through the branches of the magnolia tree. The fresh scent from the blooms drifted into their home. It was nearly May, the prettiest time of year. Not hot with air as thick as cane syrup like most of their spring and summer days. The time of year when Greer used to run forever, weaving through the streets of their neighborhood. The time of year when Darby used to circle and circle the block on her bicycle to the fluttering sounds of cards brushing the spokes.

Greer’s dad would be leaving for work soon. He had opened the Casa Blanca Theater in Algiers Point a few years before. He considered going across to the Eastbank outside the French Quarter, or maybe even Metairie, but it was too expensive. Algiers Point was on the Westbank and closer to their home. He bought a former grocery store, a triangular building where the double entry doors faced the corner. The back room of the store had been an oyster-shucking room. Her dad loved the building’s history and had discovered some old photographs that now hung in the theater lobby.

Greer liked Algiers Point’s charming multicolored bungalows and shotgun houses that lined the streets. Sometimes after she and her friends went to a movie, they’d head over to the coffee shop or peek into the blown-glass studio located in a building that had actually been an Art Deco movie theater. If the film ended early enough, they’d ride the Algiers Ferry to the other side of the river, get off, and then hop on and cross back again.

Loyal fans kept her dad’s theater going, spreading the word on social media. They were the backbone of the meager income that the theater brought in. She knew it was meager because her mother, a CPA and a bottom-line person, pointed it out often. During the James Bond Festival, her dad had been so happy because the theater had had its best week ever. But by the time her mother got through looking over the numbers with her calculator, subtracting the promotion and operating costs, the festival didn’t seem like such a success. Greer hated the way her mother could suck out all the joy in a room. She did that a lot lately.

Her dad used to leave for work a couple of hours before the first movie started. People didn’t tend to arrive early for classics, probably because the movies rarely sold out. Now he left four to six hours before showtime. She suspected the real reason he did was because he couldn’t wait to escape home.

He tucked his index cards in the pocket of his black binder, the one he kept for movie trivia and introductions before each film. That was another thing fans of movie classics enjoyed, hearing stuff they could easily google. But her dad made it sound like he’d discovered the information. Maybe it was the first time they’d heard it. Books about old films and actors who had long been dead took up half of the wall-to-wall shelves.

Now her dad was staring outside as if he wanted to say it was a beautiful day, but then Breanna Boudreaux rode by on her little pink bicycle. His jaw tightened as he glanced over at Darby in her wheelchair, still focusing on her project. Without saying a word, he started toward the front door.

“Wait, Daddy,” Darby said. “Look at my city.”

He turned around, walked over, and stood behind her, studying the buildings, both mid- and high-rise.

“That’s great,” he told her.

“I named it Inglewood,” she said, smiling proudly. “It kind of looks like New Orleans.”

“It’s really good,” her dad said, but Greer wondered if he was actually taking it in, or if he was like her, playing that one horrible day over and over in his mind.

CHAPTER FIVE

JOYA MIA

JOYA MIA’S AUNT ISABELLA made pozole every Christmas Eve for the family celebration. Her aunt said it was her secret recipe and wouldn’t even drop a hint to the ingredients. Aunt Isabella had watched Joya Mia when she was little while Mamá worked her shift. She loved Joya Mia.

“You’re like a daughter to me,” she’d tell her. Her own children didn’t know the recipe, but they couldn’t care less.

“Some have beauty,” she said, “but my recipes are my charm. They will go to the grave with me.”

“I like gumbo better,” Mamá claimed whenever Joya Mia asked if she knew the recipe. “It’s a lot like pozole. A little of this. A little of that.”

But aside from both soups being made in a big pot, Joya Mia knew they were nothing alike. Gumbo had different spices and cayenne, not all the hottest red chili peppers grown on the planet like in pozole. And gumbo was served with rice. Pozole was served with cabbage.

If she had the recipe, she’d make it for Manuel and Diana. She’d do anything for her siblings. Diana, the baby of the family, was born when Joya Mia was nine and when Manuel was seven. She was so happy to have a sister. Her mother even let her name her.

Joya Mia checked out a book of baby names from the library. Every day, she thought of a different option until one day she told her mother she would decide after she was born.

“She can’t leave the hospital without a name,” Mamá told her.

“I have to see her first,” Joya Mia said.

Up until the day she was born, she thought the name would probably be Katrina. But the day Joya Mia saw her, she changed her mind. Not just because the quiet tiny baby didn’t remind her of a hurricane at all. But because as soon as she looked down, the curly-haired child grabbed her finger so tight Joya Mia knew that she needed a name that was strong and would bond them forever. “Diana,” she told her parents.

“Diana?” Papá asked.

“Like the goddess,” Joya Mia said.

“All my daughters are goddesses,” Papá had said.

Joya Mia made sure Manuel and Diana did their chores and brushed their teeth. She helped them with their homework and asked to see their report cards before their parents did. She washed their clothes and sewed on buttons. She didn’t resent any of it, except when they sometimes ignored her and reminded her that she wasn’t Mamá.