by W E DeVore
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do feel you, and have been feeling you for the last two hours, that’s the problem.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “And we make plenty of hay.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “We hardly made any hay at all, the whole duration of Jazz Fest.”
“What are you talking about, Ben? We fuck every morning.”
He glanced up at the ceiling and the bedroom above them. “Not like that we don’t.”
The doorbell rang, and Q stood on her still slightly quivering knees to answer it. On her way, she paused and kissed Ben on the back of the head. “Ok, you win.”
He turned his head and called after her, “I’m sorry, what was that? I don’t think I heard you right.”
“You win, asshole,” she called back as she opened the door.
Sanger stood on their doorstep with a bottle of wine.
“Hell must have just frozen over,” he said. “Clementine Toledano just conceded defeat.”
He winked at her and leaned down to kiss her cheek.
She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “There’ll be no living with him now.”
He followed her into the house. “I tried calling you back to see what I could bring. Figured wine would have to work.”
“Sorry about that,” she said, giving Ben an annoyed look. “Ben was intent on eating his breakfast just as soon as he woke up and would not be detoured.”
Ben smiled broadly at her. “Most important meal of the day, darlin’.”
“So you keep telling me,” she replied, taking the wine bottle from Sanger and walking to the bar to open it.
As she poured him a glass, Sanger asked Ben, “So, what did you eat?”
Q nearly knocked over the glass and looked over her shoulder at Ben, who calmly sipped his whiskey and replied, “I’m a Honey Bunches of O’s man, myself.”
She took a large drink of wine directly from the bottle to keep from dissolving into giggles before handing a wine glass to Sanger and resuming her earlier seat.
“Man, I love those things,” Sanger said. “I could eat them every meal of the day.”
Q slowly rotated her head to regard Sanger and was relieved to see that he was actually talking about breakfast cereal.
“Me, too, brother,” Ben said, winking at Q.
She clamped her hand over her eyes to cover her embarrassment and drank a slow sip of wine to tamp down another fit of giggles that threatened to rise back up.
She scolded Ben, “Well, that’s not what we’re having for dinner, husband, we have company. Stop it.”
“Why do I feel like I’m the only one talking about cereal?” Sanger asked.
Ben laughed and said, “Because you are, brother. Sorry about that. What are you in the mood for, Aaron? We’re moving a little slow, I haven’t even started anything yet.”
“I’m a single man, Ben. Anything that doesn’t come from a Styrofoam container and that I don’t have to cook is fine by me,” he said.
Ben stood up. “Guess that’s my cue, then. I’ll go see what I can rummage up.”
He stopped and kissed Q on the mouth, lingering just long enough to send a shiver down her spine. Her eyes followed him to the kitchen. She smiled to herself and sipped her wine.
“Must be nice,” Sanger said. “To have what y’all do.”
She turned to him. “We sure did have to work for it though, didn’t we?”
“I’m happy for you, Clementine. I’m glad it worked out the way it did.” Sanger smiled at her and she leaned over to squeeze his shoulder in gratitude.
“Me, too, Aaron. How are you? I’m so sorry about Tori,” she said.
“Don’t be. Some things just aren’t meant to be. If we couldn’t figure it out in the last fifteen years, I’m not putting any more effort into it. It shouldn’t be this difficult.” He took a drink of wine.
Q shrugged. “I don’t know. I put Ben through the ringer for a year before I went out with him and another before I took it seriously…”
“Yeah, but you didn’t lie to him, did you?” he interrupted.
“No. I guess I didn’t do that. So, who are we going to fix you up with to teach Tori Gerard a lesson?” She kicked at him with her foot. “Come one, there has to be some woman I know that you’d like to take out to dinner, or to bed. One of the girls in the Burlesque? Nadine from the Cove? You know, three of Ben’s sisters are single at the moment. Yvie would be pissed if you went for Grace or Nita, but she’d get over it.”
She continued to list off every available woman in her acquaintance and because the Bordelon clan was a matriarchy by overwhelming majority, the list was extensive.
He shook his head. “You’re turning into Constance.”
She took exception to being compared to her grandmother. Although, to be fair, the woman had been trying to fix Sanger up since he’d joined the NOPD as Q’s godfather’s partner. Ernst had retired last year, but Sanger, being the only unmarried, Jewish man in Constance’s acquaintance, was still considered fair game for the B’nai Shalom Yentanet, of which Q’s grandmother was the lead architect.
“How you figure that?” she asked. “Not one of the women on that list is Jewish and at least half of them would rather screw you blind for three days, before moving on to the next handsome man, than marry you.” She raised one eyebrow. “You want me to go back and just list the latter, save you some time.”
He laughed. “No, thank you. I do just fine all on my own.”
“That’s the problem, Aaron, you’re always on your own.” She stood up and reached for his hand to pull him to his feet. “Come on, let’s go hear about this coke problem of yours.”
Ben was already stirring a scoop of flour into the oil he had heating in a pan on the stove. The cutting board on the counter to the right of him was piled high with diced onions, bell peppers, and celery. Q and Sanger sat on either side of the oak table that rested against the two tall windows at the opposite end of the room.
“What’s cookin’, good lookin’?” Sanger asked.
Ben shot him a flirty look and blew him a kiss. “I’m not sure yet, but everything I know how to make, starts like this. And you better watch out or Q will be fixing you up with Michael in no time.”
Sanger looked at Q in surprise. “Michael Lopez, the sound guy from the Ball?”
“He’s not such a bad guy…” Q started.
“Clementine, he dated a man that tried to kill you,” Sanger argued.
“Well, he didn’t know that at the time and, honestly, other than his unfortunate choice of lovers, I kind of like him. And he’s a great sound engineer. Derek only uses him for small gigs, so he needs the work,” Q explained. “Anyway, I wouldn’t wish Derek Sharp as the only means of employment for someone I hated, let alone someone that I actually kind of like.”
The previous fall, Q had starred in the Nine Circles Ball, an annual Halloween event put on by Dark Harm frontman and all-around egotistical sociopath, Derek Sharp. Derek was a three-thousand-pound shark in the teeny goldfish bowl that was New Orleans and cut through the Crescent City like he was a minor deity. Regrettably for his over-inflated sense of self, most of the population treated him like the platinum record rock god he was, much to Q’s continual aggravation.
“Man, I hate that dude.” Sanger slicked back his hair.
Ben killed the heat on the stove and walked to the freezer. He pulled out a Ziploc bag full of redfish fillets, courtesy of Q’s godfather and his regular trips to his fishing camp in Cocodrie.
“Can’t imagine why,” he said. “Who wouldn’t want to be referred to as Q’s puppy dog, ‘Spot’?”
“Guard dog,” Sanger corrected.
“Yeah, that’s much better, brother.” Ben grinned at him.
“Hey, at least he’s not constantly trying to get you into bed,” Q said to Sanger as she stood up. She walked to the stove and dumped the vegetables into the pan with a hiss. Pulling herself up onto the counter to sit and stir them, she continued, “I’m running
out of new and creative ways to say ‘no’ and you know how much I hate to repeat myself.”
Sanger was taken aback. “Since when are you still hanging out with Derek Sharp?”
Q and Ben exchanged a quick glance before she said, “I’m singing on his new album. He wanted to use some of the songs we wrote together last year for the Ball and I own half the publishing. It could be a lot of money. Enough to buy Club Sin Sin from Susan and Laura and make the Burlesque more permanent.”
Ben filled the sink with water and dropped the bag of frozen fish into it to thaw. “She’s being modest, Aaron. He paid her to sing on the record and wants her to go on tour with him. Even offered to help her write her own album and sign her to his record label.”
Sanger let out a low descending whistle. “Are you going to do it?”
She violently shook her head. “Fuck no. I’m singing on the record because it’s easy money and we need it, but that’s the end of it.”
When Sanger gave her a questioning look, Ben explained, “That reporter, Sheila Jordan, didn’t exactly make a big show of letting people know all her theories about me being a serial killer were wrong and business at the Cove has been way off. It’s just not coming back like we thought it would. Half the city thinks I’m some sort of maniac who got away with murder, so I can’t really blame them.”
“You don’t know that, for sure. And it’s picking back up,” Q said, trying to calm his suspicions. She looked at Sanger. “It got bad in January and right when we were trying to come up with a fallback plan that didn’t involve selling the Cove, this came up. It’s not bad, just a few studio hours a few times a month.”
Sanger shook his head. “Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do, about the rumors, I mean. Sheila Jordan wanted to interview me. I turned her down because of what she did to you. Ethan pleading guilty and short-handing the trial couldn’t have helped.”
Ben returned to the stove and took the spoon from Q’s hand. “It’ll work out one way or the other,” he said, having resigned himself months ago to the fact that his once thriving business may have to go. “Q’s got her own hashtag on Twitter now, so maybe I can retire.”
“Really?” Sanger asked.
“Really,” Q replied. “#WhoIsClementineToledano and Derek’s documenting the whole album writing and recording process on social media. Calls me the Archangel. The album’s creepy as fuck.”
“Creepy how?” Sanger asked.
“It’s a concept record about this little boy having a nightmare where his skin gets all carved up. An archangel comes to him in a vision to let the magic inside him bleed out,” Q said, making a distasteful face.
“Let me guess, you’re the archangel.”
“Winner, winner, chicken dinner,” she said, pointing to her nose. “It’s beautiful, though. I’m not a huge Dark Harm fan, but I don’t think he’s ever written something like this before. It’s really amazing. Dark as all fucking get out, but beautiful at the same time.”
Ben chimed in, “Don’t let Derek hear you say that, he’ll think he has a shot with you, and chase you more than he already does. It reminds me of those old cartoons. You know the ones with the road runner and the coyote?”
Q glared at him. “I’d better be the road runner in this analogy, mister.”
He winked at her and said, “Meep meep.”
She smiled at him and leaned forward to kiss him. Ben called over his shoulder to Sanger, “Ok, so what’s this about Savion, Aaron?”
Sanger stood and pulled himself up on the counter across from Q so that he could be heard over the stove’s exhaust fan. “I need to know who gave Savion cocaine last night.”
“Why?” Q asked. “It was an accident.”
“That’s the problem. Even if it were an accident, we’re looking at negligence, at least. Worse if Savion doesn’t make it. As far as I know, he’s still in a coma. It’s not good, Clementine. You should brace yourself for the worst.”
Q shook her head and swallowed back the tears that threatened to come. “No, Aaron. He’s going to be fine. He’ll wake up and be just fine.”
He nodded sympathetically.
“Well, in either case, cocaine can cause seizures within minutes in epileptics. Whoever gave it to him most likely would have had to see him go down and left him unconscious in a pool of melting ice to drown,” Sanger explained.
“I just can’t imagine Savion snorting coke,” Q said. “I’ve seen him smoke some weed before. Maybe someone gave him a joint that was laced with cocaine and he didn’t know. He goes outside to enjoy a quiet, little joint by himself. Then the cocaine hits him, and he goes down.”
“Maybe,” Sanger said. “I can go back tomorrow and look around for one. Still, you see anyone using blow at the party.”
“Just Charlie and that chick playing banjo, but they left way before the party thinned out. And Charlie definitely wouldn’t have left him on his own if he took a turn.”
The doorbell rang.
“That’ll be Yvie,” Ben said. “Her A/C’s out. Told her she could spend the night here.”
“Did you, now?” Q grinned at Sanger.
He glowered at her and said, “I suppose this was your idea.”
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I had no idea. This is all Ben’s doing.”
“This is all Yvie’s lazy landlord’s doing,” Ben interjected. “Her A/C’s been out since Friday. She’s miserable. She called while y’all were in the living room. I told her she could stay in the guest room until that asshole fixes it.”
Sanger said, “I should go. Y’all answered my questions. You have family here.”
Q interrupted him before he could offer another excuse. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Aaron. You’re family, too. It’s just dinner. Eat some couvillion. Hang out with your friends. Flirt with a pretty woman who’s not married.”
She hopped off the counter.
“Couvy –what now?” he asked.
“Trust me, cowboy, you’ll like it.”
She walked out of the room, leaving Ben to explain the simple fish and red sauce dish he was making, in granular detail. Opening the front door, she was greeted with a very droopy Yvonne Bordelon.
“What in the hell happened to you?” she asked.
“Three days. No A/C. What the fuck do you think happened to me?” Her sister-in-law pushed past her into the welcoming cool. Tossing her bag down, she lay spread-eagled on the hardwood floor and sighed. “Oh, sweet mother of god, Freon.”
Q squatted down and regarded Ben’s sister. Her stylishly short, blond hair was tucked behind her ears and slicked back against her face, making her look more mannish than normal. Q had never realized how much Yvie looked like her brother until just now. If she had started the day wearing make-up, none of it was left. Hectic red spots dotted her cheeks and chin. And the tank top and shorts she wore did little to cover up the odor that came from spending seventy-two summer hours in Louisiana without air conditioning.
“Did Ben mention we have a friend over for dinner?” Q asked.
Yvie raised herself up on her elbows and looked at her sister-in-law. “Little sister, right now I do not care.”
“I think you might, actually…” she argued.
Yvie shook her head. “Nope. Not possible. I wouldn’t care if Aaron Sanger were here with his clothes off and a glorious erection for me to have my way with. I just want air conditioning.”
Q laughed. “Well, good, because he is here. Fully dressed, but I’m pretty sure any glory he may have had will go away as soon as he gets a whiff of you. You reek. Go upstairs and rinse off. Seriously, it’s beyond disgusting.”
“Q, I spend every day of my fucking life not stinking and making myself as attractive as possible. I spent both days this weekend running a damned Jazz Fest themed wedding in the heat and the rain in four-inch heels and white suits and two nights in between without any A/C to cool off in. So right now, I do not give a fuck if I stink. I do not give a fuck if I’m hideous. I hav
e literally run out of fucks to give.”
She held out her hand and Q helped her to stand up. They walked into the kitchen and Yvie flopped down into the nearest chair at the table. Ben took one look at his sister and went to the refrigerator to get her a cold beer and an ice pack to put on her neck. She drained her beer in one long swallow and set the empty bottle on the table, belching loudly before moving the ice pack from her neck to her cleavage. She glanced up at Sanger, still sitting on the counter, watching her with amusement.
“Detective Sanger,” she said. “Nice to see you again.”
Q looked in shock from Yvie to Ben. Of all his sisters, she was the most outwardly feminine, although Ben had warned her repeatedly that there was a side to Yvie that no one saw but him. He opened the refrigerator and handed his sister another beer.
Yvie lounged back in her chair and looked from Ben to Q to Sanger, the latter of the trio still regarding her in amused curiosity. “They didn’t tell you this was a fix-up, did they?”
He shook his head. “Don’t worry, I’m just here for free food and to figure out if someone poisoned Clementine’s college boyfriend.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. “Good. Sounds lovely.” She opened one eye and looked at Q. “Wait, Stanley Gerard’s kid? Your grand amour du mathlete?”
Q replied, “Yes, Yvonne. Savion decided to do some cocaine last night at his father’s party and found out the hard way that it’s a bad drug for epileptics. He had a stroke and is in a coma. He almost died.”
Yvie opened both her eyes and took a long pull on her beer.
“Let me get this straight,” she said. “The dude that Q Toledano was in love with in college - Q, little badass rocker chick, Q – wasn’t just a skinny mathematician virgin, he was a skinny mathematician virgin with epilepsy?”
“What?” Q said defensively. “He was sweet and handsome, and I wasn’t in love with him, I was falling in love with him…”
Her sister-in-law waved her hand to stop her.
“No, no, no. Not you. Him.” She pointed to her brother. “You were seriously that freaked out over a math geek with epilepsy? You, the great and powerful Ben Bordelon and your trail of broken hearts. You thought Q would leave you for him? Why? Because she popped his cherry?”