Mardi Gras Madness

by Lynn Shurr

  “I’ll just bet you did. Why your place?”

  “I wouldn’t want my regular customers to see me slipping you anything under the counter, so to speak.”

  Fairly sure Jay was trying to look down her sweater from his high seat, she figured he hadn’t changed much since high school after all. Well, she hoped he suffered from disappointment because her breasts had dwindled away along with her hips covered in now saggy jeans. God, she felt awful. Laura scrubbed at her face.

  “Okay, what time?”

  “Oh, sevenish. Don’t eat dinner. I’ll fix something special for you.”

  “Seven. I’ll be there.”

  ****

  “How nice that Jay asked you over to his place,” her mom twittered. “You look better already, though that dress is a little baggy on you. We should have gone shopping this afternoon for something new, but you were sleeping again. Take a jacket. The evenings are getting colder. Don’t you think you should drive over to Oak Hill? I don’t like the idea of your walking home at night.”

  “I’m fine, Mom. Jay will see I get home safely.”

  As if anything ever happened in Lost Spring. Besides, she knew she shouldn’t drive while taking those pills. Laura tightened the gold belt around her waist another notch and bloused out the top of the black dress to make it look a little better. She’d washed her hair and made an attempt to put some curl into it before drawing the unshaped mop back into a golden clip. Next time, she’d take her mother up on the free haircut. With some concealer under her eyes, a little blush on her now sharp cheekbones and a dash of lip gloss, she looked good enough for Jay Geiger.

  Laura set off into the crisp, fall evening. She stopped to sit on a low stone wall half way up Oak Hill to catch her breath, but she did arrive at the apartment right on time. Jay waited for her wearing some sleazy playboy getup, a smoking jacket with satin lapels closed over his bare chest, tight black slacks that cut into his flabby waist, and sockless loafers. He held a glass of champagne in one hand and posed in the doorway for a moment as he looked her over.

  “A big improvement over this afternoon, Laura. Seven on the dot. But, my ladies are never late.”

  Jay stepped aside and closed the door behind her. He handed over the flute of bubbly. Laura took a small sip and winced at the taste of the very cheap, very sour champagne probably left over from a Geiger’s New Year’s special. He wasn’t wasting any money on her.

  “I know, I know, an inferior vintage, but I haven’t added the twist yet.”

  He withdrew a capsule from the pocket of his jacket and popped it into her glass. The drug dropped to the bottom of the flute and then rose up seductively on the bubbles. Laura tried to catch it on her tongue but missed. She drained half her glass in pursuit of the pill, but it sank into the narrow neck of the flute.

  Jay watched with amusement. “Well, well, well, good little Laura Schumann is a junkie.”

  “I’m not! I need a little something to get over David’s death, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, all my ladies say that. They need to lose a little weight, feel a little better. You ran out of your last prescription two weeks ahead of schedule, junkie.”

  “No!”

  “Seems to me the last time we were together, you turned down some pretty good stuff and ran out on me. So tonight, you will perform first and get these later.” Jay held up a plastic container of capsules.

  “Drink up. That first one will get you started on your way to LaLa Land. I’ll want you on your knees in a minute.” He fumbled with the tight zipper of his fly and released a short chubby penis more normal for a child than a man.

  Laura laughed for the first time in months. She tipped her glass, christened his small dick with the remains of the cold champagne and watched it retreat into its hole. With a tap on the bottom of the flute, Laura released the pill. It bounced off the pitiful nubbin. She tossed the cheap drugstore glassware at Jay’s fireplace, crackling with fake flames, and enjoyed the satisfying smash.

  “I am Laura Dickinson, and I am no junkie.”

  She turned, slammed the door behind her and headed home. The cold autumn wind slapped at her cheeks, and the first of the fallen leaves crunched under her heels. She passed the stone wall where she had rested while laboring up Oak Hill and kept right on going. If the two cops who patrolled Lost Spring, rousting teens from the lover’s lane and giving out tickets for running the one red light in town, had seen her face, they might have stopped to ask if she needed help—and Laura would have answered, “No.” She’d gotten over the hump; the rest was all downhill.

  ****

  Two weeks later, Laura coasted into her parents’ drive on the three-speed bike of her childhood. With a bottle of water, an ­autumn-crisp apple and a Lebanon baloney sandwich in the dusty saddlebag, she rode out every morning visiting old haunts she’d never be able to show David. The exercise helped—as did getting away from the house.

  Laura wheeled the bike into the garage where her dad worked checking the oil in his car. He looked up as he wiped the dip stick with a paper towel. “That old bicycle cleaned up pretty well. Just needed new tires and a little lubrication. Good to see someone using it again.”

  He bent under the hood and made Laura too aware of the expanding bald spot in the middle of his thick, gray hair and the slight creak of his joints. He and Mom should be planning their winter trip to the Caribbean, not taking care of their grown daughter. By now, they’d usually booked two weeks in the sun for January, but they wouldn’t budge as long as Laura needed them.

  As she entered the kitchen from the garage, the air sizzled with the smell of dinner. She hung up her flannel-lined denim jacket and asked, “What’s cooking?”

  “Fresh pork sausage from Frey’s and corn fritters,” her mother answered, turning the links over in the pan.

  Fried food—Mom’s answer to rebuilding Laura. According to Doris Schumann, a size eight should be healthy and normal for a grown woman. Men liked a few curves no matter what the fashion magazines said. Her meals had Laura slowly filling out her jeans and sweaters again.

  “There’s mail for you from Louisiana. Maybe your settlement check has come.”

  Mom gestured with her spatula toward an envelope on the kitchen table and sent bright droplets of grease flying through the air. Thinking she needed to leave home before she weighed two-hundred pounds, Laura picked up the letter and opened it with her thumbnail. The letterhead embossed with what she supposed were sugarcane stalks read “Ste. Jeanne d’Arc Parish Library, Chapelle, Louisiana.”

  Dear Mrs. Dickinson:

  The library board of Ste. Jeanne d’Arc Parish is in receipt of your resume forwarded from the State Library of Louisiana. As our librarian of many years, Miss Lilliane LeBlanc, is considering retirement, we would like to interview you at your convenience. We were most impressed by your credentials.

  Our town, located in the heart of Cajun country, is small, but has a rich history and friendly people. We offer good benefits. Salary is negotiable. Please contact us at the above number as soon as possible.

  Sincerely,

  Jules Picard, Board President

  Scribbled on the bottom of the typed page was a P.S.—If Miss Lilliane hangs up on you, I can be reached at J.P.’s New and Used Appliances. Myrtle Hill will ring my number for you when you get the exchange.

  Laura handed the letter to her mother. “What do you make of this?”

  “Some place is very desperate for a librarian, I’d say. I didn’t know anywhere in the world still had telephone exchanges. Must be way out in the boonies.” Leaving a greasy thumbprint in the corner, she handed back the letter.

  “Gee, thanks Mom. I did ace all my library classes. I know one year in an academic library isn’t much experience, but if they are willing to give me an interview, I think I should go. I need to stand on my own, and let you and Dad have your lives back.”

  “What life?” said her father, coming in to scrub up for dinner.

  “Laura wants
to take a job way off in Louisiana. Do you think that’s wise? I hear that state is like a Third World country, and she’d be all alone without—” Doris Schumann caught herself before she uttered David’s name, as if the very mention might cause her daughter to relapse.

  “It’s only an interview. They might not offer me the job.”

  Ever practical Fred Schumann left the room and returned with the dusty atlas purchased when Laura attended grade school.

  “Here we are, a map of Louisiana. What’s the name of the town? Chapelle. Let’s see. H-6. Well, the place is mighty small and on a river. Not much beyond that but farmland and a great big swamp. A country road ends right there.”

  “You’d have to be crazy to go, Laura,” her mother said.

  “I’m going,” Laura answered.

  Chapter Two

  The road snaked insanely across the level landscape, twisting wildly between the walls of cane and slithering suddenly into marshy hollows. Of course, the air conditioner on the rented economy car failed just after departure from the breezy interstate.

  “Sure,” said the serviceman at the last gas station before oblivion. “This is the Old Chapelle Road. You just go ’til you can’t go no more.”

  Then, the cane fields swallowed the small car and driver again. The air conditioner quit at the exact moment when turning back would have endangered the interview waiting at the end of the journey. Laura stopped at a break in the fields where two parish roads crossed. “Chapelle—10” claimed a sign.

  She rolled down every window in the vehicle and continued onward. The road bobbed into a small swamp that had recently defeated the highway department by flooding over the grading. Puddles as large and black as tar pits covered the macadam. The little car bounced in and out of a pool masking a treacherous pothole. Great dollops of inky mud flew into the front seat along with a swarm of small, black and very nasty variety of mosquito. The wind created as the small Ford rounded the next bend and came to open country sucked most of the mosquitoes back to their marshy domain, but the damage had been done. Itchy welts rose on her legs and the dark, muddy spatters spread on her white linen suit.

  “Should have worn the navy blue,” she chided herself, but the white suit with its lime green piping had seemed so very southern in the motel room near the New Orleans airport. In fact, she had been pleased with her appearance for the first time in months—white straw bag and matching shoes, crisp linen suit, hair curled and double sprayed to withstand the oppressive humidity just beyond the motel door. Despite the lacquer, her newly styled hair had straightened tendril by tendril. With each mile, the armpits of her linen suit grew damper.

  At last the fields ended, brought to a halt by an immense gray sugar mill, its hooks and claws hanging over the cane, its shadow blocking the sun from a row of identical gray clapboard shacks. No one stirred in the heat of the day. A clump of black-eyed Susans brightened one yard and a red plastic tricycle sat in another, but basically the houses were all the same in their poverty.

  Beyond the quarters began a line of white frame houses—at first shabby with peeling paint, then more neatly kept. The uniform white frame gave way to the glories of aluminum siding in pale blue and bright yellow. Crepe myrtles, exhausted by a summer of bloom, still shaded porches with their yellowed leaves and occasionally offered a garish bouquet of hot cerise or deep purple.

  The houses grew larger. Here and there stood a real or fake antebellum mansion and more modern brick homes imitating the old cottages with steep roofs and deep galleries. Abruptly, the road ended. Laura stopped at the first traffic light she’d encountered since leaving the interstate. She faced a village green that might have been in New England if the lawn had been shaded with sugar maples rather than live oaks. A gray and white stucco church sat framed by the trees while the brown water of the bayou flowed sluggishly in the background. On the opposite bank lay a vast cemetery of dead parishioners. The church bells clanged briefly.

  Noon. At least one thing had gone right. She had a full hour and a half before the dreaded interview, allowing enough time to repair some of the travel damage, find lunch and a large cold drink. The business district stretched both right and left. She chose left and parked by the village green in the shade of the oaks. A single row of shops ran for a block in both directions. Across from her parking space sat an old service station. “Canal Gasoline” read a rusty sign over ancient pumps. Laura headed for the restroom. No one manned the office, but the facilities were unlocked.

  Laura blotted her face with a paper towel dampened at the ladies’ room tap, combed back what remained of her coiffure and clipped it with a large barrette. She resisted the urge to scratch the mosquito bites festooning her ankles and instead worked diligently on the mud-stained skirt with cold water. She made an assessment in the speckled mirror—lovely Laura, the efficient, competent and resourceful librarian. Yeah, right. She tossed the towels into a can and emerged into the heat of a Louisiana September afternoon.

  An old man wiping his lips with a paper napkin came around from the rear of the station. “Didn’t hear no car, me,” he accused.

  “My car is over there. I’ll be sure to fill it here before I leave, but for now I just needed to use the restroom. Could you tell me if I can get lunch somewhere nearby?” Laura smiled appeasingly.

  “Domengeaux’s got good boudin, yeah.” He waved at a small store on the opposite corner. “You not from here, eh?” Again, it sounded like an accusation.

  “No. I came for a job interview. From Pennsylvania,” she added, knowing what he would ask next.

  “At least you not a damn tourist. Strangers always crawling all over our church, yeah. Say, you know da difference between a Yankee and a damn Yankee?”

  She shook her head indicating that she did not.

  “A Yankee visits, den goes home. A damn Yankee comes an’ stays.” He chuckled more at the expression on Laura’s face than at his own joke. “You gotta learn to laugh if you want to be a Cajun, cher.” He thrust out an arthritic hand. “Aldus Thibodeaux, pleased to meet wit’ you.”

  Aware her palms sweated in the heat, Laura took his hand. “Go get you some lunch at Domengeaux’s.” Aldus waved her across the street.

  Laura smiled as she crossed to the café, the tar bubbles in the street popping beneath her shoes. To think two days ago, she had been breathing the cool, clear air of the north and regaining the energy needed to restart her life. Now she swam in this humid atmosphere. She paused beneath the awning shading the store. “Domengeaux’s” was spelled out in red lettering shaded with yellow. Aslant in opposite corners of the glass were the words, “HOT BOUDIN” and “NEW ORLEANS STYLE MUFFULETTAS.” Painted flames licked the letters of “BOUDIN.” Double red lines underscored “NEW ORLEANS.” A bell rang as she stepped into the pleasant dimness of the restaurant.

  A row of refrigerator cases held offerings of cold cuts, potato and gelatin salads and coleslaw. A bank of soft drink machines vended every beverage from apple juice to RC Cola. Chains of garlic and strings of red peppers hung in available corners while postcard racks, packets of dried shrimp, baskets of pralines and alligator toe key chains accumulated on the counter by the cash register.

  Two oil-clothed tables held caddies of salt, pepper, ketchup, and one bottle each of red and green pepper sauce. Most extraordinary among the clutter sat a shrine. In the one free corner stood a pale, blue-robed plaster Virgin Mary. A votive candle in a red glass holder burned at her feet, casting an eerie purple sheen over the statue’s blue eyes and tinting the Virgin’s blonde hair a light orange. Large bouquets of plastic roses, red and pink, flanked the candle.

  Only one other customer occupied the sandwich shop. He leaned against the Formica counter with his back to Laura and did not turn around at her entrance. She formed a tentative line several feet from his worn and nicely filled jeans. David had always teased her about being a connoisseur of men’s posteriors, an area in which he could not compete with his long lanky body and flat derriere. She
had promised to swear off looking when they married.

  The other customer continued to ignore her, giving Laura ample time to notice his stocky build, broad shoulders and the thick, black hair waving just over the collar of his khaki work shirt. With his shirtsleeves rolled up exposing heavy biceps, she noticed more dark hair scattered across deeply tanned forearms. This kind of man probably needed to shave twice a day but did not, Laura thought. She wondered if tiny Chapelle had something in common with New York City where striking up conversations with the natives was somehow wrong. People in the South were supposed to be friendlier, but then she had already met Mr. Thibodeaux across the way.

  A large woman clutching a Styrofoam box hustled through a curtained doorway. “Dere you go T-Bob, one catfish po-boy fully dressed wit’ my own special potato salad on da side, none of dat packaged stuff in da cooler.”

  “Merci, Miss Lola.” The customer pulled a wallet from his hip pocket, stretching the worn denim a little tighter for a moment. He took out a ten and shoved it across the counter. “And a Dr. Pepper, too.”

  Miss Lola rang up the sale and handed over the change. T-Bob pocketed the bills and dumped the coins into a half-full gallon plastic jar with the photo of a bald, thin, large-eyed child pasted on the outside. A legend written in black marker under the photo read “For Jason Breaux’s leukemia treatments.”

  “That was nice of you,” Laura remarked, trying to spark a conversation.

  The man turned and glanced briefly at Laura, making her very aware of her limp hair and wrinkled, water-spotted linen. “We take care of our own here in Chapelle. If you stay around, you’ll realize that. Ma’am.”

  He nodded slightly causing a lock of black hair to slip across his forehead. He brushed the hair from eyes of bittersweet brown and strode out of the store to a battered pickup truck parked by the curb. He drove off before the shop door closed.

  Well, he had shaved today. Would have been a shame to cover that wonderful cleft chin with a beard, Laura thought.