by W E DeVore
Q blushed and Sanger gave her a ‘Really?’ look. She shrugged and nodded.
Ben turned from the stove to scowl at his younger sister. “That’s enough, Yvonne.”
But it wasn’t enough for Yvie. She spread her legs in a wide male sprawl and leaned her elbows on her contrived nervous knees, breaking into the most extraordinary Ben Bordelon impression Q had ever witnessed, and that was saying something, considering every one of his sisters had tried, more than once, to accomplish such a feat.
Yvie pretended to retie an imaginary ponytail and scratched at her head in the frantic way her brother only did when he was extremely upset, saying in a gravelly drawl, “It’s just, she loved him, Yvie. You didn’t see the way he looked at her. She was his first lover and his dad and her are so close. What if she changes her mind about me? What if I ask her to marry me and she says ‘no’?”
Sanger started to laugh and Q rotated her head dramatically towards her husband. “Let me get this straight. You didn’t propose to me, for four months, letting me think you’d changed your mind, because I introduced you to Savion at Stanley’s party last year and told you we used to date like a bazillion years ago?”
Ben reddened and Q continued, “May I remind you that we fucked like rabbits in Stanley’s bathroom at that party.”
Yvie whistled to get her attention. “Why do you think that was?”
“Ben Bordelon, I’m not jealous of the other women you’ve dated,” Q said, folding her arms.
Sanger chimed in, “Nope. I’m crying foul on that, Clementine. Ethan took out most of those poor women before you even had a chance to get jealous. And besides, I was here while Ben was in jail. You were plenty jealous.”
Ben pounded his fist against Sanger’s. “Thank you, brother. I appreciate that.”
Yvie stood up and hugged Q from behind, resting her chin on Q’s shoulder. “I don’t think you have the moral high ground on this one, little sister.”
The odor emanating from her sister-in-law’s armpits made her eyes water.
“Goddamn, Yvie!” she exclaimed in disgust and walked away to retrieve her glass of wine. She took a long drink and said, “You smell so bad, I can fucking taste it. Go take a damn shower.”
Yvie raised her arm and took a dramatic whiff of her own flesh.
“What?” she said defensively. “It’s my natural odor.”
Sanger covered his nose and Ben grimaced as Yvie’s natural odor mingled with the fish simmering on the stove.
“Well, your natural odor reeks,” Ben said, throwing his sister over his shoulder, and carrying her to the guest bathroom off the back porch. He deposited her inside and slammed the door. “Take a shower, Sissie, or I’m throwing you back out into the heat. We’ll hold dinner.”
As soon as they heard the water running, Sanger nodded at Q.
“Ok,” he said.
“Ok, what?” she asked, still trying to get the taste of Yvonne Bordelon without deodorant out of her nose.
“You can fix me up with her,” he said, sheepishly sipping on his wine.
Q folded her arms. “So, I’ll bite. What was it? The stench or the belching?”
He laughed. “Maybe a little bit of both.”
◆◆◆
Once Yvie emerged from the shower, smelling more like a human being and less like the ghost of garbage past, they carried dinner to the dining room. As they ate, Q and Sanger continued to discuss their theories on how Savion could have ingested cocaine with or without someone else’s assistance.
When he pulled out his phone to start taking notes, Ben groaned and Yvie finally spoke up, “Would you two quit it? Q, let the poor man relax and stop being a cop for ten minutes. It’s got to be exhausting. I’m exhausted just sitting here listening to you.”
Q took a bite of food and said, “Fine by me. Put a pin in it, cowboy. You don’t want to make Yvie too tired, now do you?”
Sanger glared at her. “Two words, Clementine.”
She grinned. “Back at you, Sanger.”
Yvie relaxed back in her chair and took a sip of beer. “So, what do you do for fun, Aaron?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Listen to music, I guess. Watch documentaries.”
Having already experienced one of Sanger’s favorite movies, Q said, “Aaron Sanger, if you bring up that three-hour excursion with that stupid fucking penguin, I am going to fling my food at you. Why can’t you just like Star Wars like a normal person?”
Ben said, “Darlin’, leave the man be. Aaron is a serious person, stop trying to make him into something he’s not.”
“It’s ok, Ben,” Sanger replied. “I’m used it. My brother used to try to do the same thing - get me to lighten up. He’d appreciate the effort.”
Feeling vindicated, Q said, “Thank you, Aaron.”
“You have a brother?” Yvie asked. “Older or younger?”
“Two years older. He passed away when he was twenty-five.” Sanger took final bite of his dinner and wiped his mouth.
“I’m so sorry,” Yvie said, before sighing ever-so-slightly. This dinner party was going to involve an untimely demise, no matter what she did to change the subject.
Sanger smiled at her. “It’s ok. It was fourteen years ago. He was the funny one. I was the serious one – still am, I suppose. It was always like that. He was a comedian, actually. Like a real one. When he’d perform, he’d wear make-up, long nails, impeccable suits – like your brother there – only with these crazy tall high heels. He did this whole gay Jewish schtick. It was really funny. He was really funny.”
“Can you see any videos of him on YouTube?” she asked.
“Maybe. I’ve never looked,” he said. “He used to make me perform some of his jokes back to him. Trying to get me to have a sense of humor. I tried to tell him that being able to tell a joke like a very gay man wasn’t going to help me much, being…you know…”
“Straight?” Ben offered.
“Serious?” Yvie tried.
“A little black rain cloud that eats joy?” Q asked.
Sanger scowled at her. “Thanks, Clementine.”
“Just trying to be helpful, cowboy.” She set down her fork and moved her chair closer to Ben.
“Well, stop. You’re not helping.” Sanger glanced at Yvie and then looked playfully at the three of them. “You want to hear one of his jokes?”
“Do I want to hear you telling some of your very gay brother’s very gay jokes?” Q asked. “Oh, hell, yes.”
Sanger stood up and cocked his hip out, instantly becoming a more feminine version of himself, a more feminine version of both women in the room, actually. He smoothed out his shirt, feigning long nails.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Avi Sanger. As you’ve probably guessed, I am … Jewish. Shocking, I know.”
Ben and Q looked at each other. Ben emphatically mouthed, “This is going to be awesome.”
Sanger continued, “I am the son of an Orthodox rabbi and let me tell you, being the only gay boy at a family Passover seder is just exhausting. You have no idea how fascinating man-on-man action is to Jewish octogenarians on a fixed income.” He switched to a deep Brooklyn accent, “I don’t get it, Avi, are you the girl or the boy? I mean what do you do with your shvantz? Take turns?” He began to lisp again, “And so, my poor mother, she tried to help me out last year, so she sits down all the members of the greatest generation in front of the television and plays them a video entitled, ‘The Joys of Gay Sex.’ Unfortunately, for both of us, it was girl-on-girl action and it just opened up a whole new line of questioning. None of which I could answer, though it did help my Aunt Berty realize what she’d been missing all these years. She and her mahjong partner are now very happily doing whatever it is that post-menopausal lesbians do to their naughty lady bits.”
He flared his eyes dramatically and Yvie giggled.
When Sanger bowed and started to sit down, Yvie protested, “Do another one, please.”
He looked at her smili
ng at him and stood back up. He thought for a minute and said, “Ok, this one is actually a true story. We never had an Aunt Berty and the video was just a joke my mom made up to get Avi to laugh about it.” He turned himself back into Avi and continued, “So, on the day I graduated high school, I decided to break the news to my father. So, I say ‘Papa, you know how I like to dress up as Queen Esther for the Purim schpiel?’ and he says…” Sanger switched to a deep, resonant voice close to his own. “‘Yes, it’s the highlight of the calendar, son.’” He winked at Yvie and he changed his voice to imitate Avi’s lisp again. “And then I say, ‘I’m going to drop the Esther part and just do the Queen part…like 24/7, 365 days a year.’ And my father, he says, ‘Are you trying to tell me you’re gay?’ and my mother, she looks at my manicure and then looks at my father.” Sanger looked at his hands and swung his head to look at an imaginary man standing nearby. “Looks at my makeup and looks at my father.” He drew a circle around his face, puckering his lips. “Looks at my high heels…” He kicked up both feet and looked behind himself in a Mary Tyler Moore pose each time. “…and looks at my father and says, ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’”
Q crowed with amusement. She rested her forehead on the table, laughing so hard her abdominal muscles began to ache. After seven months of being Sanger’s friend, she had never seen him really relax, let alone tell an actual joke.
Sanger sashayed over to Ben and flirted, “You’re a tall of drink of water. You even look a little Jewy, haven’t I seen you at one of the meetings of the New Orleans Chapter of the International Jewish Conspiracy?”
Ben shook his head, still giggling.
“You mean you don’t even have a little Jew in you, maybe on your father’s side,” he glanced down at the front of Ben’s pants.
“Definitely, no,” Ben managed, still laughing.
“Why don’t you come backstage with me and I’ll put all the Jew in you that you ever wanted.”
Ben started to laugh out loud. He slapped his hand on his knee and tried to catch his breath, wiping away the tears that were forming at his eyes. Q and Yvie looked at each other, shaking with amusement.
Sanger sat down and Q grinned at him, still laughing. Her delight turned to ash in her mouth, seeing how physically ill he looked.
“Aaron, are you ok?”
All the enjoyment got sucked out of the room as Yvie and Ben looked at Sanger as well. He was pale as a blank page. Sitting in his chair, staring forward.
He covered his mouth. “That’s the joke that got him killed. Why did I say that?” He started to tremble. “The guy he picked out that night, he got mad and waited for him after the show. And he beat him to death. He beat Avi’s beautiful face until there wasn’t anything left. And they let him off with probation. Why would I tell that joke?”
They realized he was talking more to himself than to any of them. Sanger covered his face and started to sob.
Yvie stood up and said to her brother, “Hey, Bubba, let’s clear these dishes.”
Q pulled a chair next to Sanger’s after the others had left the room. She put her arm around his shoulders and he turned to hold onto her. Ben came in with a glass of whiskey and silently set it down in front of him before leaving again.
“Aaron, come on, now,” Q said quietly, holding up the glass Ben had left. “Drink it. All of it.”
He wiped his eyes and took a sip. “I never talk about him, Clementine.”
“Maybe you should start.”
She held out the glass and he took it from her, studying the dark golden liquid before draining it. “Telling you about him last night, just brought him back to me for a minute and it felt so good to have him back.” His voice was small, and he sounded much younger than his thirty-seven years. “After he died, I had to go to counseling. The lady, she told me to write him letters, told me it would help.”
“Did it?” she asked.
“Well, I’ve been writing a dead man a letter almost every day for fourteen years, so probably not. Maybe I should stop. But it makes me feel like I still have a brother.”
Q sat back in her chair and regarded him staring down at the white tablecloth. “What do you tell him? In your letters?”
“Nothing, really. My life, whatever case I’m working on. A pretty woman I met.” He smiled at Yvie’s empty chair. “God, Yvie must think I’m such a pussy.”
“Why, because you cried?” Q asked, surprised. “Aaron, have you met my husband? He cries at Hallmark commercials, and his father’s worse about it than he is. The Bordelons have a much different notion of what a man is. And, honestly, so do I. So, stop.”
He finally looked at her. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” she asked.
“What do you think a man is?”
“Well, if you’re asking me? It’s someone who’s comfortable enough with his masculinity to cry for his dead brother and act like a very gay man to make his friends laugh.” She winked at him and he blushed. “Look, it’s none of my business, but I have to know: is that how he really came out to your parents?”
Her question wiped away his grief in an instant and he laughed. “More or less. But I always said Avi skipped the real punch line.”
“What was that?”
“After my mom said, ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’, my dad says, ‘well I didn’t want to assume. Maybe he just likes to wear dresses.’”
Q giggled. “Who says you’re not the funny one?”
Chapter 4
Bourbon Street Baby
Like most mornings, Q reached for Ben. Finding his side of the bed cold and Benless, meant only one thing: the two-week hiatus from reality that was Jazz Fest was over, and they were back to their normal routine. For Ben, that meant he’d gone for a run. For her, it meant that she’d have to make her own coffee.
Traipsing downstairs, she heard the welcome sound of the coffee maker percolating the last of a pot. She walked into the kitchen to find Yvie sitting on the counter next to the rapidly filling carafe, wearing white boy shorts and a red tank top. Her sister-in-law frowned at her as she entered the sunny room.
“Ben told me to tell you he went for a run. I suppose I blew it with Aaron last night,” she moaned. “You could have at least warned me.”
Q walked to the cupboard beside her and pulled down two mugs. While filling them both with coffee, she said, “First of all, I didn’t just warn you, I told you point blank that your dream date was here. You were all out of fucks to give, remember?” She handed Yvie a cup. “And second of all, you didn’t blow it. You, my sweet, disgusting, belching sister, have cracked the secret code to Aaron Sanger’s heart.”
Yvie took a sip of coffee. “Come again?”
“He wants me to give you his number. Says you should call him, since your schedule is probably crazier than his, this time of year.” Q grinned up at Ben’s sister. “He’ll make himself available for dinner, any night you like. And, since we’re being honest, he was worried that he blew it with you, too, because he broke down about his brother last night.”
“You’re fucking with me, right? Has he met Ben? That man cries at those stupid Folgers commercials.”
Q walked to the refrigerator to find some cream. “That’s what I told him… only I said Hallmark.”
“Man, those really get to him, too.” Yvonne looked at her in confusion. “So, he liked me? But I was so…”
“Yourself,” Q finished. “And, not for nothing, you are really fun when you’re just being you, especially when you’re around Ben and not acting like an insane, type A control freak. So just relax and have a good time. Both of you just need to relax. I’ve never met two people who get themselves wound up so tight.”
“That’s going to be easy,” she replied sarcastically.
“Look,” Q said. “Don’t try to run everything. It’s not a wedding or the grand opening of a hotel. It’s just a date.”
“I know I’m going to regret asking this, but is that what you think I do?”
She widened her eyes and made quotes with her fingers in the air. Yvonne laughed and gave her an amazed look.
Q continued, “Then, of course, comes the third date, you’ll like that one. We’ll fuck like wild animals for exactly two days, until you’re completely addicted to my who-ha. About a month later, you’ll tell me that you love me, and I’ll introduce you to my family. Two months after that, I’ll move in with you… or you’ll move in with me.” She waved her hand inconsequentially. “It doesn’t matter, we’ll work out the details as we get to it. And then around the end of the year – we’ll firm up that exact date later - you’ll propose; and by this time next year, we’ll be happily married and expecting our first child. How does that sound? Shall I go ahead and book that now?”
Her sister-in-law broke out into a full-throated laugh. “Oh, my god. I totally do that, like every time.”
Q patted her knee.
“Told you.” She sat at the table to drink her coffee and thought for a minute before saying, “Actually, everyone’s told you. I heard Ben tell you exactly that after you caught what’s-his-name with your upstairs neighbor last summer.”
“Yeah, but he told me in a gentle ‘well, you know, Sissie, you do tend to try to control everything’ way. He didn’t straight out mock me. Nice impression, by the way. You’re getting better at this.” Yvie happily swung her long legs.
Imitating each other’s mannerisms was a favorite pastime of the five Bordelon siblings. Q had struggled to keep up since she’d joined the clan. The fact that Ben and Yvonne had such similar speech patterns made it easier for her to mimic his closest sister than the others.