The Convent Rose (The Roses)

by Lynn Shurr

  “Yes, ma’am, I sure did. We got to get together again some time.”

  Noreen pecked Rusty’s cheek and even that caused him to blush, the curse of the redheaded. “I hope I’ll see you again.”

  “Me, too.” Russ ground his boot toe into the grass and concentrated on his action to avoid looking in those beautiful brown eyes.

  The convertible packed solid with passengers again, Renee drove away with her clique, the Sexy Seven. Bodey turned to his best friend. “How was she? Nice and tight, I’ll bet. Did she cry or did she like it? Man, I should have told you more about pleasing a woman, but I didn’t expect us to get lucky tonight, not with all the old folks around.”

  “I think I’m the lucky one. Noreen is fine. I wish I could see her again, but she’s a Courville and I’m a Niles. Romeo and Juliet’s families couldn’t hate each other more. Still, I think I could fall in love with her. Maybe I’m in love already, it feels so right.”

  Bodey slapped Rusty on the back a little disappointed that his buddy wasn’t more of a kiss-and-tell kind of guy. “Forget about old plays. Come on, a man doesn’t fall in love at first fuck. We got years ahead of us, just you and me having a good time on the rodeo circuit. We’ll drink hard and screw plenty of women before we settle down. When we do, I’d want a wife like Eve Burns. You know kind of fancy and refined, not easy like Renee. Sorry, I know she’s your cousin and a mighty good lay, but you don’t marry a girl like that, now do you?”

  “I’d marry someone exactly like Noreen as soon as she’d have me.”

  “Sucker,” Bodey said and meant it.

  Chapter One

  Rainbow, Louisiana

  Fifteen Years Later

  Who would have thought the great Bodey Landrum would be spending his thirty-third birthday alone? Rich and famous with that segment of the population who followed rodeo, here he sat in a mansion smelling of mildew looking out over an empty swimming pool with cracks in the bottom. Compared to last year’s blowout when he treated his friends to thick steaks, all they could drink, and the cowgirl of their choice, this was pretty damn pitiful.

  He found retirement hard to take—even if his bum knee and his bad back had been begging him to quit for the last several years. On this damp Louisiana day, all the bones he had broken during his bull riding career ached. A storm was coming for sure. Since his first action upon arriving back at the old Three B’s had been to stock the bar from Plato’s Liquor and Food Store in Rainbow, a remedy stood ready and available, but a man who drank alone was a sad case, a very sad case.

  The avocado green refrigerator in the kitchen still worked. He had stuffed it with milk, bread, butter, beer, cold cuts, eggs, a couple of pounds of hamburger, and an entire flat of Ponchatoula strawberries that looked so red and ripe at the roadside stand, he’d bought too many. Thinking back on his grocery purchases, Bodey decided to eat out.

  He hadn’t noticed much action in Rainbow on his first trip into town. The convent school still dominated Main Street from behind its iron gates. The mellow brick buildings, lawns, and oaks had the same air of serenity they had always possessed. The female students still wore the ugly blue plaid skirts and white blouses of which he had some fond memories. The graveyard remained as quiet as ever.

  Rainbow itself had changed. Peeling white frame cottages were overlaid with pastel siding, pink, pale yellow, and blue. The small front yards running almost to the blacktop blossomed with mixed spring bulbs set in front of new picket fences. Screening had been ripped from the old porches that now held rockers painted to match the siding instead of old car seats and moldy sofas with the stuffing coming out.

  Bodey heard the town council had voted to change the spelling of the name to Rainbeaux in order to cash in on the Cajun culture craze. Mayor Plato vetoed the plan and won support by telling the old story about the miraculous founding of the place under the sign of a real rainbow. So instead, the Chamber of Commerce backed writing grants to paint all the houses in a rainbow of colors and clean up the front yards. Evidently, they had gotten the money. Sometimes, being a dirt-poor place helped. Rainbow had weathered the oil bust with hardly a notice and now prospered in a new way.

  The ancient Rainbow Café, once a shanty with a crudely painted rainbow on the side and not a place you’d take your mother out to dinner, had been increased in size and yuppified. They’d added a new porch where large parties waiting for tables could sit on cypress benches among the planters of asparagus fern and purple petunias and smoke if they must. Smoking was now banned where once the people not only lit up, but chewed and spit as well. Ja’nae Plato had threatened to fix the place up years ago, and now she’d done it. Bodey just prayed to God the café still served great ribs.

  As a single, almost immediately he got an odd-shaped table with only three chairs wedged into a corner. Ja’nae Plato, serving as hostess, had a paler complexion than many of the Cajuns eating in the place. Only in Rainbow would she still be considered black. Bodey wondered why she didn’t leave. She had been cordial enough, remembering him not as a rodeo star, but as a friend of her brother’s and fellow graduate from the high school in Opelousas, which was nice, he guessed.

  That the Rainbow Café even had a hostess he counted as a bad sign. Hope returned when he caught a glimpse of Ja'nae’s mama, Leontyne, in the kitchen still supervising the deep fat fryers. He had to say the Platos were equal opportunity employers. Several white waitresses scurried around the place and some dark-skinned people worked in the kitchen and behind the bar. His server brought ice water and a menu. He waved away the specials of the day.

  “Tell me if they still have the best pork ribs in Louisiana.”

  The waitress, a tall blonde with nice, but not enormous tits and a classic, but not knock-me-down beautiful face, gave Bodey the smallest of smiles.

  “Yes, sir, they do. Would you like them with a baked potato, stuffed potato, Cajun fries, white rice, brown rice, rice dressing, or baked sweet potato?”

  “The stuffed potatoes still have real bacon in them?”

  “They do.”

  “Then, that’s what I’ll have.”

  “A garden salad or a melange of steamed broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots?”

  “No slaw?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Salad. Ranch dressing.”

  “May I get you a drink from the bar?”

  Her voice had slowed down and almost drawled the last sentence. He could hear an imaginary “cowboy” being added. That’s when he remembered he still wore his Stetson. He pulled his stretched-out, booted feet back under the table and hung his hat on the knob of his chair.

  “Jack Daniels on the rocks.”

  She raised her pale eyebrows over big, gray eyes as if to say, “What, not a straight shot?”, but the words that came out of her pale pink lips were, “I’ll bring that right away, sir.”

  His waitress was a little stiff for the Landrum taste, but he thought she might be able to loosen up with some help. He had a long evening ahead and needed some entertainment. He watched her move away, hips swaying under a snug, but not tight, black skirt, her long, white-blonde French braid switching back and forth, back and forth, with a black bow on its tail.

  No, it couldn’t be Miss Fancy Pants. If she was, the mighty had fallen farther than he ever had off a bucking bull. She brought his drink and salad. This had to be her. He studied on the matter a while longer, watching her serve other tables. When his order came, he said impulsively, “It’s my birthday.”

  “Have a good one,” she replied, setting down a massive platter of ribs and a large stuffed potato in a side dish. The bread basket followed with a steaming hot pistolette roll and a thick square of Mama Tyne’s cornbread. She added a packet of sanitary wet wipes to the accumulation on the table.

  “Would you like one of our rib bibs to protect your clothing, sir?” Again, there came that tiny hint of a smile.

  “Hell, no!”

  She laughed. It was an unexpectedly hearty laugh, and peopl
e at adjoining tables turned their heads and smiled, too. Bodey figured she had just earned herself a bigger tip.

  “Too sissy for you, cowboy?” she said.

  “Damn straight,” he answered with an I’ll-eat-you-right-up grin.

  “Anything else I can bring you?”

  She intended to leave, and he wanted to prolong the moment. “How about some company to help me celebrate?”

  She seemed puzzled and glanced around as if seeking other patrons who might want to sit at his table. The pass went right over her head. Eve Burns—still an innocent. Go figure.

  “I mean, what time do you get off? Maybe we could go on into Lafayette and do some dancin’ at one of the clubs.”

  “Oh! I—ah—don’t get off until nine, and I have an early class.”

  “You still a student?” Bodey figured she had to be thirty-one now, thirty-two in the fall. Now why did he remember that when he had forgotten the names of half the women he’d ever bedded?”

  “I teach an art class at the Academy, also riding.”

  He noticed that flush rising along her cheekbones, same as the time he thought she’d use her crop on him. “Must not pay much,” he said.

  “Well, no.” Her cheeks grew redder.

  A spoilsport from a nearby table hissed, “Miss, can we get our check?”

  “I have to go.”

  Eve sprinted to the kitchen and Mama Tyne. She felt safer next to the deep fat fryers and steaming grill than she did near Bodey Landrum. He’d hit on her once in high school, and she’d frozen up and panicked. Afterward, she’d drawn his picture a dozen times in her sketchbook and made up conversations between them hoping he’d make another attempt. But, Bodey had gone off with Renee Niles who knew how to handle a guy like that and give him what he wanted. Probably by now, Bodey had slept with a hundred women or more. As for her, did one affair in college even count if the man left you? She put a hand over her thudding heart.

  As big and stately as the Queen Mary docking, Mama Tyne shifted her attention from the bubbling hot oil to her waitress. “You sick, honey?”

  “No, Bodey Landrum is out there. It’s his birthday.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to do something about that, won’t we?”

  ****

  Bodey settled into his dinner, eating slowly, getting sauce under his nails and on the cuff of his shirt. He did not favor dining alone. When he had been on the circuit, someone always wanted to grab some grub no matter what time of the day or night.

  He studied the art hung on the walls, nice landscapes with discreet cards tucked in the corners of the frames. Back when, the décor had been neon beer signs and ads for smokes and chewing tobacco. Once, an autographed picture of his early bull riding triumph at the World Championships had hung among other souvenirs over the bar. Now, the shabby newspaper clippings and photos torn from magazines and taped to a chipped mirror badly in need of resilvering had been replaced by a clear, beveled sheet of glass bringing light into the once dark room.

  His eyes strayed toward the exit that at one time had been the pathway to a double set of outhouses in the back. Now, this had become the entrance to a gift shop hawking postcards of the Academy in spring, pastel T-shirts bearing the legend “I’ve been to the End of Rainbow”, and what looked like the kind of religious paintings a tourist would smuggle out of Russia. Icons, that’s what they were. He didn’t care much for religious stuff.

  The painting nearest to his table had a nice big sky like at his ranch in Texas, but he could tell the view came from around here because the grass grew greener and the oaks were thicker. He squinted at the price tag, two hundred fifty. He collected western art, and this didn’t exactly fit in, but he liked it. Despite what his dealer said was collectible, he didn’t buy anything he didn’t like. The old house could use some decoration. He squinted at the signature “Eve Burns.” Now, he took a turn smiling.

  Eve Burns wasn’t the most attentive waitress he’d ever known. His own mama had been better, schmoozing with those truckers for a bigger tip, really friendly. She did check back with him once, and he’d said, “Doing fine” before he caught himself, and she turned away to another table of diners.

  At the end of the meal while Eve cleared his plates, he ordered coffee. He guessed he could sip slowly. His Rolex watch said eight p.m. The café probably had nice restrooms now, indoors and everything. He could check that out in a little while, then hang at the bar.

  Eve came bearing his coffee in a thick white mug with a rainbow and the name of the café printed on the side. Right behind her marched Ja’nae, her brother Leon, and Mama Tyne holding a small birthday cake with frosting that expanded on the rainbow of colors theme and one thick candle.

  “Oh, no! You ain’t gonna sing me one of those awful birthday songs now. Y’all sit right down and share this cake with me.”

  He blew out his candle, remembering his mother for a few seconds, and sliced the cake four ways with a dinner knife. He quickly cut the biggest chunk into half again as he saw Eve start to drift away from the gathering. “You too, sit and help me eat this cake.”

  “I have tables to clean.”

  “Sit down, Eve. Dinner crowd’s almost gone. Dirty tables can wait. I want to introduce you to our local celebrity, Bodey Landrum. Eve Burns, meet our four times All-around Cowboy and best bull rider of the century!” Mama Tyne gave him a great big hug, crushing him to her cushiony breast. As light-skinned as her daughter, she stood three times as wide. Her gray hair covered with a sleek black wig made her look like a hefty Lena Horne.

  “I wanted to say hey earlier, but you looked real busy.”

  “You always had nice ways when you weren’t being a smartass, Bodey.”

  “That’s how my mama taught me.”

  “How does yo’ mama?”

  “Died in a car wreck a few years back. Smashed up that little ole Jag Big Ben got talked into buying for her just before the oil bust. She was on her way home from the country club with a few martinis under her belt, I guess. Mama lived to see me make it big though.”

  “Miss Betsy, she never knew a stranger. So sorry to hear she’s gone.”

  “And Pops, where’s he?”

  “Passed on from the diabetes last winter. He’s wit’ the other Platos now up at Mt. Carmel cemetery.”

  “Sorry to hear it. Best barbecue man in the South.”

  “So he was. Finally give me his recipes when he knew he wouldn’t last, kidneys going, liver going, everything going. You enjoy them ribs? Just like old times, huh?”

  “Was. Missed the slaw, though. Hey, Leon, you do any calf ropin’ lately?”

  “Only thing I do now is taxes. I’m a CPA. I was back in the office doing the books when Ja’nae said we were all coming out to surprise you with a birthday cake. Usually, I’m not here at night, but during tax time, I have to work the café into my schedule.” Leon was also light-skinned and trim but already balding like Pops though he and Bodey were about the same age.

  “Least you can do to repay yo’ mama for a college education,” Mama Tyne joked with her son.

  “This place sure has changed.” Bodey dug into his slice of cake to show his appreciation, chocolate, his favorite under that rainbow-striped icing.

  “Ja’nae’s doing. Give a girl a degree in business management, and she manages the business. Got a loan from the gov’ment to fix the place up. We already done paid the Feds back. Now, she workin’ on Unc Knobby across the street. She say Rainbow Liquor and Food need a real deli counter, not jus’ a hot lunch case, and a bakery department with fresh goods, not jus’ Little Debbie cakes and white bread.”

  “Y’all know I’m right. Rainbow is turning into an artists’ colony and attracting the upper classes out this way. And if Pops had laid off the Little Debbies and white bread, he might be here with us now.”

  “Let go, Ja’nae. You couldn’t tell Pops nothing.”

  In the midst of the reunion, Eve slipped away still holding her fragment of cake in a napkin.
She ate her slice quickly and now quietly cleared tables.

  “Artist colony, no kiddin’. Why I was admiring that landscape right over there a minute ago. Someone local paint it?” Bodey said a bit on the loud side.

  “You can see plain as day by the card, it’s our Eve.” Mama Tyne gestured toward her hard-working waitress.

  Color running up the back of her neck, Eve retreated to the kitchen with a tray of dirty dishes. She swore she could feel Bodey Landrum’s eyes watching her backside. She hit the swinging doors too hard, and a mug fell to the floor and shattered. A minute later, the party could see the bottom of a broom sweeping up the mess.

  “She a quiet woman, Bodey Landrum, and life done her lots of wrong. You leave her be,” Mama Tyne said softly.

  “Oh, maybe a little bit of Bodey would be good for Eve,” Ja’nae suggested. “All she ever does is teach, paint, ride, and work evenings for us. I can’t believe you were playin’ her with that pitiful ‘alone on my birthday’ routine though. As I recall, you had a big thang for Academy girls when you were in high school.”

  “Most of the time, I was lyin’ except for Renee Niles. Renee told me once Eve wanted to be a nun.”

  “Lives like one, but never was one. Her mama left her with a pile of medical bills for cancer treatments and died anyhow. I keep telling her to fix up and get herself one of those rich men who come to the art openings and buy something just because they think they should,” Ja’nae went on. “She’ll be fifty before she pays off all that debt.”

  “Doesn’t sell much of her art, then?”

  “Every once in a while, but I suspect her supplies and those bills eat up her profit. She does good with the icons when the Academy sponsors a retreat.”

  “Doesn’t her daddy help her out? I heard he used to dote on her.”

  “Dead, too. His luxury car business went bankrupt in the oil bust. He had no cheap franchises to keep him going, you see,” Leon explained. “One day he sailed off in his yacht. They found the Princess Eve capsized, but no sign of Mr. Richard Burns.”