A Trashy Affair

by Shurr, Lynn

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have done this, but I was going stir crazy, and I wanted you to have a special space. After I leave, you’ll move downstairs, but you could keep the attic as your man cave.” Man cave, now that phrase fit Merlin perfectly.

  His head came up again as he mouthed a strong denial. “Yeah, but you aren’t leaving—unless you really want to go. I cannot save the whole world.” He said those words as if repeating by rote something his shrink told him. “But, I can save you and this little piece of earth you stand on, Jane. Then, you can get on with saving the universe in your own way. Believe me. Believe in me.”

  She moved from the doorway to where he stood by the huge bed. Jane cupped his face and ran her thumbs across the stubble on his jaw, a gesture becoming all too familiar to her.

  “I’ve lost faith in myself, not you. Lately, I’ve bungled everything, the garbage contract, the recycling program, my job. But, I do believe in Merlin Tauzin. Let me stay up here with you.”

  He did not give her a direct answer. His kiss stung from the hot peppers on the pizza. The heat coursed through her body all the way to her toes, making a significant stop to set a fire between her legs. Parting her robe, he made short work getting rid of her thin nightie and paring her down to nothing but the bunny slippers. He weighed her breasts in his hands.

  “Yep, I think you are putting on weight. They seem a little bigger than the last time I had the pleasure.”

  As always, he used a sexist remark to hide his feelings, but Jane did have that much figured out about Merlin Tauzin. “Are not! You’d better go downstairs and lock up because I plan to be here all night long.”

  He did not make her leave.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Merlin watched Jane make his breakfast. The sight gave him nearly as much pleasure as a full night’s sleep, not counting the hard-on at three a.m., and Jane lying right beside him. He made it quick and enjoyable for her, too, he believed. Being Jane and having to assert herself, she declined to cook him three fried eggs over easy, bacon, and biscuits even though he indicated the kind from the can were okay when he left an envelope full of grocery money and a list of foods he liked before leaving last week. Instead, they would share an omelet chock full of fresh vegetables he helped chop: green pepper, onions, mushrooms, some sautéed spinach, and little bits of broccoli. He told her to keep that last item on her side of the pan. At least, she bought eggs and not some substitute.

  He knew the toast would be brown bread and the milk skimmed, but she had purchased some dark roast coffee and orange juice. She would hear no complaints from him. Anything Jane prepared beat cold pizza or leftover oriental noodles, his usual fare. He could gorge on bacon offshore if he wanted. She’d greased the pan with a tad of butter. So what if the stuff in the little container on the table held some kind of heart healthy spread? He hadn’t felt this good in well over a year.

  “Get that toast and put in some more bread, would you?” Jane asked him as she sprinkled some shredded two-percent cheese on the omelet and carefully folded it over in the pan. Vegetables tumbled out of its fat center.

  He did her bidding. “See, I can be trained.”

  “Now, if we can break you of three a.m. booty calls.” She cut the omelet with her spatula and slid three-quarters of it onto a plate for him. “Bon appetit.”

  “You didn’t seem angry at the time.” Merlin winkled out a piece of stray broccoli from the eggs and put it on her plate.

  “I wasn’t. You do know how to get to the point, or points, pretty quickly, I’ll give you that. And you could learn to like broccoli.”

  “Nope.” He dug into the rest of the omelet.

  “Any plans for the day?”

  She left herself wide open for innuendo, but he passed on that. He had other things to handle besides Jane, even if she did look as delicious as his breakfast in her sunny yellow top, same color as the tablecloth. The two would blend if he took her on the tabletop, but he needed to put that thought aside. Merlin paged through the Sunday paper still on the table from yesterday.

  “I have people to see. The Clarion never printed your letter about recycling, did they? I might stop by their office on my way to the dry cleaners.”

  Her eyes, green as troubled waters, searched his. “Please don’t make a scene or hit anyone. The letter doesn’t matter anymore. I’m canceling my subscription at the end of the month.”

  “Great sex and a good breakfast make me mellow. I probably won’t kill anyone before noon.”

  She did not take his comment lightly. “I know, but be careful of what you say and do.”

  “No need to worry. Today, I plan to do a little magic. That’s all.”

  ****

  After breakfast, Merlin drove straight to the real estate office of Bernard Freeman. Considerably more plush than Daisy Derouen’s one-room establishment always cluttered with pictures of houses for sale and homes sold, Freeman’s space resembled an attorney’s office with brochures advertising Cane View fanned on a mahogany coffee table beside a leather binder showcasing other properties he represented. Merlin sank into a comfortable chair in the waiting area.

  Bernie’s receptionist/secretary, a shapely, blue-eyed young woman probably right out of community college and eager to use her newly minted schooling, made a show of asking his name and purpose before checking to see if her boss was in and available to Mr. Merlin Tauzin. She nodded several times as she took her orders over a fancy headset. The inner sanctum where the councilman resided had large glass windows with vertical blinds on the outside behind the young woman. They were tightly closed as if part of her duties included keeping them that way at all costs. The secretary offered coffee or water.

  “No, thanks.” He and Bernie played the making-the-other-guy-twiddle-their-thumbs game for a while longer. The receptionist fiddled with a stack of papers, dropped them on the floor. When he moved to help her gather them, she said, “Stay where you are! I mean, don’t bother getting up.” He guessed his presence or his reputation made her nervous.

  Finally, the Realtor and politician opened his door and welcomed his guest with an outstretched hand and a jovial smile. The two men were of the same height and build with Bernie gone a trifle soft in the middle. Neither attempted to out macho the other on the handshake. In fact, they disconnected after a brief touch. Entering the office, Freeman immediately put the desk fit for a Middle Eastern dictator between himself and Merlin and played with the buttons on his phone in a slightly nervous manner.

  “Sit down and tell me how much you are enjoying that new townhouse. You have a friend or relative looking to buy at Cane View?”

  “Nope. I need to sell my place back to you, preferably this week before I go offshore again.” Merlin remained standing.

  The cordiality vanished. “I gave you a special price on that place, anything for one of our brave war veterans. Now you want me to buy it back. I’d say you are on your own if you can’t pay your mortgage.”

  “My mortgage is not the problem. I found a house I like better. The townhouse is like brand new, and I’m already moved out. I can’t see what the trouble might be in your taking it back.”

  Freeman expelled an exasperated breath. Merlin thought he detected the taint of bourbon in the air. Had the Realtor taken a nerve-steadying shot of liquor before seeing him? Great, the jitters would work in his favor.

  “That’s not how the real estate business works, young man,” Bernie said as if talking to a simpleton.

  “You built the places, and you sell them. You did give me a great deal, so now you can buy it back, sell it for the full price and make a bigger profit.”

  “What if I am not interested in doing that?”

  Merlin beckoned to the Realtor. “Come out from behind that big-ass desk for a minute.”

  Freeman glanced over his shoulder at a rear exit door as if gauging an escape.

  Merlin reassured him. “I won’t touch you, I swear. Stand right here next to me at the window.”

  F
reeman edged around the desk. Merlin, back turned, faced the glass with his arms relaxed at his side. The Realtor clenched his fists as he took a place next to him.

  “Tell me what you see.”

  “Two grown men standing together staring at a piece of glass like idiots.”

  Merlin, looking straight ahead, smiled in a way neither warm nor friendly. “I see two bastards who look remarkably alike. Note the blue eyes, an unusually bright shade, heavy beard, the exact same height and build. You’ve gone gray in the past few years, but I remember when I was in high school your hair was black, black, black. Like mine.”

  The councilman refused to see any resemblance. “I’m not a bastard. I know who my daddy is, and he married my mother.”

  “I also know who my daddy is. I recall the day I figured it out. You worked one of the fairs passing out Vote for Leroy ‘Lambo’ Mouton cards and shaking hands. My grandfather accepted a card, but declined a handshake. He took me to the festival and let me go on some of the adult rides because I’d gotten so tall. Doyle and Brittney doing the ones for little kids stayed with Granny and Mom. Only still in grade school at the time, but I pointed out I had the same color eyes as that man, and we looked kind of alike. Could you be my daddy? I was always on the lookout for that man. Grandpa turned away and said I shouldn’t want to be related to that snake in the grass, a personne traitre.”

  “I am sorry your grandfather had a poor opinion of me, but your childish observations mean nothing.” Still, Bernard Freeman kept staring at the glass as if mesmerized.

  “When I got a little older, around twelve, I found the papers agreeing never to divulge my father’s name in exchange for child support. The lawyer was discreet. You are not named in the document, but your own father had to sign it. My mom used to go on and on about how handsome my daddy was, just like me, but I must never, never, ever know his name. For her sake I pretended to be in the dark, but Granny could tell I’d figured it out.”

  Bernie broke eye contact and returned to the safety of his desk. “Harley David is your daddy. He raised you.”

  Merlin followed him and this time took the previously offered chair, sliding back into it and stretching out his legs completely at ease. “Nope. Harley treated me decently but did not adopt me. Granny wouldn’t allow it. She had no sons and wanted the Tauzin name to go on, especially after Grandpa died. You know, not being born at the time, I did not sign that agreement.”

  “Divulge anything, and I will see your family is ruined.”

  “Grandpa is dead. Granny lives in Magnolia Villa. You already took their land. Will you go after my mom’s double-wide and Harley’s motorcycle next, maybe my nephew’s tricycle?”

  Freeman took a bottle out of his desk drawer and sat a shot glass with the logo of a big game hunting organization on it beside the deluxe bourbon. He kept the drawer open. Merlin thought the man might have a weapon concealed there. It wouldn’t be needed, only Bernie did not know that.

  “Your family would make pathetic trophies, like shooting coots in a pond. You give out my name and I will sue for every penny we gave your family to keep quiet. That would come to $216,000, plus the delivery fee since they wouldn’t go for the abortion, two years of wasted college, and bailing your sorry ass out of jail when you were seventeen,” the councilman sneered.

  “Yeah, I see you are familiar with the deal. My shrink says I acted out to get your attention. Bet it looked good to the public when you helped out a poor boy in trouble, didn’t it?”

  “Then, your granny comes crawling to me to send you up the road to the university and swearing she won’t ever ask for anything else. She might as well have chucked that money in the bayou and thrown you in after it for all the good giving you a chance at a college education did.”

  “I agree with you there. See we can agree. With an election year coming up, I just want to offer you another chance to do something right for the parish. Drop your objections to the recycling program, support it wholeheartedly, and reinstate Jane Marshall as Environmental Project Manager for the good of the parish.”

  “Hmmm, Ms. Nixon told me Jane Marshall lost her job for failing to complete an important project that would have brought the parish a large amount of grant funds. I cannot support incompetence in government.”

  “As it turns out, Jane was fired for working on that proposal during her lunch hour. She put it in the mail well ahead of schedule. I think the parish will find itself with money it has no idea how to handle without Jane after the first of the year.”

  “Jane, is it?” The councilman leveled a finger at Merlin. “You’re the one who bought her house out from under me while I was in Africa. Now you want me to bail you out of a double mortgage. I get it.”

  “And I get that you are isolating old Woof Langlois, taking away all his supporters at the council office, making him look bad with things like the poor trash service so you can run against him next fall. But, you don’t have to worry that I’ll tell anyone who bred me on a fourteen-year-old girl. I would never break my grandpa’s word.”

  Merlin picked up a picture in a silver frame from a corner of the desk. Two tall, black-haired sons stood beside their father with their hands clasped on the back of an antique settee. Two lovely daughters sat next to their mother in the front of the men. He studied the photo for a moment, then turned it toward Bernie and held it up under his long jaw, another trait he’d inherited from Freeman. He tapped the glass protecting the group portrait.

  “Nice family. I would fit in perfectly right beside you, but that would throw the balance off, I’d say. No, sir. I plan to support your candidacy by going to every rally, standing up tall to ask you questions, standing beside you to have my picture taken. Why I might even run that photo of you and me as a paid ad in the newspaper saying I will vote for you. Big war hero supports Bernard Freeman. You like to play the Cajun angle, but you believe we’re all stupid and naïve. I think people will figure out who my daddy is without my saying a word.”

  Watching Merlin with cold, blue eyes, Freeman poured the bourbon and took a sip. “I understand you have a drinking problem.”

  “Not anymore.”

  The politician removed another glass from the drawer and filled it. “I find a little lubricant makes the gears run smoother. Have a drink. It’s probably better than anything you’ve ever tasted.” He slid the drink in Merlin’s direction, close enough for the scent of premium alcohol to tickle his nostrils.

  “No, thanks. I had my last beer a week ago.”

  “That long? You think can stay sober until the election comes around?”

  “That’s not your concern.”

  Merlin held up a large hand that would have matched Bernard Freeman’s right down to the scattering of black hair on the knuckles and the shape of the thumb if the other man had held his up for comparison. He ticked off his demands by folding down three fingers one at a time. “You buy my townhouse. You re-hire Jane. You support recycling. All easy for a rich, influential guy like you. If you could see your way clear to getting Nadia Nixon fired that would be good, too.” He folded down a fourth finger. Now, his hand made a fist.

  “We need her to clean house after the mess Woof made at the courthouse. I mean the public has paid the salary of his mistress for forty years. Do you condone that? ”

  “Old news about Woof and May Robin. I understand she did her job well. Besides, I think everyone in the parish already knows Wendy Robin Plaisance is their daughter, but they like Woof and May too much to hold it against them.”

  Freeman’s blue eyes brightened with speculation. “I did not know that.”

  “I forgot you’re an outsider from Texas. Considering the dirt in your own past, I wouldn’t be using that against him in the election. You think about telling Nadia her cleaning services are no longer needed, no?”

  The politician shook his head with something like regret. “You realize, Tauzin, you could have parlayed that victory parade the city offered you into a political career. I’ll ta
ke back the townhouse. As you said, I can make a greater profit on it when I’m not catering to a war hero for a little feel-good publicity. Okay on the recycling program. Reconsidering my position on that, finding the money to make the parish a cleaner place, will go down well come election time. I’ll see what I can do about Jane and Nadia, but I’m not the only one who gets to vote on that. Let’s drink to our agreement.” Again, he inched the glass closer to Merlin.

  “My grandpa wouldn’t shake your hand, and I won’t drink with you either. Let me know when we’re ready to sign on the townhouse. You pay the closing costs.”

  Merlin walked out much happier than alcohol could have made him. The young secretary had lost all her formality, and in fact appeared to be ill judging by her shaking hands and a face gone pale. He asked with a glance at her nameplate, “Can I get you some of that water, Courtney? No need to be scared of me.”

  “It’s not you.” Her youthful voice quavered. She disconnected her headset and placed it on the desk. “He told me to leave the line open in case you attacked him. I was to call the police. I think he forgot all about me listening. Is my mother really Great-Aunt May’s child?”

  “If your mom is Wendy Robin, yes. Sorry you had to learn that from overhearing. My granny told me in high school. I guess she wanted me to know other folks had secrets in their families to make me feel better about myself. It didn’t work. Look, ask your Granny Spring about this before you mention it to anyone else, okay? I said everyone knew already to protect Woof and May, but I’m not sure. Why don’t you tell the great and mighty Freeman you don’t feel well and go home? Oh, and if I were you, I’d be looking for another job. You don’t want to work for this snake.”

  She nodded. “Thanks for the advice, Mr. Tauzin. I’d vote for you if you ran for office. You were really strong in there.”

  “I appreciate your thinking so. Quit today.”

  Now to take on the managing editor of the Chapelle Clarion. After Bernard Freeman, a piece of chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting on top.