“It could be really romantic,” Charmaine added.
“Or a disaster,” Sylvie countered. Sylvie always was the cautious one.
Charmaine, on the other hand, never learned the word cautious. “Why not make tentative plans, don’t tell anyone but us, and then play it by ear the day of the event?”
“Okey-dokey,” Tante Lulu said, rubbing her hands together with enthusiasm. It was always a bad sign when Tante Lulu said, “Okey-dokey”.
“What about the banns?” Sylvie inquired, smiling as if she’d just discovered a roadblock for the runaway truck that was Tante Lulu. “You’ll never get a priest to marry them without calling the vows in church ahead of time.”
“Hah! I got connections at Our Lady of the Bayou Church, too.” She had been a member there her entire life. But it was one thing to bend the civil law with a forged marriage certificate and quite another to bend Church law. That was kind of like defying God.
He’s all for it, Tante Lulu swore a voice in her head said. Probably St. Jude.
“Rings?” Rachel threw that in, but not with much hope.
“Thass the best part. I still have my grandma’s and grandpa’s rings. They can use those.” Tante Lulu seemed to have an answer for everything.
“Your birthday bash is supposed to be a casual affair, auntie. How are we going to get Val and Rene to come in wedding attire?” Charmaine propped a forefinger under her chin as she pondered the problem.
“I’ll prod Val to spiffy up for the day ‘cause of all the pictures we’ll be taking, but iffen she doan...”
Tante Lulu shrugged. “Then we has us a casual weddin’.” She cocked her head as if a sudden thought occurred to her. “Mebbe Richard Simmons could be Rene’s best man iffen he comes.”
“Tante Lulu, I already told you that there isn’t a chance in hell that Richard Simmons will be there,”
Charmaine said.
“You never know. Val knows ‘im. Betcha she’ll talk him into comin’.”
“Val doesn’t exactly know...” Charmaine started to say and then gave up.
“Will you invite Val’s mother and her aunts?” Rachel asked.
Tante Lulu groaned. “Do we hafta?” Then she smiled widely. “Simone Breaux would have a diarrhea fit.”
“This will never work,” Sylvie concluded. “There are just too many complications that could screw it up.”
“It’ll work,” Tante Lulu assured them all. “I’m gonna say a novena to St. Jude. He’ll make it happen.”
It appeared that the four of them were actually going to be in cahoots to plan a surprise wedding for Val and Rene. Each of them put a right hand on the middle of the table and did a communal hand squeeze.
“Oh, God! Luc will kill me,” Sylvie said.
“Remy will say we’ve gone off the deep end,” Rachel added.
“Rusty won’t care,” Charmaine said with a laugh. “He’ll probably say I’ve gone off the deep end so many times, I’ve become a world-class swimmer.”
Tante Lulu clapped her hands together to get their attention, as if she didn’t already have that. “Here’s the plan...”
Shades of Joan Crawford
“I hope you’re not planning on marrying that... that swamp agitator.”
Simone Breaux practically spat the words out to Valerie as they sat at a Houma restaurant. Val had agreed to have dinner with her mother before heading to New York with Justin to present their proposal to Amos Anderson. She’d foolishly thought she could mend some fences.
“Where did that idea come from, Mother?”
“It’s no secret that you’ve been hanging around with that riff-raff.”
“Who exactly are you calling riff-raff?”
“Rene, the LeDeux clan, that whole low-down Cajun bunch.”
“Mother! One of our ancestors was Cajun. Breaux is a Cajun name. Are we low-down?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We only have a smidgeon of Cajun blood in our veins.” Simone breathed in and out several times as if to calm herself. Her mother’s motto had always been: never show emotions in public.
“I spoke hastily,” she conceded. “There are many good Cajun people. Of course there are. But not the LeDeuxs.”
“Your niece Sylvie, my cousin, is married to a LeDeux,” Valerie argued.
“And what a mistake that was! She crawled right down to their level.”
It was no use arguing with her.
“What are your career plans?” her mother asked, switching the subject.
“I’m leaving tomorrow for New York to present a proposal to a television executive for a bayou documentary. After that, I’m not sure. I could go back to Trial TV if I want. I just don’t know yet.”
“That documentary. Pfff! Do you have any concern for how it will affect me? Do you even care? I’m about to start phase two of the Bayou Paradise development. I have a great deal of money invested that could go down the drain if those environmental crazies start up again.”
“Mother, this documentary isn’t about you, or any one problem . . . like overdevelopment,” she explained tiredly. “It’s about the whole ecosystem and what man has done to change it for the worse.”
“Where are you staying?” Her mother was a master at changing the subject when the conversation wasn’t going in the direction she wanted.
“On Remy LeDeux’s houseboat.”
“Alone?”
She refused to answer.
“How do you think that looks? People will talk.”
She raised her chin haughtily in the manner her mother had taught her so well.
“You are just like your father. Stubborn to a fault.”
Valerie rolled her eyes. The same old song her mother had been singing for years. “Sometimes I wonder how my... our lives would have been different if he had stayed.”
“Well, he didn’t stay. He dumped the both of us and went off to Paris where he’s lived ever since. Got himself a new chippie of a wife, probably some floozie, and he probably had other children. He didn’t care, he doesn’t care, and he never will care. It’s about time you stopped wallowing in self-pity over that man.”
Her mother’s words cut deep, but she refused to let her see her pain. That would just give her mother another weapon to use against her.
“I loved him, Mother. I still love him. He’s my daddy.”
“Then you’re the fool.”
Things aren’t always as they appear
Tante Lulu cornered Val as she was leaving the restaurant.
Her mother had already left for another appointment, and she’d stayed to pay the bill. Tante Lulu, wearing a Hawaiian-style floral muumuu and flip-flops, was on her way to Charmaine’s beauty spa for an after-hours hair treatment.
“Whass the matter, honey?” Tante Lulu asked. “I kin see yer upset.”
“Just the usual reaction to my mother. She always manages to rattle my chain.”
Valerie sank down on a street bench. She was five-foot-eight and the old lady couldn’t be more than five-foot-nothing. It was awkward talking down to her.
“What was it this time?”
“My father.” She sighed, wondering why she bothered to explain.
“What about Henri?”
Valerie raised a brow at Tante Lulu’s use of his given name.
“He was about the age of Rene’s mama, bless her soul. I knew ‘im.”
“Tell me about him.”
“Gentle. Thass the first word what comes to mind. He din’t have a mean bone in his body, even as a young’un. He liked books. Seems to me he studied lit-ra-chur at the university. Wanted to be a poet or teacher or sumpin’, but yer mother wanted ‘im to take over the family real estate concerns. They was allus fightin’ and that was one thing yer father hated—harsh words.” Tante Lulu paused and thought a moment.
“One thing is fer certain, he loved you dearly.”
Tears immediately smarted her eyes. “How can you say that? He abandoned me.”
“He never
did! Fer shame, sayin’ such a thing!”
“It’s the truth. My mother was not always nice. She—”
Tante Lulu patted her arm. “Rene tol’ me ‘bout the closets. She’s a witch, fer sure, to do that to a little girl. But the worst thing, iffen you ask me, was keepin’ you from yer dad.”
Shivers went up Valerie’s spine, and the fine hairs stood out on the back of her neck. She turned fully on the bench to look at the old lady. “What do you mean?”
“Well, there was that big custody fight. Whoo-ee! Ever’one was talkin’ ‘bout it at the time.”
Valerie’s heart began to race. “What custody fight?”
Tante Lulu tilted her head in question. “Yer daddy wanted to take you with him, but yer mother wouldn’t ‘low that, no way. Then he went to court to get part custody... whatever they call it.”
“Joint custody?”
“Yep. Thass it. But yer mother wouldn’t stand fer that, either. Said that iffen he wanted a divorce, he had to leave you fer good.”
“So he chose his freedom over me?”
“I’m sure he kept in touch with you. I’m sure he was hopin’ you’d contact him once you were of age.”
“Not once.”
Tante Lulu put a fist under her chin and pondered what she’d been told. “This is what I’m thinkin’. If no one tol’ you ‘bout the custody thingamajig, how do you know that he never tried to contact you over the years? He loved you, chile. Thass a fact.”
Sudden hope rushed through Valerie, and tears spilled over her eyes and down her cheeks. She leaned over and kissed the old lady soundly on the cheek. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“I doan need no thanks. Jist make sure you come to my birthday party. Yer gonna be a... special guest.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Jist be there. And if Richard Simmons happens to come with you, even better.”
Atthe end of a long day, a guy just wants to . . .
By the time Rene arrived at his brother’s houseboat that night, he felt as if he’d been wading in knee-deep shit all day, and what he needed most was a hot shower to wash it all away.
That shit had come in the form of, first, a meeting with some oil company executives along with his father, who had tossed out his usual threats and recriminations. “You always were a rotten kid. No wonder you turned into such a troublemaker.” The other guys were more subtle. “Why stir up questions again? It’s not going to do any good in the long run. And, besides, it could be to your advantage, financially, to step back from this ridiculous project.” That last was meant as a bribe, of course.
“Did you guys have anything to do with the explosion on J.B. and Maddie’s boat?” he’d asked point-blank. They’d all denied any involvement, of course, but his father’s face had turned redder than its usual alcoholic hue.
“How about my mortgage being called in at the bank, and the threatening phone calls?” More denials, though those deeds might have come from other parties.
The second load of crap came from a group calling itself the Southern Louisiana Development Corporation, a group comprised of Realtors, bankers, landowners, and various others who stood to profit from overuse of the dwindling land resources. Simone Breaux was among the group, and the expression on her face boded ill for him.
Rene decided it was this bunch that had leaned on his lending bank. Simone probably had a personal hand in the dirty tricks.
The gist of that meeting was that he and Bayou Unite and the planned documentary were going to deprive honest working people in Southern Louisiana of much-needed jobs. And he better be prepared for the backlash once that happened.
Simone Breaux had stayed behind and issued her own threat. “Stay away from my daughter, or be prepared for the consequences. You and your whole low-down family will suffer, believe you me.”
He had stood and towered over the woman, barely managing to control his temper. “Lady, you lost the right to have any say in your daughter’s life the first time you locked her in a closet.”
“Wh... wh... what do you mean?” she had sputtered, looking right and left to make sure no one was listening.
“You know what I mean. Everyone else is gonna know if you dare to interfere in Val’s life again. Do you get my meaning?”
She’d scurried off like the rat she was.
On and on his crap-laden day had gone—police continuing the investigation into the bombing, J.B. and Mad-die riding his tail about the documentary, the broker selling his town house, another broker wanting him to look at a place on Bayou Black—on and on and on, culminating with the strangest visit from his great-aunt.
“I jist wanna make sure yer comin’ to my birthday bash.”
“Of course I am. But it’s not till next month.”
“Jist makin’ sure. Oh, and by the way, make sure you dress up real nice. Mebbe even wear a tuxedo.”
“Huh? I thought this was supposed to be a casual event.”
“It is, but I want you to look ‘specially nice.”
“Why?”
“Stop askin’ why. Jist do it,” she’d snapped.
“Well, I am not wearing a tuxedo.”
She threw her hands up in surrender. “It’s yer wed— funeral.”
But now his day was over. He parked his Jeep near the stream and headed toward the houseboat. He saw lights on in the log home Remy and Rachel had recently built up on the hill; it was a big house for the two of them, but they were about to adopt two nine-year-old boys, Evan and Stephan, twins who had been deemed difficult-to-place foster children. Rend decided not to go up and visit; he wasn’t in the mood for small talk tonight. Before going into the houseboat, he tossed a few gingersnaps to Remy’s pet alligator, Useless, from a metal box he kept on the dock.
As he entered the houseboat, he heard Val singing some Aerosmith song in the bathroom. She was probably in the high-tech shower, which had a built-in sound system. Remy had put the shower stall in last year when he’d been trying to impress Rachel, then a feng shui decorator, by having her work on his houseboat.
Today had been a lousy day. Tomorrow Rene would be going to New York City with Justin and Val to present their proposal. But there was still tonight.
For the first time that day, he smiled.
Sometimes cleanliness is next to godliness, and sometimes not Val was relishing a warm shower in the houseboat’s spiffy glass shower stall, which sprayed water from a dozen different faucets. A hedonistic luxury item, to be sure.
Meanwhile, Aerosmith was wailing out “Jaded” from the built-in wall radio, and she was singing along, something she almost never did. She had the musical pitch of a parrot, a teacher had once told her, as in squawk , squawk , squawk ! But who cared? She was alone. She was happy. And her future was looking bright.
Singing, “J-j-j-jaded,” she lathered up her hair. She almost jumped out of her skin when she heard a more melodious voice behind her croon.
It was Rene, of course, finally back from his day of meetings. And, he was—Lordy, Lardy—bare naked and by a quick observation, more than ready, entering the shower stall behind her.
“Hey, baby,” he said, stepping into the shower spray with her.
“Hey, baby,” she said back, stepping into his embrace, smiling against his mouth.
“I missed you,” he said.
“I can tell,” she said, pressing her belly against his.
His erection jerked against her. He nipped at her earlobe and breathed into her ear, “Tease!”
The radio was now playing “Hit Me with Your Best Shot,” but neither one of them was singing anymore.
“You’re late,” she said as he ran his fingers through her hair, helping to rinse the lather out. “How did your meetings go?”
He rolled his eyes. “You don’t wanna know. I’ll tell you later.”
Looking at him with his wet black hair and spiked eyelashes and water running all over his splendid body, she gave herself a silent pat on the back for being able t
o attract such a man. “You look tired. Why don’t you let me take care of you?” She was reaching for the liquid soap and a loofah sponge.
“Uh-uh. First, I have something to show you.”
“I’ve seen it before.”
“Not that, silly. It’s the shower. Bet you don’t know all it can do.” He began fooling with some knobs and dials, changing the direction and the type of spray. “Now, stand just like this.” He posed her against the wall, made her spread her legs and put her hands over her head. Then, oh my God, he hit her in all her best spots, just like the song. A short time later, she reciprocated. Then they both stood under the shower and let nature take its normal course, without any outside stimuli... just mouths, hands, and intimate body parts.
A short time later, they sat in the small kitchen galley booth, eating oyster po’boys that he’d picked up on the way here, followed by cold Dixie beers. Who knew a gal like Val would go for beer, but she did.
He’d already told her about his lousy day, ending with his meeting with Tante Lulu. “She asked me to wear a tuxedo to her birthday bash. Can you beat that?”
“Yeah, I can. She called a little while ago to ask me once again if I could give Richard Simmons a personal invite.”
They smiled at each other, both knowing that it was par for the course with his aunt.
Then he looked at her and said, “I think I need another shower.”
Business is business
The next morning, on the way to the airport, they stopped at the office of her aunts, Margo and Madeline Breaux. They were maiden ladies,, over sixty-five she would guess, never married. They were sharks in the business of mail-order teas, in particular the well-known Southern Tea Company.
She and Justin entered their large conjoined offices, leaving Rene in the car. Knowing how much her aunts and her mother hated the LeDeux family, she figured it was best not to antagonize them right off the bat.
“Valerie, dear,” her aunts greeted her, coming up and giving her air kisses on both of her cheeks.
They were twins, and they dressed the same, in stylish business suits and sensible pumps. They also styled their dyed brunette hair in the same French twist they’d worn as long as she could remember.
“Aunt Margo. Aunt Madeline,” she said, giving them air kisses back. She noticed their eyes sweep over her, examining the black pants suit she wore for travel, and apparently deemed her satisfactory. “This is Justin Dugas, a videographer friend of mine.”