Choose Your Own Adventure: Brown Paper Bag

A couple months back I challenged myself to stretch my creative writing skills. Inspired by the Choose Your Own Adventure series I loved as a kid, I posted a few stories on my Instagram asking my followers to pick key aspects of a short story for me. My followers decided that I should write about a teenage girl living in New Orleans in the 1960s dealing with a lost child.

I finished this story a few weeks ago and just now feel confident enough to post it. Here you go:

***Disclaimer, there is one instance of language, but it's used to capture the reality of the 1960s.

Half of the names on the list had already been crossed off.

Lisa rolled her eyes and couldn’t believe her dumb luck. One of the biggest projects of the year and she would be stuck with one of these bozos. Her usual partners had already been paired off, and she cursed herself for being late to class that day. Mr. Rollins had the habit of punishing those who were even a few minutes tardy. Today it came in the form of being one of the last to pick a partner for the assignment. She looked at the list of available classmates again:

Rosie Channing Sandra Crowley Michael Davis Thomas Horton Richard McDonald Judy Riordan William Turner Donna Valentine

Selecting one of the males was out of the question. They had proven to be impossible to work with, and she knew she would be shouldering the majority of the research. That left Rosie Channing, Sandra Crowley, Judy Riordan and Donna Valentine. Sandra was always skipping class, so Lisa immediately eliminated her, and Donna was painfully shy. The obvious choice, then, was Rosie. Judy was one of only two black students in all of Sequoia High School, and no one wants to work with a nigger. Lisa crossed Rosie’s name from the list and placed her initials next to it.

Lisa was just like everyone else in high school. She wanted good grades. She listened to The Beatles and wore short skirts. She had dinner every night with her parents and enjoyed Friday night football games. When the school bell rang, she was eager to dash out the front doors to catch up with friends.

15 more minutes of Mr. Rollins droning on about William Shakespeare and the weekend would officially begin. Losing interest in the lecture, Lisa peered over at Rosie. She was wearing a pair of worn out jeans and an equally shabby blouse. On her feet she wore a pair of dirty sneakers that looked like they had probably been a hand me down from an older sibling. Lisa was beginning to wish she had picked Donna Valentine as her partner. At least she wore clean clothing.

“No assignments for the weekend. Please meet with your partner at this time to discuss your final project.”

Some students got up excited to meet with their partners to discuss anything but their project while others looked around to discover who their partner was. Lisa sighed as she got up to meet Rosie who had put her books into her bag but had not moved an inch. On her way to Rosie’s desk, she noticed that William Turner ended up with Judy.

“Hi.”

“Hi, Lisa. I guess we’re partners.”

“I guess we are. Any ideas on what we should do?”

“Not really.”

Lisa had not considered the consequences of choosing to work with a brick wall.

She pulled out the list of topics and selected the first one.

“How about if we do this? It’s called “What happened to Romeo?” “What happened to Romeo?” Imagine you are the parents of Romeo from Romeo and Juliet. You notice that he has gone missing after a fatal street fight with the Capulets. In your paper write an alternative ending to the play. Include what you do next, who may have answers to finding your son and where you may look for him.”

Rosie took the piece of paper, scanned the page and almost immediately returned it to Lisa, “That sounds good to me.”

It was clear that Lisa would be driving this whole project.

“Do you have a good time to meet this weekend so we can work together?”

“Not today…I’ve got plans. How about Sunday afternoon?”

Sundays were always reserved for church and family time, so the request for a Sunday meeting struck Lisa as odd.

“I’ll have to ask my mom and dad…but don’t you go to church?”

“No. Mom and Dad say God is just a myth.”

Things were just getting weirder and weirder.

“Well, then how about I give you a call and let you know after I talk to my folks?”

The girls pulled out pens and exchanged numbers, and Lisa was happy to hear the final bell which saved her from any further discomfort.

The walk home from Bell Heights High School went straight through the French Quarter. Lisa and her friend June were accustomed to walking by the iron wrought balconies where Fat Tuesday revelry forced their parents to keep them indoors to prevent them from seeing the vulgar celebrations. But even graver was the culture surrounding the ancient fortune tellers, soothsayers and voodoo. Lisa’s parents were adamant about warning their daughter to avoid such black magic. Their admonitions were especially severe when it came to the fortune teller at the corner of Trudeau Street and Maple Avenue, an intersection which she passed by every day. The madam who owned the shop was believed to play a role in the disappearance of a 14 year old girl four years ago. Her business still prospered due to the constant influx of curious tourists, but all of the locals avoided her like the plague. Lisa and June even went so far as to cross the street to the opposite side in order to avoid any kind of witchcraft floating from the front door and landing on them.

Suzie Packwood was the daughter of a single, poor, black man. Her skin was dark like cocoa, but her deep blue eyes led people to gossip about who her mother could be. Lisa knew Suzie from elementary school and thought she could have been beautiful if she weren’t black. The newspapers said that Suzie had been walking home from school one day and was seen entering Madam Eloise’s store one day. When she emerged, she had a brown paper bag whose contents remain unknown until this day. Suzie never made it home, and when her daddy reported her missing later that afternoon, the police didn’t seem to care. “Just wait a few more hours,” they said.

“She’s probably run off with some friends…teenagers do these things.”

But one day passed by. Then another. And another. That’s when the suspicions started to rise about Madame Eloise since no one recalled seeing Suzie after she left that shop. The old fortune teller even went so far as to say that she didn’t remember what Suzie could have purchased. Cards? Incense sticks? She had no recollection at all, and of course she came under scrutiny for this. What kind of fortune teller was she if she couldn’t remember these details but she could unravel the past and foresee the future of her paying clients?

Locals were convinced that some kind of dark spirit came upon Suzie and dragged her off to some unknown bowels of the earth. Even her daddy eventually gave up hope after about a year, saving up his money for a simple plot and stone in the cemetery that everyone knew held no body. Though little Suzie Packwood had vanished from everyone’s memories, disdain for Madame Eloise remained. Even if the neighborhood was no longer pounding on her door or leaving threatening signs and notes on her property about he missing girl, it still held the belief that her line of work was dangerous and had shunned her. Lisa had no reason to do otherwise. She, among all the other teens, participated in regular rituals of bashing Madam Eloise and if it came up, placing blame for Suzie’s disappearance squarely on her shoulders. And she always, always made sure never to cross paths with the woman.

That Friday was no different. Lisa complained to June the whole way home, lamenting over her English project partner, Rosie.

“She’s in my science class,” said June, “she always comes into class smelling like she hasn’t bathed. But she’s real smart. She says her dad is a doctor in the next town over.”

“If he’s a doctor, why can’t he afford to buy her real clothes? Or at least clean ones?”

“Beats me. If he’s working in Franklin, he must be seeing a lot of poor people. Maybe they don’t pay him.”

“I’d never work for free.”

As the girls approached the corner of Maple and Trudeau, they crossed the street as if on auto pilot. They were startled when they ran into a woman with long grey hair and thick glasses. She was dressed in a long flowing dress and smelled of sandalwood. The bangle bracelets on her wrists jingled as she adjusted the canvas bags she was carrying on each arm. Madame Eloise. Petrified, the girls didn’t move an inch and couldn’t say a word. For a moment, Madame Eloise locked eyes with each of them and then whispered “Good afternoon” in a low voice before crossing the street with her head down.

When she was a safe distance away from June and Lisa, the girl could continue their walk home.

“She’s just so odd,” June said.

Lisa just nodded her head in agreement, still recovering from the encounter.

Aside from the chirp of birds and occasional car rolling by, not a sound was exchanged until they reached their homes and exchanged couple of casual goodbyes.

Lisa unlocked her front door to find, as usual, an empty house. Her parents wouldn’t be home for at least another three hours. She knew the expectations: Do your homework. No guests until mom or dad was home. Don’t open the door for anyone. As an only child, she lived a pretty sheltered life, but she didn’t mind it much. Her parents were her world, and despite sneaking the occasional cigarette she was eager to please and obey them.

Later that night over dinner, Lisa’s mom asked her how school had been. Having struggled with how to address a Sunday study session with her parents, Lisa dreaded answering the question. After explaining the situation, her dad sat back on his seat and sighed.

“We like to have our family time on Sunday.”

Mom remained silent, deferring the difficult decision to her husband.

“But I suppose if she came over here it would be okay.”

And so it was set. Deep down, Lisa was hoping that her parents would say no to the Sunday meeting so she could avoid having to see Rosie outside of the walls of the school. Instead she was going to have to endure having her in her very own home. The horror! She pulled the slip of paper where Rosie had written her phone number out of the pocket of her jeans and settled down to call her. The phone rang three times before someone picked up. A man. It must have been Rosie’s dad. She heard a receiver being picked up and then the faint familiar voice, “I’ll take it in here, Dad. Thanks.”

“Hello.”

“Hi, Rosie. It’s Lisa – from school.”

“Hi.”

“So, I talked to my mom and dad and they were wondering if you could come over on Sunday at around 3 o’clock.”

“Sure.”

One word answers had never been Lisa’s favorite mode of conversation, but she appreciated them now. Anything to get this conversation done and over with.

“Ok. I live at 413 Roswell Court. We have a stone fountain in the front yard.”

“Ok. See you Sunday. Bye”

“Bye.”

Sunday afternoon at 3 o clock came much more quickly than Lisa would have liked. In fact, she had hoped it wouldn’t have come at all. Rosie was right on time, and Lisa led her to the kitchen where her mother had set up a study table with freshly baked muffins. Lisa’s parents had set up a spot for themselves in the living room to read the Sunday newspaper for the second time that day – Lisa was certain that this was solely for the purpose of keeping an eye and an ear on the girls’ conversation.

Lisa pulled the assignment out of her notebook:

“What happened to Romeo?” Imagine you are the parents of Romeo from Romeo and Juliet. You notice that he has gone missing after a fatal street fight with the Capulets. In your paper write an alternative ending to the play. Include what you do next, who may have answers to finding your son and where you may look for him.”

“I guess we should start with answering the basic questions. Where would Romeo go?”

“Everyone had to know he snuck off with Juliet. If it were me, I would have no problem assuming they were just in the next town over. Happens all the time here.”

This was the most Lisa had ever heard Rosie speak, and she was curious, “What do you mean?”

“Suzie Packwood.”

This time Lisa’s parents also looked up at the sound of the familiar name.

“You heard me. Suzie Packwood. She didn’t disappear. She didn’t die. She wasn’t poisoned by Madame Eloise. She’s just a few hours away in Lockwood. Met a boy. Fell in love. Daddy didn’t like it because he didn’t want his little girl to go away. She left anyway.”

“How do you know this?”

“My dad just delivered her baby.”

It was time for Lisa’s dad to step in, “Hi girls…how’s the project coming along?”

Lisa was speechless, and Rosie shut her mouth into a straight line, remembering she was not in the comfort of her own home but a guest in someone else’s.

“It’s just fine, Dad.”

With a look of doubt, he returned to the living room but not before giving his daughter a look that said he would send Rosie home if necessary. They continued to talk in lower voices so as not to attract the attention of the adults in the room.

“There’s no way Suzie could have had a baby. She’s just a kid.”

“She’s 18 now. And she’s married.”

“Married? To who?”

Rosie rolled her eyes, “The baby’s father. Who else? You really are kind of dense, Lisa.”

“And your father told you all of this?”

“Mom and Dad tell me everything. They see no value in shielding me from what’s really happening in this world.”

“What’s there to shield us from? We have nothing to hide.”

“You really believe that mumbo jumbo about Madame Eloise? She’s just a sweet little lady selling candles and incense. There’s nothing black magic about her at all. That’s just something people tell you to keep you away from her because she’s not like the rest of you.”

“What do you mean the rest of us?”

“Not everyone grows up with a white picket fence, Lisa.”

Not everyone grows up with a white picket fence.

The words echoed in Lisa’s head long after Rosie left and well into the evening when she was laying in her bed. Her mind tossed and turned with the stories she had been told. Don’t hang around that woman, Eloise. She’ll cast a spell on you. Those Negroes are nothing but trouble….If I catch you taking to them, you’ll be grounded for a week. Her parents had told her these things. They had to be true. But Rosie’s parents told her things, too. How was Lisa to know what was true and what wasn’t?

The following morning came far too soon. Lisa had forgotten it was Monday morning and was slow to get up and get ready for school. By the time she made it down to the kitchen, her father had already left for work, but her mother had a plate of eggs and toast and a glass of orange juice ready for her. There in her father’s place at the table, the newspaper was opened to a local story bearing a shocking headline:

Local Missing Girl Found in Lockwood

Lisa could barely believe her eyes. She continued reading:

The Bell Heights Police Department were alerted late Sunday evening by their Lockwood counterparts in regards to a four year old missing persons case. Suzie Packwood, 18, who was reported missing in 1963, was identified by a native of Bell Heights as both women were leaving the Lockwood Clinic. The 41 year old woman leaving the clinic, who has asked to remain anonymous, tells police she was certain the woman sitting across from her in the waiting room of Dr. Clifford Channing was Suzie Packwood.

After confronting Packwood, the woman claims that Packwood told her she did not wish to return to Belle Heights.

“It’s such a shame that so many resources were spent on trying to locate a runaway. Officials should have known that she had run off without telling anyone. It’s what they do. I knew it from the minute I saw her with that baby she probably got herself into trouble.”

Suspicions arose around shopowner, Eloise Buford, when Suzie Packwood went missing. Packwood, who was only 14 years old upon her disappearance, was last seen leaving Eloise’s Hidden Treasures with a paper bag, the contents of which have never been uncovered. Many believed that Eloise had supplied the young Suzie Packwood with paraphernalia associated with black magic. Buford has maintained her innocence and denied any type of wrongdoing or association with the disappearance.

In her brief comments to the Lockwood Police, Packwood confirmed that she left Belle Heights when she was 14 due to unpleasant circumstances at home. She intends to continue to work at a diner in Lockwood where she is married with one child. She did not divulge any further information and requests that her privacy and that of her family be respected.

When asked what brought her to Lockwood Clinic, the informant who reported Suzie Packwood to the police declined to comment.