A Billion Reasons Why

by Kristin Billerbeck

  “Crawfish boils aren’t for a few, Katie Marie, they’re for everyone within radius—and Rusty’s everybody’s friend. Food brings people together, or did you forget that out west? You’re not eating your meals alone, are you? It’s bad for the digestive system. It’s bad enough Eileen is making you eat that watered-down food. You girls are too skinny.”

  “Eileen cooks good, Mam.”

  “Oh, Eileen. That girl doesn’t cook. Is there even butter in your refrigerator?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “These mudbugs were fresh caught in the Gulf last night. You should have seen them squirm when we poured them out. Some of them look like the grandaddies of crawdads, so big it makes my mouth water just looking at them.”

  As if Mam would serve anything less. They may have been poor, but one would never have known it by the blessings on their table. Mam could buy any household staple with little more than a dollar and some skilled negotiating.

  “Mam, what was that all about with Luc? You always loved him, I thought. I felt like a failure when he didn’t marry me, like I’d let you down.”

  “Oh, I never expected him to marry you, Katie. Luc DeForges is about Luc DeForges. I never understood what you saw in him. There was a day when he wore that hat and could have been a homeless guy on Rampart. I told you a long time ago, there’s men who are charming and then there’s men you marry. Luc ain’t the marrying kind, and I do think I told you that a long time ago too. You didn’t want to hear it.”

  “No,” Katie said in agreement.

  “So tell me about this Dexter character. I nearly got on a plane to come meet him. Imagine my shock when you said you were coming home. With Luc,” Mam added, as though she’d swallowed something bitter.

  “It seems Luc is quickly running out of friends in my life.”

  “As well he should. So before you tell me about Dexter, I should tell you that Luc’s little brother Ryan is marrying a lovely girl. It’s been all the news, this wedding. I do wish I had been invited. The good Lord knows I’ve sold her daddy enough shrimp—well, her daddy’s people.” Mam laughed. “Imagine the invitation addressed to the lady who sells the freshest shrimp at the farmers market. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?”

  Mam opened the front door and gestured for Katie to enter.

  “I see you painted another room salmon.”

  “And why wouldn’t I? It’s the color of freshly boiled shrimp, and fresh shrimping pays the mortgage. Well, your Paddy took care of that, I suppose. Shrimp pays the taxes and the insurance, that’s more accurate.”

  “It’s like living in the gut of a fish!” Katie complained. She looked around. Mam’s new house defied her expectations. An Italianate Victorian, it had been split into two townhomes. On the outside the building fit perfectly into the large mansions that surrounded it; on the inside, however, it was comfortable and warm—except for the orangish-pink living room. “Couldn’t you just do an accent wall, like they do on HGTV?”

  “You move to California and suddenly you’re an expert on decorating?”

  “Well, not an expert, but—”

  “Katie, don’t be so negative. It’s a color of life. The good life down here in N’awlins. I see no reason to ever leave, and I see no reason to ever leave a living room beige. Besides, it warded off Katrina. I think it’s a lucky color.”

  Katie knew better than to argue with that. Like most N’awliners, Mam’s faith was mixed with a large portion of superstition.

  “The house is beautiful. I shouldn’t have been so negative. Look at your lantern over the stairs. It’s just like being in an outdoor courtyard.”

  “No, come see. I have a real courtyard!” Mam led her through the living room to an oversized beveled-glass door that led to the back gallery.

  Stepping outside into the heat, Katie heard the roar of the propane torch under the boiling pot. She ran down the steps and sniffed deeply the spices added to the water to make a boil complete.

  “This must be Katie Marie.” Rusty Slater stood over two giant ice chests, filled to capacity with cleaned crawdads.

  Katie felt a rush of emotion—first, that Rusty looked nothing like her father and second, that she’d forever associate him with one of her favorite things in life: a crawfish boil. Rusty was much younger than her father, even now, nearly ten years after Paddy’s death. Mam had married her own age this time.

  Rusty was a stocky, rugged-looking man with a mustache and clean-shaven head. He had a barrel chest and beefy arms, and as she reached to shake his hand, he pulled her into a bear hug.

  “There’s no excuse for my not seeing you before today,” he said. He stepped backward. “You’re as pretty as your mam. See them crawdads? Buddy of mine pulled them out himself last night. These are as fresh as you can get unless you live in Arabi and pull them out while the pot is berlin.”

  “I can’t wait!”

  “Your mother tells me you got a beau out there in California. How come he didn’t come with you? You explained to him what family means?”

  “He’ll come before the wedding. He wants to meet everyone.”

  “What’s he like to do for fun? Dexter, right? He fish? Play pool? Ping-Pong?”

  “He has a Segway. He plays Segway polo with some of his friends and co-workers on Saturdays.”

  “He has a what, now?” Rusty cupped his ear.

  “A Segway. It’s a motorized mobility device. You stand up and lean into it with your hips to steer it.”

  “It’s a what, now?”

  “It’s like a scooter that you stand up on.”

  Rusty nodded. “All right then. To each his own, I always say. Scooter polo.”

  “Segway polo.”

  “That right, now.”

  “Come on now, Katie,” Mam called. “I want to show you the rest of the house.”

  Katie followed her mam reluctantly. So much change to take in, and she hated change. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t been home. Everything was different now.

  Chapter 9

  NEVERTHELESS

  Katie’s mother rambled on, shifting from house minutia to hometown gossip. “So as I was saying . . .” Mam was leading her back up the steps and halted on the landing. “It seems Ryan’s bride is from Tyler Oil money.”

  “I heard that. Google.”

  “Google. When Google can keep up with the women at the farmers market, you call me. Ryan and Olivia met at Tulane. He went back to school, you know, to get a degree in something more practical. He hasn’t done a thing with his Loyola theater degree, but then, we didn’t have money to waste on a long shot like that. Talent will only take a person so far. Teaching pays the bills.

  “The city is all aflutter because Miss Tyler is said to be wearing a local designer’s gown, and everything is provided by local companies for the wedding. It’s the way her father is playing the green card, but with the oil leak, he doesn’t have a chance. This city is mad! They wouldn’t even use Luc’s bakery for the cake, can you imagine, because the business is nationwide now. That might be a way to make points with some folks, but it’s no way to marry into a family.”

  “Can we talk about something else? Tell me about my stepdaddy. What’s he like?”

  “He’s very forgiving, for one thing. He understands completely why you haven’t been home in so long. I confess I’m not so understanding, but he says, ‘Irene, honey, she’s got her own life now. You did good, you sent her off to fly on her own. That’s what you’re supposed to do, raise them up to fly.’ ”

  “I would have come home for the wedding if you’d told me there was one. Vegas, Mom? That’s not like you.”

  “It was a quiet affair, and I was anxious to make it as low-key as possible. Rusty won a shrimping contest, and we used the trip to get hitched. You know how this town gossips. I told him, Rusty, if you take me to Sin City you’re coming back with a wife, because I ain’t that kind of lady.”

  Katie laughed.

  “There’s no sense in making such a big deal
over a second marriage. It’s better to do it quietly and let people find out you’re married. You leave the gossipers to their own that way. It’s too late for anyone to care much. You want some sweet tea, honey?”

  “No thanks, Mam.”

  “Now that right there, that’s your grammy’s clock. I remember it from my childhood. Doesn’t it look divine on that mantel?”

  There were some heirlooms about that Katie had assumed left the family. The gilt bronze mantel clock was one of them. A gold cherub on a chariot of porcelain shells, it was rumored to be late eighteenth century but it appeared more early-American garage sale.

  “That thing’s still around, huh?”

  “Wasn’t it made for that mantel?”

  “Mam, speaking of gossipers. Does anyone know I’m here for the wedding? Has it been mentioned?” She didn’t ask her real question: Do they remember me as the girl who pathetically proposed to New Orleans’ proudest bachelor only to be turned down flat in front of loads of people?

  Her mother heard the real question anyway. “Oh, what’s it matter what any of them say?”

  “You just told me they’re better informed than Google.”

  “But no one cares about it. It’s just talk. Can’t let a bunch of wagging tongues get to you.” Mam lowered her voice as if they weren’t alone. “There’s speculation that you are Luc’s local girl. You know, that he has many all over the world and he brings you home—”

  “I get it, Mam. Thanks.” Katie fluffed a tapestry pillow on the sofa out of habit. “After eight years, you’d think I’d at least qualify to be his Northern California girl.”

  “A girl may leave the South, but the South doesn’t ever leave her. Now this is the dining room. You see your grammy’s Irish bone china in the built-in? Doesn’t it look made for that spot?”

  “It’s beautiful.” She loved how her mother used the good china every day of her life. Nothing was saved for special occasions, because to her mother, being alive was occasion enough. And after visiting the spot where her father died, Katie wondered if her own mourning hadn’t been a prolonged and welcome excuse from living.

  “Don’t kid yourself, gossip doesn’t have to make sense, Katie. It only has to sound good. Everyone still remembers the two of you on the covers of all those magazines when you were singing in that”—Mam stopped to shake her head— “in that barrelhouse.” Her mother led her across the wide planked pine floors. “Now in here, we have the kitchen.”

  The Barrelhouse Club was the saloon Katie sang at during college, but barrelhouses were the types of clubs where early jazz and swing came to life—not the alcohol barrels depicted earlier. But Katie had left that battle long ago. Mam saw it one way, she another. She stepped into the kitchen.

  “Mam!” Her mouth dropped. A chef’s kitchen, with fire engine red, antique-looking appliances, white wood cabinets with French glass doors, and a large island with shiny granite countertops. “You’re not in a shotgun house anymore. You might even fit the old house into this kitchen!”

  “I miss that old house. That’s why I painted the living room salmon. It’s a little bit of home. That’s how you know if you’re marrying the right man, Katie. You can live anywhere. I had a friend from high school. She kept moving from one parish to another until she finally figured out it wasn’t the house!”

  Mam’s sage wisdom was peppered with Dear Abby common sense.

  “I’m tired, Mam. Do you mind if I lie down?” Katie wanted to take a nap and forget the way Luc had stared at her on the street.

  “I’ve got your room all set up. Come on upstairs.”

  “What am I doing here?”

  “My point exactly. Word on the street is that Luc’s engaged, and you’re here to show the city that there are no hard feelings between you and the DeForges family.”

  “I thought you said they weren’t talking.”

  “I said they weren’t talking much, and they aren’t.”

  “Luc’s not engaged. He would have told me on the way out here.”

  Mam walked across the kitchen and picked up a copy of the Picayune. “It’s all right here in black and white. LUC DEFORGES SETS CAP FOR LOS ANGELES SOCIALITE HEATHER WOLF.”

  The paper whacked the table. Instead of a lovely posed shot of Luc and a socialite, there was Katie hoisted over his shoulder with her backside on the front of the Picayune!

  “That’s not—this could be anybody! Maybe somebody needed help to the car!”

  “Let me tell you something about men, Katie Marie. They don’t resort to cavemen unless they mean business.”

  “You say that like it’s a good thing.”

  “I am only saying I remember a day when you wouldn’t have minded Luc heaving you over his shoulder, but now that he’s engaged and you’re soon to be, I don’t have to play nice with him anymore. I don’t owe him anything. Just because he bought your daddy’s business doesn’t mean a thing.”

  “I never said it did! Fine. What’s it to me if you don’t want Luc in your house? Just keep Jem out too, or it’s rude.”

  “Well, I like Jem.”

  “Remember how you made me invite everyone in my class to my birthday party? Even paste-eater Dannilyn? Not inviting Luc means not inviting Jem. It’s the rule.”

  “It’s my house, Katie.”

  Katie slipped the newspaper into her handbag and followed her mother up the stairs that still smelled of new carpet and floor finish.

  Why did she want to believe in Luc so badly? With each new glimmer of truth, she dared to hope again. Like Charlie Brown trusting Lucy not to pull out the football, she’d run again with total faith. The separation between them, Uptown and Downtown, French New Orleans versus Irish, white collar versus blue collar—in spite of all that, she’d never believed in any separation. What was it going to take to sink into her thick skull that Luc DeForges was no more capable of being a husband to her than Eileen’s dog Pokey? If she could only make her heart believe what her head knew for certain.

  Mam stopped at the rail and pointed out all the black-and-white photos of dead relatives she’d never known.

  “Now, I don’t mind you mending fences with Luc,” she said, “but I think you should just play possum with him until this shindig is over. If this Dexter is all you say he is, the past is better left in the past.”

  “Yes.”

  “Here’s your room. You lay down and I’ll call ya before supper’s ready.” Mam pulled the paper out from Katie’s bag. “Here’s the part that pertains to you. ‘Katie McKenna, daughter of the late greengrocer of the Irish Channel and the Lower Garden District Ian McKenna, is said to have forgiven Luc DeForges for publicly humiliating her at his graduation party from Tulane University by rejecting her public proposal of marriage. Miss McKenna will be attending Ryan McKenna’s wedding as Mr. Luc McKenna’s date to show their friendship has survived the breakup and his impending marriage.’”

  Katie studied the headshot of the redhead said to be Luc’s fiancée. “She’s got red hair?” Clear, warm eyes stared back at her. Luc’s expression, a separate photo, spoke to her. His business face. No smile to his eyes, no warmth or depth for the photographer. She handed the paper back to her mother. “That’s just a business shot for Luc. He’s not engaged.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I can’t.” Luc still had the ability to harm her, and that’s what hurt most of all. She’d thought she was over him. “I just don’t believe it, is all.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not—or even if it’s true. Everyone who will be at that wedding believes it. Your hair is a wreck.”

  Katie patted her hair, which was ratty and thick from the moist air. “Thanks.”

  “Let’s pin curl it after supper. We’ll get it sleek and slick for your forties practice tomorrow, and it will be just like old times. The best revenge, Katie, is living well. Show him you’re living well and done with his tricks forever.”

  Her cell phone rang. She stared at the num
ber, even though she knew by “In the Mood” that it was Dexter again. She’d run out of energy and didn’t have the strength to open the phone. “I don’t deserve him.” But it didn’t explain why she didn’t want to answer the phone.

  “You’re not going to answer?” Mam asked.

  Mam would read too much into it if she didn’t. “Yes, I am. I wanted privacy.”

  Mam took the hint and went out the door as Katie pressed her phone.

  “Hi, Dex! Sorry I didn’t call you back right away. Mam was giving me a tour of the house, and I met my stepfather.”

  “I just wanted you to know I was thinking of you. Did you get your flowers?”

  “No, did you send me flowers?” She lay back on the white iron bed from her youth, glad her mother had kept it.

  “Shoot. I wanted them to be a surprise.”

  “Dex, that is so sweet!”

  Mam opened the door again carrying fresh towels, which she placed on the bed. Katie knew it was just an excuse to eavesdrop. She flopped over on the bed and faced the window.

  “Mam, did Dexter’s flowers arrive yet?”

  “Oh, were those from him?” Mam asked. “There was no card, so I gave them to the neighbor lady.”

  She scowled at her mother. “They’re here, Dex. They’re beautiful! I’m going to lie down now before dinner. I’ll call you tonight when you’re home from work, all right?”

  “We’re having a Scrabble night at church, so I may not be home.”

  “All right, then. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

  “Get some rest, and don’t overdo it.”

  “I promise.”

  “Bye.”

  Katie clicked the phone shut.

  “He doesn’t say he loves you when he hangs up?” Mam asked.

  “He’s at work!”

  “I don’t care if he’s at work or not. You don’t grow up around the water and not say you love somebody when they leave. Look what happened to your father. Imagine if he hadn’t told us that morning.”

  “I’ll change it, Mam. Why did you give my flowers away?”