by Sandra Hill
“No etchings here, but I do have a baseball card collection packed away in the closet from when I was a kid.”
“I’m wearing silk. Boxers and tank top.” She paused. “And nothing else.”
“Tease!” he accused with a laugh. Then, “Want me to come over?” Not that he could. Not without giving his dad notice that he was going out. And all that would ensue . . . questions, raised eyebrows, the works.
“Be serious.”
“I am.” Sort of. I might even risk my father’s scorn if you say the word, honey.
“Congratulations on your win today.”
“Thanks.” He waited for her to mention something about Mike Pham, assuming his wife had come in to see her at Legal Belles, but she said nothing more. “Any further word from the Rossi girl?”
“Yes. She stayed home from school today, and a counselor worked with her. Hopefully, she’ll be back in classes tomorrow, that way her absence would be less obviously connected to Ferguson.”
“Where’s the kid’s father?”
“Absent. Never been around.”
“I think I’d kill the man who did that to my girl.”
“Yeah, well, that wouldn’t help much since you’d be in prison.”
“So logical!” There was a poignant silence before he said, “So, we gonna do this thing?”
She hesitated before asking, “What thing?”
“Don’t be coy.”
“No, really. Do you mean the attraction between us? A quick hookup or two to relieve the itch? Dating? Something more than that, like a, God forbid, relationship?”
He said a foul word under his breath. “Why do women always have to overanalyze everything?”
“Maybe because we’re the ones who usually get hurt. Look, Adam, I don’t deny there’s this spark between us, but I’ve felt the spark before . . . and been burned. My mother would say I’ve got my Cajun Crazy on again. I do have a thing for Cajun men.”
“So, I’m just one Cajun man, any of whom would do?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I am older and wiser now. I hope. I’m going to be more cautious this time around.”
“You weren’t that cautious in the car last night.”
“Ouch!”
“That’s not an insult.”
“Felt like it. But you’re right. I wasn’t cautious. You caught me off guard. A blip on the radar of my new resolution.”
“I’m afraid to ask . . . what resolution?”
“No more Cajun men.”
“That’s not fair. Besides, I keep telling you, I’m not totally Cajun.”
“Cajun enough. And stop smiling.”
“How do you know I’m smiling?”
“Women’s intuition.”
“What does your women’s intuition tell you that I’m doing right now?”
“Adam!”
“Not that. I have a notepad next to my bed and I just wrote a note to myself. ‘New Resolution: Seduce Simone.’”
“I thought you already did that.”
“Oh, darlin’, I haven’t even begun.”
“Say that again,” she said on a groan.
“Say what?”
“Darlin’. Kinda slow and smoldering.”
Smoldering? How do I smolder? But he gave it a shot. “Dar-lin’,” he repeated, all hokey slow and Clint Eastwood raspy.
There was an odd sound then, and he asked, “What was that noise?’
“The sound of dumb female bones melting.”
Gossip Central, for sure . . .
Louise had a late-day appointment to have her hair done at Charmaine’s Houma salon, Curl Up & Dye. She wasn’t sure whether to go with Red Velvet or Pink Panic today. So many choices!
The first thing she noticed when she entered the shop was the missing life-size St. Jude statue in the lobby. “Charmaine!” she called out. “Better phone the po-lice. Someone stole yer St. Jude.”
“Uh, it’s not really stolen,” Charmaine said, coming out from behind the counter. “I put it in the storage room.”
“Why?” Louise put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes with suspicion.
“A customer complained that it was politically incorrect to have a Catholic statue in a public place.”
“Whaaat?” More lak idjit-incorrect ta be insulted by St. Jude. Didja tell the lady that St. Jude is the patron saint of all hopeless people, not jist Catholics. Holy Sac-au-lait! What’d she want? A Buddha?”
Charmaine put up her hands in surrender. “I’ll bring it back out.”
“Ya better. Otherwise I may hafta stage a protest with mah friends from the Our Lady of the Bayou rosary society.”
“Please, auntie, no protests. The last time ya staged a protest, it was over at Bayou Bob’s Strip Club, and I had ta bail the bunch of you outta jail.”
“We was framed.”
“Yeah, right. Come on back to my station.”
Louise followed her niece, who was all decked out today in a red jumpsuit with high heels, about three pounds of teased-up black hair, and enough jewelry to sink a boat. Charmaine owned at least five of these beauty shops around southern Louisiana, along with a spa up at her husband Rusty’s ranch, The Triple L. A bimbo businesswoman, that’s what Charmaine was, and proud of it.
Louise, on the other hand, was just wearing her pink “Proud to Be a Cajun” sparkly T-shirt over white capri pants and orthopedic shoes with ruffled socks. Simple attire, for her. You could say, her going-to-be-beautified outfit, she chuckled to herself.
And, whoo-boy, did she need to be beautified today! Those beauty shop mirrors showed every little flaw. For example, right now Louise’s face, with its layer of foundation and powder, looked like a white prune. Oh well, she thought, and decided to just squint while she was here so that her view would be filtered, sorta like cataracts . . . the good kind.
Even so, Charmaine oughta invest in some of those magic mirrors that made a person look younger and slimmer. Maybe she would buy her some for her next birthday, though Charmaine claimed not to want any notice taken of her birthdays anymore. Louise knew how she felt. She didn’t like to talk about her age, either. Of course, Charmaine wasn’t old. Always conscious of her appearance, Charmaine had been hiding her age since she was twenty-one and entered her first national beauty contest.
Louise didn’t want to think about what she’d been like when she’d been twenty-one. Happy, for sure. Her fiancé Phillipe Prudhomme had been alive then, and life had been—
“What’s the big occasion?” Charmaine asked as she propped her up on two pillows on a swivel chair, then arranged one of those silky cover-ups over her shoulders. “You usually come in on Saturdays.”
“I gotta be all spiffied up fer mah big date t’morrow night.”
“Lawdy, Lawdy!” Charmaine said under her breath. Then, “Who’s the lucky guy?”
“Well, it’s not a date, exactly. There are a bunch of folks goin’ out on the town t’gether.”
“Y’mean dancing?”
Charmaine held up two hair-color chips, and without speaking, Louise picked the red. Somedays she felt like pink, but at the moment, red was calling to her.
“No, not dancing. Though I could dance if I wanted to, even with these bunions. Nope, it’s ‘Eats and Slots’ night at the Lazy Dazy Steamboat Casino on Lake Charles. Eat ’til yer beat, and slot ’til ya rot. Tee-hee-hee.”
Charmaine groaned at her joke, which was kinda lame, she had to admit. After slathering the hair dye on her head and setting the timer, Charmaine sat down to chat for a moment. Her next client wouldn’t be in for another fifteen minutes.
“And it’s not t’morrow night, exactly, either,” Louise went on. “Older folks like ta get a head start on an evening so they kin be home in time ta watch reruns of The Golden Girls by nine. Of course the men—the old farts—prefer reruns of Charlie’s Angels, the old series, with Farrah Fawcett. Practically porn in its day. Anywa
ys, we’ll prob’ly be headin’ out by three or four. And speakin’ of my gal Farrah, kin ya spruce up mah Farrah wig. It’s beginnin’ ta look scarecrowish.”
Charmaine rolled her eyes, as she often did when Louise rambled on.
Does she think I don’t notice?
Does she think my brain’s so old it don’t know when it meanders from one subject to another?
Do I care?
Louise thought a moment. Nope.
Young folks just didn’t understand that the reason older folks rambled on was that they had to get all their thoughts out at once, just in case they dropped dead unexpectedly. Also, they tended to forget things if they waited for as much as five minutes. Last week, Minnie Holbein went to confession and halfway through forgot where she was and began telling her son Rufus, who lived in Florida, what she thought of his new wife.
“By the way, how’s mah favorite great-great-great niece?” Louise asked, referring to Charmaine’s daughter, Mary Lou. It always saddened her that Charmaine and Rusty had been able to have only one child. They’d certainly tried hard enough. Of course, that might all change if the baby bug spreading around had bit Charmaine, too, like she suspected. But she would wait for Charmaine to bring up the subject. Best not to rile Charmaine while Louise had a pound of dye on her head, or she might walk out of here bald.
“Now, auntie, you say that to all your nieces and nephews. That they’re your faves.”
“Well, in the moment, they are. So, it ain’t lyin’.”
“Mary Lou is her daddy’s girl, as ya know. She refused ta let me enter her in a beauty contest when she was a cute little princess, and I’ve have had less luck during her teen years. All she wants to do is ride horses and work the ranch with her father.” She sighed.
Louise patted Charmaine’s arm. “Pageants ain’t fer everyone.”
“I know, but it feels lak she’s maybe ashamed of mah title.” Charmaine had been Miss Louisiana more than twenty years ago and had enough beauty pageant crowns and titles to furnish a museum. Louise really thought she should make a display of them in her shop window.
“Mary Lou is not ashamed of you. She’s jist followin’ a different path.” It was funny how insecure women always were. Here was Charmaine, a noted beauty who had used her assets to start her own business, then expand it so she was practic’ly an entrepreneur, married to the hottest Cajun cowboy who ever rode a horse, with a daughter who never got in trouble, and she worried that she was lacking in some way. It was Hollywood and all that nonsense on TV, in Louise’s opinion, but that was another pet peeve of hers to be aired another day. “Yer a good mother and allus have been.”
“I s’pose. Anyways, she’s takin’ a gap year before goin’ ta college. She’s thinkin’ about becomin’ a veterinarian.”
“See! Be proud of her, honey, and be proud of the good job you’ve done in raisin’ her.”
Charmaine swiped at her eyes and gave Louise a hug. “I always feel better after talkin’ ta you.”
“Truth to tell, honey, I come ta yer beauty shop on a reg’lar basis ta get mah gossip fix,” Louise said, wanting to lighten Charmaine’s mood. “Where else could I hear everything about everyone? Under the hair dryer.”
“Ain’t that the truth? It’s lak a therapist’s office.”
“So?” Louise prodded.
“Well, ya already knew that Cletus moved out of Addie Daigle’s trailer at The Gates, but didja know . . .”
For ten minutes, after Charmaine filled her in on the latest gossip . . . uh, news, and after rinsing her hair and blowing it dry, Louise remarked, “Speaking of Addie . . . I doan know what I’m gonna do ’bout that daughter of hers.”
“Why? What has Simone done?”
“Nothin’. Thass the point. By now, she should be hop, skip, and jumpin’ t’ward the altar.”
“And she’s not, I take it.”
“I give her a man what’s hotter than asphalt, and what does she do?”
“What?”
“Resists.”
“How do ya know she’s resistin’?”
“Ya get any weddin’ invitation yet?”
“No, but—”
“I’m thinkin’ we need ta plan an intervention.”
“Oh, boy! Fer Simone or Adam?”
“Both of ’em.”
“A double intervention. Is there such a thing?”
“I doan know. Guess we could start with Simone. I got some herbs that we kin slip into her mornin’ coffee.”
“What’s with this ‘we’ business? I’m not druggin’ anyone. Ask her mother ta do it. She’s closest to the office coffeepot, anyway.”
“Hah! Addie thinks her daughter is still married to that Cletus bum.”
“I know, but she’s startin’ ta bend on that issue after havin’ him live with her for a few days. When she was here yesterday, she said he drank so much beer, her recycle bin was overflowin’. And she said it will take her a month ta get rid of the smell of beer farts in her furniture.” Charmaine paused in spritzing hairspray on Louise’s soft red curls and said, “So, herbs in the coffee fer Simone. Is that all?”
“Well, ya know them Laniers are havin’ a pool party on the Fourth of July. I was thinkin’ Adam and Tee-John and Luc and Remy and René could put on some special entertainment.”
“Ya doan mean The Cajun Village People! I thought we retired that act a long time ago.”
“Ya never retire a good thing.” Over the years when someone needed a shove in the love department, the LeDeux family put on their own Cajun version of the old Village People act.
“Ya think ya could talk Simone into doing this?”
“Not Simone. Adam.”
Charmaine perked up with interest. “Do tell, auntie.”
“Well, we could have a special music revue around the pool, and at the end Adam could come out all lawyer-like in a business suit, but then strip down in a little bump and grind ’til he’s down to his . . .”
“His what?”
“What do ya call those skimpy men’s bathing trunks?”
“A Speedo?”
“Thass it.”
“Son of a bayou gun! I’d lak ta see that. But somehow I doan see Adam as the Speedo type.”
Louise shrugged. “I’ll think of somethin’.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Charmaine said.
Chapter Eight
All in a day’s work . . .
Simone did a lot of smiling the next day. Who was she kidding? She’d done some smiling in bed, too, after ending Adam’s late night phone call.
Yeah, he was sexy as hell on wheels. And good-looking. But more than that, or equal to that, he was fun. She enjoyed bantering with him. And, no, she was not imagining what else she would enjoy doing with him.
BaRa was already there when Simone went down to the office at eight-thirty a.m. Her secretary liked to come in early to open up, after dropping off her twin boys at Our Lady of the Bayou School where they were third-graders. She also left at three-thirty to pick them up, but the flexible workday was an inconvenience they could work around. “Looks like someone got some last night,” BaRa observed.
“Hardly,” Simone replied, trying her best to hide the blush that was heating her face. “What’s on the agenda for today?”
BaRa, whose short, dark hair was still damp from a morning shower, wore her usual four-inch heels (to give her some height) with a green, cap-sleeved, office-friendly pantsuit. She went to her desk, which sat in an anteroom just outside Simone’s office and, beyond that, Helene’s. Picking up a folder, she read, “Office meeting at ten with Sabine and Gabe, past reports and future assignments. Those last two job applicants will come in at the tail end of your meeting, as you requested. Noon lunch with Angela Rossi at the restaurant where she works. Two new potential clients scheduled for two and three. And an appointment with Kimly Bien and Thanh Pham at four.
“Oh, and the community college wants to know if you or Helene would like to teach a course in
its women’s studies department next semester, something about women and marriage law. I told them you’d get back to them on that.”
“Good publicity for the firm. Ask Helene if she has time.”
“Okay. The Internet tabloid newspaper Aha! keeps calling, as well. Not sure what they want. Probably just fishing for news.”
“Bad publicity. Not the kind we want, or need.”
“And here’s a tentative schedule for the next three days.” She handed Simone a printout.
BaRa was very efficient and Legal Belles was lucky to have her. She’d been working many years for the insurance agency that had been in this spot previously and hadn’t wanted to relocate to another satellite office in Morgan City. Despite the acrimony between her and her ex-husband, Alan Ozelet, or Ozzie, an oil rigger, she wanted to keep her kids where they could see their father often.
“How did your meeting with Ozzie go last night?”
“Pfff! The bum wants a reconciliation. Claims his cheatin’ days are over. More like, he’s sick of livin’ in an apartment with no one to clean up after him.”
“Maybe he really has changed.”
“Do alligators suddenly wanna cuddle with porcupines?”
“He is good-looking.”
“Looks only go so far. That man’s wiener has been in more buns than Oscar Mayer. And I haven’t had a taste for meat since I kicked his sorry ass out the door.”
BaRa did have a way with words. Must be hanging around Tante Lulu too much . . . or Simone’s own mother, truth be told.
“And he claims I need a man around to protect me. Hah! I got a bat in my car, and a pistol in my bedside table. That’s all the protection I need.”
“And the boys?”
“Ah, well, that’s another story. They do love their daddy.” With a sigh, BaRa informed her, “There’s fresh coffee in the kitchen, and an extra breakfast baguette from Sweet Buns.”
“Thanks,” she said and headed in that direction. The coffee she would welcome, the baguette she would bypass, despite her rumbling stomach.
Adelaide Daigle came ambling in at nine. They didn’t really need a receptionist and a secretary at this point, but Simone didn’t have the heart to fire her mother. And, besides, she was working for practically nothing.
