Two-Step

by Stephanie Fournet

  “Thanks, Mom.” I offer her my hand. “Are you ready for our dance?”

  Joy like I’ve never seen fills her eyes. “Oh, yes.” She blinks back tears. At least they are happy tears. Today is a good day, and I’m grateful.

  I take her hand and escort her from the table. Her balance isn’t what it used to be, and when I hugged her on Wednesday after we got back in town, I could tell she’s lost a little more weight—probably muscle.

  Still, today is a good day. One that I’ll remember even if she doesn’t. And as I lead her onto the dance floor as Iris and Ramon slip from it, I know that right now, in this moment, my mother is ecstatic.

  The band strikes up “I Hope You Dance” by Lee Ann Womack. Iris suggested it for us. And when I first listened to the lyrics, I’ll admit I got choked up. I know its words are ones Mom would say to me if she could find them.

  About taking the chances that come your way.

  About love being the mistake that’s worth making.

  Because how can I really regret the choices she made to love my father, to leave her ballet career behind, when without that I might not even exist? I might not be where I am now. I know for sure she doesn’t regret her decisions.

  And that gives me some peace.

  “This song is about dancing,” Mom says, her eyes alight. “I like it.”

  “I’m glad. Iris picked it out.”

  Mom’s gaze finds my bride. Iris waves to us. Mom waves back. “That’s her,” she says. It’s not a question. She’s sure.

  “That’s her,” I say.

  “I like her,” Mom says.

  “I like her too.”

  Mom aims her gaze at me, looking about as stern as she did in her most advanced ballet classes. “Remember that. Always.”

  I beam. “I will, Mom.” And I’ll definitely remember this.

  I lead her through a reverse but steady her when she gets a little off balance.

  “Oh my,” she says, startled.

  “I’ve got you.”

  She pats my shoulder. “I know you do.” Mom sighs contentedly. “I like this song.”

  “Me too, Mom.”

  The dancing carries on well into the night. I dance with Val and Aunt Lorraine and Sally and my old boss Paula. Iris dances with Nonc, and Sally’s dad Jeff, and my brother-in-law Will, and each of my nephews, Jack and Jesse, and River and Skye, my two students.

  About the time Val and Will take Mom back to Camelia Court, the party morphs from wedding reception to dance club. Champagne flows. The floor is packed with bodies, but I keep mine pressed to Iris’s.

  Sally and Ramon hand out foam glow sticks, and we all scream the lyrics to “Mr. Brightside” while the lights strobe. Under the flashing LEDs, Iris’s dress turns pink, blue, green. Clutching the layers of her skirts in one hand and brandishing her blinking wand in another, she bounces with wild abandon, barefoot and beautiful.

  I can’t take my eyes off her.

  “DESTINY IS CALLING ME…” The world around us shouts, “OPEN UP MY EAGER EYES…”

  I grab Iris and tug her to me. Our smiling lips meet. She catches my face in her hands, the foam glow stick pressing against my temple. Rainbow flashes fall on our heads. I kiss my funny, fierce, fabulous wife.

  In a few hours, we’ll cross the grounds here on Jefferson Island, and I’ll carry Iris over the threshold of the Cook’s Cottage, our lodgings for the night. Tomorrow evening, we’ll start the first leg of our journey to New Zealand.

  After three flights, when we land in Christchurch on the South Island, we’ll spend a few days getting over jet lag and resting up—or not resting since it’s our honeymoon—before setting off to Lake Matheson for a few days of hiking and camping on our own. Then we’ve scheduled a multi-day guided hike of the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. And from there, we’ll head to Haast Pass to see the Blue Pools. We’ll wrap up our trip on the coastal city of Timaru and trade our tent for a rental house on Caroline Bay. Eat in restaurants. Go to the Botanical Gardens. Enjoy the view and the brew at Hill Brewery. Make love in a real bed. Take it easy before we head back.

  I deepen our kiss, knowing that loving Iris is the greatest adventure of my life.

  “This is going to be fun,” I tell her when we break the kiss.

  “What is?” she shouts over the music, but her eyes are already smiling.

  “All of it.”

  “I know, right?” Iris squeals before looping her arms over my shoulders. The band trades The Killers for “The Mamou Two-Step.” Half our guests have no idea what to do with the musical one-eighty.

  “Dance with me,” Iris commands.

  I run my hands down the alluring curve of her waist and settle them on her hips. We’ll show them how it’s done.

  I lean down and whisper in her ear:

  “Always.”

  THE END

  Acknowledgments

  I really have to start by thanking my husband John for this one. After writing Kind of Cursed, I was struggling with the manuscript I was working on. I wrote the first five chapters twice and still hated it, and I knew I needed to work on something else.

  On a bike ride back from our favorite downtown brunch spot on a Saturday in February (aah, the days before the pandemic), I told him my woes and asked him what he thought I should write about. He didn’t hesitate:

  “I don’t know if it should be him or her,” he said, “but one of them should be a Cajun dance instructor and the other one needs to learn how to—”

  “Stop talking,” I said (because I’m the charming one). “I’ve got it.”

  End of story.

  Much like Iris Adams, I am rhythmically challenged, but I did have the good fortune to take a Cajun dance class at Glide Studios last fall when my school hosted a group of French exchange students. It was a lot of fun, and I highly recommend it. That’s also probably why Beau is a French teacher by day. It just fit.

  Speaking of French teachers, I’d like to thank Madame Marianne Cheramie for her help with Beau’s French. Merci, Madame.

  To Bria Lozada Wolf, thank you for the third time. I hope you’ll keep alpha-reading for me through many more books! Thank you to Jen Halligan and her beta-reading enthusiasm. As always, thanks to Kathleen Payne. You are never too picky! You save me again and again. Thanks again to Cayla Mattea Zeek for a cover I love so much I could squeal each time I see it! Thank you, Jena Brignola, for all of your graphic design help once again. To Jessica Estep and everyone at InkSlinger PR, thank you for all of your marketing support. You’d think after ten books I wouldn’t need so much hand-holding, but I still do! I’m grateful to you. Thanks also to Marie Force’s Formatting Fairies for their excellent and speedy work. Thanks to Nathan Van Dyken and everyone at Blue Tulip Publishing for allowing me to include a sample of You First here.

  To my Vault Vixens, I love you with my whole heart. You keep me sane. To my 1989 Happy Hour krewe, you keep me young, and I love you for life.

  On a much more serious note, we lost my mother-in-law to Alzheimer’s in April. The last few years of her life and the awful decline she endured directly influenced my writing of Gina Hebert Landry, Beau’s mother. While Mrs. Amy wasn’t a ballet teacher, she was an educator who made such a difference in the lives of so many. She was a wonderful mother-in-law to me and the perfect grandmother to my daughter. She fed me countless meals throughout college and grad school, and she turned every sleepover for my daughter into a wonderland of creativity, storytelling, and magic. Christmas Eve breakfasts at her house were my favorite. We all really miss her. When it was time to write the Epilogue, I gave Beau’s mother a more hopeful ending because I couldn’t bear for him to lose her just yet.

  As I write this, it is exactly three days since Hurricane Delta walloped South Louisiana. Lots of people I know still don’t have power today. This was the second hurricane we’ve had in six weeks. Hurricane Laura decimated communities to our west, like Lake Charles, and recovery is going to take years. Of course, I wrote the Hurri
cane Addie chapters months before these storms hit, but as we huddled at home Friday night while winds reached ninety miles an hour, I had a surreal sense of life imitating art in a most unwelcome way. As the planet and our oceans heat up, more and more of these megastorms will strip away at the Gulf Coast. Just like more and more fires will consume our western states, claiming property, lives, and species. Pay attention. Demand change. Do your part. It doesn’t have to be like this.

  Finally, to all of my readers, most especially those who have been along for the ride since Fall Semester, thank you so much for reading this book. I’m grateful for you every day. I hope you’ve enjoyed Iris and Beau’s love story. Please post a review wherever you bought your copy or any social media platform. Reviews matter. They really do. Until next time, Happy Reading!

  About the Author

  Stephanie Fournet, author of ten novels including Leave a Mark, Someone Like Me, Kind of Cursed, and Two-Step, lives in Lafayette, Louisiana—not far from the Saint Streets where her novels are set. She shares her home with her husband and daughter, their needy dogs Mabel and Finnegan, and the ghosts of dogs past. When she isn’t writing romance novels, Stephanie is usually helping students get into college, camping, or curled up with a good book. She loves hearing from fans, so look for her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Goodreads, and stephaniefournet.com.

  Other Books By Stephanie Fournet

  Fall Semester

  Legacy

  Butterfly Ginger

  Leave a Mark

  You First

  Drive

  Shelter

  Someone Like Me

  Kind of Cursed

  Anthology

  Block & Tackle

  Turn the page to read a sample of Stephanie Fournet’s novel

  YOU FIRST

  You First

  Chapter One

  “You’re fired.”

  The words landed like a fist in Meredith’s stomach. She stared at her boss, her mouth hanging open. “B-but, Mr. Simmons, I tried to find someone to cover my shift. I told you that yesterday.”

  Howard Simmons folded his arms over his considerable middle and gave her his fish-faced pout. “And yesterday I said you could come in for your shift or not come back at all,” he told her with his eyes closed.

  Mr. Simmons always talked with his eyes closed. It drove Meredith nuts.

  But she couldn’t think about that now. Meredith’s heart, which had been thumping hard, started racing. “Mr. Simmons, I need this job. You know I need this job.”

  Her sour boss blinked at her, his expression never changing, but she plowed on.

  “Please give me another chance. My… Oscar’s grandmother left me in a lurch. I didn’t have anyone to watch him. I would’ve brought him with me if I could.”

  She’d beg. She wasn’t above begging. After everything she’d been through in the last two years, a little begging wouldn’t be so bad. “Please,” she added, wringing her hands together and cursing Jamie’s mother for the ten thousandth time.

  “I’m sorry, Meredith,” Mr. Simmons said, shaking his head and sounding most unsorry. “But coming to work with your toddler would’ve been worse than not coming in at all — which is what you did. For the last time, I might add. Please turn in your apron and cashier’s badge. You may collect your last check in the office from Miss Bonnie.”

  With that, he swiveled on his heel and left her standing at the front of Champagne’s Grocery, her nails digging into her palms and her nose stinging.

  Do. Not. Cry.

  Meredith refused to let herself cry. She refused to cry over losing her job because it was Leona McCormick’s fault she’d lost her job, and Meredith wasn’t going to let Leona McCormick bring her to tears anymore. It had been six months since the last time, and she wouldn’t break her streak now.

  The woman hated her. It was that simple. Leona McCormick hated her, but she loved Oscar. Which meant that Meredith and Oscar had a place to live. And, as Meredith Ryan knew all too well — after her parents kicked her out when she was seventeen and pregnant — there were worse things than living with someone who hated her.

  Sharing a bed with her ex-boyfriend was one of them.

  A month into her senior year, Meredith would have married Jamie McCormick the minute that stick turned blue. Any of the girls at Lafayette High would’ve. Dimples. Blue eyes. Sandy blond hair that made him look like a golden Harry Styles. And a smile that had her believing she was everything.

  Walking out to the parking lot with a pack of Pampers and her last paycheck, Meredith rolled her eyes at the memory. He’d done her a favor, really. By dumping her for Veronica Sanger when she’d refused to get an abortion, Jamie had kept her from making the biggest mistake of her life.

  She wouldn’t marry him now. And he’d asked. More than once. That smile, she now knew, meant one thing and one thing only. Jamie McCormick wanted some.

  Meredith didn’t know what was worse. That after more than two years, Jamie still tried out his come-hither smile on her. Or that she still gave into it.

  Of course, a whole lot of opportunity didn’t exist for either. Jamie worked twenty-one on and fourteen off as a roughneck on an offshore rig, so more than half the time, Meredith didn’t even have to see him. But during those other two weeks, he was doubly persistent in his smiling efforts.

  Another obstacle for him (and safety measure for her) was that they lived with his parents in a 1300-square-foot house with three bedrooms. Leona and James “Big Jim” McCormick’s bedroom shared a wall with theirs, and the only thing worse than having your baby-daddy’s parents next door while he tries to get it on with you is trying to sleep while said parents get it on with each other. And as much as it made Meredith throw up in her mouth when she heard Leona calling Big Jim’s name, it saved her from Jamie’s advances because, while Jamie McCormick was pervy on many levels, getting off to the sound of his mother’s Os was not on any of them.

  And, finally, while the house technically had three bedrooms, that third room was, in fact, Leona’s sewing room. She took in alteration work and made the occasional wedding, bridesmaid, or formal dress, so the third bedroom contained her Bernina, her serger, a dressmaker’s dummy, an ironing board, a worktable, and racks of clothing for alterations, but it didn’t have even one bed.

  Which meant that Oscar McCormick, Meredith’s twenty-month-old son, slept between her and Jamie. And if your parents don’t cockblock you, she mused with a smirk, your toddler has that job covered.

  When Meredith thought about it — and she tried not to — it seemed to her that there should never be an opportunity for Jamie to make his advances. Especially considering that most of the time Meredith was mad at him. And yet, all too often, she would find herself on her back, catching her breath after Jamie crawled into bed with that goddamn smile.

  Jamie and his smile were scheduled to return onshore in nineteen days. Which meant she had a few weeks to find another job so she wouldn’t be hanging around the house with nothing better to do than attract his attention.

  Meredith collapsed into her dinky, faded-red Nissan Versa, pulled out her cracked-screened iPhone 4, and texted Brooke.

  Meredith: I’m so screwed. Simmons just fired me.

  She started the car and cranked the feeble heater before her best friend texted back.

  Brooke: Noooooo! Why? Want me to key his car?

  Meredith laughed. Brooke Cormier could always make her laugh — even when life was shitty. And in the last two years, she’d encountered her fair share of shitty. Meredith loved Oscar more than she could have thought possible — more than anything in this world or the next — but Brooke was a close second.

  She typed.

  Meredith: Not worth it. Besides, not his fault.

  Before she could press send, the phone rang in her hands.

  “A glitter bomb,” Brooke said as she answered.

  “What?”

  “Mail him a glitter bomb. He opens the package. Glitter explodes. H
e’ll look like Tinkerbelle for the rest of his life.”

  Meredith put the car in gear, laughing.

  “He’ll never be free,” Brooke continued. “I mean it. Glitter is the herpes of the arts-and-crafts world. An ounce of glitter detonated in his living room would contaminate every corner of his puny, fish-mouthed existence.”

  “Stop,” she begged, wiping her eyes. “Really, he’s not the one I blame.”

  Brooke was silent for a moment. “Leona.” It wasn’t a question.

  “You guessed it.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Grab Oscar, bundle up, and meet me at the field.”

  The McCormicks lived near the corner of Dean and St. Landry, right across from the Mickey Shunick Memorial and the electrical substation. The view of the substation sucked, but Meredith ignored it and always focused on the memorial instead. The mounted, white bike made a ghostly homage to the brave young woman who’d been attacked on her ride home. She’d fought that serial-killer bastard with his own knife — a five-foot-three girl macing and cutting a monster.

  Even though she lost her life, the nationwide search for Mickey led to the monster’s arrest. And every time Meredith passed the white bicycle — whether she was pushing Oscar’s stroller or taking a walk by herself to get away from the McCormicks for five minutes — she felt stronger for its presence, as though Mickey Shunick’s fighting spirit blessed the place.

  “Boys!” Oscar cheered from his stroller. They passed the substation and were directly behind UL’s Horticulture Center. Across the street lay one of the university’s intramural fields and, as usual on most afternoons, a group of international students was deep in a game of cricket. Brooke had parked her dad’s white Toyota truck in the far corner of the field, and she sat waiting for them on the open tailgate.