“How’s he doing?” I asked.
“As grumpy and contrary as ever. Refusing our help. So he’s fine.”
“And Lucille?”
She paused. “She’s all right, I suppose. You want to talk to her?”
Before I could answer, I heard Josie call to Lucille, heard the crackle of the phone as she held it against her chest to muffle her voice. After a minute, Lucille came to the phone.
“It’s me,” I said. “Just wanted to check in and make sure you were all right.”
“Oh,” she said, her voice sad. “Yeah, it’s OK.”
“How’s your mom?”
“Not quite as bad as Jack, but you know. Not thrilled with things.”
I heard a voice in the background.
“Lucille,” I said, “is that Toph?”
“What?” Her voice was sharper.
“He’s back over there?” It wasn’t really a question. I could still hear him barking in the background.
“I’m working on it,” she said.
“Lucille. You want me to call Jack?”
“No!” She lowered her voice again. “Don’t bother him. Everything’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. Jack’s going to be livid.”
“Jack needs to relax,” she said.
“You know he’s going to come over there when he finds out.”
There was the slam of a screen door on the other end of the line. “I don’t want things to get any worse than they are,” she said. “He doesn’t need to know about this, Enza.”
“I don’t want to be in the middle of this. I’ve already lied for you once, and I won’t do it again. He’s going to come home and ask me about this, and I won’t lie and tell him Toph left.”
“Enza, please. This is not any of Jack’s business.”
“I think he sees it a bit differently.”
“He needs to stay out of it!” she snapped. “He’s only making things worse.”
“He’s worried about you.”
“He’s being a bully.”
I sighed. Kate glanced up from her laptop and narrowed her eyes. I shook my head and said, “Lucille, you need to get Toph to leave. Now. It’s better you do it than Jack. He’s not going to sit back and do nothing.”
“Just leave it alone,” Lucille said. “It’s not any of your business either.”
Before I could reply, she hung up.
“What’s going on?” Kate asked.
“Toph came back.”
She glanced at me over her reading glasses. “And she didn’t kick him out.”
“Nope.”
I sat down across from her at the table.
“Are you going to call Jack?” she asked.
“That seems like a bad idea.”
“You can’t go over there,” she said.
“I don’t want to be in the middle of this any more.”
“Is he being violent?” Kate asked. “Can you call the police?”
“Josie would call the police if she felt threatened. Hell, she’d shoot him herself.”
“You could call Jack’s friend the sheriff, right?” Kate said.
“He can’t arrest him for being a jackass.”
“He can just do a welfare check. Go over in plainclothes and say he heard Buck was hurt and wanted to check in on him. Hell, tell him to take a fruit basket so it looks believable.”
I nodded.
“Then it’s on record,” she said with a shrug. “Call him.”
“I don’t know.”
“Call him,” she drawled. “You know he’d want to help.”
I spun my phone on the table, thinking it over. “It could just make things worse.”
Kate snapped her laptop shut. “Call Andre. If it’s nothing, no big deal. If it’s something, he takes the little jerk away in handcuffs, and everyone sleeps easier. Including you. You know you’re going to lie awake all night if you don’t call him.”
She was right of course.
I looked up Andre’s cell number and dialed. He answered on the second ring.
~~~~
An hour later, Andre called me back with news.
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t arrest him,” he said.
“Shit.”
“He is a little shit,” Andre said. “He wasn’t doing anything illegal, though, and he wasn’t doing anything to threaten the family. I stayed a half hour, hoping he’d do something a judge would frown upon, but no luck.”
“So they all seemed fine?”
“Yes ma’am. I even talked to Josie alone, and then had a little chat with Lucille by herself. Josie said he was a slug but wasn’t doing anything dangerous. Lucille said everything was all right. I asked her about that bruise on her arm, but she wouldn’t cop to him doing it.” He paused. “The way she got all flustered, though, something’s going on she’s not saying.”
“I’ve seen him put his hands on her,” I said. “I think he’s done it before, and she won’t admit it.”
“Unfortunately I can’t do much if she won’t tell me,” he said. “I’d like nothing more than to throw his scrawny ass in jail if he’s hurting her, but she’s got to tell me. I can’t do it on a hunch.”
I wished that particular law was different, just on this particular day. I hated that we had to wait for him to do something violent when it was so obvious he was a ticking bomb. “Thank you for checking in on them, Andre.”
“Of course,” he said. “Just so you know, though, Lucille knows it’s no coincidence I showed up. Even with a store-bought cake.”
“I figured as much.” She’d be even more pissed at me now, but I didn’t care. Now Buck and Josie were in Toph’s path too.
“I ran his plates and license,” Andre said. “Found several speeding tickets but nothing outstanding I can take him in for. I had my fingers crossed for a bench warrant but no such luck.”
“Damn! I thought surely he’d do something stupid while you were there to get himself arrested.”
“Sorry,” he said. “Kid was on his best behavior. I’ll keep an eye on them though.”
“Thanks, Andre.”
“Take care, Enza. See you at dinner. I’ll bring a surprise.”
He hung up, and I sat back at the table by Kate.
“I take it he’s not in a cell,” she said.
“I figured at the very least he’d mouth off to Andre and get himself arrested.”
“I was hoping that too.”
“Jack’s going to blow a fuse.”
“Yep.”
“Still want to make that pie?” I asked her.
“Of course I do. We need a practice run.”
“Want to ask Andre over for a slice?”
She glared at me. “Stop.”
“We sort of owe him a favor.”
“Seriously. Stop.”
I put the new alligator oven mitt on my hand and made its mouth move as I said, “Aw, come on jolie, give a man a slice of pie. You know you want to have a throwdown in the kitchen.”
She snorted as she pulled the recipe from the clip-magnet on the fridge, but I could tell she was thinking about it. She wasn’t so hard to read sometimes.
Chapter 12
On Christmas Eve, I put a turkey in the oven, and Kate helped me make a few side dishes. It was Jack’s idea to prepare as much as we could the day before our big dinner. Once I did the math and calculated how long it would take everything to cook, I knew he was right. He was at the station until late afternoon, but he’d have the rest of Christmas off. In the meantime, we had an all-hands-on-deck situation in the kitchen and needed backup.
So after lunch, I called Andre and asked if he could come over. It was true, I needed him for the curried potato salad, but what I needed more was his help on the Lucille situation.
A half hour later, he showed up dressed in his snug dark-washed jeans and a green button-up shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows like he was ready to be put to work. The front door was open because the kitchen had gotten so hot
from cooking, so I could easily see Andre through the screen door. He was holding a bottle of port in the crook of his arm and was running his free hand through his hair.
“Don’t just stand there,” Kate said from behind me. “Let the iron chef in. He’s got booze.”
She winked, but I wasn’t entirely sure it was directed at me.
Andre surveyed the kitchen. “Where’s my post, ladies?”
Kate pointed to a five-pound bag of potatoes, and he quickly began peeling them and chopping them into bite-sized cubes. I went back to making cornbread dressing, mixing it by hand the way Kate said her grandmother had always done it.
“We have another favor to ask you,” Kate said, eyeing Andre’s forearms as he chopped.
“What’s that?” he asked, looking hopeful.
Kate leaned against the counter. “Tell him, Enza.”
I paused, wiping my hands on a towel. “I have to tell Jack what’s happening with Lucille and Toph. I can’t keep it from him any longer. When he finds out Toph came back, he’s going to be furious, and he’s going to want to charge over there like the cavalry, and I need you to stop him.”
The knife came to a halt. Andre looked up and fixed his big green eyes on me. “How do you expect me to do that?”
~~~~
By the time Jack came home, Kate, Andre and I had already cracked open the port to toast our culinary prowess. We were sitting at the kitchen table, covered in flour, cake batter, and the eighteen spices Andre had put in the jambalaya. The whole house smelled like onions and bacon, and the kitchen was so hot we were sweating through our shirts again.
Jack’s first question was about Buck.
“He’s doing good,” I said. “Josie and Lucille stayed with him all day. I talked to them just a little while ago.”
“And did Toph come back?”
Kate chewed her lip and shot me a reassuring look.
“Yes,” I said, “but it’s going to be fine.”
“Fine?” he said, his voice rising. “How can you say that? I have to go talk some sense into her.”
“Wait,” I said, standing. I placed my hand on his arm and steered him toward my empty chair. “Andre went over there and checked things out. Everybody’s all right.”
Jack looked at Andre as he sat down. “You went over there? Did they call you? Did he hurt her?”
“They didn’t call me. Lucille’s not hurt. Enza asked me to check on them. I was hoping I’d find the guy doing something I could cart him away for, but he was on his best behavior.”
“Son of a bitch,” Jack said.
“Hey, man, I know what you want to do right now, but it’ll only make things worse.”
Jack shook his head. “I want that kid out of their house. Out of this parish.”
“I know you do,” Andre said. “So would I.”
Jack leaned back in the chair. “So I’m supposed to continue on like nothing is wrong, invite him into our house tomorrow and pretend I don’t want to feed him to the gators.”
“If you make him leave right now,” I said, “Lucille will go with him. Don’t make her feel like she has to choose.”
“But she does have to choose,” Jack said. He stood up again, pacing across the small room, his boots thudding against the hardwood with each step.
“She still loves him,” Kate said, her voice heavy with a sorrowful note. “We might not understand it, but if you force her to decide right now, she’ll go with him, and this will just get worse.”
“She’s right,” Andre said. “I’ve seen it a thousand times.”
Jack sighed, leaning against the counter, raking his fingers through his hair.
“She adores you,” I said to him. “She’ll listen to you, but only if you’re rational, and only if she knows you support her and understand how hard this is for her. If you go over there screaming that she’s lost her mind, she’ll bolt, and you’ll lose her. If she thinks for one second that you’re not on her side, she’s gone.”
Andre nodded.
“How did she get herself into this?” Jack said.
“That doesn’t matter,” I said. “What matters is that we get her out.”
“And that she understands it’s because you all love her,” Kate said. “And not just because you hate this Toph guy.”
“We can’t give her a reason to side with him,” I said, and Andre agreed.
Jack slumped against the counter. “I hope you all are right about this.”
~~~~
Later that evening, we were babysitting the turkey and playing board games I’d found in one of the closets. We’d nearly finished the bottle of port, and Jack had finally started to relax. I slipped away to check the turkey and set the timer for another hour, thinking that this almost felt like a normal holiday. When I returned to the living room, Jack, Kate and Andre were sprawled on the floor with the Scrabble board, right where I’d left them.
“You used all seven letters,” Kate said to Jack. “Take a shot.”
Andre poured a half shot of whiskey into a glass.
“That seems backwards,” Jack said.
“We’re leveling the playing field,” Kate said. “You also have to take a shot if you use stupid slang words or try to use something not in the dictionary.”
“Don’t you just challenge?” Andre asked.
“Yes,” Kate said. “And whoever is wrong takes a shot.”
“I should warn you fellas,” I said as I sat next to her, “Kate reads the OED for fun.”
Andre leaned toward her. “Bring it on. I do my crosswords in pen.”
Kate’s lip curled in that way that meant she was amused. And dead set on winning.
Andre went next, dropping each tile into place with a deliberate plink, laying down harlot.
“Really?” Kate said.
Andre shrugged, smirking so his dimples showed. “That’s thirty-seven points,” he drawled. He leaned over her shoulder as she scribbled down the score, checking her math.
Kate didn’t stand a chance against those dimples.
The tiles clicked as she spelled twerk.
“Slang,” I said. “Shot.”
“It’s in the dictionary,” she said.
“I’m sure it’s not,” I countered.
“Want to challenge?” she said. “It’s a shot of the cheap stuff if you’re wrong.”
I thought for a minute. “No way that’s in the dictionary. You’re bluffing.”
“Pour her a shot,” Kate said, tapping on the screen of her phone.
Jack did as she said, despite my frown. I gazed at the glass of amber liquid as Kate held her phone out to Jack. “Would you care to read the entry from the esteemed Oxford Dictionary?”
Jack looked at the screen. “I’ll be damned. It was first recorded in 1802.”
“No way,” I said.
“Twerk,” he said, adopting a professorial tone, “first spelled with an i, later with an e. Believed to be a combination of ‘twist’ and ‘jerk.’ Common usage describes a provocative dance that involves thrusting the hips and bottom while in a low squatting stance.”
“Thank you, Dr. English,” I said. “Do we get a demonstration with that?”
“I’d throw my back out,” Jack said.
Andre grinned.
“Drink up,” Kate said.
I slammed the shot and coughed. The cheap stuff burned all the way down.
Kate had invented Drunken Scrabble in graduate school. She’d been bored by cups and quarters and the other typical drinking games people fell into during their college enlightenment. Kate had decided the game should be challenging in the beginning and become harder after taking a couple of penalty shots. She considered it a kind of brain exercise, so didn’t feel as guilty as she would playing something as inane as quarters.
Also, Scrabble was her game. And Kate liked to win.
After a couple of hours, we were doing well to eke out three and four letter words. Kate was lying on the sofa, her feet pressed up against
Andre’s side. For warmth, she’d said, but I knew better.
I checked on the turkey, and satisfied it was golden brown enough, took it out and placed it on the counter. I knew it should cool a while, but I was so tired I kept dozing off between our turns.
Kate was still wide awake, laughing with Andre, nursing her glass of wine. She was the only one who had avoided the whiskey shots almost entirely.
“I’m off to bed,” I said. “Y’all going to stay up a while?”
Andre glanced at Kate, then dropped his hand on top of her feet. He was rearranging the tiles in his trough, but I didn’t miss the faint tapping of his fingers along her ankle.
“Yeah,” Kate said. “I’ll be up. Not tired yet.”
“Would you put the turkey in the fridge before you go to bed?” I asked her.
“Sure,” she said, giggling. Andre had whispered something to her, making her shake with laughter.
I glanced at Jack, and he got to his feet. “Come on,” he said. “Off we go.”
“How about sudden death to the end,” Andre said. “I have five tiles left.”
“OK,” Kate said, sitting up straight. “Sudden death.”
As Jack turned out the light in the bedroom, I could still hear their laughter through the wall.
“They seem to be getting along well,” he said.
I thought of those patterns Kate spent her days studying, and the ones that seemed to emerge so often in her own life, and hoped the pattern might be different with Andre.
I thought of how those patterns might span generations and wondered if I had some of my mother’s embedded in me. Did I also have her tendency to leave? Would marriage do to me what it had to her? Perhaps she’d wondered the same thing, and left us thinking she’d spare me from repeating the patterns I’d learn from her.
As I drifted off to sleep, the image of her swimming in the dark Texas river came creeping back. Her body was almost translucent against the deep green of the water as she raised one arm over her head and then the other in swift strokes, her hands cutting the surface like fins as she paddled on her back. She dove below the surface, and I was in the water with her, sinking to the bottom, but unafraid. We sank down, down to where the light was dim and the weeds tangled around our feet. The current swept her dark hair across her face, and when it at last swirled free, I saw her face clearly, and saw that it was not my mother sinking to the bottom, but Lucille.
Bayou, Whispers from the Past: A Novel Page 14