by Francis Ray
The spotlight zeroed in on the heavy gold velvet curtain and out came the woman who had been with Angelique. Honey. Small and agile, her skimpy costume left little to the imagination. Maurice waved a bill and she danced over and leaned down. He stuck the money into her red G-string, then whispered something into her ear that made her grin widen.
Disgusted, Damien left. Angelique might have had a different agenda dancing there, but all women didn’t.
* * *
“Dad, we need to talk,” Damien said when his father answered the door at his house. He’d come straight from The Inferno. He saw no reason to put off what was going to be a difficult and embarrassing conversation.
“Business or personal?” Jacques asked.
“Personal.”
“Then we better go into the study so I can fortify myself with a Scotch.” Going back down the hall, Jacques entered the first room and went to a built-in bar on the far side of the high-ceilinged room paneled in dark oak. Behind the bar, he lifted a crystal decanter. “Want one?”
“Please.” Damien rubbed the back of his neck.
Jacques’s eyes narrowed. “Must be pretty important. The last time we did this you were considering dropping out of law school.”
“It is.” He’d wanted to join the Peace Corps. His father had convinced him that he could help the world more if he had an education. “You know I love you, don’t you, Dad?
The decanter in Jacques’s hand hit the mahogany counter with a loud thud. He came around the bar and took his son’s arms, staring hard at him. “Are you in some kind of trouble? Whatever it is, you know I’m with you.”
“Not this time.” He paused. “I betrayed you.”
“What?” Jacques’s hands fell away.
Damien’s hand shoved over his hair. “I didn’t mean it. You have to believe me.”
“Son, what is it?” Jacques’s hand came back to rest firmly on his son’s shoulder.
“I’m interested in the same woman you are.”
Jacques snatched his hand away. Shocked horror flashed across his face. “You care about Claudette, too?”
Now Damien was the one shocked. “Claudette? No. I’m talking about Angelique.”
Jacques rapped him on the head, then drew his son into his arms for a bear hug. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again.”
Damien’s mind eased in one area, but he felt regretful for his father. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
Returning behind the bar, his father poured himself a drink. “What is it the kids say? You snooze, you lose.”
“Does she know?” Damien splashed Scotch, then added water in his own glass.
“No, and she never will.”
Damien weighed client confidentiality against loyalty and love for a parent. “I don’t think the marriage will last.”
“And when it’s over, Claudette will suffer.”
There was nothing Damien could say to that.
“So you have decided to stop judging Angelique?” Jacques asked, tired of his own thoughts.
“She doesn’t work at The Inferno. The reason she goes there is to gather information for her dissertation,” Damien said, still trying to decide how he felt about that.
“She told me.” Jacques took a seat in his easy chair by the white stone fireplace. “You all right with her working there before?”
Damien stared down into his glass. “She had to help put herself through school.”
“That’s not what I asked,” his father said quietly.
Damien’s head came up. “If you want to know if I think about those two years she danced there and the men she danced for, the answer is yes. I try not to, but it just creeps up on me and when it does…” His hand closed tighter around the glass.
“If you can’t handle it, it’s always going to be a thorn in your side that’s going to grow more worrisome each day.” Jacques leaned forward. “You’re also the chief counsel for a very old, very prestigious insurance brokerage firm and Claudette is a stickler for high moral principles.”
Damien almost snapped out that in that case she shouldn’t have married Maurice, but caught himself just in time. “I thought you liked Angelique.”
“I do. The question is, how much will you still like her if her past becomes a topic of conversation at the club or in the men’s room?”
“I’d better not hear it.” There was steel in his voice.
Jacques lifted his glass. “Now, that’s the son I raised.”
* * *
“Please take the place setting away, Mia,” Claudette told the maid.
“Yes, Mrs. Laurent.” The young maid quickly gathered the china, crystal, and sterling, then left Claudette to her own thoughts.
Picking up the candlesnuffer, Claudette extinguished the twin flames. Maurice wasn’t coming. She’d told him specifically that morning that they’d have dinner at eight. He’d said he’d be there, then had gone off in his car when the chauffeur had driven her to work. Instead of her surprising him with a romantic dinner, he’d been the one to surprise her.
“Shall I serve you now?” the maid asked.
“Please.” Claudette wasn’t hungry, but there would be enough talk among the staff about her waiting over an hour for her husband who had never come. But at least Claudette didn’t think it would spread further. With the exception of the recently hired maid, Mia, the staff had been with them for years and was extremely loyal. Bridget, the cook, had been with them since Claudette was in grade school. The older woman mothered Claudette every chance she got.
Mia reentered and placed lobster bisque on the table, then withdrew.
Claudette picked up her soup spoon, dipped, but was unable to carry it to her mouth. With the help of Bridget, Claudette had tried to recreate the romantic dinner Maurice had planned for her the night he’d been injured by the man with Kristen. Claudette had thought it might help. Lately he’d been different.
She placed a hand on her thigh. Beneath the blue silk lounger were a vivid bruise and nail prints. He’d been rough with her when he’d returned from his drive the night of Jacques’s party, almost angry. She hadn’t mentioned the bruise. Nor had he tried to make love to her again. And she didn’t want him to.
“Is there a problem, Miss Thibodeaux?” Bridget asked, her brow knitted in concern. Thin as a rail, she was a culinary genius. “It’s been a half an hour and you haven’t rung for your salad.”
“Laurent,” Claudette corrected. The older staff members had a more difficult time remembering her married name.
“You haven’t made a dent in your soup. You want something else?” Bridget asked, not bothering to restate the name. “There’s turkey salad or an omelet.”
“This is fine.” Picking up her spoon, she began to eat. Propriety must be maintained.
* * *
He would not do this to her.
Angelique sat in the second bedroom she’d turned into an office, her notes and research books spilling off the table and onto the floor, and stared at a blank computer screen. She had designated this week as the one to begin writing her dissertation. She’d dropped by the club to thank the women working there. If she were to complete the dissertation in time for summer graduation, she had less than two months.
She placed her hands over the keyboard. Nothing happened. The blank screen stared mockingly back at her. Pushing against the desk, the chair slid backwards across the hardwood floor. Maybe some caffeine would jump-start her brain. In the kitchen she pulled the tab on a Pepsi, then wandered outside to the balcony instead of back to her office.
The night was beautiful, the rain-washed air fresh. Not a living soul was in sight. But she wasn’t alone. New Orleans teemed with people, the good, the bad, the ugly. She’d been all three. No one had to tell her she was one of the lucky ones.
She propped her arms on the top rail and stared thoughtfully out into the night. She’d gotten few breaks in life. The most important one had been loving foster parents. Bette and Elmore Howard had fought
just as hard for her as she’d fought against them. But no matter how hard she’d pushed them away, they always stood there with open arms and unconditional love.
They were at her elementary school so much for Angelique’s misbehavior that people probably thought they worked there. Neither of them became discouraged when she got into a fight, talked back to the teachers, or any of the dozens of other ways she managed to get into trouble. The Howards refused to believe that she couldn’t be redeemed. They fought Angelique and anyone else who stood in the way of her succeeding.
She had been in their home about six months before it began to sink in that they genuinely cared about her, and not the pitiful check they received from the state. More importantly, they weren’t going anyplace no matter what she did.
Going back inside, she picked up the phone in the living room and dialed. It was almost eleven, but she knew they’d be up.
“Hello,” answered a bright, cheery voice.
“Mama Howard, I just called to say I love you.”
“I love you, too, child. How’s that paper going?” her foster mother asked, her voice rich with Cajun flavor.
“It’s not,” Angelique admitted, scrunching up her face.
“It’ll come. ’Member when you had that paper in the tenth grade, you were up all night?”
Angelique chuckled. “That’s because I put it off until the last minute.”
“You still got a C-plus,” her foster mother reminded her. She never forgot a thing when it came to her “children.” Then your paper for your master’s got an A. Stop looking at the forest and just get through the trees.”
Angelique sighed and rolled the cool can against her forehead. “Sometimes it’s hard to focus.”
“Since when has life been easy for you? You cut your teeth on hard. Now go on back in there and write that paper. I got my hat and suit all picked out. Papa is gonna wear that suit you got him for Christmas. You’ll be the first doctor in the family. Everybody’s coming.”
There it was again. The unshakable belief that had bolstered her again and again. Tears stung Angelique’s throat. The Howards had natural children, but considered the fifteen children who had gone through their foster home theirs as well. “Can you send me some fudge?” Her mother’s fudge was decadently delicious and loaded with pecans and calories.
“I’ll put some in the mail tomorrow. Here’s Papa.”
“Hello, Angelique. How’s it going? You need anything?”
Elmore Howard always thought of his family first. He’d finally retired from the post office last year when their last “daughter” had graduated from college. “I’m fine, Papa Howard. Just called to say I love you.”
“Well.”
Papa Howard expressed his love in many ways, but he could never say the words. “I’ll talk to you soon. ’Bye.”
Hanging up the phone, she went to her office and pulled up her chair. Her family loved her unreservedly—that was important. Not Damien Broussard. She didn’t need his approval or that of any man. Her hands began to move over the keys.
Man, by nature, is a dominant species. He is bred from birth to rule, to conquer. Whether in times of war or in the sports arena, man will fight to defeat his opponent. If there are no wars, no sports arena, he seeks out another adversary to subjugate to his authority. He turns to woman.
twelve
He should have been working. He didn’t have time for this.
Rafe kept telling himself that, but he couldn’t get his feet to leave the department store and get back in his truck. He’d passed the mall on the way back into town after a delivery and stopped. They’d forecast rain for the end of next week.
“May I help you, sir?” asked a young saleslady in accessories.
Rafe stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I want to buy an umbrella.”
“What kind?” she asked.
He stared at her blankly, then thought about heading for the nearest exit at full speed.
“Umbrellas come in different shapes, lengths, and widths,” she explained. “Is it for you or someone else?”
“Someone else,” he said. “A woman.” He didn’t know why saying those two words made him want to duck his head in embarrassment.
“Young, matronly, fashionable, sensible?” the saleswoman ventured, her dark head tilted to one side.
“She’s beautiful, elegant like polished teak,” he burst out, then flushed.
“I’d say she’s also very lucky,” the saleslady said with a small smile. “Let me show you what we have.
A short while later, with no more humiliating outbursts, Rafe was in his truck with a black, compact umbrella that Kristen could carry in that big purse of hers so she’d always have it with her. Now, he’d just have to give it to her. He could wait until Saturday, but what if the weatherman was wrong? They certainly hadn’t forecast rain for yesterday.
Flipping on his signal, he changed lanes and took the downtown exit. Parking near Jackson Square, he set off for the shop. He had it all planned. He’d pop in, hand her the umbrella, then be on his way. Two minutes max.
He opened the door to St. Clair’s, searching for Kristen. He found her, surrounded by three slimly built men in baggy, oversized clothes. He closed the door and quickly crossed the room to them. He had no idea his fists were balled. “You all right, Kristen?”
Surprise, then delight, crossed her beautiful face. “Rafe. It’s good to see you. I was just telling the boys about you.”
His gaze finally went to the three and he saw they were just kids. They gave him a thorough once-over.
“Rafe, these are the young men I was telling you about,” Kristen said. “Rafe Crawford, meet Lee Langley, Pierre Fountain, and Michael Harris. They’re juniors in high school.”
Rafe nodded, wishing he had followed his first instinct and passed the mall without stopping. His fingers tightened around the umbrella.
“You’re the one who made that writing box?” Lee asked, a small, gold hoop earring in his left ear.
“Yes,” Rafe answered, unable to keep from looking at Kristen.
“Cool,” said Michael Harris, who was lanky with long, curly hair tied at the nape. “We saw one like it next door and the price is unreal. The cheapest one was two hundred bucks.”
“Those are antique pieces and took hours to make by hand and are over a hundred years old,” Rafe said. “They deserve that price.”
Lee nodded. “That’s what Ms. Wakefield told us. The dude next door didn’t want us touching his.”
“Because they’re old and fragile,” Kristen explained, trying to spare the teenagers’ feelings, “You’re welcome to examine mine.”
“Cool.”
Kristen went to the desk and picked up the writing box and held it out. “I know you’ll be careful with it.”
The young man’s hand was already reaching for the box. He paused. “I can examine it better on the desk.”
Kristen put it back on the desk and stepped away. The three young men gathered around. They lifted the lid, pulled out the tiny drawers, marveled.
“I don’t see any nails,” Lee said, after picking it up and turning it over.
“I used pegs and dovetails just as they did a century ago. I use the same techniques for my reproductions whenever possible,” Rafe told them.
“How much could you sell this for?” Michael asked, but all three boys looked at Rafe for the answer.
Rafe recognized hope when he saw it. After his grandmother’s death, hope and prayer were all that had kept him going at times. “I’m not sure. I made it for Kristen as a gift.”
“My boo would probably go for this, too,” Pierre, the other young teenager said, finally entering the conversation. He was the slimmest of the three and had a black nylon scarf tied around his head.
“Boo?” Kristen and Rafe echoed.
The young boy sent them a cocky grin. “My girlfriend, Gina. She’s tight. Me and her are just like you and Ms. Wakefield.”
&
nbsp; Rafe stepped away from Kristen. He wasn’t about to ask what tight meant. Kristen moistened her lips. “Rafe and I are just friends.”
“No sweat, Ms. Wakefield,” Lee, who appeared to be the leader, said. His look said he could be trusted to keep a secret. “Whatever you say.”
“I’d better go.” Rafe took another step toward the door. “Goodbye.”
“Thanks for stopping by.” Kristen waved good-bye as Rafe hurried down the sidewalk without looking back.
Rafe was almost to the freeway before he realized he hadn’t given Kristen the umbrella.
* * *
Rafe had come to see her for a reason—Kristen was sure of that. He wasn’t the type to just drop by for a casual chat, which led her to do a little dropping-in herself to see if he was all right.
The motion detector came on when she pulled up in front of his shop that night and got out. Light spilled from the twin windows in his office. Around her, she heard the soft cadence of insects. She didn’t think there were any wild animals out here, but she hurried to the door just the same.
Rafe’s head came up when the door opened. Uneasiness entered his eyes. “Kristen.”
“Hello, Rafe,” she said as if her visit was the most natural thing in the world. “I came to thank you for being so nice to the young boys and answering their questions.”
His shoulders hunched beneath his blue plaid shirt. The sleeves were rolled up to above his elbows. “It’s all right.”
Determined that he realize that what he’d done was more than what many people would do, she took a seat in a comfortable cushioned chair in front of his desk. “You came just at the right moment. I wouldn’t have been able to answer any of their questions. They left soon after you did on a foray to find other boxes and compare. I just hope people in the shops are as receptive as you were.”
“I have a couple of books I found at garage sales if they want to look at them,” he offered.
“I’ll tell them.” She leaned forward in her chair. “What are you doing?”
