Bayou, Whispers from the Past: A Novel Read online

  He said this with the sort of bravado that usually made my eye twitch. I glanced at Kate, and she arched her eyebrow. I had no trouble reading her thoughts, and I stifled a grin.

  Lucille frowned. “You’re not in the MFA program if you don’t have some talent.”

  “I don’t need talent,” he said. “I just need friends in the right places.”

  Josie stood, and for once looked annoyed by him. “I’d better check on Buck.”

  “We should get out of your hair,” I said. “I just wanted to stop in and say hello.”

  “Thank you for the pie.” Josie gave me a hug.

  “We’re still on for Christmas dinner at my house, right?” I asked her.

  She hesitated, so I said, “Bring Lucille and Toph. Zane and Andre are coming from the firehouse, and my dad’s coming too. And Kate’s staying. It’ll be fun to have everybody together.”

  She smiled. “OK, sweetie. You win.”

  ~~~~

  Back in the car, Kate said, “Andre’s coming?” She picked at the sleeve of her shirt, trying to look nonchalant.

  “Yeah. Try to keep your clothes on this time.”

  She sighed. “Not my fault what he sees if he breaks and enters.”

  “He’s Jack’s best friend. And he doesn’t have any family around here.” I cast her a sideways glance. “And it was hardly breaking and entering.”

  She huffed, but I could tell she wasn’t upset. “Fine. I suppose I can pretend things aren’t awkward.”

  “There’s no awkward allowed at Christmas,” I said.

  Kate laughed so hard she snorted. “Are you kidding? Holidays are nothing but awkward. That’s what makes them holidays. You combine your dad with Jack’s family, toss in this cousin and her weirdo boyfriend—did you see his hair? It’s like a Ken doll’s. Then add your friends who have already shared awkward nudie time together, and boom! I’ve studied enough about invasive species to know how this ends.”

  I rolled my eyes. “OK, Dr. Doom.”

  “I’m just saying, when you put a couple’s family and friends together in a confined space, it either pulls that couple closer or drives them apart. And you’d better start paying attention, because if you marry Jack, you don’t just get him as a single organism. You get his whole little ecosystem of friends and family, quirks and weirdness.”

  “Who said anything about getting married?”

  “You have to have at least considered the possibility,” she said.

  “I’m not sure I’ll ever get married. In the Parker family, matrimony means devastation.”

  She frowned.

  “According to Dad, he and my mother got along much better before they got married. Getting married is what drove them apart. She ended up hating my father and wanted to get out of that marriage so badly that she left her kid without even a goodbye—and then never bothered to come find me after.” I shook my head, feeling a twist in my gut. “Vergie did it right. She was with George for years, and they never got married. Apparently Devereaux women are better suited for cohabitation than marriage.”

  Kate narrowed her big blue eyes. “You are not your mother, and you are not Vergie.”

  “There’s a distinct pattern among us.”

  “Two does not make a pattern. You can’t include yourself in this data set.”

  When I didn’t answer, she said, “Does Jack know you feel this way?”

  “Not really. It’s only been six months. We haven’t gotten around to that conversation yet.”

  “You better get around to it soon.”

  “I know. I’m just afraid he’ll think I don’t want to be with him at all, and that’s not true.”

  “He can handle it,” she said. “And if he can’t, then he’s not the right partner for you.”

  I nodded. She was right, but it didn’t make me any more eager to have that conversation.

  She’d slipped into her scientist voice, which was deeper and more resonant. “You’re past the fun reckless stage and have eased into the stage where you test the bounds of your compatibility.”

  “I’m really not that organized about this whole thing.”

  “Of course you’re not,” she said. “But moving through the stages doesn’t happen through organization. It happens organically. Like decomposition.”

  “Thanks, Kate.”

  “I don’t mean your relationship is decomposing. I just mean—like the growth of relationships—you can’t plan decomposition down to the minute. Certain factors either speed it up or slow it down. Any given relationship is the same way. There’s no set timeline for the phases you go through, but you certainly progress through them whether you intend to or not.”

  “It’ll take more than one dinner to drive us apart,” I said.

  She shrugged. “One critical event can damage a symbiotic relationship beyond repair.”

  “I think we can survive one Christmas with everyone.”

  “Certainly, you’ll survive,” she said. “That’s not even up for debate.”

  “I mean as a couple. Why are you being so negative about this?”

  “I’m not negative,” she said. “I’m a realist. In reality, you could also come out of this with a stronger symbiotic relationship. All I’m saying is there are two potential outcomes, and you should be prepared for both.”

  ~~~~

  That evening after Jack got home from the station, we went over to the river house to hang the light fixtures. Though we jokingly called it the river house, it was actually a mile or two from the nearest river. Jack liked rehabbing the house after work—just a couple of hours of repair helped him unwind—but he’d also confessed this was a way to steal more alone time with me, now that we had a houseguest. And after my conversation with Kate, I just wanted to build something and not think about potential outcomes for a while.

  The vintage light fixtures Buck had found fit perfectly with the character of the house. We had a Tiffany-style stained-glass piece to hang over the dining room table plus some sconces to hang on the walls. A couple of the rooms had been wired for overhead fixtures, but the bedrooms had three to four wall sconces placed around the room. At first we planned to remove them and rewire for overhead lighting, but the antique sconces Buck had recovered were too lovely to pass up. I knew enough about electrical work to get myself in trouble, but Jack had helped Buck enough that he was confident installing anything.

  I was helping him with the ceiling fan Buck had started installing the week before when I told him about meeting Lucille and Toph.

  “So she’s still with that guy, huh?” he said.

  I held the fan in place while he connected the wires. “Guess so.”

  He grunted, shifting his weight on the ladder.

  “I take it you’re not a fan of Toph?” I said.

  “I was hoping he’d be a quick phase, like that time she dyed her hair blue.”

  “Apparently he’s staying for Christmas.”

  Jack tugged two ends of wire together and capped them. “I don’t know what she sees in him.”

  I didn’t either, but I told myself I shouldn’t judge based on one conversation. Jack’s big brother status meant he could hate the man just for being the guy who was dating the girl he thought of as his sister.

  “His name’s Christopher,” Jack said, struggling to fit the fan over the hole in the ceiling. “But he thought Chris was too ‘common,’ so he insists on being called Toph.”

  “I’ve heard that a time or two.”

  Jack frowned.

  “He seemed a little aloof, but maybe he’s just not used to her family.”

  “He’s an entitled little prick,” Jack said. “She told me once that he’s only in grad school because he’s bored. His parents are well off, bought him everything he ever wanted, and as far as I can tell, he’s never worked a day in his life.”

  “Lucille seems like a smart gal,” I said. “If all that’s true, what’s she doing with him?”

  “Hell if I know. She doesn
’t have the best taste in men. You mind handing me the drill?”

  I climbed down the stepladder and handed him the drill from the toolbox.

  “He must be doing something to make her happy,” I said.

  He shot me a look. “I’d rather not think about those particulars.”

  I laughed. “I mean, like the internship. She said he got her foot in the door.”

  He scowled as the whirring of the drill filled the air between us. “The last thing she needs is to be indebted to a guy like that.”

  “I’m sure she can take care of herself. She’s got Josie for a mother.”

  He forced the next screw into place. “True enough. But I still think she’s wasting her time with that guy.”

  Jack was protective of Lucille in ways I’d been envious of my whole life. Part of me had always wanted a sibling, one who would look out for me the way he did with her. One who would never leave me.

  I shrugged. “Sometimes you have to let them. People have to learn in their own ways.”

  He sighed. “I still think he’s a prick.”

  “Fair enough. You don’t have to like him.”

  “But I do have to sit through Christmas dinner and not kill him.”

  “That would be my preference, yes.”

  “Are you sure we have to invite him?”

  “Yes, Jack. It would be rude not to.”

  He grunted, twisting the last screw into the ceiling, fixing the fan in place. As he climbed down the ladder and flipped the switch to test the fan, I thought back to what Kate had said about invasive species. When we’d first bought this house, I’d watched Jack rip kudzu down from the tool shed out back, burning the whole pile of it in a fifty-gallon trash bin.

  He had little patience for things that didn’t belong.

  Chapter 6

  Andre came by Vergie’s house the next day, asking to talk to Jack. He was not wearing his uniform, but was instead wearing a gray short-sleeved shirt with pearl snaps—freshly pressed—tucked into jeans that were snug enough to catch my eye. His red hair was tousled in a way that took more than a couple of minutes of styling, and when he stepped past me into the house, I caught a hint of cologne.

  “He’s over at Buck’s.”

  “Oh.” He looked into the living room, like he was checking for a fugitive we might be hiding.

  “He’ll be back in a little while,” I said. “We were just fixing lunch. Care to stay?”

  “We?”

  “Kate and I are testing some menu items for Christmas dinner,” I said. “Want to help us out?”

  That was all he needed to hear.

  Andre was a fantastic cook. Back in the summer when he’d been my bodyguard for a day and kept me under house arrest, he’d nearly spoiled me with his jambalaya. Jack was a good cook, but Andre had some kind of sixth sense about how to combine ingredients into a delicacy. He was going to make some woman extremely happy, and I’d told him so.

  “What are you making?” He followed me into the kitchen.

  “Honey glazed pork chops,” I said. “With mango chutney.”

  He nodded his approval, then glanced over at Kate and smiled.

  “Hello again,” she said, holding out a spoon of chutney for him to taste.

  He looked surprised, then took the spoon. “Nice,” he said, smacking his lips.

  She frowned. “We’re trying for a bit better than ‘nice.’”

  “Kate doesn’t settle for anything less than unforgettable,” I told him.

  His eyebrows twitched upwards, and I watched the unshakeable Andre Dufresne blush for the second time. This was becoming too easy.

  “My grandfather used to make a relish with pears and bell peppers,” he said. “I bet pears would be great in that. Add a tiny bit of cayenne, and you’ve got unforgettable.”

  Kate nodded and tossed him the apron I’d been using. “Let’s see what you’ve got,” she said. “There are a couple of pears in the fridge.”

  Andre minced the pears quickly, Kate laughing as he told her the story about how he’d been initiated as sheriff. “The guys thought it would be funny to put a billy goat in my car,” he said. “It was a 1976 Bronco. They put the goat in the front seat and shook the Bronco until they got the goat good and mad. When I went out after my shift, it jumped out and knocked me flat on the pavement.”

  “Why on earth would they do that?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “They wanted to see how their new sheriff handled surprises.”

  “Did you pass?”

  He sliced open the pepper and said, “Well, I didn’t shoot the goat.”

  She smirked.

  “But I had hoof prints on my chest for a week.” He smiled his easy smile, pulling the neck of his shirt open. “Still have a scar,” he said, pointing to an area right over his heart.

  She laughed then. “Oh, please.”

  “No really,” he said. “It was a big billy. And it was madder than hell too. I had my hand on the pistol, but that scar reminded me for the longest time to think twice before pulling any triggers.”

  Kate stirred the chutney as he stepped alongside her to drop handfuls of chopped pear into the pot. He diced the bell pepper and tossed it inside, lingering by her elbow as she stirred.

  She giggled as he went on about other pranks they had pulled on each other in the department. Her tough façade was slowly crumbling, though she still stepped away when Andre got too close. She liked to have a bubble of space around her, just like I did. Men always wanted to be close to Kate, as if they might win her over simply by proximity; she liked the attention, for sure, but she never teased them or let them get any closer than she wanted. It was one of the things I admired most about her: She knew exactly where she wanted people positioned in her life, and she had a subtle way of keeping them there without them feeling like they were being maneuvered. It wasn’t controlling exactly, but more of a keen awareness of her own body and how others vied for the space around it.

  I hated that letting Benjamin into that sacred space had turned out so badly for her.

  Andre scooped a spoonful of the chutney from the pot and held it in the air between him and Kate. She blew on it for a second and tasted.

  “Ooh,” she said, smiling. “That made all the difference.”

  She glanced over at me, and I wiggled my eyebrows, nodding toward Andre.

  Kate rolled her eyes at me when he turned back to the chutney with a spoon of his own.

  I grinned, and she shook her head, but I knew Andre hadn’t come over to see Jack.

  “Mmm,” Andre said. “Spicy and sweet. Exactly how I like it.” He stared at Kate a little too long as he said this, and even though she quickly looked away, I knew he was smitten, having fallen into the space she allowed so few to enter.

  The doorbell rang as Kate dumped two cups of rice into a pot of boiling water.

  “I’ll get it,” I said.

  I opened the front door to find Lucille standing with her hands shoved in her coat pockets. “Hey. Enza, right?”

  I nodded. “Hi, Lucille.”

  “Is Jack here?”

  “I thought he was over at your parents’.”

  “He left a couple of hours ago,” she said.

  “Is everything OK?”

  “Yeah, I just needed to talk to him. I can call him later.” She didn’t move from the porch.

  “Maybe he’s working at the river house,” I said. “I could drive you over there.”

  “I don’t want to interrupt you. It’s no big deal.” She gazed across the yard, as if turning something over in her mind.

  “It’s no bother,” I said. “I need to check on the house anyway.”

  “I’ve got Toph with me too.”

  “Bring him with us. He can check out the house.”

  She shrugged in assent. “OK. Thanks.”

  “Let me just get my keys.”

  Andre and Kate were laughing when I went back into the kitchen. They shushed when I walked in, and Andre
turned back to chopping walnuts, Kate standing by his elbow as she stirred a pot on the stove. It was like walking in on two teenagers who couldn’t decide if they were on a date.

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m taking Lucille over to the river house for a little while. Can I leave y’all alone here?”

  “What happened to the cooking lessons?” Kate said. “You said you always overcook your rice. I’m about to show you the perfect-every-time dirty rice.”

  Andre’s brows twitched as she said dirty. Kate, not missing his reaction to that, smiled and winked at me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Make me a list of the pertinent steps.”

  She feigned exasperation.

  “Everything OK?” Andre asked.

  “Yeah… Lucille just wanted to talk to Jack. In person.” I left out the part about me wanting to steal a few minutes to talk to Lucille.

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Want me to tell him you need to see him too?”

  He glanced at Kate as if he’d forgotten his initial reason for coming over. “Oh, yeah. Sure. But I can call him later. No big deal.”

  He shrugged, and I knew he didn’t need to talk to Jack at all. He just needed to stay in my kitchen and help Kate spice up her chutney.

  I shot Kate a look and said, “OK. Don’t do too much without me.” She narrowed her eyes, and I knew she was partly irritated with me for leaving her with Andre. But another part of her would likely want to thank me later.

  ~~~~

  I shoved a stack of books onto one side of the Jeep’s backseat to make room for Toph, who had popped in earbuds as soon Lucille had told him where we were going. Lucille sat up front. She was tall like me, so her knees almost touched the dash. As we pulled out onto the lane she said, “You didn’t have to drive us over. You could have just given me an address.”

  “It’s no problem. I needed to get out for a bit. And it gives me time to tell you something.” I glanced in the rearview, but Toph was staring out into the darkness, completely immersed in whatever was pulsing in his ears.

  She looked stricken. “What’s that?”

  “You seem like a no-bullshit kind of gal.”

  “I guess.”