by K. A. Ware
“One more thing. I can’t get in touch with Savannah.”
I rolled my eyes in reaction to my sister’s nomadic ways. “And this surprises you?”
“No, but I know if she’ll respond to anyone, it’ll be you.”
“Doubtful.”
“Just try, Addie. Savannah and your Pappy were close, and she needs to know.”
Another glance toward the parlor confirmed the natives were restless. “Fine, I’ll take care of Sav.”
As always.
My little sister and I were as opposite as any siblings could be. She’d never approved of my ticket out of Terrebonne, and I always thought her lack of financial planning would land her on a park bench with just a coffee cup and a newspaper blanket. Maybe half our issues with each other stemmed from the fact that no one called me out on my bullshit like Savvy did. I both hated and admired her for it. But, I’d never admit it to her.
“Thanks honey.” I held my breath in anticipation of anymore bad news. “Addie?”
“Yeah?”
“I miss you.”
My dad worked a blue-collar job all his life. He wasn’t a callous man. I came from a loving family, but it took a lot for my proud, disciplined father to crack.
And his voice cracked. It wobbled.
It freaking broke.
Maybe that was the reason my mouth opened and the most asinine, ridiculous, suicidal thing came out without a single regard for my well-being.
“I’ll be there.”
The pastel colored contents of my closet lay in a pile on my bedroom floor, and I still had nothing to wear. Roland hated me in black. He claimed it wasn’t ladylike and didn’t befit a Bordeaux.
However, it wasn’t my taste that didn’t fit Bordeaux standards; it was me. I’d conformed to something I loathed. Glancing around at the clothespocolypse, I dug my heels into the hardwood and pushed them as far away as I could.
They were safe. They were obedient. They looked like Easter threw up all over them. I hated everything they stood for.
Nowhere in the three-foot high pile of designer labels and expensive fabric, could I find something appropriate to wear to Pappy’s funeral. Nothing to pay my respects to the man who’d called me a sissy for taking dance classes, and then snuck into the back of the recital hall to watch me destroy the stage with my horrific tapping. Nothing to honor the man who’d tried his best to teach me to bait a hook and catch a fish. I’d humored him just to pretend like I belonged in his world, but when his back was turned, I’d set all the fish and worms free. I’d never had the stomach for it.
Savannah was the one who’d liked to get her hands dirty. She and Pappy would fish for hours and come back proud of their loot. Me? It’d broke my heart to see the destruction of life, so I’d sat in my room and studied as they loaded up the truck with poles and coolers, laughing.
Glancing at the hurricane of clothes, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony.
Had I known then that the biggest destruction of my life would be my own doing, baiting worms wouldn’t have seemed so inhumane. Shaking my head, I popped my suitcase open and neatly folded some pants a few dresses inside.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I closed my eyes, gathering courage. I knew this was coming. I’d given myself the internal pep-talk needed to combat Roland Christopher Bordeaux III. I thought I was ready to face him, but the man had a way of making me feel like the hired help getting caught inside the main house.
“My grandfather died,” I began. “I’m going to Terrebonne Parish for the funeral, Roland.”
“The hell you are.”
“It’s just for a few days.”
He eyed the pile of clothes, slowing the cadence of his phrasing as if I were a child incapable of comprehending big words. “I don’t care if it’s for a few hours, Adelaide, I forbid it.”
“You can’t keep me from being with my family right now.”
Taking a step forward, he laughed, lifting a slow and deliberate eyebrow while cocking his chin. “Adelaide, I’ve kept you from being with your family for ten years. If you think you’re traveling anywhere unaccompanied, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“That’s just it. You don’t have to be inconvenienced. I’ll drive to Terrebonne Parish today, and I’ll be back right after the funeral on Saturday.” I held my breath.
“And risk that group of swamp-swimming inbreeders rubbing off on you again?” He kicked a mint green designer gown out of his way and buttoned his suit jacket. “Absolutely not.”
“He was my grandfather, Roland.”
“He was a blue-collar fish peddler with a crazy mail-order bride. Trust me, I did you a favor by taking you away from there before you married one of your cousins.”
I fought hard to control my temper. Sugarbirch Plantation was my home, and the last thing I wanted to do was cause a scene with a house full of people. However, the more he talked, the Sugarbirch pedigree that coated my exterior melted as the down-home Terrebonne that ran through my veins boiled from the inside out. My prim and proper smile slipped, and my lip curled into a murky smirk straight out of the bayou.
“I’m going to see my family,” I repeated with more conviction. I’d never challenged Roland in ten years of marriage. I’d always worried about the consequences. I was way overdue.
“You know what your problem is, Adelaide? You don’t know your place. You’ve never fit into my world. God knows, I’ve tried give you class, but I guess it’s true. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” A self-satisfied sneer plastered across his face, and he crossed his arms as if he’d won the battle.
But the war had just begun, and Operation ‘Shut This Shit Down’ was an active mission.
Slamming the suitcase closed, I ran a hard stare over my husband. Six feet of carefully constructed, spray tanned, manicured muscle glared back at me. Every dyed brown hair was in place as he snarled, baring perfectly veneered, obscenely white teeth.
“I’m sorry, dear, I can’t hear you over the inbred voices in my head screaming at me to punch you in the dick.” Grabbing my suitcase, I stormed out of the room, and ran down the stairs, praying in my grand exit that I didn’t fall flat on my ass.
“Adelaide, come back here! You know what? Fine. Leave. But don’t bother coming back.”
Stopping mid-stride, I spun around, not sure if I wanted to laugh or cry. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I’m serious. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to tell you for weeks, and this stunt of yours makes it that much easier.”
All the fire that moments earlier lit my confidence pooled at my feet. “Tell me what?”
“I’ve met someone,” he admitted, palming the back of his neck while standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Our marriage has been a joke for a long time…and the sex….” He rolled his eyes and nodded to my sensible yellow dress. “Let’s just say you’re hardly the co-ed you were ten years ago.”
“What?” I gasped, horrified. “You made me this way. This is what you wanted, Roland!”
He relaxed his posture and picked at an invisible piece of lint on his suit. “I wanted a respectable wife, not a frigid ice queen.” Tears burned my eyes, but I held them back as he threw flame to the fire. “I don’t love you anymore, Adelaide. I’m not sure if I ever did.”
This wasn’t happening. I saw the words come out of his mouth, but my twisted brain refused to process them. Instinct begged me to scream at him, but shock glued my mouth shut. Roland, of course, mistook my silence for weakness.
“Go back to the swamp, Adelaide Dubois. Crawl back to where you came from just as you crawled out ten years ago… with nothing. I’ll send the papers to Gator Junction.” He punctuated the words with such an over-exaggerated Southern accent I wanted to sink a heel in his nuts.
Instead, I did what I’d done my whole life. I ran.
However, as I passed by the parlor I stopped.
It was deathly quiet. Most of the ladies sat with worrie
d hands, tight lips, and raised eyebrows, as if they had been waiting for Roland to realize what a mistake he’d made in marrying me. I glanced at Ashley as she messed with her stupid side bun, patting it with a smirk she fought to hide.
Then there was Courtney. Queen of Shreveport. Bitch of the South. The woman who stared at my husband’s cock like it was her last meal in prison. I’d bit my tongue so many times, I assumed it had scars. If I was going out, I was going out with a bang.
Stomping into the parlor, I flashed Roland a brilliant smile over my shoulder. “Hey y’all,” I placed the suitcase on the floor and ran a hand over the finger sandwiches. Finally picking one up, I took a bite and frowned. “You know? They look so good, but once you get a taste you find them to be as unsatisfying as they are tiny.” Picking my suitcase up I swung my hips dramatically toward the door. Pausing at the threshold, I winked at them. “Kind of like Roland’s dick.”
The only thing I heard before I slammed the front door was shocked female gasps, and one low male curse quickly moving away from the parlor.
As an idealistic twenty-year old, I didn’t think about five years down the road, much less ten. If I had, I sure as hell wouldn’t have signed a pre-nuptial agreement that left me driving down Highway 90, penniless, jobless, and homeless.
Home.
Jesus. How the hell could I come crawling back to my family after pretending Terrebonne Parish had been wiped off the face of the earth? They were good people. They didn’t deserve the radio silence I’d given them over the years. I’d even let Roland manipulate me into a Christmas card relationship with my little sister.
I pressed the gas pedal harder and turned up the radio. Faith Hill’s, Cry blasted through the car and I sniffed back an impending breakdown. I envied my sister. A free spirit from birth, Savannah didn’t give two shits or a rat’s ass what people thought of her. People respected her. Women, and even some men, feared her, but most of all, people wanted to be her. You always knew where you stood with Savvy.
Me? I smiled sweetly and told everyone what they wanted to hear.
I had four hours into my trip with a little more than half an hour to go until I had to face them. Running the scenario over in my head did nothing but make me chew Rolaids like they were Tic-Tacs. A quick glance in the rear-view mirror reminded me why God invented sunglasses. Crying did nothing for the lines around my eyes. Roland reminded me of that every day.
“God, give me a sign. Am I making a huge mistake here?”
Fear was a four-letter word that had me about ready to make a very illegal turn through the median and beg for Roland’s forgiveness when a song came on the radio.
Not just a song. The song. My sign.
I listened to the first few lines, absorbing the wisdom of Taylor Swift’s We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together. As my confidence grew, so did a surge of empowerment, and I rolled down the window to get my first taste of it.
With the wind whipping my hair and the music blaring in my ears, I felt lighter than I had in a long time. Holding onto the wheel with one hand, I stuck the other out of the window, feeling the Southern Louisiana weather coating my palm. Absorbing every word, every guitar strum, and every middle finger the song had to offer, I belted it out right along with Taylor as the tears flowed.
“Never, ever, ever, you cheating son of a bitch.”
Unfortunately, during the chorus of my cathartic cleanse, something resembling a bat flew into the window and committed suicide between my face and my sunglasses.
Crying and now blind, Jesus took the wheel as I slapped myself stupid and swerved all over the road, crossing the double yellow line into oncoming traffic. Lights flashed, horns honked and I made deals with God, Satan, and Dolly Parton to let me live.
Still screaming, I finally pulled my prized little blue BMW over and tried to calm down until I realized the bat was still fluttering around on the floor board. Throwing a road side tantrum, I jerked off my seat belt, kicked it out of the car, and stomped the shit out of it.
“Stupid bat! You messed up my song! You. Messed. Up. My. Song!” I punctuated each word with another stomp to the bat’s shell.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a bat.
Closer inspection told me it was some kind of swamp bug.
Or it used to be a swamp bug.
Now it looked like something Babs spit on the floor before putting her teeth back in.
Climbing back into the car before someone called the police, I made my way further down the highway and started recognizing the old, beat up road signs for Terrebonne. Maybe it was another sign? Maybe the smack of the bug was my slap of reality back to the swamp I abandoned?
Sighing, I steadied the wheel and the sun hit the diamond on my ring finger. It was a brilliant stone that had been in Roland’s family for generations. A perfectly cut, five carat, pear-shaped diamond, next to an equally impressive wedding band that had kept me in line while his dick roamed free.
I balled my fist around both and tossed them out the window.
“Screw you Roland Bordeaux. Screw you and your whore.”
As I said the words, I glanced up at the mammoth sign welcoming me back to Terrebonne Parish. A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “I’m back y’all,” I announced to no one.
Then, realizing I’d just tossed a three-hundred-thousand dollar ring out the window, I slammed my foot on the brake and threw it in reverse. “But I’m not stupid,”
Ten minutes later, after a thorough highway shoulder search on my hands and knees, I stashed my rings in the glove box. Although nerves still ate at me, I winked at the sign as I made the turn this time. “Now, I’m back.”
Two
Glances And Other Stolen Things
Savannah
Austin, TX
Why aren’t you answering your phone? You better get your ass back to Terrebonne, now! I am not doing this by myself!!!!!!
Six seemed like an excessive number of exclamation points to follow that statement, even for my uptight and overly neurotic sister. The thought was immediately followed by a heavy weight pressing down on my chest when I remembered the reason I’d be traveling five-hundred miles back to my hometown.
Pappy was gone.
Admittedly, the man had been a total asshole to most people, but he was our Pappy. Unless we were fishing, his idea of bonding with his grandchildren had been barking at my sister and me to ‘stay still’ or ‘a little to the left’ while we balanced on one foot, holding the tinfoil wrapped bunny ears at just the right angle for the Saint’s game to come in clearly on his ancient TV.
We’d be stuck like that for hours, doing our best impression of lawn flamingos while our beloved grandfather sat his happy ass in his recliner and plowed through an eighteen-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon. But the second you got him on the water, he was a different person. It’d been our thing. I’d inherited his no bullshit attitude and I suspected that’s why we got along so well. Pappy never felt the need to fill silences. He was perfectly content sitting on the boat for hours waiting for something to take the bait.
My sister, not so much. She was every bit the Southern belle without the pedigree, not that she’d let that stop her. She was the quintessential people pleaser, bending over backward to accommodate everyone but herself to maintain appearances, especially for her pencil dick of a husband.
She was as perfect as a porcelain doll, and I was the Barbie that got snagged by the dog. Where she was frilly dresses and white gloves, I was wild hair and thrift store finds. I didn’t envy my sister’s life. She was stuck pretending that her past and family never existed in exchange for a fancy car and boat loads of money. I may be worse off than a gambler on race day, but I did what I wanted, when I wanted. Sometimes it worked in my favor and sometimes, like now, it got me into a bind I wasn’t sure how to get out of.
I'd been avoiding her calls since yesterday afternoon, not sure how I was going to make the trek back home, seeing as I didn't own a car and my bank account was currently overdrawn. O
ne thing was for sure, I had to find a way, otherwise Addie was liable to come get me and drag me home by my hair. There was no way I was going to let the princess of Shreveport see how epically I'd failed at life. Especially when hers was so pristine and shiny with her perfect, rich, douchebag of a husband, and her mansion on the hill.
As if to remind me how different our lives had turned out, something wet and slimy nudged at my cheek. I turned my head on the pillow and came face to face with Kevin Bacon. No, the universe hadn't smiled down on me and made all my teenage dreams come true. I was staring down the snout of Kevin Junior Bacon Cheeseburger, my pet pot-bellied pig. Technically, he was Atticus’ pig, but I was the one that took care of him and he really did like me better.
Atticus was another pain in the ass who added to the shit stack that was my life. I couldn't help the distain that crept through me as I looked over at him sprawled out next to me on the bed. When did I go from hopelessly infatuated, to daydreaming about how I could murder him without going to jail? He'd gone from a modern poet to a self-righteous windbag who I wanted to smother with a pillow just to get five minutes of peace.
And Atticus, really? It's like his parents wanted him to grow up to be a pretentious hipster with little motivation to be more than a take-out delivery boy, which only led to my entire apartment smelling like curry.
I dated a walking, talking stereotype, who came complete with black plastic rimmed glasses, year-round knit beanie, skinny jeans, and a carefully chosen collection of replica threadbare vintage band T-shirts. He only picked the most obscure bands to listen to, straying from anything he considered ‘mainstream,’ and constantly yammered about 'the corporations' while updating his Instagram account on his iPhone. He was so far away from the men I’d known growing up, which I suppose, was part of the appeal in the beginning.
I’d fallen for his carefully crafted persona, not unlike the trap my sister had fallen into with Shit Stain, as I’d so affectionately dubbed her tyrant of a husband. Yep, both Dubois sisters had been duped, bamboozled, hoodwinked, swindled, and dickmatized, if you will.