Bayou My Love: A Novel (4 page)

According
to the lease, he’d been renting six months. “What do you do besides fight
fires?” I asked.

His
fingers traced the stubble on his neck, until they disappeared in the collar of
his shirt. When he spoke, he stared right at me, as if he was reading me just
as carefully. “For work or play?”

I
wondered if those terrible lines worked on women down here, or if they were
reserved for out-of-towners who could be lulled into anything with a wink and a
drawl.

“Either,”
I said.

“Nothing
that’s too embarrassing or impressive, cher.” He half-smiled and opened the
kitchen door, leading me back to the porch. We sat down on the steps. “But
listen,” he said, pulling a cigarette out, “you’ll be safe here with me. And
believe me, if you weren’t, everybody in the parish would know about it,
because everybody knows everybody’s business out here on the bayou.”

“Think
I could bum one of those?” I nodded toward his cigarette.

“You’re
in luck… My last pack and then I quit.”

He
tapped another out, then leaned close as he cupped his hands around the match
and lit the clove. I glanced up and caught his eyes for a moment through the
smoke.

Clearly
this had the potential for disaster—the kind that had nothing to do with the
house. “Thanks,” I said. “You were making me want one.”

“So
do I pass?”

I
liked his quiet confidence. His eyes had a sleepy look about them, but there
was a sharpness behind them as well—something that said I shouldn’t mistake his
easygoing manner for ignorance.

“Did
you spend much time with her?” I asked him.

He
smiled. “When she started renting to me, she came by to see me every Sunday.
She said she was checking on the house, but I knew she was checking up on me.
Your grandmother made a mean chicken pot pie.”

“You
knew her better than I did in the end.” I wondered what they talked about, what
he knew about her. If I let him stick around, I’d find out. That thought
finally swayed me.

“I
don’t have much family of my own,” he said. “She adopted me, you might say.”

I
could have been the one hearing all of Vergie’s stories, instead of Jack
Mayronne. If only I hadn’t been so scared of my father.

“Come
on, Enza,” he said. “People here have boarders all the time. You’re just
renting me a room like anybody else would do if they had a big old house like
this to themselves.”

I
took a long drag on the cigarette, watching the line of smoke rise toward the
white porch ceiling. If Vergie trusted him to help her around the house, then
he must be a decent man. She was always looking for the good in people, but she
could spot the bad as quick as she spotted potato beetles in her garden.

I
made a silent plea, hoping that wherever Vergie was, she could reach out and
intervene if I was about to do something stupid. I waited for an instant, just
in case a pipe burst or a vase went flying off the mantle as a kind of thump on
the skull from the great hereafter. But there was nothing.

“Here’s
the deal, Mr. Mayronne. You help me with repairs, and I’ll give you six weeks
to move out. If we finish before then, I’ll refund your rent for the remaining
days.”

“What
if it takes longer?”

“It
won’t.”

“I
could help you if it does,” he said. “I owe a lot to Vergie. I’m not saying I
can work for free, but I’ll do you a better deal than anybody else around
here.”

“Six
weeks is all I need,” I said. “But if you like, we’ll leave that option on the
table.”

“Fair
enough,” he said, extending his hand.

When
we shook, his fingers tightened around mine, and a ripple passed through my
arms and chest, like when a pebble is dropped in a pond.

He
smiled. “This’ll all work out fine. You’ll see.”

I
almost believed him.

Chapter
3

After
hauling my tool box and suitcases into the foyer, I paused at the bottom of the
stairs to give the banister a shake. It was sturdy as a water oak. That was the
thing about these old swamp houses: The plaster was cracking, and the walls
weren’t straight any more, but the woodwork was solid. The floors were made of
heart pine boards eight inches wide. The ten-foot ceilings downstairs had
carved crown molding that made my heart flutter. The upstairs bath had a
clawfoot tub and a stained glass window that I wanted to cut out and take home
with me. If those details had registered with me as a teenager, they’d been
lost in the ether of young adulthood. In my memory, this had been a quaint
little farm-style house—cute, but nothing special. Now, seeing its pocket doors
and hand-carved moldings, I was smitten.

Stop,
I
told myself.
This has to be just another flip.

Jack
walked in behind me and grabbed my suitcases. “Let me give you a hand with
that.”

I
followed him up to Vergie’s old bedroom. Of the rooms upstairs, this one was
the most furnished. It had the dresser, the highboy and the four-poster bed. Framed
pictures hung over a vanity by the closet door, and books were stacked on the
shelf of the nightstand.

Jack
set the suitcases by the dresser and then opened two windows to get a
cross-breeze. “Sorry it’s so stuffy in here,” he said. “I’ll put the extra
window unit in here so you won’t melt.”

“When
I was a girl, I used to sneak in here to play,” I told him. “I don’t know why
it seemed so magical at the time, but it was like Alice’s rabbit hole.”

Back
then, I’d rummage through the closet and pick through the dresser drawers, but
Vergie didn’t mind. Her room had been a shrine to her travels, the shelves
filled with trinkets from places I’d never heard of. Now, as I studied the dark
wood and faded wallpaper, it looked like any old bedroom. The mystery had
slipped away.

“I
left everything in this room alone,” Jack said.

“How
come?”

“She
told me to box everything up in here when I moved in, but I couldn’t bring
myself to do it.” He leaned against the post of the canopy bed, ran his fingers
along the carved vines. “I didn’t need the space.”

A
collection of pictures sat by the lamp on the nightstand: a couple of me, and
two black and white photos of my mother that I hadn’t seen before. To me, my
mother was a ghost. It was as if she’d vanished—
poof!—
like a dove under
a magician’s handkerchief. Dad refused to talk about her—ever.

I
didn’t forget about her, because how can you, really? But I tried.

After
she left, Dad found ways to keep me busy in the summer so I wouldn’t have time
to think of those summers with Vergie. Jobs, college prep courses, internships.
He scared me into thinking I needed all of those things to even dream of
success, so I did what he told me. He said I was too old to do nothing in the
summer, that if I didn’t start working toward a goal, I’d end up as lost as my
mother.

He
used my mother as a threat.

Now,
standing in this room that both was and was not Vergie’s, it made me wonder:
Had Vergie ever tried to see me, or had she quietly given in to my father’s
wishes? He could be cruel. He could sniff out people’s weaknesses and drive
them away, and he could have easily done that to Vergie.

I
felt the pang that comes when you know you’ve done something terrible, and
there’s no real way to fix it.

I
traced my fingers over a patchwork quilt that Vergie had almost certainly made.
It was mostly blue and green, the log cabin pattern. The floorboards creaked
when I walked across the room to the closet, where a half a dozen dresses still
clung to wire hangers.

“This
seemed bigger when I was a kid,” I said.

“Things
always do.” Jack opened the drawer of the nightstand and handed me a key. His
fingers brushed over my palm as he placed it there. “In case you want to lock
yourself in.”

“Thanks.”
I slipped the key into my pocket.

“I’ve
got some leftovers downstairs,” he said. “Nothing fancy, but it’s better than
going into town after driving all day.”

“You’re
cooking me dinner?”

He
smirked, heading back to the stairs. “I’m reheating your dinner. I’d take you
to one of the local haunts, but I don’t think you’re ready for that crowd yet.”

“Just
as well,” I said. “The last thing I want to do right now is get in a car.” I
followed him down the stairs, watching as the light caught flecks of red in his
hair.

In
the kitchen, Jack pulled a chair out from the table and motioned for me to sit.
The floors were scuffed from these same spindle-backed chairs being dragged out
from the table over the years. It was a small kitchen, but it had a walk-in
pantry with floor-to-ceiling built-in cabinets. You just didn’t see that any more.

Jack
leaned over, rooting through the refrigerator. The clatter of pots caught my
attention, but what held it was the way his jeans strained ever so slightly on
his frame.

He
put the pot on the stove and caught me staring.

I
quickly looked away, my cheeks burning.

“Hope
you like chili,” he said. “I cook pretty simple.”

“I
won’t complain when a guy’s cooking dinner.”

He
stirred the chili and pulled two beers from the refrigerator. “Care for a
drink?”

“After
that drive today? You bet.”

He
hooked the caps together, popping both off at the same time like bartenders do
when they’re trying to impress. He passed me the beer, clinked his against it
and said, “Here’s to homecomings.”

His
knee brushed mine as he sat down across from me. His eyes looked as blue-green
as the bottles, and I found myself staring too long again.

“I
know this must be little strange for you,” he said.

“It
wasn’t what I was expecting.”

“Few
things around here are.”

The
white cabinets were chipped and stained, but the appliances were still in good
shape. The sink was original—a huge one that extended into countertops, with
grooves to channel the water from drying dishes back into the basin. The old
pie safe was still in the corner, where Vergie used to keep her pies, and later
her cookbooks. Patterns of stars and triangles were punched in the tin panels.

“I
miss this place,” I said. “Didn’t realize how much until today.”

“When’s
the last time you were here?”

“I
was sixteen. I can’t believe it’s been fifteen years.” The dog, Bella, wandered
back into the room and sat down at my feet. She stared at me, as if still
deciding whether I was a threat. “I should have come back to visit more. I
should have ignored my father.”

He
cocked his head.

“Long
story,” I said, waving my hand between us. “He forbade me to come back here,
and I was too young and stupid to rebel.”

“It’s
hard to see what’s really important when you’re that age. Sometimes you still
can’t see it when you’ve grown up.”

“Is
this where you tell me your family’s just as messed up as mine?”

“My
parents died a long time ago.”

“Shit.
I’m sorry. I only meant—”

“It’s
OK,” he said, getting up to stir the chili. “It just taught me you have to get
your priorities in order. Be honest in your relationships.”

“Did
you grow up around here?”

“Yeah.”
He sounded relieved to change the subject. “Down in Terrebonne. Moved up here
and went to high school, then left for college. I bounced around a little but
came back here to work at the fire department a few years ago.” He filled two
bowls with chili and brought them to the table.

“I
thought firemen lived in a firehouse.”

“Only
when I’m on duty. One day on and two days off.”

“I’m
lucky I came here on your day off. You would have given me a heart attack if
you’d showed up in the middle of the night.”

“You
and me both.” He grinned. “You gonna start this work tomorrow, you say?”

I
took a long drink of the beer. Lately I could never turn off my working self—too
much of my father had rubbed off on me. I thought about lumber prices when I
sat down to dinner, estimated shipping costs when I lay down to sleep.

“First
thing,” I said.

“You
don’t waste any time, huh?”

“Not
with houses. All those people that told us time is money—they were right.”
Already I was calculating how much paint it would take to cover the kitchen, how
long it would take to refinish the hall floors. The old wallpaper needed to be
stripped, and all the rooms needed a fresh coat of paint. People loved these
houses with hand-carved woodwork because it made them feel like they owned a
piece of dying history, but they expected a combination of historical and
practical. They wanted hot tubs, updated kitchens and walk-in closets. I wasn’t
planning to knock out walls, but this house needed a visual overhaul that would
preserve the best parts of the architecture while bringing it into this
century.

“How’s
the chili?” he asked.

“Spicy.”

“Need
a glass of milk?”

I
laughed. “I haven’t been away that long.”

He
grinned, finishing his beer. “Tomorrow we’ll go to the hardware store across
the canal. I know the owner.”

I
had a credit card with one of the regional chain stores but kept quiet. He was
making a nice gesture.

“Great,”
I said. “I’m on a tight budget.”

After
that, a silence settled between us, like we were two teenagers on a blind date,
neither knowing what to say. I tried not to stare at Jack, but it took all of
my willpower to avoid his eyes. A friend once told me I was intimidating
because I stared too long.
It’s no wonder you don’t have a boyfriend,
she
said,
You stare men down.
Ever since then I’d made myself look away
every so often.

So
I forced myself to break his gaze. He smiled once when he caught me looking at
his hands, as if he knew I was imagining what they would feel like against my
skin.

I
shook the thought away. I’d avoided getting too close to men for a long time,
keeping them at a distance even as I let them live in my house. My penchant for
distance came from my father. After my mother left us, he’d blamed it on her
being heartless. He’d convinced me that if you let people get close to your heart,
they’d hurt you. I was tired of being hurt, so I chose relationships that on
some level I knew would only be short-term. They were predictable: I kept the
guy close but not too close; I liked him, but I was detached. When we
inevitably split, I was lonely but not heartbroken.

The
pattern I’d learned was this: When you let people get close, they love you,
then they hurt you, then they leave you. When they disappear, they take a part
of you with them, and you can never get it back. It had happened with my
mother. It had happened with friends. Boyfriends. Vergie.

If
I’d spent more time with Vergie, I might be more trusting. Less cold. My father
resented her because of my mother. I could see it in the way he bristled when I
mentioned coming here that last time when I was sixteen.
Your mother turned
her whole family against us,
he’d said to me.
Those bridges are burned.

And
because he was the one who didn’t leave, I trusted him.

“Hey,
Enza, you all right?” Jack Mayronne was staring at me like he thought I might
break at any second.

“Sorry,”
I said. “I’m not good company tonight.” Those thoughts had been pushed so far
down for so long that now it felt like they were tearing through my skin to get
out.

“It’s
OK. I won’t take it personally.” His smile was warm as he stood and gathered up
our dirty dishes.

“I’m
just tired. I think I’ll turn in for the night.”

He
placed the dishes in the sink and said, “So I’ll see you bright and early?”

“Crack
of dawn.” I pushed my chair under the table and took the half-empty beer with
me.

“Good
night, cher. Sleep tight.”

The
dog whined, sitting on her haunches.

“Bella
will protect you,” he said. “It’s one of her favorite things to do.”

“Good
night, Jack.” I trudged up the stairs, hoping this wasn’t another huge mistake.
The sound of his name on my lips had sent a shiver along my skin.
Get a hold
of yourself
.

The
clatter of toenails on heart pine rang in my ears as the dog bounded up the
stairs behind me. She paused at Vergie’s door.

“Planning
to spy on me?”

Her
ears pricked forward.

“Git,”
I said, turning the doorknob.

She
snorted and slinked back down the stairs.

I
peeled off my sticky clothes and tossed them onto the rocking chair. On the
wall above it was a grouping of framed photos. In one black and white picture,
a five-year-old version of me was riding a billy goat, one hand grasping the
fur on its neck, one hand up in the air like a bull rider. Barefoot, my hair in
pigtails. Closing my eyes, I could feel the coarse fur in my fingers. Harold
the goat had served as a pony back then, bucking as I rode him around the yard.
By the end of summer, I’d been covered in scratches from the blackberry bushes
where he threw me. Even now, standing in the musty bedroom, I could feel the
wind tickle my ears, hear the goat’s hooves pounding the dirt beneath them.