Love, Cajun Style

by Diane Les Becquets

Evie got out of her seat and crouched behind me. “What’s he doing here?”

  I just shook my head.

  “He’s up to something,” Evie said. “Mr. Banks had to know about him coming out on the stage.”

  Doug held his pages out in front of him and began reciting his lines. I couldn’t help but be impressed.

  “I didn’t know he could act,” Evie said.

  “Me, either,” I told her.

  “Who is he?” Dewey asked.

  “Mary Jordan’s ex-boyfriend.”

  The deeper they progressed into the scene, the more Mary Jordan’s chalky complexion began to color.

  As Doug finished his last line, “‘There will I stay for thee,’” he stepped toward Mary Jordan and pressed his lips to hers.

  The scattered audience cheered.

  Evie said, “That wasn’t written in the scene.”

  Mary Jordan pulled back, her cheeks now a ripe red, and held her hand to her mouth. Doug grinned big and took a bow toward her.

  Then Mary Jordan started laughing. She laughed so hard she doubled over, all the while rubbing her fingers against her lips. Doug started to laugh right with her, and as sure as I was sitting there, he slid his arms around her waist and hugged her to him like there was no tomorrow. Everyone in the audience was still clapping, and some were hooting and hollering, except for me and Evie.

  Mary Jordan waltzed off the stage, holding Doug’s hand, and what was worse, kept running her tongue back and forth over her lips, as if still savoring his kiss.

  She and Doug walked down the aisle and took Dewey’s and Evie’s original seats, since the three of us were still sitting on the floor.

  No sooner had they sat down than Doug wrapped his arm around Mary Jordan, and in a voice loud enough for all of us to hear, said, “Truce?”

  “Truce,” Mary Jordan said, and no sooner did she say “truce” than she reached her left hand up around his neck and planted her lips on him big. The two of them got to laughing some more.

  “Are we missing something here?” Evie said.

  Doug reached in his pocket and pulled out a bottle of Tabasco sauce no bigger than the palm of his hand. “Bet you’ve never had a kiss that hot,” he said with a grin.

  Mary Jordan smiled right back. “No, sir, Doug Hebert. Can’t say that I have.”

  Everyone had tried out except me. I was still sitting on the floor next to Dewey and Evie.

  Mr. Banks stood up, scanning the faces in the auditorium. He held out a clipboard and, looking straight at me, said, “Lucy, you’re next.”

  Dewey gently patted me on the back as I stood. Mr. Banks followed me onto the stage. “I’ll read with you,” he said.

  He set his clipboard on the floor. “You ready?” he asked.

  I felt my knees lock up on me. I guess my nervous condition was apparent, because Mr. Banks put his hand on my shoulder just like he’d done the other night, this time his fingers giving me a gentle squeeze, leaned his face in next to mine, and said, “You’ll be fine. Just relax.”

  He took a couple of steps away from me and began reciting Lysander’s part.

  I cleared my throat, unlocked my knees, and began to read. As soon as my voice came out of my mouth, my nerves seemed to experience some sort of anesthetization. Hermia’s lines flowed out of me as if they were smooth honey. Mr. Banks smiled. I looked at him and smiled back. I even made a few poetic gestures with my free arm, which surprised me to no end.

  When I’d spoken my last line, Mr. Banks clapped, as did everyone else. Someone cheered. I thought it was Dewey.

  I stepped down from the stage and walked back to my seat on the floor. Dewey said, “You did great.”

  “Way to go, Hermia,” Evie said.

  I took off the scarf and handed it back to her.

  Dewey leaned forward and looked at my neck. “You’re not splotchy anymore.”

  I gave his shoulder a playful shove.

  Mr. Banks told us he’d post the results at Daddy’s shop the next day.

  Mary Jordan took off with Doug. He said he’d put her bike in the back of his car. I walked out of the auditorium with Evie and Dewey. Mr. Banks was walking behind us. He tapped me on the head with the back of his clipboard.

  “Nice job,” he said as I turned to him.

  He was staring so damn intently at me I felt I’d just been paid the greatest compliment in the world.

  Once outside, Dewey straddled a royal blue bicycle. The three of us took off. The night smelled of barbeque grills and mowed lawns. I loved summer, and for a moment I wished we could ride out to the beach and sleep under the stars, but I knew Evie’s dad was picking her up early the next morning, and I was scheduled to work.

  We rode with Dewey about five blocks to his house, a yellow stucco with white trim, green shutters, and a purple door. As we followed Dewey onto the driveway that wrapped around the side of the house, my breath literally caught in my throat like it wasn’t ever going to come out. Parked right in plain view, next to his dad’s Karman Gia, was my mother’s blue minivan.

  “Dewey?” Evie said.

  He turned around.

  “What’s her mom doing here?”

  Antennae and Étouffée

  “She’s been teaching Dad how to cook,” Dewey said. He led us in through the back door to the kitchen.

  Sure enough, standing at the stove was my mama, and standing entirely too close to her was Dewey’s dad.

  The kitchen smelled of garlic and basil and Mama’s Jean Naté perfume, and the same musky cologne I’d smelled on Mr. Savoi back at the auditorium. Daddy didn’t wear cologne.

  “How did tryouts go?” Mama asked, just as casually as could be.

  “Good,” Dewey said. He strode right in. Evie and I were still standing by the door.

  “Your mother’s a wonderful cook,” Mr. Savoi went on to say.

  Mama was stirring something on the stove. Looking at her, I said, “I thought you had a prayer vigil at the church.”

  “I did,” she said. “We just finished up.”

  I couldn’t help but wonder how all that food got made if she had just finished up at the church.

  Then I got to considering Mama. She was wearing a pair of khaki capris, which looked brand-new, and a white T-shirt that scooped down in the front. Little beads of perspiration dotted her collarbone like a floating necklace, and her feet were bare, revealing her pedicured toenails painted fluorescent pink.

  “Where’s Dad?” I asked.

  Mama looked at Mr. Savoi. Mr. Savoi looked at Mama. I didn’t know why they were looking at each other.

  “He’s down at the shop working on some flowers for Anita and Clyde’s wedding. They’re getting married this Saturday,” Mama said. “The whole town’s been invited.”

  “That’s the thing about getting older,” Mr. Savoi said. “When you’re living on borrowed time, you spend it while you can. You never know when the bank might repossess.”

  At first I thought he might be talking about his wife, since Mama had said he was a widower, but then something inside me began to feel a little uneasy, as if he might be referring to himself and my mom. Less than two hours earlier, I’d thought he had about the most soulful eyes I’d ever seen, but him steering those soulful eyes toward my mama was a whole other story.

  “What are you cooking?” Dewey asked. “I’m starving.” He was looking over Mama’s shoulder into the pot she was stirring, as if there wasn’t a thing in the world wrong with our parents’ interactions.

  Mama said, “Looo-Zee-Annah étouffée.”

  I loved Mama’s étouffée. She’d made up her own recipe, using crawfish and shrimp and a little crab, but under the present conditions of the evening, I knew I wouldn’t have loved it very much that night.

  “We should let you two eat,” Mama said, tapping the spoon against the side of the pot.

  “Stay.” Mr. Savoi’s face looked just a bit too pained.

  “No, really, we should be going,” Mama told him.r />
  I looked over at Evie, who hadn’t said a word, which was highly unlike her.

  “It’s late,” Mama went on, as if trying to convince herself to leave. She disappeared into the room off the kitchen, and reappeared with a pair of leather sandals on her feet and a straw purse slung over her shoulder. I couldn’t help but wonder why it was her shoes were in the other room.

  “Do you girls have your bikes?” she asked.

  Mama knew we had our bikes, and I gave her the kind of stern look that said so.

  “Well then, I’ll see you at the house,” she told us. “Goodbye, Victor.” She was out the door before he responded.

  Evie finally spoke. “See ya, Dewey.”

  “See ya,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything.

  By the time Evie and I were on our bikes, Mama had already backed out of the driveway in her van and driven out of sight.

  “How long’s she been giving him cooking lessons?” Evie asked me as we pedaled into the street.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “She looked awfully pretty.”

  I said, “Mm-hmm.”

  “Your dad know she’s giving him cooking lessons?” Evie asked.

  “You sure do ask a lot of questions,” I said.

  “Did you see your mama’s shirt?”

  “What about her shirt?”

  “I was just wondering if you saw it, that’s all.”

  “I saw her shirt.”

  Evie said, “Did you notice anything funny?”

  I said, “What do you mean by ‘funny’?”

  “I was just wondering if you saw anything that didn’t look right.”

  “No, I didn’t see anything that didn’t look right.”

  “Un-huh.”

  “Evie Thibodeaux, I swear you can crawl under a person’s skin like a june bug. If you’ve got something to say, then just say it sometime before I get age spots and wrinkles.”

  “There was a lot of steam in that kitchen,” Evie said.

  “They were cooking,” I said.

  “Then why was it your mama’s nipples were sticking out like a couple of antennae?”

  All that night’s sultry air seemed to get stuck somewhere in my throat. I stopped my bike. Evie stopped hers beside me.

  “I don’t know that I like you talking about my mama’s nipples.”

  “I just thought it was kind of out of the ordinary, that’s all. Only two times a woman’s nipples stick out like that. When she’s got the shivers or when she’s got the quivers. And there ain’t no way a woman’s gonna get the shivers standing by a hot stove cooking étouffée.”

  The air was so ripe and muggy that night, I thought my eyelashes would stick together every time I blinked. I knew Evie was right.

  “What should I do?” I asked.

  “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “Should I tell my dad?”

  “What would you tell him? It’s not like they were doing anything.”

  I thought about Mama standing naked in front of Mr. Savoi at his gallery. I thought of her standing too close to Mr. Savoi in his kitchen. I thought about her talking about the great pie of life and how a woman needed her pie cut in equal slices. And I hoped with all my heart when it came to the slice of love, she and Daddy shared a mighty big piece.

  Helium Hearts

  The next morning while I was working at Daddy’s shop, Evie and Mary Jordan strolled in wearing long dresses that looked a couple of centuries old.

  Evie extended her arm in front of her and swooned her eyes toward the ceiling. “‘I know not by what power I am made bold, nor how it may concern my modesty, in such a presence here to plead my thoughts….’”

  Mary Jordan stepped in front of her, “‘But I beseech your grace, that I may know the words that may befall me in this case …’”

  It didn’t take a single second for Ms. Pitre to chirp in, “‘If I refuse to wed Demetrius.’”

  Daddy yelled, “Bravo!”

  Ethel Lee hooted and hollered, “Oooh, this is going to be good.”

  “Where’d you get the dresses?” I asked.

  Mary Jordan said, “At the Salvation Army. We thought they’d make good costumes for the play.”

  Evie said, “Do you want us to get you one?”

  I said, “No, thanks.”

  Once all the commotion settled down, Daddy asked me to help him put together a bouquet of helium balloons. He told me they were for Clyde, the man Mrs. Forez was marrying. I was to take the balloons over to the church where the soon-to-be newlyweds were rehearsing for the wedding the next day. All the while Daddy was talking, I kept thinking about the cooking lessons Mama had given Mr. Savoi the night before. I knew Daddy didn’t always pay Mama special attention, but looking at him that day I felt sad for him. I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t his intention not to pay her special attention. It was just that he forgot.

  Evie and Mary Jordan and I left the shop, the two of them strutting proudly in their new costumes. I tied the balloons to the basket on the front of my bike.

  “Read the card,” Evie prompted.

  “I’m not going to read the card,” I said. “That’s trespassing.”

  “Who made you Mother Teresa? Read the card,” Evie said.

  “Why do you want to know what it says?” I asked.

  “Two old people falling in love and getting married. That is so cool.” Evie reached for the card that was tied to one of the ribbon strands. She smiled as she read it, then lifted her eyes to the sky and clutched the card to her chest.

  “I want to see,” Mary Jordan said. She read the words out loud: “‘Your love keeps lifting me higher than I’ve ever been lifted before. Love, Anita.’”

  “I think that’s a song,” I said.

  “Of course it’s a song,” Evie said, and proceeded to sing it so off-key, none of us could recognize it, and all three of us got to laughing.

  “Love is so magical,” Mary Jordan said. “It’s like this spell that makes you all dizzy in the head.”

  “You’re thinking about Doug,” Evie said.

  Mary Jordan gave us a goofy smile, dreamy and coy all at the same time.

  “Seems to me it wasn’t all that long ago you were talking about alarms going off,” Evie told her.

  Mary Jordan was looking down at the ground, but still smiling a little.

  “Did you all ever talk things out?” I asked.

  “We talked,” Mary Jordan said.

  “And?” Evie asked.

  “He said he’d just wanted to be prepared, that was all. He’s not pressuring me or anything.”

  “That’s good,” Evie said.

  “Do you feel pressured?” I asked.

  Mary Jordan looked up. “No. I think by talking about it, we got closer. I don’t feel pressured,” she said.

  I wasn’t exactly sure what she was telling me, but I also knew Mary Jordan well enough to know she wasn’t going to tell me any more. Mary Jordan liked to try and work a subject out in her mind first before sharing it with Evie or me. It was when she couldn’t find an answer on her own that she sought our compatriot thoughts.

  “I’ve got to deliver the balloons,” I told them. “I’ll catch up with you two later.”

  When I got to the Catholic church, Savannah was outside taking pictures of Anita and Clyde. I remembered the photos I’d seen at her house, but I hadn’t realized she was a professional photographer.

  She waved when she saw me. I propped my bike up against a tree and untied the balloons, then brought them to Clyde. As he took the helium bouquet from me, I had this fleeting image of them carrying him away, lifting his frail body to the heavens. He read the card and smiled, then took Anita in his arms and kissed her tenderly on the cheek. “Thank you, love,” he said.

  I felt like I was watching a movie right before my very eyes. Clyde adored Mrs. Forez. He adored her in the kind of way that said to the world, “I’m proud of her. I cherish her.” They were di
zzy in love, and I wanted to be dizzy, too.

  I was about to leave when Savannah stopped me.

  “Hey, Lucy, I was wondering if you might be able to babysit tonight? Ted and I were thinking about going out for dinner. I’m sorry for the short notice.”

  “What time?” I asked.

  “Could you be at the house around seven?”

  I said, “Okay,” wondering all the while how successful Savannah’s attempts had been at rekindling their relationship.

  I climbed on my bike and rode away, not wanting to go back to the shop just yet. All I wanted to do was ride and feel the warm air through my hair. I meandered along the back streets through town, up and down the sidewalks, taking my time.

  Maybe thirty minutes passed, maybe forty. Before I realized it, I was coming up on Dewey’s house. Perhaps in that subconscious part of my mind I’d wanted to run into him, like some element of fate. Then I saw my mama’s van parked in the driveway, and this horrible slap hit me, literally zapping the air right out of my lungs. I screeched on my breaks, planted my feet on the ground, my legs stiff. I felt like my heels were digging holes clear through the concrete. I just stood there, staring at her car, unable to move. I couldn’t imagine Mr. Savoi needing cooking lessons again so soon. Mama had cooked up enough étouffée to last him a week. Then it dawned on me as clear as glass. My own mama had lied. The night before she’d told me she was going to a prayer vigil at the church, when she knew all along she was going to Mr. Savoi’s. Now, here she was at his house again. Part of me wanted to storm my way into Dewey’s home, walk right in without one single knock, and confront them. The other part of me wanted to get as far away as I could, and I guess that part of me was bigger than the first, because that’s exactly what I did. I slammed my foot on the pedal and rode away, sweat thickening on my skin and running into my eyes. I rode till my legs ached as much as my heart, and the heat and all my confusion seeped completely into each other till I could no longer tell one from the other.

  Up ahead on my right was St. Vincent’s Park. Over the years, whenever Mary Jordan or Evie or I had a rift in our hearts, we’d meet at St. Vincent’s playground, scoot ourselves into the swings, and talk over our blues. Just hearing the squeaking pendulums overhead and feeling the sand between our toes had a soothing effect on the worst of bad days.