Swamp Happens: The Complete Swamp Bottom Series

by Cora Kenborn

  Making the decision to do the responsible thing for once, I smiled up at him. “Are you working this weekend?”

  He blinked a few times before realization dawned. “Nope. I’m all yours.”

  “Good answer.”

  We spent the next ten minutes making out against his Jeep like horny teenagers until Addie finally had enough and honked the Dukes of Hazzard horn at us, effectively ending our long goodbye.

  My mind spun with possibilities as we cruised down the highway. “Do you want to stay in Terrebonne?” The question had been weighing on me since we’d gotten back from Shit Stain’s house. Addie had never come out and said that she wanted to live in our hometown.

  I felt my sister’s eyes on me while she let the question hang in the air. “Well, that’s where the business is located.”

  “Does it have to be?” I pressed, not willing to let the topic go until we’d at least explored the idea.

  Addie groaned, rubbing at her temples. “Savannah, I’ve just spent the past two days with an intolerable jackass. Please, spare me the dog and pony show and just tell me what’s going on.”

  “I was just thinking…”

  She snorted, a particularly unladylike sound for my sister to make. “Never a good idea.”

  “Whatever. Anyways, Zep lives in New Orleans and drives down for work during the week, and I just thought that there are ports closer to the city. If you wanted to maybe live somewhere with a population of more than six hundred people, it wouldn’t be impossible to do. Daddy wants to retire soon anyways, and there isn’t anything else tying the business to Terrebonne.”

  Addie was quiet for several miles. Heart in throat and pit stains forming, I waited.

  “I like being closer to Mama, Daddy, and Babs, of course, but it’s not like I imagined living the rest of my life in Terrebonne. I suppose I just assumed since that’s where the business was, that’s where I needed to be. But you’re right. It’s not like we employ that many people, and the guys on our crew drive in from Saint Charles Parish.”

  This was it. Addie was connecting the dots, and I just needed to give her the tiniest of pushes. “Which is about half way between where our docks are now and New Orleans.”

  Please, please, please.

  “It’s something to consider. Zep and I did talk about adding a third and possibly fourth boat. If we were going to make a move, now would be the time,” Addie continued, working through the idea as if it were a math problem.

  Sally has six lemons. Ashley has a lemonade stand and needs four lemons to make lemonade. How many lemons does Sally need to throw at Ashley before she can run off and get porked by Peter?

  “If, and I do mean if, we were to make a move, it wouldn’t happen overnight. I’ll have to get Zep onboard, and then there’s the additional cost of space that close to a major city to consider, not to mention finding a place to set up shop and live.”

  My fingers played with the steering wheel in excitement. “It’d be the fresh start we’ve been talking about,” I hedged.

  Addie laughed, the sound only a little bitter. “It’d be nice to live in a place where the entire population didn’t already know everything about you.”

  “Wherever we live, they have to be pig friendly. It’s barely been two days, and I’m already having Kevin withdrawals,” I added, ignoring the look of horror on my sister’s face when she realized that she wasn’t going to escape living with a pig.

  I pushed back from the filing cabinet I called a desk and groaned. “Ugh, it smells like a republican’s vagina in here."

  There were no windows in the broom closet of an office I shared with my sister, and the heat of early spring in Louisiana was stifling. I'd been dropping not so subtle hints about the conditions of our workplace ever since we'd gotten back from our impromptu Mardi Gras trip.

  Addie snorted from behind her computer screen. “And what, pray tell, exactly does a republican’s vagina smell like?”

  “Like a rotten crawfish carcass.”

  “Have you considered that the smell might be coming from the overgrown pork rind wandering around here?”

  I gasped. “How dare you! Kevin does not stink! Do you, baby?” Kevin grunted in agreement and rubbed his pudgy body up against my leg as I leaned down to pat him.

  “Did you forget about last week?”

  My hackles raised at the mention of the incident. “It’s not my fault Babs gave him a chili dog. The poor thing had indigestion. Are you going to tell me you’ve never had gas?”

  “I’ve never cleared a room in less than thirty seconds. Sav, my eyes actually burned. That pig is a fucking biological weapon.”

  “Oh my God, how cute would he look in a little military uniform?”

  My sister’s laugh echoed off the walls of the tiny room. “Where the hell do you come up with this shit?”

  “Vagina, fucking, and shit in one conversation? Bravo, big sis. Welcome to the dregs.”

  One perfectly manicured middle finger crept up over her monitor to salute me. “Do you have the new letterhead done?”

  “Yeah, I just emailed it to you, but since we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere with shitty WiFi, you’ll get it in the next six to twelve hours.”

  Given my art background and the fact that I was computer literate, something most people in our small town were not, Addie had put me to work on the re-branding project. It was a lot of fun, and it felt good to contribute, knowing I’d earned the check I got at the beginning of each month.

  Before she could respond with what I was sure was a snappy comeback, Addie’s phone rang, and the sound of Taylor Swift polluted the room. I groaned. The size of my sister’s girl boner for T-Swizzle was ridiculous for a thirty-year-old woman.

  “What?” Addie snapped into the phone.

  That tone could only mean one thing.

  “Zephirin, I’m working. What do you want?”

  I thought whatever had gone on between them when we were in New Orleans would’ve improved their relationship, but it had only gotten worse. Instead of their usual name calling and back and forth, they’d cooled toward each other. They had an odd and precarious balance between indifference and professionalism that was somehow so much worse than the passion and risk of property damage they used to have.

  Addie bolted upright in her chair. “How many slips? You’re kidding. It has to cost a fortune then.”

  What the fuck?

  “There has to be some catch. Have you seen it?”

  “What?” I mouthed to her, but she turned her back to me and continued to pepper Zep with questions.

  “They haven’t advertised yet? And it’s move in ready? How long do you think we have?” She rose from her seat and paced the two-and a half foot long walkway in front of her desk, one hand shoved into her hair and the other pressing the phone tightly to her ear.

  “This is a big risk, Zep. What if we sign the lease and it’s a shithole?”

  I could hear Zep’s deep voice saying something on the other line, but I wasn’t close enough to make it out. Whatever it was caused Addie to stop dead in her tracks, her body frozen in place. Resisting the urge to demand to know what was going on again, I studied her from behind. I wasn’t even sure she was breathing.

  “Okay,” she whispered. Then, seeming to come back to herself, she took a deep breath and in a sharper tone added, “Don’t make me regret trusting you, Zephirin LeBlanc.” Without another word, she disconnected the call and spun on her heel to face me.

  I threw my hands in the air. “Care to tell me what the fuck that was about?”

  “Looks like we’re moving to New Orleans.”

  17

  Old Friends

  Adelaide

  Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana

  Boom!

  I flinched as the fire from Babs’ shotgun lit up the night sky. Cataracts and nearsightedness had confiscated her license years ago, so one would think my grandmother posed a danger to all humans and major wildlife within a five-mile
radius. Instead, she was the best shot in Terrebonne, very rarely missing her target. Sometimes it was cans, and other times, gators swam for their lives.

  “Ha! You swim, but I swim too, fatherfucker! Ya Ya!”

  Gators.

  My eyelids drooped as I picked at the unraveling hole in the knee of my jeans. I had no idea how to handle the explosive opinions everyone had about our decision to move the business to NOLA. I sure as hell hadn’t expected Daddy to freak out like he did. With all his disinterest in DuBlanc in general, I would’ve thought he’d have been happy to wash his hands of it. Mama had tried to ease the blow by attributing his short fuse to the stress over Pappy’s death and then having Sav and me return home only for us to move away again. Apparently, it was too much change too fast.

  Preaching to the choir, Daddy.

  Then there was Zep. My life sat spinning on the edge of insanity with that man so often I didn’t know whether I wanted to hit him or maul him. Ever since our time together in New Orleans, we’d gone from fighting a war of two, to acting like we were about to stage a hostile corporate takeover behind each other’s backs.

  The less we spoke, the better.

  Savannah asked every question known to man and pulled as many tricks as she could out of her ass to get me to talk, but I’d kept quiet. How could I explain something to my sister that I didn’t understand myself? How did I explain that I’d finally had a confrontation thirteen years in the making, only to almost screw our business partner on his shitty black couch?

  My life had been in constant motion and upheaval since leaving Shreveport. Signing the papers for the new business in New Orleans was only the latest layer in the ice cream sundae of fuck that had become my life. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. All I seemed to be able to do was pace the floors, paranoid I’d make a decision that would provide me with a decade as miserable as the last.

  So, I found myself at Babs’ and Pappy’s at nine-thirty on a Thursday night with my hands wrapped around a stolen vodka bottle. All major Dubois life decisions had been on Babs’ and Pappy’s front porch, and tonight was no different. Unable to stomach any more familial advice, I decided to contemplate my future by plopping my ass on a plank of broken wood with my legs straight out in front of me. I thought I’d enjoy the peace while watching the thick Southern Louisiana air float by me in a daze.

  Boom! Clang!

  “Is fine,” Babs called out. “I pay for car.”

  I just shrugged. As far as I was concerned, anything Babs did to the Titmobile would be an improvement.

  I missed the excitement of my grandparent’s house and thought back to the chaotic family holidays through the years. During the time Roland kept me estranged from them, I’d wondered if they still kept certain traditions, like having the entire parish over on Christmas Eve. Every year, the lawn would be full of cars and passed out bodies, and Bam-Bam would inevitably cause the fire department to make an impromptu visit.

  I’d wondered if Pappy had recycled tree lights from years prior, still refusing to replace them when “just one goddamn light went out.” I chuckled and took another long drink from the bottle, remembering the years we’d end up with four patches of lights on an otherwise darkened Christmas tree because he swore Christmas bulbs were a conspiracy to steal money from the working man.

  I’d missed years of Babs’ unorthodox ways of sneaking her own personal vices into Christmas lessons for Savvy and me. A smile tugged on the corner of my mouth at memories of Babs creating her own advent calendar with mini bottles of Russian vodka. My head filled with images of two little girls whose dreams of Santa centered around a man who counted down the days of Christmas with empty airplane bottles stuffed in the numbered pockets of the tapestry hanging on the wall. I was laughing out loud by the time I heard the screen door slam shut.

  “Did I miss a joke, or are you just drunk?” Sliding down the side of the house to sit beside me, Savannah let out a sigh and swiped the bottle out of my hands. After taking a long drink, she passed it back and wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

  “Maybe a little bit of both,” I snorted, feeling dizzy, but taking another swig anyway. The whole scene made me smirk as I remembered what a tight-ass I’d been not six weeks prior. “Babs says vodka kills the doubt. So, here I am, killing the doubt.”

  On hearing my confession, Savannah tilted her chin and turned a sharp eye toward me. Her messy bun scraped against the worn wood on the house as she shoved my shoulder hard with the heel of her palm. “Oh, shit, Addie! After all this, please tell me you’re not having second thoughts about moving to NOLA. You’re the queen of stability here. I’m the flighty one.” She circled her finger around her temple to emphasize her point. “I need you to be on board with me.”

  Her tone sounded light, but razors hid behind my sister’s sweet smile. She wasn’t screwing around and probably sat beside me plotting her revenge, should I flake out on her.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Fine,” she repeated. “Fine doesn’t mean fine, Ads. Fine means anything but fine. Fine is what you say to someone when you’re trying not to go to jail, but you really want to hit them with your car.” Grunting, she turned the bottle up again, trying to talk through her huge swallow. “Oh shit, did you hit Zep with the truck?”

  I blinked her without answering.

  Her head thumped against the house. “Fine is not fine, and we’re fucked.”

  “Who fucked?” Babs’ crackly voice appeared out of nowhere, causing both of us to jump. Setting her shotgun against the porch, she shuffled her blue bedroom shoes against the scuffed wood and collapsed into her rocking chair while snapping her fingers at the bottle of vodka sitting between us. “You steal, you buy new. Now give.”

  We passed the bottle to her, and she curled her fingers around the neck, downing enough for all three of us.

  “No one’s fucked, Babs. We’re fine,” I assured her.

  “Ugh, fine. I hate that word.” She passed a finger back and forth between the two of us. “You two have same bitchface as when you came home. Don’t lie to old woman.”

  Savannah shrugged. “The move to New Orleans isn’t turning out to be as uncomplicated as we thought.”

  “The move isn’t complicated, Sav,” I corrected. “It’s the people. It’s as the old saying goes, opinions are like assholes…everybody’s got one.”

  Babs sighed, smoothing her long white housecoat. Finally, after staring both of us down with a look that made me feel like I was ten years old again, she shoved the bottle toward me. “I like this new Adelaide. She have balls. You change since losing cocksipper,” she noted with a nod of approval. “Now, first drink then we fix.”

  “Babs...” I began, unsure of how getting shitfaced would fix anything.

  She snapped her fingers in my face again. “Okay, we talk about bearded clam digger, instead.” Her comment threw me, and fearing a full-on Babs exposé of our phone conversation, I grabbed the bottle and drank long and hard. As I lowered it, her eyebrow raised, and I took another drink for good measure.

  “Good, now you.” She nodded her chin toward Savannah. My sister didn’t have to be told twice and downed the rest of the bottle like a champ.

  Warm, fuzzy, and now unable to feel my own lips, I stared at my grandmother as she leaned forward with her elbows on her knees.

  “Life is short, my loves. Too short to drink cheap vodka, be miserable, and screw bad men. My girls are home,” she held one palm up and swung it outwardly toward the night sky. “Okay, so you move away, big deal. So, you take Pappy’s business to new city, big deal. What is big deal, is you both are happy and talking to family. Too much not talking in past. Pappy died with no talking. I won’t die same way.”

  Savannah and I exchanged worried glances as she spoke. “Babs, there’s nothing you need to tell us, is there?” My heart slammed against my chest in anticipation.

  My grandmother rolled her eyes. “Cow shit! We all die, Addie. I have many years left on Earth before I join Pappy. Unt
il then, I will see my girls respected and respecting themselves, yes?”

  Savannah bit her lip, Babs’ comment apparently throwing her. “So, you’re okay with everything changing?”

  “Life is change, Savvy.” Leaning her head against the back of the chair, she began a slow rock while pinning us both with a serious stare. “We stop changing; we stop living. Sometimes, we must stop thinking with head and feel with heart.” Planting her feet on the floor with a sudden thud, she leaned forward and stole the bottle back from Savannah’s hands. “Remember, head and heart rarely have same intention.”

  The comment should have seemed so simple. Such a grandmotherly thing to say in a time of crisis. But as Savannah and I exchanged shocked glances, my heart sped up, and that little vein in my temple began to pulse with adrenaline. As if we were kids again, I reached out and grabbed Savannah’s hand, and she squeezed it just as hard.

  “What the hell did you just say?” Savannah squeaked, her voice uncharacteristically thin.

  “You heard me,” Babs muttered, pulling out a piece of wood and a knife for a new whittling project.

  She was right. We’d heard her. We’d also heard the exact line from a crazy-ass psychic in the French Quarter. One who I’d written off as twenty-dollars wasted on a bullshit fortune.

  At what point did fortune become prediction and prediction become reality?

  “He’s tailgating us.”

  Savannah stopped petting Kevin long enough to glance over her shoulder at Zep’s black monster truck hugging our bumper at such a close proximity, if it wouldn’t risk our lives, I’d slam on the brakes.

  “He’s not tailgating us, Ads.” Leaning over, she peered at the speedometer and clucked her tongue. “You’re driving like a grandma. Fifty-two miles per hour? For real? It’s seventy-five, and as long as you don’t see blue lights, you can go eighty. We’re getting lapped by student drivers.”