Summer has arrived and many of you will be jetting off (flying private, of course) to your fabulous homes in Aspen, Santa Barbara, or Nantucket. The more adventuresome among you will be leading lives of colonial splendor in San Miguel de Allende or perhaps Antigua, Guatemala. The French Riviera even calls some of our more Cosmopolitan Members to its glittering hillsides and shores. (I have heard the Wine Committee may convene at a Chateau in the Rhone Valley for their Summer Session if the stars line up right.) Tappi and the kids and I will be in and out of town between trips to Europe and South America.
If you find yourself at the Club, there will be plenty of Fun Activities to attract you. Even if the outdoor temperature and humidity are high—the energy level at BBCC will be even higher. There’s a great day camp for the kids with loads of activities. Golf, tennis, croquet, and badminton (wear your whites!), yoga, and Pilates will keep the parents interested. And our chef has come up with some cool Summer Specials to tantalize your sophisticated taste buds.
As much as I don’t like having to bring up Rules and Regulations, it is incumbent upon me in my Treasured Role as Your President, to do so as part of my Duties. Looking appropriate at the Club is crucial to ensure the mutual enjoyment of our World Class Facilities. Bayou Boughs’ dress code comes from years of Thoughtful Reflection, and we all know that looking appropriate is looking good and makes for a harmonious Club Atmosphere. With that undisputable fact in mind, we must call it to the Membership’s attention that the wearing of large, dyed-to-match-an-outfit hiking boot–styled shoes is not appropriate at BBCC. Perhaps during a nature trek on the bayou, it might be acceptable, but certainly not at any of the Club’s dining facilities. Such coarse and unusual footwear denigrates the Club when worn within its walls. The only time I could ever imagine such footwear as appropriate would be as part of a Frankenstein costume at a Halloween party. Needless to say, most of you are benchmarks of fashion and sartorial taste, with several BBCC Ladies appearing regularly on the city’s Best Dressed List. Nevertheless, Duty calls me to point this out.
Another issue vexing Your Board of late involves the ordering of outsized portions with special Club Member names or nicknames. Granted some of our lunch items have hallowed, time-honored nicknames, like the Bogie Salad Trio or the Ron Coffee, but these items have been part of Lunch Menus at Bayou Boughs for at least sixty years, if not longer. No, this is not the problem.
Specifically, certain Members (again, the Offenders are very Few in Number) have become accustomed to eating amounts in single meals that on most occasions might satisfy two or three diners with the healthiest of appetites.
Calling it by a clever name (like a Magic Meal, for instance) makes it sound like a legitimate order. But seeing such a repulsively large amount of food placed before a single diner is beyond reprehensible. In this “Day And Age,” when Being Healthy and Fitness Consciousness in general is on everybody’s mind, just seeing such an order arrive shocks the Collective Conscience of a Membership as with-it and good-looking as BBCC boasts. The Club is already a pinnacle of eating and drinking well, but with so many Leaders among our Membership, I know we all agree that Eating Right is equally important as we continue to set the pace as exemplary, albeit Highly Privileged, members of the Greater Houston Community. Future Offenders will be dealt with harshly and swiftly.
Wishing you cool summer breezes
and regal travels,
Tite
On finishing the letter Merlin dropped his small stack of mail to his feet on the worn-brick, moss-intersticed walkway from the main house to his abode. His eyes closed, and his chin fell like a leaden door knocker to his chest.
In a leafy neighborhood near the medical center, Dr. Mac Swearingen put down his coffee cup and finished reading the same letter. “Geez, what the hell’s next? Compulsory morning calisthenics?” He tossed it aside and reached for the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal.
Lindley Acheson picked up the mail from behind the front door slot of her father’s house and leafed through it. She saw the Bayou Boughs Country Club newsletter and began to read. As she got to Tite’s interdictions, she pursed her lips and glared at the page. She plucked a thorn from the stem of a rose in an arrangement in a vase near the entryway of the house and stuck it right in the middle of the dot of the i in Tite’s printed signature. In the rose world, the plant’s thorns are referred to as prickles. As Lindley drove the thorn into the i on the page, she said, “A prickle for a prick.”
• Twenty-one
The Airmadillo’s nighttime missions continued into the summer, with Captain Dirk Kajerka giving Merlin license to fly where he liked after the key terrestrial audiences were checked off the blimp’s advertising route. Merlin also took a little license of his own by bringing his hat-embedded listening device, his thumb drive with his warning messages for the populace, and his mobile phone with the app connected to the tracking device on Tite Dûche’s Porsche.
When Dirk and Svetlana retired to the passenger area and Dirk drew the curtain shut, Merlin went to work. He popped his thumb drive into the onboard exterior display computer, and his messages began to run on the big screen in the sky. He then donned one of his device-modified hats and lodged the ear buds in the primeval overgrowth of the cilia forests crowding his auditory canals, turning his head this way and that trying to discern the source of the strongest energy signal. But it was the automobile tracking device that yielded the most interesting information. The app gave a history of Tite’s routes that in many ways was unremarkable. Predictably, the destinations included the headquarters of Dûche Ovens, the family residence, locations that would seem reasonable as venues for charity events, board meetings, and strictly social gatherings, along with high-end restaurants. There were a couple of aberrations, however.
One was the location of a leather shop in the Montrose area that catered largely to a specific segment of the gay community, and the other was equally surprising—an address in Northeast Houston—an area one would presume the president of Bayou Boughs Country Club had never seen or even traversed on the way somewhere else. The app’s real-time functionality was particularly energizing for Merlin, and it worked while in the Airmadillo because the blimp flew low enough to receive signals from the cellular network.
Checking the app tonight as he piloted the blimp over the trendy area east of downtown, Merlin noticed the little blinking dot was on the move. Fascinated, he saw it shift from Allen Parkway to Interstate 45 North. “He must be picking up someone at the airport,” Merlin reasoned, but he decided to depress the left rudder pedal and try to follow it anyway. Although the blimp’s cruise speed was slower than a highway-darting Dûche Porsche, Merlin did not have to deal with the impediments of traffic, street signs, and streetlights and could pursue the yellow roadster as the crow flies.
To Merlin’s great surprise, Dûche’s vehicle moved to an exit lane not too far north of downtown. As the Porsche slowed, the Airmadillo caught up with it. It moved down a major thoroughfare then took a turn into a neighborhood Merlin had never visited. He had the presence of mind to turn off the outdoor advertising screen in an attempt to make the airborne vehicle as invisible as possible—a ninja blimp. He also slowed the Airmadillo considerably to remain at a judicious distance behind the two-seater on the ground, which slowed and pulled into a driveway. Someone opened a gate, and the Porsche pulled into a carport behind it. Merlin took note of the address and made sure the app saved it as he held the blimp in a wide circular pattern over a place that looked like a house with some sort of small compound behind it consisting of a few buildings and an open area. Merlin’s attention was broken by a kick to the curtain and a gravelly shout from Dirk Kajerka.
“Hey, big guy, let’s head ‘er back to base!”
Merlin straightened, and in his most professional blimp pilot tone replied,
“Roger, captain. Setting a course for home.”
“Good work. Carry on.”
Merlin angled the blimp toward FUBAR as t
he carrying-on continued behind the curtain.
• Twenty-two
It makes perfect sense for June to be wedding season in temperate climes. A June wedding on Nantucket or in Vermont or the intramontane West can promise pleasant, still springtime weather. In the same way people in Honolulu and Miami watch holiday specials featuring snowy Christmas imagery from higher latitudes, Houston has traditionally done June weddings as if the region enjoyed the milder climates of more northerly and upland parts of the United States. Houston’s humid heat has contributed to a steep rise in destination weddings in places like Aspen or San Miguel de Allende or Portofino that are not only beautiful but also promise reliable escapes from the steamy Gulf Coast. For classic June Houston weddings, however, the old school considers country clubs the ideal air-conditioned reception oases.
This Saturday night, Merlin found himself at one of the giant wedding receptions Bayou Boughs Country Club was so expert in producing. The bride’s and the groom’s families were both friends of the McNaughtons, and Merlin knew the couple, as he tutored them when they were in high school, so he made the guest list. He finished his second appetizer plate of roast beef on puffy rolls slathered in mayonnaise-y horseradish sauce and went to the bar at the corner of the big room. Shep Pasteur was pulling extra duty that night, working the wedding to pay for the latest improvements to his tricked-out vintage El Camino. As Merlin approached, Shep began to assemble his drink.
To prepare children for their future worlds of adult cocktailing, parents ordered Shirley Temples for their young daughters and Roy Rogers for their young sons. By the time they were preteens, they were well accustomed to the idea of a mixed drink. Merlin, however, never graduated to cocktails or the social skills of drinking them in the company of one’s peers. He kept ordering Roy Rogers well into his teens, and by the time he hit twenty, Shep Pasteur decided that something needed to be done about this. Shep tweaked the ingredients; instead of Coca Cola, this concoction contained Dr Pepper, along with grenadine, lime, a dash of Peychaud’s Bitters, and three maraschino cherries. Although the bitters contained alcohol, Shep put so few drops in the drink it still qualified as a mocktail. And he named the drink in Merlin’s honor, eponymously after the nickname he’d given Merlin in his youth.
Merlin approached the bar, and Shep said with professional authority, “One Magic Man coming right up,” never taking his eyes off the drink and each ingredient as he added it. Merlin accepted it and said, “Thank you.” With a quick nod, Shep said, “Any time.” Magic Man in hand, Merlin sidestepped the press of people at the bar and ambled toward the entrance hallway that gave onto the big room. He found a spot near the wall, and when he looked up after having a sip, he saw Lindley Acheson looking his way as she talked with a couple of young women. She smiled at him, and he returned the gesture. Lindley excused herself from her friends and moved toward Merlin. He noticed she was in high heels and a green dress with a slightly plunging neckline.
“Hi, Merlin!”
“Hi, Lindley! Are you enjoying the reception?”
“Yeah, you know, it’s nice to see people you haven’t talked to in a while.”
“Yes, that’s true. I talked with some kids I tutored when they were in middle school and high school. And the flowers at the church and here are beautiful! Did you have anything to do with that?”
Lindley smiled, blushed a little, and replied, “Yes, the bride’s family called me in for a little consulting.”
Merlin caught a glimpse of the blush continuing toward her décolletage.
“Well, they are very nice.” Now it was his turn to blush. “I mean the flowers! Stunning arrangements and very striking color combinations!”
Lindley’s blush deepened as she demurred, “It really wasn’t that big of a deal, but thank you.”
Two society dowagers approached, and the one closest to Lindley tapped her on the shoulder. “Lindley, dear, we have a botanical question for you. Could we trouble you for a moment?”
“Oh, sure! Sorry, Merlin. I’ll catch up with you in a bit.”
“By all means!” Merlin replied with a smile and all the graciousness that had been ingrained into him throughout his upbringing.
With Lindley’s departure, he spotted what appeared to be the platonic ideal of a cold-boiled shrimp display. Its sculpted icy tiers glistened at him the way the graduated glass components of his armonica had just a few mornings earlier, but this artwork held the ne plus ultra of Texas cold seafood favorites—very large, perfectly shelled and deveined U10-U12 count wild-caught Gulf shrimp—each curling around the carefully crafted lips of several ice-sculpted bowls, with the bowls themselves containing more luscious crustaceans. As Merlin approached, he saw just how perfect they were, and in perfect complement below them, silver bowls of white remoulade, red cocktail sauce with a smaller bowl of horseradish at its side, and dozens of halved lemons covered with mesh cloth tied behind the skin of each one like a short ponytail.
Merlin picked up a pair of silver tongs and began to arrange the large shrimp on his cocktail plate. Instinctively, he chose to place them in a circular pattern with their tails pointing outward toward the edge of the plate. They created a design that looked as if it might start turning in a counterclockwise direction. On top of the center of the shrimp gyre, Merlin placed a single mesh-covered lemon half. He found a ramekin for the sauces and chose to divide the contents between remoulade and cocktail sauce, adding a little horseradish to the already piquant red cocktail sauce. He spotted a high table near a corner of the room by one of the rarely lit fireplaces. He began to enjoy his seafood interlude, holding each shrimp by the tail and dipping it in the sauce of his choosing on a bite-by-bite basis. The shrimp were so big, he could get two and sometimes three bites from each one. On the last bite of each he pinched the little shell by the tail and tugged with his incisors to pull away the last morsel of meat. As Merlin placed a de-shrimped tail on a plate near the ramekin, Rex Mondeaux walked by and stopped to greet him.
“Well, if it isn’t the guy who whipped the blimp base into shape!”
Merlin quickly swallowed his last bite and managed a slightly muffled “Hello, Mr. Mondeaux!”
“Please, Merlin, call me Rex. We’re professional colleagues now!”
With this statement, Merlin righted himself from his slump. “Mr. Rex?”
“No, just Rex, like your grandfather called me.”
“Yessir, Rex.”
“Good! Now, tell me how life is at the home of the Airmadillo.”
Merlin made some noises that sounded like an attempt at language, but he couldn’t get anything out. He then heard himself saying, “I like it. I find it inspiring.”
“Inspiring, huh?”
Merlin was worried that he said the wrong thing, but Mondeaux assuaged his fears by jumping right back in with his good-natured banter: “Well, good! Let’s hope a bunch of folks are inspired to change their electricity provider to Fandango Utilities!”
“Yes, sir, Rex!” Merlin got this line out so fluidly it seemed to him that it sounded like the banter of the fraternity boys in the room.
“That’s right! Good work!”
A trio of bejeweled, designer-gowned women of a certain age beckoned Rex their way, and he excused himself. “Sorry. Gotta go!”
Rex Mondeaux winked, and Merlin nodded with a smile, again feeling like he was fitting in, even if just for a moment. As Rex angled toward the ladies, Merlin felt so confident he decided to move one table closer to the center of the room. Although it was another high four-top, which made it still seem somewhat peripheral, the stream of social interaction was flowing around him, regardless of the degree to which he remained a boulder in that waterway. A few people even said hello as they passed.
Just as he was feeling comfortable in his new forward position, he heard a group talking behind him—three male voices that sounded to be in their twenties or early thirties. They were the same three who had scoffed at him in the locker room after his chair broke.
“He probably still sleeps with a pacifier.”
“Ha, yeah, like Baby Huey from those old cartoons!”
“His toilet is prahbly some industrial-sized setup, maybe rebar-reinforced concrete with hand grips on both sides.”
“Yeah, he’d crush a regular one at one sitting.”
“I hear a couple in the locker room have taken some wear and tear from him.”
“Like cleaning up after a circus elephant.”
“I feel sorry for whoever does his laundry.”
“Don’t go there, Chad.”
Merlin knew they were talking about him and that they had positioned themselves so he could hear them clearly. He didn’t know what to do, but he knew he felt uncomfortable, so he decided to fall back to his previous redoubt at the more remote table.
“Uh, oh, looks like he’s moving.”
“He oughta have one of those ‘beep beep’ beepers like garbage trucks when they’re backing up.”
Merlin took his Magic Man mocktail and pivoted to walk back toward the other table. A one-man army in retreat, he focused on his destination and tried to ignore the wiseacre voices behind him. He would not challenge them, but he would not give them the satisfaction of seeing his discomfort. He took one step and another, but on his third step his foot caught on something that, as he began to fall, he realized was a shoe—a man’s dress shoe. Just as his fall started, a cocky, designer tux–clad young buck in front of him pronounced an over-acted “Oops!” and tossed all the red wine in his full glass squarely at Merlin’s floor-bound pressed shirt and white dinner jacket. As Merlin tried to get his footing, his own drink went vertical, then plummeted and doused his jacket from behind. The glass didn’t break, as this part of the room was carpeted, but down Merlin went with the full force of his tonnage. Later, nearby guests agreed they felt the floor shake when he hit and flattened against it.
Merlin of the Magnolias Page 14
