“You knew that all along.”
He gave a careless shrug. “Of course I did. I’m going to be a lawyer.”
“Why?” she cried. “Why did you do this to me?”
“I couldn’t let you go around telling everything you know.”
“I wouldn’t have, ever. For Beth’s sake.”
“I couldn’t count on that. Besides, I had a yen for you, a yen a taste or two wouldn’t fix. You should be proud. It’s not often I come back for seconds, much less thirds or more.”
He was talking too much. There was something he was concealing behind his swagger and loud words; she could feel it. Still, the insight was pushed aside by the questions crowding in upon her.
“All this time,” she said, “all this time, and we haven’t been married at all.”
“Living in sin. Hasn’t it been fun?”
Sickness moved through her. “That was why you didn’t want to take me home with you.”
“How bright you are.”
“I thought it was because you were ashamed.”
“Of my hick country bride? Well, yes, it might have been a bit embarrassing.”
It was the tone of his voice, superior and patronizing, that struck deep inside her. She covered it with a spurt of anger. “That would have been too bad.”
“I never let it worry me.” He turned on his heel and walked away into the bedroom.
He hadn’t worried because there was no need. He never intended to take her home with him. She heard him moving around, dressing. Slowly, she allowed her legs to give way so that she slid down the wall to sit on the floor. She put her hand to her bruised cheek. It felt hot, already sore. Inside her was a solid ache too big, too deep for tears.
Edison came out of the bedroom a few minutes later with his extra clothes wadded under his arm. He stood over her, staring down. “The rent is paid for another month; the old witch next door made me give her two months in advance plus a deposit. You might want to think about staying. From what I’ve seen of Margaret, she’s not going to want you bringing your troubles back home and upsetting darling Mama.”
It was not concern that prompted the suggestion, she knew, but the desire to keep her from going back. Nevertheless, there was enough truth to it that it was a moment before she could speak. “Margaret’s my sister. She won’t turn me away.”
He snorted. “You’ll grow up one of these days.”
She raised her head. Her voice weary, she said, “Just get out if you’re going.”
“Oh, I’m going, all right. But I could use a little piece first and I’m wondering if it’s worth the trouble.”
She stared up at him while deadly opposition rose inside. Something of it must have shown on her face, for he shifted, then answered himself.
“Probably not.” He backed away a step, then turned and walked out the door.
She sat where she was as his footsteps faded away down the stairs and the Chevy ground to life and was driven away. Still, she did not move, but stared straight ahead, doing her best to think of nothing. Finally, there came creeping in upon her the thought of Beth dying in a pool of blood, laughing, caring, bursting-with-life Beth. And all for Edison Gallant, the man who had just left.
It was then the tears began, a flood of warm grief as relentless as the subtropical rain that drenched the courtyard outside.
EIGHT
“MAMA’S IN THE HOSPITAL.”
“Oh, Margaret, is she bad?” Rebecca could feel the fear, like poison, running with the blood through her veins. Her clasp on the telephone receiver was so tight that the ends of her fingers were numb.
“She had another spell. Her heart just runs away with her. She hasn’t been the same since Beth died and you ran off.”
“I want to talk to her. I have to talk to her, Margaret.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, not after what you just told me. She thinks you’re married to a rich man who’s going to take care of you for life. She’s kind of got over you taking off and convinced herself it’s a good thing that she doesn’t have to worry about you anymore. You can’t tell her different, not now.”
“You mean you convinced her.”
“What if I did?” Margaret demanded, her voice strident. “She needed something to ease her mind.”
“Well, she has to know sometime it didn’t work out. I have to come home.”
“You can’t do that!”
“What do you mean, Margaret? There’s nothing else I can do! Don’t you understand? Edison is gone.”
“What did you do to make him go?”
“I didn’t do anything. I told you, he tricked me!”
“I can’t believe it, I really can’t. Just think what people will say!” Margaret moaned. “They’re going to believe there was never a marriage at all.”
Rebecca took a deep breath and let it out. “I guess they will, but I can’t help it. Edison’s gone and he isn’t coming back. The rent’s paid for another month, but I don’t have any money to eat, to pay bills. I have to come home!”
“I don’t suppose you have the bus fare, either?”
“No. Oh, Margaret—”
“Just a minute, let me think.”
The silence on the other end of the telephone line seemed to stretch forever. Rebecca expected any minute to hear the operator come back on and ask for more money. There was no phone in the apartment, of course. She had had to go to the pay phone at the grocery store down the street. Across from the store, two tough and grubby-looking guys with hair down to their shoulders were watching her. She lifted her hand to cover the bruise on her face and turned away from them.
“You could get a job,” Margaret said finally.
“Doing what? And what am I supposed to eat while I do it?”
There was another silence. Margaret sighed. “All right. I’ll send enough money for you to live on for a couple of weeks. Maybe Mama will be stronger then and you can come home.”
“Wouldn’t a bus ticket be cheaper? I know the last round of hospital bills took about all the extra money.”
“I’ll get it from Boots.”
“You can’t do that. It wouldn’t be right.”
“I don’t see why not; he’s my husband.”
It was a moment before Rebecca could speak. “You and Boots got married?”
“Why not?”
“And you didn’t let me know so I could come to the wedding?” Pain was thick in Rebecca’s voice. She felt as if she were being cut off, shut away from her family.
“I don’t remember getting an invitation to yours!” her sister snapped. “Besides, if you’re as bad off as you say, you couldn’t have made it up here for it.”
“I might have, before Edison took off.”
“It doesn’t matter now. We have to do what’s best for Mama.”
With an effort of will, Rebecca pushed her own problems aside as she tried to look at things from Margaret’s point of view. She said, “Mama always did like Boots.”
“Yes, he’s a great comfort to her, and to me, of course. I think it helps her to know he will be around after she’s gone.”
“Margaret!”
“I know. I know it’s terrible to think things like that, much less say them, but it’s something we have to face. We have to. Oh, Rebecca, I’m so afraid!”
That cry from her sister remained with Rebecca long after she hung up the phone. It helped her to think that Margaret wasn’t just being mean and spiteful, that she really was concerned for their mother. It had hurt to think, even for a moment, that Edison might be right about her sister.
All the same, Rebecca was more alone than she had ever been in her life, and more lonely. The city that had at first seemed wonderfully easygoing and accepting of all comers began to feel merely uncaring, as if human pain and death might be accepted as easily as everything else.
The money Margaret had promised arrived. There was not much of it, but it was enough if Rebecca ate mostly macaroni and cheap tuna. Ther
e was one good thing, she discovered, about Edison being gone; she could share her fish with the cat. The animal came mewling around the morning after he left, as if she knew it was safe.
Rebecca had been on her own for a week when one evening she heard footsteps mounting the outside stairs. Her stomach muscles tightened as she turned toward the doorway. It stood open, except for the wire mesh of the screen door. She had forgotten to flip the lock into place on that flimsy barrier, and there was no time to do it now.
The footsteps drew nearer, then slowed to a halt. A man’s form appeared against the screen. He raised one hand that was balled into a fist.
It was Dante Romoli who rapped lightly on the door frame with his knuckles. Rebecca let out her pent-up breath and crossed the room to open the screen.
“I’ve come about the cat,” Dante said. His dark gaze lingered on the shadowed coloration on her cheek before he looked away, scanning the room behind her.
“Oh, did you want her back? I didn’t mean to take her away from you.”
“It’s not that. I just thought—well, it seemed she was more welcome up here lately. And I never hear anyone moving about except you. I wondered…Is everything all right?”
Rebecca was warmed by his concern. “Yes and no. I’m all right, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s good.” He relaxed a fraction. “But what about your husband? I couldn’t help but notice—that is, I haven’t seen his car when I leave in the evening or when I come back in the morning.”
“No, he…he left.”
“For a trip or something?”
“For good.” Her voice was husky as she made the answer.
He nodded as if he had expected nothing else. A moment later, he smiled. “Have you eaten?”
She shook her head. It was often late before she ate, if she ate at all. She didn’t have much appetite. Anyway, once she had eaten, there was nothing else to do except go to bed.
“You know, chère, I was telling the chef down at the restaurant about my grandmama’s crawfish étouffée yesterday. He made up a batch, trying out the recipe, then gave me what was left. It’s a whole big pot. I could use some help eating it.”
“Don’t you have to go to work?”
“It’s my day off. Will you come?”
It required more persuasion, but she agreed in the end. Before the pot of étouffée was gone, she had told him everything. Somewhere in the midst of it, she began to cry again. She flinched when he put his arms around her, but there was nothing in his hold except sympathy and human warmth. He held her for a long time, murmuring soothing nonsense that she recognized as French without having the least idea what he was saying. It didn’t matter. When she finally sat up, wiped her eyes, and sniffled one last time, she felt better.
She saw a great deal of Dante after that. She accused him of taking her in like he had the homeless cat, though he only laughed and said she was better company. It was Dante who got her the job washing dishes. It was he who showed her how to keep up with the endless piles of china and silver that appeared at her elbow, how to keep from scalding herself with the near-boiling water, how to grease her hands to prevent them from becoming raw and swollen.
And it was Dante who, after watching her fight nausea for the third night in a row as she scraped plates free of their cold food congealed in greasy sauce, asked if she was pregnant and so forced her to face her condition.
She stared at him, her face pale and her eyes dark green with distress as she pressed her fingers to her lips. “Oh, Dante, what am I going to do?”
“Marry me,” he said.
She loved him in that moment, because it was said without hesitation, without so much as a shadow of doubt on his face.
“Thank you,” she said, going on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, “but I can’t.”
He was frowning when she backed away again. “Why not?”
“This isn’t your problem. You’ve done enough for me, and I can’t let you do any more.”
“Did you ever stop to think I might be doing it for me?”
Rebecca shook her head. “You want to own your own restaurant, to make something out of yourself. You don’t need a wife and another man’s baby.”
“It’s because I’m Cajun and just a busboy.”
“That has nothing to do with it!”
She knew he was touchy about his birth. The Cajuns, descendants of the Acadians of Nova Scotia who were expelled by the British during the wars between France and England in the mid-eighteenth century, were people of the bayous and backwaters of Louisiana. They were God-fearing without being puritanical; given to large families; fond of dancing, drinking, and gambling; and blessed with a fine capacity for being content with their lot. Because of these traits they were looked down on by some as lacking in the drive and ambition for success. They were also people of touchy pride, if Dante was any example. They made no apologies for their way of life and were quick to resent any slur on it, quick also to resent any personal slur. Dante felt no shame himself for being a busboy, but was irritated by those who thought it was all he could do, all he would ever be.
Now he nodded. All around them was the bustle and shouting, the steam and rich smells of the kitchen. As one of the chefs walked by and frowned at them, Dante picked up a plate and began to scrape it. “But I would like to take care of you, chère.”
“You do that, every day.” Her nausea was under control for the moment. She reached for a plate and began to scrape also.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I know, and it’s sweet of you,” she said with a tremulous smile, “but I—I really have to go home. That’s where I belong, not here.”
“You miss it, your home.” It was a statement.
“I dream about it sometimes, the way it used to be before Beth died.”
“Why are you still here, then? Why not just go?”
“I can’t. What if Mama got too upset over what happened to me, so upset about me being pregnant and not married, that she died?”
He turned his head to give her a serious look. “I think you are afraid, chère, afraid of what will happen to your mother, yes, but also of what your sister will say. And, most of all, afraid of loving.”
He was right. For a short time she had thought she loved Edison, thought he loved her. She had been wrong. What she had felt was a potent mixture of compassion and the first stirrings of physical desire. What Edison had felt other than lust, she had no idea. Now all she wanted was for everything to be as it was before, with her safely back home with her family. The last thing she had any use for was another husband, another man to cook and clean for and answer to for her comings and goings, another man to share her bed and take her body as if it was his right.
“I just don’t know,” she answered finally.
“I could love you, you know.” He watched her, waiting for her reply.
“Could you?” she asked.
“It would be easy.”
“You’re an unusual man, Dante.”
“And good-looking, too. Plus I love children and will make a terrific papa.”
She shook her head, smiling at his enthusiasm. “I don’t doubt it, when you find the right person.”
“You could be the right one, if you would.”
“Then what would I do for a friend?”
He looked away for a long moment. Slowly he breathed in and out. He squared his shoulders. When he turned back again, his face was clear. “All right, but what will you do?”
“I’ll have to talk to Margaret. Then I’ll know.”
Margaret, when Rebecca called once more, was horrified. She couldn’t believe it, she said over and over again. The pregnancy was a judgment upon Rebecca for what she had done. Their mother had been disturbed about Rebecca and asked after her, so Rebecca could talk to her, but on no account must she mention this latest tragedy. If she did, Margaret refused to be responsible.
It seemed impossible, once her mother was on the phone, to be anyth
ing other than cheerful. She was fine, Rebecca told her mother. Edison was fine, New Orleans was fine, everything was fine. The relief in her mother’s voice was her reward.
“I’ve been so worried about you down there, Becky,” her mother said, using her childhood name, her voice soft and warm and faintly sad. “Margaret couldn’t tell me much about you when you called and seemed to have no idea how to reach you on short notice. Have you been having fun?”
Fun.
“Oh, yes, Mama. It’s just that…everything takes a little getting used to.”
“I understand, but you mustn’t forget us.”
“No, no, I won’t, Mama.”
“Well, I’ll go then. I’m getting a little tired, and it’s time I went to lie down for my nap. You’ll remember what I always told you, won’t you, now that you’re going among all those fine folks?”
Rebecca tried to think, though all she could really concentrate on was the breathless sound of her mother’s voice. “I don’t—”
“If you can’t be a lady, at least act like one. That’s what my mama told me and I found it a help. Now you take care, Becky, and let us hear from you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When Margaret came back on the line seconds later, there was excitement in her voice. “I have an idea,” she said. “I know just what we’re going to do. It’ll work, I know it will.”
The peculiar thing was that it did.
Margaret sent Rebecca more money with instructions to go to a good gynecologist, one who could help her determine exactly how far along she was. When Rebecca could say with some certainty that she was three months pregnant, Margaret announced her own three-month pregnancy and began immediately to wear maternity clothes and to collect a layette. When Rebecca was eight months into her pregnancy, Margaret suddenly developed complications that required her to visit a specialist in New Orleans, then remain nearby until her confinement.
She visited no specialist, however, despite the story given out to neighbors, nor were there complications of her nonexistent pregnancy. She merely moved in with Rebecca and set herself to wait.
Her vigil did not require a month. Whether because of miscalculation, Rebecca’s youth and small size, or the exacerbation of Margaret’s presence, Rebecca went into labor a week later.
Crimes of Passion Page 117
