Little Gale Gumbo (14 page)

“Oh.” He reached compulsively for the back of his neck, where his hair had grown so long that some mornings it rubbed against the collar of his wool hunting jacket.

Their eyes met. “It
has
been driving me crazy,” he admitted.

“Well, we can't have that, now, can we?” Camille pointed him to the table. “You sit right there. I'll go get a towel from the bathroom.”

“All right.” Ben took a seat, glancing around the apartment while he waited. The air smelled warm and sweet, of melted butter and brown sugar. A saucepan rested in the sink. A plate of cloudy brown disks sat on the counter. This woman really did love to cook, he thought to himself. So unlike Leslie. In every way.

“Here we are.”

Camille returned carrying a towel and a comb and a small pair of shears. She swept the towel around Ben's neck and tucked the ends into his collar.

“Now, let's see . . .”

She drove her fingers into his hair, the sensation against his scalp so unexpected that Ben stiffened in his surprise. But as she drew layers of his hair first through the comb and then between her fingers, he began to relax, the delicate snip of her scissors building to an even rhythm. Behind them, Malcolm Clements's record player turned on the floor of the living room, the smoky wail of a trumpet, the pluck and purr of a standing bass. Camille hummed along, her voice smooth and in perfect tune.

“I can't tell you how much I've loved having my music back,” she said. “I do hope I haven't been playing it too loud.”

She had been, actually. On several occasions. But Ben hadn't wanted to tell her so. The truth was, he liked the music.

“Not at all,” he lied. “I can barely hear it.”

“Well, you be sure and tell me, won't you,” Camille instructed firmly as a flurry of hairs landed on his hand. “I'm not used to all this quiet.”

“The island can be a quiet place,” Ben said.

“So I've noticed. No one says very much, do they?”

“Not really. Islanders don't like to let you know too much right away.”

Camille laughed. “Not like New Orleanians. If you've got five minutes, they'll give you their life story. Whether you want it or not.”

Ben smiled as more hairs rained down his cheek. “Sounds like a friendly place, New Orleans.”

“It is.”

“You must miss it.”

“Some days,” she said wistfully. “But I've brought my favorite parts of it with me. My daughters. My food. My music.”

She walked around to his front. Ben lowered his gaze, feeling the skin at his neck flush; but even if he avoided the sight of her breasts, he couldn't avoid the smell of her, the puffs of rosewater-scented air as she moved her arms above him, or the way the scarlet silk of her robe clung to her hip, and the embroidered flower with deep sapphire petals that moved when she did.

“Tell the truth,” she said. “Am I the first tenant to cut your hair?”

He grinned. “I'm fairly certain, yes.” He might have also admitted that she was the first tenant he'd ever helped to paint a room, the first he'd ever dined with, the first he'd ever rushed to the attic for extra quilts for when temperatures dropped.

“It can be hard, can't it?” Camille said, neatening the clipped hairs above his ears. “Raising our babies alone.”

Ben drew in a long breath, the gentle sweep of her fingertips along his lobe making it hard for him to answer, let alone think. “Sometimes,” he said. “I really don't think about it much anymore. It's been . . .” He paused, studying his hands. “It's been a long time.”

“Do you mind me asking how long?”

“Thirteen years.”

Camille blinked, surprised. “So Matthew was just a baby when she left?”

“Three.”

“Do you ever hear from her?”

“No.” Ben swallowed hard. “She passed away.”

Camille's hands ceased their motion. She drew the shears down to her side. “Oh, Benjamin . . .”

“It was a car accident outside of San Francisco when Matthew was eight.”

“I'm so sorry.”

“I might never have known if her sister hadn't sent word. We hadn't heard from Leslie for quite some time when it happened. Postcards, a few letters. Nothing of any real meaning. Just to alleviate some of her guilt, I suppose. But there was never any return address, never any phone number. She didn't want to be found. I came to accept that.”

Camille couldn't imagine it. What she wouldn't have done for her children. But not all women wanted to be mothers.

She made a few more snips, circling him for one last look, then drew off the towel and stepped back. “All finished.” She smiled at him. “You look very handsome.”

Ben stood, running a hand over the back of his neck, along his temple. He glanced around the room for a clock, but found none.

“I should let you get to bed,” he said. “I'm sure it's quite late.”

“Oh, please stay for some pralines,” Camille implored, gesturing to the counter. “They're so good when they're fresh.”

“Well . . . maybe just one.”

He watched Camille as she peeled several of the brown disks off the waxed paper and arranged them neatly on a small plate. The record ended, the needle thumping a moment against the smooth edge until the arm lifted and clicked itself back into place.

Regret rushed over him in the silence.

“I didn't mean to burden you with all that just now. We barely know each other.”

“It's not a burden,” Camille said gently. “I assure you I don't frighten easily. If you'd been through what I've been through . . .”

Her voice trailed off as she picked up the plate of pralines and carried it to the table. Ben watched her approach, concerned. It was the merest glimpse into her past, but it was enough.

He didn't know what to say. The desire to correct her secret misfortunes overwhelmed him.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“Don't be. It's all in the past.” She offered him the pralines. Ben took a bite of one and let out a small moan.

“They're wonderful,” he said. “What did you call them?”

“Pralines. They're sugar and cream, then butter, pecans, and vanilla at the very end.”

Ben took another bite, amazed at the texture, crumbly and coarse at first, then creamy-smooth.

Their eyes met. “We don't have anything like these here,” he said.

Camille smiled. “You do now.”

 

The house was still quiet when Josie woke early the next morning. She crept out of bed and tiptoed through the living room, past Camille sleeping soundly on the hideaway, and the covered plate of pralines on the table. She knew just which drawer in the kitchen held her mother's box of powders and oils, and she drew it out slowly.

The front door creaked only slightly when she pushed it open, and the threshold groaned just once when she dropped to her knees on top of it. The brick dust felt cool in her fingers, like the sand of the island's beaches, gritty and heavy. She was careful not to get any on her nightgown as she sprinkled the powder over the boards, spreading it from one end of the doorway to the other, until her fingers were stained a deep red.

Sitting back on her heels, she assessed her handiwork and felt a swell of relief ripple through her.

There
, she thought.
Just let Daddy try to follow us now
.

Twelve

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camille might never have reconsidered selling her spells if Jeannie Potts hadn't come into the Laundromat on an unseasonably warm day, wiping her eyes on the dingy sleeves of her Mariners sweatshirt. The thirty-six-year-old mother of three teenage boys had never said more than two words to Camille in all the weeks she'd come to stuff load after load of T-shirts and gym socks into the Laundromat's heavy-duty machines, but today it seemed the poor woman couldn't stop talking.

“I'm a good mother. Raised my boys right. Maybe didn't go to church all the time, sure, but does anybody? I blame his father mostly. Sorry son of a bitch.”

Camille nodded patiently, taking over folding the pile of gray briefs when Jeannie stopped to blow her nose.

“You come back and see me tomorrow, baby, you hear?” Camille said quietly. “Sometimes we just need a little help to put things right.”

Jeannie's puffy eyes blinked quickly, her mouth growing slack.

The very next morning, she returned to the Laundromat and eagerly took the paper bag that Camille handed across the counter when Mr. Lucas wasn't watching.

“It's redbrick dust,” she said. “You spread it across your front door every morning to keep bad energy from coming in. There's a peace candle in there too. I already dressed it for you, so all you have to do is burn it. When you do, think hard on your boy righting himself. Think real hard and don't let anything come between you and that wish. You understand?”

Jeannie Potts nodded, swallowed.

It would be another two weeks before Camille saw Jeannie again, coming out of the church's bean supper in the company of all three of her sons and smiling serenely.

By the end of that same week, almost a dozen people had come into the Laundromat looking to speak to her, wearing the same eager expression as Jeannie Potts had, their eyes growing just as round as soon as Camille began to speak.

 

Since she couldn't very well do spell work in the back of the Laundromat, Camille began taking customers into the apartment after work, offering rituals and selling potions and gris-gris bags from her dining room table. It was a far cry from her mother's old Voodoo shop, Camille often thought to herself as she gathered the powders and oils from her shallow kitchen cabinets, but it felt good to have her hand in her magic again, and the extra money didn't hurt either.

Dahlia, however, wasn't nearly as smitten with her mother's new career. Coming home from school to find neighbors slipping out of their apartment, most of whom barely made eye contact when they realized their hasty escape had been witnessed, made Dahlia want to jump out of her skin.

But the final straw came one raw, gray afternoon when she entered the foyer to meet Marsha Daley and Peggy Posner jaunting down the stairs from the apartment, snickering and giggling behind their hands and pushing past her out the front without a word.

Dahlia slammed the door behind them and charged up the stairs.

She found her mother in the kitchen, calmly putting away her jars, the smell of burning incense still thick in the air. Josie stood at the table, sweeping up loose powder and brushing it neatly onto a plate.

“What the hell were they doing here?” Dahlia demanded, swinging off her scarf.

Camille gave her daughter an even look through the kitchen doorway. “I'm sure you're not talking to
me
in that tone, Dahlia Rose.”

“You don't know who they are, Momma,” Dahlia said. “I do. They're little snots. You're so eager to spread all this stuff, you don't want to see that.”

“They were perfectly polite girls,” Camille said, her eyes narrowing as she reached for a bottle of anointing oil. “Certainly more polite than you're being right now.”

Dahlia looked away, contrite but not yet surrendering. She glared at Josie, who hadn't dared to meet her sister's blazing eyes. “And you!” Dahlia said. “You're the one who cared so much about fitting in here. You think this is going to help?”

“Dahlia Rose, that's enough,” Camille said firmly. “Your sister was only helping me. If this upsets you so much, then I can meet people in their own homes.”

“That's not it.” Dahlia shook her head, pleading, “Momma, these people don't care about us. Don't you get it? Right now those smug brats are walking down the street laughing at us. And I guarantee you they aren't the only ones. Nobody comes in here for your spells, Momma; they come in to see the freak show. They think we're a joke—and you're letting them!”

“I thought you didn't care what people thought of us,” taunted Josie, feeling bold at her mother's side.

“I don't care about you and me,” Dahlia said. “I care about Momma.”

“Girls.” Camille sighed, looking between them. “Dahlia, I can take care of myself, thank you very much. And I most certainly am not
letting
anyone think badly of me or my family, let alone giving them cause to laugh at us.”

“You're one to talk, Dahlia,” Josie said. “If anyone's making this family the laughingstock of the island it's
you
—sleeping your way through the junior class!”