Day 10

January 9
9 PM

I’m antsy. Tonight, the whole world is here. There’s a crowd three-deep by the bar, and we end up sitting on the church pews by the pool table, and a man in a plaid shirt keeps coming up to us and asking us if we want to play pool, but we don’t. Noah and his cute friend from Ohio are sitting next to us but they’re having their own conversation and they look kind of freezing and miserable and finally Noah jumps up and says, “We’re going to Floras to get coffee,” and off they go, into the swarm of people and, eventually, out into the cold, cold night.

We’ve come from Lanetta’s herbal dinner in Algiers, where we passed around the babies and ate ridiculous amounts of food and came away with little jars of fire cider that just got dug up earlier this afternoon after being buried in the ground for 30 days. Digging up the fire cider, Anne lost her grandmother’s ancient ring, which she’s had on her little finger for over ten years, and since then people have been praying to St Anthony and offering to bring metal detectors back to the garden tomorrow, and asking her those questions people ask you whenever you lose something: “Did you have it on when you got into the car? Could it be in one of your gloves?” And all day Anne’s been saying, “Thanks, okay, we can try the metal detectors, no, I didn’t have my gloves on, yes, okay, we can pray to St Anthony again,” but still the ring’s nowhere to be found and you can tell that Anne feels like a part of her has been cut away and flung, forever, into the deep sad universe. All night in the kitchen Lanetta kept saying, “Baby, nothing’s ever lost in divine time,” and Anne would nod back, in miserable resignation, and clutch at her little finger which, even to me, looked littler and out of place without that ring on it.

And now we’re here and it’s cold and there’s too many people around, and we run into this journalist who we both barely know, and he says to me, “I read some article you wrote a few years ago. It was, you know, all right,” and I feel worse than if he hadn’t said anything at all. “It’s good to give people props,” he informs Anne, and I kind of nod and smile and start talking to somebody else.

But then the easy chair next to the church pews opens up, and we both sit back into the corner, and we have space and time to talk, and then Jordan walks in, wearing a thick coat and an amazing blue plaid Catcher-In-The-Rye hat, and I’m kind of shocked because it takes a lot for Jordan to venture out into the world when it’s this freezing outside. (“Wearing lots of layers,” he will patiently explain to people who insist that surviving the cold is all about having the right clothes, “is not the same thing as having warm air around you.”)

“I kind of have to leave early,” I say, and Jordan’s like, “That’s perfect,” and settles down into the chair with me, and two seconds later we’re giggling and gossiping and saying things like, “You’re amazing!” to each other.

And then Elizabeth and Rahn come over, and they both look giddy and exuberant because Rahn’s just moved to New Orleans—as in, he just pulled into town, with all his stuff in the back of a clattering Volvo station wagon, less than 24 hours ago--and he and Elizabeth are in love and, finally, together in the same place, and you can tell they’re in that time in their lives, right in this minute, right now, where one odyssey is ending and another one’s about to start. We give them enormous hugs, and Anne and Elizabeth are laughing and embracing each other, and even on this sad weird cold night we’re still managing to dig some joy up from somewhere.

Jordan and I are talking about our eventful and well-populated love lives, and Jordan’s saying something like, “I have a lot of sex, but I wouldn’t really call it a Lot of sex. It’s just more than most people, which is sad because, you know, most people really don’t have a lot of sex at all.”

I nod resignedly. “It’s true,” I say.

“Are you going to write that?” he asks, and I laugh. “Probably,” I say.

Janine and Monica walk up, and it turns out that a whole crew of pals from residency is upstairs. I didn’t even see them. “I’m so sad, ‘cause I have to leave early,” I say. They are smiley and beautiful and they give me big squishy hugs. “Next time,” they say.

Even though things are better and more fun I’m still looking at my watch, because I really do have to leave early, and finally I say goodbye to everyone and peel myself away from Jordan in the fluffy armchair and head out to start the long hike over to the Irish Channel, where, I’m hoping, my night will finally become cozy, and warm.