She Walks in Beauty

by Sarah Shankman

  “Yes, she was, as a matter of fact. Now hush.”

  Go, Connors waved a hand. Go on.

  “Well, Danielle was the most beautiful girl anyone had ever seen. And the sweetest. She grew up in Abbeville in Vermillion Parish, which is mostly swamp, right on the Gulf. Lots of it washed away in Hurricane Audrey about 30 years ago, but that’s another story.

  “Anyway, when it came time to pick a Miss Vermillion, there was no question but what it was Danielle. All she had to do was smile, and the judges just handed the crown over.

  “Now, one of the judges was the mayor of the town of Abbeville, and he was a tiny little Cajun man named Claude, middle-aged, sturdy, not much bigger than a minute. But, of course, in Abbeville, he was a big man. At least, an important man. And he was used to getting what he wanted.”

  “Which was Danielle,” guessed Rae Ann.

  “You bet. Right after her coronation, he slipped over to her parents’ house and asked for her hand, as soon as the beauty-queening was over. And her father, a simple man who earned what livelihood they had hunting and trapping, knew that Danielle couldn’t do any better. Not in Vermillion Parish. And there was no world outside of Vermillion Parish to him, of course.”

  “Is there a loup-garou in this story?” Lana demanded.

  “Lord, lord.” Magic shook her head. “You folks are always in such a hurry.”

  What folks?

  Magic just rolled her eyes.

  “Don’t pay Lana no nevermind.” Rae Ann patted Lana on the shoulder as if her friend couldn’t help herself. Though, truth was, she wasn’t so sure Lana really was her friend, even though she’d seemed that way.

  “So, here’s Danielle, engaged to marry little Claude, whom she doesn’t love, barely even knows. And there’s nothing she can do about it.”

  “Except win Miss Louisiana,” said Connors, one jump ahead of her.

  “That’s right. Because then, of course, she’ll get to go to Atlantic City, and that’ll put it off at least another six months, maybe a year. And because she’s not a stupid girl and has a mirror, she knows she’s not going to have much trouble with the beauty part. Plus she’s got this wonderful Cajun accent and can tell a story like nobody’s business. But she doesn’t have any talent.”

  “Then how’d she win her county?” Lana challenged her.

  “Parish. She sang a Cajun song and did a two-step. But that wasn’t going to get her anywhere up in Monroe at the state judging.”

  “So what’d she do? Sign herself up with Sally Griffin for some courses?” Connors asked, and they all laughed. Even Lana.

  “No. She looked around her house and saw her grandmother’s fiddle up on a shelf, and she figured that was the way to go.”

  “Did she play the fiddle at all?” asked Rae Ann.

  “Not a lick. But she remembered her grand-mère playing. People said she could outplay the devil. Others said she’d sold her soul to the devil to play like that. Anyway, Danielle thought since she’d inherited her grand-mère’s looks, maybe she had some of her talent, too, she just hadn’t tapped it. So she took that fiddle down and went out in the yard and commenced to playing.”

  “Like a dream,” guessed Connors.

  “Like a screech owl. It was the worst sound anybody had ever heard. All the neighbors raced out and started throwing frogs, thinking it was a loup-garou for sure.”

  “Finally,” said Lana.

  “Not quite. Hold on. But, of course, it wasn’t. It was only Danielle. And, being a determined girl, she didn’t give up. She sat out in the yard on a stump and tried and tried while dogs howled and cats ran up trees. Alligators stayed submerged along with the water moccasins. Finally, her mama came out and told her she had to stop, the sound was going to stunt her garden. And just then, Claude drove up in his great big black car, he could hardly see over the steering wheel, and said he wanted to take his sweetheart for a ride.

  “Well, Danielle couldn’t say no, after all, she was raised to be polite. So she gets in the car with this rich man she hardly knows, old enough to be her father almost, and they go driving off. And she thinks, Why not give it a shot? Maybe he’s not so bad.”

  Lana was frowning that tiny frown, the one she allowed herself only a few minutes at a time so it wouldn’t stick between her eyebrows. But lookit. What was Magic saying? A short man with money, power, and influence old enough to be a beauty queen’s father. Magic thought she was being sly, but really, she was talking about her and Billy Carroll. She knew it. She just knew it. Magic was shooting straight at her. Well, colored girl better watch out for ricochets.

  “Claude is asking Danielle a million questions about herself, but it’s like he’s interviewing her. The problem is, the man has no sense of humor. Uh-huh, uh-huh, he says. And no matter how much she throws herself into it, his expression never changes. It’s like she’s this little ball of energy and cute, and he just sucks it all out of her.”

  “The Energy Vampire! The Enthusiasm Werewolf! I’ve been out with a million of them!” Connors practically shouted, having had her share of bad experiences with dating. “They’re like vacuum cleaners. Bottomless pits of passivity. You could set yourself on fire and sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ they’d say, Uh-huh.”

  Magic nodded, then continued, “So, anyway, Danielle can see that she’s got to save herself. Life with this man would be Night of the Living Dead. They’re driving and driving, and then they stop at this little clearing, a picnic table beneath a tree dripping with Spanish moss, and it’s all very romantic and atmospheric as all get out. There’s no conversation going because she’s stopped talking, though he dribbles out a question now and then. She’s trying to figure out how she’s going to do something about her talent, get herself out of this fix, when it comes to her! She’ll do what they said her grand-mère did! She’ll sell her soul to the devil!

  “But the question is, How? How does she get in touch with him? Is he listed in the Abbeville Yellow Pages? She doesn’t have a clue.”

  “And just then, he drove up in a Lamborghini.”

  Magic stared at Connors. Go on, she said. You tell it.

  She doesn’t know it, said Rae Ann, and I wish she’d hush.

  Oh, all right, said Connors. But she could really use a beer.

  I’m going to turn you into a Lone Star in about half a second, Magic warned. Then reached down into her huge purse, pulled out a six-pack, a cold six-pack, and said, Who’s drinking?

  Now that was magic, even Lana would grant her that one. She took her brew and even said thank-you.

  Magic asked, Now, can I go on?

  Do it, girl, said Connors.

  “The most handsome young man Danielle had ever seen rode up on a palomino. You laugh, Connors, your ass is grass.”

  Connors didn’t even peep.

  “And he leaned down to the picnic table and said, ‘Danielle, my sweetie patootie, I’m going to marry you and take you away from this miserable little toad.’

  “Needless to say, Claude was pissed. What the handsome young man had forgotten, if he’d ever known it, was you shouldn’t insult a little man, because he’ll kill you.”

  Lana sipped her beer, considering. There was that little man stuff again.

  “And then the handsome young man, whose name is Jean-Paul, hands Danielle a fiddle. He says, Take this, my darling dear heart, and fiddle your way to freedom. She stands up to thank him, and he leans over to kiss her. Claude, super offended, jumps up and swats him one, which causes Jean-Paul to bump Danielle’s lip so he sort of takes a little nip out of her.”

  Dunh-dunh-dunh-dunh. Connors was making the Jaws sound.

  Magic ignored her. “Now, Claude is not your total fool. He realizes that if Danielle can really play the fiddle, she has a good chance of winning Miss Louisiana and then going on to Atlantic City, and if she wins there, which she very well might with a magic fiddle, well, he’s looking at another year by his lonesome. Plus, what’s this guy on the horse really got in mind? />
  “‘Please, take me home, Claude,’ Danielle is saying, fluffing up her curls and wiping the blood off her mouth. Jean-Paul has ridden off into the swamp. She’s holding the fiddle very carefully, on the other side of her away from Claude, her mother not having raised any idiots.

  “‘Fine,’ says Claude. ‘But promise you’ll come with me to the Courir de Mardi Gras tomorrow night.’

  “‘Oh, sure,’ said Danielle. Anything to get home and see if her magic fiddle really worked.

  “Now, the Courir de Mardi Gras, because I know you’re about to ask, is this tradition that Cajun people celebrate out in the country at Carnival time. Men set out on horseback and ride from house to house collecting all the ingredients for a gumbo big enough for the whole community—a chicken here, sausage there, okra, tomatoes, onions, hot peppers, and so on—and then they bring it all to the square in the center of the town where men cook it up. Then they have a big dance.

  “So Danielle agrees to go to the Courir de Mardi Gras, and Claude takes her home.

  “Once she’s there, she sits out on the stump and picks up the fiddle, expecting to hear the most wonderful sound, but nothing happens. She bows again. Nothing. The fiddle is absolutely mute, no matter if she plucks it or bows it—which is a kind of miracle in itself, though not the one she was hoping for.

  “So now Danielle is really distraught. Here she thought she’d gone and sold her soul to the devil, and it turned out to be a dud. A fake. Just the handsomest young man she’d ever seen on horseback, but what good did that do her? She was still engaged to Claude, and she didn’t have a pageant talent worth spit.

  “She moped around the house the whole next day, plucking the fiddle now and then, but still zip. Her mama kept asking her what was wrong. Nothing, Danielle answered. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Girl, you’ve got yourself such a negative attitude all of a sudden, you’ve not only put a hex on my garden, but the Courir de Mardi Gras didn’t even stop here. Probably thought my tomatoes was poison. And her mama was right. No one had come by.

  “And nobody did until about six o’clock, when Claude drove up in his big black car. He had his black curls all oiled down. And he was wearing a black suit and a black string tie. Danielle thought he looked like the devil, and she didn’t mean that nicely, either. He hadn’t cleaned beneath his fingernails and he smelled like hair oil. She found him truly disgusting. She didn’t think she’d be able to eat any gumbo, much less do any dancing.

  “‘Aren’t you going to bring your fiddle along?’ Claude asked slyly. Like he had something up his sleeve. Which he did.

  “Oh, okay, she would. What difference did it make? What difference did anything make? Life with Night of the Living Dead, she’d probably commit suicide on her wedding day anyway, have it over with. She certainly wasn’t going to sleep with this creature with dirty fingernails.

  “So they drove to the square, and Claude was squiring her about. Danielle was such a favorite, and, after all, Claude was the mayor, even if he was a creep, everyone’s paying their respects. But behind their hands, the little old ladies were saying Danielle was looking peaked.”

  “What is peaked?” asked Lana, who was redoing her hair with a curling iron now.

  “Pale. Wormy. Tired. Anemic.”

  “So, everybody’s eating gumbo and drinking beer and dancing to beat the band and having a good time, except Danielle, of course, who’s searching the crowd for Jean-Paul. But he’s not there. Claude pulls her by the hand to dance a Cajun two-step, and Danielle, who’s a wonderful dancer, finds she can barely keep up with the chank-a-chank beat. She’s so tired and depressed. Claude says maybe she ought to eat some gumbo. But she says no, she just couldn’t. No, no beer, either. She sits herself down on a bench, and Claude says to wait right there, he’s going to get her some gumbo anyway. Oh, okay, she says. And she watches all the people she’s grown up with and loved her whole life having a wonderful time, and wondering how her life came to such a pass. One minute she was a carefree girl enjoying life and good looks and the next thing she knows she’s a beauty queen, and her life has turned to shit.”

  Rae Ann and Connors and Lana all howled. Indeed, beauty-queening was a heck of a lot harder than it looked like.

  “She reaches in her bag and pulls out the velvet sack her grand-mère had made for her fiddle, and in it is the fiddle Jean-Paul gave her. The silent fiddle. She sits staring at it with a miserable look, and suddenly into the square rides Jean-Paul on his palomino. He’s carrying a bag of mushrooms that he’s gathered in the woods, and he throws them in the gumbo.

  “The pot bubbles up and the most wonderful smell fills the air, and everybody wants seconds.

  “Then he pulls to a halt in front of Danielle and says, ‘Play for me, most beautiful lady.’

  “Forget the compliments. ‘I can’t,’ she pouts. ‘This fiddle you gave me is no damned good.’

  “‘Play.’ This time he said it like a command. So Danielle stood, tucked the fiddle under her chin, and pulled back her bow. She’d show him. She’d show him what cheap goods he’d given her as a gift, making her promises. Men!

  “She laid the bow on the strings, pulled, and the sound that poured out of the violin was pure honey. It was filled with such radiant sweetness that the people first laughed, and then they wept, the tears pouring down their faces to make puddles on the ground. The tone was centered and vibrant as a bell. The tone was golden, the absolute essence of Danielle’s soul. And the tune she played was one no one had ever heard. It was an air filled with light and angel wings and tinkling bells and wonder. The tone told of all the beauty in the world. It spoke of walks through forests filled with delight. It sang of magic.

  “And everyone danced to Danielle’s Air, as it was thereafter known, though no one could even hum it, but they knew they’d heard it. Grandmas danced with grandpas who danced with their sons and daughters and small children and babes-in-arms and dogs and cats and raccoons and twittering birds. Oh, it was a grand waltz and two-step and gavotte and get-down boogie and tango and cha-cha-cha. For part of the magic of it was, every time the rhythm changed, the people followed it with their feet like flowing water. Everyone danced as nimbly as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

  “Except Claude. Claude stood on the sidelines with a frown on his face and his arms crossed. And then, in a particularly magic moment, Jean-Paul leaned over to Danielle and told her to let go of the fiddle and let go of the bow. She did, and that fiddle and that bow went right on playing without her. Then Jean-Paul, the most handsome young man in the world, took the most beautiful Danielle in his strong arms, and he hugged her and swung her, and they do-si-doed.

  “At that, Claude, the little man whom Jean-Paul should not have crossed, reached up his sleeve and pulled out a pistol. When Danielle and Jean-Paul whirled past, breast-to-breast, he fired, one, two, three, four, five, six, and all six bullets found their targets. They entered Jean-Paul’s back, passed through their two hearts beating as one, and flew out between Danielle’s shoulder blades.”

  “Oh, no!” cried Rae Ann.

  “And on they danced, on they whirled, out of the square and into the swamp. All the people cried and raced after them, hoping to save them, this most handsome of men and the most beautiful of girls. Behind them, the fiddle still played Danielle’s Air, though the song grew slower and softer and sadder with each note.

  “Whereupon the people searched and searched, but they couldn’t find Danielle and her Jean-Paul. They couldn’t find the slightest trace of their blood. Until finally one little boy cried, Look! And they all looked, and there were the tracks of two wolves on the muddy bayou bank. The tracks led to a live oak, and there it looked as if the wolves had stood on their hind legs and had done a little jig. And there the tracks stopped.”

  “The bullets went right through them,” breathed Rae Ann.

  “That’s right,” said Magic. “When Jean-Paul, who was a loup-garou, bit Danielle, he turned her into one, too. And they ran off into the swa
mp to be loup-garoux together and forever.”

  “And what about Claude?” Lana demanded, forgetting that she wasn’t supposed to scowl.

  “Oh, Claude. He took himself back to his office and sat in his great big chair until he felt important again and commenced to waiting for next year’s Miss Abbeville Pageant. You know those beauty queens. They’re like streetcars. You wait long enough, another one’ll come along.”

  “That is not how that story ends,” Rae Ann protested.

  “Nawh, you’re right. It’s not. It ends when they go off together to be the most gorgeous loup-garoux in the bayou. I made that last part up for Lana.”

  Lana just kept looking at herself in the mirror. See? See what Magic said?

  It wasn’t bad enough that the two girlfriends came butting into her story about the Jersey Devil and made it seem like nothing.

  And that Connors had taken swimsuit too and thought she was hot stuff.

  But on top of all that, they were making fun of her. Making fun of her and Billy Carroll.

  She’d seen them watching her and Billy when they were dancing Monday night at that club, perfectly innocent. But that’s what this story was all about. Dancing and a beauty queen and a short man in a powerful position.

  You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.

  28

  The pressroom was pandemonium, former Miss Americas everywhere, reporters milling about: Who’s she? Is she somebody? Who’s that?

  As far as Sam could tell, the former Miss A’s looked like any bunch of overdressed doctors’ or lawyers’ wives. Not a bit prettier. In fact, if you were going by looks alone, she had better-looking friends—though they didn’t wear as much makeup. Nor did they sport such huge rocks.

  But it was fun to see, up-close-and-personal, faces that she remembered from pageants of her girlhood.

  Mary Ann Mobley, Gary Collins’s wife, Miss A 1959, was a tad hollow-eyed but still pretty, if you liked them on the real thin side. Donna Axum, 1964, had blossomed out. Now what was that about her husband, or was it her ex, the Texas legislator who had run into some trouble…