For a big woman, she moved gracefully. She was proud of that. One time, when she was a lot younger, she’d gotten the bug to take ballet. She’d done real good until she’d run out of money.

Well, what had happened was she’d had a few too many before she went to class, and the bitch who taught it got huffy, and that was that. She’d been going to quit anyway. Too expensive.

Dusk had slid a couple more notches toward night. Hurrying across the garden, she wasn’t worried that Mr. Marchand or his lady friend would turn and see her. Most people didn’t see her anymore. Sometimes it made her feel bad. More often than not, it came in handy.

They hadn’t gone far, just into the River’s Edge Restaurant on the corner. They were seated at a candlelit table by one of the windows.

Red settled herself on an iron bench on the brick walkway. It was like she was in a dark theater, and they were the movie on screen, except she couldn’t hear what they were saying. She pulled out the silver flask. That never went into the bags unless she was right there with them; it lived in a pocket, and if her gown didn’t have a pocket for it, she got that iron-on stuff and made one. A girl needed the essentials.

Red had never seen Mr. Marchand like he was tonight. Narrowing her eyes against the booze, she tried to figure out if it was the candlelight or what. He looked like he’d lost a couple decades. Red took another little snort to help her concentrate and cocked her head to one side.

Not just younger. “Fuck,” she whispered. She’d hit on it. Once the thought came to her there was no doubt about it.

Mr. Marchand looked happy. It had taken her so long because she’d never seen him happy before. Not like she’d ever thought about it; she had better things to do than sit around wondering if he was happy or not. But seeing it she knew he hadn’t been like that until now. He didn’t yuk it up like some guys might, or grin, or anything. It was in his strange, quiet way. He sort of glowed happy, like babies when they’re asleep and fed.

Miss Pollyanna was doing it. He glowed at her. Or maybe reflected the light coming off of her because she was a natural glow-er. Red didn’t know quite what she meant by that but it was true. The Polly woman had that inner thing going that can’t be painted on or faked.

Ms. Polly-the-blonde-charmer didn’t know what she was getting into.

Man, was she going to have something to talk about tonight. This was big! Red laughed and tipped the flask again.

“Fuck.” It was empty. She tossed it toward the garbage can on the corner, remembered it wasn’t a beer can, and hurried to retrieve it before some junky or drunk got it.

Sydney ’s was down North Peters a couple of blocks. The store carried booze, and chips, and cigarettes. It’d take her probably five minutes, ten at the outside, to go and resupply. For a minute, she stood wondering if she dared. If they got away, it could go bad for her.

Polly laughed, and Mr. Marchand reached out as if he was going to touch her hand. They weren’t going anywhere for a while, not unless it was to somebody’s room, and Red doubted blondie was the type. She knew for a fact Mr. Marchand wasn’t.

Comforted by that thought, she deserted her post in search of refreshments. She wasn’t away long, she was sure of that, but when she got back they were gone. A waitress was wiping down the table.

“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” she whispered as she turned around in a full circle peering through the gathering darkness, the glittering lights, and the gabbling tourists. A teenager laughed. With instinct born of experience, Red knew it was at her. Once it would have hurt her feelings; now she barely registered it.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she murmured. A mule-drawn carriage pulled away from the curb where they lined up waiting for fares and she saw them on the far side of the North Peters: Polly’s hair, the color of the moon under the streetlights; Mr. Marchand’s dark suit, a shadow between her and the traffic.

Red trotted to catch up. Years and pounds had built up around her middle, and before she’d made it fifty feet she was gasping for breath, sweat running between her breasts, but she didn’t give up. They walked for what seemed like miles but was only five blocks before they finally stopped on Decatur.

There weren’t as many tourists here as on the square. Red fought to quiet her breathing. If she kept on huffing like a hyperventilating rhino, everybody was going to look at her. Mr. Marchand took the blonde’s keys, opened the driver’s door of a silver Volvo, held it as she got in, then handed her keys back. Polly was laughing, and he looked like he didn’t know what to do.

He didn’t know what to do-that’s why he was acting like some asshole out of a Fred Astaire movie. He didn’t know people didn’t do that crap anymore; they just hooked up, and screwed, and moved on. Mr. Marchand was so stupid he was still doing the whole gentlemen-prefer-blondes routine.

And poor stupid Miss Polly was lapping it up.

Man, was there ever going to be a shitload of stuff to talk about.

A week passed, and the lovely Mr. Marchand did not call. Polly might have called him but, though the rules in the new millennium had changed, Polly’s had not. She was not averse to making the first move; it was the second. A second date set the tone for a relationship. In a man’s world, it was necessary that he desire a woman a shade more than she desired him.

Since her marriage to Carver had imploded, Polly had not invested much of herself in the society of men. With the advent of the lovely Mr. Marchand, this was changing. Stifling a sigh, she looked out over the bent heads of her English literature class: Barbara scribbling madly, Tyrell gazing out the window, Bethany staring at the paper the way a bird might stare at a cobra.

After Katrina, New Orleans was a city without children. Schools had been shut down, the students evacuated, enrolled in schools miles-and sometimes states-away. During the last months of 2005, the adults who came back would meet in the rubble-filled streets, mops and shovels in hand, cheering one another with the phrase, “Come January.” January was the date the schools were to reopen and, like those left bereft by the Pied Piper, they waited for the children to return and save New Orleans.

Where children were, parents were: living, working, buying, selling, renovating, recreating the cycle of supply and demand the city needed to recover. Images of New Orleanians rebuilding morphed into images of Marshall Marchand re-creating the city’s historic homes, then to his sudden rare smile. Surreptitiously and undoubtedly with the same sneaky look her students wore when they pulled a similar stunt, Polly eased her cell phone out of her purse and checked to see if she had any calls. Four: one from Marshall Marchand.

Feeling like an idiot, she slipped out of the classroom. In the faculty lounge she checked her messages.

“What are you giggling about?” Mr. Andrews, the eternally sour teacher of American history, had come into the lounge.

“Hot date,” Polly drawled and batted her eyes.

He grunted.

“I wanted to show you my neighborhood,” Marshall said as they parked on a side street beneath three tall pine trees. “If you’d be more comfortable in a public place, I’d be glad to take you out for dinner.”

Polly enjoyed Marshall ’s old-world manners. She reached across the console and touched his hand lightly. “I’ll just keep my cell phone on 911.”

A look akin to pain flashed in his eyes. It was gone so quickly she scarcely noticed the spark of alarm it triggered in her.

He walked around the car to open her door. It was rather grand to sit quietly and compose one’s self while a man did manly things.

Because he was a restoration architect Polly assumed he would live in a monument to old money on St. Charles or in a classic home in an undamaged area of Metairie. But his house was in a pioneer neighborhood. The front yard of the duplex where Marshall and his brother lived contrasted starkly with the weed-filled yard of their neighbor. In the Marchands’ yard was a mosaic of brick and moss framed by elephant ears and surrounded by a wrought iron fence, the bottom brown with rust from the floodwaters.