by Shurr, Lynn
“Outstanding young man with a future. I knew his grandfather well. Congratulations to the both of you on your upcoming marriage. If he needs my help in any way, you let me know.”
Her fiancé would get a chuckle out of his public change in status from crazy Merlin Tauzin to outstanding young man. She’d phone him tonight and share all the new developments in the Garbage War.
“Thank you, Mr. Langlois. I’ll let you know as soon as possible.”
“Call me Woof. We’re like family now. I’ll be waiting. We need you, Jane. Bye now.”
In the evening, she did call Merlin. He laughed out loud—a good deep sound like a bass drum—over their being part of Woof’s family.
“Appears we are politically connected now.”
“Yes, that might be a good thing in the future. What do you think about my taking the job?”
“Go for it. That’s what you wanted.”
“You made it possible for me. Everything worked out exactly as you said it would, Merlin the Magician. But now, I’m not so sure I want to go back, office politics and all that dreck.”
“Return for now. Get recycling going again and clean up that contaminated site. You’ll feel better. Then, quit after our first child is born sometime next year and ask for a say in choosing your successor.”
“Sounds like an idea, but about this first child… Merlin, we haven’t discussed when or how many or—”
“As soon as possible, as many as you want. I mean who are we saving this earth for if not our kids, right?”
“Right, but, Merlin…you still there?”
His laughter certainly was. “When I get back, I’ll use my words—of persuasion, little mama. I love you, Jane. Night.”
****
Slumped down and stretched out to minimize his height, Merlin stayed in the back row of the council chamber three weeks later. A group of proactive recyclers provided an effective screen for a dark Cajun with unusually light eyes. He had no desire to attract his father’s attention, but he would not miss Jane’s big night. He watched her open and announce the bids after expressing her unhappiness that only two had been submitted, one from Cajuns Care Recycling out of Lafayette and the other from B.O Waste Hauling. Not shy, Burl Oubre sat in the front row wearing his mustard-colored jacket and cleaning his fingernails with a toothpick.
Frowning, Jane addressed the B.O. owner. “Mr. Oubre, when you were awarded the garbage contract against my better judgment, you indicated you had no interest in also providing a recycling program. Yours is the low bid, but in fact you have no equipment or facility to implement this service. Am I correct?”
“I’ve seen the light about recycling and have taken steps to give this parish the best service possible. Here you go, honey.”
Burl leaned over his big belly to hand a large, brown envelope to the nearest councilman. It went hand to hand until it reached Jane sitting next to Woof and clearly under his protective wing for the time being. She opened it.
“It seems Mr. Oubre has purchased Cajuns Care Recycling and now possesses the means to fulfill the contract. We should take his bid under advisement at this time to make sure he can meet all the specifications.” From the back of the room, Merlin thought Jane did a fine, professional job of hiding her disgust.
Bernard Freeman, his jaw blue-black and silver, his blue eyes glinting with power, spoke up loud and clear. “We have only the one bid from a local company that will bring more jobs to our parish. I move we accept the offer from B.O. Waste Hauling tonight.”
One of his closest cronies on the council jumped to second the motion, which passed with only two dissenting votes. Politics as usual in Ste. Jeanne d’Arc Parish.
“Very well then, the bid is awarded to B.O. Waste Hauling,” Jane said tersely. Merlin gave her big points for not rolling her eyes or beating her forehead bloody against the council table in frustration.
Burl Oubre got up and began shaking hands all around the council table. When he reached Jane, he offered a statement instead of his hand. “Now don’t you worry, little lady. We are a little short on buggies, but I got some on order. You gonna be first on the list, I guarantee.”
The best Jane could manage was a polite “Thank you, I appreciate that” and a worried glance in his direction as Merlin followed Oubre from the room and stopped him by the elevator. They exchanged words, but without heat, clearly reaching an understanding. Her part of the meeting concluded, Jane hurried after the pair. Merlin waited for her, letting Oubre go ahead.
“You didn’t threaten him with bodily harm, did you?”
“Nope, my goddess. I told him I intend to run for the council and with my connections I will win. The best bin they have will be on our doorstep tomorrow.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
When the apple blossoms bloomed in Montana, the wedding procession made its way along the path the men mowed the day before through knee-high yellow wildflowers to the largest tree in the grove. The bounteous wild mustard covered the disturbed earth and hid the stakes of the condominium layout. Jane had feared the beauty of this shining day would be marred by half-built apartments and large pieces of construction equipment sitting about, but the project failed to gain enough financing and the contractor moved on to more lucrative building for the time being.
Chosen by Kathleen Marshall, the justice of the peace, a tall, conscientious woman who delighted in the great outdoors and performing marriages, led the way without becoming in the least winded. The bridal couple, arm in arm, followed right behind because Kathleen said young women weren’t to be given away like chattel. With her silver hair flowing down her back and a wreath of blossoms atop her head, she marched behind them wearing a long, gauzy pink gown she claimed replicated the one she’d worn on her own wedding day. In deference to her mother and daughter, she had agreed to wear a bra and promised to keep the white sandals on her feet this time. Her husband helped her along the rough path. Like all the men in the wedding party, except Doyle still in uniform, he’d forced himself into a black tuxedo not nearly as comfortable as the Nehru suit he’d worn the first time around the apple tree.
Jane had selected her gown from a vintage shop in New Orleans. The full tulle skirt was topped by a tight lace bodice in a floral pattern with long, fingertip sleeves and a high back. Rhinestones winked in the sunlight amid the folds of the skirt and the centers of the lace flowers. She exposed just enough flesh to showcase the solitaire diamond on the gold chain Merlin had given her as a wedding gift. Her dark hair remained styled the same as always, but she’d topped it with a very modest tiara once belonging to her grandmother’s grandmother, and a wisp of a veil. Comfortable ballet slipper shoes covered her feet. Not everyone’s idea of a wedding ensemble, but she liked its ease and the use of the old rather than the outrageously priced new. Merlin didn’t care what she wore. She could come to him naked. In fact, he had suggested that one night when wedding planning got on his nerves.
Harley and Jenny, who had traveled all the way to Montana on his motorcycle, arrived at the tree puffing from the climb. Still, Jenny raised her face to the sun reveling in the beauty of the moment like a small, awestruck child. The apple blossom crown Kathleen provided for her slipped back on her long, streaked hair as she announced to no one in particular that her baby was getting married today and twirled around in her full pink skirt that belled out showing a white petticoat beneath. Jane had taken her along to the vintage store and let her select her own dress. With the gown’s scooped, scalloped neckline and little cap sleeves she resembled a Fifties housewife dressed for church, but the outfit gave Jenny such joy that Jane did not mind. Her own mother heartily approved. “Do your own thing,” Kathleen always said.
“Really, Mother, try to behave like an adult,” Brittney reprimanded Jenny, trying to catch her breath as she clung to Waldo’s arm.
Glum-visaged as ever and wearing one of his funeral director suits, her husband did not seem all that miserable with his new, very young wife, though with Waldo it wa
s hard to tell. They had flown in first-class all the way into Bozeman.
Brittney wore her hair pinned up under a small hat with a veil and a large pink silk flower that clung to the side of her head in the latest style of British royalty. Her rose-colored silk maternity dress with its high collar hung straight from the neckline detouring over the mound of her very pregnant belly before falling to her knees. In the soft loam of the orchard, her stylish pumps sunk a little into the earth from supporting all that weight. The spa day and makeover Jane provided earlier showed in the subdued makeup of both mother and daughter. Brittney kept a firm hand on Jayden in his little white shorts and jacket as the child tried to pull away to run and twirl like his grandmother.
“Let them dance,” Kathleen commanded and did a few spins herself.
Bringing up the rear, Heath and Doyle pushed their grandmothers along in wheelchairs bedecked with flowers and pink and white ribbons. Both wore pale pink pantsuits with white orchids pinned to their jackets though Ellen’s was of tailored linen and Olive’s of fuzzy, warm velour. Miss Olive let everyone know neither the altitude nor the temperature of Montana this time of year pleased her.
“Would have been warmer and kinder to old bones in Louisiana,” she complained as Doyle put her into place near the wedding tree.
“I do understand,” Kathleen said to her. “But isn’t this glorious?” She pointed to the blue sky above, the fierce mountains in the distance, the golden meadow, the apple trees embellished with blooms, embracing them all with her wide-spread arms. “Are you upset that they aren’t marrying in the Catholic Church, dear?”
Miss Olive considered for a moment. “Mais, no. If God ain’t here today, he ain’t nowhere.”
“We could have booked a church,” Grandma Ellen said, then relented. “But it is a beautiful day and a lovely spot. Kathleen, I am sorry I refused to come to your wedding all those years ago.”
The only outsider to witness the vows was Courtney Plaisance who’d flown in with Doyle and Olive. In the spirit of the day, she wore a white dress sprigged with small pink flowers and accepted an apple blossom crown from Kathleen in good spirit after Brittney rejected it. A modest diamond ring sparkled on her finger, and she brought good wishes from May and Spring.
Squeezing Doyle’s arm, she said, “I love your family. They are so—different.” Jane sent her a smile.
The brief service began. No way could Merlin be convinced to write his own vows. “I’m no poet, me. I said that to myself the first time I tried to describe your eyes,” he’d told Jane.
They agreed on one sentence each at the exchange of the rings. Merlin had chosen a thick gold band for his but refused to let Jane have any say in hers. When she got miffed, he explained that he and Mr. LeClerc had it all worked out. That calmed her down. Jane waited for his words as she held out her finger and saw her wedding band for the first time, a slim gold ring channeled with small chocolate diamonds.
“As your engagement ring represented the sun and the sugarcane fields of Louisiana, this band is brown like its rich soil and made especially for my earth goddess.” Merlin Tauzin had dug deep and found his inner poet only for her. Jane blinked the tears from her eyes.
“Well, the priest wouldn’t have approved of that,” Olive remarked.
“My minister either,” said Ellen in solidarity.
Jane ignored them. As she placed Merlin’s ring on his long, strong finger, she said, “My falcon, I promise to fly by your side for all eternity.”
“Perfect,” Kathleen declared.
Epilogue
For the second time in one year, Jane emptied the contents of her desk at the parish council office into a cardboard box. Actually, she needed two for the many photographs and the straggling pothos vine that cluttered its surface. In no hurry, she took a moment to flip through the fat picture album of photos her father took of the wedding, plenty of scenes from the orchard naturally and many more from the champagne brunch at the historic hotel with its dark beams and elegant fixtures in downtown Bozeman.
The wedding party had a room to themselves, but the odd music mix of the Andrews Sisters and Cajun bands did draw some of the curious to the door. Eccentricity not being unusual in Montana, strangers wished them well and accepted a flute of sparkling wine and a piece of the three-layered, white wedding cake festooned with sugar petal apple blossoms if they had some time to stay. Merlin drank only for the toast and spent most of his time dancing, dipping Jane to the tune of I’ll be with You in Apple Blossom Time. Her dad caught a great snapshot of that and of her new husband whirling the two grandmothers in their wheelchairs to a Cajun beat. Jenny, Kathleen, and Courtney all got their turn to dance with the groom.
Perhaps her favorite photo showed the look of absolute horror on Merlin’s face when they left the reception for their honeymoon at the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park. They found Big Blue, its tinted windows soaped with the words, “Just Married,” trailing a stream of old shoes and flattened beer cans from its trailer hitch. Worst of all, Heath had duct-taped a Barbie doll in a wedding grown to its pristine hood. Jane made Merlin drive some way out of town before she allowed him to pull over and carefully remove both tape and doll, throwing it, the “recycled” cans and shoes into the back of the truck. After all, their families wished them luck in a most appropriate way. Wonderful memories.
Her last day at a job she’d fought to keep and Jane felt a little queasy, not that she minded leaving now. The recycling program rolled along gaining more participants monthly because of her public awareness campaign. The polluted site had been cleaned up. Already new plants and young trees greened its surface and wildlife returned. Her hand-picked successor, an eager young man with Super Fund experience, would move into her space on the second of January.
The new parish president, ready to take office, offered to let her stay on, though most of the department heads had been fired in the usual bloodbath following a change of administration. She pointed out the conflict of interest since her husband would shortly be sworn in as a district councilman. The candidate Bernard Freeman backed for that post lost to Merlin standing tall on a platform of regulated development, consideration of farmers and veterans, and vigorous environmental protection. At the debates, all hints that Merlin Tauzin might be unstable or unable to fulfill his duties because he worked offshore were soundly booed down by a chorus usually directed by Miss Olive and her cohorts from Magnolia Villa. They attended every rally and handed out campaign literature from the baskets on their walkers and wheelchairs. The ordinary people of Ste. Jeanne d’Arc parish, not big business, voted Merlin in as one of their own.
Bernie’s bid for parish president failed in the four-way free-for-all that occurred when Woof announced he would not run for office again. While he beat two opponents and made it to the runoffs, word did get out that his light-skinned mistress had presented him with a daughter a few months before the final election. Voters weren’t so much shocked at that—a pretty common occurrence among Louisiana politicians, any politician for that matter—but they did get upset with him for dishonoring the upright memory of their beloved Leroy “Lambo” Mouton. Some might have noticed his resemblance to Merlin as well, though the two stayed away from each other’s events. Whatever the reason, it showed in a defeat at the polls. Jane knew Bernie would come back in one governmental incarnation or another. Some who sucked the public teat could never wean themselves from it. She felt no pity for him.
Jane had her own future business to build and a part to play in Doyle and Courtney’s big Catholic wedding in the spring. Besides her sisters and Jane, Courtney invited Brittney to be among the bridal attendants now that Doyle’s sister was a respectable matron, mother of a boy adopted by Waldo Robin, and an adorable girl who thankfully took after the female side of the family. Brittney could be seen in a tasteful black dress with accents of gold jewelry purchased at LeClerc’s, not Walmart, as she liked to point out, at every funeral held in Duchamp’s Funeral Home. Actually being a g
reat help to Waldo, she dispensed tissues and sympathy, placed floral tributes and made coffee for the mourners. Brittney remained convinced that Jane harbored a jealousy of her new Cadillac with two kiddie seats in the rear and the large house possessing four white columns situated on Main Street, but when Jane thought of Waldo’s cold hands on her body, she shuddered and grew nauseous again.
Nausea? Surely not already? She and Merlin had discussed the starting a family issue for several months after the wedding if you could call his hiding her birth control pills a discussion. She retaliated by making him use condoms. Finally, they agreed she’d stop taking the pills six months into their marriage and see what happened next. It could take years to get pregnant, right?
As if conjured by magic, Merlin appeared in her office doorway. “Courtney buzzed me in. Let me carry those boxes for you, cupcake. You might be in a delicate condition.”
“I’m only a little bit late, big boy.”
Merlin’s smile burst forth without restraint from his black stubble. Leave it to a man with a big-ass truck to get the job done.
A word about the author...
Once a librarian, now a writer of romance, Lynn Shurr grew up in Pennsylvania Dutch country. She attended a state college and earned a very impractical B.A. in English Literature. Her first job out of school really was working as a cashier in a burger joint. Moving from one humble job to another, she traveled to North Carolina, then Germany, then California where she buckled down and studied for an M.A. in Librarianship.
New degree in hand, she found her first reference job in the Heart of Cajun Country, Lafayette, Louisiana. For her, the old saying, “Once you’ve tasted bayou water, you will always stay here” came true. She raised three children not far from the Bayou Teche and lives there still with her astronomer husband.
When not writing, Lynn likes to paint, cheer for the New Orleans Saints and LSU Tigers, and take long road trips nearly anywhere. Her love of the bayou country, its history and customs, often shows in the background for her books.