The Wedding: Dark Romance

by Sienna Mynx

  “That’s Pops. He does things his way. Always have. We just have to be careful not get in his way.”

  “She seems happy, accepted.”

  “She is. My sisters call her mom. My brothers do too. Hell, everyone here does.”

  “Everyone but you?” I ask.

  “She’s just Evangeline to me. I respect her. As much as I can respect my father’s whore.”

  “Brick?”

  I can’t hide my anger and bitterness. Fuck it. I won’t hide it. She wanted the truth she needed to hear it. I didn’t hate Evangeline. To me she’s just another one of Pops victims. We all are. But I don’t love her either. She caused my mother pain—an extreme amount of heartache. And I can’t let that go.

  “You blame her?”

  “Part of me does.”

  Coco looks as if she wants to ask more questions. She doesn’t. She settles back into her recline on me and snuggles my chest. I continue to watch the game. My mood was soured, thinking of Pops and Evangeline. One touch from her and I’m feeling golden again. That’s her magic.

  I fell asleep while he watched basketball. He fell asleep while I watched a repeat of Project Runway. If Brick hadn’t given me those two beers I would have lasted longer. But the last I remember was drifting with him on top of me, kissing me. I think he asked me to give him a blow job? I woke on the sofa in the dark. Brick covered me with the quilt. The only light inside is from the television.

  I hear such sweet harmony over the TV people that I turn the set off and sit up. And then I hear Brick. He’s on his saxophone wailing to the heavens. He’s outside, but further away than the front the porch. There’s a party somewhere in the bayou. I scramble to find my shoes and fix my hair back into a ponytail before I go outside. The camp is packed with people. More than I’ve seen thus far. Some are in the trees. Some are in canoes with lanterns. There are lanterns hanging from windows, porch posts. Brick and others are on the second level at the back of the main house giving a concert.

  It’s like something out of my imagination. It can’t be real. It is. I lean on the banister of the porch railing to my cabin and look up at my guy. He’s playing for me. That’s my song. I would know it anywhere. I wrote the words to it. The band just naturally harmonizes with him.

  “Hey!” Sheila says.

  I glance over my shoulder and Sheila is on my porch. I didn’t see her when I came outside. She hands me a beer.

  “Thank you,” I say with a confused frown.

  “I hopped over the banister from next door when I saw you come outside.” She says and knocks her bottle against mine. I smile and nod before I take a drink. Brick is done with his solo. He sees me. I can tell. He’s now jamming with his family. Smoke is up there with them. He’s on his harmonica. And I see a few other black folk in the mix.

  “They’re good ain’t they?” Sheila asks.

  I nod my answer and sip the beer I don’t need. Beer is not for me. I prefer my coke and rum.

  “Hey? How did you meet Brick?” she asks.

  “A mutual friend,” I say as I try to sound polite.

  “Oh yeah? Brick gots lot of friends down in the Quarter. I can only go down there on the off days that I work at the Crawfish. Hey? You been to our restaurant? It’s to the front of Brick’s club. Captain Jack’s Crawfish House, you know it?”

  “No, I haven’t. But I heard good things about it.”

  “Best crawfish in the Quarter. It’s Ms. Maggie recipe. Brick’s real mother.” Sheila continues. She gives me a fake smile. “Cancer. Took her out like that.” Sheila snaps her fingers “And Pops didn’t even cry. He was in front of the justice of the peace the day after with Evangeline. Ms. Maggie was the best. The sweetest woman. Evangeline, well some say she killed her like she did her own Ma. You know?”

  I glance over to Sheila who is staring at me. I don’t bother to answer. I’m sure she’s trying hard to deliver a message not have conversation on the matter.

  “Wouldn’t trust her if I were you. Just cause she black. She no different than Pops. She’s a thief. She makes you think she’s a friend and then when you don’t expect it she takes what she wants from you. Once she done, you never get it back. So be careful.”

  I nod.

  “Well, I best be getting to the house to collect my kids. The family start out like this, and it’s nice but soon the drinking and fighting will start. You best go inside when it do and stay away from the windows. Beau is up there and he like to fire that homemade rifle of his at the cabins.”

  “Thanks for the beer, Sheila.”

  “No problem. See you later.”

  I nod and she walks off my porch on the plank wood bridge toward the main house. Brick is jamming with the band. There’s shouting from two men on the lower level and one pulls a gun. The other laughs and knocks it out of his face. The man turns and walks off cursing. Sheila may be a bitch, but I get the feeling that her warning was a well placed one. I decide it best to wait for Brick inside and not trust that family of his.

  It’s a long wait. Brick doesn’t return to me until six hours later, three in the morning. And he’s so drunk two men have to drag him in. They throw him on the floor in the living room as if he’s a sack of garbage and walk out. When they are gone I get out of bed and come to check on him. Brick is moaning on the floor.

  I go to my knees and turn him over. “Brick?”

  “I love you. Marry me,” he grins.

  “Get up, let’s go to bed. You’re drunk.”

  “I told Pops! I want to get married. Me and you, Coco,” he says and pulls me down on him. I can’t stand the taste of his tongue. He’s got that liquored vomit smell to his breath that makes me gag. I push him off. I try to help him stand but he’s too heavy and every time I’m close he’s trying to pull me down for another vomit kiss.

  “Fine! Stay there then!” I huff. I go back to the room.

  “Coco! Marry me! No one else will!” he yells after me and then howls with laughter. He turns over and keeps belly laughing. I get in bed and pull the covers over my head.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Three Days Later

  Every time I see Coco with her casual beauty in blue jeans, and a faded blue shirt, it’s like I’m seeing her for the first time. It’s been three days since I’ve brought her to the bayou. She’s spent every minute of it with me. I even got that blow job I wanted. Coco’s a quick learner. She’s everything I want in a woman. She makes me a better man. For instance, she said I drink too much. I don’t drink any more or less than any Bondurant man. Coco, says it’s unattractive. If we are going to be together we need to have boundaries, and mutual respect. So she pours out all of my beer. I watch her and don’t object. And to be honest I do feel better. I’ve spent every hour of the day appreciating life through Coco’s eyes. I haven’t even left her to go check on the club. Smoke is handling it. All I want to do is have her here with me and play my saxophone. Marcel has been blowing up my cell phone. I don’t answer. And I’ve made sure to keep Coco’s phone put away and turned off. She doesn’t ask for it. I don’t want the distraction.

  She’s in my world now. And she’s all mine.

  “Come vas-tu?” My father says as he steps up behind me and puts his large hand on my shoulder. He catches me standing near the kitchen door watching Coco with Evangeline cooking at the stove.

  “Je vas bein, merci,” I say.

  “Merci? Merci!” My father slaps me on the back and laughs. “Let’s go. We talk now.”

  I sigh. And just like that I feel my bubble burst. This is Pops world. I’m only allowed to live in it. And Pops has a way of making sure everyone remembers that.

  “You were born with a veil over your face. Weren’t ya?”

  I look up at her while cutting the bell pepper on the chopping board. Evangeline glances at me and smiles. “Weren’t ya?”

  “How do you know?”

  “I told you. I know your people. The day you were born your grandmother sent for me. She knew you were sp
ecial. I made an amulet out of the birth caul for her. Good luck. That rum the Larue makes been sweet from that family distillery of yours ever since. You’re the Larue’s good luck charm.”

  I’m not sure what to say to her. I don’t say anything.

  “How long you plan on hiding from your family?” Evangeline asks me. She’s working on a beans and rice dish that she says is Pops favorite meal. Evangeline spends all her days and nights cooking and baking. She has six ovens in her huge kitchen and she works like she is feeding a small army. She is. The other women take shifts helping out but Evangeline is always here, with a kid on her ankle and one on her hip. Once again she has Moonstar. The toddler is riding on Evangeline’s back in a wrap. Like those African women do with their babies. Moonstar sucks her pacifier and sleeps peacefully as Evangeline walks from one stove to the next taking dishes out and putting dishes in.

  “You gone answer me girl or finish cutting my bell peppers?”

  I realize I’m staring at her again. “Oh, sorry. I’m not hiding from my family.”

  “Sure you are. Your daddy is tearing up N’awlins looking for ya.”

  “He’s what?”

  “I heard from my cousin that your mother is worried sick. They done all moved in with your grandmother in English Turn while they hunt for you.”

  “I don’t think they’re hunting me.” I frown.

  “You sure about that?”

  “Did you tell your cousin I’m here? Does my family know I’m here?”

  “I’m not a gossiper. Information comes to me. I don’t seek it. My cousin mentioned it but I never mentioned you. It’s only a matter of time. You know how people love to talk. And everyone is talking about you since you run off from your own party.”

  My stomach hurts. I feel like I’m going to barf. I can’t even hold the knife without my hand shaking and tears welling up in my eyes. Being here has been a distraction, but the best distraction was ignorance. I wouldn’t even call Georgie for fear of knowing. And now that I do know I want to run from the room crying to call my mother and apologize.

  “You okay?” Evangeline asks.

  “No,” I admit.

  She walks over to me. She takes my hand and makes me look at her. “You left your family because they wouldn’t accept Brick? Is that it?”

  “I thought you didn’t seek information?” I mumble.

  “I don’t. But you in my kitchen. I get the feeling you keep hanging around it because you want to tell me. So tell me.”

  “They don’t know about him,” I confess. “I left because they’re trying to control me. For me to marry Xavier Lacroix. I can’t deal with it.”

  “So you run away? What sense that make?”

  “You said you know my family.”

  Evangeline chuckles. She lets my hand go. “We Creole don’t know how to let go of the past.”

  “You Creole?”

  “Honey, I’m part everything. Even think I got some gator in my blood. Point is I understand being forced into something you don’t want. Still, you don’t have to run from the people you love. You tell them your truth and then you pick up and walk out the door.” She touches my face. “Your mother done taken to bed because she is so upset about you. And I hear your grand-mère isn’t well either.”

  “I have to go home, then. I have to call them.”

  Evangeline smiles. “Call them. Start there. And then go home, if they want to listen. The damage is done. It’s time for you to be an adult about it all.”

  “Thank you, Evangeline.”

  She smiles and goes back to her cooking.

  “How did you meet Pops? Come to be here? Brick says he doesn’t know. I’m sorry if it’s too forward but I’m so curious about you,” I ask.

  “You lying. Brick told you my story. I know he did. Now hand me that red-pepper seasoning,” she says.

  I hand it over to her. She winks and puts half of the bottle in the bit cast iron pot she’s cooking out of. “Guess you looking to hear my version. Don’t lie to me, if you want my truth.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Never mind apology. Just speak your mind. I always do.”

  “Okay.”

  “I first met Pops when I was ten years old. My mom was a priestess. Pops is very traditional. He’d come around plenty for herbs. Buy me penny candy and let me play with his rifle. He and my dad hunt anything moving in the swamp together. Cajuns and blacks always live in harmony out here. We don’t inter marry much, but we live as one. So Pops coming around wasn’t all that strange. Especially considering my ma’s talents for healing folks. When my dad died, Pops took care of me and my mother. But she died two years later. I was fifteen when Pops came for me.”

  “Came for you?”

  Evangeline cuts her gaze over to me. “It was a long time ago. Pops has been in my life for all I can remember. No one thought he would marry me. But he did. And whether they like it or not I’m here to stay. And so are my babies.”

  “He sounds like a cruel man,” I mumble.

  “He’s a man. That’s all I can say about it,” she says.

  I have a feeling there was plenty in between the story she’s sharing. Her father died and Pops took care of her mother. I doubt he did that out of the kindness of his heart. And then her mother dies and Pops takes her. My gut says Evangeline has seen more misery in her life than she’s seen happiness. I glance at her and she’s unwrapping the fabric that holds the toddler who is up and crying against her back. Evangeline takes her into her arms and kisses her face.

  “Where’s her mother?”

  “Sheila? You met her. She stay in the cabin next to you.”

  My eyes stretch “Sheila is her mother?”

  “Not anymore. I’m mama now. Sheila gave birth to her, is all. She doesn’t want to be bothered with her. Moonstar is pretty much my baby, aren’t you sugar.”

  “Doesn’t want to be bothered?” I frown. “What mother wouldn’t want to be bothered with such a beautiful child?”

  Evangeline cut her gaze up to me and there is a flash of anger in her eyes. “Listen girl. I know you come from a privileged world. Treated like a princess with them Larue. Given everything to you in life on a golden platter. That don’t give you the right to turn your nose up and look down on my family.”

  “I… I didn’t…” I stammer confused by Evangeline’s hostile tone. Those hazel green eyes of hers are almost a fiery jade.

  “Of course you did. You thinking I’m some mammy taking care of that white girl’s baby, while being held captive by Pops. Is that the story Brick tell ya? Brick don’t know my story. You want to know about me, the real Evangeline, then I’ll tell you. I been in love with Pops since I was ten years old and used to see him screwing my Ma up against the wall while my father was out crabbing and working on his shrimp boats. I was there when my mother slipped poison into my father’s stew. Watched her make her special recipe while humming about her new future once he dead. She hated my Pa and his drunken ways. He used to beat us both. Pops would make him stop and it would last a few weeks, then he’d be back on the sauce again. She hated him and I hated Pa too. So she poison him bit by bit. We both watch him suffer from her stew, until he was pissing and shitting blood. He died two months later. Ma thought killing him would give her Pops. She had plans to kill Pops wife, Ms. Maggie, too. She had many plans. But I was watching and learning. And I loved Pops. I wanted him to be my man. So I was the one that put the same poison in her food. Before she figured out what I’d done it was too late. She tried to kill me with a hatchet. I buried her the next day.”

  There’s a dark sneer to Evangeline’s smile. I take a step back. The baby in her arms is staring at me too with those piercing blue eyes. I swear the heat in the kitchen is blazing hot as the ovens in hell.

  Evangeline takes a step toward me. “Pops wept over my mother’s grave. Even bought her a tombstone. Guessed he loved her too. And he made sure to take care of me. Check in on me. But I was young. Only fourteen by then, and
Pops would never touch me. Though I could tell he wanted too. So I fixed it that he would. I got him drunk one night and made him love me. And he liked it. I put a spell on him that kept him coming to my cabin every night. I got pregnant as soon as I could to be his. By the time I was fifteen and carrying his son he had to tell his wife about me, or I threaten to run off. Even told him I had offers from other men. Made him crazy with jealousy. Pops say I look like my mother. That’s his curse, and mine too. He moved me out to this swamp and everyone hated me on sight. Ms. Maggie never did. She was broken hearted. But I was too young to know the difference. I did everything to hurt her. Seduced Pops from her bed to mine, fought with him when he tried to leave my bed for hers. He couldn’t control me, but he couldn’t let me go either. God don’t like ugly, and he ain’t found of the wicked either. Especially a girl who would kill her own mother to take her lover. So God took my baby boy from me. Punished me good. Made me watch my first born suffer. At first I thought someone poisoned him. But Ms. Maggie helped me see the truth when my mind went crazy. It was my own doing. And now I was trapped in the cage I built. Out here in the swamp. Pops wouldn’t let me go. He just wouldn’t. So Ms. Maggie helped. And I ran as far as I could from here. I kept running for years, until my legs gave out on me, and my life was as empty as I deserved. And that’s when Pops men found me. He brought me to N’awlins and told me he loved me. Told me he needed me. I ain’t neva been loved. Not by my ma, not by my pa unless he was touching me in places he shouldn’t have. Neva. Only by Pops. And when I found out Ms. Maggie was sick I tried to cure her. I healed her some. She lived for four more years. When she died Pops was broken too. He needed me to take care of him. And I wanted my girls I gave birth too in secret to be taken care of. So I come back here as his wife. And I work every day to make up for my mistakes. That’s my truth. Real truth. What you run from is baby problems. But I tell you this,” Evangeline stepped toward me rocking the baby in her arms. “The Bondurants ain’t no safe haven for you, they ain’t neva been one for Brick or me. We all got our burdens, including Sheila who can’t look at this baby because her cousin raped her and planted his seed in her womb.”