by Frankie Bow
“I really hate these hair extensions,” I said as we approached the General Store. “Especially now they’re growing out. They look trashy. When is a former beauty queen turned school librarian allowed to cut her hair to a more practical length, anyway?”
“No, trashy’s a good look for you,” Ida Belle said. “Helps you blend in. You don’t want to go around dressing like you think you’re too good for us or anything.”
“Remember Celia’s daughter Pansy?” Gertie said. “Compared to her, Fortune looks like Grace Kelly.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Well speak of the devil.” Ida Belle paused with her hand on the General Store’s glass door. She bent down and peered between handbills announcing used boats and trucks for sale and the sun-faded poster advertising Mister Twister fishing lures. “There’s our mayor-elect herself.”
“What’s she doing?” Gertie asked.
Ida Belle raised her finger to her lips and pushed the door open slowly. The three of us slipped in and stood quietly by the General Store’s entrance. Walter saw us but quickly flicked his glance away. He was going to let Celia keep going.
“Look at that empty space over there.” Celia swept her bangle-laden arm toward a wall jam packed with shelves of waders, boots, breath mints, flashlights, jumper cables, maps, and pet food. “You could display at least fifty festival t-shirts there, and you could put a shelf of the snow globes right underneath. And you’d get three percent of every sale. It’s a sure thing, Walter. I don’t see why you’re acting so stubborn about it.”
“Celia, I’m telling you, I don’t have any more room in the store. Why not just sell all that stuff at the fair, at one of the booths?”
“Because this year we’re doing the Annual Sinful Nutria Jamboree right, and that means getting the whole town on board.”
“It’s not the Swamp Rat festival now?”
“Certainly not. The Annual Sinful Nutria Jamboree will be a coming-out party for the town of Sinful. I see it drawing in tourists from miles around. Along with their money. And when they go back home, they’ll be spreading the word with their Annual Sinful Nutria Jamboree t-shirts and Annual Sinful Nutria Jamboree snow globes, the ones that they’ve bought at your store. Oh, I almost forgot about the coffee mugs. You’ll need to clear a couple of shelves for the coffee mugs.”
“Coffee mugs are heavy and they take up a lot of room,” Walter said. “How about shot glasses?”
“Well it’s a good thing I didn’t put you in charge of the merchandising committee, Walter, honestly.”
“We’ve never had to do all this before. What’s the big rush this year?”
“You watch and see. By the time the National Watermelon Day picnic rolls around, I expect we’ll have record attendance. But to do that we have to make our branded merchandise available through as many outlets as possible. The General Store is a key part of our strategy because it’s often the last stop for people driving out of town.”
“Well now Celia,” Walter rubbed his white moustache thoughtfully. “First of all, I don’t see the point of the snow globes, considering as how it’s summertime, and even in the winter it only snows about every hundred years.”
“We got a good deal on them,” Celia huffed.
“And secondly, you’re going on about bringing in people from miles around, how's that square with what you were telling me before about what a terrible problem we were having with all these Yankees coming in?”
Walter winked at us.
“We want to attract the right kind of outsiders,” Celia shot back. “The kind that come over for the festival, spend their money, maybe stay a night or two at one of our fine bed and breakfast establishments, and leave. Not the ones that stick around and stir up trouble.”
“Well how do you like that,” Ida Belle whispered. “This 'outsider' saved that woman's sorry behind.”
I shrugged. “I don't think gratitude is one of Celia’s strong points.”
“So what'll it be?” Celia demanded. “You gonna set up my display or am I gonna have to take this once in a lifetime opportunity over to the taxidermist? Think carefully, now, Walter, before you pass this up.”
Celia must have been talking about that establishment on Sinful's main street, the pretty pink one with the lacy trim, the flower pots out front, and the sign in the window that read, “You kill 'em, we'll stuff 'em.” A giant deer head with crossed eyes hung next to the doorway, assuring the casual shopper that this was no idle threat. I'd walked by that Pepto-Bismol-pink storefront dozens of times, but I’d never gone inside, and I’d never seen anyone else go in there either. I wondered if they’d be setting up a window display of dead stuffed swamp rats for the occasion.
“Excuse me Celia,” Walter said with a smile, as if he’d just noticed the three of us standing there. “Looks like I got paying customers. Oh, listen, thanks for stopping by. Come by any time, y'hear?”
Celia Arceneaux stomped out of the General Store, glaring at us so hard that I half expected to see Ida Belle's hair burst into flames.
“What can I help you ladies with today?” Walter grinned at us.
“Well you look awfully happy,” Ida Belle said, “considering you were just getting chewed out by Celia.”
“I’m safe now,” he said. “She won’t come back as long as you’re here.”
“We’re the garlic to Celia’s Nosferatu,” Gertie said.
“Who?” I asked.
“Nosferatu the vampire,” Gertie said. “I’m working on my use of metaphor.”
“I thought Dracula was the vampire,” I said.
“Well there’s gotta be more than one vampire,” Ida Belle said. “Dracula can’t go flying around the world biting everyone all by himself. He’s not Santa Claus.”
“Santa Claus doesn’t bite people!” Gertie objected.
“Look, can I just get my shampoo? Walter, you said you carry this brand?”
I pulled out a sticky note with the name of the special shampoo and showed it to him.
“Sure thing, Fortune. Right back there.” He pointed me to the aisle filled with stomach remedies, first aid supplies, painkillers, hair dye, and propane generators. I found the shampoo and bought the matching conditioner, because it promised “smooth, silken shine.” That seemed like it would be a nice change from “matted, straw-like rat’s nest.”
As Walter was ringing me up, he said,
“Guess you won't be seeing your young visitor around your place much anymore. Hear he's got him a new friend.”
“Well that news traveled fast,” Ida Belle said.
“Ally was in here earlier,” Walter said. “She was saying something about having more time to work on her nutria pie recipe, now she doesn't have so many distractions. Came in to buy more pie tins. I guess she couldn’t get the burned taste out of her other ones.”
“You carry pie tins?”
“Sure,” Walter said. “Over there by the shop vacs.”
“I hope Ally's okay.” Poor kid. I hoped my bad romantic luck wasn't rubbing off on her. Of course I wasn’t going to say that in front of Carter’s uncle Walter.
“Oh, Ally seems like she's doing fine. Wasn't like her and that boy was gonna elope or anything like that.” Walter chuckled. “Not like you and my nephew, now.”
He handed me my change and the small paper bag with my overpriced hair products.
“You ladies should watch out for your young friend, though. I believe that girl’s one of that Roche clan.”
“Why is that a problem?” I asked. “What's this family involved in?”
“Well, I’m sure I can’t say.” Walter was suddenly cagey.
“Are they linked to organized crime?” I asked.
“Now, I don’t like to make accusations.” Walter seemed really uncomfortable now. “I just think we owe it to our young visitor to keep an eye out for him.”
“Drugs? Gambling? Human trafficking?”
“Don't worry about it,” Ida Belle said. “This rom
ance is not gonna go anywhere. The kid got bored with Ally quick enough, he'll get bored with this one too. You know how men are. Flighty.”
I thought this was unfair, considering Walter had carried a torch for Ida Belle for the past five decades or so—not most peoples' definition of flighty.
“But Ida-Belle,” Gertie whispered. “What if she —”
“Oh hush, Gertie. Don’t be silly.”
“Well, I better go check on…the stockroom.” Walter disappeared into the back.
“I’m not going to butt into that kid’s personal life.” Ida Belle led the way out of the General Store. “As long as he keeps paying his rent and doesn't cause me any trouble, it's none of our beeswax what he gets up to in his free time.”
Chapter 4
Justin came by the house later with a present for Ally. It was white and cylindrical, like a small version of a liquid nitrogen container, but with pink flowers printed on the side. It turned out to be for cooking rice. I had nothing else to do, so I watched as he demonstrated it for us. He poured in the rice, and then stuck his thumb in to gauge the right amount of water.
“I don't understand,” Ally said. “How come you have a special rice cooker? Why not just use a saucepan?”
“It keeps the rice at just the right temperature all day. When you eat rice with every meal, it's real convenient. An' it gets the texture just right for the musubis. Every house in Hawaii got one, pretty much.”
“I'm learning how to make Spam musubis,” Ally explained to me. “They're like the official snack of Hawaii. It’s Spam, wrapped in rice, wrapped in seaweed.”
“Sounds delicious,” I lied.
“It is,” Justin said.
Ally got us sweet tea while we waited for the rice to cook.
“So what's new?” I asked Justin.
“Oh, I found a real interesting specimen today.”
“So soon?” Ally said. “How exciting.”
“Oh yah. Kinda gave me chicken skin cause thought it was a baby at first.”
“You thought it was a baby?” I said. “What was it?”
“Not sure. Looked like it died shortly after birth. Had the cord attached still.”
“How sad,” Ally gasped.
“Nah, that thing wasn't meant to live. Was real messed up. The snout was flat shaped,” here Justin spread his skinny brown fingers in front of his face to demonstrate, “so probably couldn't breathe even. That's how come I thought it was a human baby at first, cause the flat face.”
“Poor thing,” Ally said. “Did you bury it?”
“Huh? Nah, I sent it over to the university so they can do the DNA analysis. I got a picture, though. Wanna see?”
Ally's face scrunched with disgust. “I don’t know. Fortune, why don’t you look first?”
“Sure, I’ll have a look.”
Heck, I'd wolfed down an MRE with one hand while picking up pieces of a sniper with the other. A cell phone photo of a dead animal in the woods wouldn't bother me.
Or so I thought.
The poor creature was curled up as if asleep. It had probably been dead for two or three days. I saw why Justin had thought it was a human baby, with its large head, flat face and its mottled, almost hairless skin. The nose and mouth looked like those of a kitten, though, and the ear that I could see was pointed and near the top of the head. It had a naked tail like a possum’s, curled around its body.
“That's really interesting.” I handed Justin's phone back.
“I think this supports what I was saying before.” Justin dropped the phone back into his backpack. “Hydrocarbons are powerful mutagens. Lucky I found this guy over at the university gonna help me ID it. He's got the facilities to do the DNA analysis.”
“This is because of the hydrocarbons from the oil spill?” I asked.
“Can’t say for sure, cause it’s a single specimen. But personally, I think it’s likely.”
“The spill was way east of here, though,” Ally said. “I didn't think any of it got over here.”
“I think my research is gonna show that there are environmental effects this far west, especially in fast-reproducing organisms. I think we're going to find these novel environmental pressures affecting evolution.”
“How come you sound so happy about it?” Ally said. “Doesn't seem like something to be happy about.”
“Oh, sorry, no, it's not good. It's just, you know, I'm excited about my research getting somewhere. And I got LaRoquette interested.”
“Who is LaRoquette?” I asked.
“That’s the geneticist I got ahold of at the School of Medicine.”
“This LaRoquette isn't a young blonde woman by any chance?” I asked.
“Huh? Nah, he’s a dude. Toby LaRoquette.”
Ally laughed. “Fortune, you're thinking of Justin’s new girlfriend.”
I looked from Ally to the now-blushing Justin.
“I think I better check the rice.” He practically leaped out of his chair and ran over to the rice cooker.
“I thought you and Justin were an item,” I whispered to Ally when his back was turned. “You're okay with how things are?”
She shook her head. “Justin’s sweet. I like sharing recipes and hanging out. But it would be stupid to get attached to someone who's just gonna leave in a few weeks…I think I’ll help with the rice.”
Ally went over to join Justin, leaving me alone at the table.
She knew that I was planning to leave too, at the end of the summer. What she didn’t know was that after my assignment here ended I’d never see or speak to her, or anyone else in Sinful, again.
That's how is. This is what we do. Befriend and betray. I'd heard it a hundred times. It had never bothered me before.
“I'm not feeling well.” I pushed myself up from the table. “I'm going to turn in early. Have fun with the rice cooker. Save a Mikado for me.”
“Musubi,” Justin and Ally corrected me in unison.
I woke up early enough the next morning to see Ally before she left for her shift at Francine's Diner. She had actually saved me a Spam musubi.
“It looks like a huge piece of sushi,” I said. “Is it sushi? I haven’t had sushi in forever.”
“No, I thought it was too at first, but sushi has vinegar in the rice, and this rice is plain. Did you know, sushi doesn’t mean ‘raw fish’, it means ‘vinegar rice’.”
“I did not know that. So are you going to let me try it?”
“Oh yeah, sorry. Here you go. We fried the Spam with soy sauce and sugar, so it’s crispy and has a teriyaki flavor. Justin brought the nori wrap with him from Hawaii. Come on. Give it a try.”
I took a bite. “Hey, I like it. Tastes like it has all four food groups: starch, meat, salt, and grease.”
Ally grinned. “I thought the four food groups were sugar, fat, alcohol, and caffeine.”
“So you and Justin are really friends now.” I spoke with my mouth full, forgetting my beauty queen manners. “I’m glad to see it. I was a little worried about you.”
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” Ally laughed. “I’m not such a delicate flower, Fortune, really. You know who I’m worried about, though, is Justin. Sounds like Desiree’s moving pretty fast.”
“Desiree is the blonde?”
Ally nodded distractedly as she patted the countertop. “I could’ve sworn I left my keys right here. Where are my keys? Oh, here they are.”
“Moving fast? How so?”
Ally plopped her keys into her purse and turned. “He told me she wants him to come out with her to Perd’ Espoir to meet her family. I think it’s a bad idea. I mean I get it, she’s probably on the wrong side of thirty, and her time’s running out, you know how it is, I mean sorry, no offense Fortune.”
“Ally, I’m twenty-eight. What do you mean no offense? How old did you think I—never mind, it’s not important. So you’re not really okay with Justin moving on, it sounds like.”
She reddened visibly. “I’m just worried about him. As a friend.
I mean, I’m not the right one for him. I don’t have the education to understand half the stuff he talks about, all his hydrocortisone mutations and whatever.”
“You mean hydrocarbon mutagens?”
Ally blinked back tears.
“See? Everyone understands this stuff except me. Justin thinks it’s all the most interesting thing in the world, and it probably is, but I’m just a dumb waitress, too stupid to understand all this high-level science. And then this—this—blonde, no offense Fortune, comes along and acts all impressed with his story about that gross dead thing he found out in the woods, and suddenly she’s dragging him out to Perd’ Espoir to meet her family.”
“That does seem fast,” I said evenly. Too fast. Justin was a nice kid and all, but why was this Desiree trying to close the deal so quickly? “You know the family at all?”
“I kind of know who her people are. I’ve seen ‘em in town once in a while. Okay, I gotta go. I’m gonna be late for work. Sorry I got all weird and emotional.”
Ally rushed out and let the door bang shut behind her.
What did this woman really want with Justin? Was she trying to get to me—and Ahmad’s ten-million-dollar bounty—through Justin? If Ahmad already knew where I was, why didn’t he just send someone into Sinful to put a bullet through my head? I wasn’t hard to find. All the hitman had to do was hang around Francine’s Diner for a few hours, and I’d be bound to show up.
Something funny was going on here, and I wasn’t going to sit around and wait to see what was going to happen to me. I had to find out what was up.
My first impulse was to set out alone to tail Justin, but I quickly realized that wasn’t going to work. I hadn’t begun to learn all of the bayous and channels in this area. And Perd’ Espoir wasn’t on any map that I’d seen.