Picture Perfect Christmas. Melanie Schuster

wasn’t trying to start anything, I really wasn’t. It’s just that I was trying to invite everyone who was close to you. I just went down your address book.” Her face was pink from embarrassment. “Besides, I know how close you are to his sister and the rest of the family, so I thought it would be strange if you didn’t invite him, too. And, I um, I um…”

      Chastain stopped smoothing the cream onto her neck. “Um, what? Go ahead and spit it out, the worst has already happened. You um what?”

      Mona bit her lip in an effort to look innocent. “Okay, well, you talked about Philippe so much and I could tell, well, I always felt like he was your true soul mate and I thought if you two got together in New York at Christmastime anything could happen,” she said hurriedly.

      Chastain didn’t lash out at her, although she did try to sic Lulu on her. “Go bite her, little girl. Bite her big toe,” she urged.

      “I’m not going to say you were wrong in what you did, but your reasoning was way off base. The Philippe Deveraux ship has sailed, as you could see for yourself tonight. Did you happen to notice the woman he was with? His date? That’s the kind of woman he really goes for, tall, dark, curvy and delicious. He and his brothers all have a thing for a woman they can hang on to. But she’s got to be beautiful and brilliant, too. All of their women are the business, honey.”

      “So? You’re the business, too, Chastain. Nobody can say you’re not,” Mona said indignantly.

      Chastain finished applying the moisturizing cream and rubbed the rest of it into her hands, which Lulu tried to lick. “Stop it! This is some expensive stuff,” she chided her. “It’s not just that, Mona. New Orleans is very class-conscious. If you’re not from the right family and you don’t belong to the right circles, you just don’t fit in.”

      Mona made a face. “Excuse me, I’m from D.C. and my father’s a diplomat, remember? I know more about snobs than you ever care to hear, trust me. Please tell me that’s not what broke you up. You’re a successful artist, Chastain. How could you not fit in anywhere you choose?”

      “You’re talking about Chastain version 2009. You didn’t know me when I was a scrawny little tomboy running the streets of the Quarter like a foster child,” Chastain said. “There’s a lifetime of difference from then to now.”

      Mona laughed. “Are you trying to tell me you were a ’hood rat? Because I’m not going to believe you, it’s not possible. You always look like a page out of Vogue, for heaven’s sake.”

      “I was more of a ’hood mouse, I guess. I cleaned up well, I’ll grant you that. But back in the day I was a mouthy, mean little brat who sold fake voodoo dolls and bogus love potions in my Uncle Toto’s shop. If I hadn’t gotten a scholarship to a Catholic school I might have ended up behind bars by now,” she said, laughing at the expression on Mona’s face.

      “So how did you and Philippe get together? Don’t tell me you didn’t because now that I know who the model is for those nudes, I know there had to something going on between you two.”

      “You’re an inquisitive little thing, aren’t you? I got to be friends with Paris, Philippe’s sister. She’s the only girl in a family of five boys and she was quite the tomboy, too. So we kind of latched on to each other. My mother died when I was a baby and hers died when she was really young so we had that in common. We were best friends, still are, as a matter of fact. I was in her wedding and when she had her first baby, a little girl, I was the godmother. She’s pregnant again, this time with twins,” Chastain said with a smile.

      “Don’t change the subject. You and Philippe, how, when and where?”

      “Paris and I were like sisters and that meant that I was like a member of the family. Her brothers picked on me and I fought back. Philippe finally stopped picking on me the summer before my senior year of high school. Paris was in Atlanta for the summer with her aunt Lillian and her cousins, and I was working in my grandmother’s restaurant, Mama T’s. I was gawky and skinny and I still had a mouth on me. But I’d gotten rid of the braids and the glasses and I was wearing a little makeup. It got me better tips.

      “Anyway, Philippe was working that summer and he used to come in for lunch almost every day. He always sat in my section and when he wasn’t with his brothers he would act like a real gentleman. We didn’t snap on each other and play the dozens. We just had nice conversations. Then we started going for walks and going to the movies and stuff and it was really nice. When he kissed me for the first time it felt like he really meant it,” she said softly. “It was my first real kiss. Well, the first one that didn’t end with me punching the daylights out of the guy. I didn’t play back then. Still don’t.”

      “And then?”

      Chastain closed her eyes. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. This is why I’m glad I’m an only child. There was nobody to get all up in my business,” she muttered.

      Relenting, she continued the story. “We started seeing each other, but we kept it on the down low because we wanted to keep it private. It seemed much more special that way. And besides, my grandmother Tippy didn’t like him too much. It wasn’t him in particular. It was rich boys in general she had a problem with, I think. She knew I had feelings for Philippe and she did everything in her power to discourage me, which of course made me even more determined. She used to say, ‘He’s all wrong for you, cher. No good gon’ come of this. You from the Quarter and he from the Row and no need to think that you can make a match wid him.’

      “So we were like the bayou Romeo and Juliet. It was so romantic and sweet, at least I thought it was. Of course we made love and it was wonderful. I wasn’t expecting that much, but when you’re young and uninhibited, first-time sex can be as good as first love. We kept it up until the Christmas of my senior year. He told me that when I went to college I shouldn’t wait for him, that I should feel free to see anyone I wanted. Well, I wasn’t stupid. I knew that meant that he was tired of me and he was kicking me to the curb.”

      “But maybe that wasn’t what he meant,” Mona protested. “He was, what, a year older than you? Teenage boys aren’t that sophisticated, Chastain.”

      Chastain shot her a sideward look and asked, “Have you ever told someone that you should see other people?”

      “Yes, once or twice.”

      “And what did you mean by that?”

      “Lose my number, I’m bored with you,” Mona admitted.

      “Exactly. I was dying inside but I didn’t shed a tear. I told him sure, fine, and then I made sure I got a full scholarship to someplace far away from Louisiana. I very rarely spoke to him after that. Even after we broke up, we kept it on the down low because I didn’t want to ruin my friendship with Paris. It was all good in the end because after I finished my bachelor’s degree I came to New York and got my master’s and I liked it up here so much I just stayed. If it hadn’t been for what my uncle calls ‘that mean bitch Katrina’, I would’ve continued to live here quite happily.”

      “But you had good reasons to go back to New Orleans after the storm. It only made sense,” Mona said.

      “Yeah, it did. But what didn’t make sense was me getting involved with Philippe again. As soon as I was back in the same area code as him, I was back in his arms like the big dummy I am.”

      Mona’s eyes got huge. “Dare I ask what happened then?”

      “This is what I missed by not having a younger sister, isn’t it? Thank you, Jesus, for sparing me,” Chastain said, staring at the ceiling. “He dumped me again, Mona. On Christmas Eve.”

      Mona covered her face with her hands and let out a little shriek.

      Chastain chuckled grimly. “I’ve been wondering what it would take to shut you up.”