Scarborough Fair and Other Stories (20 page)

And with that, Victoria and her precious new undies returned to the ship. She wore the tatted lace bra and panties in Space Corps dress blue for her commissioning and as her new rank was pinned upon her secretly lace-encased chest, her heart swelled with pride and tears came to her eyes recalling how much she owed to her dear mother's advice, and how surprised mom would be if only she knew the impact her words had had upon her daughter's adventures.

by

Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

The invisible woman opened the envelope with a thrill of anticipation. There was no question of it being a bill, or a fake check made out to her if only she would change her long distance service. It was oversized for one thing, and bright turquoise, for another. It might have been an offbeat wedding invitation, though it was too big and not pastel enough for a birth announcements. Some time after she had become invisible to the world at large, she continued to hear from distant relatives and friends who had not seen or spoken to her in years but who now had children, even grandchildren of marriageable age. It had occurred to her to notify these people of her new status by sending them checks written in invisible ink.

However, this could not be from any of those people, because now not even they knew where she was. The turquoise object had been slipped under the door of the deluxe hotel suite she currently occupied. The suite was far too expensive for most people and now, at Mardi Gras, was probably the only room in New Orleans still unrented. She did not have to rent it of course. The maid service left much to be desired since nobody knew she was here, but the price was quite affordable for an invisible woman.

She had not become invisible all at once, of course. It was more of a gradual fading that happened over the years. She had been married once, because it was time to be married. She was invisible most of the time then to her husband, who worked at a travelling sort of job and eventually found someone who suited him better. They did not have children.

Her parents died, and as she had only one sister who lived very far away and with whom she had never been very close, her past faded into oblivion with no one to remind her of what she had been like as a child.

She had to work very hard after the divorce to maintain herself, to pay bills she had foolishly run up, and as she never made time to see her few friends, she was soon invisible to them too.

As slowly but surely as a stalking mummy, age crept upon her and she was no longer twenty-something, thirty-something, and soon would not be forty-something either. Much more quickly, her absorption in her desk work and her rapid consumption of empty calories to fuel herself during both work and lonely hours caused her to become invisible to men.

She first realized this when men she met socially did not seem to hear what she said and looked over her head or right through her to some younger and more attractive woman or another man. It was not that she was particularly boring. They had never found her so before at least. But somehow, she truly became invisible. At last she was even invisible at work to the men and then, finally, she showed up one day to find someone else—a younger, better educated woman—at her desk. The woman looked right through her too and at that point, the invisible woman bolted for the bathroom mirror and found that except for a somewhat shapeless and rather tasteless pants and top set, bulging more than she liked to think she bulged, there was nothing of who she was, who she had been, reflected. She was glad the chic young thing who had her job had not seemed to see the clothing any more than she had seen the invisible woman.

That day, she took off her clothes and went home to her apartment.

At first, finding that she was totally invisible depressed her terribly but gradually it occurred to her that there was a sort of freedom about it that appealed to her sense of humor.

She could go where she liked and do what she wanted. It wasn't as if she could walk through walls or anything like that, of course. She wasn't a ghost, merely invisible. But she could slip through doors unnoticed along with other people. She could snatch food when they were not looking at it, snatch money if she liked, but she didn't like to do that most of the time. She wasn't a dishonest person at heart. But there was so much in the world, for an invisible person with her eyes open, that there was no need really to take too much.

She could snatch a book and leave everyone scratching their heads when alarms sounded as she left the store. She would read it and return it in very nice condition as soon as she was able. She couldn't get served in restaurants of course but she could take bites from other peoples' plates or help herself in the kitchen. After seeing the condition of some of those kitchens however, she thought of applying for a job as a health inspector—by mail, of course—and informing the public health officials that they could have protected public health much more efficiently had they employed invisible people all along.

At first she spent a great deal of time playing with clothing and jewels—she had enjoyed looking at them so much when she was younger and more visible, though she never could afford what she liked. Now she could have anything at all that she desired but somehow, it wasn't much fun to see her body's over-ample contours in chic designer clothing without a face above them, no face to be set off by a collar, no wrist or arms to be flattered by a certain sleeve length, no feet to enjoy the priciest shoes. Boots were nice. They gave the illusion of feet and legs at least.

But she could hardly wear them in public unless she swathed herself in bandages, which rather defeated the purpose. Once or twice she went out wearing a lot of makeup with the clothes, but she always worried that people would notice she was wearing something she hadn't paid for. After awhile, she gave up and returned most of the clothes and jewels and shoes.

At least, as an invisible woman, she could go out and here interesting conversations people didn't want her to hear, and that gave her something to think about and for awhile relieved her isolation and loneliness. She quickly decided that if she was going to revel in invisibility she needed to move from Portland to a warmer climate. Running around nude in the rain made her want to steal nothing more than indoor warmth and a cup of coffee.

Thus, here she was in New Orleans, home the Mardi Gras, voodoo, and of the Anne Rice books she had always enjoyed. She was feeling greater and greater kinship with the main characters all the time—although she, unlike many of them, did not need the cover of darkness to do her business. She found that she liked to go out after dark, nevertheless. The town was more interesting after dark. The smells were sharper, not such a jumble, and the noises clearer. She even fancied that from time to time she had seen some of Rice's eldritch friends lurking elegantly near the shadows. Besides, for most of her life she had been afraid to go out alone in a city on foot after dark. Then she realized that while she might need to be extra careful crossing streets, muggers didn't target invisible people.

Besides, she didn't carry a purse. Mostly what she took could fit into her hands. Otherwise she had to be fairly stealthy about moving it around. Disembodied floating objects might possibly attract unwanted attention. In darkness, at least, she could filch dark colored objects without too much bother.

Even before Carnival began, she enjoyed prowling the darkness. There was violence at times, and all of the things one normally read about in the morning paper. But she could pass by unnoticed and after awhile, there was very little she feared.

Now that the season and the parades had begun, it was rather wonderful to pass through the crowds unnoticed.

She had always thought of Mardi Gras as one big parade but actually, there were two weeks worth of parades put on by, this year, 53 different organizations right there in New Orleans. Surrounding areas had their own parades.

She had made the mistake of attending a parade while
totally
invisible only once. Her feet were so bruised and bleeding from being trod on by the time she extracted herself from the surging crowds that she was sure she had left bloody tracks. She had finally taken to wearing running shoes. The crowds were so thick that nobody noticed an extra pair of shoes milling with the shoes that had legs attached. It was too hard on her feet to do all that walking with arch support. To protect the rest of her hide against such intrusions from elbows and other painful and damaging objects, she walked down the street with the revelers, beyond the barrier separating the parades from the spectators.

It was fun! She could dance with the music, a blend of jazz, Caribbean mambo, blues, heavy with piano, ethnic drums of indeterminate origin, trombones and saxophones and other instruments she associated with jazz or big band music. There was a sort of jingling percussion instrument too that contributed heavily to the wild feel of the music.

She loved catching the “throws” or trinkets thrown by the people on the floats. The items were mostly cheap and gaudy long strings of plastic beads, cups, doubloons (fake coins with the names of the clubs or krewes that put on the parades), even lace panties and gilt or sequined tiaras. Some of the stuff had collector value but most of it was right up there with what you might give for favors at a New Year's or children's party. Most of them she gave to people she spotted at the back of the crowd, looking disappointed, children sometimes but even other adults—including other lone middle-aged women she thought were beginning to look a bit see-throughish themselves.

A few of the trinkets took back to the hotel to drape over the lamps and spread out on the bed and television. To take full advantage of her invisibility, she had to travel light. She had pretty much abandoned her own things when she left home. Even the trinkets she hid behind the furniture or under the mattress when she left the room, in case the maid come in or the room was rented while she was away.

She was still lonely a lot, but sometimes now she enjoyed herself. Like last night. There was a wonderful night parade along the river. Some of the maskers danced in feathers and sequins and very little else on the shore, some were aboard boats decorated to look like sea serpents and Atlantis complete with a whole squad of long-tailed mermaids. The music had been darker and more mysterious than usual—the same festive beat but with a lot of the Indian undertones some of it had, and more drums and jingles.

Unlike most of the parades, this one was entirely lit with torches or flambeaux. Even the street lamps had been turned off for the parade, and a whole phalanx of robed figures, whom she had at first feared might be some branch of the Ku Klux Klan that wore only black, formed a torchlit barrier between the crowd and the floats, boats, and maskers. Hell for the fire marshals, she thought, wincing a little. She was surprised they permitted it. Most of the parades she had seen featured the torches only as fiery atmospheric touches provided by a few of the parade participants—not as a primary source of lighting. In the firelight the shadows were long and grotesque and seemed to caper demonically independent of the fantastic creatures who cast them.

The throws were rather wonderful too—heavy crystal beads that sparkled in the torchlight instead of plastic ones, and bracelets and necklaces of marcasite and garnets, hard to see in the dark, but really quite beautiful. Something she would have been proud to wear back when she had a self to wear it on. The doubloons they threw made heavy clanking sounds as they hit the street too. She picked up two, though she could not make out inscriptions in the feeble torchlight. She held onto the coins, but had passed the jewelry on to some of the women in the back of the crowd who looked like they needed some luck.

The parade wound past the French quarter where some of the women , not all of them young and firm either, flashed their breasts from the balconies. Well, so did some of the women in the crowd. This mildly shocked the invisible woman until she realized that she was at least marginally barer than even the most scantily clad of them. Only nobody could see her. Or so she thought.

When she read the her name on the envelope, she felt herself blush. Deeply. Apparently someone
had
seen her. All of her. And they knew who she was. She felt a distinct chill, although the temperature was already, in early March, in the mid-70's with humidity of about the same percent.

“Mlle Vanessa Lightfoot” was elegantly calligraphed on the envelope. No one knew her name here. No one. How had they found out?

From the envelope she pulled an elegantly die-cut, embossed card, and gilt edged card, a fan shape with a shell design containing a mermaid with an elongated tail in a symphony of purple, green, and gold, the Mardi Gras colors.

She knew what this was, she thought. She had seen similar things in the Mardi Gras guides and magazines. And she had seen the mermaid design last night. It depicted the same character as the costume worn by the maskers on the Atlantis float.

Yes. Written in gold ink across the green sea in which the mermaid swam was the invitation:
“Krewe of Melusine 2000 commands your presence at her Melusinseranade on the evening of Mardi Gras the seventh day of March, year of two thousand from seven of the clock until two-thirty.”
Added to the bottom in an elegant hand, this time in green ink on a golden shell, “Come as a character from your favorite folk or fairy tale.”

It further listed an address in the French Quarter.

She was already hearing some of the Mardi Gras terms on local television. The Krewe of Melusine, the krewe responsible for last night's wonderful parade, was oddly absent from the television stories that had been running steadily since Carnival began.

She stepped back out long enough to go to the hotel lobby newsstand and grab a copy of the ubiquitous Mardi Gras Guide.

Through the big glass windows, festooned with gilt banners and plastic beads, she saw the glitter and heard the music of a parade two blocks away.

She returned with the Guide to her suite. It showed the parade route of the Krewe of Melusine, the parade the had followed last night, but there was little else about them in there, except that their organization had entered into the festivities for the first time this year. Well, perhaps that explained why they were recruiting new blood, if not why they could see her. Perhaps, she thought, they were simply more observant than most people. Wouldn't that be nice? Maybe there were people out there who were interested in whatever particular group of characteristics made her unique and saw her because of them. A bit daunting that she would be stark naked when they did. However, in the course of Carnival so far, she had already seen a great many people wearing very little more than she did. Perhaps down here nudity was viewed somewhat different. Maybe Krewe Melusine was made up of middle aged nudists for all she knew.