by Hill Sandra
He put a palm over his heart, as if wounded. “I’m Cajun,” he said as if that said it all. It did. Cajun men were taught to dance from the time they were toddlers prancing around the living room, diapers drooping, in rowdy two-step dance moves to loud zydeco music on the family record player. He’d learned the words to “Jolie Blon” before he’d lost his baby teeth.
“I don’t date,” she said finally, and moved a few steps away from him, giving her attention back to the children’s games.
He moved as well, closing the distance between them, so that they were almost elbow to elbow, hip to hip. Almost, but not quite. “Really? Dressed lak that? Thass a shame!” He was laying the Cajun patois on thick as bayou mud.
And she replied in kind with, “Mebbe I dress lak this for mahself, not to attract menfolks.”
“Or mebbe you felt lak that in the past, but now you’ve turned over a new leaf. Mebbe you’re ready to dip yer pretty toes in the dating waters again. Mebbe I would be a good experiment, to see if yer ready.”
He thought she laughed, but she wasn’t looking at him; so, he wasn’t sure.
“Listen, Mister Almost-Doctor, I been dealing with men who look like you my entire life. Men so full of their own handsomeness they think the sun comes up to hear them crow. Frankly, a peacock is just a glorified turkey, in my opinion.”
This wasn’t the first time she’d made the turkey/peacock analogy in reference to him. “Wow!” he said. “That was brutal, but you’ve given me a bum rap, chère. Without really knowing me, you put me in a box, smacked a label on it, and set it on a shelf marked ‘Toxic’.”
She blushed, seeming to realize she might have gone a bit too far. “Maybe you’re right. I do tend to jump to conclusions sometimes.”
He was no fool. He took an opening any way he could get it. Besides, now this opinionated woman was a challenge. And, don’t forget, she thought he was handsome as a peacock. He barely suppressed a smile as he said, “Okay, apology accepted,” though she hadn’t really apologized, “but how about me coming out to your place and you teach me about herbal medicines? You wouldn’t deny a doctor his learning, would you?”
She turned to look at him then.
He fluttered his eyelashes at her.
She smiled and shook her head at his persistence. “Are you serious?”
“I am,” he said, and he meant it, though getting to know Louise better would be an obvious lagniappe. Never let it be said there weren’t two ways to skin a rabbit.
Any further discussion on the subject was halted by a sharp scream.
Both Justin and Louise’s heads jerked forward toward the playing field where the games had ended abruptly.
Still screaming was Louise’s niece Adèle who was bending over another little girl who was lying on the ground, unmoving. “She’s dead! She’s dead!”
Without hesitation, Justin leaped over the fence and ran as fast as he could. Louise wasn’t far behind.
Chapter 3
Just one more chance to make a good impression…
Louise calmed Adèle down, but her daughter still hugged her tightly, with arms wrapped around her neck and her legs locked around her hips, as they both watched Justin. He was kneeling on the ground where he worked on the semi-conscious child, lying flat on her back. It was Anna Belle Gaudet, a friend of Adèle’s.
Father Mark had offered to call for an ambulance, but since there were no full-time emergency teams nearby, it was deemed more expedient to get the child stabilized and take her to a medical facility themselves. In the meantime, Anna Belle’s mother, Marie, arrived in a panic. “Mon Dieu! I just went inside to tinkle. I was only gone a minute. What happened?”
Marie hadn’t been addressing anyone in particular, but it was Adèle who answered in a wail, “We was runnin’, me ’n’ Anna Belle, real fast, ’n’ then she jist stopped and fell over, dead.”
“Shh! She’s not dead. She’s just winded.” Louise hoped.
Marie made a tsking sound before dropping down to her knees on the other side of her daughter and asked Justin, “Are you a doctor?”
He nodded, not bothering with the “almost a doctor” explanation.
“Anna Belle has the asthma. She isn’t supposed to exert herself at all, ’specially not on a hot day like today.”
Justin had been giving the little girl artificial respiration, alternating between breaths into her mouth and pumping his locked hands against her chest. Then, he put his ear to Anna Belle’s chest and checked her pulse with fingertips to her neck, things he’d already done several times. “Her heart rate and pulse are steady now, but her breathing is still thready. Does she have a aerohalor? Or any medication she takes?”
“She has the inhaler. At home. No medicine. Jist herbs that Miz Rivard…Louise’s mother…gave me a long time ago, to make a steam tent.” Her voice was teary and guilt-ridden. “She was gettin’ better this past year. I thought—”
“She’s gonna be fine, Mrs. Gaudet,” Justin told her. “Look, she’s already starting to wake up.”
Anna Belle’s eyelids were fluttering. But she was wheezing, her chest moving visibly with each breath. Which even Louise knew was not normal and not a good sign. It didn’t help that she was starting to sob, understandably frightened.
“Do you have a family doctor?”
“Well, Doctor Clovis, I s’pose.”
Doctor Clovis LeDeux was eighty if he was a day, and a closet alcoholic, but still doing house calls when needed to his patients along the bayou. His office was located in the front library of his Greek Revival mansion on the outskirts of Houma.
Justin exchanged a look with Louise, which pretty much said what he thought of medical care in his home region.
“But we haven’t seen Doc Clovis fer a long time,” Marie continued. “Like I said, Anna Belle’s been so much better, and my family doctors ourselves, mostly.”
Again, another meaningful look from Justin to Louise.
What? Is he blaming me for medical care in these remote regions? And there’s nothin’ wrong with home doctoring, for the most part. It’s worked for a couple hundred years here on the bayou.
Louise set Adèle on her feet and asked Justin, “Is there anything I can do?”
He indicated with a movement of his eyes that she should get Marie out of the way so that he could pick up the child. “Can you go find my brother and tell him to bring his car up closer? Someone can call ahead to Dr. Clovis.”
“We can use Lillian, my car. She’s a jalopy, a 1940 Chevy Cabriolet, but the old girl runs,” Louise said.
He nodded and she took Adèle’s hand in hers. The two of them, along with Marie, ran toward the parking lot. Lots of people were standing around, watching, and some of them called out questions to her, but she just waved at them and said, “Later.”
Adèle was asking lots of questions, too, but Louise assured her that this wasn’t her fault and Anna Belle was going to be all right, but that, at the moment, the two of them had to be heroes to the rescue.
“Like my daddy?”
Louise had told Adèle that her father was a soldier who died to rescue a lot of people. She hadn’t mentioned which soldier she meant, her fiancé or her brother, and thus far, Adèle hadn’t wanted any more details. “Yes, sweetie.”
“Good.” Adèle beamed up at her.
Louise’s heart clutched and tears misted her eyes. If only Phillipe had known his daughter, or had ever been aware of her existence, if only in the womb. He would have been so proud!
Somehow they managed to fit everyone in her car, Louise driving with Adèle in the passenger seat, and Justin and Marie in the back seat with a gasping Anna Belle lying across their laps. Justin had to give her artificial respiration again, two more times.
Dr. Clovis met them at the open front door of his house. The gin blossoms on his bulbous nose and his flushed cheeks were a testament to his decades-long love affair with booze. His breath smelled of the peppermint Lifesavers he must purchase by the bushel. Everyone on the
bayou knew that the old man had a drinking problem, including his three ex-wives, but it never interfered with his work, as far as Louise knew.
Justin, who had to know the old man’s history, looked at him with skepticism, probably through the lens of his almost-doctor glasses.
She elbowed him to keep his thoughts to himself.
With an oxygen mask and then a large inhaler in place, Anna Belle’s breathing soon came back to normal. And she was not only conscious, but babbling in a steady stream of chatter to Adèle and anyone else who was in the vicinity about her adventure.
Two hours later, Louise was driving Justin back to the church grounds where he hoped that his brother would still be waiting for him. Otherwise, she would have to take him back to his father’s store. He needed to make the evening bus to New Orleans in order to be on duty later that night. Adèle was asleep on the back seat, the chaotic day having caught up with her.
“I’m impressed,” she told him.
“With Dr. Clovis?” he scoffed.
“No, you fool. Although he did a fine job, you must admit. No, I meant you.”
“Why?”
“You acted in such a professional manner back at the festival.”
“You mean, like a doctor?”
She slapped him on the arm at the sarcasm.
“Really, this chip on your shoulder about doctors is starting to irritate me, chère.”
She just grinned.
Which further irritated him. “Exactly what has your knickers in a twist?”
She exhaled on a long sigh. “You had no need to badmouth folk healing.”
“In my defense, there are quacks out there who—”
“Generalize much, my friend?”
He gritted his teeth. “Y’know, frogs have it easy. They just eat what bugs them.”
“Are you saying you want to eat me?” she asked, then cringed, hoping he wouldn’t get the inadvertent double entendre.
No chance! He was the one grinning now.
“No need for you to be grinnin’ like a cabbage-eatin’ skunk,” she sniped.
“Sorry,” he said. Not at all sorry, if that continuing grin was any indication. “You were saying that I acted in a professional manner. And…?”
“I meant that you didn’t hesitate. Just stepped in. Were decisive. And competent.”
“And that surprised you?”
“Well,” she smiled his way. “I admit, I was predisposed to not like you.”
“Because I behaved like an ass before.”
She arched her brows at him. “A little bit.”
“So, since you like me now—”
“I didn’t say that,” she interrupted him with a laugh.
“Since you approve of me now, does that mean I can come see you some time?”
“You are persistent.”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “How about tomorrow afternoon?”
“I need to go out in the swamps to gather some herbs. My supplies are low.”
“Swell,” he said and trailed a fingertip lightly over her forearm, from elbow to wrist. The gesture might have been playful, but the expression in his dark Cajun eyes was hungry and lustful. Serious business, that.
The fine hairs stood out all over Louise’s body, coming to erotic attention, and she had to wonder if she was making a big mistake, or marking an important turning point in her barren life. She had only this past week taken steps to get her Cajun Sass back, thanks to some tips in her mother’s family herb journal. Maybe this was taking a giant step further in that direction when what she needed was baby steps.
“I feel as if I’ve opened the chicken coop door to a starving dog.”
“I don’t know about starving. Well, yes, you could say that.” He smiled that devastating smile of his.
“You are way out of my league,” she said before she had a chance to bite her tongue.
“If you don’t want to run with the big dogs, darlin’, you can always stay hidden under the porch.”
That was a challenge if she ever heard one.
She lifted her chin and said, “Bow wow!” Then she winked at him. Where she got the nerve, she had no idea. Must be some hidden reservoir of Cajun Sass.
To her immense satisfaction, he visibly gulped.
* * *
When Cajun Sass meets Cajun Brass…
Louise woke the next morning to what looked to be a beautiful day, not too hot, not too humid.
After a quick visit to the bathroom and whispered morning prayers, including a hello to St. Jude, she padded out to the kitchen where she turned on the coffeepot. She also flicked the knob on the small radio on the counter, already set to the Cajun station which played traditional French bayou music and the more raucous zydeco accented by the occasional “E ha ha!” The music was mixed in with local news and weather reports. She’d been right. The temperature was expected to be a balmy eighty this afternoon.
Much attention was being given that day to the musician Harry Choates who’d died suddenly at the age of only twenty-eight. Poor boy! His song “Jole Blon” was hugely successful, and the radio commentators were predicting that he would be known later as the godfather of Cajun music.
She took a couple sips of coffee. Then, since it was Monday, she went to the little room off her bathroom and started the weekly laundry, a tradition in Cajun country, though a much bigger deal in the old days when the families were large and the loads numerous. Even with just her and Adèle, there was plenty of dirty clothing. Probably because Louise was a little bit fussy about keeping her child clean and well-dressed and above reproach, the worry of many single mothers, who always felt they were under the gossipy eye of neighbors. Not that anyone knew she was a mother, but still…
While her first load was running, she went back to the kitchen and started a pot of red beans. She sautéed the Cajun Holy Trinity…onions, bell peppers, and celery…in some leftover bacon fat from the jar she kept in the ice box, followed by thin slices of andouille sausage. To that, she added the dry beans she’d been soaking overnight and covered the batch with water, bringing it to a boil, then lowered it to a soft simmer. It would cook the entire day and be served with rice and corn bread. Tabasco sauce would give the dish some spice.
Monday red beans and rice—another Cajun tradition from the past when women would work laundering, hanging clothes out to dry, then folding and sometimes sprinkling water on some items for ironing the next day. There had been no time for any special cooking on Mondays. Thus, the red beans and rice, which required no work.
It was funny, Louise mused, how she had come to embrace all the old Cajun ways. There had been a time just after high school graduation that she couldn’t wait to get away from the bayou and all its old-fashioned ways. She’d headed to the big city of New Orleans where she’d been happy working as a typist at the Higgins factory, makers of the famous Liberty Ships. And, yes, she’d been a bit wild, living the principle of joie de vivre to the fullest, a frequent visitor to the city’s USO, dancing and flirting with the soldiers.
And then she’d met Phillipe.
She sighed. Everything came back to Phillipe and that time in her life.
Her new wall phone rang, and she rushed to answer it before the noise awakened Adèle. It was Marie Gaudet.
“Sorry to call so early, but I reckon you’re out and about by the time the rooster crows. I wanted to catch you before you went out.”
“How is Anna Belle today?” Louise asked as she gave the beans a quick stir with a wooden spoon, the phone cradled at her neck.
“Wonderful! The little imp. I do declare, you’d never know she scared us to death yesterday.”
“Young’uns have a knack for springing back.”
“I was wonderin’ if you could send Adèle over fer a play date with Anna Belle t’day. It would be jist the thing to make everything appear normal again. I doan wanna treat Anna Belle lak an invalid.”
“I s’pose so,” Louis
e said, though she had been thinking of using her daughter as a buffer between herself and the too-tempting Doctor Boudreaux, assuming he came this afternoon as planned for her swamp foraging trip.
She wasn’t exactly sure why she’d agreed to have him accompany her, especially when she knew what he was interested in. And it wasn’t swamp plants. Ever since she’d tarted herself up with Cajun Sass after Justin’s last visit, men had been giving her a second, third, even fourth look. It happened at the farmers’ market. It happened while delivering medicines to her customers, even ninety-year-old Rufus Benoit, who’d pinched her behind and said, “Ah couldn’t help mahself.” It even happened in the toilet paper aisle at the A & P. Worst of all was church where she’d noticed two of the ushers staring at her and whispering lasciviously.
The thing is, Cajun Sass was about more than physical appearance. In fact, that was the least important aspect. There were many times, like now, when Louise missed her mother and grandmother whose wisdom would have helped her so much. In a way, they’d leaned in from beyond the grave and helped her anyhow. Proof was that Louise had found all the information she needed on the subject, not in the always-reliable herb diaries but in some old letters exchanged between her mother and one of her sisters during World War I. Yes, the first big war, not the second one. Mixed in among all the news and gossip, there were paragraphs here and there about Cajun Sass.
Aunt Cecile had been complaining about life on a cold, cold army base up north where Uncle Victor had been grumpy and not paying any attention to her anymore…in the bedroom. Was it the chilly Yankee atmosphere that had cooled his ardor? Or something else?
Cici, you allus was the fool where Vic was concerned. Jist ’cause yer up in Yankee land doan mean you gotta lose yer Cajun Sass. And you know what that means. Style, Attitude, Smarts, Stubbornness.
Mon Dieu! I fergot about the Cajun Sass. Style, didja say? Best I buy mahself one of them see-through nighties. Do you still have that Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog?
Her mother had reacted with: Pff! Clothes is only a small part of the Cajun Sass recipe. Yer smart as a hooty owl, Cici, and stubborn as a cross-eyed mule. But remember what gran’mère usta say. It’s all about the attitude. Walk with yer shoulders back and yer bosoms forward. Toss yer hair over yer shoulders. Smile even if yer fightin’ the blue devils. Be proud, no matter if yer walkin’ barefoot down the street or sittin’ on yer threadbare davenport. Doan matter if yer poor as a church mouse or plain as a bucket. Pretend ya doan care what anyone thinks. An’ they’ll think, ooh la la, guar-an-teed.
