by Lynn Shurr
“Roxie, honey, I’d be the last one to point out mistakes others have made. Look, here comes Pierre. He’s up to something. I can tell by that sly smile.”
“There’s a photographer here taking pictures of the camp for a magazine. He’s willing to make a wedding portrait of me with the queen of the Mardi Gras Ball.”
“You mean Doctor and Midwife Landry.”
“But of course.”
The photographer took one picture of the bride and groom and another with the gathering of family and friends. Roz pulled Roxie close to her side, and Alida Landry, dressed in her Sunday best polka dot dress, put an arm around her son. He gave the newlyweds his card and took down their address, his mind already on the next poignant shot that would tell the story of the Great Flood of 1927 to the reader’s of National Geographic magazine.
Pierre had another surprise. He showed his key to the apartment over the hospital to his bride. “It’s not the Paris Ritz, but we’ll have more privacy than here in a tent. Doc Spivey said he’d cover all calls tonight as a wedding gift. He’s still guilty about lying to bring me home.”
“Let’s take advantage of that while we can. If he and Judy continue on as they are, they might want to use the place themselves. As for me, I know I’ll be happier staying over the hospital than I ever was at the Ritz.” Roz smiled into his eyes.
“Leonard has a nice house in town. It’s too big and empty for him since his wife died and his children moved away. We could rent it. One day, we’ll build our own place on the bayou and raise our family there—after you finish nursing school.”
“Yes, yes, yes, but there is only one thing I want to finish now, a whole night with you. No waiting for people to accept me, no shunting me off to the nurses’ tent, no holding off for one more hour!”
They thought they were slipping quietly from the gathering, but the Tin Lizzie had been moved to a spot under one bright light. The Ford trailed an assortment of tin cans and old shoes tied to the bumper. A “Just Married” sign hung over the spare tire, and a throng of rice throwing well-wishers lay in wait. The newlyweds drove off to the sound of cheers and Cajun yells. Roz shook the rice from her hat.
“I think we have enough rice on the floor of the car to make gumbo,” Roz said, laughing.
“It’s not gumbo we’re going to be making tonight, ma cherie.”
Pierre carried her up the stairs to the apartment. She had a vague memory that he might have done that before. Roz reached down to turn the key in the lock allowing her husband to take her all the way to the bed. They didn’t bother to turn down the covers. Roz flung her hat at the snake lamp and missed. She didn’t get up to retrieve it.
Pierre took off her shoes and slowly rolled down her stockings, one by one, trailing a finger along her soft thighs, over her slim calves, all the way to her toes. She could feel her silk step-ins growing damp between the legs. By the time he’d stopped fiddling with every button on her dress and teasing the breasts beneath her camisole before releasing them from their band, Roz had grown impatient. She pushed away his jacket, flung his tie after her hat, and tore open his shirt. Buttons pinged off the iron headboard. She had his pants down to his ankles in less than ten seconds, and they were flesh to flesh within a minute.
“You know I hate long waits, mon amour.”
“Are you sure you’re ready, cher heart?” He was teasing her again.
Roz drew his face to hers and reveled in the feel of his soft moustache, the warmth of his mouth, the play of his tongue with hers. She seized his lean flanks and urged him to enter, now, now, now. Lent had passed and for Rosamond St. Rochelle, Mardi Gras had come again.
Epilogue
Chapelle, Louisiana, 2004
Doretha Robertson looked at the skinny white boy the agency sent as a replacement to tend Miz Roz while the nurse took a personal day for her annual checkup. Hypertension and heart disease had killed the women in her family for three generations, but they weren’t going to get her. Sure, she needed to lose weight. Her big, black body stored up fat like a bear preparing for winter, but Dorey tried to eat healthy, took her pills religiously, and never missed her checkup. Still, she wasn’t all too sure she wanted to leave her frail ninety-seven-year-old patient with this man-child who wore rings in both ears and had a tattoo of a peace symbol peeking out from under the short sleeves of his blue scrubs.
“Now listen here. I got her all cleaned up, and she’s in her chair. Soon as she gets bored with CNN, she’ll want to go outside and sit facing the bayou. You make sure the morning chill is off the air before you allow any such thing. She’ll sit out there and tell you she’s waiting for Pierre—that’s her deceased husband, and sometimes she talks to him—but she’s not really senile. Around noon, you make her come in and eat whether she has an appetite or not. Heat up the Chunky Chicken Soup and make her a turkey sandwich cut in quarters, then she can feed herself. There’s applesauce with plenty of cinnamon for dessert if she wants it, and she can have coffee or tea. You make sure she takes all the pills in this cup. You got all this?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The young man nodded his blond head, the hair shaved close to his scalp, respectfully.
“Afterwards, you help her to the bathroom, put on a clean Depends. She might take a nap, but most likely, she’ll want to go out and wait for Pierre some more. Usually, she dozes in her chair. I should be back in time to give her dinner. You got my beeper number by the phone.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll take good care of Mrs. Landry.”
“She’ll tell you to call her Roz, but you say ‘Miz Roz’ out of respect, you hear. She likes to talk about the old days, and it wouldn’t do you no harm to listen for a while. I used to bring my own kids here to sit at her feet and hear how it was. Come on then. I’ll introduce you before I get going.”
The young man in scrubs followed Nurse Robertson’s bulky body in its snug white uniform out of the kitchen and into a sunroom that had been made over as a bedroom when the elderly woman could no longer manage the stairs in the rambling bayouside home. Her family installed a downstairs bath at the same time. More often than not, one of them would come to spend the weekend in one of the three upstairs bedrooms. The great-grandson, one of the many Pierres, kept his houseboat docked on the river below. They watched out for their own, the Landrys did.
“Miz Roz, this is Nurse Chad Duhon. He’s going to stay with you today while I go for my checkup.”
The old woman turned her attention from the CNN news reports on the television. The fluff of white hair and the thin, pale skin of her face made Mrs. Landry’s eyes seem very blue and piercing. Her cataracts had been removed years ago because she couldn’t be without her books and her television.
“How terrible that people are still killing each other over religion, but how wonderful more men are going into nursing. I used to be a nurse, you know, and a midwife. Back in the Sixties, the nursing school at the university asked me to speak to a group of young women interested in becoming midwives. They must have been appalled at how quickly we were trained and how little equipment we had at our disposal. Still, we were a godsend to rural women during the Depression. After World War II, everyone wanted to give birth in a hospital, and better medical care for the poor allowed that. Did I ever tell you Fr. Grainger threatened to excommunicate me for giving out information on birth control, Dorey? I told him it was good thing I’d gone over to the Methodists years ago.”
“Yes, you might have mentioned that to me once or twice, but Chad, here, he hasn’t heard any of your stories. You behave now. I’m going.”
“Fresh meat for my grinder!” The old lady’s laugh was surprisingly youthful, as if she were still a careless flapper in the Twenties. “Take me outside, Nurse Duhon. Pierre might come to find me today.”
Chad checked to make sure the lap blanket wouldn’t catch in the wheels of the chair and that his patient’s feet were positioned properly. He pushed his charge out through the living room and kitchen to a deck overlooking the bayou
and reset the brake when he reached a spot where the late autumn sun shone neither too hot nor too glaring.
“Sit down, kiddo. That’s what Artie always called my sister, Roxie, even when they were old and gray. Well, Roxie never let herself go gray, but you know what I mean. Have you ever heard of Artie Delaware, singer and comedian extraordinaire?”
“No, Mrs. Landry. I can’t say that I have.” Chad brushed a hand over his bristle. Maybe, he should go change the sheets on her bed instead of sitting out here listening to the lady go on.
“Call me Roz, no matter what Dorey said. Delaware, Artie took that as his stage name. His family never got over the shame, but they should have. He could sing like a blackbird in the cane fields and make a whole room full of people smile. Artie was a big name in Hollywood in his day. He got to be Grand Marshal of Rex. That was during the Depression, so the floats and entertainments weren’t as fine as in my time, but he came. When he left, he took Roxie, queen of Hercules that year, with him. What a marvelous scandal even if they did get married in Vegas on the way to California! He was thirty, and she just turned eighteen.”
“That doesn’t seem too strange for Hollywood.”
“It wouldn’t have been strange for New Orleans if he’d been a banker or an attorney, but the Old Guard didn’t approve of an entertainer even if he was one of them once. To think he knew the Marx Brothers and did all those USO shows during the war, even appeared on Lucy during the Fifties, and now no one remembers him.”
“I remember Groucho Marx,” Chad said, trying to keep up his end of the conversation.
“Artie was better friends with Harpo. They both loved music so. To think, I told Roxie that Artie would never amount to anything. I guess I was as bad as my parents. That Hollywood marriage lasted until Artie passed away in 1965 from too much of the good life. Roxie didn’t remarry. She had her children, a son and two darling daughters. They’re quite old now, but the girls do come to visit when they’re in the area.”
Chad smiled.
“Oh, I know you think I’m old, but that’s just on the outside. When Pierre comes for me, I’ll be as young and fresh as a college girl at Mardi Gras. Don’t look at me that way. I know my Pierre is dead. Don’t I go put flowers on his grave every week? Don’t I have my headstone already set up next to his—Rosamond St. Rochelle Landry, nurse, midwife, mother, and beloved wife of Pierre, 1907 -? All they have to do is fill in the end date. Do you think it’s too pretentious?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Call me Roz, I said. Well, I am proud of what I became. I could have been buried in the family vault in New Orleans if I’d taken another path. Then, they would have buried me as Rosamond St. Rochelle Boylan, Queen of Hercules, 1926, and probably dead by 1927. I was divorcing Boylan when he died, you know. What a brutal man.”
“No, I didn’t know that, Miz Roz.”
“Another family scandal. Divorce is no big deal today. I escaped from an abusive husband, came here, made something of myself, and married Pierre. We had forty-five wonderful years together and four children, the boys, Pierre Junior and Laurence and my two girls. That’s small for a Cajun family. They were all born during the Depression. Pierre insisted I finish my nurses’ training before we started our family. That always annoyed Junior. He said if we’d started right away like most Cajuns, he could have gotten in on World War II. As it was, he served as a marine in Korea. Oh, how angry he got when his son, Perry, protested the war in Vietnam, and he wasn’t too happy with me for joining in the picketing either. I lost my cousin, Henri, during World War II, a pilot shot down over France. His death killed his mother, Loretta. I barely slept the whole time Junior spent in Korea. I just couldn’t let Perry be sent off to die in a senseless war and sit by doing nothing. Junior is gone now. It’s terrible to outlive your children.”
Chad thought Miz Roz might cry. Her eyes had gone watery, but then she smiled. Down on the bayou, a very hairy man with a bushy beard and long dark mane drawn back in a ponytail emerged from the houseboat cabin, stretched, and waved. He started up the hill.
“My great-grandson, Pete. I admit I’m partial to Junior’s family. They seem to have inherited my wild streak, for better or worse. You won’t believe this but under all that hair, Pete looks just like my Pierre except for the dimples. The ladies love him. Come here, boy, and sit with your Granny Roz.”
“Just what I planned to do.” Instead of taking the steps, the young man vaulted over the deck railing. He held out a hand to Nurse Chad.
“Pierre Boniface Landry the Fourth, Cajun entertainer, my card.” A business card appeared from somewhere under the chest-covering beard. “I do parties.”
Chad shoved the card into a pocket of his scrubs. “Can I get you and Mr. Landry anything, Miz Roz?”
“Oh, do bring us coffee with brown sugar. Make enough for yourself.”
“I’ll sit with my favorite lady while you do that. Where’s Dorey?”
“I’m subbing while she takes a personal day. I’m Chad Duhon.”
“I admit I like nurses to be female and bodacious, but as long as you take good care of Granny Roz, you’re okay in my book.”
“I’ll go make that coffee.”
Chad took advantage of the visit to put clean sheets on Miz Roz’s bed and get a start on her lunch. As he made the turkey sandwich and cut it in quarters, he could hear her chiding her great-grandson.
“When are you going to shave and get married, boy?”
“I tried both once, didn’t work. If I ever find a woman as tough and beautiful as you, Gran, I might give marriage another try. Since I suspect God only made one of you, I might be alone forever.”
“That would be tragic, cher heart. Family is everyt’ing, as my motherin-law used to say. She even got over having Methodist grandchildren. Junior was so like his Cajun uncles, while your father had my Pierre’s gentleness.”
“And don’t forget his Cajun pride. My dad did a lot of the research that led to the Cajun Renaissance even if he does hates to hunt and fish. Got to go, Gran. I have to see a man about some ducks. Might have a gig as a hunting guide.” Pierre Boniface Landry the Fourth gulped down the last of his coffee. “I’ll bring you a big bag of beignets from Pommier’s on my way home.”
Pete brushed her papery cheek with his whiskers and waved as he bounded up the hill toward an old truck parked in the shade of the pecan trees. Roz looked after him, shaking her head. Chad came to wheel her in for lunch.
“He’s a wild child, that one,” she remarked to her nurse, “But then, so was I.”
“More coffee or some iced tea, Miz Roz?”
“The tea, I suppose. I need a new diaper, but coffee with my great-grandson was worth the humiliation. We’ll take care of it after lunch. Make yourself a sandwich and sit with me. I enjoy the company of young people.”
Chad took his lunch sack from the refrigerator and poured himself some tea. He took a place next to Miz Roz.
“Dorey usually eats with me, a Lean Cuisine meal, but I know she sneaks cookies when I’m napping. I stock up on the sugar-free, low-fat varieties just for her. They’ve taken all the joy out of cookies, you know. There was a time when I was criticized for eating with black people—coloreds we used to say, oh so politely. Now, they’re called African-Americans. I like that one the best. I think the term was Afro-Americans when I marched to desegregate the university up in Lafayette. I was egged, but I caught enough of them to make an omelet for me and Pierre that evening. You could call it my tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. and passive resistance that I didn’t throw them back. A very tasty omelet, as I recall.”
“My grandfather on my mom’s side is sort of a redneck. I think he used to be in the Klan. Maybe he still is,” Chad confessed. “He used to brag about going out nigger bashing.”
“Yes, and there were lynchings. Even during the ’27 flood, the Red Cross camps were segregated. I marched proudly with Beulah Senegal’s great-grandchildren in the Sixties. We midwifed together, Beulah and me, in
the early days. She died of a stroke just after World War II. At least, she lived to see the victory and her grandson come home. Dorey is her great-great grandchild, and look at her, a nurse educated at the university. Her brother is a dentist, and the rest of the family owns a big trash collection company. The Senegals have done well for themselves.”
“Yeah, I went to high school with some of the Senegals. My grandfather hates that I have a few black friends. He hates my earrings, my tats, and my profession. I guess the only thing he likes is my short hair. He wanted me to join the military.”
“Just because I said ‘family first’ doesn’t mean you shouldn’t find your own way in life. What I mean is family should stand by you and support your decisions. Maybe that’s why I’m still here after all these years, thirty plus years without my Pierre, to say what needs to be said to the younger generations.”
Her eyes filled again. Chad Duhon rushed to change the subject. “I’ll bet you were something when you were my age.”
“That I was, queen of the Mardi Gras ball—and I danced on a table out at Broussard’s Barn.”
“That dive! They do have good music going all the time, but it’s not a safe place for gays.”
“It’s never been a safe place, dear, for anyone. You do practice safe sex, I hope. I wouldn’t want to have to give you one of my lectures. I preached that message all my adult life. Still, my great-granddaughter, Celine, got pregnant at the age of seventeen. She knew better but was too shy to tell that slick college boy to put on a condom. I guess he thought all girls were on the pill. She decided to have the baby, and I told her to stand strong and make something of herself. Then, she could provide for her child and look anyone in the eye. She’s a teacher now, and her little boy is just wonderful. I never pushed anyone toward abortion, but Lord, I saw enough rape and incest victims in my day not to be against it.”
Chad collected their dishes and put them in the washer. “Let me make you comfortable. Then, maybe, you’d like to nap.”
