The Red-Hot Cajun

by Sandra Hill

  “That’s why you gave up on the lobbying work.”

  He nodded.

  “So what if nothing is done? A lot of the people we’ve interviewed so far think the problem is too overwhelming or they have an air of fatalism about it.”

  “If nothing is done, it would cost billions in lost jobs, infrastructure, fishing, wildlife, hurricane damage, just to name a few.”

  She frowned with confusion. “Who is the enemy in this war? Who would threaten you, us, for doing this documentary?”

  “Probably the oil companies or the residential and commercial developers, or the politicians who’d rather sit on their behinds and wait for a solution to land in their laps, cost-free. It’s money, money, money.”

  He stopped and shook his head. “I’m lecturing you, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah, but you’re good.”

  Good is... well, good, I guess. Yep, 1 am good. “So, do you miss New York?”

  “Not yet. I’m having too much fun.”

  He grinned.

  She punched him in the upper arm. “I wasn’t referring to that. I’m enjoying the work.”

  “Don’t you always enjoy your work?”

  She paused, as if she needed to think before answering. “Not lately.”

  “Maybe you should move back to Louisiana,” he offered before he had a chance to bite his fool tongue.

  She laughed. “No way! Then I would have to be within visiting distance of my mother and the rest of the family. Talk about hell on earth!”

  Rene was oddly hurt by her reply. At the same time, he recalled what she’d said about her mother and a closet. He loathed anyone who would do that to a child. The treatment he and his brothers had suffered under Valcour LeDeux was nothing compared to that, mainly because they were little boys who could run fast and because they had Tante Lulu as a safety net.

  “How about you? Would you ever move to a city again?”

  It was his turn to laugh. “I would die if I had to plant myself in a city on a permanent basis. It’s suffocating even on short visits.”

  They held eye contact for a long, poignant moment.

  He was the first to speak. “It doesn’t say much for our future, does it?”

  An expression of surprise swept over her face. “Did you think we had a future?”

  Yeah. Pitiful of me, huh? “Of course not.”

  Now she looked a little bit hurt.

  Tante Lulu came slogging through the sand then in her bare feet. Her hair was still jet-black, which was a wonder; she usually changed it on a daily basis. She wore a black-and-white polka-dot skirted bathing suit with a sheer black cover-up. A huge straw hat covered her black curls. There were liver spots and wrinkled white skin everywhere, he noticed sadly. He didn’t want to look closely for fear he’d be struck dead for seeing his aunt in such a state of undress.

  Instead he glanced over at Tee-John who was—surprise, surprise—hustling Ms Bikini. Good Lord!

  Was I ever that full of myself ?

  Yep! that nagging voice in his head remarked.

  “Why the bathing suit?” he asked his aunt.

  “I was gonna take a quick dip, but I changed my mind. J.B. ‘n’ Maddie are ready to go.” Tante Lulu swiped sweat off her forehead with her sleeve. He should get her out of the sun as soon as possible. “I saw J.B. touchin’ Maddie’s hiney when they din’t know I was lookin’.” She narrowed her eyes at him then.

  Oh no! She wouldn’t.

  “You ain’t bin touchin’ Val’s hiney, have you?”

  Yep, she would.

  Val made a choking sound beside him.

  He cleared his throat and came up with the perfect answer. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “My feet is burnin’ in this sand,” Tante Lulu complained. “You’d best carry me.”

  Val looked at him and smiled.

  Sometimes he really liked her smiles. Not at this moment, though.

  So they left the beach on Grand Isle with him carrying an eighty-year-old woman wearing a polka-dot bathing suit that she’d probably bought in 1950. And, actually, he loved it.

  The big bang

  Valerie was ready to move on to the next stage of their project.

  For the past week, they’d cruised up one bayou and down another. Bayou Lafourche. Bayou Petit Caillou. Bayou Teche. Bayous that had no name.

  Sometimes they traveled in J.B. and Maddie’s boat, sometimes in other boats. Rene never seemed to get tired of showing off the swampland he loved, but Val and Justin were about bayoued out. Tante Lulu was making noises about weeding her garden, and Tee-John had a “hot date” coming up soon. J.B. and Maddie were content as long as they were together. Val swore they were the touchingest people she ever did see, which was kind of nice, really.

  They’d even interviewed a number of Vietnamese fishermen. After the fall of Saigon, many Vietnamese people sought refuge in this country and many of them, fishermen back home, came to this area. How unfortunate that the haven they’d sought here might just be melting away... not really a haven after all.

  Now they were all tucked in, or about to be tucked in, at the Nighty Night Motel. She of course got to room with Tante Lulu. Luck y me! Her brain must be melting in this heat because she was coming to think the old lady wasn’t so bad.

  Speak of the old lady! She came out of the bathroom wearing a child-size terry cloth robe, white cream all over her face, and her now red hair rolled up in pink foam rollers. That must be what had taken her so long in there. She’d been dyeing her hair. Lordy, Lordy!

  “What are yer intentions?” she asked right off the bat, sitting down on the other twin bed in the room, across from her.

  “About what?”

  “Rene”

  Oh, good Lord! She laughed. “Isn’t that the question that’s supposed to be addressed to the male in a relationship?”

  Tante Lulu shrugged. “I’m a women’s liver.”

  It was probably a bad sign that she actually understood her. “You mean, women’s libber?”

  “Thass what I said,” she snapped. “So, spit it out, what are yer intentions toward that boy? I doan want him hurt.”

  “Boy?” I don’t think so. In fact, I know so. “Tante Lulu,” she said, as gently as she could without giving in to her inclination to tell her it was none of her business, “Rene and I are just... friends.”

  Tante Lulu made a snorting sound of disbelief. “That boy looks at you like yer a snow cone on a hot N’awlins day. And you ain’t no better. I swear you ogle him like he’s eye candy.”

  He is eye candy. But I don’t ogle. 1 definitely do not ogle. “He’s an attractive man. That’s all.”

  She made the snorting sound of disbelief again.

  “Listen, I’ve grown fond of Rene, and—”

  “No, no, no! This ain’t ‘fond’. This is love.”

  Valerie threw her hands in the air. “Rene and I are thirty-five years old. I think we’re old enough to know our own minds.”

  “Thass another thing. The men in the LeDeux fam’ly are womanizers fer sure, but when the right one comes along, even when they’s thirty-five years old, they grab and hold on tight. Once the thunderbolt hits, yer a goner, girl.”

  “I don’t believe in thunderbolts of love.”

  Tante Lulu put both hands up in the air in front of her face as if to ward off some evil. “Doan you be sayin’ such things. Mercy! I knew a lady once who said she din’t believe in voodoo. Next day her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and stayed that way till she died.”

  “She probably licked Krazy Glue,” Valerie said under her breath.

  But Tante Lulu heard her and wagged a finger in her face. “Alls I’m sayin’ is doan hurt that boy, or I’ll put a voodoo curse on you myself.”

  Aaarrgh! Talking to her is like talking to a cypress tree.

  Their conversation was cut short then by a loud explosion outside. Tante Lulu screamed. Valerie jumped off the bed and ran outside. People were swarming out of the mote
l, half undressed, and from other buildings in the little town. In the distance, down by the dock, they saw the source of the explosion.

  J.B. and Maddie’s boat was up in flames.

  Quack, quack, quack!

  By 10 a.m. the next morning, Rene was knee-deep in red tape and drowning fast.

  He’d sent Tante Lulu and Tee-John home, despite their protests that they wanted to stay. Valerie and Justin had gone off to his place outside Houma—something Rene did not like but conceded was the best alternative at the moment. They would be cutting and editing all the material they’d gathered and whipping it into a TV documentary proposal. He’d stayed behind to help J.B. and Maddie talk with the police, the ATF, the FBI, and even the CIA. With all the threats of terrorism in the world today, they couldn’t ignore any bombing, even if it was only dynamite in this case.

  Luckily no one had been hurt. Luckily Justin had all his film equipment back in his motel room and not on the boat. Luckily J.B. and Maddie were insured, which was a miracle in itself. Luckily the news media was finally waking up to the fact that there were serious issues here that might interfere with the nefarious plans of some Louisiana big shots. Luckily he’d finally calmed down some locals who were blaming them for bringing trouble to their midst.

  Luc and Remy walked up to him once the news media dispersed and left him alone. They came as soon as they’d heard about the bombing.

  “How you doing, buddy?” Luc asked, squeezing his shoulder. Always the big brother.

  “I’m fine, now that the shock is over.”

  “I think they timed it so that no one was aboard as sort of a warning,” Remy said.

  “Hah! How did they know for sure that no one was aboard? A pretty risky chance just for a warning.”

  Rene shivered inside at the prospect that one of the people in his group could have been killed. J.B. and Maddie, his good friends. Tante Lulu, his precious aunt. Tee-John, the loveable scamp. And Val. . . oh, man, Val! He didn’t know how to categorize her, he just knew she was important to him, and losing her would have crushed him.

  “You’re not dealing with rocket scientists,” Luc remarked. “Probably some thugs hired by the oil company.”

  “Where are you heading from here?” Remy asked. “Do you need a lift?”

  “Back to Baton Rouge to settle some stuff related to my town house, then I’ll stay in your houseboat for a few days till I get settled, if that’s okay with you,” he told Remy.

  Remy nodded. “Sure.”

  As the three of them walked toward the motel parking lot, Luc laughed. “Trouble does seem to follow you, Brother.”

  “You think?” He laughed, too. Then he said, “Guess what Tante Lulu did yesterday?”

  “I can only imagine,” Remy offered.

  “Did it involve a woman?” Luc asked.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  They both waited expectantly.

  “She asked me if I’ve ever touched Val’s hiney?”

  “Hiney?” they both guffawed.

  “Did you?” Luc wanted to know.

  He ignored that question. “And then she told Val that, if she didn’t fall in love with me and treat me right, she was gonna put a voodoo curse on her. Val told me about it this morning before she left. Guess she was trying to cheer me up. Voodoo, for chrissake! Talk about!”

  Luc and Remy’s jaws dropped open before they all burst out in laughter.

  “You are a dead duck,” Luc finally concluded.

  “Guar-an-teed!” Remy agreed.

  Rene wondered idly—or not so idly—if Val had a taste for duck.

  Just call her Sarah Jessica Breaux

  Valerie hadn’t seen Rene for two days, but he was coming over now to look over the film proposal.

  She stood on the deck of Justin’s cottage as he pulled up in a black Jeep Cherokee. He got out of the vehicle just as she came down the steps.

  He smiled at her.

  She smiled at him.

  He opened his arms.

  She made a flying leap that landed her in his arms with her legs wrapped around his waist and her face tucked in his neck, which smelled of soap and Rene-skin. She felt like a teenager with a crush, giddy and so very happy.

  He spun them around a little, laughing. “Now that’s a welcome!”

  “Did you miss me?” she asked, leaning back to look at him.

  He gave her a quick kiss and said, “Not at all.” Then he gave her a not-so-quick kiss that about curled her toes and proved that he had, in fact, missed her a lot.

  About ten minutes and twenty kisses later, they went inside on wobbly knees to look over the film.

  “Hey, Rene”,” Justin said.

  “Hey, Justin.”

  An hour later, Rene sat back on the leather sofa and just stared at the two of them. “You are amazing.

  I can’t believe you pulled this all together... the scenery, the interviews, the facts, everything. You even made Tante Lulu look good. And Tee-John... hell, his head’s gonna get so big when the girls see this.”

  “What did you think about the segments dealing with the Juju plant?” Val asked him tentatively.

  “Well, you managed to shoot me without my shirt, which I didn’t want, but it was okay. And Tante Lulu with her traiteur talk made it all seem believable.”

  “Let me show you something,” Justin said. He kept fast-forwarding and stopping, fast-forwarding and stopping, to highlight a number of scenes. All of them had Rene and Val together. Laughing. Looking at each other. On one, he’d put a hand on her butt, and it appeared as if she was chastizing him. On another one, he was leaning down to kiss her, and if she hadn’t known it was her, she would have wanted to be the woman who was the recipient of this hunk’s attentions.

  “Very nice,” Rene said, “but what’s your point?”

  “You two are hot together. Steam heat in the bayou, and then some. I think, if we manage to pull this off, it’s going to have to be a package deal.”

  Rene grinned.

  Valerie cringed. She had viewed herself as a behind-the-scenes person. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Hey, if I’m gonna be the hunk of the month, you’re gonna be the hottie of the year,” Rene contended.

  “Let me go one step further,” Justin continued. “I’m not so sure we couldn’t propose a series.

  Something like ‘Bayou Travels’ but more provocative. You two would be in each of them.”

  “Yeah, and each segment could be a different issue or location,” Val said enthusiastically. “Like Grand Isle and the other barrier islands. Like Tante Lulu and her swamp healing. Like the Vietnamese here, and what remains of the Indian tribes indigenous to the area. Even those videos you gave us of The Swamp Rats playing rowdy Cajun music. By the way, if I didn’t mention it before, you play a mean accordion, sweetie.”

  He waggled his eyebrows at her.

  “All of them would have to be lively and colorful and fun. And the Juju plant could be a thread through all of them, sort of a teasing joke,” Justin added, equally enthusiastic. “We’re not trying to be a National Geographic copycat. More like National Geographic with humor and sex appeal.”

  “You’re turning this into a ‘Sex and the Bayou’ version of Sex and the City,” Rene protested.

  “No, we’re not, honey,” Valerie assured him. “I promise you everything will be done with good taste.

  You liked what we did so far, didn’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “But where would all the environmental concerns come in?” Rene wanted to know.

  “That’s the beauty of it,” Justin explained. “We don’t hit them over the head with it. We make them fall in love with the people and the area, and slip the environmental concerns in there like hidden messages. At the end of each program, we could put an address or Web site where people could go to learn how they can help. By contacting politicians. By contributing money. Whatever. Education is a powerful tool.”

  “It could work,” Val sai
d, looking to him for approval.

  He hesitated for a long time. This wasn’t at all what he’d expected, obviously, but Val hoped he would realize that maybe it was better. Maybe being the key word. Finally, he shrugged. “You’re the experts. Go with it.”

  She launched herself at him, settling herself on his lap. Hugging him warmly, she said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  “One thing is for sure. This is going to be one special birthday for Tante Lulu,” Rend said. “We’re making her a TV star. She’ll be the Cajun Joan Collins.”

  Everyone laughed, but it was probably true.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Happy wedding to you, happy wedding to you

  “Tante Lulu! You can’t plan a surprise wedding for someone.”

  Sylvie Breaux-LeDeux was shaking her head adamantly as she made that pronouncement to her great-aunt-by-marriage. They were sitting at the kitchen table of the old lady’s cottage, along with Rachel Fortier-LeDeux and Charmaine LeDeux-Lanier. Tante Lulu had just proposed that they organize a surprise wedding for Rene and Valerie in the middle of her eightieth birthday celebration.

  “Why not? People have surprise birthday parties.”

  “It’s not the same thing,” Rachel said. “Both parties have to agree ahead of time.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Charmaine offered. “If the two parties are in love and just need a little nudge to tie the knot, why not?”

  “A nudge. Yep, thass what this would be. A surprise nudge.” Tante Lulu beamed.

  “I think you need to obtain a marriage certificate signed in person by both parties,” Sylvie said. “I don’t see any way around that.”

  “Pfff, I know someone in the county offices. Not to worry.” Tante Lulu probably did know people there. Heck, she knew everyone.

  “Isn’t that illegal?” Sylvie asked.

  No one paid any attention to her. LeDeuxs never did pay much attention to the law, except for Luc, who helped them get out of legal scrapes.

  “There’s not enough time to plan a wedding,” Rachel complained.