by Lynn Shurr
Unloaded, they headed for the furniture store and barely set foot inside when a sharp clicking of high heels like the claws on a predator approached. Junior offered a wide grin to the woman clad in a leopard print that clung to her rounded breasts and rear. “Hi, Glorious, I came back to look for a dining room set and living room furniture.”
She placed a hand with an LSU-themed manicure on his arm. Xochi thought it clashed with her clingy dress. “I’ve been giving your needs a lot of thought, Junior. Let me show you what I’ve picked out.”
Glorious led the way with a sway to her hips entirely unnecessary in a furniture store salesperson in Xochi’s eyes. Glorious had the orange aura so common to the ambitious, and it became her dark skin and long, black, straightened, and extended hair. Ambitious to sell furniture—or find a rich husband? Unfortunately, her taste in furnishings was spot on for Junior.
She ran her hands over a vast sofa almost as if she touched his body. “This is chocolate brown microfiber, but we could order it in the same suede fabric used for your headboard. Recliners at either end and a large, tufted hassock that can serve as a coffee table and has storage within.”
“Tom has built-in recliners like that,” Junior answered with enthusiasm.
“I think two self-standing recliners might be better. Then, they could be moved around.” Xo put in her two cents, all the while wishing she weren’t wearing old jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt so large her breasts were buried in it.
“This is a modular unit. The recliners can easily be removed to be free standing.”
“That’s great, Glorious!”
A bit more excitement than Xo felt furniture deserved. “What about throw pillows?” she asked, knowing Junior and most men disliked them.
“We have a wide selection, but I think Junior would prefer large floor cushions, perhaps in a gold fabric that could be stacked in a corner when not in use.”
Damn, this woman knew her stuff. “Sounds good,” Xochi conceded.
“As for the dining room, I thought this would do.” Glorious with her outrageous sway took them to another side of the store. She pointed to a large table in dark wood, matte finish, not glossy at all, with heavy benches on both sides and two end chairs very square, cushioned, and quite capable of holding Junior or any of his large friends. Xochi thought she’d need a booster seat to buoy herself to table level, but Junior loved it along with a matching sideboard. Everything approved, he went to sign the paperwork with Xo trailing behind.
As they sat in the cubicle belonging to Glorious, their salesperson made an offer. “I could choose some accessories for the walls and flat surfaces, bring them over, and place them for your approval at any convenient time.”
Xochi felt a flare within and knew it for jealousy so intense she wanted to rip out the woman’s hair extensions. Rachelle’s flirtation with Junior had mildly irritated her along with the clerk in the handbag shop, but what she experienced now was volcanic. She erupted from her chair. “I don’t think so! We can manage.”
Glorious raised her plucked eyebrows as if taking real note of Xochi for the first time. “Are you Mrs. Polk?”
Junior answered. “Not yet. She’s my girlfriend.” He said the word as if he’d never used it before. “I should have introduced you earlier. Glorious Hamilton, meet Xochi Billodeaux.”
“The Xochi Billodeaux, adopted daughter of millionaire quarterback, Joe Billodeaux, the girl who went missing? I thought you’d be more—more…”
Xochi filled in mental blanks: attractive, taller, built, stylishly dressed? “I’ve been clearing out my apartment and moving my things to Junior’s today.” That inner child who once punched out bullies clenched her hand, but she used her words, as Mama Nell liked to say. She’d told the truth. Let Glorious believe what she wanted.
The woman cleared her throat. “I am happy for your safe return. That takes care of the paperwork. The sofa will take a few weeks because of the change in fabric, but we can deliver the table, chairs, and sideboard tomorrow.” She didn’t walk her customers to the door.
Outside in the insane heat of a July day in New Orleans, Junior said, “I think we made some real progress.”
Had he noticed her jealousy and been pleased about it, or did he simply refer to the furniture? From his wide shit-eating grin, she thought the former. “That woman was hitting on you right in front of me!”
“Yeah.” No doubt he was pleased. “This is the first time you didn’t try to shove me off on another woman.”
“Never again. Junior, te amo,” she whispered in his ear and tugged his face down for a kiss.
They were definitely having a moment—interrupted by a paparazzo who shouted from across the street, “Hey, Xochi, how about your side of the kidnapping story?”
“You and Junior a couple now?” another inquiring mind wanted to know.
“Let’s get in the car, go back to the condo, and try out the memory foam,” Xochi suggested.
****
“So, what did you think?” Junior asked as he moved off of Xo’s hot body and sank in beside her on the new bed.
“I think you didn’t get the same sexual advice from Daddy Joe as the girls got from Mama Nell.”
“I doubt it. His went something like ‘when it comes to football and sex, do it well. That takes practice, practice, practice. Never forget to suit up’.”
Xochi smothered down more jealousy over women she did not know and would never meet. “I guess you practiced a lot.”
“Not nearly as much as I did for football. All your brothers dipped their wicks in high school except maybe Teddy in the wheelchair and little T-Rex, but his day is coming fast.”
She buried her face in his chest. “I must seem fumbling and inexperienced to you.”
“You are all I hoped for and a fast learner. You were in college. I was in high school. I believed I’d have to compete with fraternity boys. If I’d known, I would have waited. But, I was really asking about the memory foam mattress.”
Xochi flung herself back into his arms and laughed out loud, her hot chocolate laugh that often turned heads her way. “It sort of sucks you in and keeps you from moving as much as you’d like.”
“Good back support, right? I know I’m a big guy, and while you aren’t tiny like the twins, I don’t want to hurt you.”
She propped her chin on a hand in order to look him right in the abashed brown puppy dog eyes. “No complaints here, but you need to experience the wonder of memory foam. Next time, I want to be on top.”
They split the experience evenly, twice with her on top and twice with her on bottom. Xo enjoyed the ride. She’d been an excellent rider on horseback in her teens. Dancing kept her thighs and her grip firm. She enjoyed the view of the vast planes of Junior’s body beneath her, the way his eyes tracked the bobbing of her brown breasts before he reached out and captured them in both hands. His hips pushed out of the foam to meet her. He seized the flying locks of her hair and used them as reins to pull her closer into his embrace, to his lips for a kiss, against his chest to excite more erotic friction. She leaped the final fence at last, and Junior followed her over.
Ensconced in memory foam, they slept in late the next morning. Junior rolled out to made his fantastic coffee and bring it to the bed, but Xo insisted he go fetch croissants from the coffee shop instead of slaving over a breakfast for her. He returned with a half a dozen assorted and a tabloid from the newsstand tucked under his arm. Holding it out to Xochi, he said, “Could be a lot worse.”
There they were smooching in front of the furniture store under a headline reading Xochi Housekeeping with her Hero? She threw it down on the night table in disgust and ripped open the bag of croissants.
Junior shoved one of his new plates under her selection, chocolate of course. “You get crumbs in the bed, you have to be on the bottom again.”
“Yes, sir, all right with me.” She sighed, took a big bite and caught the flaky crumbs on the plate. “Sex makes a person hungry,” she obse
rved.
“I have noticed that.” Junior put three croissants on his plate before she ate them all.
“It’s only a matter of time before the press gets wind of the human sacrifice angle. That guard at the temple site is a very weak link. I want to be away from here right after the furniture arrives. Let them try to track me down at Nestor Leleux’s place.”
Junior lost interest in his croissants. “I wish it were true, that we were setting up housekeeping together. Once training camp starts, and then the season, I won’t be able to get to Chapelle very often to see you.”
“I should be the one to worry. Women are going to be all over you. You might decide you want the freedom to roam.”
“Done that. Done with it.” Still, worry creased his usually broad, smooth brow. “I won’t be able to protect you there.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m sure Nestor has said the appropriate prayers to keep snakes of all kinds out of his yard. Let’s make the most of our time together.” Xochi lowered his head to her lips and made sure he tasted the chocolate essence of her mouth.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The bright yellow Jeep bounced along the dirt road with potholes big enough to fry a turkey. Xochi now understood the reason for the vehicle Daddy Joe chose for her, handing over the keys and remarking that he’d been to Nestor’s place more than once. She and Junior followed the lane lined with tall longleaf pines, utility poles, and weekend camps for fishing and hunting.
Nestor’s cabin at the very end of the way rested on stout wooden pillars and hung out halfway over the water with a couple of boats tethered in the back and an ancient pickup truck parked in front of a low fence concocted from odd boards, driftwood, and tree stumps. The barrier surrounded a dirt yard almost as pitted as the road. A tall pole to one side guided electric and phone lines into the house.
A small plantation bell stood mounted at the gate along with several homemade signs pounded into a board and a rusted mailbox sitting atop a post. The signs read Ring Bell before Entering After Dark and Louisiana Yard Dogs with a crude green gator painted below the lettering, an old joke. Tourists bought mottoes like that all the time at the gift shops in town. A raised board walkway with railings on the sides led to a deep front porch, also railed, that held a swing and couple of sagging cane-seated rockers. Xochi’s favorite plant, aloe vera, stretched its fleshy arms out of a plain clay pot by the door. It appeared to be benefiting from the condensation dripping off a rattling window air conditioner.
Junior wrinkled his broad nose. “Kind of stinks around here.”
“No one promised the swamp would smell good.”
“I don’t think it’s the water, Xo. Maybe those hides drying on the walls.”
The sun hadn’t yet lowered itself behind the cypress trees dotting the waters of the marsh beyond the house, but they rang the bell regardless. Its peal brought Nestor Leleux shambling through the door. He held out wide hands with no hint of a tremor considering his age. His white hair snaked down his back in a tight braid yellowed on the end. A wispy beard framed his mouth and flowed across his chest. The skin left exposed was weathered and brown from an outdoor life, but a perfect smile, most likely dentures, welcomed his guests.
“Come, come, my new ’prentice.” Xochi crossed the boardwalk and took his open hands in hers. “Mais oui, you da one.” Nestor gripped her fingers and raised his bushy eyebrows. “I got an early supper on da table. Put her bag in da front bedroom, you,” he said to Junior.
“That’s Junior, Junior Polk. He’ll be playing for the Sinners in the fall,” Xo said. That pronouncement got a curt nod from the traiteur. “I watch da games.”
Junior hefted Xo’s big suitcase under his arm and clattered up the boardwalk bending beneath his weight. Inside the cabin smelled better—of spicy food and dried herbs hanging from open rafters that let the heat rise and the feeble A/C cool. The cottage might have belonged to the fairytale bears since three mismatched wooden chairs sat around a cable spool table holding three bowls and three large spoons. Nestor ladled chili over clumps of white rice, not porridge, from a cast iron pot sitting in its middle.
Junior could tell the chili had some bite to it simply by smelling the aroma. He spotted strings of dried red peppers and braids of garlic among the herbs and guessed Nestor made liberal use of both. A loaf of homemade sliced bread on a board sat surrounded by a stick of butter on a chipped plate, a pot of strawberry jam—both the pot and the jam Rosemarie’s handiwork—and a squeezable honey bear. Nestor had the iced tea poured, sweet, sweet.
They dipped their spoons into the deep red gravy lumpy with chunks of meat and kidney beans. “Not too spicy for you, eh?” the old man asked.
“My mom is Mexican, and Xo is a Cajun Mexican blend. We can take the heat,” Junior assured him, whisking away the beads of sweat that formed on his mustache with a finger. “I’m interested in cooking, especially local dishes. Would you share your recipe?” Of course, he’d have to cool it down for tourists.
Nestor ran through a list of ingredients until he got to the meat. “The real secret is I make my chili with nutra rat what I trap. Get five dollars a tail for protecting the levees from da vermin. Ain’t much market for da hides, but I tan dem anyhow. People is prejudiced against eatin’ it, but it tastes jus’ fine, no?”
The old man waited for their reaction. Neither of his guests flinched. Judging by his wide grin, they passed the test. Junior gained extra credit points by asking for seconds. Nestor, pleased with himself, slathered his bread with butter and wiped his bowl clean of the gravy. Xo, possibly soothing her mouth, ate hers with honey. Junior, really not bothered by the heat of the meal, piled on strawberry preserves, making his thick slice into dessert. Nestor had strong coffee ready to be poured and offered around brown sugar as a sweetener. When Xochi asked for milk, he punctured a can of condensed and set it by her place.
“Let me wash the dishes since you cooked tonight,” she said.
“Jus’ put dem in the sink for now. Da sun is settin’. I show you somet’ing, me.”
Nestor led them to his back porch and opened a cooler filled with reeking carcasses. Beside it, nutria tails filled a plastic bucket and their orange buckteeth lay in a basket. “Some likes to make jewelry from dem big, ugly teet’,” he explained. Then, he clapped his hands and made noises suitable for calling hogs to dinner, only alligators answered his summons not pigs. The big reptiles arrowed toward the deck, their strong tails propelling them through the murky water. Nestor began chucking the skinned nutria into their gaping, toothy maws.
“Can’t eat dem all and don’t like to waste. See dat one dere? I call him Big Ben after da quarterback, Roethlisberger. Maybe you gonna meet up with the real t’ing this season.”
Junior nodded. “I probably will since I play defense, but I don’t think the man will be quite as scary.”
Nestor chuckled into his beard. “Now, son, when we done here you better get going. Some of my pets like to stay around and digest under da house. No foolin’ about my yard dog sign, so don’t you come tomcatting after dis little girl at night, you hear?”
Junior heard but didn’t like it. Xochi walked him to the front porch and stood on her toes to kiss him goodbye.
“Xo, I don’t want to leave you here.” He held her tight against him.
“I’ll be fine. Meet me at church on Sunday, and I’ll tell you all my adventures. Now, go before the gators get you.” She patted his rear and he went, thinking of just how flimsy that boardwalk felt beneath his feet.
****
To say her days were enchanting would not have been using the right word. That first night alone with Nestor and the gators grunting under the floorboards, he gallantly let her use the tiny bathroom first because sometimes the hot water ran out. “No need to worry ’bout snakes coming up da plumbing,” he added.
“Did you pray them away from your yard?”
“Mais, no. Da gators eat dem.”
Hmmm, comforting? After a very quick show
er, Xochi wrapped in a terry robe and asked whether he’d mind if she plugged in her laptop.
“Mind, you can keep in touch with dat big beau of yours, but nuttin’ I teach you can be written down. Comprendre?”
“Yes, I understand.”
Xochi used the early evening hours to check her e-mail. She received documents to interpret or translate from loyal business customers who trusted her work. Her greatest talent, being able to translate Spanish and English documents into Portuguese for Brazilian clients, paid the best. She returned the finished work with an invoice and instructions for a direct deposit into her account. Income was way down, of course, but her needs were few living with Nestor, only gas for the Jeep and chipping in for groceries the swamp couldn’t provide.
At night, the one thing that gave her comfort was the new gris-gris bag made of deep violet velvet that probably came from a Crown Royal sack. She swore it had the heft and softness of Junior’s scrotum and gave off a hint of lime whenever she squeezed it. Miss Rosemarie had citrus trees in her yard and must have used some dried zest in her formula. Regardless, she slept well with it tucked next to her cheek.
As it turned out all the healing prayers were in French, but she had a facility with languages and an excellent memory even if the French she’d learned in high school and college didn’t always coincide with the Cajun dialect Nestor spoke. Nestor taught them as they puttered along in his boat, rising at dawn before the temperature soared too high in order to check the traps for nutria, do some fishing and herb gathering if he found anything interesting, though the heat had shriveled a lot of the plants to the ground.
Generally, his gators followed the boat for a while hoping for another easy meal, then gave up and peeled away. “Where do they spent the day, Nestor?” Xochi asked.
“Oh, dey go over by where da swamp tour boats pass to get anodder handout. Las’ year one of dem guides teased a gator, holding a chicken up high to make him jump—and dey can jump. Took da man’s hand right off along wit’ da chicken. You should never tease a gator.”
