Varhaus No. 7
Sara's First Day
Somebody told me this series was breaking their brain. If you’re new, you may want to start from the beginning. A broken brain is one thing, a fractured story is another…
NO. 7
Friday
February 4, 2028
Home
7:28 am
My name is Sara Douglas without the ‘h’. I’m not fancy like that. I’m the mother of two boys, 7 and 9. I’ve been a single mother for so long I forgot about it. I like checklists and calendars and organizational hacks. We have enough money to live smartly. I talk about my passion for children on my blog and Instagram. It pays enough for private school. shit...
“We gotta go, boys. Shoes. Coats. Lunch. Backpacks.”
Varhaus
9:45 am
I parked a block from Varhaus. Daddy told me only idiots take parking spots from their customers. When I drove past I noticed a familiar green and white striping. Reminded me of home. As I walked closer to the entrance I figured out why. The front door had a giant fleur-de-lis etched upon it. The negative space of the etching: FATHAUS. Figure it out.
I’d socialized with Ruth before I had children. I didn’t know her well, but I never forgot her name. Some names fit better than others. She was sitting on the bottom step of an a-frame ladder looking up at two potted trees. They seemed too large to fit through the doorway. Her eyes were level with the myrtle spilling from the tops of the pots. The floor surrounding Ruth was stacked with unopened Amazon boxes. I inhaled deeply.
“Tea Olives! Are we doing Mardi Gras? Tell me we’re doing Fat Tuesday!”
I smelled the trees, and then I picked up a different scent. Chicory. I put it together in my head before Ruth could respond. Green stripes. Fathaus. Tea Olives. Chicory Coffee. Cafe du Monde. Naawlins...
“Welcome home, Sara. Are you ready to be on the inside of this monster?”
“I am. Where is everybody?”
“Mike and Doc are picking up the Beignet-mo-bile. Jason is in Florida for two more weekends. That’s all of us.”
“BB?”
“She’s got a real job.”
“How are festival sales in Florida?”
“He crushed Tampa, got rained-out in Lauderdale and Boca. Naples weather is looking good.”
We walked back into the “boring” art gallery where my work table was situated. I’m still blown away by the way it looks and works. It’s so large that I feel like I could take over the world sitting at it and never have to get up.
“I’ll be right back.” Ruth disappeared behind the purple curtain hiding the art studio. Country music began playing. She emerged carrying a couple of boxes. One, like a dress box. One, smaller and rectangular.
“Here’s your uniform and a new mug. We wear the jumpsuit for events. We like to customize them to our personalities. I had mine tailored and embroidered. I hemmed the pant legs for heels. I love shoes like you do. You can do anything you wish.”
I opened the box with the grey jumpsuit. It was a working person’s uniform until you felt delicate pinstriped and textured details. I opened my new mug. The boys broke mine playing ball in the apartment.
The mug was just like the rest of them. Logo and three rules. Inside the cup was a handwritten note on folded legal paper:
NOLA
Cafe du Monde NOW
Fathaus 2029
second line band
Indians??? Respectful!
Royal Street
Acme Oyster Haus
Mardi Gras Floats? Parade?
Riverboat Model?
Giant King Cake?
Children
BOYS
Back to school
Late August 2028
backpacks
batting cage
Barbershop
Cars and Trucks
General Destruction
MOTHERS
your call.
“Holy fuck. This just got real.” I’m not sure if it actually came out of my mouth.
“Do you know about this list, Ruth?” She pointed to sweet olive trees as she grabbed a fistful of purple beads from the Amazon boxes.
“Help me decorate these trees, Bayou Queen. We can talk about the list all day, if you’d like. First, though...Did you to finish your work today? Did you publish already?”
“No, I don’t post until Sunday. The photos are ready. I just have to give the copy a once-over before I hit send.”
“Good. I need you to understand something clearly. There is only one person who needs Varhaus. It isn’t Jason. He would piss in pop cans because there was no bathroom to have a place to paint. No hyperbole. I don’t need this place. I can sell the things I collect anywhere. The landlord, Cam, he doesn’t need us and he doesn’t need this property filled. The people who enjoy what we do didn’t need us before and they won’t need us when we’re gone.”
She looked at me dead-eye to make sure I was tracking. She held up her finger to keep me from responding.
“This is not a co-op or a team exercise. This is a group of folks who make, sell and do cool shit. Varhaus is nothing more than a blank canvas. A place where bad motherfuckers come together to make things that they cannot make on their own. This is a group of people who believe the mug. Not like a mantra in a cult, but like an obvious statement that says: There’s no other reasons to do anything in this world.
Varhaus is here to serve you, not the other way around. Do not fail to do your work. Do not fail to grow because we’re making shiny things.”
I was a little scared at her intensity. It was like she was scolding me to be myself. Like she wouldn’t tolerate me not being original. I was trying to figure out who needed Varhaus. I felt like she would have told me if she wanted me to know. She took a drink from her logoed coffee mug. Same design. When she set it down on the table, the goals were not written on it.
“Somebody sent this mug to me in the mail today.” she said.
It said: “Old Testament Feminist”
“Someone knows you well.”
We busied ourselves decorating the Mardi Gras olive trees and talked about the list. It was nice to work with someone. As we were working I noticed an odd sight in front of the building. Two men pulling a green and white camping trailer down the street. I think it’s funny that they parallel parked it and paid the parking meter. Doc and Mike walked into the space.
“Did you see that fucking article!” Mike was hot. And he was sweating from pulling the trailer.
“The trailer looks amazing.” Ruth, standing at the window. “Yeah, I saw it. Jason called me at 4:30 this morning giggling like a schoolboy. The I am Arturo Bandini quote got him going.”
“I don’t know who that is, but people really don’t understand how hard we work to make these events. People just don’t get it.”
“Do you understand it, Mike? Like, all of it?”
“I didn’t for a long time. Now, I do. I love it so much that I want to share it with everyone so they can too. Hell, I need to be here.”
“We love it because it’s ours. It’s ours because we had to figure it out. We have to let them find out, too. Bandini is a fictional character from a novel. He’s a terrible writer who dreams of being great. I wouldn’t be surprised if that quote was actually Jason.”
“I guess, I don’t get all of it.” Mike smiled.
I was walking out the front door to get a good look at the beignet-mo-bile with Doc.
The conversation stopped me halfway out of the door. Holy shit.
I did a once-over around the trailer. Standing in the middle of the left turn lane, I found the other side of the trailer was painted white with no decoration or marketing.
“We’ll save that side for a different party.” Doc walked back to the front door.
A school bus drove by and I remembered my pee-wees, checked my watch. I had to leave in fifteen minutes to fetch them from school. Padre Pio’s Elementary was pretty strict about the pickup line.
I decided to ask Ruth a question about my list. I had a couple of minutes.
“Why aren’t we doing, what I assume to be, a Mardi Gras party this year? Only a little coffee truck? Seems like a half-measure compared to everything else.”
Ruth counted the reasons on her fingers.
“We don’t have the money. Easter is too early this year. There’s a small other detail. This is the only event Jason wants to do for himself...for BB. It’s not an event for the public like 12/12. It’s real fucking personal.”
“That’s the second time you’ve freaked me out today.”
“Don’t be. Now’s not the time. The coffee and beignets are like a bat signal to the public. We’re not explaining it. Just gonna run it through Easter. We wont make any money, but we won’t waste the effort.”
I was twelve Subarus deep in the school pickup lane, I considered what I thought I knew. The only thing I knew for sure is that my boys would want dinosaur chicken tenders and chocolate milk for dinner. That was enough for one day
Jason sped south down I75 toward Naples thinking about Fathaus. Remembering the first time he and BB let the good times roll. He was angry and relieved that they wouldn’t try to pull the party off this year. “This event may kill me.” He switched the radio from AM and tuned in his audio book: Wait Until Spring, Bandini by John Fante.
Next in the Varhaus Series:
Varhaus No. 8
The whiffle balled rolled around the mailbox like someone forgot they hid it there. A message on the ball was written with old blue embossed label tape: