by W E DeVore
“So, he really liked me? You’re not putting me on?” she asked.
“Of course, he did, Yvie.”
Yvie smiled to herself. “Can I ask you something about Aaron?”
“Shoot.” Q folded her legs onto the chair and relaxed back.
“Why does he call you ‘Clementine’ instead of ‘Q’? I thought you hated your name.”
“He doesn’t,” Q said. “Does he? I’ve never noticed.”
“He does,” Yvie insisted. “I’ve never heard him call you ‘Q,’ neither has Ben.”
Q thought about it for a moment. How ‘Q’ had become an abbreviation for ‘Clementine’ was something that not a single member of her mother’s large Cajun family had ever bothered to mention. The fact that she really didn’t like her given name, meant that most people she knew only used it when she had pushed most, if not all, of their buttons.
She finally said, “Well, he’s like my family and they all call me ‘Clementine.’ Or maybe he’s just constantly pissed off at me. Who knows?” Q drained the rest of her coffee as the doorbell rang. “Speak of the devil, that will be Aaron. He’s giving me a ride to Stanley’s,” she said, standing up. “I have to go brush my teeth and get dressed for the studio. Answer the door, will you?”
Yvie called after her, “But I’m not dressed.”
“Totally the point, Yvie,” she said, as she walked back upstairs. “Catch up. I mean, please!”
Q took her time brushing her teeth and twisting her hair into a sloppy bun at the back of her head, wanting to give Sanger as long as possible with Yvie and her long legs, before her sister-in-law had more than three minutes to build up an entire forty-year marriage in her mind. Ben walked in while she was debating between Hatebreed and Arch Enemy as the band of the day. He kissed her bare shoulder.
“Clementine Toledano, topless in my bedroom…. not a bad way to start off a Tuesday.”
He fondled her bare breast for emphasis and kissed the top of her head before walking to the bathroom, stripping out of his t-shirt and running shorts on the way. “Aaron brought Yvie donuts. They’re looking pretty cozy downstairs.”
Q decided that Arch Enemy would win the day and pulled on the t-shirt emblazoned with their logo, before following him into the bathroom.
“Yeah, thought I’d primp up here for a little longer than normal and skip breakfast. Let Sanger check out your sister’s legs and get thoroughly convinced that dinner is a great idea. How was your run?” she asked, as he climbed into the shower.
“Difficult, after last night.” He opened the door and winked at her.
“You wanted to make hay, Bordelon. I was just being accommodating.” She walked to the vanity to put on a little mascara.
“Is that what they call that position?” he called from the shower.
“I don’t know what they call it, but we’re definitely doing that again.”
She sat on the edge of the tub to floss while Ben showered, not knowing what else to do to kill another few minutes.
He turned off the water and she brought him his towel, drying his chest as he stepped out. He pulled her to him and kissed her.
“You feeling accommodating right now?” he asked. “How long do we have before you need to leave?”
“Not long enough, my love.” Q frowned. “But I’ll come to the Cove with you tonight, if you want.”
“Really? But you hate hanging out while I work.”
He took the towel from her hands and finished drying off. Q didn’t want to tell him that she hated knowing that he was going to work in a half-empty bar and seeing him struggle to book acts that would have begged to play Lafitte’s Cove not ten months ago.
“Maybe I hate being here without you more,” she said, instead. She pulled him down to her and whispered in his ear, “And maybe I feel like playing an afterhours game of pool.”
Ben held her to him for a moment before asking, “How is he? Aaron, I mean, this morning?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I let Yvie open the door in her underwear, thought it would brighten his day. I can’t imagine losing a relative like that, let alone a brother. Not that I’d really know.”
He shivered. “When Danny came out to us, none of us cared. We loved her, wanted her to be happy, it didn’t matter. But I worried about it. What happened to Aaron’s brother? Worried that she and Emmy being as open as they were would get them hurt.” He looked down at her. “Aaron needs a family, Q. It’s not healthy, him being alone all the time, especially not with the job he has.”
“I know. Ernst had us. Sanger needs someone. It just sucks that the someone he picked happens to be married to Stanley Gerard.”
He frowned. “He saved your life. Mine too. In my book, that makes him family.”
She rolled her eyes and sighed loudly as she realized what her husband’s intentions were. “You want to drag him to Sunday dinner this week, don’t you?”
He widened his eyes and grinned. “And I want you to do the asking.”
She threw her head back dramatically and gazed heavenward for assistance. “Ach! And what do I get for doing this impossible task you’re demanding of your poor put-upon wife?”
He took advantage of her exposed throat and traced the curve of her neck with his tongue until he reached her ear. “I promise to be very, very accommodating while we play pool tonight.”
She shoved him away. “You drive a hard bargain, Bordelon. I’m not promising anything, but I’ll do my best.”
He pulled her close to him and whispered in her ear. “So will I, darlin’, so will I.”
◆◆◆
As Q and Sanger walked to his truck, he tossed her the keys. “Driving lesson, Clementine.”
She reached out both hands and caught them at her knees. “Seriously? What is with you and Ben? I’ve survived thirty-four years without a driver’s license. Why do I suddenly need one now?”
“Because you’re a grown woman and, I’m only speaking for myself here, but I am sick of you always needing a ride.” He climbed into the passenger side of his truck and Q got behind the wheel.
“Hey, you offered,” she said, firing up the grumpy engine.
Sanger plugged his phone into a loose wire that hung down from the center console and some lonesome cowboy started whining through the scratchy speakers about his woman or whiskey; Q wasn’t emotionally invested enough to try to figure it out.
“That’s not because I was feeling generous,” he said.
“No?” she asked, slowly backing down the driveway. “I suppose you wanted to bring Ben’s sister some donuts for breakfast. Maybe catch her while she was still in her underwear?”
“Ernst always said you’d make an excellent detective.” Sanger grinned. “She’s pretty terrific, your sister-in-law.”
Q navigated onto Carrollton and headed them towards Mid-City and Stanley’s home studio.
“That’s what I’ve been telling you, Sanger. And for some reason, she likes you. Don’t blow it. Any news about Savion?”
“Nothing good. He’s still in a coma. They don’t know if he’ll ever wake up. I’m surprised your studio session with Stanley is still on.”
Knowing why Stanley was still committed to finishing the record didn’t help her to feel any better about it.
“He’s on a tight timeline with the label. Can’t really get out of it,” she lied.
Sanger settled his eyes on her, piercing through her and she realized he knew that she was lying to him.
“There’s something you’re not telling me, Clementine,” he said, folding his arms and watching her.
She glanced over at him before looking back at the road. “I can’t tell you, Aaron. It has nothing to do with what happened to Savion, though. I swear.”
“I think I should be the judge of that.”
His detective switch had been triggered and Q knew she was about to be interrogated. She pulled to a stop at the light and turned to face him.
“You’re going to have
to trust me, Aaron. If I thought this had anything to do with what happened to Savion, I’d tell you, but it doesn’t. I promise.”
He scrutinized her. “But it has something to do with this record you’re going to work on.”
The light changed and the car behind her honked, urging her to move forward.
“Which also has nothing to do with what happened to Savion. You have to trust me, Aaron.”
She pulled forward and nearly sideswiped the parked car next to her. He reached over and steadied the wheel.
“I wish I could trust you to just hold the damn lane!” he exclaimed. “Clementine, we’ve talked about this. I mean, come on.”
She pushed aside his hand and pulled over to the curb, engaging the emergency brake.
“You wanted me to drive, Sanger. This is me: driving,” she snapped back.
“I didn’t want you wreck my truck. Why can’t you just pay attention?”
He got out of the cab and walked around to the driver’s side. He opened the door and said, “Get out. You are a terrible driver.”
“What the fuck have I been telling you all these months? There is a reason I don’t drive, Sanger.”
She jumped out and fumed all the way to the open passenger door. When she sat back into the seat, he slammed his door and considered her closely.
“You did that on purpose,” he said, navigating back into traffic.
“Yes, Sanger, you’re right. I almost destroyed the side-view mirror on a Mercedes S-class just to prove a point.” She rolled her eyes at him and folded her arms.
“How do you know it was a Mercedes S-class if you weren’t paying attention?” he asked.
She scowled at him. His left elbow rested against the top of the door, the back of his fingers rested against his mouth. His right hand was firmly on the wheel and his eyes stared straight forward at the road.
“You’re an asshole,” she replied without answering his question.
“That’s usually what criminals say to me, just before they confess.” He turned his head and winked at her, making her laugh.
He pulled back over and put the brake on. “Come on, you’re not getting out of this that easy.”
He slid towards her and she stood up on the floorboard to climb over him and back into the driver’s seat. He put his hands on her hips to move her across him.
“Watch those hands, detective,” she scolded.
“You watch your rearview, Clementine,” he replied, moving to the other side of the bench seat.
She glared at him.
“Was that supposed be some kind of double entendre?” she asked, sitting behind the wheel and refastening her seatbelt. “Because I happen to like my rearview just fine.
“Just drive, Clementine.”
She pulled back into traffic and they drove in silence for several minutes before she finally admitted, “You caught me, detective. I know how to drive. I just hate doing it, so I let my license expire about fifteen years ago and never got it renewed. I never was that good at it anyway, ask Constance.”
“Yeah, I know. I ran your name through the DMV records,” he replied. “Ben always said you were a little too comfortable behind the wheel for someone who claimed to have never learned. Why don’t you drive, Clementine?”
“If your mother died in a car accident when you were four, would you like to drive?” she asked rhetorically.
“What does Ben say?”
“Same as you. I’m a grown woman. I should have a legal license to operate a motor vehicle, but I hate it. And I know how stupid it is, because Mama wasn’t even driving. But there, take me to pedestrian jail.”
He didn’t say anything for a few minutes. “I’m surprised Ben hasn’t let you off the hook. Seems like something he’d understand.”
Motherfucking super detective, goddamn.
She didn’t say anything and pretended to be very concerned about something in the driver’s side mirror. Sanger looked behind them.
“There’s nothing there, Clementine. You haven’t told him, have you?”
“Maybe.” She looked over at Sanger. “Eventually, there has to be a limit, right? A limit to the baggage that he’ll be able to stand. Me not driving because I don’t want to, is quirky and kind of endearing…”
“To whom?” he interrupted.
She scowled at him and ignored his comment. “…but me being afraid to drive because my mother was killed in a car crash is…”
“Completely understandable. He’s your husband, you should be telling him these things, not me.”
“You would have been a good rabbi,” she said, knowing that he was completely correct.
He cringed in disgust. “Don’t tell my father that.”
“What is it with you and your dad, anyway?”
She stopped at Canal and waited for a bus to unload and reload its complement of passengers. When he didn’t say anything, she said, “I promise I’ll tell Ben about my vehicular phobia. Tonight. And tell him that you were right all along and I’ve been lying to both of you.”
Sanger exhaled loudly. “When it was obvious, that Avi was gay, my father stopped wanting certain things for him and only wanting them for me. I should be the one to get married and have children. I should be a rabbi. And I was ok with it because I thought I wanted them, too. But when Avi was murdered, I started wondering why he didn’t want all those things for Avi, too. He would have been a great rabbi, better than me. A wonderful husband. An amazing father. And I started hating my father because he couldn’t see that. All he could see was Avi’s homosexuality like it was a disease. Not that he’d ever say something like that, but that was the implication.”
“What did your mom say?” she asked, quietly.
“She and my dad fought like beasts, over everything. They were so different, or too much the same, I don’t know which.”
“You didn’t answer my question, Aaron,” she said, as traffic began to move again.
“She wanted us to be happy. Even if that meant I became a cop and Avi was a drag queen. None of that shit mattered to her.” His voice caught. “When she was dying, she tried to get me to patch things up with my dad, but I just couldn’t.” He glanced at her. “Avi was my brother and I loved him more than myself.”
She turned on the bench and looked at him. “Why is that? You don’t seem to like yourself very much, lately.”
He sternly pointed to his eyes, then pointed to the road and she turned back towards the busy street she was navigating.
“Clementine, I meet good people. Really good people. And bad things happen to them, every single day. How can I possibly justify myself breathing in and out when they don’t anymore and I couldn’t do a single thing to stop it from happening to them?”
Q reached over and squeezed his hand. “Aaron, you’re one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. One of the kindest people Ben has ever known and that’s saying a lot. That bar is pretty damned high in the Bordelon clan. I know you’re beating yourself up because of Tori, but please stop.” She glanced at him to see if he was listening. “You’re a good man. So good that Ben wants you to fall in love with and marry his most favorite sister. And you’re my best friend, and I’ll punch anybody who argues with me that you’re not the best person I know, even if that person is you.”
He took her hand in his and kissed it. “Between you and Ben, it’s hard to miss Avi.”
“Why?”
“Well, Ben takes care of the brother part.”
“And I take care of the sister part?” she smiled.
“You just ruined my joke.”
“You should have led with the sister bit; it would have been better.”
She decided to knock out her honey-do list and said, “Well, since you’re officially family, you are no longer getting off the hook. You’re coming to Sunday dinner with us this week. No arguments. No questions. No excuses.”
“No choices,” he muttered.
“Hey, isn’t that what a family is?” When he did
n’t respond, she said, “Look, Ben has his heart set on it and if I don’t fix this for him, I’m going to hear about it for days. Help a sister out. They’ll have bacon wrapped jalapenos and beer.”
Sanger didn’t reply.
“Yvie will be there,” she coaxed.
“Fine. You win. You always fucking win.” He folded his arms and frowned.
“Glad we have an understanding, cowboy.”
When they arrived at Stanley’s, a wiry man was waiting for them, leaning against an unmarked police car. He was already sweating through his polo shirt. Between his aviator glasses and his light blond crewcut, his appearance announced that he was both a cop and spoiling to give anyone who looked at him sideways a hard time.
Q pointed to him as she attempted to parallel park, driving up onto the curb and back down to the street.
“Friend of yours, detective?” she asked.
“Pay attention! Goddamnit, you’re going to take off my fender,” he scolded. Once she put the truck in park, he said, “That’s Rex. My new partner.”
“Your new partner is named, Rex?” Q asked. “Oh, Derek is going to have a field day with this.”
He turned to her and glared. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
“Rex and Spot. I don’t know, Sanger I think it’s meant to be,” she teased.
He laughed and said, “We’ll see. He’s a little green and likes watching porn a little too much for my taste.”
Q grabbed her satchel and opened the door. “And how do you know that?”
“He talks about it all the damned time.” He opened the door and got out.
She tossed him his car keys. “Better hope you don’t have too many stakeouts.”
Sanger caught the keys and shoved them into his front pocket. “Nice.”
“How did I do?” she asked him, as they approached his new partner.
“Better. You’re almost ready for the test.” He suddenly pulled her to him and hugged her. “Thank you, Clementine.”
“For what?”
He looked at her shyly and said, “For not wrecking my truck.”
She slapped his arm several times and he winced under the onslaught, laughing as they walked up to the house. Rex took off his sunglasses and hooked them onto his collar as they approached. Q was about to introduce herself when his eyes fell immediately down to stare at the Arch Enemy logo on Q’s braless chest. She counted to ten and waited for them to pop back up to her face before finally snapping her fingers in front of his eyes.