"Do you hear that, you worthless loser?" Charmaine snarled. "That's your fans about to storm the stage."
"I'll be there as soon as I can."
"Why can't you come now?"
Lance had had enough of the badgering. "If you must know, I'm blow drying Brenda's boobs."
There was a stunned silence, followed by laughter.
"And Tante Lulu thought you needed love advice!"
*******
The things a guy will do for love...
Brenda, now stone cold sober, sat sipping black coffee at a table near the stage. Her daughter Patti and the two LeDeux girls sat with her. The other chairs at their table were empty for the moment because the LeDeuxs were about to present their Cajun Bad Boys show.
She was counting the minutes till she could escape back to her hotel room and hide her head under a pillow, pretending she hadn't made the biggest fool of herself. Five years of hiding her feelings down the drain!
Lance was no where to be seen. Good thing, too. She would probably wallop him a good one for taking advantage of her.
No, that wasn't true. She was the one who'd gotten herself drunk and put the moves on him. Her face heated up at the image of the two of them on the chaise. And her climaxing, while he did not. Pathetic, that's what she was.
Let's face it, she told herself, I still love the man. Never stopped. The booze just loosened my will to hide it.
"It's starting, Mommy." Patti reached over and squeezed her hand. Her daughter sensed her inner turmoil. Not for the first time, she saw that her little girl was way too mature for her age.
The canned music that had been playing stopped, and Tante Lulu wobbled out to center stage and pulled the microphone down to meet her height. "First off, lemme thank y'all fer comin' ta support the homeless hereabouts. Since Hurricane Katrina...well, y'all know how bad off some folks are. Ta show our thanks, we gots some top notch entertainment fer ya."
The band began to play softly at first while Tante Lulu went on, "Ever'one knows that love is what makes the world go 'round, and iffen ya doan know that, then yer jist dumbclucks."
A titter of laughter went through the crowd. Tante Lulu was known to most of the people here.
"Well, thass what we're here ta celebrate tonight. Love. And Cajuns, of course."
Tante Lulu stepped back, the lights dimmed, except for a spotlight, the music got louder, recognizable now as that old Supremes song "Stop! In the Name of Love." Dancing out in a snakelike fashion were Charmaine, the beauty salon owner; Sylvie LeDeux, a chemist and Luc's wife; Rachel LeDeux, a Feng Shui decorator and Remy's wife; and Valerie LeDeux, a lawyer and wife to René, an environmentalist, teacher, musician and the biggest rascal in the world. They wore very short spandex dresses in bright colors with matching stiletto heels. They sang. They danced. They laughed and got the audience laughing, too. In fact, the audience stood, clapping and singing along when Tante Lulu joined the girls in a rousing rendition of Aretha Franklin's "R. E. S. P. E. C. T."
"Hey, ladies," a male voice came through the speakers, overriding the tail end of their song. "That respect goes both ways." It sounded like the slow Southern drawl of René, but it could have been any one of the Cajun gentlemen.
"Oh, yeah?" Charmaine said, putting her hands on her hips. The other ladies did the same.
"Do ya'll think ya could do better?" Tante Lulu chirped in.
"Mais, oui, chère."
The ladies stepped to the side and the band launched into a rowdy version of the Village People's "Macho Man," except they were singing different lyrics with the words changed to "Cajun Man." They shimmied out onto the stage, strutting, winking at the crowd, letting out an occasional Rebel yell, singing and dancing in the expert, enthusiastic way only Cajun men could. And their attire! Luc in a day-old beard wore a business suit, sans shirt and looked sexier than if he wore nothing at all. Remy wore a bomber jacket, Aviator sunglasses and also had no shirt on. René, the most outrageous, wore a vest and no shirt, carried a frottir, a Cajun washboard instrument, and unbuttoned jeans which rode low on his hips. His wife, the lawyer, gaped at his attire. Rusty Lanier, Charmaine's husband, clearly unhappy to be there, wore his usual cowboy attire...hat, boots with spurs, tight jeans and no shirt. He looked at Charmaine as if he'd like to kill her; she looked as if she'd like to something entirely different to him. Last came the youngest LeDeux, John or TeeJohn. He was a cop, with unbuttoned shirt, cop hat and billy club. The most uninhibited of the bunch, he was the best dancer, with sexy moves, and he teased the crowd by continually shrugging his shirt off his shoulders like a stripper.
There were others, as well. Some athletes, a fire fighter and the most godawful Richard Simmons impersonator.
After their rendition of "Cajun Man" they sequed into their version of "In the Navy," except of course they made it "In the Bayou." Some of the lyrics were more than suggestive.
At one point, René pulled his resisting wife back onto center stage with him and made her dance with him, a sensual kind of dirty dance where he spooned her from behind. She was embarrassed, at first, but then got into the dance, too. They were good together.
Brenda was really enjoying herself, and so was everyone else. No wonder people paid a hundred dollars for this charity event. The show was worth that and much more.
Her heart constricted, though, to see these Cajun men and their wives together. They clearly loved each other, and had fun together. Mismatched, and still able to keep their marriages together.
Unlike her and Lance.
Which made her wonder...where was he? After all, this event was supposed to be about him.
But then...oh, my goodness!...then she found out exactly where he was.
"VAROOM! VAROOM! VAROOM!" The sound of a loud racing motor was heard before the car moved onto the stage, and everyone moved to the side. It was the car Lance had driven in his first Indy win eight years ago.
The crowd went wild. Standing, clapping, screaming out his name even before Lance flipped the switch which caused the roof to rise. Then he stepped out.
He wore black slacks, low heeled boots, his NASCAR jacket with all the sponsor badges, as well as some of his winning commemoratives. His face was lowered and hidden by dark sunglasses and a NASCAR baseball cap.
But then the music started to play again...the "Macho Man" melody, but now the lyrics were "NASCAR Man." He raised his head, took off his sunglasses and seemed to look right at her. He was unsmiling and serious. Little alarm bells began to go off in her head. She'd heard stories about some of these Cajun Bad Boy events, which she'd disregarded...till now. Something about their whole purpose being some Tante Lulu matchmaking exercise.
"This is for you, babe." He pointed a finger her way, and a spotlight was suddenly on her. "But if I'm gonna make a fool of myself, you are, too." Two security men appeared at her side. Then, mimicking the NASCAR phrase, "Gentlemen, start your engines," he said, "Gentlemen, start her engine."
With great fanfare, she was escorted to the stage, where Lance put an arm around her shoulder and tucked her into his side. She muttered under her breath, "I'm gonna kill you." To which he replied, also in an undertone, "You've been killing me for the past five years. What else is new?"
"Since this whole show tonight is about love, according to Tante Lulu, let me tell you a little story," Lance said into the mike. "I have loved this woman here," he kissed the top of her head, "for thirty years. How is that possible, you ask, since I'm thirty-five? Well, Brendie and I have known each other since we were practically toddlers. I think I fell in love with her the day her diaper drooped and I got my first gander at her very fine behind."
She snorted her opinion, and leaned into the microphone. "That is a lie. He fell in love with me when I let him win our first tricycle race."
He squeezed her shoulders. "That, too."
"Then how come you're divorced?" a male in the back of the room shouted out.
"Good question. You want to take that one, or should I, Brendie?"<
br />
"Oh, by all means, you take it, Lancie. This is your show." Then she put her face in her free hand, wondering how to extricate herself from this situation.
"I screwed up. For a blip of a second, I forgot what was important. And I've been trying every since then to make it up. I love her, never stopped." He tipped her chin up so she would look at him and said in a softer voice, "I love you."
"How 'bout you, Brenda. Do you love him?" It was someone behind them on the stage asking that question. Possibly Charmaine.
Brenda was going to refuse to answer that question, but then she noticed Patti staring up at her with such hope in her eyes. "I never stopped loving him,
but--" She put up a halting hand before anyone got the wrong impression, "I've learned that love is not enough."
"Says who?" a woman in audience yelled out.
"Okay, baby, here's the deal," Lance said, turning her with a hand on each shoulder so she faced him. "I can get down on one knee and ask you to marry me, again, or--" He waggled his eyebrows at her.
"Or..." He unzipped his jacket down, then back up again, letting her know he wore nothing under the jacket.
"Or what?"
"Or this." He motioned to the back of the stage, and a chair was brought up. He pushed her down in the chair, gave a signal for the music to begin again, then began to dance for her. A slow, seductive, teasing strip tease that began with the removal of his jacket, then the unbuckling and tossing of his belt, the undoing of the button at his waist and the beginning of an unzip. She saw bare skin behind the zipper.
She stood suddenly, unable to let this go any farther. Lance didn't like to dance, and he didn't do it very well. He hated even more humbling himself publicly. The fact that he was doing it told her something important. She wasn't sure what, but she couldn't let him continue.
Taking the microphone from him, she told the crowd, "Stay tuned, folks. Lance and I have got to go have a little chat." She winked at them meaningfully. "Maybe I have an early Christmas gift for him."
Then she took Lance's hand and said in a low voice, "Zip up, soldier. What I have to say requires total concentration, and I can't do it with your navel blinking at me."
He laughed and followed her willingly.
Behind them, the band began to play and the entertainment continued, without them.
Neither of them said anything. He was probably afraid of what she would say.
She could tell that he was surprised when she took him to the same employees lounge where they had been before.
And he was even more surprised when she locked the door.
*****
The miracle was...
Lance stood with his back against the door, silent. This was it, he knew it was. Brenda was about to ring the death knell on their marriage. There was no hope.
But, whoa, Brenda was reaching behind to unzip her dress. When she turned, her dress slid down to the floor at her feet in a puddle of red silk. She wore only panty hose and red high heels. And the diamond heart pendant he'd given her on their wedding night light years ago. Leaning forward, giving him a spectacular view of her hanging breasts, she removed her panty hose. Then she put the high heels back on again.
"Brendie, what are you doing?" It was amazing he could even ask the question with the erotic buzz ringing in his ears, his heart racing like a souped up engine, and his cylinder about to take off.
"Finishing what you started," she said.
At first he thought she meant that she wanted to finish making love, but then she pulled a hard backed chair to the middle of the floor, sat down and crossed her legs. "Well, big boy, show me what you can do." With a wave of her hand she indicated his half-unzipped pants.
"You know I can't dance worth spit."
"Oh, I think you were doing very well."
"Yeah?" He grinned and listened for the beat of the music they could hear in the distant banquet room. He did in fact dance for her, stripping one item of clothing at a time. When he was as naked as she was, and she'd made various remarks about his anatomy, all complimentary, he was about to pull her to her feet, but instead, he went down on one knee, and said, "Brenda, will you marry me, again?" He didn't want this to be just about sex.
"Of course."
"Whaaaat? What do you mean, of course?"
"Just that, honey."
He pulled her up and put his arms around her. Once he had kissed her till she was as breathless as he was, he asked, "When did you decide this?"
"Probably five years ago, when I left, but I had to give you time--"
"Give me time?" he barked. "More like give you time to punish me."
"Exactly."
"But when did you decide I'd been punished enough?"
"At the A & P. When I discovered that you'd bought all the tabloids."
"You liked that, huh?"
She nodded. "I did."
After they made love...really made love...on the chaise, twice, he cuddled her against him, and asked, "When can we get remarried?"
"I was thinking Christmas Eve. It's the only present Patti has been asking for."
"Sounds good to me."
As they dressed and prepared to go out to tell Patti and the others their news, Lance couldn't help but ponder how hopeless he'd felt these past weeks...till he'd gone to Tante Lulu for help. And he wondered if maybe, just maybe, the old lady did know something the rest of them didn't.
As they left the room, hand in hand, he felt something in his jacket pocket press against his side. He knew exactly what it was. The St. Jude statue Tante Lulu had given him.
He began to ask Brenda, "Do you believe in--"
"--St. Jude?" she finished for him. "I was just thinking the same thing."
In that instant, they both realized that they'd experienced their own form of Christmas miracle.
"I love you, Brendie."
"I love you, Lance."
And the voice in both their heads said, "Another job done!" Or maybe it was "Ho, ho, ho!"
*****
Sandra Hill, Jinx Xmas
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