Under the Bayou Moon

by Valerie Fraser Luesse

  “How about that,” he said, swatting at a mosquito as they strolled through the fading light of early evening. “You couldn’t live with her, and I don’t think I could live without her.”

  Ellie stopped walking and turned to him. “We’ve always known that, haven’t we?”

  He smiled down at her. “I guess we have, Miss Ellie Fields. I guess we have.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  A WEEK LATER, Ellie was on her way to Bernadette’s beauty parlor, run by Leta LeJeune and open only on Saturdays from five in the morning till five in the afternoon. The Toussaint sisters had advised her to get there early because every woman in town would eventually show up, and Leta didn’t take appointments. Also, she “put her last head in the bowl” at three because she had to get to the dance like everybody else, Gabby had explained. You had to bring your own curlers and bobby pins so you could go home with your hair set. Leta didn’t have time to comb anybody out, but she would give you strict instructions on how to do it yourself.

  It was around seven when Ellie tied up at the landing and walked downtown to a small brick building with “Beauty” painted in big pink swirly letters on the picture window. Four women with curlers peeking out from under head scarves were standing around a piece of plywood on two sawhorses, set up in the middle of the street, drinking steaming cups of coffee from a pot in the center of the table. There was no traffic in Bernadette, especially this early on a Saturday, and anybody who might come along could just drive around. Clearly, Saturdays at the beauty parlor weren’t just about hair. This was woman time.

  “Morning, Miss Ellie!” they called to her as she started for the door of the beauty parlor.

  Ellie smiled and waved to them but then stopped, turned, and walked toward the coffee table. “Ladies,” she said, propping her hands on her hips, “every time y’all call me Miss Ellie, you make me feel like my grandma. You think I could just be Ellie?”

  The women looked at each other, and then one of them—Marceline Ardoin’s mother—raised her coffee cup. “To Ellie!” she said. The others followed suit.

  “Thank you, ladies!” Ellie laughed. “Y’all save me some coffee. I’d better go get in line.”

  The minute she opened the front door, a tidal wave of conversation hit her in the face. The beauty shop was full, and the women of Bernadette had a lot on their minds.

  Gabby had schooled Ellie in beauty shop protocol. She took a seat and waited for Leta to wave her to the shampoo bowl, where she handed the beautician her money and a sack that held her curlers, comb, and pins.

  Leta put her hands on Ellie’s shoulders and held her at arm’s length, studying her face and her hair. “You got a fine head o’ hair, girl.” She turned to the other women. “Ain’t she got some fine hair, y’all?”

  “That’s fo’ sure.”

  “Look at the color. Got them pretty gold streaks in the brown.”

  “That’s some good hair on that girl.”

  “You don’t need much, but you need a little,” Leta said. “You sit down there and lemme shampoo you—get my hands in that hair and see what we got.”

  As Leta shampooed her hair, Ellie tuned in to the conversation in the beauty shop.

  “Y’all not gon’ b’lieve what that man o’ mine come at me with last night.”

  “Tell it, girl.”

  “He says, ‘Aw, dahlin’, you makin’ the best syrup cake they is. You oughta cook up a bunch and we sell ’em at Chalmette’s!’ I look at him and I says, ‘Clyde Toups, I’m keepin’ y’ house an’ cookin’ y’ meals an’ raisin’ y’ seven boys—when you think I got time to sell syrup cake? Ain’t a woman on this bayou can’t make one!’ An’ he says, ‘Aw, my Marie, I just so proud o’ y’ cookin’, y’ can’t blame me for wantin’ to show you off!’ Men! Can’t live with ’em, can’t feed ’em to the alligators.”

  Ellie smiled, listening to all the women laugh at the lovable foibles of husbands as Leta lathered her hair for a second time.

  “How long you and Clyde been married, Marie?”

  “Goin’ on twenty-five years now.”

  “You still think he’s handsome?”

  “Girl, I still think he’s the purtiest man I ever seen!”

  Again the women laughed as Leta wrapped a towel around Ellie’s hair and raised her up.

  “It’s somethin’, ain’t it?” Marie smiled as she opened her purse and pulled out a stick of gum. “You do all that courtin’ when you’re young, an’ then all of a sudden outta nowhere, one o’ them boys just gets under your skin.” She unwrapped the gum and popped it into her mouth. “When that happens? Girl, you done for.”

  Ellie watched as Leta made the first snips with her scissors.

  “You best watch out, Miss Ellie!” Marie called. “One of these bayou boys might hook you in the heart before you know it!”

  Ellie laughed with the other women. “I’ll be on the lookout. And I’ll tell y’all what I told the ladies outside—if you don’t quit callin’ me ‘Miss’ and making me feel like my grandma, I’m gonna keep every one o’ you after school.”

  “Alright, Ellie,” Marie said. “We gon’ mind her, ain’t we, girls?”

  The women laughed together and agreed.

  Ellie watched as small, wet clumps of her hair fell to the floor. Leta was cutting it shorter than she had ever worn it—just below her chin. Ordinarily it made Ellie anxious to have her hair cut, but today she felt oddly excited and eager. It was as if, with every snip of her scissors, Leta was releasing the weight of tired old expectations, the leaden burden of disappointment and frustration she had been carrying for the past few years. This was a fresh start. Ellie smiled into the mirror.

  “That’s what I like to see!” Leta exclaimed. “A happy woman. Can’t no woman be happy till she got the right hair. You got to like who you see in that mirror, girl.”

  “You’re right, Leta,” Ellie agreed. “You’re absolutely right.”

  She suddenly remembered what Raphe had said that night on their boat ride from his cabin to hers—that he wasn’t happy, but he was home. On this cool morning, Ellie knew exactly what he meant. She might not be happy, but she had found her home. Maybe happiness would follow her to it.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  STANDING BEFORE THE MIRROR at her washstand, Ellie removed all the curlers and pins. As Leta had predicted, she looked like Shirley Temple at first: “You got the natural wave, so don’t you be scared when you see them ringlets after you take out the curlers. Just keep a-brushin’ back like I showed you, an’ you gon’ be amazed. You gon’ look like one o’ them women in the picture show.”

  Ellie had never had a haircut like Leta’s, with some shorter layers on top of longer ones. As she vigorously brushed through the curls, her hair did indeed look a little glamorous, with a side part and long bangs that swept over her eye. She first smoothed the curls and turned them under, then tousled them with her fingers like Leta showed her. Leta had freed her hair—and freed Ellie at the same time. Mama Jean would approve.

  Though she had no desire to go to the dance hall tonight, she knew Leta—who had made her promise to wear something pretty to show off her new hair—would be disappointed if she didn’t come. She would put in an appearance, stay for an hour or so to please Leta, and then come home, where she would build a warm fire, put on her nightgown and Mama Jean’s shawl, and sip a cup of muscadine wine. And she would try very hard not to think about the reason she cared nothing about dancing tonight.

  TRUE TO HER PLAN, Ellie was back from the dance hall by seven thirty. She had arrived early so she could visit with everyone before the music started. She accepted a couple of invitations to two-step and then, once the dance floor was filled with couples, slipped out. Her heart wasn’t in it, but she was glad she went. Leta was thrilled with her hair and proud to show it off to the other women.

  Ellie tied up at the dock, lit the porch lamp, and went inside, lighting a couple of other lamps as she made her way to the back bedroom, where she g
ot undressed. But instead of her nightgown, she reached in her wardrobe for her brother’s overalls and one of his old cotton tanks. She might not feel like dancing, but she wasn’t yet ready to give up the night.

  Grabbing some wood from one of the bins by the fireplace, she laid a fire but didn’t light it just yet. She poured herself a cup of Florence’s wine, grabbed Mama Jean’s plaid woolen wrap and a kerosene lamp, and walked down to the bench at the end of the dock.

  The night was crisp but not too cool to enjoy. Ellie set the lamp down beside the bench, where it made a soft glow around her. Then she wrapped up in the shawl, took a sip of wine, and listened to the nocturnal sounds of the bayou, an unruly choir of crickets chirping and frogs calling, now and again interrupted by a hooting owl—their conductor, making a futile attempt to bring the singers into harmony. She could hear water lapping against the dock below.

  Pulling the shawl a little more tightly around her, she thought about Mama Jean, who was due a letter. Ellie would write one tonight or maybe tomorrow after Mass. The nearest Baptist church was twenty minutes away, and while Ellie knew she would miss the familiarity of services there, the thought of worshiping with strangers so far from home made her feel lonely. She’d rather attend Catholic Mass with her neighbors than go to the Baptist church by herself. She had been to Mama Jean’s church enough not to embarrass herself.

  Ellie had closed her eyes, breathing in the night, when she heard a sound off in the distance—a boat motor. It was unusual this time of the evening, though not unheard of on Saturdays, when even the elder Cajuns were at the dance hall and no one went to bed early. She opened her eyes as the tip of the boat came into view and then, to her surprise, headed into the slough. In fact, it was coming right toward her dock. Ellie squinted into the darkness to make out the shadow sitting in back to steer the boat. The closer it got, the more familiar the shadow became.

  Ellie stood up, her gaze following the path of the boat until it was only a few yards away. She knew she should say something or at least wave, but all she could do was stare, her lips parted, searching for words.

  At last Raphe arrived at the dock, where he tied up the boat and stood there, unsmiling. If she didn’t know better, she would say he looked fearful, his brow slightly furrowed, his hands at his sides.

  “Bonsoir,” he said, looking up at Ellie.

  “Bonsoir,” she answered, her voice a little breathier than she would’ve liked.

  He nodded toward the dock. “Can I sit with you?”

  “Of course.”

  He climbed out of the boat and scaled the ladder, standing just inches from Ellie. She could see tired lines around his eyes and a bandage covering one hand. His hair had grown longer while he was away. It was touching the collar of his white shirt, which was unbuttoned at the neck, with the sleeves rolled up. His clothes were wrinkled, as if he had traveled in them.

  “Heywood said you’d be angry with me,” he said, staring intently at her. “He came to visit me in Morgan City and took me to supper.”

  “He told me he saw you.” Ellie was finding it difficult to formulate a thought with Raphe standing close enough to touch.

  “He said it was wrong of me to leave Bernadette without telling you,” Raphe went on. “But I had to. I didn’t want to see you.”

  “Oh.” Ellie took a step back. She felt a little sick.

  “That came out wrong.” He closed the distance between them. “What I meant was, I was afraid that if I saw you, I wouldn’t be able to leave.”

  “Oh?” Ellie felt like an idiot. Oh, oh, oh, oh . . . Why couldn’t she form words right now? She heard something jump in the water, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. She couldn’t take her eyes off Raphe.

  “I don’t think I could stand it if you went back to Alabama,” he said.

  “I’m not going back to Alabama.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because you’re in Louisiana.”

  His eyes traveled from her face to her hair. “You changed it,” he said, reaching out and running a strand of it through his fingers.

  Ellie nodded, her eyes on the white bandage as he let his hand fall to his side. “You hurt your hand.”

  “It’s very pretty,” he said, ignoring his injury and looking at her hair the way you would admire an especially fine seashell on the shore.

  “Do they hurt?” Ellie was too concerned about his hands—one wrapped in white cloth, the other covered with small nicks and cuts—to think about her hair.

  “I believe you have released Juliet,” he said with a smile.

  “Do they hurt,” she repeated, gently lifting his hands, studying the bandage and abrasions.

  He laid his palms against her face. “Not so much. Not now.”

  “I missed you,” she whispered.

  For a fleeting second, Ellie had a vision of the photograph Heywood would take right now: a Cajun fisherman passionately embracing a schoolteacher in overalls, lit by lamplight on a dock in the bayou. But then Raphe’s wounded hands were in her hair and his breath was on her face, and Ellie stopped thinking anything at all.

  TWENTY-NINE

  FROM THE BIG SOFA IN DOC’S CABIN, Ellie watched a crackling fire as Raphe lay with his head in her lap. She was slowly running her fingers through his hair with one hand and resting the other on his chest. They had finally brought themselves to part long enough for her to warm up leftover chicken and dumplings, feed him supper, and make him lie down to rest.

  “Have you always gone away to work?” she asked him.

  “Not always.” Raphe covered her idle hand with his. “When I was a boy, nobody had to leave the bayou to work. But the storm tore up all the boats. Wrecked the small docks. Everybody had to start over from nothing—started taking jobs outside. I was lucky that Papa taught me a trade so I could go to work for the big boats as soon as they were back up.”

  “What’s it like down there—in Morgan City, I mean?”

  “Lonesome. And dirty. Not the town but the docks. When I’m home, everywhere I look, I see something beautiful—the cypress trees, the water, the birds . . . the schoolteacher.”

  Ellie smiled, leaned down, and kissed him.

  “But down there,” he continued, “it’s all machinery and noise on the boats. Can’t smell nothing but fuel and fish.”

  “Do you have to go back?” Ellie could see his eyes getting heavy as she kept stroking his hair.

  “I should. There’s another shrimp company wantin’ its boats tuned up before spring. Lot o’ work. Lot o’ money.”

  “There are more important things than money.”

  “Yes,” he said, lifting her hand and kissing her palm. “Much more important things.”

  “If you could do anything in the world to make a living—along with fishing, of course—what would it be?”

  He smiled up at her. “Cook. I’d spend my days fishing and stirring the gumbo pot. And I’d spend all my nights with you.”

  Raphe closed his eyes. Ellie stopped talking but kept running her fingers through his hair. She watched the easy rise and fall of his chest beneath her hand as she listened to the crackling fire and his deep, relaxed breathing. Ellie heard in those rhythms—for the first time in her life—the sound of pure contentment, flowing over her like creek water on smooth rocks. And she knew without a doubt that she could listen to it forever.

  THIRTY

  ELLIE AWOKE TO QUIET. Her bedroom was chilly. She freshened up and tied a long, warm robe over her nightgown. Quietly cracking the door to her room, she peeked outside. The pillow she had carefully slipped under Raphe’s head was still on the sofa. So was the quilt she had covered him with. His shoes lay on the floor where she had slipped them off, but he wasn’t there. Her heart did a momentary dip before she looked out one of the tall front windows and saw him standing on the front porch, taking a sip of coffee.

  Raphe turned and smiled when she joined him. Without saying anything, he kissed her, then put his arm around her and
handed her a cup of coffee with sugar and milk. How did he know how she liked it?

  They stood together, listening to the bayou wake up.

  After a long time, Raphe said, “You never told me which you feel—Ellie or Juliet.”

  Ellie took a sip of her coffee and rested her head on his shoulder. “I don’t mind being everybody else’s Ellie. But I believe I am your Juliet.”

  “In that case, Juliet,” he said, “I think the next time we fall asleep under the same roof, we should do it as husband and wife. Es-tu d’accord?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Oui, je d’accord. I’ve never d’accorded with anything so much in my life.”

  ON A BRIGHT DECEMBER AFTERNOON, with her family summoned from Alabama, Ellie married Raphe in the Bernadette dance hall. Mama Jean declared the groom “practically Scottish.” Heywood said it was the happiest wedding he had ever photographed. Claudette couldn’t make it.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Spring 1950

  “HERE’S YOUR MORNING MAIL, SENATOR.” Lura Poteet fanned the envelopes vertically along the edge of Big Roy’s desk at the statehouse. “Not much worth reading today, but you might want to take a look at these.”

  “Thank you, Lura,” he said as she quickly and quietly made her way to the door the way she always did. It was one of many things Big Roy admired about her: Lura did what needed to be done and then left him in peace. Pity he couldn’t say the same about his latest wife.

  “Say, hold up for a minute, Lura,” he said. “I need to ask your advice on something.”

  She immediately returned and took a seat in one of the guest chairs across from his desk. “Yes, Senator?”

  “I thought I had a plan for that bunch o’ Cajuns on the bayou, but it’s not working. That crazy preacher I bankrolled was supposed to distract ’em with his alligator hunt, but none o’ the locals went after the money, and they just ignored all the outsiders that came down there—waited ’em out till they gave up. I was hopin’ to kick up a little skirmish between the Cajuns and the other hunters, but I reckon that bayou bunch knew nobody from the outside would ever find a needle in a haystack like that white gator—which prob’ly don’t even exist. What you reckon I oughta do?”