She glanced up, and the other girl waved from the far side of the porch, yellow nail polish flashing on a light-brown hand. She gave Andra a shy smile, the yellow lettering on her Star Wars T-shirt perfectly matching her nails. Andra grinned back, relief making it come out a little too enthusiastic.
LJ ushered her toward the shade of the porch, using his bare foot to nudge a stick out of the sidewalk and back onto the lawn. The loose basketball shorts he wore didn’t match the shirt that hung so nicely from his shoulders.
Ty gave her an easy smile and swung his legs out of the way so she could climb the stairs.
“Guys, this is Andra. Andra, this is Tash, Ty’s sister.” LJ went on to introduce the five guys on the porch, reeling off names that the heat sapped out of her muzzy head as soon as he spoke them. “Are you hungry? My mama’s asleep, but I could come up with a little something.”
“Yes,” she said automatically, her stomach tightening with a little groan. “Or wait, no. I had lunch on the way here.”
Ty laughed, strumming a random chord on his guitar. “Silly girl. Never say you ain’t hungry if a Delisle’s doing the cooking.”
LJ opened the front door for her. “Here, why don’t you go inside and cool off? See you in a second.”
“Sure, okay.” She bit the inside of her lip, then forced another smile for everyone as she went inside. She’d missed the sound of his voice so much, had actually been looking forward to how much richer it might be when he was home and relaxed. Instead his inflections were northern-university flat and precise.
The door closed, leaving her alone in a small kitchen with barn-red cabinets and an upright piano tucked into the corner across from the oven. Chicago Cubs pennants hung from two of the walls, and a fan on the table blew tepid air across her skin, only making her sweat more.
Outside, a low male voice said, “Damn, LJ. No wonder you weren’t in a hurry to come home.”
Laughter broke out. “Is that how the girls look up in Montana? Because I could get on up there and ride some horses. How hard can it be? I’ll ride them horses all night long.”
There was the sound of a smack and more laughter.
“Y’all get on out of here before you scare her off,” LJ said, his accent rolling low and sweet through his words again. She closed her eyes and just listened.
“Yeah, I had my money on you being back before Halloween, but now I’m gonna bump it out to Mardi Gras.”
Her forehead creased. Had he told them he was moving to Montana for only a few months, or were they making assumptions?
“Has Mama D met her?” a baritone voice asked. “She’s been talking to my mom for weeks, telling her all about LJ’s girl, saying maybe he was going to give her some grandbabies. Bet you didn’t tell her you were just messing around with a white girl up there.”
Andra flinched, her hands curling into fists, her arms feeling intensely bare.
“Don’t be a jerk, Reggie.” Tash’s voice sounded even smaller in the silence. “Just because she’s not from the Lower Ninth don’t mean he can’t be serious about her. Maybe he wants somebody he has more in common with.”
A loud snort. “Right. Because since he went to college, he’s too good for the ladies round here? Maybe you ought to have more respect for yourself, Tash.”
“Hey!” LJ’s voice snapped out. “You watch who the fuck you’re talking to right now.”
“Hey, hey, hey . . .” That sounded like Ty, though the tones were more placating than they’d been earlier. “LJ! Come on, man.”
Andra whirled to face the door. Oh God, please don’t let her have caused an argument between him and his friends. Her pulse raced, but she gritted her teeth against a sudden light-headedness. She was safe here. Even if there was a fight, even if people got angry, she could hold her own. She clenched her hands just to feel the strength in them.
“You want to mind your business? Or do you want to tell me mine?” She almost didn’t recognize LJ’s voice. She’d never heard it sound so vicious before.
There was a loud burst of breath, like the air had gotten knocked out of someone.
“LJ, ease up, man. Your woman’s waiting inside, huh?” Ty said.
“What the fuck ever,” the baritone growled, and the porch creaked.
“You listen, and you listen good,” LJ said, and no one interrupted him. “That’s my girl in there, and if any of y’all have a goddamn thought in your head about her, you better think it so quiet I never hear you.”
There was no response.
“Damn, Reggie,” somebody muttered. “Are you fucking crazy, man? You want to start shit with LJ?”
After that, there was nothing for a few minutes. Just the squeak of porch steps, the snap of instrument cases, and the scuff of shoes over concrete.
“I wasn’t saying . . .” Tash’s voice trailed off, and then she tried again. “LJ, I only meant you had stuff in common with her because you like horses and farms and stuff. Not that you were acting like . . .”
“It’s fine.”
It was so quiet she thought they were all gone, then Ty said, “Fuck ’em, man. Some people are gonna think what they’re gonna think. You can’t—”
She fled. Because she knew he was coming in soon, and she didn’t want him to know she’d been listening. And she didn’t want to hear him upset because of her.
It was an old style of house: narrow with no hallway but with each room opening into the next. There were only two doors leading into the kitchen, one closed and one open to show a sink crowded with toiletries. She went through that one, slamming the door behind her and then groping for a light switch. It was lower and farther across the wall than she’d expected, and when the light finally came on, it was with the scrape of a loud fan. A washer and a dryer sat opposite a bathtub, their bases obscured by a heap of sheets and towels. An odd, sharp scent hung in the air, and she was excruciatingly aware she was in someone else’s home—the private space where they ate and slept and washed their clothes. She turned on the tap, splashed water over her overheated face, and cupped some over the sticky back of her neck.
Somehow, she’d considered only LJ’s response. She hadn’t even imagined she’d be so out of place in his neighborhood, among his friends. And he’d defended her, but his welcome had been . . . off. Not as enthusiastic as he normally was.
She should have expected that, considering she was here without an invitation, during a time when he needed to be focused on his family.
Andra shut off the tap and stared down into the sink. Had coming after him been a giant mistake?
Twenty-four
LJ glared at his best friend. Blood rushed down his arms and into his fists, the muscles in his arms twitching with energy. “Don’t push me right now, Ty.”
“Look, Reggie’s a dumbshit, but he was just saying what everybody else is thinking.” Tyrone barely topped five foot seven, but he stared stonily up through nearly a foot of height difference separating his face from LJ’s. He was the only guy in the whole neighborhood who’d ever put LJ on the ground, and no one forgot it. “If you’re serious about that girl, okay. I’m happy for you, but a lot of folks aren’t going to be, and you can’t expect them to be.”
“Go.” He could barely get the word out from between his teeth.
Ty shook his head. “Whatever, man.” He picked up his guitar by the neck and sauntered out onto the street.
LJ whirled and grabbed the door handle. It took him a second to relax his grip so he wouldn’t shove it open hard enough to rip the screws out of the hinges. There was no sign of Andra in the kitchen, but water ran behind the bathroom door. He bent down and straightened the heap of his shoes by the door, lining them up in neat pairs.
Yesterday, he’d finally scraped up the courage to call her. No Delisle was a coward, and he knew if he wasn’t sure what to say to her, she’d be even more lost. He
was the one who always broke the ice between them, and whenever he did, her rare smiles usually followed. But that time, all he got was her voicemail. It was clipped and distant and sounded nothing like her.
You’ve reached Cassandra Lawler with Lawler Performance Quarter Horses. Leave a message after the tone.
For as many times as her number had come up in his missed calls list, she’d never left a voicemail. He joked and rambled on hers but ended up hitting the “Delete” key when asked if he was satisfied with his message.
LJ threw a quick glance at the closed bathroom door and then picked up the chair with the ripped cushion, sticking it behind the table, where it wouldn’t be so clear it didn’t match the other. He swept crumbs off the table and into his palm.
A door clicked quietly open behind him, and he turned to meet her.
Andra’s hair drifted in a wild mass of black, the humidity lifting its normal waves into the bounce and sway of fat curls that begged to hide his fingers. Her denim-clad legs went on for miles, and her cowboy boots made him ache for the open fields of Montana.
She took a small step forward, hugging her elbows. She was moving differently. It didn’t feel like he’d been gone long enough for so much to have changed.
“I didn’t mean to cause trouble,” she said. “I should have called and asked if I could visit.”
“’Course not.” He pulled a chair out from the table for her. “You’re always welcome—you know that. I just would have cleaned up a little if I knew you were coming. You hungry?”
She sat down. “Thirsty, mostly.”
“Right, of course. New Orleans in August is nasty.” He hunted through the cupboard until he came up with a cup that wasn’t plastic. A quick towel swipe had it shining even more, and he took the time to get a few ice cubes from the freezer. “You want sweet tea or water?”
She smiled. “Better do water. I’m half-diabetic already from all the sweet tea I drank at lunch.”
“Oh, right. I forget you don’t have the stomach for sweet tea.” As he filled the glass, he watched her out of the corner of his eye, trying to pinpoint what had changed about the way she moved. She still crossed her arms over her chest, but it almost looked . . . softer? Comforting instead of defensive, maybe.
A strange sound from outside caught his attention. He put the glass in front of her before he crossed the room and peered out the window. His hands curled into fists when he saw the news van setting up a camera tripod in front of the Graviers’ empty lot next door.
“What’s wrong?” Andra’s chair scraped back, and she came up beside him. “Are those reporters? What’s going on?”
“Hurricane hit Florida this week. Anytime there’s a big one or an anniversary of Katrina, they come crawling all over the place. The Lower Ninth was right at one of the levee breaks where the water flooded in, and a lot of folks around here couldn’t afford to rebuild. If they want to get dramatic shots to remind everybody how bad it was, they come here.” He looked away, because he didn’t want to see her pity. It felt even itchier than that of strangers. “Give me one second, okay?”
He kicked into a pair of sandals and went outside.
“Excuse me,” he called, crossing his grass to a cameraman setting up the tripod. “You can’t film here. This is private property.”
“I’m sorry,” the cameraman said, glancing over his shoulder. “I, ah . . .”
Fingers tapped his shoulder. A woman with smoothly styled hair and a pantsuit gave him a sympathetic smile, the politeness tempered with sadness, like they were both attending the same funeral. LJ fought back the fury trying to creep up his throat. It was his home, damn it, not a graveyard.
“I’m so sorry to bother you. Is this your place?” the anchorwoman asked. “We’re doing a special on the progress of the rebuilding effort after Katrina. Would you like to be interviewed?”
Of course he didn’t want to be interviewed. He was wearing fucking basketball shorts with his summer church shirt thrown on over them. He’d been doing dishes before his friends came over, not dressing up to be on TV. Which was probably exactly what they wanted to show on their little too-bad-so-sad program about poverty after Katrina.
“No,” he said, to both questions. “But I’m watching this place for the owner, and the family doesn’t want it filmed.”
It might as well be true. The Graviers hadn’t come back after the evacuation. He’d gathered some warped and muddy photo albums for them out of the wreckage of their house, but they’d never called, and a “For Sale” sign never went up. He still had the albums somewhere back in the shed. They’d never said as much, but he was pretty sure they didn’t want to watch the news and accidentally see the place their daddy and little girl had died.
“All right,” the reporter said. “Of course not. Here, take my card. Let me know if you or anybody you know would care to be interviewed. It can be a good way to get increased funding for the rebuilding effort.”
He took the card and jerked a nod. He knew that, and he wasn’t too proud to play the game. The reason his new house had framed up the fastest on the block wasn’t because his fifteen-year-old self had been so good with a hammer. It was because he’d found out where the volunteers were staying, and he’d been down there every morning, smiling his face off, telling jokes, and making friends.
But right now, he wasn’t in the mood. He turned, acutely aware of his plastic sandals next to her designer heels, and went back home.
Andra was waiting right inside the door. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.” He closed the door, shrugging the tension out of his shoulders. “They always want to film there, because the porch steps are a couple higher than everywhere else and they stick up good above the weeds. I kept it trimmed down when I was living here, but Mama can’t get the pull start on the Weed Eater to go. Arms too short.” He poked Andra’s arm, working up a smile. “Like you.” He glanced back at the table and her empty water glass. “Hey, you doing okay with the heat?”
She winced, putting a hand to her flushed forehead. “I’m really gross and sweaty right now, sorry. Not used to humidity, I guess.”
“No, no problem.” He refilled her glass and turned the fan so it pointed at her chair. “Sorry the AC’s already at the max. Want some more ice?”
“LJ . . .” She touched his arm, the muscles tight under her hand. “Hey, look at me.”
He didn’t want to.
If he did, she’d see he didn’t want her here. In his mama’s house, which was half the size of Andra’s cottage. In his neighborhood, which news vans were filming so the whole country could shake their heads pityingly. Here, with his friends smirking at him for bringing home a white girl.
She deserved better than all that.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting you, that’s all.”
“I know,” she whispered, her fingers curling on his arm. “Listen, LJ—”
“Tash?” his mama called through her bedroom door. “Honey, is that you?”
Andra’s eyes widened. He covered her hand quickly with his. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “She’s been dying to meet you. This is going to make her whole day.” At least he hoped so. His mama had been so weird about Andra, and he wasn’t sure how to make that fit with knowing she’d been bragging about his girlfriend to Reggie’s mama. He dropped his voice even further. “Look, if she’s grouchy, don’t take it personally. She hates not being able to do everything herself.”
Andra shook her head. “It’s fine, LJ. Don’t worry about it.”
He let her go, because they didn’t have time for everything unsaid between them, and even if they did, he wouldn’t know where to start. Instead, he headed for the bedroom and closed the door behind him, for whatever good it would do. This house had been in their family for three generations, but when they rebuilt, they hadn’t had any extra money for interior insulation. Now you
could hear somebody brushing their teeth from across the house.
Mama pushed herself up against the pillows, even that small movement making her gasp for breath.
“Hey, did we wake you?” She’d been sleeping so deeply lately, he hadn’t worried about playing music on the porch.
She frowned at him. “Why didn’t you come get me if we had company?”
He smiled. “Speaking of, guess who’s here, Mama?”
Her whole face lit up, the way he hadn’t seen it since the first moment he walked through the door with his suitcase. “Did she come?” She reached up and started patting at her hair, which was so thin now that bare patches shone through on her scalp, though still not a thread of gray showed in the black. “LJ, go get my church jacket from the closet. The pink one, with the big buttons.”
“Um, to wear with your nightgown?”
She glared. “Lyndon Johnson, if I wanted sass, I would certainly let you know.”
“Yes, Mama.” He went to the closet and shucked through hangers, finally finding the padded shoulders of her church jacket in the back. She hadn’t been well enough to attend the one Sunday he’d been here, but it still alarmed him to see how far back the jacket had migrated. She must not have been up to the two-block walk for weeks.
He carried the jacket over to the bed and helped her thread her arms into it.
“Mama, uh . . .” He didn’t dare tell her to be nice, and he couldn’t think of a subtle way to ask her not to interrogate Andra.
“Don’t mumble, LJ. It makes you look uneducated. Now go and get my makeup bag out of the bathroom, and my hand mirror.”
He frowned. “She knows you just woke up. She doesn’t expect you to be wearing makeup.”
“Lyndon John—” She swayed, bracing her hands in her lap, and didn’t finish.
He caught her shoulder. “You okay? Do you want me to help you to the bathroom?”
Unbreak Me Page 19