Growing up in a family of wild Cajuns, she’d seen her share of partying and fights and craziness. She didn’t need to come to Bourbon to experience that. But as they kept walking, she realized Drake was leading her to a section she didn’t know that well.
The first thing she noticed was that that clubs and bars looked better kept up than the places below the 800 block of Bourbon. The balconies were decorated with plants and lights. And while the party was still happening full tilt here, it did look less seedy.
Then she glanced over toward a beautifully decorated bar front, only to do a double take. Lined up in the opened windows were bare-assed men, shaking their naked cheeks to the pulsating music from inside the bar.
Okay, so not less seedy after all. Not to mention, she’d seen plenty of bare ass tonight already.
“Where are we going, exactly?” she asked once she managed to look away from the booty-grinding.
“Here,” Drake said, pointing toward a doorway Josie Lynn would never have noticed amid all the other lights and decorations. And butts.
“Where is here?” she asked as she followed him into the smoky darkness.
“The home of Madame Renee Chevalier.”
Josie Lynn looked around. Home? This was a bar. And honestly not a very nice one. In fact, the one with all the man butts looked considerably nicer than this place.
They walked down the length of a narrow bar toward the back and through another set of doors that opened into a larger room. This room was no less rundown and dingy. Wooden tables that had long since lost their polish were scattered around and surrounded by wing-back chairs covered in worn, red velvet. A few people, predominately men, sat at the tables, sipping drinks and smoking.
It reminded Josie Lynn of a gentlemen’s club that had seen better days. And as if to validate that image, curtains at the far end of the room parted to reveal a woman lounging provocatively across a chaise.
Drake took Josie Lynn’s hand, as he had when they had left Gautreaux’s, and led her toward the stage. He chose a table right in front of the woman languishing on stage. Pulling out a chair, he waited for Josie Lynn to sit.
She was about to ask him why they were here, when music began to play. She sat down and Drake hurried to take the chair next to her. They both turned their attention to the stage.
The woman, despite the heavy makeup and fall of bright auburn waves, looked like she was in her fifties, maybe sixties. She reminded Josie Lynn of what Ginger from Gilligan’s Island might have looked like when she aged. Well, except for the woman’s bosom, which was enormous under her gauzy white peignoir and robe. Actually, she looked more like Ginger and Dolly Parton melded together.
Then she started to sing in a voice so deep and husky that it startled Josie Lynn. She watched, amazed as the woman sang “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps,” lolling on her golden brocade chaise, occasionally waving a hand for emphasis or to flip back her hair. Josie Lynn was certain the woman thought her performance was provocative. Which it was, Josie Lynn supposed. Just not in the way the performer probably intended.
Just as Josie Lynn started to lean toward Drake to ask again why they were here, the music suddenly changed and with another flip of her hair, the woman started to croon “Three Times a Lady.”
Really? This woman was doing a Doris Day/Commodores mashup?
“Why are we here?” she finally asked once the shock subsided.
Drake leaned closer, but his gaze shifted between Josie Lynn and the woman on stage as if he couldn’t quite manage to tear his attention away. Josie Lynn had to admit the woman was oddly fascinating in a train-wreck sort of way.
“If anyone in the French Quarter is going to know of a band of Chers, it is this woman.” Drake then added, “Well, you know, this man who impersonates a woman. She’s been working here for over three decades. She knows everyone.”
Ah, now it made sense. It also did a lot to explain her low, husky voice, too.
“Well hello, loves,” a very tall woman, who Josie Lynn assumed was also a female impersonator, sashayed over to the table, working her short skirt and high heels a heck of a lot better than Josie Lynn ever could. There was no way she could wait tables in a pair of four-inch heels.
“What can I get you to drink?”
“I’ll take a whiskey, straight up,” Drake said, then looked to Josie Lynn.
“I’ll just have a Diet Coke.”
The waitress gave her a regretful look. “We have a two-drink minimum.”
After last night Josie Lynn wasn’t sure she could handle alcohol. The idea made her stomach churn, but she also realized places like this that supplied entertainment needed to make their money somehow. In fact, places all over Bourbon Street counted on booze to make their money.
“I’ll take a white wine.”
“Chardonnay, lovey?” She said, batting her very long, very dark, very fake lashes at Josie Lynn.
Josie Lynn found herself smiling. The waitress really was quite charming.
“That’s great.”
Drake settled back in his chair. “Renee should be done with her set in just another few songs, then I’ll see what she knows about those guys.”
The waitress returned with their drinks.
“That was quick,” Josie Lynn said, accepting her glass.
The waitress gestured around them. “Well, we’re not exactly packed tonight.”
That was true. It probably wasn’t too hard for the wait staff to keep up with the handful of people in here.
Josie Lynn took a sip of her wine, grimacing slightly at the acrid taste. But as it slipped down her throat, she could also feel its warming effect, even as it hit her stomach, and she was surprised and pleased the sensation wasn’t quite as unpleasant as she’d imagined it would be.
“So do you know Renee?” she asked after she’d taken a second sip.
“Yeah.” He took a swallow of his drink, polishing off half of it.
“How? You don’t seem like you’d hang out here much.” She didn’t know why she thought that. It wasn’t as if she knew much about this man.
“No, I don’t. But both Renee and I have been around New Orleans for a long time.”
“How long?”
Drake shook his head. “Damn, longer than I care to remember. Renee has been bringing down the house for forty years. You should have seen him back when he was young.” He finished the rest of his drink.
Josie Lynn smiled. “Well, it’s not like you saw him when he was young either. You can’t be much older than me.”