by Cora Kenborn
Picking up a piece of bacon, I paused and winced as I turned to Kevin. Typically, I tried to avoid eating pork products in front of him. “Sorry, bud, but I need this more than I care about your feelings right now.”
“So, you want to tell me what had you driving all the way home in the middle of the night? I assume it was the same thing that had your grandmother calling to inform me you might be dead on her couch because you drank your weight in vodka.”
I knew it was coming. I’d just hoped to avoid it for as long as humanly possible. But my mother, while sweet and innocent on the outside, was a deviant mastermind. I’d been sitting on the couch so long that my thighs were vacuum sealed to the plastic covering, and there was nowhere to run.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Babs reach into the knitting basket beside her armchair and pull out a tiny bottle of vodka. With a smile, she poured the contents into her coffee cup. She’d clearly settled in for the show.
Relenting to my fate, I unloaded the whole sordid tale about the picture Kevin found, Pope’s unwillingness to introduce me to his family, and finally, what happened at the barbecue.
Cue the violins.
My mother covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh my, what did he say?”
I crinkled up my face, confused. “What do you mean ‘what did he say?’”
She raised a quizzical brow. “When you asked him about his parents, he told you that they were out of town. The young man at the barbecue contradicted that, so what did he say when you talked to him about it?”
I blinked. I had a feeling the next answer to come out of my mouth wasn’t going to be the one she wanted to hear. “I didn't. I just left and came here.”
Her eyelids closed, and I could hear the gears grinding in her head. “Oh Savannah, you didn't. You didn't even wait to get his side of the story?”
“Why would I? It’s just gonna be more lies.”
Mama was not impressed. Straightening her shoulders, she folded her hands in her lap before pinning me with a stern stare. “What if they came back early?”
I threw my hands in the air, frustrated that, again, no one saw the situation from my side. “What does it matter? Even if they did come home early, he would’ve known and still didn’t tell me. A lie of omission is still a lie.”
“Hmm.” Mama’s understanding and kind face had turned into one of judgment.
Oh shit, here we go.
“Sounds to me like you’re just looking for an excuse to cause trouble. So, tell me, Savannah, what are you really afraid of?”
I gripped my coffee mug so tightly I feared it would break. “How did this become about me? He’s the one who lied.”
“You don’t know because you don’t ask,” Babs chimed in.
“Take it from two women who have collectively been married for close to a hundred years,” Mama lectured. “You’re jumping to conclusions because you’ve already predicted the outcome of your relationship. You’re just looking for an excuse not to try so you won’t get hurt. You need to ask yourself if you really want to be with Pope or not because the only thing standing in your way is you.”
Et tu, Brute?
“I want to be with him,” I admitted sheepishly.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes.”
Mama didn’t let up. “Then what’s the problem?”
“I think he’s embarrassed by me,” I blurted it out. It took a minute for it to sink in. That was really the root of the problem. I worried that the reason Pope didn’t want to introduce me to his family was because he didn’t want them to know he’d been slumming it with swamp trash.
She stood from the couch and straightened her skirt. “Mmmhmm, sounds like you have a few things to think about. I’ve got to head over to the church, but I’ll be back later this afternoon to check on you. Okay, sweet thing?”
“Yeah, Mama, thanks.”
She dropped a kiss on the top of my head before sashaying out the door like she hadn’t just dropped a bomb of epic proportions right on top of my goddamn head.
I’d already had the coffee and grease from the bacon, but I still needed that little extra something to pull me completely out of my hangover. I searched the cabinets, not caring that I let them slam behind me, until I found what I was looking for.
A can of Funfetti frosting.
Just what the doctor ordered.
Grabbing a knife from the drawer, I shuffled my way to the front porch. Just as I plopped my happy ass down and shoved a spoonful of sugar and red dye number five in my mouth, a hissing noise sounded behind me. I jumped like my ass was on fire and spun to see Fluffy’s sharp teeth and beady little gator eyes staring at me through the porch railing.
“Christ on a cracker!”
He’d ninja’ed up behind me, and if it weren’t for the rickety railing, he probably would’ve bitten my head off. The little fucker had murderer tattooed all over his reptilian face.
Storming back into the house, I shouted for my grandmother. “Babs! Where’s the shotgun? I’m going to kill your little fiend before he eats me.”
She popped her head out from the kitchen. “Why you bitch so loud?”
I rolled my eyes and flopped onto the sticky plastic couch. “Because your little pet gator just tried to bite my face off.”
“He get you? I get vodka. It will make better.”
I sighed. Maybe Addie had a point. Maybe I did tend to overreact just a teeny bit. “He didn’t actually bite me. He just scared the ever-loving shit out of me.”
Babs harumphed and disappeared back into the kitchen mumbling to herself. “Pussy.”
“What was that?”
Instead of pretending like she hadn’t said anything like a normal person, Babs barreled back out of the kitchen and pointed a crooked finger at me. “I call you big, fat, gaping pussy. You raised in swamp whole life, and you afraid of little baby gator.”
“Little? He’s fucking four feet long!”
“Bah! Still baby. Teeth not yet break bones, he harmless.”
“Whatever, as long as he stays out there. I don’t want him seeing Kevin and getting pork fever.”
She waved me off and turned back to whatever she was doing in the kitchen. “In Russia, we wrestle bear for vodka. Americans too soft.”
I leaned back and flipped on the TV, prepared to spend the day wallowing and watching Dr. Phil talk counsel a teenager who thought her unborn child was the antichrist.
Because that was what any well-adjusted, twenty-five-year-old woman would do—sit on her grandmother's couch eating junk food and watch daytime television on a Tuesday afternoon.
I’d deal with the remnants of my shattered heart tomorrow. I just needed a mental health day.
And maybe some vodka.
28
Liquid Courage
Adelaide
I-310 toward Terrebonne Parish
The next morning, I found myself driving southwest down I-310, attempting to decipher my grandmother’s garbled curses as Pope sulked beside me in the passenger’s seat.
After forcing Zep to go home, I’d dragged a dazed Pope off my front porch and blew up Savannah’s phone with a string of unanswered calls and texts. I’d just hung up from call number ten and prepared to dive into text number fifteen when she finally called back to say she’d driven back to Terrebonne and to stop being a stalker.
Says the woman who lost her shit over a photo.
I’d listened to all she had to say, then promptly called Pope to come pick me up. Without a word, we’d jumped in his squad car and hit the road. Savannah was about to mess up a good thing with Pope, and it was my job as her big sister to drive to Terrebonne and knock some sense into her.
But first, I needed backup.
“Keep her busy, Babs,” I instructed, balancing my phone between my chin and my shoulder as I changed lanes. “And don’t tell her we’re coming. You know she’s a flight risk.”
“Bah, I know how to handle my Savvy,” she replied as I heard the fron
t door slam and the creak of her old rocking chair. “Since you are out, stop by store. I buy you vodka.”
“I don’t want any vodka,” I said, eyeing Pope as he jabbed random buttons on the radio with a tight jaw and flared nostrils.
“Okay, since you go anyway, bring me some.”
“What the… You know what? Never mind.” Wisely deciding not to pick an argument with my grandmother, I held my tongue and sighed instead.
I couldn’t help but wonder how my sister had handled the inquisition I was sure she’d faced from our mother. Considering the lack of privacy that Dubois dwellings offered, I imagined it went over like the proverbial fart in church.
“What’s she doing?”
“Being pain in ass.” Babs never minced words.
“Shocker.”
“Your sister no trust easy. When she think she will get hurt, she split like refugee. Be careful, Addie. You come in with bitch-face and tell her what to do, she tell you to suck her ass.”
“Kiss her ass,” I corrected, lifting an eyebrow as Pope pounded his fist against the radio buttons again.
“That too.”
The conversation had gone on long enough. In order to make it home with Pope’s car fully intact, I needed to end the call and diffuse the ball of anxiety sitting beside me before he demolished the dashboard. “I’ll call when I’m near Terrebonne, all right?”
Silence filled the line as Babs rattled a disapproving grumble at my dismissal. “How is bearded clam digger?”
Nope. We are not having this conversation right now.
“Not now, Babs.”
“Fine. I wait until you get home with vodka.” As if struck with inspiration, she added, “You need doll?”
Yes. One for each day of the week.
“No, no more voodoo dolls, Babs. You need to find a new hobby.”
With a grunt, she reminded me not to forget the vodka and hung up. Guilt ate at me. I should’ve told Babs I wasn’t coming alone, but I had no clue what story Savvy had spun to her. I wasn’t sure if newly whittled Pope voodoo dolls would be hung around the house by their necks. The poor guy hadn’t officially been immersed into the Dubois special brand of crazy yet, and I wanted to preserve his innocence for as long as possible.
“Your grandmother practices voodoo?” Pope asked, sporting an impressive deer in the headlights look.
I shook my head. “Not important.”
I pressed the gas pedal a little harder as the driver of an oversized SUV zoomed past us and glared at me while flipping me off. Seemingly satisfied with my pathetic answer, Pope changed the radio station four different times before turning it off the moment a bubblegum pop singer asked his fictional woman if it was too late to say sorry. Glaring out the window, he swore and punched the glass.
This is worse than I thought.
“Hey, what did the Biebs ever do to you?”
“Why does every damn song remind me of her now? I didn’t hear any of that shit while spending hours driving around on patrol, but now…” He scrubbed a hand down his face and growled. “Is every song ever created about love or losing love? Don’t stations play songs about asses and thongs anymore?”
Whoa, unhinged boyfriend, party of one, your table is now available.
“Calm down. You can’t go into my grandmother’s house full throttle like this. Babs has a shotgun, you know.”
As if divine enlightenment suddenly rained down on him, Pope’s jerked his head up, and his eyebrows drew together. “Why are you driving my car?”
“Because I’m the designated sane monkey in this circus.”
Wrinkling his forehead, he clasped his fidgeting hands in his lap. “I feel like an asshole sitting in the passenger’s seat, Addie. I don’t know what to do with myself. I should be driving. Men drive when they’re upset. Women do shit like—I don’t know—bake. Why couldn’t you have baked and let me drive?”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re way too upset to get behind the wheel, dude. Besides, knowing how you and my sister operate, you’d do something crazy like turn on the siren and drive through the front yard. Tipping Savannah off before we have her cornered is a surefire way to end your conversation before it starts. We need the element of surprise on our side.” Determined to distract him, I reached across the seat and grinned as I lightly punched his shoulder. “Anyway, did you see the way you parked this car in my driveway, Dale Earnhardt, Jr?”
“Whatever.”
I gave myself a mental pat on the back for managing to diffuse an irate police officer in his own car.
Round one—Addie.
I wracked my brain for a Savannah-free topic of conversation when my phone chimed with an incoming text. Snatching it from the cup holder, I bounced my eyes from the highway to the screen, staring at the words in silence.
Where the fuck are you?
Darkening the screen, I tossed it back into the cup holder and fumed. Things between Zep and me were already strained after what happened at the creek, and his steel look when I threw him out of my house told me we weren’t done.
He’d texted me non-stop since peeling out of my driveway. The messages started out concerned and quickly devolved into a tirade of F-bombs and inquiries concerning my desire to make him truly lose his shit. Eventually, I’d have to deal with him, but for now, I had a strict “one irrational alpha male per hour” policy.
“What if I’ve lost her, Addie?” Pope asked, breaking through my jumbled thoughts.
Deciding the best defense to his crazy was a solid offense, I tossed out a challenge. “Would it be the end of the world?”
His face contorted in horror. “What? Of course, it would! Look, I know Savvy and I have only been together a few months, but this is the real thing. I feel it.”
I wanted to push him and ask what exactly went down at the barbecue, but he wasn’t ready. If I came on too strong, he’d shut me out, and he and Savannah would end up arguing until one of them walked away.
The good thing about men was that they were easily distracted.
“Tell me about the first time you saw her.”
Shiny thing. Shiny thing. Shiny thing.
“You were shoving stolen silver into a suitcase while a pig chewed on a shoe that cost more than my car.”
“First of all, I didn’t steal shit. Those things technically belonged to me, and—wait, we’re talking about you here.”
“It was worth a shot.”
I offered my most convincing puppy dog face. “Look, just humor me, okay?”
His sigh told me he knew I wasn’t taking no for an answer. “I didn’t want to come to Sugarbirch on that call. The whole force thinks the Bordeauxs are a bunch of pretentious assholes. No offense.”
I shrugged. I couldn’t argue with the facts. “None taken.”
“I’ve known people like your ex my whole life. They look down on people without money as if they aren’t worth looking in the eye.” He gave a humorless laugh. “That air of superiority is why I became a cop. People need men in uniform to stand up for them against the Roland Bordeauxs of the world.”
Houston, we have a problem.
“Savannah,” I reiterated. “Focus, Pope.”
“I’m getting there,” he said, giving me a sharp side-eye. “At first, all I saw were you and the pig. You seemed nice enough, but I’d never had anything take my breath away like Savannah.”
“Gee, thanks.”
He grinned. “No offense, Addie. You can hold your own, but there was just something about Savannah. She had this ‘fuck it’ attitude that drew me in. She was funny and forward, and I’d never met anyone like her before.”
“Do you realize you haven’t said a word about the way she looked?”
His eyebrows shot up and then relaxed as his lips curved in a knowing smile. “Savannah is gorgeous, don’t get me wrong. A man would have to be blind not to see that. But beauty doesn’t make me rush home after a shift. It doesn’t make me the nastiest gumbo I’ve ever tasted just to get me to talk.
And it doesn’t make me want to protect her from anyone who’d dare try to crush her free spirit.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at him. He was cute, but I’d grown up with Savvy’s free spirit my whole life. A bulldozer couldn’t crush it. “Savvy’s too headstrong to change.”
“They all say that,” he said, a sad look crossing his face. “But the outside pressure to be something someone else wants you to be can break even the strongest person.”
Pope wasn’t one to say stuff for no reason. There was a story there, and just as I opened my mouth to ask about it, my phone chimed again.
Fine. Ignore me, and I take matters into my own hands. Drove to your house this morning. Obviously, you weren’t there, but Sav gave me a key for emergencies. That was some nasty shit, Addie. Do you ever fucking clean your place?
I sighed heavily and turned my phone off. The man was incapable of respecting boundaries. “Are we still talking about Savannah?”
“Addie, I love Savannah, and if she forgives me, I’ll spend the rest of my life proving all she is, is all I need.”
“That’s is,” I said, dipping my chin in confirmation.
“What?”
“That’s what you should tell her.”
Pope’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. I knew he was sincere, but I also knew my sister. I hoped she hadn’t gone so far off the rails that she wouldn’t listen.
With his silence marking the end of our impromptu bonding moment, I took a right turn off the exit to Terrebonne and pulled onto a side street near a brick strip mall.
Blowing out a hard breath, Pope glanced out the window with a blank look. “Do we need something?”
Maybe Babs wasn’t crazy after all.
“Yep.” Pulling into a parking space, I cut the engine. “Liquid courage.”
“Why you buy cheap shit?”
I rolled my eyes at my grandmother. “There wasn’t much of a selection.”
“Cow shit! You squeeze penny ’til it cry. You cheap like Pappy, God rest his soul.” Wrinkling her nose at the offending bottle, Babs mumbled in Russian and flung the screen door open, leaving us standing on the front porch.