Barbie and Ken, they are not. Lordy, Lordy.
“Charmaine!” her mother shrieked and ran toward her in a hobbled, short-stepped manner thanks to the stilettos, arms spread wide.
With a sigh, Charmaine went down the steps and into her mother’s hug. “Fleur,” she said—her mother insisted that she not be called Mother—“what are you doing here?”
“Tsk-tsk? Doan you be rude, sugah. Why am I here? To see my baby girl of course.” Her mother kissed her on each side of her face, the kind of kisses that didn’t involve skin touching.
Noticing Tante Lulu still standing on the porch, mouth agape, which was the usual reaction her mother garnered, her mother said, “Miz Rivard, how you doin’?” She blew air kisses her way.
“Jist dandy.” Tante Lulu threw air kisses back. Her mother failed to catch the sarcasm of the gesture.
“And I want y’all to meet my new friend. This here is Dirk Denney. Ain’t he a sweetie?”
He’s a sweetie all right. Oh, God. With a name like Dirk, he wouldn’t be a porno star, would he? I wouldn’t put it past her.
Dirk stepped forward. Well, actually, he swaggered forward. “Well, hello there, pretty ladies,” he said to Charmaine and Tante Lulu both. He spoke in a low—yep, Elvis—drawl.
Forget the porno business. Maybe he’s an Elvis impersonator.
“This here is Louise Rivard. Everyone calls her Tante Lulu. And this here gorgeous girl is my daughter Charmaine. You’d never know she’s only twenty, would you?”
All right, Mom’s been telling people she’s only thirty-six again. Hard to explain away an almost-thirty daughter when you’re thirty-six.
“Oh, yeah! She’s very well preserved,” Dirk remarked, giving her a way-too-personal head-to-toe survey. The push-up bra wasn’t wasted on him. That was for sure.
Tante Lulu snorted her opinion of the whole business. Then staring at Dirk’s T-shirt, she asked, “You a trucker?”
He glanced down at the logo and laughed. “Nope. I’m a personal trainer. Fleur hired me to get her in shape.”
Uh-oh! Charmaine and Tante Lulu both exclaimed at the same time, “For what?”
“My nude layout in STUD magazine.” She made the announcement in a ta-da fashion, fully expecting them to gush with enthusiasm. When they just gasped, she went on, “It’s gonna be a special issue called ‘Ageless Beauty.’ Women from various professions who have managed to maintain their sexy bodies. They’re gonna have Gina Romano, that sexy Hollywood actress from the eighties who was famous for those nude scenes; Brassy Bush, that double-jointed porno star; Mona Lewsky, that woman who had an affair with a senator; and there’s even gonna be a former Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics, but I forget her name. And me, I’ll represent the stripper profession.” She beamed at all of them.
After a prolonged silence, Tante Lulu said, “Thass jist peachy.”
Charmaine was horrified. She was almost thirty, no matter what her mother proclaimed, not a little girl of ten, but the woman still managed to find a way to humiliate her. Would it never end? Charmaine could just imagine the snickers she would hear behind her back. The licentious looks from men who would uncover her with their eyes wondering if she was the same as her mother. The tasteless jokes. “When’s this photo shoot going to take place?”
“Two weeks, but there’s a problem.”
“Cellulite,” Dirk pronounced gravely, as if he’d just announced that Fleur had cancer. “Her butt and thighs are riddled with it. Looks like friggin’ cottage cheese.”
“And you came here . . . why?” Charmaine asked, uncaring how rude she sounded.
“To jog. And ride horses. And stuff. I need a private place to work out.” Her mother had never worked out a day in her life. In fact, the most physical exercise her mother had ever engaged in involved bumps and grinds . . . or pounding a mattress under some man’s body.
“You came to the Triple L Ranch to get rid of your cottage cheese . . . uh, cellulite? In two weeks?”
Her mother nodded enthusiastically.
“I do a great massage for pounding out those ripples,” Dirk boasted.
“And I bought about two hundred dollars worth of cellulite removal cream,” her mother added.
“Mebbe I’ll work out with you,” Tante Lulu mused, a forefinger pressed thoughtfully to her lips. “I’ve been noticin’ a little cellulite on my hiney of late. Truth to tell, my buns looks like they have about a thousand dimples. Like golf balls.”
That is not a picture I need in my mind. And I’ve got news for you, Auntie. You lost your hiney about twenty years ago. Charmaine began to laugh hysterically. Turns out the Triple L was being turned into a spa of sorts, no matter what Rusty wanted. She couldn’t wait to tell him.
Misery, Part II . . .
Charmaine tracked Rusty down that afternoon, despite his best efforts to avoid her. It wasn’t that she wanted to have anything to do with the stubborn mule, but she had some things to tell him that couldn’t wait.
She was still wearing her push-up bra, but that was just because she’d forgotten to take it off. At least consciously. She’d already dropped her plan to torture him with her sexual appeal. He probably wouldn’t notice her sexual appeal, anyhow, in the haze of anger he’d chosen to cloak himself in.
She walked to the back of the barn, where Clarence had told her she would find him. He had a horse’s hoof resting against his thigh and was scraping some yucky stuff out with a metal tool . . . probably poop or dried mud. Yeech!
The second he raised his head and watched her approach, she realized her mistake. He for damn sure did notice her sexual appeal, as evidenced by his gaze instantly riveted on her chest. She smiled inwardly with pathetic satisfaction and said, “I need to talk to you, Rusty.”
“Go away,” he said. “I warned you before. Stay . . . away . . . from . . . me.”
Charmaine gave Rusty a closer study then. He looked awful. His eyes were bloodshot. There were dark circles under his eyes. Day-old whiskers darkened his cheeks and chin.
“You look awful,” she blurted out.
“Thanks. You, on the other hand, look sensational. What’s with the push-up action?”
For sure, I got his attention. “Were you out on a bender last night?”
“Nope. Should have been, though, ’cause I couldn’t sleep a wink.”
Oh, Rusty. Why was it that a guy could be the biggest creep in the world, but tell a gal that she caused him to lose sleep, and her heart melted with sympathy? Well, she couldn’t let him distract her from her mission. “I need to tell you a few things.”
He turned his back on her and continued to work on the horse’s hoof.
“My mother has come for a visit. I just thought you should know.”
“Who else would travel in an aluminum foil box on wheels, except your ditzy mother?”
Okay, so he already knows Fleur is here. Is that any reason to be such a jerk? Yeah, I consider my mother a ditz, too, but it sounds different when he says it. Probably he puts me in the same class.
“She brought her boyfriend with her. Dirk Denney.”
That got his attention. He straightened, then turned slowly to look at her, carefully keeping his eye contact above her neck. “Dirk? Please don’t tell me—”
“No, he’s not an X-rated actor. He’s a personal trainer.”
“And you’re telling me all this . . . why?”
“Because I don’t want you to think it’s part of my plan.”
He put his tool down on a bench, then washed his hands in a bucket of water, drying them on his pant legs. Leaning against a support beam, he asked real soft, “What plan would that be?”
He was stubborn as a cross-eyed mule. He looked hung-over from lack of sleep. He wore nothing spectacular . . . just a plain black T-shirt, faded jeans and scuffed boots. But, mercy, he was absolutely gorgeous. A devastatingly fine specimen of manhood. Temptation pure and simple.
It took her several seconds to recall his question. “No pl
an. I mean, you might think I have a plan, but I don’t. I just made a business proposal to you, but it wasn’t a plan.” Even to Charmaine, that sounded weird.
“Aaaah, so we’re back to the dude ranch nonsense.”
“It is not nonsense.” Charmaine inhaled and exhaled several times to dampen her temper. She hadn’t come here to argue with the lout.
She noticed that Rusty, despite his best intentions, was watching intently as she inhaled and exhaled.
Good!
But there was a look of disgust on his face.
Not good!
Was he disgusted with her or with himself?
Whatever.
“Look, let me tell you all of it. Then I’ll be out of your way. My mother is doing a nude pictorial for some magazine about overaged sex goddesses. Problem is, she has cellulite, and her boyfriend is going to help her get rid of it. In two weeks. Here at the ranch, or till I kick her out . . . or you kick her out. Plus, Tante Lulu thinks she has cellulite, too.”
His jaw dropped with shock.
“I was as shocked as you are.”
“That Tante Lulu has cellulite?”
“Of course not. I’m talking about Fleur. Believe me, I didn’t invite her. Tante Lulu did. For Thanksgiving. But you can’t really blame her. She didn’t know what my mother was up to. The minute my mother told me all this, I knew . . . I just knew . . . you would think it was part of some plan of mine to turn this into a dude ranch/health spa/exercise club.”
At the end of her rambling explanation, Rusty’s jaw still hung open with shock.
“Don’t worry, though. I won’t let her stay two weeks.”
“I hope the hell not,” he said, finally snapping out of his trance.
“You don’t have to yell.” Although I would yell in your circumstance.
“Mon Dieu, Charmaine, how many people has the old lady invited here?”
“I have no idea,” Charmaine murmured. A lot.
“What?” he barked.
“I don’t know for sure. The only other additions to what you already know are Jimmy’s dad, but I doubt he can come since Jimmy told me he’s in Brazil right now on his job, and maybe your mother.”
“WHAT?”
I thought I’d be able to slip that last one in. Guess not. “Settle down. I don’t think she actually called her. She knows how upset you are over the letter business and stuff.”
“Settle down? Upset?” he sputtered. “You and Tante Lulu have got to stop interfering in my life. I mean it. Just know that, if my mother shows up here, I will be leaving. Because if I stay, in the mood I’m in, I may very well kill her. Did I make myself clear?”
As a Bayou Black sky on a cloudless day. “Anyhow, I just thought you ought to know about my mother.”
Tears welled in her eyes, and she feared they would overflow. She couldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing that. One more humiliation in a week of humiliations! It had taken her almost ten years to build up a good business reputation and down the tubes it went with one bad turn to a loan shark. Humiliating. She’d tried four times to hold a marriage together and failed. Humiliating. Her mother was a stripper and apparently would continue to strip, one way or another, till she dropped dead. Humiliating. Rusty had shown with words and actions that he didn’t want her anywhere near him. Humiliating. Turning quickly, she started to walk away, while her dignity was still intact.
He grabbed her upper arm, pulling her to a halt. “You’re crying,” he accused her. “And you hardly ever cry.”
“I am not crying,” she said, even as a big fat tear slid down her face.
He used the thumb of his other hand to wipe it away, still holding on to her arm to prevent her escape. “Don’t think you can sway me with tears.”
Hmmm. I didn’t think of that. “Who’s trying, you big baboon?”
“Why are you crying?” the big baboon asked.
“Not over you, that’s for sure.”
“It never occurred to me that you would cry over me.”
“And why is that?” she asked contrarily. Clueless . . . the man is clueless. I cried a river over you, baby. “Do you think you’re the only one who was hurt over our breakup? Do you think you can holler at me, and my feelings won’t get hurt? Do you think I don’t feel bad that you feel bad? Do you ever even goddam think?”
“Huh?” He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. It felt as if she had. “The breakup was ten years ago. And you left me.”
I am so sick of that same old song. “Let me go, Rusty. I’m thinking about driving back to Houma tonight. I’m tired of this whole stinkin’ mess.”
“What stinkin’ mess?” When she flashed him an “Are you for real?” glower, he elaborated, “Are you talking about the loan shark mess . . . the no-divorce mess . . . the I-lied-to-my-husband-but-so-what mess . . . the Thanksgiving feast mess . . . or your mother mess?”
What a mess! “All of the above. And add to it the four failed marriages mess, the price of cattle mess, the my-husband-hates-me mess.”
He cocked his head to the side. “You said you weren’t crying over me. At least one or two of those messes involves me. And no way are you skedaddling off to Houma, babe. Me, I am not facing all these nutcake relatives of yours alone.”
Okay, you have a point there. “I’ll stay till after Thanksgiving then.”
“And the loan shark?”
Don’t remind me. “I don’t freakin’ care. Frankly, I’d rather face the Mafia thugs than . . .” She let her words trail off.
“Than what? Me?”
That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question. “Just forget about it.”
“I don’t hate you.”
It was her turn to say, “Huh?”
“When you were listing all your woes, one of them you named was my-husband-hates-me. Well, I don’t.”
The floodgate let loose then. Tears streamed out of her eyes without control.
“Now what did I do to turn on your faucets?” he asked on a groan, pulling her into his embrace. “You’re crying because I don’t hate you? Talk about! I can’t win for losing, babe.”
“You’re driving me crazy,” she wailed, and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her face against the curve of his neck. He smelled of horse and sweat and man. Eau de Raoul. They ought to bottle him.
“No, no, no. You are driving me crazy.” This was the point where he should be shoving her away. This was the point where they should both come to their senses. This was the point they kept coming back to, over and over and over . . . then stopping.
But neither of them wanted to break the embrace. And that was all it was. A man comforting a woman in distress. With soft kisses on her hair. Soft murmurs of “Shhh. Don’t cry, you.” Soft strokes of hard hands running from her shoulders to her waist, over and over. They meant nothing.
She sighed. “Why does everything have to be so difficult for us?”
“Got me, babe. Know this: I would crawl over broken glass for you, if needed, but I won’t—I can’t—exist in the chaos that surrounds you.”
“I can’t help the people and things around me. It’s who I am.”
“I know that.” He kissed her hair again, a little harder for emphasis. “And I’m not saying it’s a bad thing for you. It is a bad thing for me . . . at least at this point in my life. I have enough turmoil to handle. My father died while I was in prison, and I’m just now starting to grieve over him, especially after reading those letters. I suspect they’ll have to exhume my father’s body for an autopsy. Not a pleasant prospect, that. Getting my conviction reversed is going to be messy, to say the least. Dieu only knows how long it will take to get my vet license back and the ranch back into shape. Stress City, that’s me right now.”
“And I just add to the stress by suggesting you turn the place into a dude ranch?”
“You got it.”
“And you won’t even consider that my proposal has merit?”
“Charmaine . . .” he caut
ioned. “Living with you is like living on a roller coaster.”
“Hey, there are a lot of ups and downs with you, too. One minute you’re breathing-smoke mad at me, and the next you’re looking at me like a little boy with his nose pressed to the window of the candy store.”
“Mais oui!” he said and she heard the smile in his voice. “But then your candy, she is mighty sweet.”
She pushed away from his embrace but held on to his hands. They were arms length away from each other now. “Okay, I’ll back off then. What do you want me to do?”
“What I want and what I consider best are two different things.” His dark Cajun eyes were hot and needy as he spoke. She knew what he wanted without the words being spoken. “Take your half of the bond money and go home. Pay off the loan shark. Be happy.”
There were so many mistaken notions in his words that Charmaine didn’t know where to begin. When did home start to feel like the ranch instead of her cottage on Bayou Black? When did not paying off the loan shark lickety-split stop scaring the daylights out of her? When would she ever be happy again if he wasn’t around? Foolish as it might be, she was about to tell him just that, but someone entered the barn behind her.
“Yoohoo,” the feminine voice yelled. “Charmaine? You in there?”
It was Tante Lulu.
She let loose of Rusty’s hands.
He gave them an extra squeeze before he let go.
Standing next to him, they waited for the old lady to approach.
She’d changed from her shopping outfit to house slippers and a loose, flowered housedress—sort of a muumuu-type garment. Her red curls were confined under a scarf. This attire could represent either a frenzy of cleaning or a frenzy of cooking. Probably the latter.
Huffing for breath after her trek from the house, Tante Lulu said, “Charmaine, you gots to get yer be-hind back to the house. Yer mother wants you to blow-dry her. She and her boyfriend jist used up all the hot water takin’ a shower . . . together, I think. Turns out Dirk the Jerk won’t be eatin’ our turkey and other vittles tomorrow. He doan eat nothin’ but organic crap. ’Scuse my language, Rusty, but sometimes a lady’s jist got to use dirty words to express herself. Anyways, Dirk brought his blender into the kitchen and he’s whippin’ up carrots and celery fer his own dinner. Talk about! And Fleur wants ta know if I can make her up a special diet version of the leftover jambalaya we’re havin’ tonight. I tol’ her, ‘Yeah, right. When old strippers shimmy through the pearly gates, thass when I’m gonna make diet jambalaya.’ Then she said a dirty word to me. Suck is a dirty word, ain’t it?”