Bayou My Love: A Novel (13 page)

I
took mental notes as I followed Josie through the house. She finally led us to
the backyard where Buck was stirring a giant metal pot on a propane burner.

“Hey,
kid,” Buck said to Jack. “I see you finally let this gal take a break.”

“It’s
not easy.” Jack winked at me. “But ‘crawfish boil’ were the magic words.”

“I
knew it,” Buck said. “No one can resist.”

Based
on their questions, Jack had obviously filled in the blanks prior to dinner; I
felt like Josie and Buck already knew everything about me. Josie wanted to
learn more about my house-flipping adventures, saying she’d thought about
trying a couple of her own. She and Buck did some carpentry on the side. In
addition to running the store, she painted, and Buck could build just about
anything.

“You
want to help me with the biscuits?” Josie asked.

“I’m
not much of a cook,” I said, following her to the kitchen.

“Honey,
please. Everybody can make biscuits.”

She
quickly tossed the dough together and rolled it out on the counter, then used
the lid of a Mason jar to cut them out.

“I
sure am glad you found Jack,” she said.

I
paused, placing the biscuits in the iron skillet like she’d shown me. “Yeah,
that was a lucky surprise,” I said. “He’s been a huge help with the house.”

She
smiled, more to herself than at me.

“He’s
one of the good ones,” she said.

Josie
grabbed another skillet and filled it so the biscuits were touching, then slid
both into the oven.

~~~~

Outside,
when Buck had declared the boil perfect, we all gathered at the picnic table
and filled our bowls. Josie told me stories about Jack that made him blush so
hard I thought he’d crawl under the table. They practically raised him after
his parents had died, and now they were telling me all the things he’d never
tell me about himself.

“Jack
graduated cum laude from Tulane,” Josie said. “Went on a scholarship.”

“Is
that right?” I turned to Jack and made a mental note to ask him more later.

“Lord,
Josie,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “Enza doesn’t want to
hear about all that.”

“He
never did sing his own praises,” she said.

I
was envious of him, having Buck and Josie. They were just the kind of people I
imagined everyone else in the world having back when I realized that I didn’t.
He’d gotten a second chance with parents, and that made me both happy for him
and sad for myself. I could have been that way with Vergie, but I didn’t know
it at the time and didn’t have someone to tell me.

We
stayed there until well after dark, until the only lights were the tiny white
bulbs strung in the oak trees by the picnic table. The low-hanging limbs created
a canopy over us, filled with buzzing katydids.

“Well,”
Jack said at last, “we’d best be getting back. I have to go in later tonight,
and this one will be up early to start more repairs.”

“Don’t
be such a stranger,” Josie said. “And bring this gal back, will you?” She
hugged me again, squeezing me tight.

“Thank
you,” I said, “for everything.”

Buck
hugged me too, slapping me on the shoulder. “If you need anything, you just
give us a call. I mean anything.” It was a reference to the night before, most
certainly. I hated that I’d gotten so close to Remy, so carelessly, but it was
worse that Buck had to see it.

“Thanks.”

Jack
placed his hand on the small of my back as we walked toward the front of the
house—a gesture that Josie did not miss—and then quickly dropped it when she
smiled at us.

“Sorry,”
he whispered, as we headed for his truck. “Reflex, I guess.”

“It’s
OK,” I said. “I just wouldn’t want to give them the wrong idea.”

He
nodded.

What
I didn’t say was that was the most at home I’d felt since I was a kid. Having
dinner with Josie and Buck, hearing stories about Jack as a wild teenager,
feeling the warmth of his hands spread through me every time we touched—these
were things I hadn’t expected to experience. Not that evening and maybe not
ever again.

Chapter
9

The
next day, I went into Vergie’s room with the intention of boxing things up. The
room itself didn’t need much work, but it would help to pack her things. I’d
scheduled a couple of the repair guys Grant had recommended, but they couldn’t
come until Friday, which meant they’d start work Monday. The worst thing about
repairs was the waiting.

Jack
had gone in early in the morning to cover for a friend and would be back late.
He was supposed to have two days off, but they’d been shorthanded for several
weeks. The arsonist was making them all work extra shifts.

I
had two boxes filled with books and knick-knacks by the time I got to the
closet, but then my packing turned to snooping. I found an old record player on
the top shelf and pulled an old zydeco record from its sleeve. The needle
plopped into the groove, and music rolled through the room. I grabbed one of
Vergie’s straw hats and put it on. It was a little tight, and the big brim
flopped down in front of my eyes. It seemed to catch the sound from the record
and funnel it straight into my ears. Pushing the clothes aside, I caught the
faintest hint of Vergie’s magnolia-scented perfume. It was like being snatched
backward in time, to when we sat sipping tea together on the porch.

The
closet shelves were full of boxes and stacks of books. It hadn’t occurred to me
until right then that Vergie might have kept some things of my mother’s. “I
sure hope you were a packrat,” I said, emptying the first box onto the floor.

Photos
and little notebooks, letters and trinkets—I arranged them all like a collage
and then sat back to look at them. It was like they were parts of an equation
that only made sense if you saw all the components together. In one pile was a
tiny doll made of corn husks and scraps of cloth. Staring into its blank face,
I thought of Miranda standing in the storm, still as a fence post as the rain
beat her hair against her face. I wondered what had drawn Jack to her in the
beginning. It was fascinating to imagine how unlikely couples stayed together—what
it was that bound them so tightly to one another, despite their dissimilarity.

My
parents had been two of those people. My father was practical, responsible and
reliable as a hammer. He found comfort in solid calculations and stone-cold
statistics. He liked predictability in all things, and my mother had been about
as predictable as a tornado in a square state. She’d been a painter and taught
art in middle school before I was born. Then she stayed home with me and
sometimes painted when I was keeping myself busy catching frogs to put in my
dollhouse. She’d sit outside to work sometimes, watching me from the corner of
her eye.

After
my mother left us, some days I imagined tracking her down. But I always
chickened out. After all, she could have found me any time if she’d wanted to.
I figured she didn’t care any more—maybe never did to begin with—because why
else would she vanish from my life? The act of leaving made it clear she didn’t
want to know anything more about me. So I decided I didn’t want to learn
anything else about her either.

My
father rarely talked about my mother. On one occasion years ago, he’d said,
“She went all new-agey and metaphysical on me and then walked out.” He said she
was like a hummingbird in that she never stayed in one place very long, and so
he wasn’t at all surprised when she left. I’d often wondered how much truth
there was in that, because I’d caught him crying once or twice shortly after
she took off. He would never admit to that, of course, and tried to be this
stoic figure, like that would somehow make it easier. He seemed to think that
if he made her sound flaky enough, we wouldn’t blame ourselves. He made a point
of telling me she had started reading tarot cards, drawing up astrological
charts, and had one day decided that they were no longer compatible according
to their numerology, the Chinese calendar and the tea leaves in the bottom of
her china cup. My father sneered when he told me that, calling her ridiculous,
saying she’d finally crossed the edge of reason. But as I grew older, I began
to think they had finally just grown apart, like limbs in the fork of a tree.
After a long enough time, they could no longer fit together.

That
didn’t mean I excused her behavior. She could leave him—but she didn’t have to
leave me too.

There
had always been tension between them. On the bad days, I’d wondered how they’d
made it as long as they had. On the worst days, I wondered if every
relationship was doomed to that fate—if all couples realized at some point that
they were more different than they’d thought at the start, and so different
they had no hope of staying together.

The
saddest part for me was how quickly I’d forgotten the little details about my
mother once she’d left. It hadn’t occurred to me that the memories were
slipping away until I was in my twenties. After a while, I couldn’t conjure the
image of her face—I could imagine her eyes and her freckles, but I couldn’t put
the pieces together in one continuous shape. It scared me to think of how this
had happened so quickly. Sometimes it seemed like the people I cared most about
in my life were destined to leave me, and I seemed destined to forget them. It
made me want to cling tight to the last memories I had of my mother and Vergie.
Some nights, I imagined the more vivid ones, playing them over and over in my
mind as I fell asleep. Maybe if I thought about them hard enough, I could train
my brain to remember them.

Sifting
through Vergie’s photos and trinkets, I wondered why she had never remarried.
She’d married her high school sweetheart—but not until she was twenty-five. My
grandfather, Jay, had waited and waited for Vergie, who refused to marry him
while her own mother was in poor health. It was only after her mother died that
Vergie reclaimed her own life and married Jay. They had a year and a half
together before he died of an aneurysm, coming home from the late shift at the
textile mill where he’d worked since he was sixteen. That story hadn’t affected
me much at the time, but now, staring at the photos, I cried as I thought of
Vergie, a widow so young after a marriage so short, and a grandfather I’d never
met. It seemed there was never a convenient time for the things we needed most.

Near
the bottom of a shoebox were some snapshots of Vergie and Jay. In one, with
“Niagara” scribbled on the back, they both wore bright yellow slickers, their
faces streaked with mist from the falls. Both grinning like the Cheshire Cat,
they looked like they fit perfectly together, like tongue-and-groove boards.
Rather than staring into the camera, as most people do, Vergie and Jay were
always staring right at each other, as if nothing around them was nearly as
interesting as the person right in front of them. From those pictures, it was
clear why she’d never married another man. Some people find their match only
once.

Things
like that made me wonder if I’d met my match and lost him, too busy or
preoccupied to recognize him.

My
cell phone rang, and my whole body shivered.

Jack.

I
climbed up from the floor and scrambled to find it, following the ringing into
the hallway. By the time I answered, I was out of breath.

“Sounds
like you’re busy,” my father said, and I held the phone farther from my head.
“That’s what I like to hear.” His voice boomed in my ear, and I furrowed my
brow.

“What
can I do for you, Dad?”

“Just
checking in. How’s everything going?”

“Fine.”

“Can
you elaborate?”

No
need to mention Jack. My father was liable to drive down here himself to
personally kick the man out, and he’d never trust me with another job. Ever.
He’d see Jack as a freeloader, and he’d let me have it for allowing him to
stay. Even worse, he’d know in a second there was something brewing between us.
He could read me as easily as
The
Wall Street Journal.

“Everything’s
on schedule,” I said. “Repairs are going great. The house is in good shape.
Nothing I can’t handle.”

“You
sound like something’s amiss,” he said. I could hear his pen tapping against
his desk.

Only
my father used words like
amiss
.

“All
is fine. There’s some mold that has to be taken care of. And a leaky pipe, but
otherwise it’s nothing big.”

“Mold?”
he bellowed. “How much? What did you do?”

I
told him about my appointment with the specialist, and there was a pause on the
other end of the line. He was no doubt pulling up a spreadsheet and punching
buttons on his calculator.

“And
what will that set you back?”

“Two
to three thousand, give or take,” I said, but it was closer to four. The
specialist gave me a ballpark based on the size of the house, but I knew it
could climb higher depending on the extent of the damage.

“Give
or take? What kind of accounting is that?”

“Twenty-six
hundred and eleven dollars and thirty-nine cents. Is that more helpful?”

“Don’t
be a smart-ass. The budget is what drives these projects. You lose track of the
numbers, you screw yourself over.”

I
sighed, glad he couldn’t see the face I was making.

“Enza,
what have I told you about big investments? What about this pipe?”

“Twelve
hundred.”

“Are
you out of your mind? You can’t throw that much money around on single
repairs.”

“It
had to be done, Dad. The mold is a health hazard. The water bill is twice what
it should be.”

“Let
the next owner worry about that,” he barked. “You’re not supposed to make the
house new again. You’re supposed to make it
look
new.”

“I
find that a little unethical, Dad.”

He
groaned, and out of reflex I held the phone from my ear as he grumbled about
losses and money pits. At last he snapped, “This is a business, Enza. It has
nothing to do with ethics.”

Before
I could answer, he slammed the phone down. Part of me feared he’d show up the
next day, his phone in one hand and hammer in the other, but it was possible
he’d wait it out. He needed to test me and see if I’d cause my own destruction.

I
threw the phone, aiming for the bed. But I’d never had a good arm. It sailed
toward the window, then caught in the curtain for a split second before
dropping out into the yard. I thought I heard it ring just before it crashed to
the ground.

“Dammit!”
I rushed to the window. Below, the dog came bounding across the grass, pausing
to sniff the phone.

“Hey,”
I yelled. “Drop it!”

Bella
cocked her head, then took the phone in her mouth and pranced away.

I
ran down the stairs and out onto the porch. Bella gave me one quick look and
streaked across the yard.

“Dog!
Get your furry ass back here!” My feet squished in the spongy ground as I ran,
but Bella cut a zigzag path toward the swamp. She was teasing me on purpose.
That dog hated me. I chased her anyway, thinking she might at least drop the
phone while she was overcome with glee. The ground turned to mud, and she
paused under a cypress tree. I slowed to a walk. She turned, and giving me the
closest thing to a smile that a dog can have, bounded farther into the swamp.

“You
get back here!” I stuck two fingers in my mouth and tried my best to whistle
like Jack had, but I sounded like a balloon losing its air. Briars snagged my
shirt, tearing my skin as I kept one eye on the dog and the other on the
ground. I stumbled over a tangle of roots and reached for a tree to steady
myself. The dog dropped the phone, panting, and looked straight at me.

“This
is because we threw you out, isn’t it?” I said. The mud clung to my feet as I
walked along the edge of the stream. The dog looked away as if she were finally
bored with me. When I was within a few feet, she snorted and snatched up the
phone again. I moved to grab her, and she leapt toward the water. The mud gave
way under my feet, and I slipped and landed in a puddle. The smell of decaying
vegetation made me gag, and my ribs throbbed from where they’d smashed against
a tangle of roots.

My
ankle stung. My side ached. Mud covered my jeans and blouse. I cursed that dog
to pieces, but she only trotted farther into the woods, the water splashing
behind her. I limped back through the brush to the house, cursing the whole
parish in general and this patch of ground in particular.

At
last I collapsed on the porch steps and pulled my boots off. They were caked in
mud, and the left one was already tight on my swollen ankle. I tossed the boots
to the side of the steps, and that’s when I saw it.

Lying
in the grass was a tiny doll-like figure. I slid closer and reached into the
weeds. It was a humanlike form that looked like it had been fashioned out of an
old sock, with little stumpy arms and legs tied on. It was impossible to tell
if it was meant to be male or female, but it definitely had a face and hair. At
first I thought it was a child’s toy, but then I realized there were sewing
pins stuck in it—so far that their colored round heads were all that protruded.

Only
one kind of doll wore pins. The question was whether it was real or just a
prank.