Blue Bayou

by JoAnn Ross

  And now, here he was at Chapter Four. Right back where he'd started.

  Same house.

  Same girl.

  “Proving,” he said to Turnip, who burst out of the door the moment he opened it and began sniffing the night air as if searching out skunk, “that fate has one goddamn screwed-up sense of humor.”

  True to his word and more trustworthy than when he'd promised to meet her out at his daddy's camp and had never shown up, Jack arrived at the library the next day while Dani was going through the ruins, sorting out anything that was salvageable. If her heart lifted a little as she watched him climb out of the truck and walk toward her on that lazy, loose-limbed stride, she told herself that it was only because of the two carpenters he'd brought with him.

  As they'd walked through the apartment, which still smelled of smoke and looked as if a horde of vandals had sacked it, both men demonstrated a reassuring knowledge of the work needed to be done to make the apartment livable.

  “Won't be long before it'll be better than new,” the younger man, Derek McCarthy, assured her. “And you and your boy can settle in.”

  “Could you give me a ballpark figure how long that might be?”

  “Probably a month,” John Reneaux, the older of the two men said as his gray eyes swept the scene. “Maybe two.”

  “That long?”

  “We'll work fast,” Derek promised. “And you'll be able to open your library up a lot sooner than that.”

  Which was, Dani thought, trying to look on the bright side as they went right to work, better than nothing. She watched Derek moving with catlike agility and confidence along the top of a rafter, and thought about how much difference a day could make. What a difference Jack had made.

  “Thank you,” she said after she'd walked him back to the truck, which, she noted with veiled amusement, boasted a bumper sticker proclaiming him to be Coonass and Proud. “I honestly do appreciate your generosity.”

  “It's no big deal.” He rubbed his thumb up her cheek.

  The light caress sent her pulse skittering.

  Across the street Ernie Egan was sitting out on the bench in front of his barbershop, smoking his pipe between haircuts as he'd done for as long as Dani could remember.

  Max Pitre was sitting beside him and from the way Ernie was jabbing his pipe in Max's direction, Dani guessed they were arguing about something. As they'd done for as long as she could remember.

  Mrs. Mercier was arranging plump chickens, pork chops, and various sausages in the chilled display cases in the front window of the Acadian Butcher Shop while her husband unfurled the cheery striped green-and-white awning.

  Arlan was changing movie posters at the Bijoux, and in the little park across the street a dark-haired woman was teaching her little girl, who appeared to be about a year old, how to toss bread to the ducks floating on the bayou water.

  All around her, life seemed to be continuing on as normal. But for Dani, the world stopped spinning.

  Jack combed her hair behind her ear.

  A familiar thrill danced up her spine.

  His lips quirked, but his gaze grew thoughtful as he looked down into her face. Unwilling desire percolated. Dani could feel it, bubbling up from some deep well of emotion inside her. Everything took on a slow-motion feel as he lowered his head.

  A mistake, she warned herself. But did not, could not, move.

  He brushed a quick, friendly kiss atop the crown of her head. “See you around, chère.”

  Caught off guard yet again, Dani blew out a surprised, frustrated breath, then shook her head to clear the fog as he drove away.

  “What did you expect?” She rubbed at her cheek, which felt unreasonably hot, and was chagrined at the soot that came off on her fingers. “You undoubtedly look like a ragpicker.”

  And a far, far cry from the way she'd looked that night of her birthday party, when he'd finally granted her the wish she'd been wishing on the first star of the night for five years, ever since his mother had come to work at Beau Soleil.

  The birthday night he'd held her in his arms. That moon-spangled, magical night when she'd been poised on the brink of womanhood, dancing with the man she firmly believed she was destined to spend the rest of her life with.

  “You don't want to get involved with him,” she warned herself firmly. After all, if his brother, Nate, was in another league, Jack was in an entirely different universe. As his truck turned the corner, she vowed to keep reminding herself of that fact.

  “Dani?”

  When she recognized the woman calling from the park, she laughed, welcoming the distraction. “Marisa? Is that you?”

  Marisa Parker had been her best friend all through school. As little girls, they'd shared Barbies; in high school they'd exchanged confidences about boys and crushes. Then Dani had been sent to Atlanta for most of her senior year, Marisa's father, an oil engineer, had gotten transferred to Saudi Arabia, and they'd lost track of each other.

  Dani hadn't realized how much she'd missed her friend until she watched her running across the street, pushing the stroller in front of her.

  “I can't believe it!” Like the two teenagers they'd both once been, they hugged each other and rocked back and forth. “I heard you were coming home, but you didn't call—”

  “I didn't know you'd come back,” Dani said.

  “Dennis teaches sixth-grade math at Assumption.”

  “Dennis? Are you talking about Dennis McGee?” He'd driven Marisa crazy; they'd fought nearly nonstop from the fifth grade on.

  “Yep.” Marisa flashed a gold band. “We got married three years ago. Tammy's our first.” She pressed a hand against her flat stomach. “And Tyler or Kelli is on the way.”

  “How wonderful.” Dani looked down at the baby, who was looking up at her, studying her with solemn blue eyes, and felt a prick in her heart. “Hello, Tammy. Aren't you a pretty girl?”

  The baby's copper-penny-red brow puckered and she looked ready to cry. “She's at that stranger-danger age,” Marisa said, plucking her daughter from the stroller and bracing her on her hip.

  “She's precious,” Dani said. “I'd heard you were living in New York.” Dani bent down and picked up the stuffed dalmatian the baby dropped. When she held it out to her, Tammy continued to regard her suspiciously but snatched it away.

  “I was. Living in SoHo and working on Madison Avenue cranking out advertising art.”

  “Did you like advertising?” All through high school Marisa had talked about going to Paris, having wild hedonistic affairs with crazed painters, and becoming a famous artist.

  “It was okay.” She shrugged. “Art's art, right? Even if it's telling the world about a new panty hose.”

  “Absolutely,” Dani agreed loyally, secretly wondering how many kinds of panty hose the world really needed. Tammy looked Dani straight in the eye, then threw the dalmatian again.

  “Hell, who am I kidding? I was miserable. Then, since my dad retired here, and Mom went back to teaching music at Assumption, I came to visit for the holidays. I went to the Christmas pageant, and to make a long story short, Dennis was there, we bumped into each other over the punch bowl at the cast party, and I was blindsided by a chemical brainbath that just about knocked me off my feet. I went home with him that night.” She dimpled merrily. “And never left.”

  “I'm so happy for you.”

  “I'm happy for me, too,” Marisa said as Dani bent down and retrieved the dog yet again. She glanced over at the building. “I hear you're going to reopen the library.”

  “That's my plan.”

  “I'm so glad. As bad as Mrs. Weaver was when we were growing up, she'd become an absolute terror in her old age.”

  “So I heard. I'm really looking forward to it; I have some ideas I wanted to try in Fairfax, but since I wasn't branch manager, and the last hired, I was pretty much relegated to reference work.”

  “And now you're in charge. Must be a nice feeling.”

  “It is nice to have the fr
eedom to be innovative. Of course I'm also in charge of date stamping and reshelving. And if I hate my boss, I have only myself to blame.”

  They shared a laugh, and for a moment it felt like old times.

  “I'm really sorry about all you've gone through,” Marisa said. A shadow crossed her face. “I wanted to call. Or write, but your number was unlisted.”

  “Matt and I are surviving. I wouldn't wish the past two years on my worst enemy, but there have been some advantages. I've gotten tougher and I've definitely gained a better sense of who I am and what I want from life. And I actually speak my mind.”

  “Hallelujah, this calls for a celebration. I always wondered if you were going to spend your entire life playing the role of the quintessential Goody Two-shoes southern girl.”

  If the accusation had come from anyone else, Dani might have been offended, even if she was reluctantly coming to the conclusion it was true.

  “Not always,” she countered, thinking of Jack.

  “That's right, you did have your little rebellion that summer before your senior year. I can't say I blame you. If I wasn't a happily married woman, I might have had an attack of rampant lust while I was working on Beau Soleil.”

  “You worked on Beau Soleil?”

  “Yeah. I've gotten into painting again. I got my master's in art restoration and have landed a few jobs working on murals. I'm also teaching art classes two days a week at Assumption and an adult class at the community center on Wednesday nights.”

  “So it was you who touched up the mural?”

  “It surely was. What did you think?”

  “I think it's wonderful. And a much better showcase for your work than panty hose.”

  “Well, it was certainly a challenge. But fun. And thanks to Jack giving me the chance, I've picked up a few more jobs in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.” When Tammy reached her arm back to send the dalmatian flying yet again, Marisa deftly plucked it from her daughter's pudgy hand. Which set off an earpiercing scream.

  “It's past her naptime. I'm afraid she inherited my temper, which Mom says is payback for all the trouble I gave her.” She plunked the wailing baby into the stroller. “We'll have to have lunch soon, reminisce about old times, and catch up. I'm dying to know what's going on between you and Bad Jack.”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  “Yeah, it looked like nothing.” She fanned her face as Tammy slapped her pudgy hands onto the stroller tray. “I got hot and bothered just watching the two of you.”

  “You're pregnant. Rampant hormones go with the territory.”

  “Well, that's certainly true enough.” She hugged Dani again. “I'll call as soon as you get settled into your new job and we'll set a date for lunch. I can't wait to tell you about Luanne Jackson's supposed affair with some married state senator.”

  Luanne Jackson had been two years ahead of them in school, with curves that would put Kim Basinger to shame, a mass of long dark hair, and smoky eyes that offered sensual favors. She'd left Blue Bayou right after high school for New Orleans, where rumor had her changing her name to Desiree Champagne as soon as she'd stepped off the Greyhound bus. The stories went that she'd worked for a few years as one of the Big Easy's highest paid call girls before marrying Jimmy Ray Boone, a wealthy south Louisiana car dealer. Since Boone had been a big contributor to Lowell's campaigns over the years, Dani had occasionally hosted the couple at fundraising parties and had always felt uncomfortable around his wife.

  It hadn't been because of the prostitute thing; not being one to judge others, Dani figured that was between Luanne and her husband. No, this had been something entirely different. It had been almost, Dani had considered on more than one occasion, as if Luanne had some reason to resent her. Once, a few years ago, after another of those strangely strained dinners, Dani had wondered if the other woman might be having an affair with Lowell, but then he'd gone on television proclaiming his love for his chief of staff, and she'd immediately put the question out of her mind.

  After Jimmy Ray had died—making love, the stories went—Luanne had surprised everyone by returning home and building a huge home on the outskirts of town. She may be, with the possible exception of Jack, the wealthiest person in the parish, but it appeared the widow was still Blue Bayou's Scarlet Woman.

  As she watched her former best friend cross the street and load Tammy and her stroller into the minivan, Dani experienced a low tug of something that felt like envy.

  She didn't begrudge Marisa her happiness. But it did strike Dani that her friend was living the life she'd once thought she would be living. Marisa had always been the one with the career plans, while all Dani had ever wanted was a husband and a houseful of children.

  Reminding herself that she was no longer the lovesick teenager who'd once dreamed of making an idyllic life with Jack, the girl who'd envisioned having make-believe tea parties with daughters in pink tutus and attending Little League games for sons who'd wrestle in the backyard and put frogs in their sisters' sock drawers, Dani shook off the uncharacteristic self-pity, put aside her gilded, unrealistic romantic fantasies, and returned to work.

  Like a child before the first day of school, Dani had a hard time sleeping the night before the library opened. She told herself she had nothing to be nervous about. After all, she was well prepared. The new books she'd ordered had arrived, been unboxed, cataloged, and were sitting on the special New Release shelves Derek had built for her, waiting for residents of Blue Bayou to take them home.

  She'd had additional lighting installed to brighten up the interior and had covered the bulletin board that had held an outdated jumble of memos and notices dating back years with a bright, eye-catching sunshine yellow burlap and had tacked up glossy covers of suggested novels for the upcoming summer vacation season. She also posted notices announcing the formation of a book discussion group, a weekly children's story hour, and a reading competition for the middle school children, the weekly prize being free passes she'd cajoled Delbert Dejune, owner of the Bijoux Theater, into donating.

  She'd spent the day before the opening cleaning until the windows sparkled like crystal and the old-fashioned oak catalogue cases, which Derek and John had moved from the storage room for her, gleamed with a lemon-oil sheen. As much as Dani appreciated her computer, which had every book in the library catalogued and was connected to other libraries throughout the state, she suspected that here, where time moved a little more slowly, some patrons might prefer the old-fashioned cards. As she secretly did.

  The little pieces of paper were cut and ready for note taking, short yellow pencils sharpened. She'd designated the children's reading center by painting a corner of the room a welcoming sunshine yellow and had found a rug woven in crayon colors at an antique store in Houma. A woman on a mission with a limited budget, she'd talked the owner into cutting the price by half, then throwing in a sturdy pine table for another five dollars. Derek had cut the legs down for her, making the table, which she'd painted a bright crawfish red, the perfect height for little readers.

  Knowing when a valuable resource had dropped into her lap, she recruited Marisa to add her talents to the project, and by the night before the reopening, a parade of beloved book characters danced across the yellow wall.

  At precisely ten o'clock on the morning of her first day on the job, she unlocked the door, a welcoming smile on her face, ready to greet the first patron. When five minutes passed, then ten, then ten more, she began to worry that perhaps the people of Blue Bayou had gotten so accustomed to not having a library, they'd just decided they could do without one.

  Then, at ten twenty-eight, Marisa walked in the door with a half dozen other women she introduced as mothers of children in Tammy's playgroup.

  “We're in desperate need of escapism,” she announced. After asserting that the reopening of the library had saved their collective sanity, they made a beeline for the romance novels Dani had finally finished cataloging late last night.

  From then on it was as if t
he floodgates had opened. Dani wondered if there was anyone in town who hadn't had a sudden need to check out a book. She knew that a great many of the people came out of curiosity but didn't care. So long as they came.

  Finally, after lunchtime—which she'd skipped in order to find a book on boat building for Wilbur Rogers and another about dog training for Annie Jessup, whose fiancé, Jimmy Doyle, had surprised her with a cocker spaniel puppy for her birthday—the crowd cleared out, leaving Dani to catch her breath.

  As soon as she solved this one last problem, she could duck into her office and eat the sandwich she'd brought with her.

  “It's a red book,” the woman repeated impatiently.

  “A red book,” Dani agreed with a smile that had begun to fade after five minutes. “About sex.”

  “Not sex,” the woman corrected. Her silk dress, diamond earrings, and matching brooch were definitely overkill for a weekday. “Fantasies.”

  “Fantasies of a sexual nature,” Dani clarified. Right now her own fantasies were centered more around a Big Mac and fries.

  “Do you have a problem with that?” The woman's eyes frosted.

  “Of course not.” Dani wished she was wearing her I Read Banned Books pin.

  Did she look like a stereotypical prude librarian who kept any books with a remotely sexual content hidden away beneath the counter? The kind she'd seen while watching Citizen Kane with Orèlia the other night on the classics movie channel—that bun-wearing, pursed-lip glaring dragon lady who ruthlessly guarded the gates of knowledge from perceived infidels?

  The idea was too depressing to contemplate.

  “I was just trying to narrow things down,” she said mildly. “There are quite a lot of titles on fantasies.”

  “This one has a red cover.”

  “Red. Right.” Dani decided that if she ever had the opportunity to build a library from scratch, she'd cross-catalogue all the books by color, since that's how so many people seemed to remember them.