The truth is, New Orleans scares me. I picture it like a beast unto itself, this vibrant, pulsing mass of too much color and sound, where people go to lose themselves, to disappear in the euphoria. I watched a movie when I was little about a ballerina who wanted to be the best dancer in the world. She bought a mysterious pair of silky red pointe shoes that made her dance better than everyone else in the company, but when she went to take them off, they were stuck fast to her feet. They forced her to keep dancing, day and night, until she finally died from exhaustion. This is how I see New Orleans, like those red pointe shoes, a place for swan-diving over the edge. But I cannot explain this to my mother.

She glances sidelong at me. “You’re doing it.”

“What?”

“That thing you’ve done since you were little where you go all pensive and your face screws up on itself like you’re untangling a wad of thoughts the way someone unwinds a ball of yarn.”

I cross my arms, uncomfortable that she sees me. I’m not sure which is worse, the times she sees too much or the times she cannot see at all.

“You’re lucky I’m out of school,” I say, changing the subject. “This would have been a lot more complicated if it weren’t summer.”

Her eyes veer off in thought, and I realize this is the first time she’s considered schooling. “When does that start again?”

“August. I’ll be a senior.” I just have to make it through one more year, and then I can get out of New Orleans and away from Mary. In the meantime, I’ll try to figure out what’s really going on with Moony’s money because it can’t be that Moony lied to me all these years or spent my future on some secret extravagance. I’ll find a way to get myself to the East Coast for college. I have to.

She grins. “A senior. My little bookworm. I’ve told everyone all about you, shown them your picture and everything. They can’t wait to meet you.”

I used to want this. I used to want to meet her friends and see where she lived and be in on whatever she was doing. When she left, it was as if all the color drained from my world. But I’m not that big on color anymore. It’s overrated. The lines are what really matter—nice, solid, black lines that keep everything in its place.

The inside of her Mazda suddenly feels like it’s shrinking. I roll my window down, pretending it’s because of the cigarette smoke.

She turns the radio on, setting it to a local Zydeco station. “That’s the spirit of things.”