He pours at least a third of the bag of seeds into his palm, then chucks them high into the air. He doesn’t even look around first to see if anyone is watching. The seeds clatter down around us like hail and despite his wide-open and upturned mouth, he catches precisely zero.

We step into the RV together, laughing.

CHAPTER FIVE

I’ve never seen a city as colorful as New Orleans. I made a wish when we crossed the Louisiana border, like I did at the Alabama and Mississippi borders. I make the same wish every time, and the brightness of New Orleans almost feels like the universe working to make my wish come true. Neon signs flash in the shop windows. Orange buildings are window-draped with hanging green plants, and white carriages with red roofs pull families of tourists. We pass buildings painted yellow and blue, and cafés with pink banners flapping. We drive through a street of redbrick apartments and pear-colored palm bushes.

There are going to be lots of chances for Something New pictures here; we’ve driven past lots of murals already, and lots of spray-painted and chalked art along the walls and sides of buildings. Shouldn’t be hard at all to find the name of the city sprayed in big, bold letters somewhere, right? A Something New sign just like last time, only New Orleans style. It doesn’t even have to be the same kind of jumping picture, just a picture of Ruth standing under a new New, similar enough that when Ruth sees it, she’ll remember.

And it’s okay that Ruth’s not making a new playlist, because I remember the songs, even if she doesn’t have them downloaded.

The first thing we’re doing (Ellie has had this planned for weeks) is going to Café du Monde for beignets. Not the very first thing, I guess, since before we do that, we have to fit the RV into its slot among hundreds of other RVs on the asphalt plateau by the river. The forest of motor homes is almost beautiful.

I take some pictures of it, of course. No good photos of street art here, though.

We walk to the edge of this mobile city and call an Uber. The driver is a bald man with a friendly gap between his front teeth. I have to pay attention to understand what he’s saying, because his Louisiana drawl is so thick. He’s trying to tell us about a better place for beignets, but it doesn’t matter because Ellie is determined to get the specific Café du Monde experience.

And so we pull up to the café. The noise of the crowd erupts as we open the car doors, but we get out and the driver flashes his gap grin and drives off.