by Tina DeSalvo
“You're having trouble with the workload, Boots?”
“Not at all,” she looked at her grand-mère then pasted on a fake smile.
“That’s better. I told her to be polite to our company. See, she’s doing a good job.” Mignon turned to smile at Beau. Where her granddaughter’s smile was forced and strained, hers was sweet and approachable. Beau had a flash of an image of a formidable younger Mignon flirting with a man just coyly enough to have him do her bidding.
Mimi waved him off. “Go change. You can use my headlight.” She took it off her head and handed it to Beau. Her hair stuck straight up where the head straps had once held it down.
Jewell walked over and finger combed her grandmother’s silver curls. “She never shares her headlight with anyone,” she murmured. Then, she spoke a little louder. “I guess I can use your help until lunch.” She gave him an up and down look. “I hope you have a strong back.”
“Pushing paper all day builds up back muscles better than you know.”
Ten minutes later, Beau entered the dank and dirty top floor of the barn, a place he’d absolutely no interest in spending ten seconds in, much less a couple of hours before lunchtime. He had a healthy appetite, not much ruined it, but he guessed dealing with the crap in storage might do the trick. He flipped on the headlight as he entered the room. Jewell was in front of the only window, a rag in one hand, a bottle of cleaner in the other. She looked wholly domestic. Knowing she was a scholar with a lot of initials after her name doing manual labor here, did something to his insides. How far the high and mighty had fallen. He might not trust New Orleans’ once most interviewed Louisiana history professor, nor her motives for coming to Sugar Mill. He might totally think of her as a criminal. He even might understand all the reasons people made bad choices and be sympathetic to it up to a point. What he had no patience for was how those bad decisions dominoed negatively into the lives of the innocent. Yet, in this moment as he watched her dodging the spiders she feared to stretch overhead to wipe away layers of dust, he felt sorry for her.
“I can reach the top,” he said, taking the dirty rag from her. “Looks like there is just as much gunk on the outside as on the inside.”
She sighed. “Yeah. It would be faster for me to bring more lights up here than trying to clean that window. I’d need scaffolding or a lift-bucket truck.”
Beau picked up his cell phone and punched in the number of his cousin, Steve. Steve was the general manager of the local cable television company. He had access to bucket trucks. He also was long-winded
“Hey, coo-zan.” Before he could utter another word, Beau was interrupted.
“Is it true Stanley Boudreaux got himself another DWI?”
Well, if Steve knew about Stanley, then everyone else in Cane knew. There was no stopping the news from spreading fence post to fence post or from beauty shop to pharmacy. Especially when the news started from the one person whose mailbox met the front end of Boudreaux’s fire engine red Lexus. That person would be cousin Ruby. And, cousin Ruby loved to be at the head end of the gossip telling.
“I can’t talk about it.” He ran his hand through his hair, knocking the headlight he'd forgotten was there. The light shot up at the ceiling, illuminating spider webs hanging like shredded sheets on a clothesline. God, he hated this dirty place almost as much as he hated dealing with Stanley Boudreaux. He yanked off the headlight, holding it in his free hand, and began to pace.
“Come on, man. Just give me a little inside info that Ruby doesn’t know yet. It doesn’t have to be important. Just something like his wife was on the phone with him when he wrecked or he was wearing women’s underwear…” He laughed. “Ruby will hate it if I know something she doesn’t. It will be a great practical joke.”
“For you.” Beau grumbled. “Not me. I’ve been on the wrong side of Ruby’s wrath. I don’t intend to be there again.”
“Are you talking about the misère you and Ben had when you stuffed live crawfish in her mattress? What, you were twelve?”
“It feels like yesterday. My ears still ache where she peeshnicked me. She has the most powerful thumping fingers in all of south Louisiana. I guar-an-tee.”
Steve laughed. “Oh, man-oh-man,” he said when he finally caught his breath between the laughter. “Here I was worried I had to argue around your high ethical morals regarding attorney-client privilege to get info when it is Ruby’s finger thumping-peeshnicking wrath I have to make a case against.” He grunted. “I don’t have a chance in hell, do I?”
“Nope.” Beau glanced at Jewell who was staring at him, clearly having a hard time following his side of the conversation. No doubt about it, he’d be explaining to her that peeshnicking was thumping someone in a sensitive spot with their flicking finger. She turned, and began looking in the dresser drawers closer to her. A Mona Lisa smile gently filled her face. Damn, but that smile made him feel warm inside.
That was dangerous. It could weaken him, if he didn’t guard himself better.
He turned his back to her. “So, Steve, I called you because I need a favor. Can you send a bucket truck to Sugar Mill? A window in the barn needs to be cleaned ASAP.”
“Let me check the schedule.” Beau heard Steve’s fingers clicking on a computer keyboard. They could joke and tease with one another, but Beau appreciated how quickly family was ready to help family. There was a security in standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Bienvenu clan. Even for the small things. “Just the one window, huh?”
“Yep, just the one.”
“You will owe me.”
“Ben will owe you.”
“You’re going to tell him that, right?”
“Hell, yeah.”
“I’ll send the truck over after lunch. Oh, and Beau, would you ask Ben what’s up with that pretty brunette staying at his place?” He chuckled. “I hear she looks a lot like Mila Kunis, is that true?”
Beau looked at Jewell. Mila Kunis. He hadn’t considered that she looked like her before. She wasn’t her twin, but he guessed she did have enough similarities with her big round eyes, full lips, pretty round face and dark silky hair to make the connection. “I don’t know,” he answered knowing he had to say something. “Where did you see her?”
“I didn’t. Ann did.”
Beau didn’t like the way this conversation was going. Steve’s wife was Cane’s second most active gossiper after Ruby. And he knew that meant that news about the Mila Kunis stranger in town was spreading across Cane as fast as the news about Stanley Boudreaux busting up Ruby’s mailbox with his red Lexus.
“Ann was shopping at the Simoneauxs’ estate sale and the pretty brunette started asking her questions about the longtime families of Cane, including the Bienvenus.” Beau knew she’d have happily answered those questions, too. “She said the brunette was curious. Real curious. And pretty. Have you met her yet?”
Beau turned the headlight in his hand and shined it at Jewell. “Yeah, I met her. I'll look for your truck, cuz.” He hung up the phone as Steve started to talk some more.
“I assume I am the ‘her’ you're referring to?” Jewell said, surprising Beau that she was so direct. She’d been mostly evasive with everything else they had discussed. He supposed she was curious what his cousin had said about her.
“Yeah, apparently the people who met you yesterday at the Simoneauxs’ are talking about you.” He exhaled and leaned against the cabinet closest to him. “They say you look like Mila Kunis.”
Jewell started to laugh. It was a full, generous and unguarded laugh. “Of all the things I thought you might say, that was not one of them. Mila Kunis?” She wiped a tear from her eye. “Well, that’s a first.”
He smiled, unable to stop himself as her contagious laughter shot through his blood like heated kerosene in a hurricane lamp. It was so damn unexpected that it completely startled him. He stood and started to walk toward the dirty window to regain his balance.
“Cane has been pretty star struck,” he said, not daring to loo
k at her. “Since Elli brought the first movie to Sugar Mill, everyone is always seeing celebrities in the faces of newcomers.”
He gazed out the window at two fat gray squirrels racing along a hooked old branch of the live oak. The one in front stopped, turned to face the one behind it with its tail straight up and vibrating. He or she didn’t look happy. Beau found himself sympathizing with the squirrel getting dressed down by the -squirrel with the twitching tail. He shook his head and turned toward Jewell.
“A few weeks ago,” he said, picking up the story he had begun, “a man painting the lift-span bridge down the bayou was mobbed by a few dozen women carrying autograph books, cameras, food and personal items of lingerie. Someone had spread the rumor that he was Ashton Kutcher and that he was pretending to be a painter as some sort of research...or method acting thing for a role he would be playing in a movie being filmed in New Orleans.”
Jewell’s eyes shimmered with her laughter. “That’s so funny. I love small towns with personality.” She began to open the drawers of the chest closest to her to see if anything was left inside.
“There is no short supply of personality here, that’s for sure.”
“Well, you tell the chatty people of Cane that I am in no way remotely in the movie or entertainment industry. Definitely not my thing. I have an aversion to it. In fact, I think I’m allergic to it since I was a little girl. I used to break out in hives every single year that I was forced to perform in the annual dance recital. I didn’t at first when I was a spunky three-year-old toddler, but from the time I hit grade school until I refused to step on stage in high school, I’d get all red and splotchy and itchy. I…” Her head jerked up, but she quickly dropped it back down to continue looking in the drawers. It was clear that she was sorry she’d revealed so much of herself to him. “Anyway, I’m not remotely the Mila Kunis type.”
She bit her lower lip. Beau was good at reading people, and that little nip of her pretty pouty bottom lip told him she was forcing herself to keep her mouth shut. The way her shoulders lifted and tensed, he knew she was unhappy she'd said what she had about herself. So, there would be no more personal revelations for a while. He had no idea why that little story of her fear of performing at dance recitals was a big deal. It wasn’t like she had revealed some career or life changing event. Her comments seemed innocuous. Yet, she obviously didn’t like telling him anything about herself, even if it was about a childhood experience that had nothing to do with her today. Well, he guessed considering her recent legal troubles, he understood that she still hated being in the limelight.
“Allergy or not,” he began, staring directly into her huge, magnetic eyes, hoping to catch any nuance or tell that might give him more understanding or insight into this woman. It might just help him to know how in the hell to deal with her. “You have that sexy, exotic, prettier-than-the-average-bear good looks that translate into something special. Different. To the droves of bargain shoppers you impressed at the estate sale, you look pretty enough to be a celebrity. Those crazy shrimp boots you wear make you eccentric enough to fit the image, too.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I can see it.”
Jewell looked at him and cocked her head like BJ, Elli’s beagle. She looked bewildered and damn cute. Then she blinked a few times and returned to digging in the drawers. Her smart professorial brain was probably processing his compliment, evaluating its purpose and trying to figure out if she could use it to her advantage.
“Grab an end,” Jewell said, her voice even and all business. “Let’s turn this dresser around toward what little light there is up here so I can look for identifying markings on the back and start cataloging the furniture.”
They shuffled their way to the window. Once the dresser was set in place, Jewell took a magnifying glass from the leather tool belt she wore. She crouched in front of the rear of the chest and started studying it.
“What are you looking for?” Beau asked.
“Wood grain to type the wood. Manufacturers’ markings or a signature from the craftsman. A child’s etching or family stamp. Anything, really.”
Beau slipped his headlight on his head and turned it on. He crouched down near her. Big mistake, he thought. When he first saw her in the barn he thought he’d gotten a whiff of her sexy, sweet, earthy scent that had assaulted him the night before, but now, he was certain of it. His entire body reacted to it even before his brain had a chance to know what was pleasing it so damn much. He stood and took a step back.
“It looks old to me,” He knew he sounded annoyed.
“Not that old, really.” She shrugged, stood, took a step away from him. Not far enough. Her scent was still stoking his flesh, burning his blood. “It looks like it’s red oak. Mass production. I’d say from the ’70s.”
“1870s? The plantation was built around then.”
“1970s. About the same era as your disco app.”
He bit back on a smile. It was one thing to play nice with her, to win her confidence so he could protect his family; it was another thing to actually enjoy a playful convo with her. That would mean he’d let his guard down.
Big mistake.
She slipped her iPad from the black leather case around her neck and typed something onto a spreadsheet. “Is that your diary?”
“Pretty much.” She pulled a drawer completely out of the dresser.
Beau tried not to stare at the way her body moved smoothly with purpose and grace. This whole antiquities study was more sensual than he would’ve ever considered. He titled the head lamp up and shined it up into the dirty rafters.
“You know, I’m kind of surprised how useful dis’ here head lamp is for somethin’ other than going out at night lookin’ for frogs’, me. Yep, sure is good for froggin’, for sure.” He made his Cajun accent intentionally heavy and playful. He tilted his head up and then to the side and then to the other side, causing the light beam to bounce off in different directions. “It’s like a movie premiere in the barn.”
Jewell looked at him playing with the light. “Are you bored?”
He stopped, faced her and blinded her for a moment. She squinted with annoyance. “Oops, sorry, Boots.” He twisted the headlight so it shined behind him. “Not really bored. It’s just that all this stuff looks like junk to me.”
“Well, from what I can tell, these four items are.” She laughed. “The only thing I found of note is the plantation era crystal and brass ink well I put in the crate next to the wall near the window. I found it in the first bureau…” The monitor at her waist began to cackle and Jewell stopped speaking to listen.
Beau recognized the voice immediately. It was clear and strong. Her Cajun accent stronger. His Tante Izzy was back in Cane. Jewell looked at him, clearly not certain what to do about the new arrival. She didn’t move to go downstairs right away as the two old women interacted; he and Jewell remained flies on the wall as the women's voices came through the baby monitor on her belt.
“Is that da Price is Right you watchin’? Speed-up da TV so I can hear it better." His aunt demanded, sounding querulous. “I guess if you like Price Is Right, you ain’t half bad.”
“Maybe I’m not half good, either,” Mimi responded. “In my opinion, being good is overrated. Especially at our age.”
Tante Izzy made a rude noise. “What you mean, our age?”
***
“I’m not as old as you are,” Jewell heard Izzy Bienvenu tell Mimi on the monitor, and in person as she stepped onto the bottom stair. Beau was already walking up to his aunt, arms spread open to give her a welcoming hug.
“Well, look who’s back from her ladies-gone-wild-trip to the casino. Go to any burlesque shows?” He kissed her on her wrinkled cheek and engulfed into his arms the tiny lady in the turquoise velour sweat suit, lemon yellow flowered T-shirt and matching lemon yellow Keds.
She closed her eyes and absorbed the hug for all of ten seconds, then swatted him. “You know we did.” She looked at Mignon. “Who dat?”
“Tante Izzy,
let me introduce to you Mignon Duet.” He smiled. “Mignon, this is Tante Izzy.” Jewell watched as her grand-mère stood with polite dignity and extended her hand to Izzy.
“Oh, mon Dieu, you is wearin’ five rings.” Izzy looked at Mimi’s hand for what must have been thirty seconds and Jewell would swear she heard the tick of a clock, the drip of water from a leaky spigot, and the swoosh of sand in an hourglass. Fear that this sparky woman would criticize her Mimi for her fashion faux pas had her leaping into action. She rushed forward to diffuse what might be shaping into a difficult moment, but Tante Izzy was a beat ahead of her. She lifted Mignon’s hand and inspected the rings. “I wish I had thought of dat, me. It sure is pretty.”
Mignon nodded. “They were the only nice things at the Simoneauxs’ sale,” she told her. “It was more a garage sale than an estate sale, if you ask me.”
“Suzette Simoneaux, God rest her soul, was as cheap as dey come.” Izzy nodded. “If she din’t have bad taste, she’d have no taste at all.” She looked at the rings again. “’Cept for dem dere rings. Dey sure are nice. I like da purple flower one best.”
“I want you to have it, then.” Mimi yanked on the purple ring for a few moments before getting it over her thick arthritic knuckle. She handed it to Izzy who was very pleased to own it and told her so. “You know, da stuff in dat recently departed woman’s house was cheap. God rest her soul,” Mimi said, repeating Izzy’s words. She pointed to Jewell. “That’s what I told ma sucrée.”
Izzy turned to face Jewell, noticing her in the room for the first time. She threw up her hand to shade her eyes. “Mon Dieu, you goin’ bull-eyein’, girl?”
Beau reached over and flipped off the light on Jewell’s headlight. “She’s looking for her prince amongst the frogs, Tante Izzy,” he said with a grin.
“I am not.” She took off the head lamp, then refastened her ponytail that had slipped from the band in the process.
“Best prince around is right in front of your nose.” She nodded, then her head jerked to look down. Her eyes widened and her mouth moved a few times before she spoke. “Did you get dose shrimp boots at da Simoneauxs’, too?” Jewell smiled and turned her right boot from side to side so Izzy could see it better.