My name is Eula. Miss Eula, if you’re being polite — and in New Orleans, most people are, or at least to your face they are.
Well, Eula is what everybody calls me. My legal name is Aurélie Marguerite LaBellevie — and unless you speak perfect French like my mother did, that name is a mouthful. My brother certainly didn’t, not when he was little. So my mouthful of a name became “ewe-ah” every time he tried to say it. Somewhere between his second and third birthday, “ewe-ah” found its way to Eula. And it stuck — or so the story has been told all these years. Seventy-some years later, I’m still the name my older toddler brother made up because he hadn’t mastered the French language yet.
And you know what? That name fits me better than Aurélie ever would have. A toddler figured out who I was before I did.
I live in New Orleans. Have always lived here, and Lord willing, always will. I’ve got a porch and a glass of sweet tea and more stories than I know what to do with — some funny, some not, most of them both at the same time. I used to sit out here with a Vieux Carré and a Lucky Strike. If you’re not from these parts, cher — if Jesus wanted to turn water into a bourbon cocktail, it would be the Vieux Carré. Can’t do that anymore, though. At least I’m not supposed to. My doctor put both my booze and my tobacco to bed last year. Thirty-two years old. What does a thirty-two year old know about bourbon and cigarettes? My Aunt Yvette is pushing a hundred and still drinks and smokes. I’m just saying.
I had a husband who played saxophone. A friend who walked an alligator on a leash. A father who drove a riverboat up and down the Mississippi and came home from the war absolutely convinced he had seen mermaids off the coast of Gibraltar — he never wavered on that, not once, not even at the end, and to this day, I believe him. I buried a son who got a handwritten letter from Julia Child in high school. And I have a daughter — Lord — who bit Santa Claus back in 1973.
And I had a mother who spoke flawless Parisian French, like she was a lady in waiting to Queen Marie Antoinette. She never touched a drop of liquor in her whole life, but lived on money that came from a whole lot of it. Mama lived her life by two books. Emily Post on the shelf right next to the Bible, and even now I’m not sure which book she believed more.
Mama put out the fine crystal glasses on a Tuesday. Not because company was coming. Because Tuesday deserved them. Because whoever was at that table deserved them. And you deserve crystal at whichever table you choose to sit at too, don’t ever forget that, cher.
And then there is Fifi. She belongs to my grandchildren — or, more accurately, my grandchildren belong to her. As far as Fifi is concerned, all of humanity belongs to her, like a massive army intent upon only serving her feline needs. She is a hairless cat — I want you to imagine this for a second. I think God might have had one too many Vieux Carrés the day He made Fifi. I was raised to find beauty in all of God’s creatures, and I have held to that my whole life. I am holding to it now. But that cat looks like Darth Vader’s pet, and she struts around like she just won the Miss America pageant. She is a Twinkie thief. She is also a Golden Girls dévotée. She will sit in front of that television and meow incessantly until the poor person with the remote finally finds that program. The moment she hears the first few notes of that theme song, the meowing stops. She goes completely still and stares at that television like she is watching something holy. Now, I have known dogs, cats, and one dwarf alligator who followed me like I hung the moon. Almost every animal I have ever met has loved me. Except Fifi. She looks right through me. Every. Single. Time. Well, unless I have Twinkies or a remote control. But my grandchildren love her. They love her so very, very much. And I have learned, over my many years as Eula LaBellevie, that loving someone all the way means loving what they love. Even when what they love looks like it was thrown together by the dark side last minute, like a college kid throws an essay together five minutes before it’s due.
So. You know my name now — the one a toddler made up that fits better than the real one ever did — and a tiny bit of the stories I carry. A husband who played saxophone. A father who came home from the war convinced he’d seen mermaids off the coast of Gibraltar. A daughter who bit Santa Claus in 1973. A friend who walked an alligator on a leash. Lord, the stories people carry. Oh, and did I mention my Aunt Pauline? She thinks she saw the Holy Virgin in a cup of hot cocoa back in the forties. Gave her entire life to God right then and there. We’ll get to her eventually. We’ll get to all of them, eventually. Now. I’ve kept you long enough for a first visit. Every story I’ve ever told, I told because someone needed to hear it — and I have a feeling you’re no different, cher. Don’t be a stranger. The porch doesn’t close.
