House of Dolls
Some collections are never finished.
Turner has come down to Baton Rouge to check on the family gravel business, shake some hands, and head home. But the Senior Olympics have swallowed every hotel room in town, and the only place his assistant can find is thirty minutes south, across the Mississippi, in Plaquemine, Louisiana. Some old museum, she says. Like a bed and breakfast.
The town doesn't amount to much: dark storefronts, sagging Creole cottages, cars on blocks in the yards. Then, in the middle of it, the house. Enormous. White-columned. Perfectly kept. Sitting among the ruins as if it had been carried in from somewhere wealthier and set down with care.
A woman waters the flowers by the front steps. Her daughter, Clarisse, stands beside her holding a small handbag, watching him without moving.
She'll get his bags.