Mardi Gras Madness

by Lynn Shurr

  “I won’t.” Laura stood when Pearl’s daughter did. “Good luck, Beulah.”

  “And that’s another thing I’m leaving behind in Chapelle. Beulah! I think I’ll get me a new name—something classy like Laura.” As Dr. Andrus emerged, blinking like an owl in sunlight, from the microfilm room, Sugar left.

  “Here are your originals, Mrs. Dickinson. The project is complete.”

  “LeBlanc. Mrs. LeBlanc. I’ve remarried.”

  “Well, congratulations. You’re one of us now.” He handed over the last of the bound volumes. “Do consider the publishing venture.” He raked his hands through his thinning gray hair, adjusted his glasses and red bow tie as he fished for further conversation.

  “May I use the phone for a moment, Dr. Andrus?”

  “Certainly. No long distance now! I’ll go clean up the stacks. We close promptly at five, you know.” He tapped his watch with a neatly trimmed fingernail.

  Taking the hint, Laura called Dr. Gray’s office immediately. An anonymous young voice answered the phone, gave her the news that Mrs. Robert LeBlanc was most definitely pregnant and scheduled her first pre-natal examination.

  The full service Shell station where Laura stopped for gas on the way back to Chapelle was definitely not the best place to make a romantic or important call. A slack-jawed attendant in greasy overalls peered intently into Laura’s radiator while wiping off the dip-stick as the telephone rang in Robert’s hospital room.

  “You sure know how to ruin a person’s dinner!” her loving man said when he answered the ring.

  “I’m sorry about that! Mine hasn’t been going down so well either,” Laura snapped, her eagerness to tell about the baby sapped by his bad mood and the suffocating heat radiating off the concrete.

  “Oh, it’s you, Laura. You can’t ruin anything that’s already ruined. They don’t seem to know about pepper sauce in this place. I’ll be glad to get back to some of Pearl’s deep fat fried chicken with a little cayenne in the batter. I intended my opening remark for the staff dietician. Obviously, she isn’t going to return my call.”

  Just thinking about the fried chicken and the deep fat made Laura’s stomach roil. “If you are that irritable, must be time for you to come home. You might be disappointed in the Chateau Camille cuisine though. According to Pearl, we are having a nice chicken gumbo without sausage or too much onion and pepper and all the grease skimmed off tonight.”

  “What the hell is wrong with Pearl!”

  “It’s what’s wrong with me, Robert. I’m pregnant, and I expect to be pampered all through the summer heat until October when our child is due.”

  She hoped she had put it well, lightly but positively. He did not answer. He’d accused her once before of being with another man and maybe he still believed that, certainly more plausible than her getting pregnant on their wedding night. Laura’s knees went weak, and she gulped in the fume-filled air of the gas station. The sound of a truck passing obscured Robert’s voice when finally he spoke.

  “What! What did you say?” Laura shouted frantically.

  “Calm down. It’s not good for expectant women to get excited. I said I hope this doesn’t interfere with our sex life.”

  “Oh, Robert! Is that all men ever thing about?”

  “It is since I met you. If you still blame me for the way we married, you don’t have to have this child or me or Angelle, but I want it all—all or nothing. This decision is yours, and you never gave me an answer.”

  Laura shouted over the noise of the traffic as the rest of the world raced by.

  “All. I want it all. I’m staying. We’re staying. And don’t worry about your sex life. It will be more than you can handle in your weakened condition. When will you be home and well enough to resume where we left off?”

  “Yes, to the marriage, to the baby, to unlimited sex! Cha-ching, call me a winner! With that incentive, I plan to get out of here tomorrow. I’ve been badgering the doctor. I believe he’ll release me into the custody of the Montleons if I promise to stay in the area for a checkup. For some reason, they feel responsible for me. I wonder if Thurston can be bribed to chauffeur me directly back to Chapelle. The doc thinks I’m still too weak from blood loss to drive all that way, but what does he know?”

  “Come home no sooner than the doctor allows. I want you well.”

  “You sound like a wife already.” A big rig pulled into the station venting its air brakes. “But where on earth are you?”

  “At a truck stop/casino/gas station between Lafayette and Chapelle. I didn’t want to call from home because of Myrtle Hill. This time, I wanted only you to know.”

  “What about Pearl and the tasteless meals?”

  “She’s only guessing.”

  The attendant waved at her, signaling that two cars driven by elderly ladies raring to get into the casino waited in line behind hers for full service treatment.

  “Laura, I love you.”

  “And I love you, Robert.”

  Laura gently placed the phone into its cradle. She had no desire to say good-bye.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Laura discovered the joy of hugging Angelle without reservation and the wonder of being fussed over by Pearl who had greeted the news of Laura’s pregnancy with, “Don’t I already know.” Even listening to Tante Lil’s warnings that Robert had been a colicky baby and Angelle a fretful infant brought out a special kind of happiness. The greatest joy of all came in having made the decision to stay. No more retreating, running or hesitating for Laura LeBlanc from the moment she acknowledged those two names belonged together.

  Casually, very casually, she mentioned at the morning coffee break that she had been worried about her health and as it turned out, she was only pregnant, the most natural thing in the world. That remark turned the afternoon break into a party with a pink and blue iced cake special ordered by Ruby during the lunch hour from Pommier’s Bakery down the street.

  The conversation ran toward questions. Yes, she would continue working, at least until the baby came. No, they had not picked any names yet. Yes, she had called her mother who was surprised—especially since Laura announced her marriage at the same time, a fact she neglected to tell her audience. Yes, Mother, I’m married and pregnant in that order, honestly! Boy or girl, it did not matter. Angelle seemed thrilled, not jealous. On and on the chatter went until Robert called to announce his release from the Medical Center, and the group decided they had to return to work.

  Staying at the Montleon’s home in the Garden District, he felt certain he could manage to return to Chapelle by the weekend, perhaps sooner. Vivien helped things along with her hostile reaction to his announcement of impending fatherhood and her making the members of the household miserable.

  “I thought they’d ship me home immediately when Vivien started raving about my black blood being passed on because of my unbridled lust for white women. Instead they gave her a sedative and reservations for a nice, restful vacation in Hot Springs. I wish they felt less responsible for my welfare. It’s not their fault some tall, skinny kid in a camouflage jacket went hunting out of season on their property.”

  “Tell them I’ll take good care of you.”

  “I have, I did, and I will again. I’ll escape by Saturday, maybe sooner. I love you.”

  “And I, you.” Laura ended the conversation shyly aware of the office listeners. A less pleasant call came at quarter to five.

  “Hello, Laura. This is Vivien. I wanted to congratulate the new Mrs. LeBlanc on her marriage and on her condition. How happy you must be. I know I was—at first.”

  “I thought you were on your way to Hot Springs, Vivien.”

  “Did Robert tell you that? As a matter of fact, I am. I’ve finally persuaded Daddy I can drive myself. My health has been poor, you know, and he worried, but I absolutely refused to leave home unless he allowed me to go alone. I am regretting that now. I’m so fatigued I decided to stay the night at the Hilton near the university. I really do want to know
you better, Laura. I feel you must know certain things about Robert for the sake of your marriage. Could we get together tomorrow? I know. Meet me in the church about three. It’s so close to your work you could simply slip away for a while without anyone noticing. We could have a nice quiet chat, just the two of us before I go to Hot Springs.”

  Laura had no desire to meet, speak or have anything to do with the ex-Mrs. LeBlanc. Honestly, that woman was worse than the racist David Duke and all his clones. She started to give an excuse to get out of the meeting, but then recalled how good it felt not to run, retreat, or hesitate.

  “I’ll meet you, Vivien. I’m sure we will come to an understanding.”

  Better to settle with Vivien now than endure her accusations year after year. Though more cordial than Denise DeVille over the phone, Vivien certainly would be more acid in person. Her imaginary grievances had fermented like damp hay in a silo, liable to burst into flame at any moment.

  “No more loose ends after this, I promise you, Laura. At three, then. Good-bye.”

  ****

  The hands of the clock crept slowly toward three and the confrontation with Vivien LeBlanc. Laura’s tension made her irritable. She snipped at Bobbie and Berta for their incessant chatter as they entered new titles into the computer and was short with Ruby over a simple shelving error.

  “Hormones,” she heard Bobbie whisper to Bertha. They repaid her with a hot cup of tea, a box of saltines to settle her stomach and a number of tales about how nervous they’d been with their first pregnancy. Heaven knows, their husbands were not in the hospital at the time. What a relief to escape all that sympathy by announcing she wanted to go over to the church to return the last of the records she had borrowed.

  “Now don’t strain yourself with those heavy books,” Ruby called after her.

  The warmth of the afternoon at the end of March amazed Laura, accustomed to wading through slush this time of the year. The air had a spring-like balminess, and the live oaks on the green sprouted pale green leaves and dainty tassels along their branches. Laura found herself delaying the confrontation by taking the long way around the church instead of entering at the side altar where the image of Robert’s supposed ancestress impersonated the Virgin Mary and received the homage of votive candles glowing at her feet.

  She passed St. Francis soliciting a little rain water for the birds from the blue-black patch of clouds on the horizon. A clump of burgeoning ferns covered the hole where a black kitten named Snake greeted her on her first visit to Chapelle. Snake grew fat and happy mousing the cattle barns at Chateau Camille. Fat and happy, words she could soon use to describe herself. Already her breasts felt heavy, and if she pressed both hands against her abdomen, she could feet the small hard ball where her baby grew.

  Across from the church lay the empty lot where Domengeaux’s store and briefly, Laura’s home once stood. Miss Lola, gone to her daughter’s in Baton Rouge, had donated the space to the church for a parking lot. She must write Miss Lola, or better, call her with the news. Laura wanted to hear her former landlady’s voice say, “Me, I told you, cher, it would all come right.”

  At the church doors, Laura lingered again, feeling very much like Saint Joan on the edge of martyrdom. She stiffened her shoulders like the statue on the edge of the green and entered.

  Vivien waited halfway down the aisle by the marble slab marking Pere Blaise’s former resting place. A beige snake skin handbag sat next to her in the pew. Always fully accessorized, Vivien looked calm and prepared for the coming encounter. She welcomed Laura by taking one of the two heavy volumes from her.

  “Ah, the church records. You have an interest in them, too. I once spent hours poring over them. They’re incorrect, you know. Caroline LeBlanc never had a daughter named Felice. Felice was her sister. But today, we set all the records straight, Laura. There will be no more misunderstandings. Why don’t you put that heavy book down over there?”

  Laura turned toward the small marble-topped table in the center of the aisle where the wine and the hosts rested before being offered at the altar. She laid down her burden and took a small breath before turning to face Vivien, but the woman had followed her. The former Mrs. LeBlanc seized the heavy volume and bashed it against Laura’s temple sending her rival to her knees before Father Blaise’s grave. Laura clutched at the marble table for support while her head spun with vivid images of the blue and gold ceiling of the church. When her eyes focused again, she stared at Vivien’s khaki skirt and olive drab knit top fashionably covered by an army camouflage jacket and accented for the full military look with a small chrome pistol.

  “You shot Robert.”

  “Yes, Daddy would be so ashamed if he knew I only wounded my prey. We used to hunt swamp deer together out at the camp. Guns and ammunition are stored there. Robert never cared for blood sports. Another thing we didn’t have in common like our ancestry, but today all errors will be corrected. I could have let you go, dear. After all, Robert deceived you just as he did me, but now we have another little error to correct.”

  The pistol pointed directly at the spot in Laura’s belly that her hands sheltered minutes ago. “I could shoot you in the gut and correct that error now. But bullets are so unclean, and this building, too, is full of flaws bullets can’t remedy—these records, that statue. Fire cleanses all with white hot flames.”

  Laura estimated her chances of grabbing Vivien by the ankles without being killed. When she saw no chance at all, Laura prayed silently from her place on the floor, the cold edge of Fr. Blaise’s tomb digging into her knees.

  “Now Laura, dear, I’ve done half the work prying up this stone. It was so loose, such sloppy maintenance on Father Ardoin’s part. You move it aside. See where I’ve placed the wedges. Good girl! Now simply slide down there and join Pere Blaise. He can keep you company until you are freed of your impurity.”

  Thinking she might catch Vivien off guard with a thrust of her elbow, Laura balked on the edge of the grave, but Vivien moved swiftly and shoved hard. Laura fell three feet beneath the floor of the church of Ste. Jeanne de Arc and caught herself on her hands and knees. She was not entombed with the dust and bones of the old missionary, but Vivien, preoccupied with covering the dark hole, did not appear to notice or care.

  The ground beneath Laura felt cool and damp. A slight breeze passed beneath the church ventilating the old building with the original form of air conditioning. The remains of Father Blaise and his stone coffin had been removed to the cemetery during the renovations, a fact Vivien did not know, but one that gave Laura hope of survival.

  As the marble slab grated into place blocking off the final view of Vivien’s pale, crazed face and the blue vault of the chapel, Laura’s heart slowed from a panic to a steady beat. She tried to empty her mind of the claustrophobia of being in total darkness, pressed beneath the bulk of the church, and of sharing the space with things that slither and creep in cool damp places. She would lie still, and when the stiletto sound of Vivien’s spiked heels left the church, she would push away the stone, or failing that, wait. At six o’clock, the worshippers would come and hear her screams.

  Laura heard Vivien moving the heavy marble table, scraping it along the floor until it weighted the lid of the tomb above her. Wondering why Laura did not scream or perhaps wanting to enjoy the moment more, Vivien tapped the stone with her heel. “Laura? How does it feel to be buried alive? Tell me.”

  “Please, please, let me out,” Laura begged, catering to the woman’s ego and hoping to hurry her exit. She would not be able to lift the slab now and must wait three long hours to be discovered, but she felt safer beneath the stone than under Vivien’s gun. Absolutely. Laura told herself that several times. She lay on her back and let her eyes adjust to the darkness.

  “Sorry, Laura. I have work to do and can’t talk now, mistakes to correct here and at the Chateau. A number of things need cleansing out there.”

  Above her, Laura followed the click of Vivien’s heels as the ex-wife moved
toward the Mary altar and its rack of prayer candles. Through the small cracks in the old flooring, she heard the tearing of paper—so many hymnals and prayer books to provide fuel for an arsonist, not to mention the brittle and ancient church records. The odor of a bonfire burning drifted down to Laura. Vivien’s footsteps retreated from the building.

  Laura stayed quiet, praying silently. “St. Joan, St. Francis, anybody up there? Hear my prayer. Save my life and the life of my unborn child. Help me to find the way.”

  Suddenly remembering Vivien’s mention of mistakes to be corrected at Chateau Camille, she added, “And please save my daughter, Angelle.”

  Then, Laura screamed in earnest.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Freshly home from school and playing with Snake on the gallery, Angelle saw her mother’s car turn into the drive. Her daddy said she should never see or go anywhere with her mother unless Thurston or another adult came with her. She ran to tell her great-aunt, but Tante Lilliane napped in her bed before dinner, and she knew better than to wake the old woman because it made her grumpy. The child dashed to Pearl fixing a potato salad in the kitchen.

  “Mother is coming up the drive, Pearl. Please, please, please hide me.”

  “Calm down, child. Look, we’ll both go to my room and shut the door. She’ll think no one is home and go on her way. Quiet now.” Pearl hugged Angelle close to her side as they listened to the front door slam and measured Vivien’s progress by the sharp tap of her heels on the wooden floor, down the hall and into the kitchen.

  “Anybody home?” the mad woman called pleasantly. “I know there must be since the door is unlocked. My, my, potato salad in the making. Such a pity I never touch carbs. It is one of your better dishes, Pearl. Come out, come out wherever you are and bring the child with you. I saw her scoot into the house. What a way to greet her loving mother. But then she was always a mistake, a terrible mistake since birth.”