Madame Beaussant’s Café of Curiosities

Amelia stopped in front of the faded red door. Was this the place? She replayed the directions Sarah had given her for the hundredth time in her head: “It was a few blocks from Jackson Square, down an alley just off Toulouse Street. Look for a red door. Oh, and the building had one of those balconies with the cute curvy railings.” Unfortunately, that seemed to describe half the buildings along the labyrinthine streets of the French Quarter in New Orleans.

Amelia rubbed her temples. I’m in over my head, she thought miserably. She was tired, hungry, and felt generally stickier than she had ever felt in her entire life. Not to mention that she half-expected a squadron of mosquitoes to airlift her away at any moment. How did people survive in Louisiana?

She sighed. She absolutely hated how she felt. Fat, old, out of breath without even trying.

But that was why she came here. If she was right about this place, everything was about to change.

She spotted a small plaque on the old brick wall beside the door: Madame Beaussant’s Café of Curiosities. Beneath it was a newer plaque with the added words: And Gumbo.

At least she’d get to try some local food. Yippee.

She hesitated. Did she knock? It seemed silly to knock at a restaurant, but the place looked no different from the houses that surrounded it.

With a hand drenched in sweat that had little to do with the oppressive midday humidity, she tried the doorknob. It turned, so she pushed open the heavy door.

Amelia’s nose was immediately overwhelmed by a dissonance of scents that were equally as unique and remarkable as the room she found herself in. Onions, garlic, peppers, cumin – ingredients she had used before but never in such a way as to create something so chaotic and beautiful as the source of that smell. Her eyes watered. Her salivary glands clenched.

She was starving.

Blinking, Amelia looked around.

Madame Beaussant had certainly spared no expense when it came to fulfilling the curiosities portion of her café’s name. Lit by the red glow of sunlight that weakly pushed through a few dusty stained-glass windows, as well as from the sepia-tinted light of an old electric chandelier, the room was lined with tall wooden bookshelves packed with the strangest assortment of artifacts Amelia had ever seen. There were old books flanked by alligator skulls, shrunken heads, cloth dolls whose mouths smiled with human teeth, and rows of jars filled with slimy things that Amelia did not inspect too closely. There were a few empty tables, but this was by far the least restaurant-like restaurant she had ever visited.

The scratched hardwood floor creaked as she approached the counter. A stuffed raven perched atop an old-fashioned cash register. On the far wall, a doorway was obstructed by a curtain of beads.

“Um, hello?” she called hesitantly.

From the back room came the scrape of a chair, followed by the soft shuffle of footsteps.

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’,” replied a gravelly woman’s voice. A few moments later the beads parted and Madame Beaussant emerged.

She was a short, ancient woman, dressed in faded maroon robes and a yellowed shawl that draped across her hunched shoulders. Her gray hair was gathered in a messy bun, but a few free strands flittered over a wrinkled face that was sharp despite its drooping skin. Large peacock feathers dangled from her stretched earlobes.

If she had looked any different, Amelia would have been very disappointed.

Madame Beaussant appraised her with intelligent gray eyes. Then her thin lips stretched into a wide grin. Amelia noticed at least one gold tooth.

“Why, hello,” the old woman said. “What can I do for ya?” She rounded the cashier’s counter on surprisingly lithe feet and began ushering Amelia toward one of the small tables. “Have a seat, have a seat. Can I get ya some coffee? Or maybe somethin’ stronger? Never too early here, heh, never too early.”

Amelia didn’t budge. “Actually,” she said slowly. “I, um, need something else from you?”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I, um…” Gosh, why is this so hard? she thought. “I have this friend. Well, she’s more of a coworker, really. But, well, she visited New Orleans on vacation a few months ago and said she came here. When she came back home and I saw her again she’d…changed…”

Madame Beaussant’s smile faded, her eyes boring deep into Amelia’s. “Changed how?”

Amelia would never forget it. Sarah, forty-five years old, mother of three, walking into the office after her vacation. Her blouse tight, her arms thin, her face possessing only a single, cute chin, devoid of wrinkles. She had gone from five years older than Amelia to looking five years older than Amelia’s daughter. It was unnatural, ungodly, a complete affront to nature…

And Amelia hadn’t stopped thinking about it, craving it for over three months.

Then last weekend, as she watched her daughter graduate from high school, something inside her finally snapped. All that youth, all that potential, all her own regrets…

She bought a plane ticket the next day.

“She came back younger. I swear it. And she said you made it happen.”

“And you want the same?”

“Yes,” Amelia said, her eyes hungry.

“What would you do to get it?”

“Anything.”

Madame Beaussant smiled wickedly. “Why don’t you c’mon to the back with me?”

Amelia followed the short woman through the bead curtain. Her insides squirmed with anxious excitement. Was this really happening? What would it feel like? Would it hurt?

The back room was small and bare, especially compared to the entrance of the café. Along one wall was a square wooden table holding a small lamp, with chairs at either side. An old stove rested against another wall under an open window. On it was a large cast-iron pot bubbling with the source of the wonderful scent that made Amelia’s stomach growl. A small CRT television sat on a stand in one corner of the room, softly glowing with a soap opera. Amelia was surprised by this. She never imagined that a voodoo woman might watch daytime stories.

“Take a seat,” Madame Beaussant instructed as she muted the television. She grabbed a bowl from a nearby cabinet and began ladling the contents of the pot into it. “What’s your name, love?”

“Amelia.”

“Amelia…I ain’t know any Amelias. Where you come from?”

“Wisconsin,” Amelia said. “Near Appleton.”

“Oh, cheese country!” Madame Beaussant exclaimed. She sounded genuinely excited. “I ain’t never been up that far. Too cold.”

“It’s not that bad,” Amelia said. She didn’t know why she had lied. It was that bad.

“Got a family? Any little ones?”

“Yep. A husband and a daughter. And two cats, if you count them.” Amelia chuckled nervously. When Madame Beaussant did not chuckle, Amelia anxiously blabbered on. “My daughter just graduated high school a few weeks ago. Her name’s Maggie. She’s about to start college in a few months, can you believe it?”

Gosh, what a stupid thing to say, she thought, her cheeks flushing. This woman was just making small talk. She didn’t actually care about her family.

Madame Beaussant stared at her for a long time. Then she placed the bowl on the table. “Eat up, hon.”

Amelia looked at the bowl. She’d never had gumbo before, or any Cajun food for that matter. It honestly didn’t look great to her – a kind of brown stew, with chunks of sausage and chicken, bits of celery, pepper, and okra, and a small island of white rice in the center. But the smell, the smell was absolutely heavenly. The spices tickled her nostrils in a way she never experienced from food back home.

She gathered a spoonful of gumbo and rice but hesitated before bringing it to her mouth. Was this it? Would the changes happen immediately? How many bites would it take? She glanced up at Madame Beaussant, who nodded encouragingly.

Amelia ate the gumbo.

It was incredible, full of spice but not spicy. Her entire body immediately felt a few degrees warmer. There was something magical happening, she was certain. She downed a few more spoonfuls for good measure, then waited...

Much to her disappointment, she continued to feel old and quite fat.

She looked at her hands. She could still see the faint blue veins pressing against her skin.

She felt the sensitive skin under her arms. Still loose and flabby.

She grabbed at the beginnings of jowls that had appeared on her face over the past few years and was dismayed to find that she could grab her jowls at all.

She looked up in helpless confusion at Madame Beaussant. The woman was laughing.

“You thought,” she started, unsuccessfully holding back tears. “You thought the gumbo was gonna make you younger?”

“I felt something!”

“What you felt was my damn good gumbo hittin’ your gullet.” She chuckled to herself. She must have seen the look Amelia was giving her, for she quickly calmed down. “Listen, there’s a few things I need to make clear for you before you decide to go through with all this. I ain’t one of them sneaky hags you might find down in the swamps. I got principles. What you’re askin’ ain’t as simple as makin’ a wish and havin’ it happen. You gotta give to get, understand?”

Amelia shook her head.

“It’s like this. You wanna be young again? Well, you gotta give your age to someone to get their youth. That, or someone needs to give their youth to get your age, which I never seen happen before.” She chuckled again.

Amelia pondered this. “So…if I want to be young again, I’d have to take someone else’s youth. Sorry, givethem my age.” Well, that didn’t seem too bad. There were quite a few spoiled celebrities she wouldn’t mind knocking down a peg…

“That’s part of it. But I know what you’re thinkin’, oh yes. Everyone thinks it. You can’t just give to anyone, no ma’am. You need a connection. The stronger, the better.”

Amelia stared at her blankly. Maybe I should be after smarts instead of youth.

“A strong connection usually comes from knowin’ someone for a long time. A good friend, for instance. Or a family member…”

Then it clicked. Amelia suddenly felt very cold.

“No…”

“That girl of yours, sounds like she got her whole life ahead of her… Lots of life left to live….”

Amelia pictured her daughter walking across the auditorium stage, accepting her diploma.

Maggie.

I could never.

So young. So much time left. So much to spare.

Could I?

“Say I did want to go through with it?” Amelia said slowly. “How would it work?”

Madame Beaussant’s mouth became a thin line. Her gaze suddenly icy.

“Like this,” she said.

A pressure filled the small kitchen. Amelia’s ears popped as she was pushed back into her chair. All light seemed to fade, even the sunlight from the open window. Madame Beaussant’s eyes rolled back in her head as she began to mutter something that sounded vaguely French to Amelia’s untrained ears.

Amelia’s skin began to tingle, then burn. She lifted her hands before her slowly clouding vision and saw her skin becoming thinner, weathered, her fingers twisting and gnarling like oak twigs. She tried to scream, but her lungs were too heavy, her breathing too labored. A pitiful sound escaped her lips, a voice that wasn’t hers, hoarse, weak.

Old.

Across from her sat a young woman, beautiful with sharp features and raven hair. She smiled with full, red lips, her laughter deep and enticing. Madame Beaussant inspected her rejuvenated body with keen eyes, then wrapped her smooth arms around herself.

“Mmm, I always do love this part,” she said with a throaty voice.

Amelia was clutching at her thin gray hair with painful fingers. Tears were streaming down her wrinkled, drooping face. “Wha-what did you do to me?” she wheezed, devolving into a coughing fit.

“Only what you would do to your own baby girl,” Madame Beaussant said sternly. Her eyes were filled with pure loathing. “You make me sick to my stomach.”

“Please!” Amelia gasped, struggling to catch her breath.

“I shouldn’t change you back,” Madame Beaussant mused. “I should keep you like this. You don’t look too good. I sense a heart attack comin’ on. You’d just be another dead old bitch, no one would even care…”

Amelia’s throat was dry and raw. She didn’t think she’d last another second—

And she was herself again, her wonderful forty-year-old self. She breathed deeply, savoring her functioning lungs.

“Thank you,” she whimpered, looking up at the scowling old woman across the table.

“I think it’s best you get out,” she said. “Go home to your family and appreciate what you got.”

Amelia made to comply, her head still reeling. Then she paused.

“You said I’d need a connection to make the trade work,” she said. “I never met you before today.”

Madame Beaussant’s face softened ever so slightly. “Bein’ who I am, knowin’ what I know, I can bend the rules a little. But you’re right. We needed some connection.” She nodded to the bowl of gumbo. “That’s why I fed you. Ain’t no better way to get a quick connection on someone than givin’ them food. ‘Specially Cajun food.”

Another thought occurred to Amelia. “What about Sarah? You made her younger!”

The woman frowned. “Her situation was…different… She weren’t tryin’ to steal any of her babies’ life. She was gettin’…payback…and I didn’t fight her too hard on it.”

“Then who…” Amelia’s heart sank. There was a reason Sarah used to wear so much makeup. “Oh.”

“He’d been hurtin’ them for years. When their kids moved out, he got more…physical. I know it was true, I have a way to see. It still weren’t right for her to do, but…well he won’t be hurtin’ no one no more.”

Amelia began to stand up again.

“Wait,” Madam Beaussant said. She looked troubled. “I…saw you, when we traded. You weren’t really ever gonna steal from your girl. I wanna help, if I can. There…is a way to get what you want. Kinda. You won’t be younger, but it might help. It’s…dangerous though.”

Amelia’s heartbeat quickened. “Tell me.”

“You can give to others, you know that now. But you can do the same with yourself. Well, it ain’t exactly the same.” She appeared to think carefully, then continued. “Say you want to lose weight. You can give the moments you ate that piece of cake, or that bag of chips, and get moments where you didn’t eat anything. But, like I said, it’s dangerous. Hard to control. You might give too much and find yourself afterward starved to the edge of death, literally skin and bones. Also, this way of doin’ it…it changes your mind. You might not even realize anything’s changed.”

Amelia considered it. She thought back to how she had felt a few minutes ago and found a new appreciation for her body, imperfections and all. She didn’t want to risk anything as serious as death so needlessly. But on the other hand, she felt so heavy all the time. She’d grown to dread looking in the mirror, to hate remembering what she used to look like. Exercise had never come easy to her, she never had the time…

She never had the time.

What if she traded some of the moments she hadn’t exercised with times she had? All those hours sitting in front of the T.V. could be exchanged with hours running or lifting weights! She couldn’t imagine any way thatcould backfire. She’d only be healthier!

She told Madame Beaussant her idea.

“It could work…” she said slowly. “But be careful. Don’t give away any important moments. You might not realize how important an unimportant moment can be.” She sighed. “All right, eat some more gumbo, then we’ll get started.”

Amelia’s husband was waiting for her at the airport entrance. He smiled widely when he saw her.

“Did you have a good trip?”

Amelia grinned. She did have a good trip. A few details were fuzzy, but hey, that was New Orleans for you.

She stretched her arms, relishing how tight and limber she was. The fun was over. Now she had to get back to the gym, start training for her next marathon.

But something was wrong. She felt like…someone else was supposed to be there to meet her. Someone important.

“What’s wrong?” her husband asked as he took her luggage.

“I don’t know…” Amelia said. “It’s just…do you ever wish we had kids?”

He laughed. “Kids? Where’d that come from?” He saw her face and his tone softened. “I mean, yeah, we talked about it years ago…but we both agreed that between our work and your training, we never had much time. Remember?”

Amelia stared wistfully back toward the depths of the airport. Imagining what could have been.

“Yeah…I remember.”