Juliet's Life Changing Event - Backstory

We lived with Aunt Delia in the Quarter above the antique shop she owned on Royal Street in New Orleans until I was nearly nine years old.

The apartment was more of a warehouse for surplus furniture we used for our day to day storage—and it was amazing.

The rooms glittered with crystal chandeliers and beveled mirrors bouncing prisms of light everywhere. Propped against the walls layers of artwork decorated our rooms with depictions of yellowed landscapes, still life of fruit and flowers, paintings of families, wedding couples, and hunting dogs from a bygone era.

Aunt Delia referred to it as the second story showroom. She brought potential clients upstairs when they requested something specific not on the street level. Many times people bought a bureau or wardrobe that contained our clothes and we’d have to remove them and shift to another antique for our belongings.

During the humid hot summers everything smelled ancient and musty. My mother, Delphina, showed me how to make lavender sachets and we placed them in drawers.

I wasn’t allowed to play outside alone during the summers. Everything had to be arranged. Either my mother or Aunt Delia escorted me to a local friend’s house and at the appointed time I was escorted back to our apartment. Friends weren’t able to visit me because of Aunt Delia’s rules.

“Please, Aunt Delia, can Carla spend the day here?” I begged.

“Absolutely not! This is not a playschool, Juliet. This is a business and there are fragile items everywhere.”

“Mom says it’s just a bunch of old stuff.” Delphina never quite got used to living with so many antiques. She likened it to living with dead people memories and this brought ghosts. She was right about that.

Aunt Delia argued that the furnishings were rich in history, meant to last, and mellow with age. It certainly seemed that way. She knew almost everything about furniture styles and period accessories.

Many times I was left to my own devices so most of my toys were antique china dolls with raggedy hair that I wheeled around in a pram. When I got bored with that I made tunnels with the oriental rugs that lay across scarred wooden floors. Howard came when Delphina and Aunt Delia were busy in the shop. I enjoyed his visits. He taught me how to play chess, sail paper airplanes, and toss pennies. Other times we just talked, or he talked about his very old life.

At night my mother became Madam Delphina. She read tarot cards in Jackson Square for the tourists. Beautifully dressed in a flowing black dress, she covered her arms with a colorful fringed shawl. Her wavy dark hair fell upon her shoulders. On her fingers she slid jeweled rings and wore dangly earrings.

She’d wheel her folding table and chair to the square and set up at the designated space with her candles and incense and her well worn deck.

Madam Delphina loved working with the hoards of people who strolled the night and the constant activity. Some of the same people sought her out year after year because she never gave bad news in her readings. If a card was potential bad news, she always told her clients to watch out for this or that to head off disaster. They tipped her well.

“Read the cards for me,” I said.

“No. Just watch and learn. But I do know your life will be filled with adventures.”

Once in a while Aunt Delia would come by and take me for a walk through the shops of voodoo memorabilia. I liked the voodoo dolls but she would never buy me one.

“You don’t need that,” she told me. Aunt Delia wasn’t as pretty as her younger sister, Delphina, but she was more regal. Tall in stature and tailored. “You hungry?”

“Yes. Pralines.”

“Rots your teeth. Let’s get us a po’boy.”

She’d find us an outdoor table to enjoy our sandwich and watch the evening transgress from tourists with baby carriages to drunks, bums, and the Goth crowd. Fascinated with the street entertainment I began to imitate the kids who danced with bottle caps on the soles of their shoes.

I fashioned by own by collecting my own caps and gluing them onto the bottom of my rubber sandals. I rolled up an oriental rug and practiced my moves. I liked the sound the caps made on the hardwood floors but the caps kept coming off and Aunt Delia said the noise was giving her a headache.

This was our life. It was normal and I was happy until Delphina met Lazlo. Delphina fell in love with an olive skinned man with slicked back hair.

She said he was, “Tall, dark, and handsome.” See Delphina was a dreamer where Aunt Delia was more logical. Aunt Delia tolerated Lazlo, but was always suspicious. She bore holes in him whenever he was around.

I saw less of Delphina for awhile. She stayed out late into the wee hours visiting “watering holes” and strip clubs. Delphina slept late into the day. At first Aunt Delia let her have her fun, but then they got into an argument.

“Delphi, you have to pull yourself together. You’re setting a bad example for Juliet.”

“Pfft. Just because you don’t have a man, you criticize me.”

“I don’t need any man to be happy.”

‘But I’m in love with Lazlo.”

“Fine. But don’t you think Juliet comes first?”

“Of course she does…but at night she’s asleep.”

“And most of the day you are.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Include her. And not a night of drinking and debauchery.”

If you pressed her buttons long enough, Aunt Delia would give you ‘what for’.

After that Delphina and Lazlo brought me along a couple times a week. We did family stuff and visited the zoo, picnicked along the river, and strolled the open market. I loved the trinkets and colorful wares the vendors sold to tourists.

Delphina bought incense and costume jewelry. Lazlo bought strands of beads and put them around my neck, but what I really wanted was the keychain with a picture of an alligator on it.

“I need to have this.” I waved it up in front of face.

“No. You don’t even have keys.”

‘But I like it.”

“I said no. Put it back.”

But I didn’t. I slipped the treasure into my pocket.



Lazlo became a fixture in ours lives. Delphina was happy when Lazlo proposed to her. We spent all our time at his home, a small shot gun house with a front porch. It wasn’t pretty and interesting like Aunt Delia’s, but I was able to go out and play with children in the neighborhood.

Delphina continued to do the tarot readings and Lazlo encouraged it.

Most evenings I stayed with Lazlo while Delphina worked. I don’t think he had a job but he always had money. We’d walk the streets and talk to people I didn’t know. Mostly men who looked similar to Lazlo. After he bought me an ice cream we stopped at the same house we always did before walking home.

On a hot night in August, a man he called Spiff came and chatted with Lazlo. Spiff gave him some money and he let go of my hand.

“Go with Spiff, Juliet. I’ll be back later.”

“Why?”

“It’s okay.” I didn’t want to go, but Lazlo took off and left me with Spiff.

“Come in and I’ll read you a story.” He smiled with crooked teeth.

I stood there not knowing what to do. My ice cream melted, dripping on my shoes.

“Let’s clean you up,” Spiff said. He took my hand and led me inside past the iron gate and a garden crammed with sweet smelling flowers.

The room was lit with pillar candles on a long table. He closed the damask draperies before picking me up and sitting on the sofa. “Sit on my lap.”

“Where did Lazlo go?” I didn’t like it here or Spiff.

“Such pretty hair,” he commented while removing the band that secured my ponytail.

“I want to go home.”

“Soon. Maybe I should bathe you first.” Spiff stroked my hair and then kissed my cheek.

The next thing I knew the front door slammed open. I fell to the floor when Spiff stood up. Aunt Delia charged in with a rock in hand and menace on her face.




Word Count: 1425

Delphina's Character Sketch  (E) Juliet's mother #1843740 by Endless Enigma