New Orleans has a reputation: the food, the fun, and the festivals! The Saints, the Superdome! The river, the raucous party life, casinos, crawfish, king cake, and Mardi Gras krewes. To many in the Gulf South, New Orleans brings to mind the tragedy of Katrina, now eleven years after a flooded city, no one forgetting and some still recovering. Jamey Kavanaugh had come to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, but more than that, to escape a life that in twenty years never took her outside the neighborhood in Queens. Mom's verbal abuse and lack of concern for her physical needs, the sexual stuff from Jake, Mom's live-in, had taken its toll. She left the Big Apple on New Year's Eve and never looked back. An unfortunate yet vicious assault on a policeman on her first day in town kept her alert for any hint of being discovered in the Big Easy. The ferry that took her to Jackson Street in Uptown promised some hope for starting anew. The people she met in the Deep South washed away the cold and crass clouds of her northern nightmare. An unassuming and sweet boyfriend, a gracious Cuban couple, considerate and compassionate new friends, an elderly sophisticate from Lake Charles, and others change Jamey. In less than a year, the future brightens for what was a ''take what you want 'cause the world owes you' millennial.
