- Chapter 9
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THE INVISIBLE WOMAN'S CLEVER DISGUISE
by Elizabeth Ann Scaroborough
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.
But they expected her to show up in costume for their ball so she would have to get busy. She smiled as she considered that she quite literally hadn't a thing to wear.
Who would she go as? She was a bit long in the tooth for the heroines, but then again, nobody could see her so she could get the appropriate disguise and be Rapunzel with yards of blonde hair if she wished! She felt like a cross between Cinderella and the fly invited into the spider's web.
Costume shops were all over the city but she couldn't find a costume she liked, that fitted, anywhere. With the season so well underway, the selection was well picked over and she was not the petite size that most designers fondly imagined their customers would be. For two days she hunted the racks and the temperature rose into the eighties. Even though she risked wearing her running shoes in the daytime, she was growing footsore. Her invisible skin prickled with heat rash and was rubbed raw from chafing. Unused to even mild heat during this season, she was so terribly hot and dripping with perspiration she was surprised people did not try to elude the moving vertical lake she felt she had become. And her search was fruitless. Except for kiddy Halloween costumes, little remained in the city.
Why on earth hadn't the people throwing the party issued their invitations a bit earlier? Probably because they had only spotted her, maybe even recognized her from someplace else, at their parade the night before the invitation arrived. Whoever they were, whatever their reason for inviting her, she desperately wanted to discover.
Perhaps she should just go as she was after all, drape a length of cloth over her arm and be the emperor wearing his new clothes if anyone DID see her and asked. But the emperor (or empress, as anyone who could see her would be quite aware), though naked while wearing "invisible" new clothes, was not himself invisible.
For a fancy masked ball you really needed to wear something unlike yourself. For her, that would be someone visible.
Someone normal. Or almost. Character from a favorite fairy tale?
She found a mask in one of the shops that reminded her of something, something she had a hard time remembering for a time. The mask was covered with holographic film that bounced reflections from its surface. It was trimmed with gilt and sequins. The main part of the mask covered the upper part of the face, but it also featured a cascading veil of crystal and gold beads to cover the lower face. She also found a gold gilt wig with carefully arranged curls such as the white ones a judge might have worn in the old days. Both of these items appealed to her and she took them without quite knowing what she was going to do with them.
She saw the black robe crumpled in a box of discarded costumes in the back of one of the shops. It had a hood. Probably featured a skull mask and a scythe too, but it had black spangles on it so that it would sparkle. She took it too.
Still, she didn't know which fairy tale character she had in mind with that odd assortment until she returned to the hotel room and saw the ornately framed and gilded dressing table mirror. One more foray to a hardware shop and a sporting goods store and she began assembling her costume.
She dithered a little about whether to arrive early or be fashionably late, but she didn't really know the protocol. Finally, because she couldn't stand the wait, because it had been so long since her presence or absence made a difference to anyone, and because she didn't want to miss anything, she arrived at the address on the invitation just after "seven of the clock."
Completely covered in her hooded black robe, gloved and booted in black and her face and hair made visible by the golden wig and holographic mask, glittering and sparkling with every step, she was, in the crowd of elaborately garbed and/or half-naked maskers, more invisible than she had ever been before. She was sweltering by the time she arrived at the address on her invitation, the mirror concealed in a portfolio sized black bag she carried close to her robe.
The address belonged to a three story building with the vast numbers of tall windows and the two wrought-iron balconies that were a trademark of French Quarter architecture.
A doorman, dressed in a gray suit with a rat's mask and tail, ushered her inside. The rest of the staff of what seemed to be a rather exclusive historic hotel were also masked and garbed. She wondered if most of the hotels hosting the costume balls did this. The staff in her hotel remained stolidly in the day-to-day uniform of modernity and conformity.
Even more amazing, in this twilight hour, the entire lobby was lit only by candlelight from the wall sconces, candelabrum and some quite impressive candle-bearing chandeliers. The air carried some flowery perfume—gardenia, maybe?
Another rat looked at her invitation and ushered her into a ballroom.
She had been expecting the usual Holiday Inn sort of ballroom—a large room with a folding fiberglass curtain that could be pulled across the center to make two smaller meeting rooms. An area of parquet floor for dancing, the rest of the floor covered with utilitarian carpet and furnished with rather institutional tables and chairs perhaps covered with white cloths. Sometimes they had one of those prismatic balls above the dance floor, the kind you used to see in roller rinks, and later, discos.
But if the room she entered had ever looked like that, the decorations committee of the Krewe of Melusine was to be commended on the transformation.
This truly looked like the ballroom from Cinderella as it never had been done but should have. The lighting was supplied by candles, just as it was in the lobby. Crystal and silver chandeliers reflected the light from the flames flickering within them. The light and shadow played across a floor that seemed to be a solid sheet of lavender veined white marble. A patterned carpet that looked as if with only a little help it could be airborne, padded the steps under her dancing boots.
Beyond the marble dance floor, tall doors opened onto a courtyard where concealed colored lights played on the waters of a splashing fountain with a mermaid at its center. What looked like ancient cypress trees and weeping willows and a couple of palms were lit with what the invisible woman rather hoped were not thousands of tiny candles—Christmas tree lights, more likely, in purple, green, and gold.
The room was edged, not with the conventional round tables and hotel chairs, but with great groaning sideboards filled with all sorts of things to eat and drink. The centerpiece of each table was an ice sculpture, the largest of which was a replica of the Melusine themed float-boat with the mermaids.
She took all this in while peeking past the herald, closed the door softly and repaired to the lady's room to finish her costume. It felt odd to actually have to go into a separate room for privacy after having, for such a long time, more privacy than she had ever needed or wanted.
When she returned, the herald glanced at her, blew a real trumpet, and announced, "The Magic Mirror from Snow White has arrived."
The ballroom was considerably more crowded than it had been when she ducked into the bathroom. On each step was at least one masker—sometimes a couple, sometimes more, filing down to a reception line that was now in place. She would have to run the gauntlet. Oh dear. Somehow she thought these things were much less formal than this.
The band began playing in the background, heavy drums and jingles, saxophone slithering through with a melody. Perhaps out of deference to the reception line, no singer had as yet taken the stage.
She descended behind Rapunzel and the prince, who was covered with a thorny vine. On his other side walked a woman wearing a tiara, a brief sheer set of baby doll pajamas the invisible woman thought she had seen in a Frederick's of Hollywood ad, and carrying a spinning wheel. Rapunzel, the prince, sleeping beauty. A threesome? That didn't bother her somehow. Not nearly as much as trying to see through her mask and over the mirror so that she did not tread on or trip over the long yellow braid that formed a train to Rapunzel's costume. As the trio turned to face the reception line, she saw that Sleeping Beauty was a man. She wasn't sure about the other two.
Fortunately, nobody could see from her invisible and masked face if she was surprised or not. The Guide had warned that cross-dressing for males particularly was a Mardi Gras institution.
First in the reception line was Snow White. Next to her—him actually-- were seven very little men—children rather than dwarves, from the look of them, though their eyes looked very old, and some of them, she was fairly sure, were girls. One of them spoke up, laying a proprietary hand on Snow White's pale arm. "Oh, darlin' look," the little man said in a high overly sweetened feminine drawl. "If it isn't the magic mirror! You must check and see if you're the fairest of them all!"
Snow White flashed teeth—fangs—at the child and said, "How very droll you are this evenin', Dopey, isn't it?"
The invisible woman was still taking in the fangs when the snow white smile was flashed at her. "Thanks, mirror. That's real cute but I'm gonna have to pass. You understand, don't you?"
"Maybe she doesn't, darlin'," said the next tall person in line. This was interesting. A woman dressed as a man in drag. Overly made up and coifed but the décolletage in the gown was deep and genuine. "Never mind that little bitch, honey, you just come over here and tell Queenie who is the fairest of them all. My, that's a cute costume! Made it yourself?"
The invisible woman, unsure if she could make herself heard, nodded.
"Oh, you are soooo mysterious! I just love it. And you're new too—not that I can see you, but I can just feel that you are. I know you're going to have so much fun with us. You just run along now. Red Ridin' Hood, honey, would you get Ms Mirror here some punch? I don't think she can manage with her—uh—reflectin' side in front of her like that."
Little Red Riding Hood turned a red hooded head to her—and revealed a human face in the process of growing a snout and extra hair. "Never mind," the invisible woman squeaked aloud for the first time in years. "I can manage!"
"Oh lookee there!" squealed the first of the seven dwarves. "Look at all those gorgeous gals!"
Descending the steps in plumed tiaras and a variety of dancing costumes—everything from ballroom and tango through Irish step dancing—came twelve pseudo maidens, at least half of whom were male. Behind them came a fellow in a Confederate officer's uniform with a cloak draped over his arm.
Little Red Riding—wolf? Said, "Well, if it isn't the 12 Dancin' Princesses!" He had a nice deep voice.
While he was looking at the princesses, the invisible woman looked more closely at his increasingly wolfish face. If it was makeup, it was the best makeup job she had ever seen. You couldn't even simulate that with a computer. Looking at the princesses, he licked his chops, running a long pink tongue over a long mouth full of long teeth and—what big ears he had!
A werewolf. And the fangs on Snow White. They could be dental appliances of course. The dwarves, grinning up at the princesses, had fangs too. Oh dear. And she had thought Anne Rice was writing fiction! But here they were, all around her, the creatures of the night Rice referred to. The fangs weren't part of their costumes. The fangs were the real deal.
That was how they'd seen her.
She turned to head to the lady's room again and take off her costume and run away. Except—what good would that do? They had seen her. At the parade, where she was as invisible as usual. Some one among them at least had seen her and somehow found out her name. Well, sure. The Krewe of Melusine looked like it was largely composed of vampires and werewolves, that sort of creature. They had their ways of finding out stuff, according to Rice and Bram Stoker and bad movies from the forties. Maybe, as creatures of the night, they did as much eavesdropping as invisible people.
Slowly, she made her way toward the punch table. She was very hot and very dry in this outfit, in spite of the ballroom air conditioning that was also wasting energy by trying to cool the courtyard. She took a glass of punch and drained it, took another, and sipped.
A hand touched her sleeve and she jumped, sloshing wine onto the marble floor. "Would you care to dance?" a masculine voice inquired.
It was the Confederate officer. Now that he was closer, she saw that around the domino mask from which showed deep brown eyes, his face was rather badly scarred—seamed, as if he had been cut up at some point and clumsily stitched back together. He was very tall. And his smile didn't have any fangs in it.
"Yes," she said. "But I'll have to shift my costume."
"You have a lovely voice," he said. "It matches your costume. Silvery and rippling."
She was completely taken aback. If this was southern charm, it worked. Especially since this was about the first positive thing, not to mention being a very graceful compliment, she had been paid since she was young and slender and visible.
"Thank you," she said, shifting her mirror to her back and hoping he was so tall he would not see that her neck was invisible in the shadows of the black robe. "I don't quite understand your costume, though. It doesn't look like a fairytale character to me. Who are you supposed to be?"
"Why, honey, I'm the old soldier who returns from the war and answers the king's challenge to find out where his twelve daughters go every night to wear out their shoes."
"Oh," she said. "Of course. I just never thought of him as being a Civil War veteran."
"My own little interpretation," he said with a smile. "Now then, this is your first Mardi Gras, I take it?"
"Oh yes. And it was very kind of the Krewe of Melusine to invite me."
"Nonsense," he said gallantly. "Having you here is our pleasure entirely."
"New blood?" she couldn't help asking. Would all those fangs sink into her at some point during the night? Or maybe somebody would offer her immortality and a cozy coffin. And here she was without a smidge of her native earth!
"Now, then, no need to talk like that," he said.
"I didn't mean to be gauche," she apologized. Miss Manners didn't cover these situations, nor Emily Post. How was she supposed to know what to say? She felt giddy and rather girlish. Maybe it was the punch.
Probably her situation was dangerous. Here she was, on her own, unknown in a strange city, having fallen in with vampires, werewolves and—whatever her dancing partner was. Why had they invited her to fall in with them, she wondered? Were they all going to fall on her and bite her neck at midnight or was she going to get offered immortality or what? Well—those choices were ones she would expect of the vampires.
She decided to fish a little, and really, now that she had found her voice, and the "old soldier" seemed to like it, she found it a pleasure to talk and be heard. "Have you known these people long?" she asked. "The rest of the Krewe of Melusine, I mean?"
"Oh, for ages and ages," he said, with a smile that was appealingly bashful if a bit grotesque. "They're a fine bunch of characters."
"Ummm," she said. She decided not to press but go about sussing out the situation more indirectly. "Is the mermaid symbol the Melusine you are the Krewe of?"
"She's not exactly a mermaid," he said. "In fact, a lot of the French nobility—and some of the folks here, claim descent from her. She was supposed to be half fairy and half human. Her father was what the social workers these days would call an abuser and Melusine managed to lock him up in a cave. Her mama punished her by makin' her a serpent from the waist down for part of every day. This didn't keep the girl from marryin' the Count of Poitiers and they were real happy and had a mess of kids until he broke his promise to her and peeked at her while she was takin' a bath. Our own Count DeBase' , that's Snow White to you, darlin', claims descent from her through his mother's line and Louis Garou, Red Ridin' Hood, is related to her from the wrong side of the blanket. She's sort of the patron ancestress for all of the—well, if you were bein' politically correct, you'd probably say differently gifted, breathing challenged, in touch with their inner beast, folks on the Krewe."
She looked back at the emblem of the Krewe of Melusine and saw that the long mermaid's tail was indeed serpentine, and had no fishy fork at the end. She nodded and turned her mask back to her partner.
"And what's your story?" she asked.
"Me, I don't normally come to this kinda thing but the Count is bound and determined to improve our civic image. He even sent a couple of the boys over to get interviewed by a lady writer. Then he and Louie got this notion that we would become the Krewe of Melusine and enter into the festivities this year. Raise our profile. Only none of them, after all the years they've lived, has learned come'ere from sick'em about practical matters. Me, I've got a carpenter's hands and I'm good at buildin' things, so I decided, even though I thought I'd feel silly in fancy dress, to go along with it, help 'em build the float and such."
He did have carpenter's hands—rough and callused, though he had evidently tried to soften them with lotion, and there were more scars at the wrists. Was he maybe a bipolar personality and had become so depressed at one time that he had attempted suicide? She hoped not! His eyes were wonderful, soft and deep and humorous at the same time. They seemed wise. Plus he was tall and he liked her voice and for such a big fellow, he danced divinely. No doubt it was idiotic, but she felt safe in his long arms. She asked quickly, "And are you glad?"
"It's the smartest thing I've ever done," he said. "I knew that the minute I saw you standin' in the front of the crowd, catchin' throws like a little girl." His arms tightened, drawing her to him. "Nobody else was lookin' so I knew they either had to be blind or you were invisible. I followed you—I'm sorry, I know stalkin's got a bad name these days, but I didn't mean any harm. I just wanted to know who you were so I could get you invited here, meet you, get to know you so maybe you'd be—less alarmed, seein' us lookin' so ridiculous in our masks and costumes."
Her breath left in a rush of belief. "Then it wasn't the vamp—the Count and the others who wanted me to come?"
"Not at first, darlin', no. They're kinda self-absorbed, if you know what I mean. But I bet when they're gonna be as impressed as I am once they take notice. I just love your gumption. Not many ladies when they turn invisible start havin' fun the way you do. And I can just tell you're not narrow minded or anything. You're still here, after all." His close embrace graphically demonstrated just how interested he was. When she was twenty, this might have seemed coarse or gross and annoyed her. But maybe not from someone she liked. And she liked this big fellow, even if he was a little on the seamy side.
"And you can see me?" she asked. "Even without the costume?"
He gave her a cheerful leer. "You bet I can, sugar."
"Well," she said, more boldly than she had ever dared even at the pinnacle of her youth and beauty, since in those days the men had to make all the moves. "I am so glad you invited me. It's nice to be a part of things, when I'm such a stranger here—everywhere, actually. It was very sweet of you to take such pains to impress me. I admit, at one point, this would have all been a little too—unconventional for me. But I'm unconventional now myself."
He gave her another little reassuring hug.
"The only thing is, I've had too much of crowds already and I'm not used to being stared at." For she had begun to notice that all over the room, people were staring at them.
"That's not you, honey. It's just that everybody who isn't one of the Count's kind is admirin' their costumes in your costume." Another leer. "You could just sorta slip out of it and into somethin' more comfortable and we could get outta here if you like."
She laughed and put on a Miss Scarlett voice. "Why, Sir, what makes you think I'm that kinda girl?"
He put his finger to his lips, his eyes twinkling, and helped adjust her mirror so that it was once more in the front of her costume. Then, taking a step back from her, he plucked up the cloak he had been carrying over his arm and swung it over his shoulders, adjusting the hood. In the mirror, one moment he was there, the next moment he was gone.
"Now how did you do that?" she asked.
"Don't you remember your fairy tales, darlin'? When the old soldier took on the case of the disappearin' princesses, he first got him a cloak of invisibility so he could tail 'em without bein' spotted. I do a little detective work myself, so I find this comes in real handy. It is also how I know what kinda girl you are."
"Oops," she said, then, again in the Miss Scarlett voice. "But that is so unfair. You have the advantage of me! I don't even know your name."
"Names are not all that important among kindred spirits, darlin' Ms Vanessa," he said, still smiling visibly—to her. "but you can call me Lamont."
She gasped appreciatively. " Lamont Cranston , the Shadow who used invisibility to fight crime?"
"Oh, no, darlin', he'd be way too old from you by now. My given name is actually Montmorte but close enough. And I –acquired—many of the original Shadow's traits after he disappeared last time. Includin' bein' able to make myself invisible with the help of this cape, which I got for savin' a poor old bag lady from a street gang, and a taste for to crime fightin'. Say now, you bein' invisible yourself and all, I don't suppose you would want to try your hand at crime fightin' too?" His big earnest scarred face looked down at her hopefully.
She thought of all of the violence she had fled from in the dark, glad that she could not be seen but feeling guilty for not helping the victims. "Could be. It's crossed my mind to tell you the truth, though so far all I've managed to do is keep out of trouble. Speaking of trouble, for an alleged good guy, don't you keep sort of questionable company?"
He smiled. "These folks took me in when I was barely a few days old, darlin, ' when even the folks who gave me life didn't want me. The Count and Louie and their friends may not be real conventional but less like friends and more like family to me. And surely you've read Carl Jung, darlin'? Even us shadows got ourselves a dark side,"
"Just how dark is that?" she asked, intrigued in spite of herself. Her heart was pounding. This was the kind of man she had longed for—powerful, intelligent, charming, complex, articulate—and a man of many parts.
He led her to one of the tall floor standing candlabras and helped her take off the mirror, mask, and wig. All around them the masked dancers swirled. He pulled up the folds of the voluminous cloak and gazed into her eyes. It was so nice that he was even gazing at the right place. "Let me put it this way, Vanessa, honey, while I am on the other side of of the crime-fightin' fence from the Count or Louie, I do have my little—kinks. You and me, I knew it the first time I saw you, we're two of a kind. And I just happen to know that our there under that big old cypress, right near that cool splashing fountain, there is a little patch of soft grass just big enough."
It was an outrageous idea, something she would never have considered before, ever, even with football heroes or movie stars, had she ever known any. On the other hand, she was glad it wasn't just another career opportunity. The night was warm and perfumed, and the courtyard was cool and not quite as public as the ballroom. The music had begun in earnest, with a throbbing, primitive beat. And now, well, she was invisible. And he was too. No one would see, or know, but him. It was a uniquely intimate situation. And intensely erotic. Stealth, danger, romance. She felt as if she were seventeen again. Very much in the mood for some serious sexual harrassment as a prelude to her new line of work, she played with the buttons on his uniform shirt. "We-ell," she said in the Miss Scarlett drawl, "I suppose if I'm going to help you fight crime, it's high time I reacquainted myself with the evil that lurks in the hearts of men."
He wrapped her in the cloak and kissed her, saying "And women, dearheart. This shadow knows."
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