Love, Cajun Style Read online

  My bike was parked in the alley. I rode around town for at least a half hour, not knowing exactly where to go, and somehow thinking that the more I sweated, the better I’d feel, as if I’d cleanse all the guilt out of my body. But sweating wasn’t working, so I finally rode up to St. Marc’s Catholic Church, perspiration dripping off of me like a downpour. Luckily, there wasn’t a soul around.

  I couldn’t remember ever having walked into the church when it was empty. It felt entirely different than it did on a Sunday morning. The big wooden doors creaked behind me as they shut me in, and the air smelled musty.

  I walked up the red velvet carpet to a pew toward the front and knelt on the predieu. No sooner had I genuflected and begun to ask the Lord’s forgiveness than the organ started playing “Avé Maria.” I froze and just listened. Mama once said listening was the best kind of praying anyway. Of course, I can’t say she practiced her theory a whole lot. Seemed to me she always had a lot to tell the Lord.

  I hadn’t inherited Mama’s musical talent, but I knew beautiful music when I heard it, the kind that burns somewhere deep inside you, making you aware of yourself in an entirely new way, as if each note is God himself tiptoeing across your heart.

  As the music rang through the church, I got to thinking of all those paintings I’d seen in Mr. Savoi’s gallery, and the same kind of yearning I’d felt that day started up slow inside me, then began to surge through my body like an electrical current. I closed my eyes and let my body sway slightly from side to side, as if I were in some sort of trance. I hardly even noticed when the music stopped. Didn’t even hear Dewey when he walked up to my pew. It wasn’t until he knelt beside me that I was aware of anyone else’s presence at all.

  It was the sleeve of his shirt brushing lightly against my arm that broke my reverie. I think I must have startled a good four inches away from him.

  He laughed just a little. “Sorry,” he said.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I was just going over the songs for this afternoon.”

  “You’re playing at Clyde and Anita’s wedding?”

  “Yeah. Your mom set it up. The regular organist couldn’t make it.” Then he smiled that bashful smile of his, the kind where he kept his lips together and tucked his chin down.

  “You okay?” he asked me.

  “Sure,” I said. “Don’t I look okay?”

  “You look beautiful.”

  I heard myself swallow. I didn’t feel beautiful. The more I thought about kissing Mr. Banks, the more unbeautiful I felt.

  Dewey laid his hand over mine. At first I wanted to pull away, as if the weight of his hand was trapping me, but the longer he held it there, the more that panic floated away.

  “You coming this afternoon?” he asked.

  I wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

  “To the wedding,” he said.

  I’d already forgotten. “I’ll be there.”

  He stood to leave.

  “Dewey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.” I didn’t know how he had done it, but he had made me feel better.

  Dewey looked puzzled for a moment. Neither of us said anything. We just looked at each other, and as that long moment slipped by, an ocean of understanding seemed to pass between us, only I had no earthly idea how it had happened.

  The Wedding March

  A Catholic wedding is no brief affair. A woman can shave her legs before the wedding starts, and by the time it’s over, she may need to shave them again.

  I rode to the church with Mama and Daddy. St. Marc’s is only a few blocks from our house, but in the summer, no one walks to church in Sweetbay. It’s one thing to sweat in a pair of shorts and a tank top. It’s another thing to sweat when you’re dressed to your finest. The three of us sat about halfway down on the left. Technically, there wasn’t a bride and groom side. Everyone just sat where they wanted. The staff from the Walbridge Wing served as the ushers. They’d brought over a busload of residents from the facility. A covey of wheelchairs was lined up at the back of the church. From the looks of it, nearly half of Sweetbay’s population was crammed inside the sanctuary. I had no idea that watching a couple of old people getting married would draw such a crowd, but it did.

  Mama leaned toward my ear. “Isn’t this just something?” She was sitting along the aisle. I was sitting next to her. Daddy was on my other side.

  I said, “Mm-hmm.”

  She opened her purse and pulled out a couple of tissues. Mama always cries at weddings.

  “You need one?” she said.

  I said, “No, thanks.”

  She lowered her head and gave me one of those under-the-eyebrow looks. “Every lady should have a tissue at a time like this.”

  Mama also believed there were certain ways a lady should use a tissue. From the time I was little, I was thoughtfully instructed on the virtue of dabbing, not blowing, one’s nose. “A lady never blows her nose in public,” Mama would tell me. “She dabs it, like this.” Mama would then proceed to demonstrate. “And, should her eyes begin to tear, she wipes them gently, moving toward her nose, to prevent premature aging. You never want to stretch the skin underneath your eyes,” Mama would advise. “It’s delicate.”

  “I don’t need a tissue,” I told her.

  She placed one in my lap anyway. “You never know.”

  The organ began playing “Whither Thou Goest.” Try as I might, I couldn’t see Dewey, on account of the whole Neuville family of five sitting in front of us. The Neuvilles have big heads.

  Mama recognized my dilemma. “Makes every child-bearing woman south of the Mason-Dixon pity that woman,” she said real quiet in my ear.

  I concentrated on Dewey’s playing, and as I did, every square centimeter of me began to relax. Mama let out one of her long, dramatic sighs. When I looked at her, she was holding a hand to that flat area just above her breasts, and kept it there for the duration of the song. Daddy was adjusting his tie. He didn’t like to wear ties, but decided it was in his best interest to oblige Mama every once in a while.

  Next, Dewey began playing “The Wedding March.” Everybody stood and strained their necks toward the back door, where Mrs. Forez stood arm in arm with her grandson, Johnny. Mrs. Forez’s dress looked like a cream-colored nightgown. A wreath of baby’s breath was woven into her white hair. I thought she looked like an angel.

  Mama held her tissue to her face and dabbed her eyes. My tissue was already wadded up in my hand and had turned to sticky lint.

  I knew Father Ivan and Clyde were standing at the front of the church, but because of the Neuvilles’ heads, I couldn’t see them. After Johnny and Mrs. Forez walked past us, I couldn’t see them anymore, either. Mama had an aisle seat, so all she had to do was lean out over the edge of the pew to get a better view, which she did.

  I didn’t know why an old couple would want to have a Catholic wedding. Seemed to me their legs would give out from all that standing, and I hoped Father Ivan would talk fast or else cut out part of the service.

  “Oh, good,” Mama said.

  I said, “What?”

  “Someone brought them chairs.”

  Daddy started to laugh. After a time, Mama started to laugh, too.

  “What?” I said.

  “Mrs. Forez is asleep,” Mama said.

  Before Holy Communion, Mary Jordan’s grandfather, Pappy Jacques, was wheeled to the front. He stood and nodded to Dewey, who began to play “Grow Old Along with Me.” Pappy Jacques sang his heart out.

  Mama told me Mrs. Forez wasn’t asleep anymore. “Oh, Lucy, she’s crying,” Mama said. By now my mama was crying, too.

  It was then that Daddy reached his arm over my lap and took Mama’s hand. I looked at his face. He wasn’t adjusting his tie anymore. He was listening to Pappy Jacques sing. I looked at Mama. She was still crying, and I couldn’t help but wonder if her tears were solely for the wedding or had something to do with her and Daddy, as well.

 
Shortly after the song finished, we took our place in line for Communion, stepping out right behind Doug and Mary Jordan, who had just entered the aisle from the right side of the church, though neither of them saw us. Doug’s hand traveled around Mary Jordan’s waist and dropped itself onto her behind. Mama had her eyes so fixed on Doug’s hand, I felt sure she was going to burn a hole clear through his palm. She waited just long enough to see if Mary Jordan was going to do anything about it. Mary Jordan didn’t. Mama then took it upon herself to correct the situation. She reached out, took Doug’s hand in hers, and moved it up a good four inches so that it was across the middle of Mary Jordan’s back. That got Doug’s attention. He turned around. Mary Jordan turned around, too.

  “Why, hey,” Mary Jordan said.

  I said “hey” back.

  Mama didn’t say anything.

  Returning to our seats, I looked around the church for Evie. I didn’t see her. Instead my eyes caught Mr. Banks sitting in the last row. He was staring right at me with those big brown eyes of his sending a nervous jitter clear down to my toes. I turned around and sat in the pew, all the while feeling his eyes watching me, and all the while thinking they shouldn’t be.

  A Different Symphony

  After the wedding, Daddy drove us to the reception at the Mason Lodge, a three-story antebellum in the center of town. As soon as I opened the car door, I heard Gussie Guthrie and the Troubadours playing “C’est Si Bon.” “C’est Si Bon” means “it’s so good,” and Gussie played it so good, too. I stepped across the front porch, filling my lungs with all that warm summer air and Bessie Faye’s gumbo d’herbes and garlic. Bessie Faye was catering the whole affair, compliments of different businesses in town.

  Mama said her how-d’ya-dos to a half dozen people. Then she and I stopped by the restroom, where I found Zina Thibodeaux, Evie’s mom.

  “Was Evie sitting with you at the wedding?” I asked.

  “No, honey. Evie left the house early this morning.”

  “Where did she leave the house to?” I wanted to know.

  “I was in the shower.”

  Getting answers out of Ms. Thibodeaux was like trying to pull a fly out of an ice cube. Evie accounted it to the fact that when her dad left home, part of her mama’s good sense left with him.

  Mama picked up her purse off the edge of the sink. It had been sitting in a puddle of water, and dripped a stream down the front side of her peach satin chiffon. Mama was fit to be tied.

  “I just hate untidy women,” she said.

  “Mm-hmm. Such inconsideration,” Ms. Thibodeaux said.

  I took some toilet paper and tried to dab Mama’s dress dry, but all that did was leave little pieces of white lint all over her bodice, so she shooed me away.

  The bathroom didn’t have paper towels. It had hot air dispensers. Mama situated herself underneath one of those dispensers, arching her back. While she was doing the hot air limbo, I decided I’d try to find Evie.

  Past the parlor downstairs was the ballroom, encircled with tables draped in white linen. I’d helped Daddy with the decorations earlier that afternoon. We’d woven pink cellophane with white lights and ivy around the ceiling beams. In the center of each table were floating magnolia blossoms and heart-shaped votives. Gussie and the Troubadours were on a platform in front of the dance floor. Gussie has skin as black as a coffee bean, and long wild hair. She was wearing a tightly fitted dress with black-and-gold fabric that wrapped around her like a turban. Thick strands of colored beads hung clear down to her waist. Gussie was entertainment no matter what she wore. Mama had once said Gussie’s face could have a hundred years of gravity on it, and it’d still be smiling.

  I looked all over for Evie but couldn’t find her. I couldn’t find Doug or Mary Jordan, either. Then I felt a finger run lightly up my spine, sending a spray of shivers down my arms. As I turned around, I came face to face with Mr. Banks.

  “You look stunning,” he said.

  I’d never had anyone tell me I looked stunning before.

  “Where’s Mattie?” I asked, because I didn’t know what else to say, because I wasn’t sure if saying “thank you” would imply more than I’d wanted to imply.

  “Savannah’s parents are in town,” he said. “They’re watching her.”

  I said, “Oh.”

  “They’re down for the weekend.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “They live in Jackson.”

  I said, “Oh.”

  “Mississippi.”

  I said, “Mm-hmm.”

  Someone whistled, and cheers went up around us. Clyde was leading his new bride onto the dance floor. Gussie tapped her foot on the wooden platform, snapped her fingers, and within seconds she and the Troubadours began playing Frank Sinatra’s “You Make Me Feel So Young.” Clyde held one of Anita’s hands in his palm, his face one big, beaming grin. He pressed his cheek against hers as he slowly whirled her across the floor. I knew that very moment, I would remember the two of them dancing like they were for the rest of my life.

  Other people began joining the newlyweds on the dance floor. Someone took my hand. At first I flinched, thinking it was Mr. Banks, but he’d gone over to the bar.

  “May I have this dance?”

  I looked at Dewey. He looked at me. He seemed different, older, handsome in a gentle kind of way. He was wearing a pair of khakis and a shirt the color of cobalt blue, opened at the neck, revealing just a glimpse of his tan chest. His shoulders looked broader, his height taller. It was like seeing him for the first time. No sooner did he have me out on the dance floor than he took my hand in his like he’d been dancing all his life. He pressed his other hand around the small of my back. No one had ever held me like that before.

  I pressed my arm tentatively around Dewey’s shoulders while he moved us across the dance floor. My feet felt like they were skating on ice, even though I’d never been ice-skating before.

  Looking over Dewey’s shoulder, I couldn’t help but smile at all the smiling people around me. Then I saw Daddy. He wasn’t dancing with Mama. He was dancing with Ima Jean Balfa. I could have sworn her face looked ten years younger. Every soul in that room looked younger. Mama says love will do that to you. Just getting a glimpse of it will take years off your face.

  “Sing it again!” someone shouted as the song wrapped up, and sure enough Gussie and the Troubadours swung all their energy into another round, jazzing up that song with so much gusto, I could have sworn my heart was doing somersaults.

  Daddy approached us, looking about as debonair as I’d ever seen him, and tapped Dewey on the shoulder. As Dewey stepped aside, Daddy took me in his arms.

  “Lucy Marie, you’re a knockout.”

  “You’re not so bad yourself,” I said, grinning from here to kingdom come.

  I loved my daddy. I loved the whole wide world at that moment.

  Someone bumped me from behind. It was Ernie from Steppin’ Out Shoes, dancing with Evie’s mom.

  “Sorry, lovely lady,” Ernie said, laughing with all the giddiness of the day.

  “Where’s your mother?” Daddy asked me.

  I began searching the room. Then I saw Evie dancing with Billy. But they weren’t dancing like everyone else. Billy had his arms wrapped completely around Evie’s waist. Her whole body was curved against his. I was so surprised I barely moved.

  “Hey, Lucy,” Daddy said. “You okay?”

  “Sorry,” I said, picking up my steps a little, though still watching Evie. She and Billy shifted their weight from side to side, their feet never leaving the floor. Her face was pressed against his shirt and her eyes were closed. Billy’s eyes were closed, too. It didn’t matter how much gusto Gussie and the Troubadours invested in Mr. Sinatra’s song; Evie and Billy kept right on swaying in their own little world. They weren’t just dancing a separate descant—they were writing their very own symphony.

  As the song ended, I saw Mama. Sure enough, Daddy saw her, too. She and Mr. Savoi were sitting at one of the
tables, each of them sipping a glass of wine, their heads entirely too close together. I thought Daddy was going to ask her to dance. Maybe he was, but he never got the chance. As soon as he started to walk toward her, Mr. Savoi helped Mama out of her chair, and the two of them left the room. Daddy stopped mid-stride and watched them go. I wanted to tell him to go after her, but I didn’t. I just stood there and watched him watching her, all the youth and liveliness I’d seen in his face only moments before vanishing like the moon when a storm blows in.

  Bare Necessities

  Gussie and the Troubadours started in on “Hellzapoppin’.” Ethel Lee grabbed Daddy by the arm and pulled him onto the dance floor. He didn’t look in the right frame of mind to dance. He looked more preoccupied with where Mama had gone. As I stood on the side of the dance floor watching them, Mr. Banks walked up to me with a drink in his hand.

  “Do you want anything?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Do you want me to buy you a drink?”

  “You can’t buy me a drink,” I said.

  “I can’t?”

  I didn’t know what he was saying. Of course he couldn’t buy me a drink.

  “Vodka doesn’t look any different than Sprite. Jim Beam doesn’t look any different than cream soda.” He took a sip from the plastic cup he was holding. “How old are you, anyway?”

  “Seventeen,” I said.

  “Practically an adult,” he said.

  I liked someone thinking of me as an adult; I just wasn’t sure I liked Mr. Banks’s thinking of me as an adult.

  “We could go for a walk,” he said. “Get out of here.”

  I didn’t know where it was we could go for a walk. It was still daylight outside. People would see. But then maybe he just wanted to go for a walk. Maybe it would look perfectly normal for a teacher and a student to go for a walk. I didn’t know what to think anymore. I wanted him to speak clear English to me.