by Sandra Hill
Linc was already playing soft chords on his guitar as an introduction, but then he seemed to change his mind. Setting his guitar aside, he leaned over and took out the trumpet. Lipping the mouthpiece, he tested it several times, then let loose with a long wail of pain in the vein of the oldest blues known in the South. New Orleans at its best. Clarence, not to be outdone, blended in with a trill on his harmonica in perfect counterpoint to Linc’s rhythm.
It was showtime!
And then she blew them all away . . .
Raoul was still in love with Charmaine.
He knew that the instant she began to sing, poignantly and from the heart, of the man she loved. Someday that man would come along, and when he smiled at her, she would know. They would both know. He’d take her hand, and no words would be necessary. When that man came, she would do her best to make him stay.
Tears burned in Raoul’s eyes as he wondered why she hadn’t stayed. Why hadn’t he made her stay?
Charmaine wasn’t a great singer, but she was good. Her normal voice had a melodic range, but when she sang, it went all husky and smoky as a Bourbon Street nightclub. A torch singer’s vocal cords, for sure.
The last time Charmaine had performed this song for him she’d been standing in their Baton Rouge bedroom, wearing a sheer, floor-length black negligee with tiny, tiny straps. He’d been lying on the bed, wearing nothing. There’d been no doubt then that “The Man I Love” had been him. She’d enjoyed re-enacting all her pageant roles for him, including that showstopper of a song. In retrospect, he probably hadn’t been appreciative enough. He’d always remember her that night, though. Always.
Now, Charmaine was approaching the last line of the last stanza, arms extended outward. She crooned in a soul-reaching wail, “I’m waiting for the man I love.”
Mon Dieu, how I love her! he thought. And how I wish I were that man she is waiting for.
She did a cute little bow to each of them when she finished.
A stunned silence followed.
Jimmy was the first to speak. “Cooool! You’re as good as J.Lo.” They all smiled at what had to be a high compliment from the boy.
Linc put down his trumpet and went over to take both of Charmaine’s hands in his. “That was wonderful.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’m surprised that you never pursued a music career.”
Charmaine’s gaze connected immediately with Raoul’s. Was she expecting him to disagree? “Yeah, you were great, darlin’. As always.”
She beamed then, as if his words really mattered, as if he complimented her so rarely that she was surprised now. His heart wrenched at that possibility.
There was a rustling then as people started to rise and gather up their stuff. When Linc bent to put his trumpet back in the case, an old sepia-toned photograph fluttered out. Raoul picked it up and glanced quickly at it before handing it back to Linc. It was two black men flanking a white one, probably a Creole, all of them in 1800s style clothing. “Who are they?” Raoul asked.
“That one there is the ancestor I told ya’ll about. Abel Lincoln,” Linc said, pointing to one of the black men, who bore a slight resemblance to him. “And that’s A. B.’s twin brother Cain.” He also resembled Linc, of course. “In the middle is Etienne Baptiste, a friend.”
“Let me see,” Charmaine said. At one glance, she exclaimed, “I’ve seen this picture before.”
“I doubt that,” Linc responded. “As far as I know, this is the only photo of A. B. Lincoln, except for a hazy one of him and Simone that hangs in the Louisiana State Museum as part of an exhibit on Storyville brothels.”
“No, really, Linc. My sister-in-law Sylvie has a copy of this photograph framed in her family room. That guy, Etienne, is one of her ancestors. His family used to own a sugar plantation on Bayou Black.”
Linc still looked skeptical.
So, Charmaine told him, “I’m going to have Sylvie bring the picture when she comes on Thursday. Maybe I’m wrong. But I don’t think so.”
Everyone went off then, saying their good nights, even Tante Lulu, who went inside to take a bubble bath, or so she said. Raoul wasn’t sure why he hung around. He had nothing to say to Charmaine that he hadn’t said before. His realization that he still loved her didn’t alter the fact that theirs was a doomed relationship. Too many obstacles. Too many unresolved problems. When Luc arrived on Thursday, he would probably be carrying divorce papers for them to sign.
He felt as if there were a vise around his heart. He could barely breathe.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, stepping closer.
He moved to the side and put out a hand to halt her progress. If she got close to him now, he was pretty sure he would grab hold of her and never let go. Panicked, he said the first thing that came to his mind, “I won’t be home for dinner tomorrow.”
She tilted her head to the side.
“We’re taking the cattle to market tomorrow . . . about three hundred head. A half dozen hired hands will be here at dawn with horses and trucks to help round them up and load them for transport.”
“And that will take all day . . . and evening?”
“Well, Clarence and Linc and Jimmy might be back by dinnertime, but I have some appointments afterward.”
“What kind of appointments?”
How like Charmaine, he thought with an inner smile. She just barreled ahead, never questioning whether it was any of her business or not.
“First, I have to meet with my parole officer.”
“Why? Is something wrong?”
“Just a regular meeting. Then I have an appointment with that detective that Luc recommended.”
“Let me come, too.”
“No,” he said flatly. “This is about the investigation into my alleged crime. It has nothing to do with you. Luc is working on your problem.”
“Maybe I could help . . . with the parole officer, too. Really. I could say lots of nice things about you.”
“Believe me, Charmaine, you do not want to meet my parole officer. Deke Devereaux is not fond of me, and I guarantee he would treat you with the same disrespect he gives me. He is a little runt of a bully who enjoys the power his job gives him.”
Her face grew stormy. “I’m a big girl. I can handle myself. Maybe I’m just the person to put him in his place.”
That’s all I need. A pit bull female coming to my defense. He decided to home in on something else. “What nice things would you say about me?”
“Lemme see. You’re nice-looking, in a rugged sort of way.”
“That would impress the hell out of Devereaux.”
“You work hard.”
“He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about hard work. He would think that’s a minimum requirement for an ex-con . . . which is how he refers to me every other word.”
“You look like hell on wheels in tight, faded jeans.”
He grinned. “Oh, baby! You should not tell me things like that.”
Charmaine moved one step closer.
This time he didn’t move. He could smell the floral scent of her shampoo. He could feel her body heat.
Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.
“Sometimes I wonder . . .”
“What?” she asked, looking at him like a cold drink on a hot Loo-zee-anna day. It wasn’t hot tonight, but it felt steamy as all get out.
“. . . why we ever broke up.”
“Oh, Rusty, we were always breaking up. The least little thing caused us to argue. I’d run off to one of my girlfriends’ for a day or two. Or you’d go to a frat house, or sleep on the couch.”
“Yeah, but the makeup sex was mind-blowing.”
She smiled sadly. “It was that.”
“I guess I never really understood how that last argument snowballed into your leaving for good. And don’t quote me that bullshit about my calling you a bimbo. That was anger speaking, and you know it.”
“You were upset about my quitting college and going to work.”
“College was always more important to you than it was to me.” She put up a hand to stop him from arguing with her. “Really, you had a dream to become a veterinarian, but there was no clear career goal for me then. I was taking a bunch of liberal arts courses with no goal in sight. Pointless.”
“And what was the point in your taking a job at a strip club instead?”
She gasped. “The Blue Pelican was not a strip club, and I would not have been a stripper. I would have been a waitress earning good tips.”
“You might as well have been a stripper as wear one of the outfits the girls wore there. Jesus, Charmaine, why do you think half the college boys hung out at the Pelican? Because of their greasy burgers?”
“I . . . would . . . have . . . been . . . a . . . waitress,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Why?” It’s not as if he hadn’t asked that question a hundred times before.
“Because I needed the money,” she practically shouted.
He could tell that she immediately regretted her outburst. But, Holy Moses, this was something new. “Your father was paying your college expenses. Why did you need the money?”
“Forget it,” she said and started to go into the house.
He grabbed her arm. “Truth, Charmaine. I deserve the damn truth.”
“My father cut me off, you big baboon. Now, let me go.”
“Why did your father cut you off?”
“Does my father ever need a reason for the things he does?”
“Well, no,” he started to say, but then he noticed the way Charmaine’s eyes shifted nervously. She was hiding something. Something important. “Spill it. Por l’amour le Dieu, spill it.”
Tears welled in her eyes and seeped out. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can, baby,” he said, taking her by the forearms and forcing her to meet his scrutiny. “Tell me.”
Just then, Tante Lulu stepped through the doorway, reeking of peach bubble bath, and asked, “So where am I gonna sleep t’night?” She was wearing pink foam rollers in her hair and pink Barbie pajamas and some kind of white goop on her face.
Charmaine stepped away from him quickly, and said, “I’ll fix a bed for you on the living room sofa for tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll clean out Charlie’s bedroom for you to use.”
The two of them scurried off then.
Charmaine probably thought she’d had a narrow escape.
It was just a temporary reprieve. For ten long years, Raoul had wondered if there might have been some hidden reason why Charmaine had left him. Maybe now he would get the answer.
’Bout time, the bane of his life expounded.
Chapter 10
Mr. Clean had nothing on them . . .
The next day, just past dawn, they treated the much-expanded Triple L crew to a breakfast Tante Lulu style: fried tasso, a highly seasoned Cajun ham, red-eye gravy, biscuits as light as a bayou cloud, grits, fluffy scrambled eggs, and gallons of coffee. Then Charmaine followed in the wake of the old lady on the mother of all cleaning sprees.
Before the men had left for the day, Charmaine had asked them to take the hand-woven Cajun carpets out of the living room to the side yard, where they now hung over the clotheslines for scrubbing. They were old and worn, but still fine, probably made by Rusty’s grandmother on the loom she’d seen stored in the loft of the barn.
Before they got started, though, Tante Lulu asked her to tackle her roots. Tante Lulu, known for her outrageous appearance, had decided to be a redhead in line with her kick-ass cowgirl persona of the moment. While Charmaine worked on her at the kitchen table—work that was so familiar to Charmaine she could do it with her eyes closed—they chatted amiably.
“I think you and Rusty should have a big wedding this time.”
Charmaine almost dropped the small bowl of dye she held in one hand. Then she chuckled. Leave it to Tante Lulu to surprise her like that. “There is no ‘this time,’ Auntie.”
“Hah! I seen the way that boy looks at you, like a hobo on a hot dog. And yer no better. Lordy, Lordy, if he was a sweet praline, you’d be lickin’ him up one side and down the other.”
“Tante Lulu! I’m shocked at you.”
“Doan be takin’ that attitude with me, girlie. Yer more shockin’ than I ever was. I’m learnin’ new antics from you, day by day. If it hadn’t been so long since I had a man in my bed, I’d even try that born-again virgin thingee of yers. As it is, my thingee is prob’ly dried up ’bout now, like a raisin.”
Charmaine couldn’t help but laugh.
“I allus felt bad that I wasn’t there to help you with yer weddin’ to Rusty, but I gots plenty of time now. How ’bout Christmas? Wouldn’t that be a great time to have a weddin’?”
Charmaine groaned with dismay. Putting a hand on Tante Lulu’s shoulder, she squeezed gently. “Thank you for caring so much. But Rusty and I have too many obstacles between us. Besides we’re still married, so another wedding would be redundant, don’t you think? Ha, ha, ha.”
“Renew yer vows then. Iffen anyone needs a new beginning, it’s you. You caint fool me, girl. I doan care if you got obstacles up the kazoo. Iffen you two still love each other, and I ’spect you do, there could be a mountain sitting on yer toenails, and it wouldn’t matter. Speakin’ of nails, I need to do mine to match my hair. You got any of that Chili Pepper Red? Thass my favorite.”
Tante Lulu had a way of rambling from one subject to another to distract a person, but Charmaine was not about to be distracted. “Listen, I don’t know how to make this more clear. Luc will be bringing the divorce papers with him on Thursday. We will probably sign them.”
“Probably? Probably never made the gumbo boil.” She cackled at her own joke.
Charmaine closed her eyes briefly with frustration, then tried a different tack. “Wishing something were so, doesn’t make it happen.”
“Hah! Doan I know it, sweetie. Wimmen gots to make their own destiny. The question is: Are you woman enough?”
“I don’t have a bleepin’ clue,” she said.
Well, here’s a clue, that wretched voice in her head said. God gave you a second chance. You gonna flub it again?
Now, that was food for thought . . . that her divorce to Rusty never having been finalized was actually a celestial intervention.
Finally! Someone’s listening to me.
“Mebbe you ought to ask St. Jude for help,” Tante Lulu suggested.
Righto!
Was her aunt reading her mind now? Scary prospect, that!
Once Charmaine was done dyeing and styling her aunt’s hair, they cleaned the living room, starting from the raftered ceiling and working downward. It really was a charming room, much in the style of that old Bonanza TV series. Lots of wood and exposed beams and Western-style furniture. The only modern feature in the big room was a large-screen TV, which was at least ten years old.
After lunch, while her aunt was taking a nap, Charmaine went to work in Rusty’s office again. She was making progress and uncovering some interesting information. For years, as much as a decade ago, oil companies had been contacting Charlie Lanier, trying to obtain the oil rights under the Triple L, if not the land itself. A familiar saying in these parts, and in Texas as well, was that the successful rancher had a wife who worked in town or at least one oil derrick on his property for the steer to scratch their butts on. The point was that a little bit of oil drilling didn’t hurt. In fact, it allowed the rancher to stay afloat financially while cattle prices fluctuated.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, Charlie hadn’t shared that opinion. He’d refused, adamantly, to sell or lease his land to the oil interests. Some of the letters from the oil companies, including her father’s own Cypress Oil, were testy the past year, borderline threatening.
Could an oil company have been responsible for Charlie’s untimely death?
Sounded logical. But they had to know that Rusty would be the heir. An
d he would follow through on his father’s wishes.
Oh, my God! Not if Rusty was in jail. Not if he was on nonspeaking terms with his father. Not if they didn’t know the terms of his will, splitting everything between her and Rusty.
Good heavens! Could those same oil interests be responsible for putting Rusty in jail, wanting him out of the way?
She would have to show these papers to Rusty tonight. No, tomorrow. He had said he’d be back late tonight. Charmaine was uneasy about the worried look she’d seen on his face that morning when he’d left the house. Yes, this news could wait till the morning.
After Tante Lulu’s nap, they began to tackle Charlie’s former bedroom, which obviously hadn’t been touched in ages. While Charmaine took the curtains and the bedding, including a beautiful old patchwork quilt, to the laundry room, Tante Lulu began to put Charlie’s clothing and boots and hats into a large cardboard box. They would offer them first to Clarence and Linc, and the rest would go to Our Lady of the Bayou’s annual rummage sale, if Rusty approved, of course. It was only when they flipped the mattress, preparatory to vacuuming out the box springs, that they got their first shocks of the day.
Sitting on top of the box springs was a yellow manila envelope containing fifty thousand dollars in savings bonds.
Their second shock came when they pulled a shallow wooden box out from under the bed and discovered dozens of letters, at least fifty, which had been sent to Raoul Lanier and marked MAIL REFUSED, some of them more than twenty-five years old.
“Mon Dieu!” Charmaine exclaimed. “And all these years Rusty thought his father made no contact with him.”
“This calls for a cup of burnt roast,” Tante Lulu declared and walked off toward the kitchen to brew the strong Cajun coffee. Charmaine followed after her, stunned.
Soon they were seated at the kitchen table, sipping at hot coffee and munching on last night’s leftover Les Oreilles de Cochans, or pigs’ ears cakes. Charmaine’s tongue practically curled around the rich Cajun delicacy—deep fried twists of dough coated with cane syrup and nuts.
