“Lou!” Mother screeched.
After the subject of Pre-Cana, I began to tune out of the rest of the wedding conversation. Mother and John seemed to be planning everything, even down to food selection at the reception.
“Nora and I would love a mixture of tastes—Indian, Chinese, Mexican—that way people would have some variety. And we must have champagne,” John added with a flourish of his hand. “We want the very best champagne and lots of it.”
I stared at John and wondered exactly when in our relationship he had decided to start speaking for me. I had known the man almost two months, but in all that time I had never felt more insignificant to him than that morning, sitting with my mother and Lou.
“Now, Nora,” Mother badgered as she made notes on one of the growing scraps of paper on the table. “We will have to go over to Chopin’s next week and pick out the flowers. First the service flowers, your bouquet, bridesmaids’ bouquets, reception arrangements, and of course corsages for John’s parents and Lou and me.”
“Roses,” John announced as he pushed his empty plate aside. “Make it yellow roses. Put them in everything.”
My body reflexively twitched at the mention of yellow roses.
I turned to John. “Since when do you like yellow roses?”
He smiled at me, making the lines beneath his gray eyes appear even deeper.
“Always. They’re my favorite.”
“Nora’s, too,” Mother squealed, clapping her hands together excitedly. “Now we have to look through these invitation samples. I want to get our selection to the printer on Monday.”
I sat back in my chair. “Mother, John is wiped. He’s been up all night and I’m pretty beat. Can’t we do this another time?”
“I’m all right, Nora,” John insisted as he held my hand.
I analyzed his bloodshot eyes and frowned. “Well, I can’t stay,” I stated and let go of his hand.
“Can’t stay?” Mother frowned at me. “Nora, we have a lot to go over.”
“John can finish up here. I promised Uncle Jack I would go to Manchac this afternoon and check his pressure.”
Mother waved an impatient hand at me. “Tell the man to go to a doctor like everybody else. And stop calling him Jack. His name is Jacques. I hate it when you call him Jack. It’s so blue-collar.” Her face began turning red, a sure sign she was getting angry. “Nora, you can’t just leave. We have a wedding to plan. You have obligations.”
I quickly stood from my chair. “I can’t disappoint Uncle Jack.” I smirked at her. “You know how he looks forward to my visits, and I haven’t seen him in a while.”
John stood up next to me. “I’ll come with you.”
I placed my hand on his arm. “No, I’ll go. You stay here and help my mother. She’s right, we have a lot to plan.”
“I wish you would stop making promises to that old drunk.” Mother’s face was growing a darker shade of red. “He’s just like Father. Drank himself into an early grave, Francois Mouton did. My poor mother had to suffer such humiliation. I swore I would never be like her.” She pointed a finger at me. “It does you no good to spend so much time with your uncle.”
I ignored her warnings and kissed John’s cheek. “I’ll see you back at the house.” Then, without another word to my mother, I fled from the dining room.
“Nora, don’t be silly,” Mother called behind me. “That old fool will be high as a kite all afternoon. You’re wasting your time.”
“Yes, Mother,” I shouted as I grabbed my purse by the front door. “But it’s my time to waste.” I stepped through the leaded glass front door and slammed it behind me. Instantly, I felt better. Reprieved of my oppressive wedding duties, I happily ran down the steps, eagerly wanting to get into my car and speed away.
Chapter 11
During the entire drive to Manchac, I kept such a tight grip on the steering wheel that by the time I pulled in front of the Gaspard’s home, I could barely pry my fingers off the leather. I sat in my car, outside of the white plantation style house, and took in a few deep breaths. That didn’t help. I still wanted to rip my mother’s red hair out by the roots.
I was reaching for my purse when a tap on my car window distracted me. I turned and saw Jean Marc Gaspard standing next to my car door, wearing a pair of jeans and a crisp white T-shirt. He was smiling at me, or more like grinning from ear to ear.
I opened the door and could not help but notice the thick muscles in his suntanned arms.
“Glad to see you made it,” he remarked, offering me his hand.
I took his hand and a little twinge of excitement coursed through me when my flesh touched his.
“Mother has been asking me every hour on the hour when you were coming,” he added as he helped me out of the car. His hand stayed on mine for a few seconds after I was standing from the car, and then he let go.
“I got hung up at my mother’s.” I sighed and I tugged at my purse strap. “She was in her glory with the wedding planning.”
Jean Marc briefly chuckled. “Thank God I avoided that mess when I got married. Cynthia, my ex, wanted a quick, simple ceremony in Dallas, no family or friends. Mother has never forgiven me for that.”
“You’re lucky. My mother is insisting on the whole big ceremony fiasco,” I said as we started slowly down the narrow shell-covered path toward the house.
“Yeah, my mother would have wanted the whole blown out affair, too. She claims I cheated her out of her one chance for a nice wedding.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know if all the hoopla is really worth it.”
“It’s worth it when you’re in love, Nora.”
I took in his profile. “Were you in love with your ex-wife?”
He stopped and turned to me. “I thought I was, I really did. But after we were married, I discovered she was missing something. Something I could never quite put my finger on until I came back to Manchac.”
“What was she missing?”
He simply smiled and nodded to the house. “Come on. My mother is waiting.”
As we neared the end of the path, the full majesty of Gaspard House came into view. It appeared a little more worn and faded than I remembered, but the home still had its long sunlit balconies supported by the four round, white columns that ran along the front of the three-story dwelling. The roof was covered with terra cotta tiles, hard to find nowadays, but worth their weight when the setting sun made the tiles glow red against the evening sky. The exterior was covered in plaster and painted white. The tall french windows still had the original old, imperfect wavy glass in place. The front door had been freshly painted a deep shade of red, reminiscent of the swatches my mother had produced earlier that day. Surrounding the property were grand oak trees brushed with long strands of Spanish moss, and limbs so heavy with age that they reached down to the ground. There were pink crape myrtle trees and red azalea bushes growing wild in the front gardens. Off to the side, away from the oaks, but close enough to the entrance of the house to spread its sweet aroma indoors every May, was a large magnolia tree, mandatory in any respectable Southern garden.
I gazed up in awe at the impressive structure. “It hasn’t changed.”
Jean Marc laughed as he took my elbow and ushered me onward. “Oh, it’s changed, all right. A year ago I had to put new plumbing in all of the bathrooms. I just replaced the central air-conditioning system last spring, had the kitchen overhauled last winter, and,” he took a breath, “refinished all the old pine floors just last month. Costs me a small fortune to keep the place up, but she’s still in pretty good shape, considering she just made a hundred and thirty-three.”
“That old?”
He looked up at the house. “The original home burned down in the eighteen seventies. This was the more luxurious replacement my ancestor built with profits from his smuggling escapades during the Civil War.”
“Your family has had such a colorful past.”
“Yes, we Gaspards claim descent from a pirate who trav
eled in the company of Jean Lafitte named Jacques Gaspard. He settled in this area and spent his days smuggling goods through these swamps. But today’s Gaspard family is not quite as colorful as our predecessors. Oh, we have the occasional delinquent, like my brother, but at heart we’re just simple fishermen.”
“Not according to my mother. She still believes the Gaspard family is filled with men such as your ancestor the pirate.” I paused and turned to him. “She even mentioned something about your time in Dallas. Mother believes some nasty rumor flying around that you were involved with a notorious smuggler.”
He stared at me as his dark eyes shimmered in the sunlight. “Maybe it’s not a rumor.”
“Is it true what they say about you?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “My former father-in-law, Lawrence Castille, was a very wealthy importer of rare and hard to acquire items. Some say he was a smuggler, and I did witness more than a few illegal transactions between him and other international businessmen. When he took me under his wing and I married his daughter, more than a few people began to believe I was a smuggler as well.”
“But you weren’t, right?”
Jean Marc rubbed his hand across his chin. “I did things for my father-in-law that I’m not proud of, Nora.”
As I took in Jean Marc’s troubled features, I could not fathom how a man I had known all of my life could be someone so different from what I had imagined.
“What kinds of things?” I finally asked.
“Perhaps I’ve said too much already.” He sighed and took in the surrounding greenery. “I can understand if you think less of me because of—”
I placed my hand on his forearm, silencing him. “I don’t care about what you did, Jean Marc. How could I ever question you or your past? You have always been there for my uncle, and as far as I’m concerned that erases any of your former sins.”
He put his hand over mine. “One day you might care,” he whispered.
A tingling sensation passed through my body as his hand rested against mine. I quickly removed my hand from his arm and nervously took a step back.
Jean Marc waved toward the house. “We should go.”
We were almost at the front porch when two monstrous brown, blue, and white speckled hound dogs, with long tails and tall bodies, approached me.
“Oh, the welcoming committee,” Jean Marc declared. “Napoleon and Nelson, Dad’s old Catahoula dogs.”
I held my hand out to the closest of the hounds, a dark brown creature with black and white spots on his rump. Instantly, my hand was covered with a layer of slobber. The second of the dogs, a blue and tan mix, came forward and reached for my hand, wanting the same attention as the first.
“Careful, if you get too friendly with them, they might just try and sit in your lap,” Jean Marc cautioned as he rubbed one of the dogs on the head.
When we stepped onto the sprawling front porch, complete with a wide assortment of rockers, a familiar woman’s voice called from inside the open front door.
“Is she here?”
The voice was soon followed by the figure of a petite woman, delicate almost in her bearing. She had deep brown hair, smooth, silky white skin, and the warmest brown eyes I had ever known.
“Nora T!” The woman held out her slender arms to me. Her oval face was bright with love and her pale cheeks were flushed with warmth.
“Ms. Marie!” I ran to her waiting arms.
Ms. Marie held me back and carefully inspected every inch of me. “Why, look at you. You’re all grown up, mon p’tit’.” She pulled me to her once more and squeezed me tight.
When I could finally come up for air, I saw Jean Marc standing off to the side, beaming as he watched me with his mother.
“Oh, I have thought about you every day, Nora T.” Ms. Marie put her slender arm about my shoulders. “I’ve been tellin’ Jean Marc to invite you out to the house for ages.”
“Nora works, Momma. She has a big job at a hospital in the city. She can’t always get away,” Jean Marc informed her as he walked up beside us.
“Well, that’s no excuse,” Ms. Marie scolded and pointed her finger at me. “You’re family, child. You always must come and see me.”
Just then, Uncle Jack appeared from around the side of the house, wearing a pair of worn blue jean overalls and his old, faded blue cap. He had gained some weight and there was a bounce in his step.
“Nora T!” He came forward and hugged me.
I stood back from him and explored his face. His blue eyes were brighter and there was a hint of color in his cheeks. “You look great, Uncle Jack.”
“All Ms. Marie’s good cookin’, I ‘spect.” He patted his belly. “I didn’t think you’d be comin’ today. Figured you’d be too busy plannin’ your big weddin’.”
“Jacques told me you’re marryin’ a doctor,” Ms Marie admitted with a smile. “That be a fancy catch, girl.”
I shrugged as Ms. Marie’s eyes carefully observed me. “His name is John Blessing, and he’s not a fancy catch. Just a nice guy.”
Ms. Marie clapped her hands together. “If he makes you happy, child, that be all that matters.” Then she turned her head curiously to the side and studied me for a moment longer. “You love that boy, Nora T?”
“Of course I love him, Ms. Marie.” I smiled for her. “He’s a great guy,” I added, trying to sound convincing.
“That’s what you say, Nora T,” Uncle Jack remarked. “But that ain’t what we see.”
Ms. Marie patted my arm. “When you’re in love, child, you glow. You walk on air. You have no doubts. You’re happy, a ‘once upon a time’ kinda happiness, like in a fairy tale.”
I took in an unsteady breath, feeling as if the world was closing in on me. “Times have changed, Ms. Marie. Couples have a lot more obstacles to overcome, more pressures to live with. Happiness is not the primary concern. Expectations are different for couples nowadays.”
Jean Marc’s eyes focused on me. “Are they?” He shook his head and then hurried inside the house.
“Never mind him. He’s just feelin’ the sting from his own failed marriage,” Ms. Marie assured me as she waved her hand after her son. “He’s never been the same since that Texas girl broke his heart.”
“Broke his heart?” I asked.
“She ran off with a colleague of Jean Marc’s. Them married only nine months, and she was already lookin’ for greener pastures.” Ms. Marie winked at me. “That girl wasn’t right for my Jean Marc. She would have been better for my other son, Henri.”
“Why do you say that, Ms. Marie?”
“‘Cause she didn’t care for no one but herself. Selfish just like Henri, she was. But Jean Marc, he’s my good son. He’s gonna make some good girl a fine husband one day.”
Uncle Jack pushed back his cap and rubbed his forehead. “Yep, he’s gonna be a fine man once he learns to speak his mind,” he commented, and then stepped through the front door.
* * *
Ms. Marie, Jean Marc, Uncle Jack, and I were seated around the thick oak breakfast table in the enormous kitchen. The kitchen was the size of most living rooms, with a huge red-bricked hearth at one end of the room with its original swinging iron arms still intact. The white-tiled counters I remembered from my youth had been updated with deep umber granite countertops. The small hand carved cypress cabinets that had hung on the light sand-colored walls had been replaced by pine ones painted beige. A gourmet cooktop and twin convection ovens now sat in the place where the old gas stove had been. Even the Sub-Zero refrigerator was new and built into the wall next to the ovens.
“Everything looks so different,” I commented, taking in the renovated kitchen.
“Everythin’ ‘cept the floors,” Ms. Marie illuminated as she tapped the old red-bricked floor with her shoe. “I kept that. Didn’t want to take it out. This here’s a good ole floor.”
I reached for the glass of fresh lemonade Ms. Marie had prepared in my honor. “The rest of the house is still the sam
e as I remember.”
“I didn’t have the strength to do the whole house,” Ms. Marie declared. “It was bad enough havin’ the workman in and out of my kitchen for three months.”
Uncle Jack took a sip from his lemonade. “The place, she sure needed it, but still more needs to be done.” He put his glass down on the table and stood from his chair. “I best be getting’ get back to work.” He removed his old blue cap from the front pocket of his overalls and placed it on his head. “You come and see me again, Nora T.” He leaned over and kissed my head. “Don’t bring that man of yours when you come back.”
I thought Uncle Jack was joking, but when I looked up into his steely blue eyes, I realized he was serious.
“How can you say that, Uncle Jack? John is a great guy.”
Uncle Jack moved away from the table toward the open back door next to the hearth. “Non, he no good for you, no sir.” He turned and walked out into the afternoon sunshine.
I anxiously noted the grin spreading across Jean Marc’s thin lips. “My uncle has not taken the time to get to know my fiancé,” I explained, and then took a sip from my lemonade.
“No, child.” Ms. Marie rose from her chair and picked up Uncle Jack’s glass from the table. “Your uncle, he’s a good judge of how people really are.” She carried the glass to the sink. “Jacques knew he wasn’t the right man for me, just like he knows that doctor ain’t the right man for you.”
Jean Marc frowned at his mother. “Momma, that’s Nora’s business. Stop filling her head with such nonsense.”
“Nonsense? No such thing.” She stared at her son for a moment and then smiled. “Jean Marc, remember when you was a p’tit’ boug and you used to dance with Nora T outside in the sunlight?” She nodded to me. “You taught her how to waltz, the Acadian Waltz.”
His dark eyes nervously darted about the room. “I don’t remember that, Momma.”
“Sure you do.” She waved at the open kitchen floor in front of her. “Go on over there and show Nora T the way you used to dance with her.”
“Momma, we’re not little children anymore,” Jean Marc griped.
Acadian Waltz Page 11
