Swamp Happens: The Complete Swamp Bottom Series

by Cora Kenborn

  “Son of a bitch!” I screamed, disconnecting the call. I winced as a sharp pain doubled me over, but I was too focused on my anger to care. God, I wished rotary phones still existed, because I really needed to slam a receiver down and then smack it against Duck’s head.

  Duck had a good life.

  Twenty-five years was enough time to have experienced all he needed to. It’d have to be because when I got my hands on him, I was going to twist his head around until it popped off and then feed it to Fluffy. Assuming, of course, there’d be anything left after Savannah was finished with him.

  Savannah’s wedding book still sat in front of me, and I couldn’t help but feel like I’d let my sister down. I was the maid of honor. I was in charge of making her day beautiful and a moment she’d never forget.

  Well, she’d never forget it, all right.

  But then again, maybe Savannah’s wedding, with all its wrongness, would turn out to be all right. Perfect. Forever. Mainly because my wedding to Roland was a fairytale that turned out to be a nightmare.

  I had the perfect church wedding with five hundred attendees. Hell, even the governor of Louisiana came. I had a cake that cost more than most people’s cars, and we spent three weeks in Fiji for our honeymoon. However, none of it meant anything. Savannah was going to get married in a steel cage with a camo cake and no chance of a honeymoon, but I’d bet my last dollar it would last forever.

  I closed the book just as I heard the water turn off upstairs, and shifted to climb them when it hit.

  The tightness. The constricting. The pain.

  Oh God, the pain.

  Grabbing onto the table, I slapped around with one hand until I found my pregnancy bible and breathed through a few sharp pains that almost brought me to my knees. I frantically flipped through the pages and scanned the paragraph I was looking for.

  Time. Time. Time. How long had it been? Scrolling through my phone, I looked at the time of my call to the bakery and then at the current time.

  Twenty minutes.

  No! No, no, no, no!

  I was Adelaide Dubois, and I was always in control. I could handle this. Placing both hands on my stomach, I tilted my head down and cleared my voice. “Charles Beaudean, this is your mother, and I’m telling you to stop this right now. Your aunt is getting married in less than four hours and you can’t do this to me.”

  Half of me wondered if I should call for Zep, but I knew he’d just make me go to the hospital, and I refused to let Savannah down. She was counting on me. Taking a deep breath, I waited five more minutes, and when everything remained calm, I stood up.

  “It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is normal.” Stacking all of my wedding materials, I climbed the stairs to finish getting ready for my sister’s jailhouse wedding.

  Yep, perfectly normal.

  72

  Truly, Madly, Deeply

  Savannah

  Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana

  She’s late.

  Glancing up, I inspected the giant institutional clock above the entrance for the four thousandth time in the past eighteen hours. My infallible sister was late. I had less than two hours to transform from cell block Sally to an ethereal goddess, and she was nowhere to be found.

  I rested my cheek against the cool steel bars of my cell, allowing myself a moment to wallow in the series of unfortunate events that led to me being locked up in the county jail on my wedding day.

  All of my worst decisions could be traced back to the influence of one person.

  On one of my few trips home from college, I’d decided to bring along my roommate against my better judgment. Three bottles of homemade strawberry wine, two cross joints, and a nonsensical pep talk from the one and only Babs Dubois later, and we’d hijacked a tractor for a midnight joyride. At the time, getting busted by Sheriff Tucker and slapped with a hefty destruction of property restitution bill didn’t seem like that big of a deal. Of course, that might have been because my roommate had assured me she would take care of everything with the fat trust fund she had burning a hole in her pocket. However, because Heather was and always will be Heather, she paid off the farmer but neglected to follow through and pay the county for the fines incurred. Unfortunately, her carelessness left me with a bench warrant for my arrest, hence the jailhouse blues.

  I was going to wring Heather’s scrawny little neck with my bare hands when she showed up. Her plane was set to land any minute, and if I weren’t stuck in a motherfucking eight by ten cell, I would’ve been at the airport to strangle her as soon as she set foot on the tarmac.

  I let out a groan of frustration, the headache that had been brewing behind my eyes starting to pulse. “She hasn’t responded yet?”

  “Calm nipples, she be here soon,” Babs grumbled from a wood bench by the door. She’d come barging in looking like a glitter bomb at six in the morning. Since Deputy Dickhead had royally fucked us all, the sheriff assigned him to overnight babysitting duty. According to the sheriff, it wasn’t often they had to detain someone, so the station wasn’t normally staffed at night.

  Gotta love small towns.

  Daddy had hovered around my nervous wreck of a mother since they’d arrived twenty minutes prior. The woman was a mess. She couldn’t look at me without breaking out in bone aching sobs. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming. Nothing had gone as planned, and I was thirty seconds away from taking Babs up on her jailbreak offer.

  I glared once more at the clock on the wall. “She’s late.”

  The metal door swung open suddenly, clanging loudly against the cinderblock wall. Cast in the silhouette of the mid-morning sun was my sister, legs braced apart, hand on her enormous belly, and hair slightly askew.

  “I’m here!” She announced unnecessarily.

  I growled in frustration, sick of being locked behind steel bars. “You’re late.”

  “I’m so sorry, princess. I was up late calling your two hundred guests with the venue change.”

  Guilt bubbled in my gut as she waddled her way into the room. The dark circles cast beneath her eyes were evident, even though she looked like she’d used a heavy hand with the concealer. This convict business was turning me into a selfish asshole, and I didn’t like the slimy feeling it left on my skin.

  Zep followed behind the human incubator while pushing several boxes into the small space on a hand truck.

  Addie quickly scanned the room, and I could practically see the gears spinning behind her eyes as she assessed the space. “Go ahead and stack those against that wall,” she instructed Zep before crossing the room to my metal cage. “Okay, I brought everything you need. Your dress has been steamed, and Zep will bring it in from the truck in just a sec. We need to start getting you ready because people will start arriving in a couple of hours.” Spotting Doogie in the corner of the room, she snapped her fingers and motioned to my cell. “Come on. We don’t have all day.”

  He sat up straight from his slumped position and opened his mouth as if he were going to respond but promptly shut it when the sound of boots clomping up the stairs to the open front door echoed in the small space.

  Addie spun to face the new arrival, her face shifting from stern to charming in the blink of an eye. I had to give my sister credit. She hadn’t wasted those ten years as a Stepford wife. She’d used the time to refine her Southern charm in a big way. When she put her mind to it, my neurotic sister could woo even the crankiest of foes.

  “Ah Sheriff Tucker, just the man I was looking for. We need to get Savvy ready for her big day, but I can’t exactly do that with her stuck behind bars.” The megawatt smile she tossed the old man packed enough force to knock him on his ass.

  “Of course.” He nodded and sifted through the keys at his belt. “Let’s get you out of there, and I’ll show you ladies where you can get ready.”

  I could almost hear the older man’s joints creaking as he shuffled to where I stood. The sheriff should’ve retired years ago, but the stubborn old fool refused, citing a la
ck of promising successors. One look at Doogie The Dumbass, and I couldn’t help but silently thank Tucker for sticking it out for the sake of the residents of Terrebonne Parish.

  I tried to give him a grateful smile, but it came out as more of a grimace than anything.

  Dipping his head closer to mine, Sheriff Tucker spoke in a low and craggy voice. “I’m sorry about all this, Savvy girl. I truly am.”

  My lips pulled into a warm smile, and I felt my sinuses start to prickle, a warning of tears to come. “I know. It’s not your fault.”

  “No, it’s that dipshit nephew of mine’s fault. If there was another way around it, you gotta know…”

  Placing my hand on his shoulder, I gave it a soft squeeze. “I know, Tuck.”

  He grunted, moving away when Addie approached out of nowhere and laid the garment bag containing my dress over my arms.

  She turned to Zep, Mama, Daddy, and Jacquelyn, who’d arrived unnoticed, and pointed to the boxes she’d instructed Zep to lug in. “You guys get started on the decorations. Clear the sheriff and deputy’s desks and set them up for the cake and presents. There are tablecloths in the boxes.”

  When no one moved, Babs elbowed her disco ball self through the wall of stunned faces and clapped her hands together. “You hear Mama Gator, tock, tock!”

  Addie and I shared a look, neither of us quite sure which part of her command to correct first.

  “Right, of course. You two just worry about getting our bride ready to go. We’ll handle the rest.” Jacqelyn spoke first, scanning the small cinderblock building. “Yeah, we’ve got this.”

  Sheriff Tucker took Addie by the elbow and steered her toward the lone hallway. “This way, girls, you can use the bathroom in the back.”

  A feeling of dread sank in my stomach as I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Jacquelyn tipping back a silver flask and pouring a healthy shot of clear liquid down her throat before passing it off to Babs. If they convinced Mama to have more than a nip or two to calm her nerves, there was no telling what they could brew up in the time it took to get me showered and dressed.

  Pushing the door at the end of the hall open, he nodded toward the tiny bathroom. “It’s not much, but it’s clean.”

  A look of anguish passed over Addie’s face, but she quickly masked it. “This is fine, thank you.”

  She didn’t give me time to think about her snobby reaction. With a hand between my shoulder blades, she shoved me into the claustrophobic room and slammed the door behind us. Collapsing onto the closed toilet seat, she began rummaging through her giant bag. “Get in the shower. I brought everything you’ll need.” She sounded out of breath, but if the past few months were any indication, making a note of this fact would end with me walking down the aisle sporting a fresh black eye, so I chose to keep my observations to myself.

  Peering past the soap scum stained shower curtain into the tiled stall, I grimaced. “Do you think I should leave my shoes on? Public showers are supposed to be breeding grounds for foot fungus.” A shiver ran through my body, and I wiggled my fungus free toes in my shoes trying to rid myself of the creepy-crawly sensation.

  When she didn’t answer, I turned back to where she was perched on the toilet. Her face was scrunched up, and sweat beaded a thin line across her upper lip.

  I reached out to her, my heart racing with concern. “Ads, are you okay? Do you want me to get Zep?”

  Her arm whipped up, and she clamped a hand around my wrist. Her grip was tighter than the cuffs had been and made me wince a little.

  “No!” she demanded. Her tone was nothing short of demonic, and there was a solid chance I might have peed myself. “No Zep, I’m fine.” The cloud of suffering lifted, and her eyes sparkled once again. “This kid is just using my organs as punching bags, nothing to worry about. Now, you need to get your ass in the shower. It’s going to take at least an hour for your hair and make-up, and we’re already running late.”

  Knowing better than to argue with a pregnant woman, I complied, making no further comment about foot fungus.

  The nervous butterflies that had been fluttering around in my stomach all morning turned into a horde of hornets raging war on my nerves as I shampoo’ed my hair for the second time at my sister’s command. Apparently, the instructions said rinse and repeat for a reason, but if you asked me, it was a ploy to get you to buy more product. However, Addie quickly reminded me that my resistance to her plan was not appreciated.

  “Do you think I’m doing the right thing?” I blurted out. I didn’t realize how worried I was about the whole event until I said the words. At first, I wasn’t sure she’d heard me over the running water, but before I could repeat myself, she cleared her throat.

  “Marrying Pope, or doing it in jail?”

  I didn’t have to think about her question. The answer was clear. “The jail part.”

  She sighed heavily on the other side of the curtain, and I could almost hear her rolling her eyes at me. “It’s absolutely insane.” I felt the hornets rise and swarm my heart, ready to tear it apart. “But, that’s you. I can’t believe I’m about to say this out loud, and if you tell anyone I said it I’ll deny it, but I kind of admire you for it. You’re ballsy. You don’t care what anyone thinks, and I’ve always envied you for that. Take my wedding to Ro—”

  “Don’t say his name on my wedding day. It’s bad luck,” I interrupted.

  “Okay. Anyway, my wedding was a fairytale come true. I had the perfect venue, flowers, food, dress, and it was all empty because there was no real love there. You and Pope? That’s real. The love you have for each other is authentic and true. Where you decide to promise forever doesn’t matter. It’s the promise that’s important.”

  The water from the shower camouflaged the tears that streamed down my face. I hadn’t even known how much I valued her opinion of me until then. Reaching out, I pulled the shower curtain open a few inches, letting her see the same emotion in my eyes that were reflected in hers. “Thanks, Ads.”

  She clutched the flat iron she’d been unpacking to her chest and gave me a watery smile. We weren’t usually the waterworks type, but lately, my emotions had risen to the surface, remaining exposed and raw all the time. I didn’t like it. I wanted my thick shield of sarcasm and self-deprecation to form a cocoon around all the squishy parts that had me in a puddle of feelings at the drop of a hat.

  “I love you, Sav, but if you don’t hurry, you’ll walk down the aisle with flat hair, and then you’ll never hear the end of it from Mama.”

  Knowing she spoke the truth, I hurried through the rest of the routine Addie had set out for me. I scrubbed, buffed, shaved, conditioned, and smoothed every inch of my body in record time.

  “Her hair isn’t high enough. It’s tease, spray, tease, spray, Adelaide. You know this,” Mama fretted from her perch on the side of the tub.

  “I think she needs more highlighter,” Jacquelyn noted. She was sitting with an arm wrapped around my mother like they were long lost sorority sisters.

  After getting out of the shower several layers of skin lighter, the mother of all hen parties had descended upon the micro-sized bathroom. Before I knew what was happening, my mother, Pope’s mother, and Babs crowded in and proceeded to discuss and debate every aspect of my appearance. I currently stood in front of the mirror in my wedding dress with commercial grade paper towels stuffed into the neckline to protect the gauzy white material from the ten layers of makeup my sister tried to spackle on my face.

  “You guys, stop!” I snapped, knocking the makeup brush Addie wielded out of her hand.

  The women surrounding me stilled, and four sets of eyes stared unwaveringly.

  It’s now or never.

  “Look, I appreciate all of you and everything you’ve done, but this is my wedding day, even if the venue is less than ideal. I don’t want to walk out there looking like a contestant on Toddlers and Tiaras. Mama, I love you, but my hair doesn’t need to have its own zip code.” Seeing the crestfallen look on my mo
ther’s face had me reeling in the rest of my rant and taking a deep breath. “Can you guys just give me a minute?”

  The stunned women exchanged looks, but before anyone could say or do anything in response, Babs hopped off the windowsill where she’d been blowing the smoke from an expertly rolled joint through the screen and shooed everyone out. She gave me a covert wink and a nod toward her still burning joint before leaving me alone for the first time in what felt like days.

  As tempted as I was to calm the buzzing feeling under my skin, I didn’t want to walk down the aisle with anything other than a clear head. Resolved in my decision, but not quite trusting my newly found follow-through skills, I snatched the roach and dropped it into the toilet so I couldn’t be tempted.

  “Savannah?” Pope’s deep voice called through the door causing me to jump.

  The door started to open, but I was too far away to stop it. It was bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding, and I’d be damned if I’d let any more bad luck descend upon the day. I searched around the room, zeroing in on the shower and lunged, pulling the curtain shut behind me just as the door swung open and I heard Pope’s shoes on the tiled floor.

  “Savannah?” Pope called out again, this time his voice tinged with more than a little panic.

  “I’m in here,” I called out, watching his blurry silhouette through the white plastic curtain.

  “Why are you in the shower?” he asked, just as I saw his hand curl on the side of the curtain. On instinct, I smacked his away. “Ouch, what the hell?”

  I cringed. I wanted the day to be perfect, but instead, I ended up assaulting my husband-to-be in the bathroom of a police station. “It’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding.”

  He groaned in frustration but didn’t move to try the curtain again. I held my breath as I watched his shadow pace the small room. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I know this isn’t what you envisioned, but—”