by Tami Hoag
“So soon?” Savannah cooed, disappointment plumping out her lower lip as she slid her sunglasses down her nose and stroked a gaze down Stephen Danjermond. “I haven't even been properly introduced.”
Laurel bit her tongue and held her temper, saying a quick prayer that her sister wouldn't do anything more outrageous than she already had. She slipped an arm through Savannah's, intent on controlling her in some way.
“Stephen Danjermond, my sister, Savannah. Savannah—”
“District Attorney Danjermond,” Savannah murmured, preening like a cat, offering her free hand to the man Vivian had obviously marked for Laurel. “Such a pleasure, Mr. Danjermond. Savannah Chandler Leighton at your . . .” Her gaze slid down the long, lean, elegant length of him, lingering suggestively. “. . . service.”
“Miss Leighton?” One dark brow rose a fraction. “You go by your stepfather's name?”
“Oh, yes,” Savannah purred, stroking the palm of his hand with her fingertip. She shot a look at Ross across the room. “I owe my stepdaddy so much after all.” She lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “Ross made me what I am today, you know.”
“Savannah.” Vivian's voice cut across the parlor like a scimitar. She stood rigid and queenly beside her chair, hands clasped tightly in front of her. “What a surprise to see you here.”
“Yes, I expect it is,” Savannah drawled sweetly, cocking a hip and planting her hand on it in a belligerent stance that perfectly mirrored her attitude. “Seeing how you told me once to get the hell out of this house and never come back.”
Laurel flinched inwardly as her stomach knotted with tension. She moved toward her sister, reaching out to put a hand on Savannah's arm. “Savannah, please, let's just go.”
“Yes,” Vivian snapped, her alabaster complexion mottling red with anger. “Please do go. If you can't keep a civil tongue in your head and behave as a lady, you are not welcome here.”
Savannah shrugged off Laurel's hand and sauntered toward the door, stopping within a yard of their mother. All the old bitterness seethed up inside her like acid, boiling and churning, eating away at her. Her face twisted into a sour mask. “I've never been a lady in this house, and I used to be welcome day and night.”
“Sister, please,” Laurel whispered, taking hold of Savannah's wrist. Her gaze darted between the raw fury and sheen of tears in Vivian's eyes to Ross, who stood across the room, suddenly fascinated by the pattern in the Aubusson rug. “Please, let's go.”
The tremor in Laurel's voice was the only thing that kept Savannah from lighting into her mother and shouting to the very proper guests that she was what she was because Ross Leighton had mounted her four times a week from the day she turned thirteen. And her very proper, perfect belle mother had never even suspected—because Vivian saw only what she wanted to see.
Vivian and Ross deserved whatever humiliation she brought them. But now was not the time. Poor Baby, always the peacemaker; she didn't need the tension. Savannah had, after all, come here to rescue her. Besides, she preferred to torture her mother and stepfather in little, never-ending ways.
“Come on, Baby,” she murmured, sliding an arm around Laurel.
They walked out of the parlor in no particular hurry, down the hall past Olive, who stood red-eyed, her flat face pale and wet, her stringy red hair clinging to her cheeks. The maid glared at Savannah. Savannah just laughed.
Laurel wanted to run and fling the door open and sprint for her car, but she was stuck beside Savannah, moving with nightmarish deliberation, their shoes clicking against the marble floor. She didn't dare try to rush. When Savannah was in one of her moods, there was no telling what she might do, what might set her off. Outside, the sun was breaking through. The low clouds that had brought the shower were already tearing apart into thin, gauzy strips and floating away. Humidity hung in the air like steam, thick and hard to breathe, intensifying the rich green scents of boxwood and bougainvillea. Savannah paused on the veranda as if she had all day and surveyed what might have been her kingdom if their father had lived.
Laurel saw it too. The broad sweeping emerald lawn, the lush semitropical growth of the cypress swamp beyond, the broad money green leaves of the sugarcane that stretched off in the other direction beyond the pecan grove. Home to generations of Chandlers. Generations that would end with them.
“Why did you have to do that?” she asked.
Savannah slid her sunglasses off and arched a brow. “Why? Because they deserved it. I came here to save you.”
“Save me?” Laurel shook her head. “I was doing just fine. It was only a dinner. I was about to leave.”
“Well, isn't that gratitude?” Savannah said sarcastically, cocking her hip. “I did what you've never had the nerve to do—I stood up to them—”
“I don't see the point in making a big public scene—”
“You wouldn't, would you?”
The remark cut Laurel to the bone. She sucked in a breath and looked away, guilt and anger twining inside her like vines. It wasn't fair of Savannah to blame her for not having been abused by Ross, but it was unpardonable that Laurel felt lucky for the same reason. The cycle of feelings never ended.
“Let's just go home and start the afternoon over, okay?” Start over. That was what she had come to Bayou Breaux to do. Why had she thought she would be able to start over in a place where the past never went away? She wanted to think they could all rise above it and move on, but with every moment she spent here, she felt it pulling at her more and more, like quicksand, like the thick mud of the swamp, sucking her down, draining her strength.
Savannah climbed in on the driver's side of Laurel's black Acura, her dress riding up her bare thighs. Laurel went around the hood and slid into the passenger's seat, her eyes on the veranda of Beauvoir. Olive stood at the main door, glaring at them. There was no sign of Vivian, who was doubtless in the parlor, trying to smooth things over as best she could with her guests.
Poor Mama, always so afraid of what people would think.
“How did you get out here?” she asked absently.
Savannah started the car and swung it around the circular drive, flinging a wave of crushed shell across the yard. She eased off the accelerator as they headed down beneath the canopy of the live oak.
“Ronnie Peltier gave me a ride.” She laughed at that and draped her left arm casually along the open window. “I gave him three rides last night. I figured he owed me.”
Laurel blew out a sigh and speared a hand back through her hair. “I wish you wouldn't do that.”
“What? Have sex with Ronnie Peltier?”
“Tell me about it. I don't want to hear it, Sister.”
“Christ, Baby,” Savannah snapped. “You're such a prude. Maybe if you had sex once in a while, you wouldn't be so uptight about it.” She barely slowed for the turn onto the bayou road, wheeling out in front of a four-by-four truck and squealing away from it as a horn blasted indignantly. “Maybe you ought to take that long, tall district attorney for a ride. He had a look about him.” She smiled slowly, savoring the idea of going a round or two with Stephen Danjermond herself. “I'll bet he's got a ten-inch cock and screws with his eyes open.”
“I'm sure I don't care,” Laurel grumbled.
“Yeah? Well, I'll bet Vivian cares. A fine, upstanding, well-bred man like Mr. Danjermond. She'd hand you over to him on a platter if she could. Think about it. She could marry you off to a man with money, power, prestige, a big future in politics, and snuff out the last embers of your big scandal all at once. How perfectly neat and tidy and cold—just the way Vivian likes things.”
There was nothing for Laurel to say. She had seen Vivian's game for what it was, too, and it didn't bear comment as far as she was concerned. She had no intention of letting her mother manipulate her—except that she already had. The thought struck her like a hammer to the chest. She had gone to Beauvoir to placate Vivian. Nothing that had happened during the course of that visit could be undone. Because of Vivian, D
anjermond was interested in her personally and professionally. Because of Vivian, Savannah had caused a scene, and now there was this tension between them, calling to mind the wedge that would forever both bind them together and hold them apart—Ross's abuse.
“I never should have come back,” she whispered.
“Baby, don't say that!” Savannah exclaimed, stricken by the thought. She shoved her Ray-Bans on top of her head and stared at her sister, taking her eyes off the road for a full ten seconds. “Don't say that. You needed to come home. I'm going to take care of you, I promise.” She changed hands on the steering wheel and reached across to brush her fingers over Laurel's hair. “That's all I was doing at Beauvoir—taking care of you, protecting you from Vivian. We'll start all over, starting now. It'll just be you and me and Aunt Caroline and Mama Pearl. We won't do anything but have fun. It'll be just like old times.”
Laurel caught her sister's hand and kissed it and hung on tight while Savannah's attention cut back to the road. Just like old times. Old times here are not forgotten. . . . But they should be . . .
“I-I d-didn't mean for Mama to c-catch me! I-I thought she was g-gone to her m-meeting!” Laurel clutched at her sister, crying, miserable, desperate, her cheek still stinging and burning from the slap of Vivian's hand.
She'd done wrong. Mama was furious with her. Heaven only knew but that she might end up having a spell. And it would be all my fault, Laurel thought. She knew she wasn't supposed to have the pictures of Daddy out in the parlor, 'cause if Mr. Leighton saw them, he wouldn't like it. She winced again as the memory swooped down on her like a hawk. . . .
Vivian stepped into the room with a smile on her face, a smile that vanished as she saw what Laurel was playing with. The photo album, the crawfish tie pin, the bass tie Savannah had stolen out of the boxes for the Lafayette Goodwill. All their little bits of Daddy. They kept them up in Savannah's room, but just once Laurel had wanted to take them down to the parlor and sit by the window where Daddy had held her on his lap on rainy days and told her funny stories that he made up off the top of his head.
“Laurel, what are you doing?” Vivian asked, drifting across the room. She'd been to her hospital auxiliary meeting. She always wore her double pearls to the hospital auxiliary. They clicked together like teeth chattering as she came toward Laurel, her face turning red beneath her perfect makeup as her gaze settled on the collection of mementos. “Where did you get these things?”
“Um . . . um . . .” Laurel's fingers curled around the edge of the photo album, and she pulled it protectively against her, but it was too late. Vivian jerked the book away from her and gasped.
“Where did you get this? What is it doing out here? Shame on you for dragging this out!” She slammed the album closed and tossed it onto the seat of the old red leather wing chair that had been Daddy's favorite.
She pressed her hands to her cheeks and paced in a short line back and forth, back and forth, as nervous as a racehorse, her eyes flashing with something like panic. “Shame on you for bringing that out! Mr. Leighton is new to this house, and you're dragging out all this! What would he think if he saw this?”
Laurel didn't really care what Mr. Leighton thought. She didn't like him. Didn't like his staying in Daddy's room. Didn't like the way he patted her head. Didn't like the way he looked at Savannah. She didn't want him at Beauvoir.
“I don't like him!” she blurted out, popping up from her seat on the floor, anger making her feel like she could grow to be ten feet tall and mean as an alligator. “I don't like him and don't care what he thinks!”
The slap came hard and fast and turned her head. Tears rushed up from deep inside and poured down her face, her cheek stinging and half numb. Vivian grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a shake.
“Don't you ever say that!” she said fiercely, her eyes bright with temper and tears. “Your father is dead. Mr. Leighton is head of this house now, and you will be a good girl and mind him and show respect. Do you understand me, Laurel Leanne?”
Laurel stared at her, wishing she didn't have to say yes. Wishing she could dare say no and still have Mama love her. But she couldn't, and she knew it. Mama already didn't love Savannah most of the time.
“Do you understand me?” she repeated, her voice trembling, on the verge of the kind of hysteria that always came before one of her spells.
“Y-yes, Mama,” Laurel stammered, anger and sorrow tumbling together inside her like a pair of fighting cats. “I-I'm sorry, Mama.”
That quickly, Vivian's temper cooled visibly. Her hold on Laurel's arms eased. She bent down awkwardly, so as not to wrinkle her new hot pink dress, and stroked Laurel's hair back from her forehead again and again, wiping tears into it. A trembling smile wobbled across her perfectly painted mouth. “That's my girl. I know you'll be a good girl. You know what's important, don't you, Laurel? You're always such a good girl,” she whispered, sniffling. “Mama's little pet. You run along now and play elsewhere.”
And Laurel had run. She had run out to find Savannah in the rickety old boathouse down on the bank of the bayou. They sat in the old wooden bâteau Daddy had let them use, and Savannah hugged her and wiped her tears. Laurel desperately wanted her to say everything would be all right, but Savannah had stopped saying that after Vivian and Ross had come back from their honeymoon.
So many things had changed so fast. Daddy gone. Ross Leighton taking his place. Some nights it just scared her so to think of it that she couldn't sleep, and she tried to sneak into Savannah's room as she always had, but Savannah kept the secret door locked now and wouldn't tell her why.
“I wish we could take the boat and float all the way to New Orleans,” she mumbled against her sister's shoulder. “I wish we could run away.”
“We can't,” Savannah murmured, stroking her hair.
“We could go and live with Aunt Caroline.”
“No,” she whispered, staring out at the water. “Don't you see, Baby? There's no getting away.”
The way she said it made Laurel scared all over again, and she shivered and looked up at her sister, feeling all hollow and achy inside at the sadness in Savannah's eyes. Then Savannah smiled suddenly and tickled her.
“But we can go out on the bayou and pretend we're shipwrecked on a jungle island,” she said, twisting around to untie the bâteau from its mooring.
And they let the boat drift out of the old cypress shed that looked like a junk heap and smelled like fish, and headed up the bayou to a place where they could pretend the world was perfect and Ross Leighton didn't exist.
“Dat Armentine Prejean, she kin cook, her,” Mama Pearl declared, shaking her wooly head as she snapped beans into a plastic bucket wedged between her tiny feet. “She don' cook nothin' good for Vivian, but she kin cook, I tell you. If she wasn' cookin' for Vivian, you would'a ate her dinner, chère.”
Laurel glanced up from the shrimp salad she was picking at. She had changed out of her skirt into a pair of faded denim shorts and a loose purple cotton blouse, and was feeling comfortably inconspicuous again with her glasses perched on her nose. Everyone had trailed out onto the back gallery of Belle Rivière and settled in, cocooned in the quiet of the courtyard and the warmth of the afternoon. “The meal was fine, Mama Pearl. I just didn't have much of an appetite, that's all.”
Pearl snorted, her fleshy face folding into creases of supreme disapproval. “Nothin' but bones, you. You gonna dry up an' blow away if you don' get some fat on you.”
Savannah stretched back on the cushioned lounge and set her book aside. “Aw, you know what they say, Mama Pearl, a girl can't be too rich or too thin.”
Pearl snorted again. “Sa c'est de la couyonade.”
Caroline twirled the ice in her glass of tea, her dark eyes carefully fixed on Laurel. “We saw you on the news last night, darlin'. Standing toe to toe with that televangelist.”
Pearl cackled and slapped her knees. “You give him good, talk about! Even knowed your Bible verse! Ma bon fille! I tell eve
r'body at church dis mornin', dat's my girl!”
Laurel made a face that was a cross between a smile and a frown and said nothing. What little appetite she had managed to work up for the shrimp salad fled, and she laid her fork across the plate.
“The Delahoussayes are good people,” Caroline said evenly. She let that hang in the air while she recrossed her legs and arranged the hem of her slim pale yellow skirt. “Would it be difficult to stop Baldwin from harassing them?”
Laurel shrugged. “Maybe not. They could talk to Judge Monahan. But that doesn't stop Baldwin from waging his war against sin in other ways.”
“A little action is better than a whole lot of talk,” Caroline said. She took a sip of her tea and set it back down, tracing a fingertip down the side of the sweating glass.
“Lord knows, action is right up the Revver's alley,” Savannah said dryly, winning herself a frown from Laurel. “If Jimmy Lee is a man of God, then the Marquis de Sade is right up there in heaven, tying the lady angels to the pearly gates and licking his lips.”
Mama Pearl flung a bean down and scolded Savannah in a rapid stream of Cajun French that rolled off Savannah like water off a duck. Inside the house the telephone rang. Savannah unfolded herself from the chaise in no particular hurry and went to answer it. Pearl collected her bucket and waddled in after her, muttering under her breath.
Laurel quelled the urge to go after them. She could feel Caroline's gaze weighing on her.
“You still belong to the Louisiana Bar Association, don't you?” her aunt asked innocently.
“Yes, but I'm not ready to take anything on,” Laurel argued, her fingers curling into fists on the glass table-top. “I don't need the trouble.”
Caroline rose, brushing an imaginary crumb from her loose-fitting chocolate silk tunic. She moved a step toward the house, glancing at Laurel as if in afterthought. “Neither do the Delahoussayes.”
Laurel ground her teeth as her aunt sauntered through the French doors that led directly into her study. “I came here to rest,” she muttered, crossing her arms and sitting back in her chair. “I came here for peace and quiet.”
