by Sandra Hill
“Who are we visiting today?” Grace asked.
“Elvira Benoit. I wanna give her some of that special tea marked ‘Baby Blues.’ She’s seein’ a doctor, but nothin’ seems ta be workin’.”
“Postpartum depression can be serious business. Maybe instead of tea, we ought to be giving her husband a gross of condoms.”
“Or cut off his wee-wee.” The old lady grinned at her. “Elvira will be all right. She’s got her Aunt Celie helpin’ her. And my tea should raise her spirits a bit an’ give her some energy. Didja remember ta bring that mess of collard greens from the garden?”
She nodded. “It’s beyond me how one little garden can produce so many greens, okra, beefsteak and plum tomatoes, green beans, beets, and corn.”
“The secret is in the gator poop. No, seriously, doan be shakin’ yer head at me. Farmers swear by cow manure, I swear by gator poop. Of course, squirrel poop is better fer my roses. But chicken poop, phew, it ain’t good fer nuthin’, if ya ask me.”
“If you say so.”
“Besides, I plant the Indian way. Three different vegetables kin flourish in one spot—those that root, those that grow upward, and those that spread.”
Grace was continually amazed by this woman. She was a treasure in so many ways. “Who else will we visit today?”
“Leroy Daigle needs some strengthenin’ tonic ta help him gain weight from the cancer treatments. I got some of that condensed moose marrow, but the bes’ thing is ta boil up some beef-shin meat with lotsa marrow bones ’til it’s all shredded like a thick broth what gels when it cools. It tastes better than that vile condensed stuff. My mother usta serve shin-meat soup ta us young’uns at least once a week. Yum! Mebbe I’ll make a batch when we get home. We kin stop at the butcher on the way back. Oh, ’nother thing. Mebbe Leroy would like ta try some of that tea fer fightin’ prostate cancer.”
“The saw palmetto and yarrow one?”
She nodded. “Toss in some licorice root, too.”
“Okay.” Grace took more notes. “Don’t forget that we were supposed to take some diaper-rash salve for those Comeaux twins, too.”
“I swear, their mama is thick as the bark on a live oak tree. I tol’ her and I tol’ her ta jist use Vaseline on them little butts, but she insists on buyin’ that highfalutin nonsense what smells purty but irritates the skin.”
Then they talked about the Duvals, plans for the foundation, and Andrea before Tante Lulu turned to her and said, “Out with it, girl. Whass really botherin’ ya?”
“Angel.”
“I figgered.”
“I’m afraid that when he leaves this time he’ll never come back.”
“Yer prob’ly right.”
“Thanks a bunch. You’re no help.”
“I cain’t help ya iffen ya doan know what ya want.”
“I want...”
Tante Lulu quirked one of her little brows at her.
“I want him to stay. I think. Except I’m not sure under what conditions. Do you know what I mean?”
Tante Lulu nodded. “Friend, lover, or husband, or all three?”
“Exactly.”
“I’m guessin’ you two been doing the hanky-panky. Hard ta go back ta friendship once ya cross that line.”
Crossed, and crossed again.
“He might stay and be yer sometimes lover, but I cain’t see him acceptin’ that fer long. Besides, God doan approve of all that sinnin’.”
“Are you saying that God wants me to marry him?” She tried to laugh it off.
But Tante Lulu wasn’t even breaking a smile. “God doan like sex outside of marriage, but he’s willin’ ta put up with it a little iffen there’s a good end in sight. Otherwise, it’s jist lust, pure and simple.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“You know the answer ta that, dearie.”
“Angel would want the whole works, I suspect. Marriage, home, and kids.” She wasn’t about to mention the possibility that she might be pregnant.
“Would that be such a bad thing, havin’ Angel’s baby?”
“Angel asked me the same thing.”
“And yer answer was...?”
“I didn’t answer.”
“Oh, Grace, ya musta hurt him bad.”
“It’s all a moot point, anyway. He hasn’t asked me to marry him—not since last year.”
“He never will.”
“What?” It shocked her to have Tante Lulu be so blunt...and hurtful.
“That boy has laid his feelin’s on the line too many times. It’s up ta you ta propose now. Iffen thass what ya want.”
That’s what she was afraid of. The cards had been dealt, the game was in play, and it was her turn to either go for the jackpot or fold. She wasn’t sure she had the courage, either way, and, let’s face it, she was a hopeless basket case. Why would any man want her?
Suddenly, she heard something. Glancing sideways, she saw that Tante Lulu was staring ahead. “Did you hear that?”
“What?”
“Thunder?”
“No, I dint.” She narrowed her eyes at Grace, then grinned. “Hallelujah, it’s a sign from above. St. Jude is in the buildin’.”
PMS is worse some times than others...
Grace was celebrating by cleaning out the refrigerator in her cottage, still wearing that stupid engagement ring. And weeping buckets of tears.
Not the big celebration one would expect after this morning’s hearing, where Lena had been granted guardianship. One year provisionally, then final if there were no problems. That Luc LeDeux was some super lawyer, every bit as good as his wild reputation. He’d even got Judge Wilkins to smile a time or two.
The young folks had vetoed a party at Tante Lulu’s, and instead all thirty-six of the LeDeux family and friends and some of the Starrs had gone to the Cagey Cajun, a restaurant in Houma that featured a live Zydeco band. Afterward, a bunch of them, including Andrea, had decided to go to a movie. Grace had slipped out before dessert.
Angel had asked her one too many times today if she was pregnant, to which she had finally snapped, “Ask me one more time and you are going to be a fallen angel, as in me walloping you a good one.”
To which he had muttered, “Someone is having a bad day.”
More like a bad month.
She hadn’t asked him to stay here in Louisiana with her, as Tante Lulu had recommended. Lack of nerve. And besides, she wanted him to stay for her, not because of a parental obligation.
To make matters worse, Angel had spent a lot of time chitchatting with a beautiful blonde at the next table whom René’s wife Val had introduced to them all. A realtor who worked with the hotshot development company owned by Val’s mother, Simone Fontenot Breaux. “You should come talk to her,” he had told Grace at one point.
Yeah, right.
“Seriously. She’s very interesting.”
“And I have a dumb-blonde joke I could tell you. Or a hundred.”
“Gracie!” He had smiled with irritating satisfaction at her apparent jealousy.
The zinger of all zingers had hit when she arrived back at her cottage to find that her monthly present had finally arrived, along with a super case of the cramps and PMS oozing out every pore in her body. Her moods kept swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other.
That’s why she was on an hour-long crying/cleaning jag. Who knew she would be so upset over not being pregnant? Who knew that deep down she’d been praying it would be true? Who knew that all these years of denying she wanted love and marriage and babies were a total crock?
What to do now?
She honestly didn’t know.
Oh, baby!...
Angel was shocked when he arrived at Grace’s cottage to see her on the floor, half her body stuck inside an open refrigerator, her shoulders shaking with her sobs.
He’d heard of people sticking their heads in a gas oven, but a fridge? Besides, Grace had never been suicidal. This was nuts.
“Grace?”
Her head shot up, hitting one of the metal shelves. “Ouch!” Standing, she rubbed her scalp and tried to swipe surreptitiously at the tear tracks on her face. He couldn’t help but notice she was still wearing the Walmart engagement ring, even though the need for it was gone. That was probably a pathetic straw to grasp at, but he was a strawless man.
“Why are you crying?”
“I’m not crying. It’s the ammonia fumes from the cleaner I’m using,” she lied. “What do you want?”
“Nice welcome.”
“Where’s your girlfriend?”
“What girlfriend?”
“Ms. Blonde Bimbo realtor.”
“Oh, that girlfriend.” He smiled.
He could tell she’d have liked to smack the smile off his face, especially when her eyes lit on the package in his hands. Uh-oh! Before he had a chance to explain, she planted both hands on her hips. “You bought an early pregnancy kit? Idiot! What did I tell you back at the restaurant about continuing to bug me about—you know? You are a certifiable cement brain.”
“Whatever you say, honey. But I thought it would ease your mind to know for sure.”
“Hah! More like your mind you want to ease so you can then hop, skip, and jump out of town, like—like a freakin’ Dorothy down the yellow brick bayou road.”
“Are you crazy?”
“No. Just not pregnant.” She burst out crying again and tried to run past him into the other room.
He dropped the box and caught her by the upper arm, swinging her to face him. She wouldn’t meet his imploring gaze.
“What the hell’s going on?”
“I got my period.”
“And that’s why you’re crying?” In that instant, he realized that Grace did care about having his baby. “Oh, Gracie.” He picked her up and carried her into the living room, where he sank down into a rocking chair with her on his lap, her wet face tucked into his neck. Then he rocked her, murmuring nonsense words of comfort, for both of them. And, truth to tell, he cried, too. It wasn’t only Grace who was realizing how much the baby had been wanted.
When Grace was cried out and exhausted, he carried her into the bedroom, where he pulled off her sandals and jeans, leaving only a tank top and bikini panties, and laid her down on the bed.
“Don’t go.”
“I’m just going to the bathroom. Be right back.” When he returned, he handed her a paper cup of water, a Midol, and an aspirin. He knew from past experience being around Grace that the combination usually helped.
“Thanks.” She looked so lost and unhappy.
Taking off his own clothes down to his boxers, he slipped into the bed with her, pulling the sheet up over them both. Tugging her over to rest her face on his chest, with his arms encircling her, he encouraged, “Sleep, honey. You’ll feel better later.”
“Thank you for staying,” she murmured again.
“Where else would I be?”
Around midnight, Andrea came home and popped her head in the bedroom door. He was surprised that she wasn’t surprised to see him there. “Is she okay?” Andrea whispered.
“Yeah,” he whispered back. “Just delayed reaction to all the stress of the past few weeks.”
Andrea nodded. “Not least of all caused by me.”
“She wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Andrea nodded again. “Good night.”
“Good night, sweetie.”
For hours after that, he lay on his back, staring at the whirring ceiling fan while Grace slept soundly, although she whimpered and grew restless on occasion. At those times, he kissed the top of her head, caressed her back, and crooned soothing words to her. There was a closeness between them now that made his heart ache, all the more powerful because it wasn’t sexual. He had so much to consider before making a final decision about Grace. And, yes, it was going to be his decision this time.
In the middle of the night, he kissed her one last time, tugged on his jeans and shirt in the living room, then went into the kitchen, where he left Grace a note. There was so much he wanted to say, but he’d say it in person later. Plus, he had a lot of ducks to herd into a row first. So all he said was:
Grace,
Sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up. Important business to take care of. Be back soon. We’ll talk then.
A.
The cure for female depression? A cowboy!...
When Grace awakened the next morning, it was with such a sense of peace.
No, she wasn’t pregnant, but she had been touched to see that Angel’s pain had matched her own over that “loss.” And he’d been so sweet about comforting her, all night long.
As she stretched and went to sit up, the first thing she noticed was her engagement ring. She smiled at the gaudy, precious thing. Then she became aware that not only wasn’t Angel in her bed, but she didn’t hear him moving about. Maybe he’d moved to the couch because of Andrea being in the house and was still asleep.
Her sense of peace was shattered, however, when she read the note left in the kitchen under a St. Jude refrigerator magnet. His cold, impersonal note that wasn’t even signed “Love, Angel.”
The insensitive clod!
After her initial hurt and anger, she calmed down. He said he’d be back. That was promising. Besides, she had business to take care of, too. And at least he’d had the good sense to toss that pregnancy testing kit in the trash before Andrea—or God forbid, Tante Lulu—saw it.
But then days went by without hearing from him. She had determined not to call him. But what if he were hurt? So, she called Ronnie to ask if she’d seen him.
“Yes,” she said, revealing nothing more.
“Is he going back to work for Jinx?”
“Uh, we discussed it, but—”
Grace had known Ronnie for a long time, and she was hurt at the coolness of their conversation. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
“Oh, Grace, you’re not bothering me. It’s just that Angel confided some things in me, and I’m not free to discuss them without his permission.”
“That’s okay.” Which it wasn’t.
“He has some things to work out.”
Don’t we all?
“Give him a chance, Grace. Please. He’s a great guy.”
“I was afraid something might have happened to him. An accident, maybe. Wouldn’t a ‘great guy’ have at least let me know he was okay?”
“I’ll talk to him.”
That must mean he was still in Jersey. “Don’t bother.” By the fifth day, she gave in and called his cell phone herself. In fact, she tried three times and left a message, “Call me,” on the third try. Same was true of the sixth, seventh, and eighth day. Then she gave up. He wasn’t calling her back.
She was crushed.
On the ninth day, she met Tante Lulu at Charmaine’s ranch spa, an early birthday gift from the old lady to lift her spirits, over Angel and her upcoming thirty-fifth birthday. At her age, the best way to celebrate a birthday was to ignore it. Impossible around Tante Lulu.
Grace was going to get the works. Facial, manicure, pedicure, sluffing—whatever that was—cellulite exfoliation, massage, and a rinse to cover a few gray hairs she’d discovered recently. And, no, she was not going to celebrate her gray hairs, as one magazine had suggested.
“Heard from the idjit yet?” Tante Lulu asked as they lay tummy down on rolling massage tables, wearing nothing but sheets, waiting for their masseuses.
She shook her head.
“Don’tja be worryin’ none. He’ll be back. In the meantime, I heard sumpin’.”
“Oh?”
“Iffen I was you, I would call Ardith Smith over Houma way.”
She frowned. “Who’s Ardith Smith?”
“She’s that realtor gal we met a couple weeks back at the Cagey Cajun. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah. The blonde. Why would I want to call her?”
“Well, I heard from Charmaine, who heard from one of her beauty-salon clients, who heard from Val’
s mother that Angel has been in touch with her. A lot.”
Grace blinked away tears. The lout! The two-timing lout! Not that they were married or anything. She glanced down at her ring. Not even engaged, really.
A middle-aged woman walked in then, wearing white orthopedic shoes, slacks, and a medical-type jacket, offset by bottle-black hair and the reddest lipstick she’d ever seen. “Well, Mz. Rivard, good to see you again, chère. Ain’t you jist the prettiest thing with that green hair?”
Grace wouldn’t exactly call it pretty, but it did make Tante Lulu stand out in a crowd, and that was the point with her.
“It weren’t supposed ta be green. I was aimin’ fer champagne blonde, but instead I got elfin lime. Ha, ha, ha. Jist overdyed, accordin’ ta Charmaine. But I like it.”
Oh, yeah. Elf is about right. The Jolly Green Elf.
“It does give ya pizzazz.”
Tante Lulu motioned with her head toward her table. “We’re gonna give Grace here some pizzazz, too.”
Not if I can help it.
“This is my friend and associate Grace O’Brien. She’s prob’ly gonna be gettin’ hitched soon. So we gotta get her in good shape ta handle a real hottie of a guy.”
Oh, good Lord!
“And Gracie, this is Erline Vincent. Her momma was one of my bestest friends, bless her heart, before her recent departure.”
Grace nodded to Erline. “My sympathies on your mother’s passing.”
“Oh, she didn’t pass. She jist went ta one of them active-senior casino communities up north of Baton Rouge.”
On that happy note, Erline wheeled out Tante Lulu. The last thing she heard was Tante Lulu saying, “See if ya kin pound some of them golf-ball dimples outta my butt. I got a date t’night.”
Grace must have dozed slightly then, trying her best not to think about Angel and the blonde. Until she heard a deep voice say, “Hi! I’m Roy.”
Oh, my God! They sent me a male. Not a masseuse, but a masseur? A male who is going to get up close and personal with my cellulite. I’m going to kill someone.
