Along the Cane River: Books 1-5 in the Inspirational Cane River Romance Series

by Mary Jane Hathaway

  Roxie wondered for just a moment if her refusal to major in something “normal” had more to do with not getting along with her family, than any real interest in ancient literature. Then she dismissed the thought. The old stories held a spark of creative genius she didn’t find anywhere else. But it hadn’t been enough to just study them in English. She wanted to read all the classic myths and great philosophers in the original Greek, and so she did. She wanted to read the epic poets like Virgil and Ovid in their original Latin, and so she did. She wanted to read Cicero, Pliny, and Seneca in their own, perfect words, and so she did. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a big need for people who could explain how Quintilian’s rhetoric influenced St. Augustine’s writing, or why Petronius’ Satyricon was actually funny.

  She stopped at the corner to let a battered blue truck rumble by. The bearded driver was singing a Kenny Chesney song at the top of his lungs. Roxie thought of how a lot of city people found country life charming, but nobody really wanted to live there full time. Even though she didn’t live in a great neighborhood of Philadelphia, the cultural benefits of a big city were worth all the constant traffic, sketchy street vendors, and midnight sirens the place could throw her way.

  Wiping the sweat from her upper lip, a fierce yearning went through her for the cool northern weather. She wanted to wear soft leather gloves and huddle over a pumpkin spiced latte while waiting for the subway. Back home, brightly colored leaves littered the sidewalk and women paired stylish boots with pencil skirts and Burberry scarves. Here, you were lucky if you made it out of the shower before you started perspiring, and the only gloves she wore were green plastic kind that matched her hair net.

  Side-stepping a teenage boy on a skateboard, she tried to remind herself that it was only temporary. Her true home was a city that had four seasons and a population that didn’t eat most of their food out of a deep fryer. It would be a few more weeks. Maybe a month at the most. Then she’d return to an ethnic melting pot, a beacon of international culture where people didn’t live their lives with a worldview so blinkered it was criminal.

  Turning the corner onto Trudeau Street, she gave the little building a long, assessing look. The bright yellow brick matched the awning lettered with ‘Sunshine Bakery’ in dark purple. Half a dozen café tables decorated with red check table cloths clashed cheerfully with purple chairs. Nobody could say her mamere was afraid of a little color.

  She pushed open the glass door and couldn’t stop herself from inhaling deeply. The heady mix of apple, maple, and cinnamon made her mouth water before she could remind her stomach that it was in possession of two slices of ultra-healthy whole wheat toast. She couldn’t afford to sample the goods, even with a daily three-mile run. She’d been born without the proper metabolism. Her fat cells were probably enlarging from simply being in the same room with the long rows of desserts.

  She hadn’t gone ten feet into the bakery before someone stepped into her path. “Oh my stars, Cupcake. It’s a real surprise to lay eyes on you.”

  “Nice to see you, Mrs. Turpin.” Roxie leaned forward for a perfunctory kiss and tried not to inhale the sickly sweet smell of freesia perfume. She knew what was coming. Mrs. Turpin had mastered the art of being aggressively sweet and slyly insulting.

  “A little birdy told me that you brought a young man home to meet the family. Congratulations, and I can’t wait to meet your beau,” she said. The gleam in her dark eyes matched the reflection on her overly lacquered hair.

  Roxie almost laughed. She’d been expecting a weight comment. “No, this visit is just for me. Spending a little family time.”

  “Of course. You’ve been gone so long, it must be real nice to get reacquainted.” Mrs. Turpin’s gaze swept from the top of her curly head to her scuffed blue running shoes. “Everyone needs a bit of down time, where ya don’t have to worry about appearances.”

  Roxie couldn’t help looking down at herself. In her defense, it was early. Also, she looked exactly the same as she always looked, more or less. At the magazine, she might put in a little more effort but overall, her style was never going to fall into the ‘glamorous’ category.

  Mrs. Turpin put a hand on her arm. “Can I just tell ya,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper, “I admire you so much for having the courage to work where you do, surrounded by thin and beautiful people all day long. It must get real depressin’ but you keep your head up and refuse to quit. Your gumption is just inspiring.”

  Roxie wanted to say all those beautiful people had never made her feel as bad as she did coming back to Natchitoches. She wanted to say that the only courage she needed was to overcome the negativity that had been instilled in her by people like Mrs. Turpin. She wanted to not say anything at all, but turn her back and walk away.

  But she didn’t. Her parents hadn’t raised her that way, and she wouldn’t dishonor their memory by stooping to Mrs. Turpin’s level.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I better go help out.” It wasn’t very satisfying, but nothing less than a good slap would be.

  “Hi, Cupcake!” Raylene waved her notepad. “So glad you came in today.”

  “Of course I was coming in. I’m just running a little late.” She hated the defensiveness in her own voice. It was as if everyone thought she’d come back to Natchitoches for a vacation. And she’d have to talk to Raylene about that nickname. It wasn’t much, but it was one small thing she could control. She glanced around the packed tables. “I can see you need the help. I’ll just go get an apron.”

  “Okay, but I think Miss Ceecee needs you outside.” Raylene had already turned back to her customers.

  Roxie’s stomach dropped. Outside?

  Lifting the bar at the end of the counter, she stepped into the kitchen, nearly knocking over a stack of empty buckets. Long trays of bare doughnuts waited on the counter for their icing. Every window was cranked open to let out the heat and the industrial fan was set to high, but the air was stifling. A pile of dirty towels lay near the back door and a small mountain of dishes sat in the sink. Cabinet doors hung open, exposing a jumble of pots and pans. The floor looked like a modern art canvas with dropped food, trails of flour, and inexplicably, a plunger over the drain in the center of the room. Unease crept up her spine. Roxie had never seen the kitchen in such a state.

  Her mamere stood by the deep fryer, a look of concentration on her face. Although her life had been deeply touched by tragedy, Cecile Hardy’s curly hair was still mostly black, her skin as smooth as a forty year old’s, and she stood with the posture of a strong Creole woman who knew her way around a kitchen.

  “Sorry I’m late. Let me get an apron on and help you get this kitchen cleaned up. ” Roxie gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. Maybe there really was something to Auntie’s concerns.

  “Don’t worry about the mess. Come on over here, sha. I need to ask you something.” She flashed her famous smile. Nobody could keep hold of a sour mood when Miss CeeCee smiled. It said I’m glad you’re here and I’ve been waiting for you and Don’t even think about walking by without a hug.

  Roxie ignored that smile with all her might. She had an idea what the question was already. Slipping the apron over her head, she said, “I see your fixin’ to ice these.” She inhaled, struggling to place the scent. “Root beer? That’s a new recipe.”

  “Saw ‘em on Pinterest and thought I’d give it a try. And thank you, but I better do the decoratin’. I know you spent a lot of time on that last batch but those Egyptian people caused a little bit of a stir.”

  Roxie frowned. “Egyptian? You mean the Greek vase cookies? I thought they’d be kinda popular because of the orange and black. You know, being so close to Halloween and all.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t the colors. It was the people part.”

  “The chariot racers? Or ones with Hercules wrestling the Nemean Lion? I thought it would be fun. Everybody likes lions and horses.”

  “No, I meant the running men.” Her mamere wore an expression of gentle rebuke. “You
could have put some clothes on ‘em.”

  “They didn’t run with clothes back then. And I left out all the details.” Admiring ancient Greek pottery probably wasn’t a popular pastime but that didn’t mean people couldn’t be taught to enjoy something different.

  “I just think we should stick to rainbows and hearts, or something festive. I’ll be putting crawfish on those over there.”

  As if crawfish were a better fit for a cookie design. “Okay. But those vases are famous. They’re in the Metropolitan Museum and everything.”

  “I bet they’re real pretty there. Maybe we’ll go see them together someday. Now, can you reach me the tongs. I’ve got a fritter stuck to the side, here.”

  Roxie passed her the long handled tool. Her mamere had never mentioned wanting to step past the city limits.

  After a few seconds of watching her fish an over-fried sweet rice fritter from the vat of boiling grease, Roxie glanced around. She tried not to consider which jobs were left for her in the bakery other than cookie decorating and waitressing. She picked up the plunger and peeked at the drain. Everything seemed in order. She was afraid to ask why it was there in the middle of the kitchen.

  “I’m just gonna put this away in the bathroom.”

  “That Ricky Boudreaux didn’t show up today.”

  She kept herself from groaning out loud as she walked toward the bathroom. “Maybe he’s just running late.” Roxie tucked the plunger behind the toilet and grabbed the push broom from by the back door.

  “Naw. He told me it was too hot yesterday. He didn’t think there was any amount of money that would convince him to come back, but I tried to change his mind.”

  Roxie paused mid push. She hated the idea of her mamere offering Ricky extra cash. The kid hadn’t ever kept a job for more than a few weeks. Her mamere was a good Christian woman who wouldn’t think twice about helping the lazy bum out if he gave her a hard luck story. “So, do you want me to call around for a replacement? Put out a sign?”

  She turned from the fryer and said, “It’s the Crawfish Festival this weekend, sha. We need the advertising.”

  “No, Mamere, please.” She’d done her time. For years, she’d suffered every afternoon and all day on the weekends, sweating herself into dehydration and earning a nickname she hated.

  “Raylene’s having a baby in the spring.”

  Roxie felt her mouth drop open a bit. Okay, so babies happened, and Raylene was very happily married to her high school sweetheart but Roxie still thought of her as sixteen years old. She was ashamed to realize her first emotion was jealousy. She had somehow figured she’d have a baby before Raylene, even though she hadn’t even found a guy she liked enough to date more than a few months. “That’s wonderful.”

  “She’s just got over the morning sickness. So, you see, it’s me or you out there.” She gave a tiny shrug. “And if I go out there, then you’d be in here for the day.”

  Roxie could fry the beignets and sprinkle the powdered sugar. She knew how much cinnamon went in the sweet rice fritters and she could assemble a dozen mini apple pies in fifteen minutes. She could do most of the kitchen work blindfolded and none of the customers would be the wiser. But Mamere simply did it all better than Roxie. She didn’t follow a recipe. She cooked with an uncanny sort of intuition that was as much a part of her as her throaty laugh or her strong hands.

  Plus, Mamere was seventy-eight years old and it was eighty-five degrees outside.

  She didn’t have any choice. Glancing down at her T-shirt and capris, she said, “I’ll have to go grab some shorts and buy tights. Pink, right?”

  “Oh, honey, bless you.” Mamere grabbed her and hugged her tight, her clothing carrying smell of hot grease as strong as perfume. “I think there’s an unopened pack of tights on the shelf by freezer. And you’re short. Just wear the tights.”

  “You want me to go out there without any pants.”

  “Nobody will know, Cupcake.” She’d already turned back to the fryer and was withdrawing a large basket full of fritters.

  “I will,” she muttered. Roxie mentally steeled herself for what she was going to do next. She was Achilles, off to fight in the Trojan war, except instead of a vulnerable heel, she had a somewhat larger fatal flaw following her through life.

  She glared at the offending article resting on a stool in the corner. It was just as she remembered: a bright pink layer of foam frosting rising to a curly-cue tip, two arm holes on either side of the layers of frosting, and leg holes in the bottom of the shiny foil box that was the cupcake wrapper. Roxie found the package of tights, but heaved a sigh at the size on the back. Ricky Boudreaux wasn’t blessed with big thighs and a booty like the Hardy women. If she fit into the tights, it would be a very temporary miracle.

  Roxie considered changing in the tiny employee bathroom, then dragged it into the small walk-in freezer. She tugged the door closed behind her and stripped off as quickly as possible. Removing her bracelets, she carefully stowed them in her purse. The charms had special meaning to her. Each little symbol came from a line of poetry that was special to her, that reminded her of how far she’d come and far she had to go.

  Roxie yanked on the tights, but just as she’d predicted, they were much too small, keeping their opaqueness only near the ankle and becoming progressively more sheer as they were stretched to the limit. Stepping into the bottom of the cupcake, she pulled it up and slipped the suspenders over her shoulders. The top half of the cupcake was like putting on a shirt, except you didn’t hold your breath because you were never getting out of the top. The inside was a large cone-shaped helmet. It had a mesh strip that was supposed to be an eye-level peephole for the unlucky inhabitant, but sat somewhere near Roxie’s collarbone. It did add a bit of ventilation and allowed her to see her own feet, but was otherwise relatively useless. Roxie usually found her way to the corner and stayed put, trusting that nobody else on the sidewalk would be able to miss a giant dancing cupcake.

  Pushing her way back out of the walk-in freezer, Roxie watched her blue running shoes and pink legs make their way to the back wall, where she felt her way to the metal exit door. As she stepped out into the sunshine, she whispered, “Be strong, my heart. I am a soldier. I have seen worse sights than this.” Poor Odysseus. This wasn’t a ten year trip home to Ithaca but she felt his pain.

  It was going to be one hot, uncomfortable day breathing in Ricky Boudreaux’s stale sweat. One long, exhausting day where she would dance for strangers in a throwback to her most humiliating teenage years.

  This exact scenario had hovered in the back of her mind like a little black cloud every moment that she argued against returning to Natchitoches. As she begrudgingly conceded, bought plane tickets, and moved into the apartment down the block, she reassured herself that at least she wouldn’t be forced to wear the suit. Now, her fears had come true. As far as she’d come, as much as she’d learned, she was right back where she’d started.

  On the bright side, it was just one day and nobody would even know who she was.

  Chapter Two

  “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”

  ― George Burns

  Andy McBride stared out at the city of Natchitoches and wondered how he’d ended up in such a place. The glass wall of the elevator gave him a clear view of the twisting country roads and the wide Cane River winding through the historic downtown. It also showed the exact point where the loveliest parts of the city ended and the industrial section of town began, of which his building was a part. The elevator seemed to take more time than usual on its way to the state-of-the art conference room on the top floor. Elegant residences and charming shopfronts shrank away as squat gray buildings appeared, flanked by acres of parking lots.

  Banished.

  In New York City, he’d worked in a smoked glass and steel building in the middle of the financial district. He’d walked the busy streets with a thousand other people in expensive business suits, on their w
ay to big meetings and presentations. He knew thirty excellent places to eat in a ten block radius from his apartment.

  Just the thought of his apartment made him homesick. It wasn’t a Central Park penthouse or even a modified industrial loft, but the brownstone walk up had been his home for more than five years. He missed its groaning pipes in winter, sticky windows in summer, and doves nesting on the fire escape in the spring. He knew which dogs barked at the garbage trucks, recognized all his neighbors by the sound of their voices, and could predict whether the doorman would be in a good mood by how the Knicks played.

  Technically, he hadn’t left any family in New York City, but his brother had lived only an hour away. Andy visited on the weekends, or even the odd weekday evening, just to play Old Maid and watch ‘Free Willy’. His brother was twenty two years old and had seen it hundreds of times. When Andy had looked for a good group home for Mark, he’d made sure that nobody would mind if his brother watched the same movie several times a day. Andy thought of him coming home from the community center and putting on the movie, a stack of sour cream and onion flavored Pringles on one side and a cup of cold milk on the other. He hadn’t realized how much he’d miss Mark, or how much Mark would miss him.

  He turned toward the polished steel doors as the elevator crept up the last few feet to the top. His reflection was blurred, his face almost featureless. He was indistinguishable from every other businessman wearing a dark suit and a red tie, except there were very few young businessmen in Natchitoches. When he walked the streets of New York City, he felt a deep sense of satisfaction at being part of something bigger. Everything he did was ordinary. When he went for his run around Central Park, he felt like it was a perfectly normal thing to do. When he went for a run in Natchitoches, people looked to see what was chasing him.

  Sure, he and Paul Olivier were the founders of the biggest gaming company in the country, but there were always bigger fish in the pond. In any given room, on any given day, someone wealthier and more powerful might steal the spotlight. In Natchitoches, he stuck out like a three-legged dog in a horse race, as Paul would say. Although the people were welcoming and kind, he was the new guy in town, the Northerner, the Yank, the guy who did the “computer stuff”. He liked being the life of the party but now that he’d had a taste of unintentional notoriety, he was miserable. As friendly as they were, Andy had a suspicion that many times they were laughing at him, not with him.