She leans her head on my shoulder and clenches my hand. “I’m so sorry. I know it’s hard. And I know you’re a help to your mom.”
“I don’t know about that. But they did love this place. Dad used to bring us to eat at Luxor restaurant on Sundays, when Adam and I were kids. But they closed the hotel in the late seventies, I think. I never saw the interior after that.”
“Nineteen seventy-eight,” she informs me as we walk through the low-ceilinged garage to the side entrance of the hotel, which has been strung with white Christmas bulbs. Two couples wearing tuxedos and evening gowns walk about fifty feet ahead of us. I’m only wearing a gray suit, and Nadine, a black sleeveless V-neck cocktail dress.
“I talked to Lenore at the historical society,” she goes on, swinging a black clutch. “The Aurora was closed two other times: from ’29 to ’33, after the crash, and from 2008 till 2015. In 2015, Beau Holland went in with Tommy Russo and bought it as part of the EB-5 visa program. That’s the scam where rich foreigners can basically buy green cards by investing in U.S. property.”
“That sounds like Poker Club bullshit, all right.”
“Since the paper mill deal, they’ve been secretly restoring the whole thing, to reopen it as a hotel. Even Claude Buckman and Blake Donnelly have money in it now. It’s going to be spectacular.”
“Will we see the renovations tonight?”
“I don’t think so. Was the Egyptian décor still intact when you used to eat here?”
“Yeah, but it was run-down. Peeling gold paint everywhere.”
Beyond the side entrance, we find gleaming brass elevators and carpet that looks like no one has ever walked on it. A huge Eye of Ra motif lies beneath our feet. Heavy plastic sheeting has been stapled to the walls, blocking the hallways leading left and right. The owners obviously don’t want anyone taking a premature peek at their new crown jewel.
We enter an elevator with two other couples and take a pleasantly swift ride to the roof. The Aurora rooftop once boasted a luxury penthouse apartment and the Nefertiti Lounge, which I’d like to see; but once again, the halls leading away from the elevators are screened with heavy plastic.
As we walk through the double doors leading to the roof, a bracing breeze hits my face, and we’re instantly sucked into a whirling mass of tuxedos, evening gowns, crystal glasses, and flashing jewelry.
“We’re underdressed,” I observe, dodging couples dancing to big band music coming from a PA system.
“Nobody’s going to kick us out,” Nadine says with a smile. “Let’s find the bar.”
Above the glittering crowd, a yellow gibbous moon hangs in a sky filled with stars. The deep forests of Mississippi lie just beyond the lights of the town, and the black farmland of Louisiana stretches for miles across the river, but up here it feels like New York or Chicago in the 1920s.
“This is like The Great Gatsby,” Nadine marvels, still dodging dancers.
She’s right. Some of the men are actually wearing white tie. That’s not unheard of in Bienville, but tonight there’s no hint of camp, as there is during Mardi Gras balls. These people have come to celebrate an economic triumph, and they mean to honor the occasion by looking like they deserve the good fortune that has come their way.
“Don’t forget how Gatsby ended,” I remind her.
I point through the bodies to a large table that’s been set up against the southern balustrade of the roof. Two older black men in white coats are serving hard liquor and champagne as fast as they can move. As we pick our way through the bodies, I notice a pattern to our progress. The sight of Nadine triggers broad smiles and hugs from the partygoers, but once they see me, the light in their eyes fades, and the smiles either freeze in place or shrink to scowls. In this euphoric gathering, I’m a potential spoiler, the buzzkill of all time. I try to ignore their ill will, and if Nadine notices their silent curses, she hides it well.
Every few years, one social event ends up bringing out what people call “Old Bienville.” This term refers to the generation that moved and shook this place from the late 1950s through the mid-1970s, when the town was rolling in oil money and there were four major industries working at full capacity on the river. Back then Bienville had a vibrant middle class with enough income to travel widely and support downtown retail. Civic organizations were powerful, and the ladies’ clubs filled with educated women who gave all their energy to promoting tourism. The black community lived mostly apart—and at a profound economic and political disadvantage—but there was so much money flowing through the city that it raised all boats. Perhaps most important, both black and white communities were tightly knit by extended families, and divorce was rare.
Those people are in their seventies and eighties now, but tonight the survivors of that affluent class have left the sanctuaries of their homes on the off chance that they’ll hear one of their contemporaries perform live one last time, before the opportunity vanishes forever. They remember parties from the glory days of the Aurora, when liquor flowed on this rooftop until dawn crept across the city and broke over the river. White elbow gloves and pearls were de rigueur for the ladies then, and every gentleman owned a tux.
“Here you go, Nick.” Nadine shoves a sweating gin and tonic into my hand. “Look at that sky, would you?” She spins in place, taking in everything around her. “You can see to Texas from up here. Look at the river!”
Six hundred yards to the west, the Mississippi shines like a black mirror, reflecting the lights of the old bridge stretching to Louisiana. As I gaze north to south, I realize that the hotel is further from being finished than I’d thought. The party’s hosts have done what they could to mask it, but there’s a big yellow forklift parked by the wall of the old penthouse apartment, and behind the bar table at the southwest corner, the balustrades don’t actually meet. A sawhorse blocks the three-foot gap, and yellow warning tape has been stretched across it to remind the bartenders not to take two steps backward and fall to their deaths.
“Oh, my God!” cries Nadine. “Look at the swimming pool! People are dancing in it.”
Through the sea of revelers I see the heads and torsos of dancers in the shallow end of a newly built swimming pool.
“The original hotel didn’t have a pool,” I tell her. “I know that much.”
“Beau Holland wanted to copy the Monteleone in New Orleans,” she replies. “It must have cost them a mint to put that thing up here.”
While Nadine continues her visual survey, I look more closely at the crowd. Most members of the Bienville Poker Club seem to be here, even Claude Buckman, the powerful banker who serves as the éminence grise of the group. Blake Donnelly is here, too, the $200 million oilman. In the solar system of this party, Poker Club members function as large planets, while various satellites orbit around them. Beau Holland appears to be surrounded by male acolytes, while Max Matheson entertains a mixed group in their forties and fifties, probably with one of his off-color stories. Max’s wife, Sally, stands at a small cocktail table with Blake Donnelly’s second wife. Blake’s trophy wife is a quarter century younger than Sally, but Sally is still the beauty of that pair.
Paul stands in line at a second bar table with Wyatt Cash. As I watch them, Tommy Russo walks up and slaps Cash on the shoulder. Along with Beau Holland, Cash and Russo represent the younger money in the Poker Club. I can’t look at Russo now without thinking of wood chippers. Beyond those men, I see Jet and a group of younger women drinking champagne near a makeshift stage that holds a very lonely-looking grand piano. The star of this party has yet to arrive.