by Cox, Suzanne
Celina, who had pulled her blue-black hair into a ponytail, smiled, but Alexis thought it more closely resembled a grimace.
“You know where Myles is, carrot top won’t be long behind. She was waving at them from the bank when we left.”
“I saw her on the path on my way over, picking weeds or something.” I added. I had decided to leave out the whole incident with seeing the wolf dog. It seemed a little weird and I wasn’t sure anyone would actually believe me.
“Yeah, she lives in that house on the point.”
I followed Jana’s pointing finger to the huge structure rising from the edge of the lake. Several levels of decks led from the house to the water. “Wow. Her folks must make a lot of money for teachers. That place is fantastic.”
Celina snorted. “They don’t own it. They’re friends with the owners and they’re staying there for free.”
“Where are the real owners?”
“Never here.” Channing interrupted. “They just pay to keep the place up and their friends come and stay sometimes.”
I had ridden a jet ski before, back in Chicago with my friends, but these two were newer and more powerful models because when I pressed the gas the thing leapt half out of the water, almost tossing me in the lake. I could hear Celina and Jana laughing as I hauled my butt back on the seat and raced after Channing.
The wind and the spray of the water was the most fun I’d had since I’d gotten here, and I hated it when I saw that Channing had stopped. Then I saw why. Myles and Eric were each on a jet ski and Brynna sat behind Eric. I pulled alongside Channing. She appeared less than happy when I spoke to the others.
“How do you two know each other?”
I glanced at Eric then back at Channing. “Uh, Eric came with Myles to eat breakfast at my aunt’s house my first day here.”
She turned away from me and smiled at Eric. In the evening sun I decided he wasn’t good looking or handsome. He was on an entirely different scale than any I’d ever used to measure a guy. I couldn’t stop admiring how his sandy blonde hair waved in the breeze and how his eyes were the exact color of the sky right before a storm, when the pale blue gets all dark and mysterious. Somehow the combination made it nearly impossible for me to tear my gaze away from him.
“Eric, we’re having a little get together right now at my house. Why don’t you come over? I have drinks and I can warm up pizza or something.” Channing tried to pose appealingly astride the ski, but I wanted to tell her it was pointless. Even the blonde queen couldn’t appear tempting in that life vest.
Worse than the girl’s wiggling on the seat was the awful uncomfortable silence that followed the invitation. It was crystal clear that Eric was the only one she wanted to come.
Eric didn’t say anything, but his hard stare seemed to have a bit of influence on Channing, because she laughed and waved her hand in the air. “Oh, you two are invited, of course.”
“Okay.” Eric said. “We’ll come.”
Behind him, Brynna looked severely disappointed. I’m sure she wasn’t looking forward to spending time with me or Channing. Even Myles looked briefly surprised, but then he grinned his usual goofy grin.
“Umm, if it’s okay, I’m going to ride a little more on the jet ski before I go back.”
Channing only nodded as she started her ski and turned back the way we had just come with the others following behind her. I took off in the opposite direction. I wanted to ride more and at the moment, I didn’t want to be around Eric and Channing together. I wasn’t completely sure why, but I thought it might have something to do with those strikingly blue eyes and the way they seemed to suck you right into them.
I cruised around the huge lake, looking at the houses and sometimes gunning the engine to go flying across to another area. From the corner of my eye I could see a ski approaching and I slowed, then waited idling, wondering if someone was coming to get me to bring my ski back. Admittedly, I had been hogging it for some time now.
Eric killed the engine of his ski and floated next to me. I had been idling, waiting to see who was coming, so I turned my ski off too.
“I guess they sent you to tell me to bring the jet-ski back.”
“No, they’re busy chugging whatever green stuff that is Channing has mixed. Except Myles and Brynna, of course, they’re waiting for the frozen pizza Channing’s cooking.”
I nodded and stared across the lake to keep myself from staring at him. “You live around here?”
“I live in Lebeaux but not on the lake. I’m way on the other side of town.”
For a moment, water lapping on the sides of the jet ski was the only sound between us. I liked the peace and quiet and the momentary feeling that I didn’t really have to talk to Eric, that sitting here together without a word was perfectly fine. It didn’t last long. In the distance I saw another jet-ski approaching.
“Channing isn’t my girlfriend.”
I hadn’t exactly expected that and I had to turn and look at Eric, even though I’d been trying to avoid it. I hadn’t realized my jet ski had moved with the small waves caused by the light wind. But when my eyes were drawn back to him by a force I’d felt since the minute we met, he was only a few feet away.
“Really?” I didn’t know what else to say at that point.
“She likes to try and make people think there’s something between us but it isn’t true.”
I glanced to the approaching ski and was pretty certain it was Channing.
“I think she likes you and wants the chance to try and see if there could be something between the two of you.”
He didn’t answer. His mouth was in a thin line and he looked angry. He spoke, but the approaching ski drowned out his words. I thought he said, “It’s not going to happen.” He frowned at me, and I wanted to ask what I had done wrong, but I couldn’t seem to force the air in my lungs, up through my throat to produce any words.
Channing idled her jet ski toward us, her face angry. “You need to take the ski back so someone else can ride.”
Without a word, I started the ski and gassed it, leaving them alone in my wake.
***
Back at the dock, Myles, Brynna and Jana sat at a picnic table eating pizza while Celina stood waiting.
“You took long enough.”
“Sorry.” I tossed her the life jacket and grabbed my t-shirt to pull on over my swimsuit top and shorts. At the table I took a piece of pizza and sat next to Myles.
“Go sightseeing?”
“There are a lot of nice homes on the lake.”
Myles nodded in agreement. “Did you see my house? It’s not as nice as these, but we have a big boathouse and dock.”
“I don’t know, maybe I saw it.”
“You’ll have to come over sometime.”
I shrugged and looked around for something to drink. Spotting a cooler near the water I went over and found a soda. When I straightened Brynna was standing there and reached in to get herself a drink.
“Channing thinks she has a claim on Eric. She won’t like you spending time with him.”
“He came out to where I was. I didn’t ask him. And I don’t think it qualifies as spending time together.”
She tucked a loose strand of shiny hair behind her ear. “I realize that. If you want to be her friend you can’t be interested in him, and if he shows you attention you’ll have to ignore him. That is, if you want to be her friend.”
I wasn’t sure why Brynna felt led to offer this helpful advice or maybe it was a warning. Either way I didn’t want to discuss Eric with her or anybody else, including myself.
“I saw a huge wolf dog right after I passed you on the path. It was in the edge of the woods. I came back to find you and see if you wanted a ride, but you weren’t there anymore.”
She popped the top on her can of soda and took a drink without ever taking her eyes off me. “I took a different path around the lake.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“A wolf dog?”
She nodded but the disbelief in her eyes was apparent. “Well, I guess I’ll go home now.”
Brynna shouted good-bye to Myles and walked across the yard, disappearing through a break in the hedge. She’d been gone only a minute when Eric made a spraying stop near the dock and shouted for Myles. And just like that, the little party ended. It was several minutes before Celina and Channing returned and the four of us began gathering up everything and returning it all to Channing’s house. The sun was dipping below the tops of the trees across the lake.
“I better go. My aunt’s got a phobia about me being on the trail after dark.” I set the can of soda on the counter in Channing’s kitchen. Her house was amazingly nice with more rooms than they could possibly ever use. Or at least more than I could imagine uses for.
“So what does your dad do again?” I asked Channing.
“He’s in the state senate. He’s a lawyer and so is my mom. That’s what I’ll do when I graduate.”
I could certainly imagine Channing arguing a point. She’d be confident she could convince everyone she was right. Or at least since I’d met her yesterday she had seemed satisfied that she was always right.
The girls followed me outside and stood by as I got on the four-wheeler.
“I can’t believe you have to be home before dark.” Jana said.
“Yeah.” Celina chimed in. “Your aunt is such a freak.”
I paused to stare at her. “She’s just worried because the sheriff came by and said some woman had been killed the other night by wild animals. Guess she’s just being cautious.”
The three of them stared at me.
“What you didn’t know about that. Surely it was in the paper.”
“We heard.” Jana said.
A heavy silence fell among us as the three girls watched me as if waiting for me to say more, but I had no idea what to say.
Finally Channing turned back toward her house. “We’ll see you tomorrow. And don’t forget I’m having a party here on Friday night, if you can come.”
I left, racing the four-wheeler along the path I’d followed earlier. Deep down, as much as I hated to admit it, I was glad I was traveling before dark, especially after the way the girls had stared at me, like I knew something when I good and well didn’t know one thing. Thoughts ran through my head at a million miles an hour as I zipped along, most of them about Eric. Being attracted to the same guy Channing was interested in couldn’t be a good thing. But attractions were crazy that way, or I guessed they were, since I had zero experience with the opposite sex.
Chapter Seven
The little town of Labeaux kind of reminded me of the setting of a movie. As we drove along Main Street, people sat on benches in front of their shops and chatted with anyone who passed by. If necessary, they’d go inside the store and sell something. Bright flags decorated the lamp posts, but they hung limp in the damp, breezeless heat, instead of fluttering like I imagined they were supposed to.
Louise drove past the cute places and steered into the parking lot of a white block building that probably had started life as a gas station, but its destiny had changed along the way.
“What are we getting here?”
“Shrimp, I told you. We’re boiling it for dinner tonight. Remember, the Brantons and Sanfords are coming to eat.”
I hadn’t forgotten. But nobody wanted to eat with their parents on a Friday night, at least not if they had other options. I especially hoped next Friday would be one of the few nights they skipped. Maybe if Myles and Brynna would go to Channing’s party the adults would agree to eat by themselves. I doubted I’d be that lucky. The gravel in the parking lot crunched under our feet as I followed behind Louise to the store.
Inside, the placed reeked with a fishy smell. A metal pan hung from a scale and the lady behind the counter began dumping the gray shrimp into it to be weighed. My aunt, obviously a regular here, struck up a conversation with the woman. They were going to be a minute, I could tell. I sighed, then walked around the building. To the right of the counter was an eating area where they cooked and served the stuff Louise was buying raw. Pictures lined the wall of the restaurant section, and I clomped my leather sandals on the worn linoleum as I went to investigate.
Most of the photos were of boats or the swamp. A few were of enormously huge alligators. Further along, I ran across a section of celebrity photos. They all posed beside an older black woman with long grey hair, even Julia Roberts. I noted the plastic covered booth seats and old wooden tables. No way Julia ate here.
“Yes she did, girl.”
The voice came from directly behind my left ear, and I dove into the booth, heart racing, not even realizing I’d spoken aloud.
“Where did you come from?”
The woman’s mouth split into a toothy grin. “I been here the whole time, child.”
“I didn’t see you.”
“Wasn’t looking for me.”
So maybe she was right about that. I leaned closer to the photo then quickly turned to the woman. “Hey, you’re the one in the picture.”
“That’s right. This is my place. Angeline Aucoin.” She held a hand toward me. “And you be?”
“I’m Alexis Miller. I’m staying here…”
“With Louise, I know.”
I put my hand in the bony, wrinkled one. The woman’s skin was like sandpaper and silk at the same time, warm, almost hot. I loosened my grip to ease my hand away, but Angeline held on tighter. I was caught up in her gaze, the chocolate brown eyes clutching me as fiercely as the scrawny fingers. The single feather hanging from her right ear swung against her shoulder. I started to feel dizzy.
Then I was free. I pushed to the far side of the booth and Angeline stood there grinning at me.
“You your aunt’s girl alright. I can tell that. Even look like her too. But you’re special.”
“I’m not special. I’m from Chicago.”
Angeline laughed aloud, her shoulders shaking. “You from Chicago. You here now, girl.” Her laughter stopped and she eyed me through squinting lids. “Bad things happening here, maybe you heard.”
For a moment I had no idea, then remembered the first day of camp. “Oh, yeah, the sheriff came by and said some woman had been killed, maybe by a wild animal. But that’s all I know.”
“That right? I imagine you been out and about, hmmm? Miller girls travel at night.”
The pit of my stomach dropped to my feet. Did I travel at night? Did Louise? I wanted to speak, to ask her what she really meant. But I couldn’t form the words with my frozen lips.
“Angeline, are you trying to scare my niece?”
I wouldn’t have thought I’d be so glad to see my aunt, but I pushed past the older woman and nearly fell on Louise.
“No, she be scarin’ me, this one.” The woman tugged at a tiny cloth bag strung around her neck on a piece of leather.
Louise frowned. “She’s still new here, so if you see her and she looks lost, point her in the right direction.” Louise said.
Angeline nodded.
“Alexis, tell Mrs. Aucoin good bye.”
I couldn’t find my voice for a moment. Finally the words rushed past my lips. “Uh… bye Mrs. Aucoin.”
I spun and hustled to the door, not waiting on Louise. Scrambling in the car that had thankfully been left unlocked, I decided this was the strangest place I’d ever visited. I desperately wanted to go home.
Louise set the shrimp on the back seat. When she got behind the wheel and cranked the car she said, “Don’t mind Angeline. She’s a voodoo priestess.”
“Oh-my-God. A voodoo woman!” I twisted to survey the building as we pulled away. Through the big glass window in front, I could see Angeline Aucoin watching.
“Is she going to put a curse on me?”
“Don’t be silly. Why would you
say that?”
“She said I was special.”
Louise started the car before responding. “Did she?”
“Yeah, what does that mean, what kind of special?”
She pulled onto the road then said. “Oh, she says that to everyone she’s going to eat.”
“What!”
Louise started laughing. “I’m joking, Alexis. She doesn’t eat people.”
I relaxed into the seat. “You never know these days.”
“That’s true, you really don’t, do you.”
Not exactly the answer I had hoped for. “So what did she mean, I’m special?”
“No secret message, only that you’re unique.”
“I’m not special or unique in any way.”
“Of course you are.”
“How? Why am I any different than the next person?”
Louise took her eyes off the road for a moment to look at me and smile. “You’ll see it one day, hopefully sooner than later.”
“Why can’t you just tell me?”
“Because if I tell you, you’ll never believe it or understand it until you’re ready to see it for yourself.”
“Is that supposed to be some kind of riddle and if I figure it out I’ll know the meaning of life?”
“Maybe.”
I waited for her to finish the sentence, but she didn’t. Louise parked the car in front of the house.
“Come on, let’s get cooking.”
Great. Voodoo people, riddles and now I had to cook. I studied her for a moment more from the corner of my eye. I wanted to ask her what she thought about Angeline Aucoin’s words, ‘Miller girls travel at night’, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It didn’t seem like the kind of topic Louise and I could discuss right now. What if Louise knew way more about the woman who’d been killed than what she had told the sheriff, which, of course, had been nothing.
Chapter Eight
On one side of the deck, Louise had a huge silver pot on top of a cooker with a gas flame fed from a propane bottle sitting next to it. I dashed back and forth between the kitchen and the table placed next to the pot. Mrs. Sanford and her husband helped my aunt dump seasonings into the boiling water. At the picnic table, Brynna sat thumbing through a magazine, not bothering to help at all. She grinned at me when I passed her on yet another trip inside. Beside Brynna sat a miniature version of the older girl. Bailey was nine and had arrived in Labeaux yesterday after spending the first part of the summer with relatives in Florida. Lucky her.
